These things usually are. When the West, particularly the Americans, finally leave Afghanistan it's probably going to be messy - for a time. The Western presence in Afghanistan, military and civilian, has been enormous at least in Afghan terms. Neither effort, military or civilian, has been particularly successful but, when ended, both will leave a pretty big vacuum that others will seek to fill as others inevitably do when these opportunities arise.
Fortunately the past half century has given us numerous examples of Big (or lesser) Powers leaving small states. The Brits did it. So did the French and the Dutch. The Russians did it - a lot. Even the Americans did it in Vietnam. While the circumstances of each withdrawal varied enormously from the others, the wailing and gnashing of teeth in anticipation was almost uniform. It was usually cast as the end of the world, the Munchkins descending on their fellow Munchkins in an orgy of barbarism and chaos. Not that this didn't happen sometimes. Sure it did just not nearly as often as predicted.
Many times it turned out that civil strife followed our departure because of what we had done for our convenience when we ruled. Look at Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Look at the borders. Look at all the straight lines. We drew those straight line borders as jurisdictional demarcation lines for the administrative convenience of the various colonizing powers.
Now consider those border enclosures as sort of corrals. Then look at what's been herded into those corrals. Inside we find groups of people of differing tribes, languages, ethnicity and religions. They just happened to be caught inside when we carved up their historic homelands with our straightedge borders. When they got uppity about it, we just put the boot in and maintained order at bayonet point.
Quite often we picked a submissive favourite to instal as the ruling clan. That's how Saddam's Sunnis got to dominate Iraq's Shia majority when that country was carved out of the Ottoman Empire by the Brits and French after WWI. But all good things must end and when we pack up our bayonets and go home, we leave behind us scores to be settled. Ask the Biafrans. Ask the Kurds or the Rwandans or the Congolese or the Balochs and Pashtun.
Afghanistan is about the most mixed up of the lot. For millenia it's been the meeting place of a lot of cultures, the pathway of conquering armies and marauders. Ethnically it's a hodgepodge of Persians, Orientals and South Asians. It's a herd of cats jammed inside borders that are often bureaucratic formalities. Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Baloch, Turkmen and more. Despite the centuries they haven't homogenized. A Tajik is still a Tajik, a Pashtun remains a Pashtun. Their shared values are usually reduced to distrust and resentment. That explains why truly effective central government has eluded them. The best they've ever managed was a loosely federated, highly decentralized state - an association of convenience of tribes that more or less accepted a Pashtun monarchy that wisely knew not to push its luck.
The thing is, we really haven't moved Afghanistan past Square One. We haven't settled the tribal issue, we haven't even tried. The ethnic warlords are still around and, right now, it's said they're busy reconstituting their militias in anticipation of our departure. We have babysat their unresolved civil war for more than a decade now but we haven't defused the conditions and circumstances that fueled it. What we must realize is that the resolution isn't going to happen while we remain there.
Those of us who've had the experience of teaching a child to ride a bicycle are familiar with the moment when the training wheels come off and you run alongside the child steadying the bike with a hand on the seat post until it's the moment of truth and you let go. You have to let go and stop and just stand there while you wait to see what happens. It doesn't always work out the first time but it usually does by the second or third try.
We're at that stage with Afghanistan. It's time to let go and see if they can ride their own bike. If the tribes can't rally behind a central government now, why would we think they will if we only stayed another ten or fifteen years? We keep saying it's a matter of giving them an adequate army and security force. No it's not. That's nonsense. No Afghan army can be any more valid or effective than the government it serves. If the government is too weak, too flawed to stand the army will simply devolve into constituent ethnic militias and return to the service of their tribal authority.
Leaving won't be a test of the Afghan National Army. It will be a test of the Afghan government, the executive and legislature in Kabul. The tribes must now decide whether they want central government. If they do they'll rally and find a form of government that works for all the tribes, including the Pashtun. If they don't they'll probably just resume the war we interrupted a decade ago perhaps this time as a proxy war between Pakistan and India. Either way we've stayed too long for the good we've done.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
For Want of a Balloon
Every time I see this guy on TV I think the same thing.
When will somebody find a way to drop a water balloon on this guy's head? I so want to see the real face of Donald Trump.
The World Bank Weighs In On Global Warming
We're not to blame for it. It's what we do. It's human nature and it's also one of our greatest weaknesses.
Anthropologist Jared Diamond uses the term "landscape amnesia" to describe it. Imagine regularly driving across a near pristine Alpine meadow for forty years. Then, suddenly, there's a mega-shopping mall put in on each side of the road. It's a real shock at first but, within five or ten years, you come to accept it as normal, expected. It has all but erased the original view you had been so familiar with for decades.
Climate change works the same way. We forget about the past. We don't step outside in the morning and say, "wow, this is nothing like the 60's." We've largely erased what the 60's, the 70's, even the 80's were like and we've replaced all that with a new "normal," the climate of the second decade of the twenty first century. The thing is, if you don't remember how much it's all changed, you can't be alarmed by it, you can't respond to it. It's like boiling a frog.
The question is whether we're going to jump out of the pot before we're boiled alive. Vinod Thomas of the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group has an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer warning that we have to act, and soon:
Flooding and windstorms in particular are linked with climate change, and the number of disastrous floods and storms reported globally has tripled over the past three decades. Very heavy precipitation increased sharply in the last half-century across the globe and in the United States, especially the Northeast and Midwest.
...New studies tie increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions with higher sea-level temperatures and changes in precipitation, indicating that human-caused climate change doubles the risk of extreme floods.
In the wake of the recent tornadoes that tore into seven Southern states, President Obama said, "We can't control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it ." Indeed, the price of delayed response was brought home by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But water-related calamities have increased to the extent that rapid relief efforts won't be enough.
We must also take steps to prevent and mitigate such disasters. First and foremost, that means slowing the pace of climate change. This will take time, but as President John F. Kennedy said 50 years ago, "We must think and act not only for the moment, but for our time ."
...The key is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released, especially by shifting to a low-carbon economy. Energy prices must reflect the damage caused by emissions, especially in energy-intensive countries such as the United States. And promoting energy efficiency defers the need for more fossil-fuel plants, buying time for wind and solar power to become more competitive.
...Prevention also means environmental protection. Wetlands provide a buffer against flooding, but half of them worldwide - from Australia to the United States - have disappeared in the past century. Shrinking forests, meanwhile, have diminished protections against flooding and landslides. Examples of environmental solutions include the restoration of Vietnam's coastal wetlands to reduce erosion and the building of terraces in China's Loess Plateau to reduce flooding.
No longer can we respond to hazards of nature with cleanup and reconstruction alone. Climate change has introduced an unnatural dimension that calls for more preventive measures. Difficult as it is to muster the political will to do so, we must invest in slowing climate change, protecting the environment, controlling development, and improving warning systems. Only then can we lessen the fury and devastation of these events.
Of course Mr. Thomas is from that lefty, tree-hugger outfit, The World Bank. I'm slowly coming to appreciate that it may be the financial sector that finally sweeps the Tar Heads and Petro-Pols like Steve Harper off the porch and into the gutter where they belong.
Globally, the insurance sector is already being battered by the impacts of global warming and the essential fiscal safety net upon which our economies and societies are built is rapidly fraying. Throughout life - whether at home, on the road, in the boardroom - we take risks because we can buy protection to make potential loss bearable. What happens when that protection is no longer for sale, when we have to accept that risks are no longer economically survivable?
What happens when the US eastern seaboard or the Mississippi basin become off limits for flood or storm insurance? If the insurance companies won't carry the loss people expect governments to step in with disaster relief. Today's governments? The governments that are broke because they don't have the courage to levy taxes? Hell, my dog can do that much math.
As I read Mr. Thomas' op-ed I was struck that the only thing new in his remarks was that someone was actually saying these things. We shouldn't need someone like a World Bank guy to tell us this. We should already know it, all of us. Our governments all along should have kept us educated and well informed of these "inconvenient truths." That's their job, that's their duty. They owe us that much. Yet they stand mute about these things and they do that quite deliberately.
Floods and other severe storm events have tripled in just the past three decades! How can we possibly justify massively expanding production of the filthiest, high-carbon fossil fuel on the planet? How can we elect politicians from all parties content with doing just that?
Anthropologist Jared Diamond uses the term "landscape amnesia" to describe it. Imagine regularly driving across a near pristine Alpine meadow for forty years. Then, suddenly, there's a mega-shopping mall put in on each side of the road. It's a real shock at first but, within five or ten years, you come to accept it as normal, expected. It has all but erased the original view you had been so familiar with for decades.
Climate change works the same way. We forget about the past. We don't step outside in the morning and say, "wow, this is nothing like the 60's." We've largely erased what the 60's, the 70's, even the 80's were like and we've replaced all that with a new "normal," the climate of the second decade of the twenty first century. The thing is, if you don't remember how much it's all changed, you can't be alarmed by it, you can't respond to it. It's like boiling a frog.
The question is whether we're going to jump out of the pot before we're boiled alive. Vinod Thomas of the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group has an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer warning that we have to act, and soon:
Flooding and windstorms in particular are linked with climate change, and the number of disastrous floods and storms reported globally has tripled over the past three decades. Very heavy precipitation increased sharply in the last half-century across the globe and in the United States, especially the Northeast and Midwest.
...New studies tie increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions with higher sea-level temperatures and changes in precipitation, indicating that human-caused climate change doubles the risk of extreme floods.
In the wake of the recent tornadoes that tore into seven Southern states, President Obama said, "We can't control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it ." Indeed, the price of delayed response was brought home by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But water-related calamities have increased to the extent that rapid relief efforts won't be enough.
We must also take steps to prevent and mitigate such disasters. First and foremost, that means slowing the pace of climate change. This will take time, but as President John F. Kennedy said 50 years ago, "We must think and act not only for the moment, but for our time ."
...The key is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released, especially by shifting to a low-carbon economy. Energy prices must reflect the damage caused by emissions, especially in energy-intensive countries such as the United States. And promoting energy efficiency defers the need for more fossil-fuel plants, buying time for wind and solar power to become more competitive.
...Prevention also means environmental protection. Wetlands provide a buffer against flooding, but half of them worldwide - from Australia to the United States - have disappeared in the past century. Shrinking forests, meanwhile, have diminished protections against flooding and landslides. Examples of environmental solutions include the restoration of Vietnam's coastal wetlands to reduce erosion and the building of terraces in China's Loess Plateau to reduce flooding.
No longer can we respond to hazards of nature with cleanup and reconstruction alone. Climate change has introduced an unnatural dimension that calls for more preventive measures. Difficult as it is to muster the political will to do so, we must invest in slowing climate change, protecting the environment, controlling development, and improving warning systems. Only then can we lessen the fury and devastation of these events.
Of course Mr. Thomas is from that lefty, tree-hugger outfit, The World Bank. I'm slowly coming to appreciate that it may be the financial sector that finally sweeps the Tar Heads and Petro-Pols like Steve Harper off the porch and into the gutter where they belong.
Globally, the insurance sector is already being battered by the impacts of global warming and the essential fiscal safety net upon which our economies and societies are built is rapidly fraying. Throughout life - whether at home, on the road, in the boardroom - we take risks because we can buy protection to make potential loss bearable. What happens when that protection is no longer for sale, when we have to accept that risks are no longer economically survivable?
What happens when the US eastern seaboard or the Mississippi basin become off limits for flood or storm insurance? If the insurance companies won't carry the loss people expect governments to step in with disaster relief. Today's governments? The governments that are broke because they don't have the courage to levy taxes? Hell, my dog can do that much math.
As I read Mr. Thomas' op-ed I was struck that the only thing new in his remarks was that someone was actually saying these things. We shouldn't need someone like a World Bank guy to tell us this. We should already know it, all of us. Our governments all along should have kept us educated and well informed of these "inconvenient truths." That's their job, that's their duty. They owe us that much. Yet they stand mute about these things and they do that quite deliberately.
Floods and other severe storm events have tripled in just the past three decades! How can we possibly justify massively expanding production of the filthiest, high-carbon fossil fuel on the planet? How can we elect politicians from all parties content with doing just that?
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Welcome to The Republic of Canada
El Presidente Harper bids you welcome to the Republic of Canada. In case you're new to our Republic, here's how it works. Decisions about how the country and our people shall be governed are the exclusive preserve of the Imperial Presidency. Our Fuhrer Leader steers the country with the assistance of his aides, people formerly known as cabinet ministers. The Leaders decisions shall, in all cases, be unanimously endorsed by his aides and the lower ranks, the water boys, people formerly known as members of parliament.
For the sake of tourism and public calm, the Republic will stage regular shows of "parliamentary democracy." These will be conducted in an exact replica of what was once known as the House of Commons. There visitors can be amused by the pointless bickering of the rabble, formerly known as opposition members of parliament. To help pass the time, vendors will walk through the gallery offering visitors a selection of delicious snacks and beverages.
If, while ambling through the halls, visitors spot what appears to be a life-sized cardboard cutout of El Presidente, it in all likelihood is El Presidente and approaching him is strictly prohibited.
Those of particularly robust constitution may proceed to take in the spectacle of the trained chimps in the second chamber, formerly known as the Senate. It will be immediately apparent that the animals have been fully neutered for the safety and enjoyment of El Presidente. When entering the Senate, visitors will be cautioned to please watch where they step.
El Presidente hopes you enjoy your visit to his Republic and, especially, his parliamentary theme park. Those who return next year will be able to tour "Bible World" now being constructed in the recently emptied Supreme Court of Canada building. We hope to see you again very soon.
For the sake of tourism and public calm, the Republic will stage regular shows of "parliamentary democracy." These will be conducted in an exact replica of what was once known as the House of Commons. There visitors can be amused by the pointless bickering of the rabble, formerly known as opposition members of parliament. To help pass the time, vendors will walk through the gallery offering visitors a selection of delicious snacks and beverages.
If, while ambling through the halls, visitors spot what appears to be a life-sized cardboard cutout of El Presidente, it in all likelihood is El Presidente and approaching him is strictly prohibited.
Those of particularly robust constitution may proceed to take in the spectacle of the trained chimps in the second chamber, formerly known as the Senate. It will be immediately apparent that the animals have been fully neutered for the safety and enjoyment of El Presidente. When entering the Senate, visitors will be cautioned to please watch where they step.
El Presidente hopes you enjoy your visit to his Republic and, especially, his parliamentary theme park. Those who return next year will be able to tour "Bible World" now being constructed in the recently emptied Supreme Court of Canada building. We hope to see you again very soon.
Will Afghanistan Become a Somalia on Steroids?
One of the most knowledgeable journalists on all things Afghani is McClatchey Newspaper's Jonathan Landay. He's been running the hills with the Mujaheddin since the Soviet days.
Recently, Landay appeared on the Diane Rehm show on WAMU radio. The question was whether, in the post-bin Laden era, the United States should pull its forces out of Afghanistan.
Landay made the case that the United States is obliged to stay. He contends the U.S. has created a volatile situation in which a precipitous American withdrawal could turn Afghanistan into a "Somalia on steroids."
According to Landay, tribal leaders are already reconstituting their forces in anticipation of a resumption of the civil war that was interrupted by the American invasion in 2001. He says it will be a repeat of the Northern Alliance forces versus the Pashtun, presumably again under Taliban leadership. This time, however, it will be infinitely worse than it was when American forces showed up a decade ago.
Landay foresees the next Afghan civil war as a proxy war between India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed India backing the Northern Alliance while nuclear-armed Pakistan supports the Pashtun forces. With a fierce proxy war on Pakistan's doorstep the prospect of a direct conflict between Pakistan and India is dangerously enhanced.
Unfortunately, Landay doesn't have a clear vision for how or when America can safely leave Afghanistan. He seems to believe, or hope, that the solution, the right moment, will become apparent eventually. Worse yet, he offered no suggestion as to how Obama can restore American public support for continuing the conflict.
Breaking The Silence
One of the more odious aspects of the era ushered in by Steve Harper and Mike Ignatieff was the wholesale embrace of Israel over the Palestinians in Canadian foreign policy. Ignatieff seemed to go so far as to pre-absolve Israel for its excesses in the Gaza invasion by claiming the Palestinians had only themselves to blame. Canada has always supported Israel, just not as uncritically as it has over the past five years.
So just what have we bought into with this new policy? A group of former Israeli soldiers have created an organization, Breaking the Silence, to tell the world how Israeli forces routinely and systematically abuse, degrade and humiliate the Palestinian people. They're posting a series of YouTube clips explaining what happens, day to day, in the Occupied Territories.
Once again we find ourselves at odds with the international community that, in September, will pass a United Nations resolution to recognize Palestinian statehood. With that, supportive nations will be legally entitled to recognize the sovereign Palestinian state and its government and to enter into agreements, even alliances with it. Other states, exercising their sovereign rights to deal with another sovereign nation may well challenge Israel's policy of denying, by force, access to the Palestinian nation. Israel could very quickly find itself isolated, an international outlaw or rogue state.
So just what have we bought into with this new policy? A group of former Israeli soldiers have created an organization, Breaking the Silence, to tell the world how Israeli forces routinely and systematically abuse, degrade and humiliate the Palestinian people. They're posting a series of YouTube clips explaining what happens, day to day, in the Occupied Territories.
Once again we find ourselves at odds with the international community that, in September, will pass a United Nations resolution to recognize Palestinian statehood. With that, supportive nations will be legally entitled to recognize the sovereign Palestinian state and its government and to enter into agreements, even alliances with it. Other states, exercising their sovereign rights to deal with another sovereign nation may well challenge Israel's policy of denying, by force, access to the Palestinian nation. Israel could very quickly find itself isolated, an international outlaw or rogue state.
Monday, May 16, 2011
What Sea Level Rise Will Look Like
A lot of the world's population is concentrated in low-lying coastal regions. These are areas vulnerable to the sea level rise of up to 1.6 meters now predicted by the turn of the century.
The Japanese are living with a preview of those very conditions. The recent earthquakes pulled the country out and down into the sea. Some areas, according to The Japan Times, sank 1.2 meters.
When water begins to trickle down the streets of her coastal neighborhood, Yoshiko Takahashi knows it is time to hurry home.
The Japanese are living with a preview of those very conditions. The recent earthquakes pulled the country out and down into the sea. Some areas, according to The Japan Times, sank 1.2 meters.
When water begins to trickle down the streets of her coastal neighborhood, Yoshiko Takahashi knows it is time to hurry home.
Twice a day, the flow steadily increases until it is knee-deep, carrying fish and debris by her front door and trapping people in their homes. Those still on the streets slosh through the seawater in rubber boots or on a bicycle.
"I look out the window, and it's like our houses are in the middle of the ocean," says Takahashi, who moved in three years ago.
...In port cities such as Onagawa and Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, the tide flows in and out among crumpled homes and warehouses along now uninhabited streets.
A cluster of neighborhoods in the city of Ishinomaki is rare in that it escaped tsunami damage through fortuitous geography. So, many residents still live in their homes, and they now face a daily trial: The area floods at high tide, and the normally sleepy streets turn frantic as residents rush home before the water rises too high.
...Most houses sit above the water's reach, but travel by car becomes impossible and the sewage system swamps, rendering toilets unusable.
Scientists say the new conditions are permanent.
This is the impact of tides on areas of subsidence. It doesn't begin to reflect what these areas will endure from future storm surges. These areas are essentially uninhabitable. Their value has dropped to zero leaving homeowners with no assets and enormous debts yet having to relocate.
What are we doing in Canada to prepare for this coming reality? An awful lot of precious little.
An Ominous Message from Benny Netanyahu
It couldn't be clearer. As far as Israeli prime minister Netanyahu is concerned, the occupied Palestinian territories are Israel's homeland. That much was obvious when he proclaimed that Israel was willing to "cede parts of our homeland, " for true peace with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu said he believed that most Israeli people would stand behind a foreign policy based on the following points:
The demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people; a commitment to end the conflict; a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue that did not require absorption within Israel's borders; the establishment of a Palestinian state only in accordance with a peace deal that did not infringe on Israel's security; that said Palestinian state be demilitarized; the preservation of large settlement blocs within the West Bank; and the insistence that Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel.
What Netanyahu failed to mention is that his hardline conditions for lifting the occupation of the Palestinian homeland are unacceptable to the world community and afoul of international law.
Netanyahu has been roundly criticized by opposition leader Tzipi Livni for being too weak to prevent the United Nations vote on a Palestinian state scheduled for September. With the vote widely expected to be passed, nations will then be free to establish diplomatic relations with the Palestinians and enter into alliances with the P.A.
"Unity to protect your leadership, prime minister, is not a worthy unity," Livni said.
"Today we are united to protect Israel against those who are working against our existence as a Jewish State ," Livni said "But this unity is not enough. We need a vision. If only Herzl could shout out anti-Semitism! But he was a visionary because he understood that it is not enough to shout out, he has to implement policies to fulfill his vision. He understood that he needs the world's support of a Jewish State in order to fulfill his vision ."
"I don’t know what is worse, the fact that you [Netanyahu] know what will save Israel and are afraid to make the decision, or that you are clueless ," she said.
Livni went on to criticize Netanyahu for travelling next week to the United States without a prepared peace initiative, and said that it was "unacceptable that Israelis have to pay the price for Netanyahu's weakness ."
Netanyahu said he believed that most Israeli people would stand behind a foreign policy based on the following points:
The demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people; a commitment to end the conflict; a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue that did not require absorption within Israel's borders; the establishment of a Palestinian state only in accordance with a peace deal that did not infringe on Israel's security; that said Palestinian state be demilitarized; the preservation of large settlement blocs within the West Bank; and the insistence that Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel.
What Netanyahu failed to mention is that his hardline conditions for lifting the occupation of the Palestinian homeland are unacceptable to the world community and afoul of international law.
Netanyahu has been roundly criticized by opposition leader Tzipi Livni for being too weak to prevent the United Nations vote on a Palestinian state scheduled for September. With the vote widely expected to be passed, nations will then be free to establish diplomatic relations with the Palestinians and enter into alliances with the P.A.
"Unity to protect your leadership, prime minister, is not a worthy unity," Livni said.
"Today we are united to protect Israel against those who are working against our existence as a Jewish State ," Livni said "But this unity is not enough. We need a vision. If only Herzl could shout out anti-Semitism! But he was a visionary because he understood that it is not enough to shout out, he has to implement policies to fulfill his vision. He understood that he needs the world's support of a Jewish State in order to fulfill his vision ."
"I don’t know what is worse, the fact that you [Netanyahu] know what will save Israel and are afraid to make the decision, or that you are clueless ," she said.
Livni went on to criticize Netanyahu for travelling next week to the United States without a prepared peace initiative, and said that it was "unacceptable that Israelis have to pay the price for Netanyahu's weakness ."
Losses from Natural Disasters Outpacing Creation of Wealth
In the world's wealthiest (OECD) countries, losses from flooding have shot up 160% over the past 30-years. Losses from tropical cyclones have swollen by 262% over the same period.
"The risk of losing wealth in disasters is actually increasing faster than that wealth is being created ," said Andrew Maskrey, coordinator of the 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.
The report by the UN's disaster reduction unit said the damage inflicted by mainly natural disasters on housing, infrastructure and public assets such as schools and hospitals was "soaring in many low and middle income countries ."
Maskrey suggested that the costs were growing largely because prevention or mitigation measures -- such as land planning in hazard areas or resistant housing, schools or hospitals - were failing to keep pace with faster and broader economic growth.
The report also reiterated warnings about growing pattern of extreme and destructive weather events that has been linked to climate change.
"The world's vulnerability to disaster risks is growing faster than our ability to increase resilience ," he warned.
Of course in Canada we're immune to all this or at least you could easily get that impression judging from the indifference of all of our political leadership. And it's not as though anyone expects them to reinvent the wheel either. The Brits have provided a very good blueprint for climate change remediation and adaptation initiatives. Unfortunately with Parliament packed to the rafters with Petro-Pols, Canadians are pretty much left to our own devices.
"The risk of losing wealth in disasters is actually increasing faster than that wealth is being created ," said Andrew Maskrey, coordinator of the 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.
The report by the UN's disaster reduction unit said the damage inflicted by mainly natural disasters on housing, infrastructure and public assets such as schools and hospitals was "soaring in many low and middle income countries ."
Maskrey suggested that the costs were growing largely because prevention or mitigation measures -- such as land planning in hazard areas or resistant housing, schools or hospitals - were failing to keep pace with faster and broader economic growth.
The report also reiterated warnings about growing pattern of extreme and destructive weather events that has been linked to climate change.
"The world's vulnerability to disaster risks is growing faster than our ability to increase resilience ," he warned.
Of course in Canada we're immune to all this or at least you could easily get that impression judging from the indifference of all of our political leadership. And it's not as though anyone expects them to reinvent the wheel either. The Brits have provided a very good blueprint for climate change remediation and adaptation initiatives. Unfortunately with Parliament packed to the rafters with Petro-Pols, Canadians are pretty much left to our own devices.
Yippee, the Bitch Is Dead!
La Nina, ugly stepsister of El Nino, seems to have run her course. A commercial weather forecasting service reports that sea surface temperatures, winds and clouds over the Pacific have returned to long-term averages.
The [Australian] Bureau of Meteorology was reluctant to call the end of La Nina just yet, but a senior climate scientist at the bureau, Grant Beard said: ''If it's not dead yet, it's darn close.''
Neutral conditions should prevail for the rest of the year, Mr Beard said.
He warned that extreme short-term weather events, such as heat waves, cold snaps and big storms, were still possible.
The present La Nina will go down as one of the most deadly and expensive ever.
Persistent and heavy rainfall led to record flooding across eastern Australia, leading to the deaths of at least 35 people.
The [Australian] Bureau of Meteorology was reluctant to call the end of La Nina just yet, but a senior climate scientist at the bureau, Grant Beard said: ''If it's not dead yet, it's darn close.''
Neutral conditions should prevail for the rest of the year, Mr Beard said.
He warned that extreme short-term weather events, such as heat waves, cold snaps and big storms, were still possible.
The present La Nina will go down as one of the most deadly and expensive ever.
Persistent and heavy rainfall led to record flooding across eastern Australia, leading to the deaths of at least 35 people.
OBL is Dead, Now Can We Go Home?
Now that America's nemesis, Osama bin Laden, is gone, it's a good time to scrutinize Washington's ongoing interests in South and Central Asia. The Great Game is very much in play and we need to ask whether Canada should be a footman on America's war carriage.
Relax, I won't bore you by claiming this is all about oil. It's about oil and gas and a whole gaggle of insanely valuable mineral resources and it's about China and Russia and America and which of them will hold sway in this strategically important region.
For a host of reasons, none of them remotely tied to terrorism, the United States wants to be top dog in a new, united Asian region. This is nearly as much about keeping Russian and Chinese influence at bay as it is in securing the great, largely untapped resources of the region.
The Taliban could lay down their arms and open up ice cream parlours tomorrow and Washington would still want a permanent presence in Afghanistan and a dominant influence over the neighbouring Stans plus Iraq plus India. It wasn't that long ago that the Americans showed up in Baghdad begging to be allowed to keep their key bases manned after the scheduled end-of-year pullout of American forces. They're even less interested in leaving Afghanistan any time in the foreseeable future.
Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the John Hopkins University. Starr proposed a matrix for a "Great Central Asia cooperative partnership for development" with the US taking the lead, the five Central Asian states and Afghanistan entering as the main members, and India and Pakistan participating.
Starr wrote, ''The main idea of the proposal is to take the US control of the situation in Afghanistan as an opportunity, promote optional and flexible cooperation in security, democracy, economy, transport and energy, and, make up a new region by combining Central Asia with South Asia. The United States is to shoulder the role of a midwife to promote the rebirth of the entire region. "
America intends to stay put and establish something like a Central Asian Monroe Doctrine. Russia and China, however, are making their own moves on the region which, unlike America, lies in their backyard.
Russian and Chinese diplomats ...are now ready to unveil their new avatar in the forthcoming summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana on June 15. To sum up a long story, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a terse remark on May 15 following a meeting of SCO foreign ministers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, ''A few days ago, Afghanistan submitted a request to grant it observer status. The request will be considered at the upcoming [SCO] summit.''
What he didn't say was that earlier in the week, Afghan Foreign Minister Rasoul paid a four-day visit to Beijing and discussed his country's proposal with the Chinese government. The Afghans, Russians and the Chinese seem to have acted in concert and with a speediness that probably took the Obama administration by surprise. The US has been consistently discouraging Kabul from any dangerous liaison with the SCO.
Kabul's ''defection'' constitutes a setback to the US's diplomacy in the Central Asian region, which Washington has been lately insisting is brimming with renewed energy. It certainly weakens the push by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) push to secure long-term military bases in Afghanistan. Put simply, it reduces Washington's capacity to pressure Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.
...Lavrov further revealed that India and Pakistan had both submitted formal applications for upgrading their observer status to full membership of SCO and he hinted that the Astana summit would grant the membership. Clearly, Moscow and Beijing have simultaneously steered the Indian, Pakistani and Afghan applications.
This suggests a broad conceptualization and understanding of the emergent regional security scenario in South Asia on the part of Moscow and Beijing. Ironically, Afghanistan is all set now to become the ''hub'' that will bring Central Asia and South Asia together - except that the historic process is taking place not under US stewardship, as Starr conceived, Bush probably wanted and Obama failed to follow up, but under Chinese and Russian partnership.
Imagine American hegemony over Central and South Asia, won at such enormous cost in lives and treasure, being displaced by the Chinese and Russians with the stroke of a pen. What can America possibly offer the region that China can't handily trump? America is fractured, distracted and in decline. China is ascendant and literally next door.
What is concerning is how this will play into America's modern militarism due to which, Andrew Bacevich points out, military force instead of diplomacy has become the instrument of choice in American foreign policy. Losing this region and its vast resources to the Chinese will likely accelerate the decline of American hegemony in other regions of the world including the Middle East and Africa. Is this a ship America is willing to give up without a fight?
What possible business is it of Canada's to become entangled in this? If we continue on blindly believing our side's presence in Afghanistan is all about holding terrorism in check what unmentioned risks are we willing to run? It's about time we had a grown up discussion of what lies ahead.
Relax, I won't bore you by claiming this is all about oil. It's about oil and gas and a whole gaggle of insanely valuable mineral resources and it's about China and Russia and America and which of them will hold sway in this strategically important region.
For a host of reasons, none of them remotely tied to terrorism, the United States wants to be top dog in a new, united Asian region. This is nearly as much about keeping Russian and Chinese influence at bay as it is in securing the great, largely untapped resources of the region.
The Taliban could lay down their arms and open up ice cream parlours tomorrow and Washington would still want a permanent presence in Afghanistan and a dominant influence over the neighbouring Stans plus Iraq plus India. It wasn't that long ago that the Americans showed up in Baghdad begging to be allowed to keep their key bases manned after the scheduled end-of-year pullout of American forces. They're even less interested in leaving Afghanistan any time in the foreseeable future.
Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the John Hopkins University. Starr proposed a matrix for a "Great Central Asia cooperative partnership for development" with the US taking the lead, the five Central Asian states and Afghanistan entering as the main members, and India and Pakistan participating.
Starr wrote, ''The main idea of the proposal is to take the US control of the situation in Afghanistan as an opportunity, promote optional and flexible cooperation in security, democracy, economy, transport and energy, and, make up a new region by combining Central Asia with South Asia. The United States is to shoulder the role of a midwife to promote the rebirth of the entire region. "
America intends to stay put and establish something like a Central Asian Monroe Doctrine. Russia and China, however, are making their own moves on the region which, unlike America, lies in their backyard.
Russian and Chinese diplomats ...are now ready to unveil their new avatar in the forthcoming summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana on June 15. To sum up a long story, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a terse remark on May 15 following a meeting of SCO foreign ministers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, ''A few days ago, Afghanistan submitted a request to grant it observer status. The request will be considered at the upcoming [SCO] summit.''
What he didn't say was that earlier in the week, Afghan Foreign Minister Rasoul paid a four-day visit to Beijing and discussed his country's proposal with the Chinese government. The Afghans, Russians and the Chinese seem to have acted in concert and with a speediness that probably took the Obama administration by surprise. The US has been consistently discouraging Kabul from any dangerous liaison with the SCO.
Kabul's ''defection'' constitutes a setback to the US's diplomacy in the Central Asian region, which Washington has been lately insisting is brimming with renewed energy. It certainly weakens the push by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) push to secure long-term military bases in Afghanistan. Put simply, it reduces Washington's capacity to pressure Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.
...Lavrov further revealed that India and Pakistan had both submitted formal applications for upgrading their observer status to full membership of SCO and he hinted that the Astana summit would grant the membership. Clearly, Moscow and Beijing have simultaneously steered the Indian, Pakistani and Afghan applications.
This suggests a broad conceptualization and understanding of the emergent regional security scenario in South Asia on the part of Moscow and Beijing. Ironically, Afghanistan is all set now to become the ''hub'' that will bring Central Asia and South Asia together - except that the historic process is taking place not under US stewardship, as Starr conceived, Bush probably wanted and Obama failed to follow up, but under Chinese and Russian partnership.
Imagine American hegemony over Central and South Asia, won at such enormous cost in lives and treasure, being displaced by the Chinese and Russians with the stroke of a pen. What can America possibly offer the region that China can't handily trump? America is fractured, distracted and in decline. China is ascendant and literally next door.
What is concerning is how this will play into America's modern militarism due to which, Andrew Bacevich points out, military force instead of diplomacy has become the instrument of choice in American foreign policy. Losing this region and its vast resources to the Chinese will likely accelerate the decline of American hegemony in other regions of the world including the Middle East and Africa. Is this a ship America is willing to give up without a fight?
What possible business is it of Canada's to become entangled in this? If we continue on blindly believing our side's presence in Afghanistan is all about holding terrorism in check what unmentioned risks are we willing to run? It's about time we had a grown up discussion of what lies ahead.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
This Is What Happens When You Surrender to "Free Trade"
My stomach churned as I read this paragraph in The Guardian:
"More and more, we hear that nothing can be done to tax major corporations because of the threat of how they would respond. Likewise, we cannot stop their price-gouging or even the government subsidies and tax loopholes they enjoy. "
It's a fair statement. It might even be an understatement. The question becomes how did major corporations gain the power to threaten our governments, our societies - the power to write our legislation? The answer is simple. We gave it to them.
Free trade, first regional and later global, was pitched on the notion of free movement of capital. That was a lie. With a few exceptions, capital has always been relatively free to be moved around the planet. What Free Trade initiatives were all about wasn't capital but markets or, rather, unfettered access to lucrative markets for companies that took their capital elsewhere in search of lower taxes, laxer environmental regulation and weaker labour laws.
Why would Nike pay an American $25 an hour when it could get a guy in Vietnam to do the same job for $2 a day? Why indeed when its target market nations had yielded their sovereignty over their marketplaces? It's great to get labour at $2 a day provided there are still enough people making $25 an hour elsewhere to buy your damned shoes. It's win/win for the corporations and lose/lose for the affluent nations that allow those companies free access to their markets. Oh the richest of the rich, the rentiers, win of course. Their dividends skyrocket on the spread. But it's tough titty for the guy who loses his factory job and winds up in the "service" industry at half salary, propping up his lifestyle on cheap and easy credit.
Yes, corporations threaten us when we want to do something they don't like but that's only because we've loaned them the knife. Why don't we take that knife back? Why aren't we the ones able to threaten corporations? Why don't we reclaim our sovereignty so foolishly surrendered by people of the ilk of Reagan and Mulroney? All we have to do is call their bluff. There will be "repercussions" initially but, then again, haven't we been living with the horrible repercussions of Free Trade for decades?
Bear in mind that globalization stands to become a far greater drag on world economies in coming decades. World oil prices are going nowhere but up which is why we're so eager to exploit toxic, polluting, even deadly sources of unconventional petroleum. We can't get the good stuff any more so we'll smoke the Burley Scrap right off the floor of the barn. Globalization is founded on cheap, long distance transportation to move materials and products around the world. That's going to become increasingly less viable.
Likewise as we enter upon an era of depleted or even exhausted resources, globalization again becomes less viable. And, in case you haven't noticed, social and political upheaval which has already coined the term "Century of Revolution" is well and truly upon us. Again that doesn't bode well for the future of globalization.
It's quite foreseeable that, overall, globalization may be poised to collapse under its own weight. Shouldn't we be considering the possibility? If globalization isn't the Holy Grail of global prosperity for the 21st Century, why in hell should we be allowing corporations to hold us hostage to their demands? We should be launching a deglobalization initiative - something that would stop corporatism exploiting the poor and vulnerable in the Third World in order to exploit the rest of us in the developed world. Enough is enough. Time to take back our knives.
"More and more, we hear that nothing can be done to tax major corporations because of the threat of how they would respond. Likewise, we cannot stop their price-gouging or even the government subsidies and tax loopholes they enjoy. "
It's a fair statement. It might even be an understatement. The question becomes how did major corporations gain the power to threaten our governments, our societies - the power to write our legislation? The answer is simple. We gave it to them.
Free trade, first regional and later global, was pitched on the notion of free movement of capital. That was a lie. With a few exceptions, capital has always been relatively free to be moved around the planet. What Free Trade initiatives were all about wasn't capital but markets or, rather, unfettered access to lucrative markets for companies that took their capital elsewhere in search of lower taxes, laxer environmental regulation and weaker labour laws.
Why would Nike pay an American $25 an hour when it could get a guy in Vietnam to do the same job for $2 a day? Why indeed when its target market nations had yielded their sovereignty over their marketplaces? It's great to get labour at $2 a day provided there are still enough people making $25 an hour elsewhere to buy your damned shoes. It's win/win for the corporations and lose/lose for the affluent nations that allow those companies free access to their markets. Oh the richest of the rich, the rentiers, win of course. Their dividends skyrocket on the spread. But it's tough titty for the guy who loses his factory job and winds up in the "service" industry at half salary, propping up his lifestyle on cheap and easy credit.
Yes, corporations threaten us when we want to do something they don't like but that's only because we've loaned them the knife. Why don't we take that knife back? Why aren't we the ones able to threaten corporations? Why don't we reclaim our sovereignty so foolishly surrendered by people of the ilk of Reagan and Mulroney? All we have to do is call their bluff. There will be "repercussions" initially but, then again, haven't we been living with the horrible repercussions of Free Trade for decades?
Bear in mind that globalization stands to become a far greater drag on world economies in coming decades. World oil prices are going nowhere but up which is why we're so eager to exploit toxic, polluting, even deadly sources of unconventional petroleum. We can't get the good stuff any more so we'll smoke the Burley Scrap right off the floor of the barn. Globalization is founded on cheap, long distance transportation to move materials and products around the world. That's going to become increasingly less viable.
Likewise as we enter upon an era of depleted or even exhausted resources, globalization again becomes less viable. And, in case you haven't noticed, social and political upheaval which has already coined the term "Century of Revolution" is well and truly upon us. Again that doesn't bode well for the future of globalization.
It's quite foreseeable that, overall, globalization may be poised to collapse under its own weight. Shouldn't we be considering the possibility? If globalization isn't the Holy Grail of global prosperity for the 21st Century, why in hell should we be allowing corporations to hold us hostage to their demands? We should be launching a deglobalization initiative - something that would stop corporatism exploiting the poor and vulnerable in the Third World in order to exploit the rest of us in the developed world. Enough is enough. Time to take back our knives.
Britain's Conservatives - "Greenest Government Ever" - What's Wrong With Canada's Conservatives?
Whilst I, by looking on praise of him,
see riot and dishonour
stain the brow of my young Harper
When Britain's Conservative prime minister rose to power, he rode on a promise that his government would be Britain's greenest government ever. Now he's delivering on that promise with a legally-binding initiative that, as evaluated by The Guardian, "...will require sweeping changes to domestic life, transport and business and will place Britain at the forefront of the global battle against climate change."
...It is also hoped that the commitment to renewable energy – the committee says 40% of the UK's power should come from wind, wave and tide sources by 2030 – will stimulate new industries.
These would include the development of tidal power plants, wave generators and carbon capture and storage technology – which would extract carbon dioxide from coal and oil plants and pump it into underground chambers. All three technologies, if developed in Britain, could be major currency earners.
The committee's report says the new carbon deal will require that heat pumps will have had to be installed in 2.6m homes by 2025. It also says that by the same date 31% of new cars, and 14% of those on the road overall, will be electric. Experts say a total of £16bn of investment will be needed every year to meet the commitment. Some of this money will be raised through increases in electricity prices.
Britain's Conservatives have been alive to the threat of global warming for decades. It was the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, herself who brought the issue to the forefront globally.
So, what's wrong with the swine who call themselves Conservatives in Canada? Well, as I've pointed out many times in the past, Harper's political movement lies well to the right of anything that could be called "Conservative." That, coupled with the fact of Canada as an emerging Petro-State in the very worst sense of the term, drives Harper not only to suppress climate change initiatives at home but to work feverishly to sabotage any international agreement to curb carbon emissions.
The F-35 - Expensive AND Late
The Brits like the F-35, sort of. They don't like it nearly as much as they did when placing their initial orders for scads of the things but, with those orders trimmed way back, they're still hanging in - for now.
One thing that got Whitehall hooked on the Joint Strike Fighter was the short take-off and landing version that offered an aircraft to replace the venerable Harrier "jump jet." The Brits have an aircraft carrier designed for this sort of plane and another in the works.
Now it seems that, like everyone else, the Brits may have bet on the wrong horse. Development delays have caused them to ditch the STOL version and go for a more conventional, "carrier variant," instead. It will be like the basic machine beefed up a bit to handle carrier landings and take offs. Like ordinary carrier jets it will be launched by catapult and land into arrester wires. It will also be much cheaper. But the question everyone is asking is just how cheap will the JSF be? Well, cheap for the Brits comes in at $157-million (Cdn) per copy.
Cost, however, is just one problem the Brits face. The carrier being built for the F35, HMS Prince of Wales, will be operational in 2020, three years before the aircraft will begin showing up. 2023 is the current estimated delivery date.
Now we can't extrapolate from the British price and delivery problems what is in store for Canada but, given our government's iron fist secrecy on these matters, we have to heed these warning flags.
How is Canada, with a paltry order for just 65 of these things, supposed to get what amounts to a "half price sale" deal of just $75-million per aircraft? Even the Netherlands is ordering 85 JSFs and they're not getting anything close to our supposed deal.
Here's something else to bear in mind. Technological advancement proceeds apace. Already some of what is supposed to make the F35 a world beater is being countered, notably its reputed stealth or radar invisibility. As noted in this US Congressional report from 2008, the F35 was expected to begin operational service in 2012. Now the Brits are looking at 2023? By then most, if not all, of its stealth supremacy will have probably bled out onto the factory floor.
One thing that got Whitehall hooked on the Joint Strike Fighter was the short take-off and landing version that offered an aircraft to replace the venerable Harrier "jump jet." The Brits have an aircraft carrier designed for this sort of plane and another in the works.
Now it seems that, like everyone else, the Brits may have bet on the wrong horse. Development delays have caused them to ditch the STOL version and go for a more conventional, "carrier variant," instead. It will be like the basic machine beefed up a bit to handle carrier landings and take offs. Like ordinary carrier jets it will be launched by catapult and land into arrester wires. It will also be much cheaper. But the question everyone is asking is just how cheap will the JSF be? Well, cheap for the Brits comes in at $157-million (Cdn) per copy.
Cost, however, is just one problem the Brits face. The carrier being built for the F35, HMS Prince of Wales, will be operational in 2020, three years before the aircraft will begin showing up. 2023 is the current estimated delivery date.
Now we can't extrapolate from the British price and delivery problems what is in store for Canada but, given our government's iron fist secrecy on these matters, we have to heed these warning flags.
How is Canada, with a paltry order for just 65 of these things, supposed to get what amounts to a "half price sale" deal of just $75-million per aircraft? Even the Netherlands is ordering 85 JSFs and they're not getting anything close to our supposed deal.
Here's something else to bear in mind. Technological advancement proceeds apace. Already some of what is supposed to make the F35 a world beater is being countered, notably its reputed stealth or radar invisibility. As noted in this US Congressional report from 2008, the F35 was expected to begin operational service in 2012. Now the Brits are looking at 2023? By then most, if not all, of its stealth supremacy will have probably bled out onto the factory floor.
Blackwater's Desert Hessians
Billionaire Blackwater founder Erik Prince is at it again. This time he's organizing a mercenary Legion in the deserts of Abu Dhabi. According to The New York Times, the function of the Emirates' new force is as obvious as it is ominous for the people of the region:
Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.
...former employees said that in recruiting the Colombians and others from halfway around the world, Mr. Prince’s subordinates were following his strict rule: hire no Muslims.
Muslim soldiers, Mr. Prince warned, could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims.
...Although there was no expectation that the mercenary troops would be used for a stealth attack on Iran, Emirati officials talked of using them for a possible maritime and air assault to reclaim a chain of islands, mostly uninhabited, in the Persian Gulf that are the subject of a dispute between Iran and the U.A.E., the former employees said. Iran has sent military forces to at least one of the islands, Abu Musa, and Emirati officials have long been eager to retake the islands and tap their potential oil reserves.
Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.
...former employees said that in recruiting the Colombians and others from halfway around the world, Mr. Prince’s subordinates were following his strict rule: hire no Muslims.
Muslim soldiers, Mr. Prince warned, could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims.
...Although there was no expectation that the mercenary troops would be used for a stealth attack on Iran, Emirati officials talked of using them for a possible maritime and air assault to reclaim a chain of islands, mostly uninhabited, in the Persian Gulf that are the subject of a dispute between Iran and the U.A.E., the former employees said. Iran has sent military forces to at least one of the islands, Abu Musa, and Emirati officials have long been eager to retake the islands and tap their potential oil reserves.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Sorry General But It's Not Our Civil War.
The commander of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Brit General James Bucknall wants Western nations to promise not to abandon the country after 2014.
Bucknall argues that we're making progress and abandoning Afghanistan will mean handing the country to an emboldened Taliban. I've yet to hear Bucknall or his predecessors explain what they've screwed up for the past decade that has left us mired in this mess. They've had ten years to train and equip an Afghan army to take over the job - and they've failed, miserably. This country, perhaps the most warlike on the planet, and they can't train an army capable of fighting a few thousand insurgents?
.As reported in The Guardian, the clock is running out for Afghanistan:
One diplomatic source, who asked not to be named, said: "Afghanistan has been the centre of the world for the past 10 years. It isn't anymore and the purse strings from donors will soon tighten. The international military drawdown will begin. There will then be a limited period where there is some money available for non-military efforts.
"After this, many Afghans fear they will then be abandoned again. The international community will say 'job done' and it will be case of presenting it as "Afghan-good enough. "
Sorry to say it but we abandoned the Afghan people years ago, almost from the start, when we couldn't be bothered tackling the cancers of warlordism and tribalism. We actually embraced warlordism and are now arming their militias. Leaving Afghanistan won't be abandoning the country. It will be the mere bringing to fruition of our self-fulfilling prophesy.
Bucknall argues that we're making progress and abandoning Afghanistan will mean handing the country to an emboldened Taliban. I've yet to hear Bucknall or his predecessors explain what they've screwed up for the past decade that has left us mired in this mess. They've had ten years to train and equip an Afghan army to take over the job - and they've failed, miserably. This country, perhaps the most warlike on the planet, and they can't train an army capable of fighting a few thousand insurgents?
.As reported in The Guardian, the clock is running out for Afghanistan:
One diplomatic source, who asked not to be named, said: "Afghanistan has been the centre of the world for the past 10 years. It isn't anymore and the purse strings from donors will soon tighten. The international military drawdown will begin. There will then be a limited period where there is some money available for non-military efforts.
"After this, many Afghans fear they will then be abandoned again. The international community will say 'job done' and it will be case of presenting it as "Afghan-good enough. "
Sorry to say it but we abandoned the Afghan people years ago, almost from the start, when we couldn't be bothered tackling the cancers of warlordism and tribalism. We actually embraced warlordism and are now arming their militias. Leaving Afghanistan won't be abandoning the country. It will be the mere bringing to fruition of our self-fulfilling prophesy.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Harper. Time to Push Back.
Make hay while the sun shines. So goes the old adage to never let a precious opportunity slip through your fingers because you never know when another will come along.
That pretty much sums up the spot Harper's majority has opened up for Enbridge and it's proposal to build a pipeline connecting the Athabasca Tar Sands to a supertanker oil port in Kitimat, B.C. This is Big Oil's big chance and they know only the guy now in office can be counted on to pave their way. It's no coincidence that, just one day after he won his majority, Harper went public dismissing the West Coast supertanker/pipeline opposition as something of an annoyance that would not be allowed to, "damage Western Canada."
If Harper understands one thing, it's not to squander an opportunity. He also has the gift of shrewdness, the cunning to grasp the vulnerability of others. All of these factors suggest but one conclusion: that Enbridge, with Harper clearing the path of disorganized opposition, will be moving quickly to make the pipeline/oil port a fait accompli.
It seems that Harper may test his new majority muscle on this venture. He has never had this political license and he probably will be eager to explore his imperial power on something so cherished by his benefactors. It will also be something of a learning experience for Harper's opponents both within and beyond Parliament. Can the environmental, progressive left and centre mobilize and effectively organize in order to push back? Have we really been relegated to meaningless bickerers as I'm sure Harper believes?
There are some of us now seeking ways to rally and unite like-minded but sometimes disparate groups - environmental, First Nations, labour and political - to stand together against Harper, Big Oil and the governments of Alberta and British Columbia (to the extent they fall into Harper's camp).
The goal must be to inform and energize public opinion. Anecdotal evidence suggests the public is woefully uninformed on this venture. Most seem to think this is about shipping oil, not corrosive bitumen sludge alive with acids, toxins and heavy metals. Few have any idea of what the loss of a tanker load of this vile product would mean for coastal British Columbia. Few have a working knowledge of the treacherous waterways of Kitimat that pose a near constant hazard to navigation - strong currents, big tides, high winds, limited visibility - compounded by the standard shipping hazards of engine failures, loss of steering, fires and basic human error.
It may not be possible to stop the Harper/Enbridge juggernaut. Big Oil is well positioned to make its supertanker port a reality. But that doesn't render opposition moot or pointless. There are several meaningful benefits to be had. It is important to show the public that, having to choose between the security of the B.C. West Coast and Big Oil profits, Harper is solidly and entirely on the side of Enbridge.
It must also be recalled what this pipeline/tanker port project is really about. It is intended to open a bitumen market to Asia that will allow Big Oil to jack the Americans on price. The U.S. is already prepared to buy every drop of bitumen Alberta can send them. Harper/Alberta/Big Oil are are happy to put British Columbia in real peril to ensure they get every last cent out of their sludge.
The Deepwater Horizon fiasco and tanker disasters like the Exxon Valdez stand as an object lesson on what can go wrong and what precautions are necessary for when it does. There must be pre-positioned equipment; ready, highly trained crews; and even purpose-built ships on standby to be called into action immediately they're needed. That is enormously expensive. This pipeline/oil port venture is about one thing - profit. That means Big Oil and its minion, Harper, will have every incentive to cut corners. Public awareness of the hazards of bitumen and the pipeline/oil port is about the only way we'll have to force the TarHeads and their Petro-Pol pals on Parliament Hill to act responsibly.
That pretty much sums up the spot Harper's majority has opened up for Enbridge and it's proposal to build a pipeline connecting the Athabasca Tar Sands to a supertanker oil port in Kitimat, B.C. This is Big Oil's big chance and they know only the guy now in office can be counted on to pave their way. It's no coincidence that, just one day after he won his majority, Harper went public dismissing the West Coast supertanker/pipeline opposition as something of an annoyance that would not be allowed to, "damage Western Canada."
If Harper understands one thing, it's not to squander an opportunity. He also has the gift of shrewdness, the cunning to grasp the vulnerability of others. All of these factors suggest but one conclusion: that Enbridge, with Harper clearing the path of disorganized opposition, will be moving quickly to make the pipeline/oil port a fait accompli.
It seems that Harper may test his new majority muscle on this venture. He has never had this political license and he probably will be eager to explore his imperial power on something so cherished by his benefactors. It will also be something of a learning experience for Harper's opponents both within and beyond Parliament. Can the environmental, progressive left and centre mobilize and effectively organize in order to push back? Have we really been relegated to meaningless bickerers as I'm sure Harper believes?
There are some of us now seeking ways to rally and unite like-minded but sometimes disparate groups - environmental, First Nations, labour and political - to stand together against Harper, Big Oil and the governments of Alberta and British Columbia (to the extent they fall into Harper's camp).
The goal must be to inform and energize public opinion. Anecdotal evidence suggests the public is woefully uninformed on this venture. Most seem to think this is about shipping oil, not corrosive bitumen sludge alive with acids, toxins and heavy metals. Few have any idea of what the loss of a tanker load of this vile product would mean for coastal British Columbia. Few have a working knowledge of the treacherous waterways of Kitimat that pose a near constant hazard to navigation - strong currents, big tides, high winds, limited visibility - compounded by the standard shipping hazards of engine failures, loss of steering, fires and basic human error.
It may not be possible to stop the Harper/Enbridge juggernaut. Big Oil is well positioned to make its supertanker port a reality. But that doesn't render opposition moot or pointless. There are several meaningful benefits to be had. It is important to show the public that, having to choose between the security of the B.C. West Coast and Big Oil profits, Harper is solidly and entirely on the side of Enbridge.
It must also be recalled what this pipeline/tanker port project is really about. It is intended to open a bitumen market to Asia that will allow Big Oil to jack the Americans on price. The U.S. is already prepared to buy every drop of bitumen Alberta can send them. Harper/Alberta/Big Oil are are happy to put British Columbia in real peril to ensure they get every last cent out of their sludge.
The Deepwater Horizon fiasco and tanker disasters like the Exxon Valdez stand as an object lesson on what can go wrong and what precautions are necessary for when it does. There must be pre-positioned equipment; ready, highly trained crews; and even purpose-built ships on standby to be called into action immediately they're needed. That is enormously expensive. This pipeline/oil port venture is about one thing - profit. That means Big Oil and its minion, Harper, will have every incentive to cut corners. Public awareness of the hazards of bitumen and the pipeline/oil port is about the only way we'll have to force the TarHeads and their Petro-Pol pals on Parliament Hill to act responsibly.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Spinning the Arab Revolt
Washington does it. Israel does it. So does our own Furious Leader, Harper. They're all pushing this menacing narrative of an Islamic Revolution in the Arab world. Islamic as in Islamist as in radical Islam as in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
French political scientist, Dr. Olivier Roy, in an essay published in the May edition of Harper's magazine counters that the current upheavals are decidedly secular and are being waged not over religion but for democracy. Professor Roy also contends that the outbreaks of these secular revolts for democracy are directly tied to declining American influence in the region.
...Commentators have been expecting to see Islamist groups - the Muslim Brotherhood and their local equivalents - either at the head of the revolutionary movement or lying in wait, ready to seize power. But the discretion of the Muslim Brotherhood has surprised and disconcerted them. Where have the Islamists gone?
Look at those involved in the uprisings and it becomes clear that we are dealing with a post-Islamist generation. For them, the great revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 1980s are ancient history, their parents' affair. ...Unlike their predecessors in Algeria in the 1980s, they make no appeal to Islam; rather, they are rejecting corrupt dictatorships and calling for democracy. This is not to say that the demonstrators are secular, but that they are operating in a secular political space, and they do not see Islam an ideology capable of creating a better world.
...Particularly striking is the abandonment of conspiracy theories. The United States and Israel - or France, in the case of Tunisia - are no longer identified as the cause of all the misery in the Arab world.
...These young people know that Islamist regimes have become dictatorships; neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia holds any fascination for them. Indeed, those who have been demonstrating in Egypt are the same kinds of people as those who poured onto the streets to oppose Mahmood Ahmadinejad in 2009. ...Many of them are religious believers, but they keep their faith separate from their political demands. In this sense, the movement is secular. Religious observance has been individualized.
...Today, paradoxically, it is the waning of U.S. influence in the Middle East, together with the pragmatism of the Obama Administration, that has allowed a native and fully legitimate demand for democracy to be expressed.
...The paradox of [recent] Islamization is that it has largely depoliticized Islam. Social and cultural re-Islamization - the wearing of the hijab and niqab, an increase in the number of mosques per capita, the proliferation of preachers and Muslim television channels - has happened without the intervention of militant Islamists and has in fact opened up a "religious market," over which no one enjoys a monopoly. In short, the Islamists have lost the stranglehold on religious expression in the public sphere that they enjoyed in the 1980s.
The utility of demonizing Islam has not lost any of its currency in segments of the West, notably the Rightwing. Their blank cheque support of Israel has been heavily dependent on the public seeing the Arabs as murderous cutthroats. For generations they have perpetrated the myth that the Arab peoples are barbaric and can only be kept in place by despotic rule. This myth has also enabled them to elevate Israel as the only civilized nation in the region, the sole democracy in the Middle East. Any weakening of that fantasy is dreaded in Tel Aviv where the Right under Netanyahu is beginning to feel the ground shifting under their feet.
French political scientist, Dr. Olivier Roy, in an essay published in the May edition of Harper's magazine counters that the current upheavals are decidedly secular and are being waged not over religion but for democracy. Professor Roy also contends that the outbreaks of these secular revolts for democracy are directly tied to declining American influence in the region.
...Commentators have been expecting to see Islamist groups - the Muslim Brotherhood and their local equivalents - either at the head of the revolutionary movement or lying in wait, ready to seize power. But the discretion of the Muslim Brotherhood has surprised and disconcerted them. Where have the Islamists gone?
Look at those involved in the uprisings and it becomes clear that we are dealing with a post-Islamist generation. For them, the great revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 1980s are ancient history, their parents' affair. ...Unlike their predecessors in Algeria in the 1980s, they make no appeal to Islam; rather, they are rejecting corrupt dictatorships and calling for democracy. This is not to say that the demonstrators are secular, but that they are operating in a secular political space, and they do not see Islam an ideology capable of creating a better world.
...Particularly striking is the abandonment of conspiracy theories. The United States and Israel - or France, in the case of Tunisia - are no longer identified as the cause of all the misery in the Arab world.
...These young people know that Islamist regimes have become dictatorships; neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia holds any fascination for them. Indeed, those who have been demonstrating in Egypt are the same kinds of people as those who poured onto the streets to oppose Mahmood Ahmadinejad in 2009. ...Many of them are religious believers, but they keep their faith separate from their political demands. In this sense, the movement is secular. Religious observance has been individualized.
...Today, paradoxically, it is the waning of U.S. influence in the Middle East, together with the pragmatism of the Obama Administration, that has allowed a native and fully legitimate demand for democracy to be expressed.
...The paradox of [recent] Islamization is that it has largely depoliticized Islam. Social and cultural re-Islamization - the wearing of the hijab and niqab, an increase in the number of mosques per capita, the proliferation of preachers and Muslim television channels - has happened without the intervention of militant Islamists and has in fact opened up a "religious market," over which no one enjoys a monopoly. In short, the Islamists have lost the stranglehold on religious expression in the public sphere that they enjoyed in the 1980s.
The utility of demonizing Islam has not lost any of its currency in segments of the West, notably the Rightwing. Their blank cheque support of Israel has been heavily dependent on the public seeing the Arabs as murderous cutthroats. For generations they have perpetrated the myth that the Arab peoples are barbaric and can only be kept in place by despotic rule. This myth has also enabled them to elevate Israel as the only civilized nation in the region, the sole democracy in the Middle East. Any weakening of that fantasy is dreaded in Tel Aviv where the Right under Netanyahu is beginning to feel the ground shifting under their feet.
Greenwashing The Guardian
One of the best newspapers for environmentalism is Britain's The Guardian, successor to the legendary Manchester Guardian. It has a solid environmental desk staffed by excellent writers including George Monbiot. But even The Guardian can be taken in by greenwash.
The story sounded great. A gaggle of Scottish distilleries announced they were going to use the bio-waste from Scotch whiskey production to fuel a thermal-electric power station. The "draff" would be mixed with wood chips and then burned to fuel boilers driving generators.
It all sounded too good to be true - and it is. Readers began pointing out that, previously, the distillers paid to have the waste hauled away but it was then turned into cattle feed. Now that source of cattle feed will instead be incinerated meaning other forms of cattle feed will have to be produced and imported.
At the end of the day what the story really came down to had nothing to do with the environment. The distillers had simply found a more profitable way of disposing of their biowaste.
The story sounded great. A gaggle of Scottish distilleries announced they were going to use the bio-waste from Scotch whiskey production to fuel a thermal-electric power station. The "draff" would be mixed with wood chips and then burned to fuel boilers driving generators.
It all sounded too good to be true - and it is. Readers began pointing out that, previously, the distillers paid to have the waste hauled away but it was then turned into cattle feed. Now that source of cattle feed will instead be incinerated meaning other forms of cattle feed will have to be produced and imported.
At the end of the day what the story really came down to had nothing to do with the environment. The distillers had simply found a more profitable way of disposing of their biowaste.
Climate Change Stunting World Grain Crops
Scientific American uses the term "Cereal Killer" to describe the impacts of climate change on efforts to increase production of cereal grains to feed the planet' s burgeoning population.
A recent study into already happening impacts of global warming found that it has cut "harvests of wheat 5.5 percent and maize 3.8 percent from what they could have been since 1980."
"On a global scale, we can see pretty clearly significant changes in the weather for most places where we grow crops ," explains agricultural scientist David Lobell of Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment, who led the analysis published in the May 6 issue of Science. "Those changes are big enough to sum up to pretty big losses for wheat and corn ."
"Using U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization data going back to 1980 for crop yields in all major crop-growing regions of the world, and pairing that with temperature and precipitation data for their growing seasons, Lobell and his colleagues found that warming temperatures were reducing yields—although changes in precipitation did not appear to be having an effect, yet.
"Those temperature changes are the result of increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), largely as a result of burning fossil fuels and agricultural practices. But CO2 also helps rice, soybeans and wheat grow. In fact, the researchers suggest the extra CO2 boosted yields for these crops by roughly 3 percent during the period studied ."
The study found that despite some CO2-driven crop increases, the temperature-caused decreases already outweigh them. The researchers were also able to cost out the declines. They found that climate change driven reductions had boosted the price of grain crops 18.9%. They noted that companies like Monsanto are now busy developing plants that will be tolerant of higher temperatures. Wait a second, isn't that Disaster Capitalism? Isn't this the very sort of thing governments ought to be doing for the public good, not the private sector's?
A recent study into already happening impacts of global warming found that it has cut "harvests of wheat 5.5 percent and maize 3.8 percent from what they could have been since 1980."
"On a global scale, we can see pretty clearly significant changes in the weather for most places where we grow crops ," explains agricultural scientist David Lobell of Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment, who led the analysis published in the May 6 issue of Science. "Those changes are big enough to sum up to pretty big losses for wheat and corn ."
"Using U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization data going back to 1980 for crop yields in all major crop-growing regions of the world, and pairing that with temperature and precipitation data for their growing seasons, Lobell and his colleagues found that warming temperatures were reducing yields—although changes in precipitation did not appear to be having an effect, yet.
"Those temperature changes are the result of increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), largely as a result of burning fossil fuels and agricultural practices. But CO2 also helps rice, soybeans and wheat grow. In fact, the researchers suggest the extra CO2 boosted yields for these crops by roughly 3 percent during the period studied ."
The study found that despite some CO2-driven crop increases, the temperature-caused decreases already outweigh them. The researchers were also able to cost out the declines. They found that climate change driven reductions had boosted the price of grain crops 18.9%. They noted that companies like Monsanto are now busy developing plants that will be tolerant of higher temperatures. Wait a second, isn't that Disaster Capitalism? Isn't this the very sort of thing governments ought to be doing for the public good, not the private sector's?
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Obama Snubbed Bush? Hardly.
The Corporatist spin machine went into high gear with the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed. They immediately began downplaying the Obama administration's role in getting bin Laden, portraying it instead as just a continuation of the Bush administrations efforts. Rumsfeld, parroting the talking points, said he was thankful Obama had the wisdom to continue Shrub's efforts.
It's not true.
As discussed at Think Progress, the Bushies actually lost interest in bin Laden and dropped his capture well down their priority list. Bush was open about that, repeatedly stating that bin Laden was not on his radar. He was focused on other things, like his screw up in Iraq.
Obama, by contrast, brought the bin Laden file back to the top of the pile as he had promised to do in his campaign. He threw government intelligence resources back into tracking and locating the al Qaeda chief. And Obama succeeded where Bush gave up.
It's not true.
As discussed at Think Progress, the Bushies actually lost interest in bin Laden and dropped his capture well down their priority list. Bush was open about that, repeatedly stating that bin Laden was not on his radar. He was focused on other things, like his screw up in Iraq.
Obama, by contrast, brought the bin Laden file back to the top of the pile as he had promised to do in his campaign. He threw government intelligence resources back into tracking and locating the al Qaeda chief. And Obama succeeded where Bush gave up.
Is It Time to Recalibrate Canada's Political Centre?
The question begins by noting that Canada has a majority government that goes by the name "Conservative" but really isn't. They're opposed by a party that once was proud to proclaim itself socialist that is now decidedly centrist, liberal if you will. Over there in the corner, in a heap of ashes, lie the remains of a party that claimed the name "Liberal" but allowed itself to drift much too far into conservative territory and paid the price for its foolishness.
What's missing? The Left. It's gone and probably for a good long while as the New Liberal Party works to convince the public that its CCF roots and all that ideology have been cleanly amputated. The New Liberal Party's leader did a job on his own followers just as Tony Blair did to Britain's Labour Party and, in the process, transformed Britain into a bellicose warfare state. It happens.
So now, with the Left having skulked to the Centre and Harper about to cement his move to the Right, we do need to recalibrate Canada's political centre. How do you do that in a two-party state? You begin by taking careful measure of both sides and looking for the middle ground.
To begin you must realize that just because you're on the right of the political spectrum doesn't make you "conservative" as that term is defined. There is much territory that lies to the Right of conservative, territory that becomes increasingly undemocratic, fundamentalist and authoritarian as you get farther and farther from the true centre. Consider it in the context of our Earth. At one pole you have democracy, at the other totalitarianism. You can reach the same state by heading continuously Left but, for the moment, no one is going in that direction.
We understand this here in British Columbia where we have a government that claims the mantle of "Liberal" but is, in reality, quite hard conservative - secretive, deceitful, unaccountable, corporatist, anti-labour - the standard for that part of the political spectrum. In many ways it is remarkably similar to the political movement Stephen Harper leads and their strongest bond seems to be their adherence to corporatism. Perhaps that is a fitting description for Harper's party, the Corporatist Party of Canada.
So where does that leave us? Where is the middle ground? Well, now that our former labour party has turned New Liberal and the former conservative party Corporatist, the new political centre is Conservative.
We hear their words but so rarely listen to their message. From the get go Stephen Harper proclaimed his principal goal was to shift Canada's political centre well to the Right. What went unnoticed was that Steve wasn't saying he wanted to be at that new political centre. He wanted to govern well to the Right of the new, conservative political centre which is precisely what he's doing now. He's kept the conservative cloak but he's really evolved into a corporatist, neo-conservatism.
What's not conservative about Steve Harper? That becomes plain as day when you weigh him up against the Father of Conservatism, Edmund Burke, or former great Republicans Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Harper and his kind plead conservatism but, in practice, scorn it. They have no intention of being conservative. They intend to be corporatist and they've engineered a corporate media to grease their path.
The sooner the Canadian public wakes up to this the better. Yet I fear it's already too late.
What's missing? The Left. It's gone and probably for a good long while as the New Liberal Party works to convince the public that its CCF roots and all that ideology have been cleanly amputated. The New Liberal Party's leader did a job on his own followers just as Tony Blair did to Britain's Labour Party and, in the process, transformed Britain into a bellicose warfare state. It happens.
So now, with the Left having skulked to the Centre and Harper about to cement his move to the Right, we do need to recalibrate Canada's political centre. How do you do that in a two-party state? You begin by taking careful measure of both sides and looking for the middle ground.
To begin you must realize that just because you're on the right of the political spectrum doesn't make you "conservative" as that term is defined. There is much territory that lies to the Right of conservative, territory that becomes increasingly undemocratic, fundamentalist and authoritarian as you get farther and farther from the true centre. Consider it in the context of our Earth. At one pole you have democracy, at the other totalitarianism. You can reach the same state by heading continuously Left but, for the moment, no one is going in that direction.
We understand this here in British Columbia where we have a government that claims the mantle of "Liberal" but is, in reality, quite hard conservative - secretive, deceitful, unaccountable, corporatist, anti-labour - the standard for that part of the political spectrum. In many ways it is remarkably similar to the political movement Stephen Harper leads and their strongest bond seems to be their adherence to corporatism. Perhaps that is a fitting description for Harper's party, the Corporatist Party of Canada.
So where does that leave us? Where is the middle ground? Well, now that our former labour party has turned New Liberal and the former conservative party Corporatist, the new political centre is Conservative.
We hear their words but so rarely listen to their message. From the get go Stephen Harper proclaimed his principal goal was to shift Canada's political centre well to the Right. What went unnoticed was that Steve wasn't saying he wanted to be at that new political centre. He wanted to govern well to the Right of the new, conservative political centre which is precisely what he's doing now. He's kept the conservative cloak but he's really evolved into a corporatist, neo-conservatism.
What's not conservative about Steve Harper? That becomes plain as day when you weigh him up against the Father of Conservatism, Edmund Burke, or former great Republicans Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Harper and his kind plead conservatism but, in practice, scorn it. They have no intention of being conservative. They intend to be corporatist and they've engineered a corporate media to grease their path.
The sooner the Canadian public wakes up to this the better. Yet I fear it's already too late.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Sarkozy Warns France Will Recognize Palestine
French president Nicholas Sarkozy has fired a shot across Israel's bow. He has warned that if the peace process remains dead France will formally recognize the Palestinian state.
"If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of recognition of a Palestinian state ," Sarkozy said in an interview with L'Express published on Wednesday.
"The idea that there is still plenty of time is dangerous. Things have to be brought to a conclusion " before a UN gathering in September, he added.
"If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of recognition of a Palestinian state ," Sarkozy said in an interview with L'Express published on Wednesday.
"The idea that there is still plenty of time is dangerous. Things have to be brought to a conclusion " before a UN gathering in September, he added.
Osama's Will - Kids, Don't Join Al Qaeda
The Telegraph is reporting that Osama bin Laden left a 4-page will in which he urges his kids not to follow his path.
Bin Laden's four wives were ordered not to find new husbands and focus on raising his offspring. "Don't consider marrying again, and devote yourselves to your children and guide them to the right path," the will states.
The instruction to his 24 children not to fight jihad cites a precedent from the Islamic texts. Omar bin al-Khattab, the successor of the Prophet Mohammad as Islam's leader, also left written instructions to his son, Abdullah, not to wage holy war.
Bin Laden's four wives were ordered not to find new husbands and focus on raising his offspring. "Don't consider marrying again, and devote yourselves to your children and guide them to the right path," the will states.
Osama bin Laden is Dead. Now Can We Finally Go Home?
Our Afghan war has morphed into so many directions, so many causes that it's hard to keep track of why we're over there.
The Americans went in to get bin Laden and his al Qaeda cohorts. They stepped into a civil war. Their mission then expanded to fighting the Taliban. Then it got into nation building with the selection and appointment of a ruler, Karzai. Then it was the democratization of the country and liberation of the Afghan people. Then, when that faltered, we went back to fighting to keep the Talibs at bay and Afghanistan free of al Qaeda.
As a practical matter, al Qaeda remains in Afghanistan. It has a base of command and operations in the Pashtun tribal lands of Pakistan. The Talibs are still around. We keep swatting at them but we can't stop them and never will. The country has turned into a narco-state. The government we installed has become a criminal enterprise. No matter how much we prop up the Afghan army it will never be more viable than the civilian government it serves. The country remains afflicted with the dual cancers of tribalism and warlordism that virtually guarantee perpetual civil war.
Maybe killing bin Laden was enough.
It is our way in the West to wage war with the certain expectation of victory. We want our enemies to surrender. We demand permanent, unequivocal results. We don't know any other way. The way we see it, if we don't win our concept of victory, we lose. There has to be a winner, there has to be a loser. If we can't be the winner that makes us the loser. When you think about it, that's really a curious mentality because it rejects the reality of unwinnable wars like Vietnam or Afghanistan.
To this day our political and military leaders depict the Afghan war as a military war. It's a truly weird military war. We have the enemy hopelessly outnumbered. We have all the technology and firepower. We alone have the drones, the tanks, the artillery, the jet fighters, the attack helicopters and every other whistle and bell. We're holding all four aces in terms of military warfare but we can't defeat our backward, feeble enemy. What does that tell you?
What it tells me is that only one side is fighting our war, the military war. We cannot be defeated militarily and they're not even trying. They're simply not showing up to participate in our war. If they did they'd be obliterated in days, perhaps even hours. That's what happens to peasants with Korean-war vintage rifles who stand up to face 21st century megawarriors. It frustrates the hell out of our soldiers that these guys won't just stand up and let us mow them down. But, if they won't fight our war and if they can't defeat us, why don't they just throw in the towel and go home?
The reason they don't simply give up is because they're winning and they know it. They're winning their war, the political war, and, of the two, the only war that matters. We can't defeat them in their war and we're not even trying. Worse yet, it's probably far too late even if we did want to take them on.
Sometimes you simply have to bite the bullet and admit there's nothing more to be done. We failed to create a valid central government. The very continuation of warlordism puts paid to that objective. Now the Americans are even arming those warlords' ethnic militias. This is where we lost the Afghan war and this is where we lost it irretrievably. The conditions we allowed to take hold reduced our role to merely babysitting the Afghans' unresolved civil war. In other words we're there marking time, treading water, desperately casting about for something, anything that we can dress up to look like victory.
As in Vietnam, we never lost a single battle in the war we alone were fighting, the military war, but never won a single battle in the war we chose not to fight, the decisive one, the political war.
I know. Let's call bin Laden's corpse victory and march away with our heads held high. That's probably the best we're going to manage.
The Americans went in to get bin Laden and his al Qaeda cohorts. They stepped into a civil war. Their mission then expanded to fighting the Taliban. Then it got into nation building with the selection and appointment of a ruler, Karzai. Then it was the democratization of the country and liberation of the Afghan people. Then, when that faltered, we went back to fighting to keep the Talibs at bay and Afghanistan free of al Qaeda.
As a practical matter, al Qaeda remains in Afghanistan. It has a base of command and operations in the Pashtun tribal lands of Pakistan. The Talibs are still around. We keep swatting at them but we can't stop them and never will. The country has turned into a narco-state. The government we installed has become a criminal enterprise. No matter how much we prop up the Afghan army it will never be more viable than the civilian government it serves. The country remains afflicted with the dual cancers of tribalism and warlordism that virtually guarantee perpetual civil war.
Maybe killing bin Laden was enough.
It is our way in the West to wage war with the certain expectation of victory. We want our enemies to surrender. We demand permanent, unequivocal results. We don't know any other way. The way we see it, if we don't win our concept of victory, we lose. There has to be a winner, there has to be a loser. If we can't be the winner that makes us the loser. When you think about it, that's really a curious mentality because it rejects the reality of unwinnable wars like Vietnam or Afghanistan.
To this day our political and military leaders depict the Afghan war as a military war. It's a truly weird military war. We have the enemy hopelessly outnumbered. We have all the technology and firepower. We alone have the drones, the tanks, the artillery, the jet fighters, the attack helicopters and every other whistle and bell. We're holding all four aces in terms of military warfare but we can't defeat our backward, feeble enemy. What does that tell you?
What it tells me is that only one side is fighting our war, the military war. We cannot be defeated militarily and they're not even trying. They're simply not showing up to participate in our war. If they did they'd be obliterated in days, perhaps even hours. That's what happens to peasants with Korean-war vintage rifles who stand up to face 21st century megawarriors. It frustrates the hell out of our soldiers that these guys won't just stand up and let us mow them down. But, if they won't fight our war and if they can't defeat us, why don't they just throw in the towel and go home?
The reason they don't simply give up is because they're winning and they know it. They're winning their war, the political war, and, of the two, the only war that matters. We can't defeat them in their war and we're not even trying. Worse yet, it's probably far too late even if we did want to take them on.
Sometimes you simply have to bite the bullet and admit there's nothing more to be done. We failed to create a valid central government. The very continuation of warlordism puts paid to that objective. Now the Americans are even arming those warlords' ethnic militias. This is where we lost the Afghan war and this is where we lost it irretrievably. The conditions we allowed to take hold reduced our role to merely babysitting the Afghans' unresolved civil war. In other words we're there marking time, treading water, desperately casting about for something, anything that we can dress up to look like victory.
As in Vietnam, we never lost a single battle in the war we alone were fighting, the military war, but never won a single battle in the war we chose not to fight, the decisive one, the political war.
I know. Let's call bin Laden's corpse victory and march away with our heads held high. That's probably the best we're going to manage.
One Problem Harper Can't Sweep Aside
Steve Harper has a real problem. It's a bunch of little people in little boats. They call themselves the Gitga'at Nation and their ancestral home is in Hartley Bay.
The Gitga'at live and earn their living just around the corner from the site Harper's patrons, Enbridge, have chosen for their supertanker port to ship Athabasca bitumen to Asian markets.
If you're not familiar with that territory, here's a quick rundown. Big tides, strong currents, high winds, narrow and twisty channels, rugged coastline, rocky islands and submerged outcroppings and very, very deep water. In short it's probably the worst possible location for a supertanker oil port.
Tankers, like any other ship, have mishaps. Engines breakdown, instruments go wonky, steering fails, fires break out, ships collide, humans err. You can't anchor in 600 feet of water while you tend to repairs. You can't even beach a ship up there. It's the rocks and the bottom.
You don't have to tell the Gitga'at any of this. They know their home waters better than anyone and that's why they have vowed to fight Harper's sludge-driven madness. We're quite experienced dealing with unruly natives. Sometimes we lock them up. Sometimes we even shoot them. Only not this time, not the Gitga'at.
The Gitga'at are heroes in this province. When the BC ferry Queen of the North hit a rock and began sinking, this small band of native fishermen took to their small boats in the dark of night to rescue the passengers and crew. They took them to safety and put them up in their homes. They saved a lot of lives that night. And there's Steve Harper's problem, one he won't be able to sweep aside.
If the people of British Columbia have to choose between the Gitga'at and an Alberta pipeline company, that won't go Harper's way.
Steve has already made some unfortunate remarks that may come back to haunt him:
“There were a lot of policies being quoted by the other parties, whether it’s on West Coast transportation or the energy sector, that simply did not reflect the needs and concerns of this part of the country,” Mr. Harper declared in Calgary Tuesday morning, after clinching victory the night before.
“I actually argued during the campaign that the policies of our opponents were actually quite dangerous to the country as a whole, but obviously some specific policies seemed to be almost targeted to do damage to Western Canada,” he said.
Steve, like the autocrat that he is, is used to being obeyed. He hasn't had to deal with serious confrontation, civil disobedience like what's brewing up north. On behalf of Alberta oil giants he's preparing to steamroller the people of coastal British Columbia. Steve doesn't like dissent over piddly things like West Coast supertanker catastrophe and I don't see him backing down on this.
The Gitga'at live and earn their living just around the corner from the site Harper's patrons, Enbridge, have chosen for their supertanker port to ship Athabasca bitumen to Asian markets.
If you're not familiar with that territory, here's a quick rundown. Big tides, strong currents, high winds, narrow and twisty channels, rugged coastline, rocky islands and submerged outcroppings and very, very deep water. In short it's probably the worst possible location for a supertanker oil port.
Tankers, like any other ship, have mishaps. Engines breakdown, instruments go wonky, steering fails, fires break out, ships collide, humans err. You can't anchor in 600 feet of water while you tend to repairs. You can't even beach a ship up there. It's the rocks and the bottom.
You don't have to tell the Gitga'at any of this. They know their home waters better than anyone and that's why they have vowed to fight Harper's sludge-driven madness. We're quite experienced dealing with unruly natives. Sometimes we lock them up. Sometimes we even shoot them. Only not this time, not the Gitga'at.
The Gitga'at are heroes in this province. When the BC ferry Queen of the North hit a rock and began sinking, this small band of native fishermen took to their small boats in the dark of night to rescue the passengers and crew. They took them to safety and put them up in their homes. They saved a lot of lives that night. And there's Steve Harper's problem, one he won't be able to sweep aside.
If the people of British Columbia have to choose between the Gitga'at and an Alberta pipeline company, that won't go Harper's way.
Steve has already made some unfortunate remarks that may come back to haunt him:
“There were a lot of policies being quoted by the other parties, whether it’s on West Coast transportation or the energy sector, that simply did not reflect the needs and concerns of this part of the country,” Mr. Harper declared in Calgary Tuesday morning, after clinching victory the night before.
“I actually argued during the campaign that the policies of our opponents were actually quite dangerous to the country as a whole, but obviously some specific policies seemed to be almost targeted to do damage to Western Canada,” he said.
Steve, like the autocrat that he is, is used to being obeyed. He hasn't had to deal with serious confrontation, civil disobedience like what's brewing up north. On behalf of Alberta oil giants he's preparing to steamroller the people of coastal British Columbia. Steve doesn't like dissent over piddly things like West Coast supertanker catastrophe and I don't see him backing down on this.
About that 9-Billion Population Ceiling
It's believed it wasn't until 1814 that mankind first reached a billion strong. When I was born that had reached 2.5-billion. This year our numbers swelled to 7-billion.
We had been told that we might actually reach 9-billion people by 2050 after which our numbers would begin to decline. Now the UN has rejigged its calculations to warn that we'll probably hit 10.1-billion by the end of the century. Its worst-case scenario would see that reaching 15.8-billion by 2100.
The projection has ''serious implications'' for the ability to provide food, water, energy, education and employment for millions of people in the poorest nations, said Hania Zlotnik, director of the population division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which released the report yesterday.
''Much of this increase is projected to come from high-fertility countries, which comprise 39 countries in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America,'' the report said.
We had been told that we might actually reach 9-billion people by 2050 after which our numbers would begin to decline. Now the UN has rejigged its calculations to warn that we'll probably hit 10.1-billion by the end of the century. Its worst-case scenario would see that reaching 15.8-billion by 2100.
The projection has ''serious implications'' for the ability to provide food, water, energy, education and employment for millions of people in the poorest nations, said Hania Zlotnik, director of the population division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which released the report yesterday.
''Much of this increase is projected to come from high-fertility countries, which comprise 39 countries in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America,'' the report said.
Adieu Osama
Was killing Osama bin Laden more trouble than it was worth?
I suppose the Americans had to kill him. Taking him alive could have fueled all manner of fanatical responses and perhaps turned him into a martyr. Dead, his martyrdom seems to be a fleeting thing at best. I suppose the low profile he had to keep for the past decade had created an "out of sight, out of mind" condition.
But now the great feat is turning messy. Osama's wife was in the room with him and one soldier supposedly had to shoot her. Osama himself we learn was unarmed when he was shot, apparently from the side, the bullet taking out both eyes. Now the Pakistanis are saying that Osama's daughter was also present and watched her father being killed.
I know, I know, it was a precision operation carried out under extremely difficult conditions and killings like this are inevitably messy.
What bothered me most on Sunday night was the mob that gathered outside the White House. A mass of young people in a state of sheer ecstasy that Osama had been shot to death. The scene reminded me of similar mobs we've seen in Arab countries, the type we like to denigrate. Maybe we're more alike than we care to realize.
The American Right has been in full-bore damage control over this. Rumsfeld, the architect of the Iraq fiasco, called Obama "wise" for supposedly continuing the efforts of the Bush administration. Wise? Rummy seems to forget that he was defense secretary when George w. Bush's forces let Osama slip through their fingers in the hills of Tora Bora. He'd like to gloss over the fact that he and Bush allowed al Qaeda to recover and metastasize while they went off to play in the sandbox of Iraq.
In a land where so many are utterly detached from sense and logic, the Right wing message will be absorbed as readily as an antacid tablet. I guess that's the one lesson we've received over and over again during the past decade - once people are conditioned to accept, you can feed them just about any garbage. Then again, isn't that at the very core of all political and religious fundamentalism?
I suppose the Americans had to kill him. Taking him alive could have fueled all manner of fanatical responses and perhaps turned him into a martyr. Dead, his martyrdom seems to be a fleeting thing at best. I suppose the low profile he had to keep for the past decade had created an "out of sight, out of mind" condition.
But now the great feat is turning messy. Osama's wife was in the room with him and one soldier supposedly had to shoot her. Osama himself we learn was unarmed when he was shot, apparently from the side, the bullet taking out both eyes. Now the Pakistanis are saying that Osama's daughter was also present and watched her father being killed.
I know, I know, it was a precision operation carried out under extremely difficult conditions and killings like this are inevitably messy.
What bothered me most on Sunday night was the mob that gathered outside the White House. A mass of young people in a state of sheer ecstasy that Osama had been shot to death. The scene reminded me of similar mobs we've seen in Arab countries, the type we like to denigrate. Maybe we're more alike than we care to realize.
The American Right has been in full-bore damage control over this. Rumsfeld, the architect of the Iraq fiasco, called Obama "wise" for supposedly continuing the efforts of the Bush administration. Wise? Rummy seems to forget that he was defense secretary when George w. Bush's forces let Osama slip through their fingers in the hills of Tora Bora. He'd like to gloss over the fact that he and Bush allowed al Qaeda to recover and metastasize while they went off to play in the sandbox of Iraq.
In a land where so many are utterly detached from sense and logic, the Right wing message will be absorbed as readily as an antacid tablet. I guess that's the one lesson we've received over and over again during the past decade - once people are conditioned to accept, you can feed them just about any garbage. Then again, isn't that at the very core of all political and religious fundamentalism?
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
If We Weren't a Full-Fledged Petro-State Before, We Are Now. And That'll Be "Mister" Big Oil to You, Pissant.
The Harper/Layton government has delivered Canada firmly into the hands of Big Oil. With a big leg up from Laughing Jack, Furious Leader has given them what they most needed, a Conservative majority. As The Globe's Carrie Tait writes, "Their man has a majority, now the oil patch wants elbow room. "
Mr. Harper has long defended Canada’s oil sector, calling the country an “energy superpower,” and he wasted no time sending a message to the energy industry that the newly fortified government has its back.
“There were a lot of policies being quoted by the other parties, whether it’s on West Coast transportation or the energy sector, that simply did not reflect the needs and concerns of this part of the country,” Mr. Harper declared in Calgary Tuesday morning, after clinching victory the night before.
“I actually argued during the campaign that the policies of our opponents were actually quite dangerous to the country as a whole, but obviously some specific policies seemed to be almost targeted to do damage to Western Canada,” he said.
The statements refer partly to a Liberal and NDP effort to ban tanker traffic off the West Coast, which would disrupt Enbridge Inc.’s Gateway pipeline project that aims to ship oil sands oil to new markets in Asia.
Of course Furious Leader, a.k.a. "Big Prick" (not to be confused with his minion "Little Prick"), can't wait to repay his obligations to the Tar Sands even if that means screwing over British Columbia and putting our invaluable coast in real jeopardy. We are, after all, that "West Coast transportation" annoyance. We "simply don't reflect the needs and concerns of [Harper's] part of the country."
Can someone inform that useless piece of shit that Athabasca and Alberta aren't "Western Canada." We, out here on the coast, are Western Canada. They're just another bunch of assholes from, what is to us, the East.
Mr. Harper has long defended Canada’s oil sector, calling the country an “energy superpower,” and he wasted no time sending a message to the energy industry that the newly fortified government has its back.
“There were a lot of policies being quoted by the other parties, whether it’s on West Coast transportation or the energy sector, that simply did not reflect the needs and concerns of this part of the country,” Mr. Harper declared in Calgary Tuesday morning, after clinching victory the night before.
“I actually argued during the campaign that the policies of our opponents were actually quite dangerous to the country as a whole, but obviously some specific policies seemed to be almost targeted to do damage to Western Canada,” he said.
The statements refer partly to a Liberal and NDP effort to ban tanker traffic off the West Coast, which would disrupt Enbridge Inc.’s Gateway pipeline project that aims to ship oil sands oil to new markets in Asia.
Of course Furious Leader, a.k.a. "Big Prick" (not to be confused with his minion "Little Prick"), can't wait to repay his obligations to the Tar Sands even if that means screwing over British Columbia and putting our invaluable coast in real jeopardy. We are, after all, that "West Coast transportation" annoyance. We "simply don't reflect the needs and concerns of [Harper's] part of the country."
Can someone inform that useless piece of shit that Athabasca and Alberta aren't "Western Canada." We, out here on the coast, are Western Canada. They're just another bunch of assholes from, what is to us, the East.
Maybe CK's Right. Maybe It Is Time to Secede.
I've been thinking more and more about Rafe Mair's warning about what the Harper/Layton roadshow means for British Columbia. It plainly sets us up against the rest of Canada.
Thanks to you easterners (and to me that line begins at the BC/Alberta border) we're now going to have to defend our environment against - wait for it - Canada. And, when it comes right down to it, I value my province and our environment far more than I value being Canadian. I can sure as hell live without the rest of you but I'm not sure I can live with you.
Thanks to the morons from Ontario to Alberta, we're going to be virtually powerless to stop a supertanker port in the treacherous waters of northern BC and a pipeline crossing our mountain ranges sucking toxic and highly corrosive bitumen sludge out of Athabasca. I think Harper will have no trouble populating his new prisons over that. It will be opposed and I'm pretty sure there will be force involved. I'm even hopeful that it will coalesce British Columbians in opposition to - well, to Canada.
What other way is there for us to stop it and the other environmental depredations we'll endure under Harper but to assert our sovereignty? How else will we be able to shut this supertanker port down before a catastrophe happens? We don't need Canada and, unlike other provinces, we don't need Alberta's oil wealth either. We have an abundance of resource wealth and, unlike the Tarheads, plenty of water to boot.
Don't worry. As soon as all the ice melts you'll be able to ship all your shit to Asia out of the north - unless they bail on you too.
So, What's First?
What's it gonna be? Will Harper weld the manhole cover shut on election financing? Will he shut down any effort to clean up the Tar Sands? Will he transform the public and armed services into agencies of the Conservative Party? Will he shove two-tier healthcare down our throats? Will he shred what remains of our social safety net? Will he synchronize Canada to America's wishes? Will he festoon the landscape with mega-prisons? Will the most authoritarian prime minister in living memory sabotage what remains of our democracy?
Oh, I forgot, Jack Layton's going to stop him. Whew, what a relief!
I don't know where Harper will begin but I do know what's coming to us in British Columbia. Long before we get another trip to the polls, we're going to have a privately owned and operated supertanker port in Kitimat and a pipeline drawing toxic bitumen sludge out of the Tar Sands.
Who can forget the Exxon Valdez fiasco in Alaska's Prince William Sound? That supertanker was only loaded with Alaskan crude oil, not utterly toxic, highly corrosive, bitumen sludge.
Just around the corner from where the Queen of the North rests on the seabed hundreds of feet below the surface, we're going to have a supertanker port that will enrich Alberta and Big Oil and leave British Columbians holding the bag for the awful risks.
Rafe Mair puts it most aptly:
As the old saying has it, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. So it is with us who have taken environmental issues on as a lifetime issue. It’s not that we don’t see, understand and have passion for other issues – rather that we see the environment being urgent. If we get it wrong over the next few years – and the BC government and the Harper government have got it wrong – then the damage is forever. You simply cannot restore wild salmon runs or erase the damage of a catastrophic oil spill. On the economic side of the environment issue, if you lose your public power to private interests as we seem determined to do, it’s gone forever.
Harper wants nothing more than to forfeit public power to private interests, his permanent solution and we're just going to have to sit by and watch.
Oh, I forgot, Jack Layton's going to stop him. Whew, what a relief!
I don't know where Harper will begin but I do know what's coming to us in British Columbia. Long before we get another trip to the polls, we're going to have a privately owned and operated supertanker port in Kitimat and a pipeline drawing toxic bitumen sludge out of the Tar Sands.
Who can forget the Exxon Valdez fiasco in Alaska's Prince William Sound? That supertanker was only loaded with Alaskan crude oil, not utterly toxic, highly corrosive, bitumen sludge.
Just around the corner from where the Queen of the North rests on the seabed hundreds of feet below the surface, we're going to have a supertanker port that will enrich Alberta and Big Oil and leave British Columbians holding the bag for the awful risks.
Rafe Mair puts it most aptly:
As the old saying has it, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. So it is with us who have taken environmental issues on as a lifetime issue. It’s not that we don’t see, understand and have passion for other issues – rather that we see the environment being urgent. If we get it wrong over the next few years – and the BC government and the Harper government have got it wrong – then the damage is forever. You simply cannot restore wild salmon runs or erase the damage of a catastrophic oil spill. On the economic side of the environment issue, if you lose your public power to private interests as we seem determined to do, it’s gone forever.
Harper wants nothing more than to forfeit public power to private interests, his permanent solution and we're just going to have to sit by and watch.
Clearing the Liberal Decks
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing.
Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.
Ignatieff is gone and small will be the loss. There are plenty of Libs eulogizing Iggy today. He was a swell guy, a real intellectual, such a hard worker. Okay, when you're finished with the bullshit let's get down to reality.
Hard worker? Really?
The time the Liberal Party and Canadians most needed hard work out of Ignatieff came when Harper first prorogued Parliament just as Canada was being overtaken by a global economic meltdown, the worst in generations. Iggy had a window of opportunity to do some very hard work brainstorming a Liberal stimulus/recovery budget initiative, something with real vision. Instead he took the time to write a very important book on his maternal ancestors.
When Parliament returned, Ignatieff came back empty-handed. He left himself and the Liberals no option but to endorse Harper's pathetic "pinata budget." He compounded his dereliction by making a fool of himself, boasting that he was putting Stephen Harper "on probation."
Bus tours and barbeques? Is that "hard work"? I suppose it is, sort of, for the bus driver anyway.
A two-year leadership/policy vacuum? Is that "hard work"? Really? Oh yeah, there was that "thinkers' conference" thingee, the spectacle with the roster dead weighted with CEOs and management consultants.
Iggy did achieve some things. He put the LPC on the side of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. He even pre-absolved Israel of its atrocities in the Gaza invasion. He certainly shifted the Party to the centre-right, fashioned it as something akin to Conservative-Lite. In so doing he helped Steve Harper achieve his prime directive, moving Canada's political centre well to the right. And Ignatieff also did Harper a solid by proposing an extension of Canada's military role in the FUBAR known as Afghanistan.
Ignatieff did a lot to the Liberal Party and it left scars. He didn't even bother to hold the centre, allowing Layton to move in from the left and Harper from the right until Iggy was squeezed so tightly he struggled for air. In so many ways he is directly responsible for bringing the Liberal Party to ruin.
Now he's out - two years too late, but he's gone. However the job's not done. The Party needs to ensure that those who engineered Ignatieff's ascendancy are also put out to pasture. I will end this with another observation from Oliver Cromwell:
I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain,
that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows,
than that which you call a Gentle-man and is nothing else.
Earth to Jack
Jack Layton may say he's looking forward to working with Stephen Harper but he obviously doesn't understand reality. The little prick is already making stupid pronouncements about how he prefers to "propose rather than oppose." Jack, it's your job to oppose Harper. You're now the leader of the Official Opposition. You're not the leader of the Stupid Proposition.
And, as for "working with" Furious Leader, he doesn't give a shit, he's got a hefty majority. He wasn't interested in working with the opposition when he was in a minority and pretending to be moderate. Jack, to Steve, you're something he scrapes off his boot. Oddly enough, that's what you are to me too.
And, as for "working with" Furious Leader, he doesn't give a shit, he's got a hefty majority. He wasn't interested in working with the opposition when he was in a minority and pretending to be moderate. Jack, to Steve, you're something he scrapes off his boot. Oddly enough, that's what you are to me too.
Monday, May 02, 2011
A Spectacle of Perversion
We know Jack's used to paying for it but isn't this just a tad too much even for someone as avaricious and unprincipled as Layton?
Look Dippers, face facts. Your guy Layton got greased up to jump into Harper's Mazola role to trash Martin over the sponsorship scandal he had nothing to do with. Your guy Layton helped Harper stay in power by trashing Dion's carbon tax policy. Your guy Layton gave Harper the leg up he needed today to rule Canada for the next four years with a powerful majority.
Three strikes and you're out. At last, I hope, the Libs will come to their senses and realize the vermin they have to fight aren't just on the right. Maybe then they'll come up with a leader who can do that very job.
In the meantime to me you're just that - vermin. And I didn't even vote Liberal.
Look Dippers, face facts. Your guy Layton got greased up to jump into Harper's Mazola role to trash Martin over the sponsorship scandal he had nothing to do with. Your guy Layton helped Harper stay in power by trashing Dion's carbon tax policy. Your guy Layton gave Harper the leg up he needed today to rule Canada for the next four years with a powerful majority.
Three strikes and you're out. At last, I hope, the Libs will come to their senses and realize the vermin they have to fight aren't just on the right. Maybe then they'll come up with a leader who can do that very job.
In the meantime to me you're just that - vermin. And I didn't even vote Liberal.
Was It Worth It?
A lot of us voted strategically, an "anyone but Harper" vote, thanks to the supposed NDP juggernaut that was going to depose the Furious Leader.
Seems Jack's "divide the centre/left" tactic worked really well - for Jack and for Harper - and left Canada screwed. The polls have only just closed out here in BC and the networks are already declaring Harper a big winner. All that remains to be seen is how big a majority has the opposition handed him.
Dippers, true to form, will decry the slightest responsibility for the outcome but that's what swine do. They did get their hands on Stornoway for the first time but Canada will have to pay the price.
Stephen Harper's good fortune + Jack Layton's good fortune = Canada placed under Conservative majority rule. Don't even try to pretend otherwise. You Dippers got what you wanted, a brief taste of second place. Canadians will have to pay the price for that. Your popinjay, Captain Rub'n Tug, will get to strut about for the next four years as though he mattered. Four more years that aren't Canada's to waste utterly gone thanks in no small measure to that little prick.
Instead of erasing and reversing Harper's abuses and excesses, we'll have to stand powerless as Furious Leader has at it. Fuck me but I loathe Dippers.
The only good news coming out tonight is that Ignatieff may be out of a job. He's at real risk of losing his own riding and there's never been a loss more deserved. Maybe now the Libs will get back to the business of being a serious political party. It's either that or the trash heap.
There is one other bit of good news. The freak show of NDP ascendancy was fueled by plenty of non-NDP votes that viewed them as the only way of stopping a Harper majority. Those voters will now realize they were played by the Dippers and plenty of them won't be fooled again.
Seems Jack's "divide the centre/left" tactic worked really well - for Jack and for Harper - and left Canada screwed. The polls have only just closed out here in BC and the networks are already declaring Harper a big winner. All that remains to be seen is how big a majority has the opposition handed him.
Dippers, true to form, will decry the slightest responsibility for the outcome but that's what swine do. They did get their hands on Stornoway for the first time but Canada will have to pay the price.
Stephen Harper's good fortune + Jack Layton's good fortune = Canada placed under Conservative majority rule. Don't even try to pretend otherwise. You Dippers got what you wanted, a brief taste of second place. Canadians will have to pay the price for that. Your popinjay, Captain Rub'n Tug, will get to strut about for the next four years as though he mattered. Four more years that aren't Canada's to waste utterly gone thanks in no small measure to that little prick.
Instead of erasing and reversing Harper's abuses and excesses, we'll have to stand powerless as Furious Leader has at it. Fuck me but I loathe Dippers.
The only good news coming out tonight is that Ignatieff may be out of a job. He's at real risk of losing his own riding and there's never been a loss more deserved. Maybe now the Libs will get back to the business of being a serious political party. It's either that or the trash heap.
There is one other bit of good news. The freak show of NDP ascendancy was fueled by plenty of non-NDP votes that viewed them as the only way of stopping a Harper majority. Those voters will now realize they were played by the Dippers and plenty of them won't be fooled again.
It Is Done
I can't remember an election in which I less wanted to vote. Having endured enough British Columbia elections in which so many of us are left to vote against the greater of two evils, negative voting is a truly awful ordeal.
I came out of the booth feeling crappy, utterly dispirited, while realizing that the true measure of my disappointment won't be known until the results are announced tonight. The only thing that could possibly have been worse would have been to vote for the pathetic Conservative incumbent. For the hapless weevil who received my vote, his/her good fortune is completely undeserved and is owed entirely to the fundamentalist mouthbreather of an empty suit we keep sending to Ottawa to doze fitfully at his Conservative master's feet until the next election.
A pox on all their houses. I did my duty and lament having done it.
I came out of the booth feeling crappy, utterly dispirited, while realizing that the true measure of my disappointment won't be known until the results are announced tonight. The only thing that could possibly have been worse would have been to vote for the pathetic Conservative incumbent. For the hapless weevil who received my vote, his/her good fortune is completely undeserved and is owed entirely to the fundamentalist mouthbreather of an empty suit we keep sending to Ottawa to doze fitfully at his Conservative master's feet until the next election.
A pox on all their houses. I did my duty and lament having done it.
Ah, Jack, Here's a Thought
Assuming the NDP rally translates into the harvest of seats predicted by some, I hope Jack will be smart enough to make peace with the Libs and forge some viable cooperative relationship. When you've got an ego as oversized as Layton's somehow stuffed into such a diminutive frame that won't be easy but it will be a fair measure of his fitness to lead.
Where to begin? Well there's going to have to be some sort of interim budget of course. But beyond that? Well, here's an idea of something badly needed and on which NDP and Liberals alike should be able to agree - the state of press freedom in Canada.
We need to scrutinize the corporatism rampant in Canada's media outlets. It's a core principle of press freedom that a healthy democracy depends on the public having access to the greatest diversity of opinion. Democracy is crippled when the public is left to but a handful of voices all reading from the same page of self-interest and shared advantage with the powers that be.
What is needed are powerful curbs on both concentration of media ownership and media cross-ownership. No one "voice" should be able to control all the newspapers or television or radio in any market nor should any one corporation dominate the gamut of media in a defined market. Say, for example, in a particular province publisher "A" can own not more than a fixed percentage of the major dailies or the regional weeklies. Whichever owns the big city paper may not also own a television or radio station within that same market. Split them up. Force divestiture.
This won't be easy to accomplish. It will require some pretty favourable tax treatments, perhaps even start-up grants. Yet it will be the best thing that's ever happened to Canadian journalism. Newsrooms, long gutted of staff and nearly shuttered, will re-open. Journalism may again be competitive, independent, lively instead of the moribund sham we find soaking up ink in today's papers.
Just an idea but I think it's a great way for the Libs and NDP to forge a working relationship that will be sorely needed if we're to reverse Harper's abuses and excesses.
Where to begin? Well there's going to have to be some sort of interim budget of course. But beyond that? Well, here's an idea of something badly needed and on which NDP and Liberals alike should be able to agree - the state of press freedom in Canada.
We need to scrutinize the corporatism rampant in Canada's media outlets. It's a core principle of press freedom that a healthy democracy depends on the public having access to the greatest diversity of opinion. Democracy is crippled when the public is left to but a handful of voices all reading from the same page of self-interest and shared advantage with the powers that be.
What is needed are powerful curbs on both concentration of media ownership and media cross-ownership. No one "voice" should be able to control all the newspapers or television or radio in any market nor should any one corporation dominate the gamut of media in a defined market. Say, for example, in a particular province publisher "A" can own not more than a fixed percentage of the major dailies or the regional weeklies. Whichever owns the big city paper may not also own a television or radio station within that same market. Split them up. Force divestiture.
This won't be easy to accomplish. It will require some pretty favourable tax treatments, perhaps even start-up grants. Yet it will be the best thing that's ever happened to Canadian journalism. Newsrooms, long gutted of staff and nearly shuttered, will re-open. Journalism may again be competitive, independent, lively instead of the moribund sham we find soaking up ink in today's papers.
Just an idea but I think it's a great way for the Libs and NDP to forge a working relationship that will be sorely needed if we're to reverse Harper's abuses and excesses.
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