Here's a dead giveaway. When you have to rely on surprise to visit a country which you've supposedly controlled for almost a decade, you're not winning anything.
Barack Obama made his own surprise visit to Afghanistan on Friday. He was flown right in, unannounced, wearing a jaunty, classic A-2 leather flight jacket.
Obama's people staged the obligatory, photo-op bull session with the troops at which the POTUS assured the soldiers, "you will succeed." Obama then told his audience they were breaking the momentum of the Taliban.
Mr. Obama's words suggest he still sees the conflict as a military war. Somehow I'd thought he was brighter than that. Guess I was wrong. Then again he merely assured the troops they would succeed - succeed at what he didn't specify. If he meant succeed in defeating the Taliban, actually getting them to surrender, those troops can expect to be in Afghanistan until Hell freezes over.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Torture Drugs at Gitmo?
Documents recently released by the U.S. Defense Department show that all terror prisoners at Guantanamo were required to take heavy doses of a controversial, anti-malarial drug, mefloquine. They were administered doses only considered appropriate for those with active malaria.
Such heavy doses for those without malaria may cause, "potentially severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including seizures, intense vertigo, hallucinations, paranoid delusions, aggression, panic, anxiety, severe insomnia, and thoughts of suicide" according to US Army public health physician, Major Remington Niven.
Read more here.
Peak Oil? No, "Peak Fish"
We're running out of fish and we're fast running out of new places to find fish. A joint Canada/U.S./Australia study released by the peer-reviewed science information site, PloS, concludes that global fishing has burgeoned so rapidly over the past half century that the world fleets are running out of places to fish, places that is where the historic fisheries have not already been collapsed.
Once again, man has bested nature, taking more than the earth can supply. In 1950 the global catch was 19-million tonnes. It peaked in 1980 at 90-million tonnes. Despite new technologies the global catch dropped to 87-million tonnes by 2005 and fell below 80-million tonnes in 2008. It seems we reached Peak Fish three decades ago and have been relentlessly decimating the stocks ever since.
We got away with this three ways. One was "fishing down the food chain." As one desirable species was fished to collapse, we switched to what had been a less desirable species. Another was simply deploying better technology - a more efficient fishing fleet. The third was nomadic fishing - moving from one decimated area to a fresh fishing zone. Anyway you cut it, that has to end badly.
Daniel Pauly, a co-author who serves as principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, said the global seafood catch is dropping ''because there's essentially nowhere to go''. The fact that fish catches rose for so many decades ''looks like sustainability but it is actually expansion-driven. That is frightening, because the accounting is coming now.''
The authors - including lead author and UBC doctoral student Wilf Swartz and National Geographic Society ocean fellow Enric Sala - write that this relentless pursuit for seafood has left ''only unproductive waters of high seas and relatively inaccessible waters in the Arctic and Antarctic as the last remaining 'frontiers'.''
Once again, man has bested nature, taking more than the earth can supply. In 1950 the global catch was 19-million tonnes. It peaked in 1980 at 90-million tonnes. Despite new technologies the global catch dropped to 87-million tonnes by 2005 and fell below 80-million tonnes in 2008. It seems we reached Peak Fish three decades ago and have been relentlessly decimating the stocks ever since.
We got away with this three ways. One was "fishing down the food chain." As one desirable species was fished to collapse, we switched to what had been a less desirable species. Another was simply deploying better technology - a more efficient fishing fleet. The third was nomadic fishing - moving from one decimated area to a fresh fishing zone. Anyway you cut it, that has to end badly.
Daniel Pauly, a co-author who serves as principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, said the global seafood catch is dropping ''because there's essentially nowhere to go''. The fact that fish catches rose for so many decades ''looks like sustainability but it is actually expansion-driven. That is frightening, because the accounting is coming now.''
The authors - including lead author and UBC doctoral student Wilf Swartz and National Geographic Society ocean fellow Enric Sala - write that this relentless pursuit for seafood has left ''only unproductive waters of high seas and relatively inaccessible waters in the Arctic and Antarctic as the last remaining 'frontiers'.''
COP16 - The Incredible Vanishing Climate Summit
While people have been voraciously devouring WikiLeaks disclosures this past week there's been a major UN climate change summit underway in Cancun that seems to have fallen off the radar screen.
I've been searching about for news of what the delegates have accomplished and - nothing. No word. Oh, a few speeches and a bit of grumbling here and there but no news of anything remotely substantive much less some breakthrough.
I guess there's no point in saying "back to the drawing board." After all, Cancun was supposed to be the drawing board. Greenpeace climate director Wendell Trio described the summit this way. "This is a meeting of emitters anonymous. They haven't even taken the first steps to admit there is a problem."
Climate summit delegates - Please Call Home!
I've been searching about for news of what the delegates have accomplished and - nothing. No word. Oh, a few speeches and a bit of grumbling here and there but no news of anything remotely substantive much less some breakthrough.
I guess there's no point in saying "back to the drawing board." After all, Cancun was supposed to be the drawing board. Greenpeace climate director Wendell Trio described the summit this way. "This is a meeting of emitters anonymous. They haven't even taken the first steps to admit there is a problem."
Climate summit delegates - Please Call Home!
Is the U.S. Army Skimming Afghan Army Funding?
This is just plain weird. A document released by WikiLeaks apparently shows the U.S. military has been charging its allies a 15% 'handling fee' on hundreds of millions of dollars of support intended to help build up the Afghan National Army. Gee the American military is beginning to more closely resemble Pakistan's military every day.
A Nation in the Grip of Psychosis
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts asks whether America's fear of Muslims has caused the country to lose its mind:
We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of America's mind.
It was last seen last month in Oklahoma. There, voters gave emphatic approval to a measure outlawing the use of Sharia law -- a strict and often brutal interpretation of Islamic religious strictures -- in state courts. Sharia is not known to be a problem in Oklahoma, or, for that matter, anywhere else in the United States, something even the bill's backers concede. But, said the initiative's sponsor, then-Republican state Rep. Rex Duncan, why wait?
Of course, by that reasoning, one can also justify laws regulating time travel, flying cars and pink unicorns pooping in public parks. Should we assume Oklahoma legislators are hard at work on laws to restrict these and other nonexistent troubles?
Probably not. After all, unlike other purely fictional problems, the Sharia ``issue'' allows a demagogue to exploit a tender spot in the American psyche: Our growing fear of all things Muslim.
...Americans of German descent were bullied and beset during the First World War in a nation that found it necessary to rename sauerkraut ``Liberty Cabbage.'' Americans of Japanese descent were imprisoned during the Second World War, many of them losing their homes and livelihoods.
You'd think that sordid history would make us wary of entreatments to blindly castigate our fellow Americans. And you would be mistaken.
To his credit, President George W. Bush explicitly rejected the reflexive fear of all things Muslim in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. But to its discredit, his party nonetheless chose to embrace that fear, to exploit and campaign on it throughout the decade.
Here, now, is the result. We move through a perilous time that demands serious consideration of serious issues -- airline security, energy dependence, the radicalization of American citizens -- but we, profoundly unserious people that we are, fret instead about saving Oklahoma from Sharia law, solving a problem we do not and will not have.
Thoughtful people ought to be alarmed.
The goal of terrorism, you see, is not to make a nation bleed but to make it fear. Oklahoma's nonsensical law suggests our enemies have been successful in that.
One recalls how Bush stood beneath a banner that crowed of a victory against terrorism. But to the degree Oklahoma accurately reflects our national mindset, it is the terrorists who deserve to hoist that banner. America is scared stupid.
Why does it feel that Pitts' is a voice in the wilderness?
FUBARistan
The WikiLeaks diplomatic communique scandal has revealed a stark picture of Afghanistan and our war there, one that our leaders have been working hard to conceal from their people back home. We're being scammed and our soldiers are being fed into the grinder - for very little or nothing.
The colloquial term "FUBAR" comes to mind. It's an acronym meaning F__ked Up Beyond Recognition. For Afghanistan it could be tweaked to mean F__ked Up Beyond Redemption. Hell, the country itself should be renamed FUBARistan.
Few of us were not aware that Afghanistan has a corruption problem. We've heard about that ever since we showed up there. We just didn't know that Afghan corruption has metastasized into a terminal disease. It's incurable and it will be fatal to any but the most brutal regime conceivable which is what will quickly emerge from the civil war that will follow our departure.
We know the Afghans despise us as we do them. Karzai's outbursts don't just happen when he's failed to balance his meds. Poor old Hamid. I figure he's already got his bags packed ready to scram in a real big hurry. As Gwynne Dyer put it, Karzai has a date with a very short rope tied to the end of an elevated tank barrel if the rebels get their hands on him.
In The Guardian today we learn that both Karzai and the Americans freely ridicule Britain's effort in Helmand province. The Americans feel the Brits haven't attained their own level of magnificence. Karzai is pissed off because the British blocked his strenuous attempts to appoint a drug lord to become the governor of Helmand province.
We learn that Iran isbribing financing many top Afghan leaders and, supposedly, training Taliban fighters. Karzai's VP caught in Dubai with a suitcase containing $52-million? His money or Hamid's? Apparently top level skimming is rampant and the Americans are powerless to stop it. These are people who are not looking to a victorious outcome in their civil war with the Talibs.
And those wilymercenaries contractors, America's shadow army, are up to no good, hiring dancing boys dressed up like girls to entertain stoned Afghan cops. Maybe we should just call that "bummage" on the monthly expenses report.
This is a good one. The Karzai clan feared Hamid might have failed to rig the last elections successfully. U.S. diplomats reported two of his brothers were planning to seek asylum in the States while other family members had kept themselves and their money safely out of the country pending the outcome. Jeebus it's no wonder Hamid acts so paranoid - everybody is out to get him, not just the Talibs either.
Oh yeah, all that business we've heard about peace overtures to the Taliban, invitations for them to take their rightful place alongside their fellow Afghans in the central government? Bullshit. Karzai and the Americans utterly reject the idea of guys like Mullah Omar getting into their government. The only thing they're extending to him is the opportunity to surrender - as it. Karzai believes he's enough of a draw to get rank and file Talibs to desert Omar and come over to him.
Worse still is that Karzai has betrayed his non-Pashtun, ex-Northern Alliance warlords. He needed their backing to win votes from their tribes but handpicked weak candidates to represent them who predictably lost shutting those tribes and their warlords out of power. That is why there is so much unrest among the northern tribes and reports of a possible northern uprising against Karzai.
There's so much more and it's all rancid. This hellhole is FUBARistan, beyond redemption. No surprise there. This is what happens in this sort of conflict. You have to get in with overwhelming force, get the place secured and a legitimate government in place, and then just as quickly get out. We didn't. Karzai has become a warfare-welfare bum, an incompetent, corrupt and untrustworthy parasite on Tehran's payroll to boot.
What are we doing in Afghanistan? Why are we staying there in any capacity? This place is so bent it's beyond salvation. Even our guys are rotten to the core and, in Afghanistan's time-honoured tradition of treachery, would turn on us in a Kabul minute.
The only justification for keeping Canadian forces in that failed state is NATO solidarity but, in the NATO context, we've already done far more than our fair share. Ignatieff and Rae got this ball rolling and Harper, with great feigned reluctance, jumped on it. I don't even understand how a Liberal could possibly support these supposed Liberals.
The colloquial term "FUBAR" comes to mind. It's an acronym meaning F__ked Up Beyond Recognition. For Afghanistan it could be tweaked to mean F__ked Up Beyond Redemption. Hell, the country itself should be renamed FUBARistan.
Few of us were not aware that Afghanistan has a corruption problem. We've heard about that ever since we showed up there. We just didn't know that Afghan corruption has metastasized into a terminal disease. It's incurable and it will be fatal to any but the most brutal regime conceivable which is what will quickly emerge from the civil war that will follow our departure.
We know the Afghans despise us as we do them. Karzai's outbursts don't just happen when he's failed to balance his meds. Poor old Hamid. I figure he's already got his bags packed ready to scram in a real big hurry. As Gwynne Dyer put it, Karzai has a date with a very short rope tied to the end of an elevated tank barrel if the rebels get their hands on him.
In The Guardian today we learn that both Karzai and the Americans freely ridicule Britain's effort in Helmand province. The Americans feel the Brits haven't attained their own level of magnificence. Karzai is pissed off because the British blocked his strenuous attempts to appoint a drug lord to become the governor of Helmand province.
We learn that Iran is
And those wily
This is a good one. The Karzai clan feared Hamid might have failed to rig the last elections successfully. U.S. diplomats reported two of his brothers were planning to seek asylum in the States while other family members had kept themselves and their money safely out of the country pending the outcome. Jeebus it's no wonder Hamid acts so paranoid - everybody is out to get him, not just the Talibs either.
Oh yeah, all that business we've heard about peace overtures to the Taliban, invitations for them to take their rightful place alongside their fellow Afghans in the central government? Bullshit. Karzai and the Americans utterly reject the idea of guys like Mullah Omar getting into their government. The only thing they're extending to him is the opportunity to surrender - as it. Karzai believes he's enough of a draw to get rank and file Talibs to desert Omar and come over to him.
Worse still is that Karzai has betrayed his non-Pashtun, ex-Northern Alliance warlords. He needed their backing to win votes from their tribes but handpicked weak candidates to represent them who predictably lost shutting those tribes and their warlords out of power. That is why there is so much unrest among the northern tribes and reports of a possible northern uprising against Karzai.
There's so much more and it's all rancid. This hellhole is FUBARistan, beyond redemption. No surprise there. This is what happens in this sort of conflict. You have to get in with overwhelming force, get the place secured and a legitimate government in place, and then just as quickly get out. We didn't. Karzai has become a warfare-welfare bum, an incompetent, corrupt and untrustworthy parasite on Tehran's payroll to boot.
What are we doing in Afghanistan? Why are we staying there in any capacity? This place is so bent it's beyond salvation. Even our guys are rotten to the core and, in Afghanistan's time-honoured tradition of treachery, would turn on us in a Kabul minute.
The only justification for keeping Canadian forces in that failed state is NATO solidarity but, in the NATO context, we've already done far more than our fair share. Ignatieff and Rae got this ball rolling and Harper, with great feigned reluctance, jumped on it. I don't even understand how a Liberal could possibly support these supposed Liberals.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
A Dark White Christmas
Some quirky people in Hayden, Idaho including the occupant of this house, a creep associated with the Aryan Nation, who built his own snowman complete with a KKK-style hat and a noose. It's reported that the homeowner is a white separatist who handed out bullets at Halloween. Apparently passersby knocked down the Klan hat and the occupant removed the noose after a visit from law enforcement officers.
I wonder what the guy thinks of Obama?
Is Dick Cheney a Wanted Man?
A report in Agence France Presse claims Nigerian authorities may charge Dick Cheney in connection with a bribery scandal from his Halliburton days.
Asked whether Cheney would be charged over the investigation into construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in southern Nigeria, [anti-graft agency spokesman] Femi Babafemi said, " it's true ... definitely."
The spokesman could not give details on the charges that he says are likely to be filed next week, but said " they are not unconnected to his role as the chief executive of Halliburton."
A prosecutor on the case said Cheney would be charged jointly along with the former and current leadership of Halliburton and others.
Officials from companies in a consortium involved in the LNG plant would also be included in the charges to be " placed before the court at the latest by Tuesday of next week," said Godwin Obla.
Cheney would face conspiracy charges and a Nigerian judge would be asked to issue an arrest warrant for him that would be transmitted to Interpol, said Obla.
Actually the old Dick looks pretty good in the hands up "I surrender" pose, no?
Sally Ann Bells Banned - Has It Really Come to This?
Ever since I was a kid (a good, long time ago) Christmas has always been associated with the iconic Salvation Army Christmas kettle and a volunteer bell ringer. Sleigh bells. C'mon, it's Christmas.
Apparently some in Toronto see it differently. CBC News reports that two of Toronto's largest malls, Eaton Centre and Fairview, are banning the Sally Ann bells, citing noise complaints.
Seriously, what are they doing? Bursting eardrums? Hardly. Besides, it's not like all those merchants aren't cashing in big time on the whole Christmas thing. It seems to me Christmas needs more Sally Ann, not less:
Apparently some in Toronto see it differently. CBC News reports that two of Toronto's largest malls, Eaton Centre and Fairview, are banning the Sally Ann bells, citing noise complaints.
Seriously, what are they doing? Bursting eardrums? Hardly. Besides, it's not like all those merchants aren't cashing in big time on the whole Christmas thing. It seems to me Christmas needs more Sally Ann, not less:
Monbiot Scolds Canada's Environmental Darth Vader
The Guardian's environmental guru, George Monbiot, has a bone to pick with British Columbia's Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace. It's an interesting, albeit mildly troubling, piece.
Harper's Flaccid Stimulus
The Harper-Ignatieff stimulus budget was a flop. Intended to create jobs in the face of an onrushing recession, it hardly made a dent according to Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page.
The survey by Phoenix Strategic Perspectives was done in the midst of the 2010 construction season and was commissioned by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
“It doesn’t score well on the employment side,” Mr. Page said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “You’re spending a lot of money and it’s not creating very much in terms of jobs.”
The survey found the program was largely viewed as well run, but a summary report concludes only 33.3 per cent said the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund had a beneficial impact on unemployment. Its impact on unemployment was assessed as neutral by 43.3 per cent and negative by 20.6 per cent.
The Globe & Mail, naturally, frames the survey as going to the validity of Keynesian theory that government intervention and deficits are required in recessionary times. In my view, the Globe take is pathetically simplistic. If you search "pinata" on this blog you'll see what I'm getting at.
Back even before Harper first prorogued Parliament we knew there was going to be some sort of stimulus package forthcoming. It was then that I pointed out what Harper and his clone never understood - pumping money into the economy works but it has to be put to work very strategically. It has to be "new" spending and that money has to go on actual new investments that will pay back the taxpayers in the long run. To achieve that the government itself must not only provide the cash injection but also identify the areas in which it will be "invested."
The Harper-Iganatieff "Pinata Budget" failed at the outset because it simply threw money around without controlling it. You could put a deck on the cottage that you might have been planning on doing anyway. The only difference there was that the government gave you a tax deduction for no net benefit to the country. Provincial and municipal authorities were able to do the same sleight of hand spending only on a greater scale.
I know the scam because I did it. I was going to have some structural landscaping done and along comes the Pinata Budget so I'm suddenly able to deduct the cost on my taxes. Nobody got hired who wasn't going to be hired. Nothing got bought or spent that wasn't going to be bought or spent. All that happened was that the federal government went into deficit to give me a tax break - for nothing, absolutely nothing.
They could have kept that borrowed money and used it to construct a high-speed rail line, or a new electricity grid, or a host of other projects that would have generated real returns to the taxpayers in the decades to come when those deficits will have to be paid off. But they wouldn't do that. Harper was too ideologically bound to take responsibility for the money he was shovelling out and Ignatieff, fresh from writing a wonderful book about his mother's family, had no alternative plan which left the Liberals no choice but to back the farce of a stimulus budget. Oh yeah, they put Stephen Harper "on probation." Gag.
It is utterly irrelevant that the plan was administered well. What matters is not how the plan was administered but whether it was sound - and it wasn't. It was a loser from the start and it is to the current Liberal management's shame that they were complicit in it.
The survey by Phoenix Strategic Perspectives was done in the midst of the 2010 construction season and was commissioned by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
“It doesn’t score well on the employment side,” Mr. Page said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “You’re spending a lot of money and it’s not creating very much in terms of jobs.”
The survey found the program was largely viewed as well run, but a summary report concludes only 33.3 per cent said the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund had a beneficial impact on unemployment. Its impact on unemployment was assessed as neutral by 43.3 per cent and negative by 20.6 per cent.
The Globe & Mail, naturally, frames the survey as going to the validity of Keynesian theory that government intervention and deficits are required in recessionary times. In my view, the Globe take is pathetically simplistic. If you search "pinata" on this blog you'll see what I'm getting at.
Back even before Harper first prorogued Parliament we knew there was going to be some sort of stimulus package forthcoming. It was then that I pointed out what Harper and his clone never understood - pumping money into the economy works but it has to be put to work very strategically. It has to be "new" spending and that money has to go on actual new investments that will pay back the taxpayers in the long run. To achieve that the government itself must not only provide the cash injection but also identify the areas in which it will be "invested."
The Harper-Iganatieff "Pinata Budget" failed at the outset because it simply threw money around without controlling it. You could put a deck on the cottage that you might have been planning on doing anyway. The only difference there was that the government gave you a tax deduction for no net benefit to the country. Provincial and municipal authorities were able to do the same sleight of hand spending only on a greater scale.
I know the scam because I did it. I was going to have some structural landscaping done and along comes the Pinata Budget so I'm suddenly able to deduct the cost on my taxes. Nobody got hired who wasn't going to be hired. Nothing got bought or spent that wasn't going to be bought or spent. All that happened was that the federal government went into deficit to give me a tax break - for nothing, absolutely nothing.
They could have kept that borrowed money and used it to construct a high-speed rail line, or a new electricity grid, or a host of other projects that would have generated real returns to the taxpayers in the decades to come when those deficits will have to be paid off. But they wouldn't do that. Harper was too ideologically bound to take responsibility for the money he was shovelling out and Ignatieff, fresh from writing a wonderful book about his mother's family, had no alternative plan which left the Liberals no choice but to back the farce of a stimulus budget. Oh yeah, they put Stephen Harper "on probation." Gag.
It is utterly irrelevant that the plan was administered well. What matters is not how the plan was administered but whether it was sound - and it wasn't. It was a loser from the start and it is to the current Liberal management's shame that they were complicit in it.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Is Atheism Irreverant?
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
WikiLeaks? You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
The Guardian's executive investigations editor, David Leigh, says there are many powerful disclosures yet to be revealed from the WikiLeaks dump of U.S. diplomatic cables.
Meanwhile, Noam Chomsky says the leaked diplomatic messages reveal a "profound hatred of democracy on the part of [America's] political leadership."
Meanwhile, Noam Chomsky says the leaked diplomatic messages reveal a "profound hatred of democracy on the part of [America's] political leadership."
The North Will Rise Again. Let's Hope Not.
Asia Times Online reports an insurrection is brewing in Afghanistan, one that could leave Western forces stuck in the midst of a full-blown civil war beyond our control. This time it won't be the Pashtun Taliban in rebellion against Kabul but another rebellion by the northern tribes.
The ongoing insurgency in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan rightly commands attention, but it obscures a critical second conflict in the country. Long-standing antagonism between the non-Pashtun peoples of the north and the Pashtun people of the south are heading toward fissure. Paradoxically, settlement of the insurgency, through negotiation or force of arms, could exacerbate this divide.
...The center of the demographic dispute is the size of the Pashtun peoples of the south and east, who, on only sparing evidence, purport to be about 52% to 55% of the population and have so claimed since the 19th century.
Other groups, however, disagree. They insist that the Pashtun are perhaps slightly more than 40% of the population, while disinterested assessments say Northerners constitute 45% to 50% of the population. The dispute is not merely a matter for demographers or even for the issue of moneys doled out from Kabul. It now centers on who will preside over Afghanistan - and indeed if there will be an Afghanistan as presently constituted.
For a century or more the question of Pashtun majority could sit on the back-burner as most Afghans had far more interest in local government than in events in faraway Kabul where figures reigned but dared not rule. But decades of war and inept or intolerable central governments have brought the matter to the fore.
Over the past nine years, however, northerners have seen their politicians pushed out of key ministries, especially the Ministry of Defense, which was once administered by the Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim. That portfolio is now in the hands of Abdul Wardak, a Pashtun who has used his office to reassert his people's predominance in key military commands and simultaneously vitiated the militias of northern warlords. Northerners have been reduced to the rank-and-file of the Afghan National Army and ceremonial positions such as the country's two vice presidencies.
Outsiders have criticized the presidential and parliamentary elections as fraudulent. Karzai is widely believed to have interfered with local polling stations and given himself and his supporters wide victory margins. Northerners certainly agree but insist that outsiders miss an important aspect of Karzai's fraudulence. He not only inflated the national support for himself and his supporters, he also suppressed evidence of non-Pashtun voters and their support for Tajik, Uzbek, and other peoples' candidates. Pashtun politicians counter by insisting that it is the northerners who are tampering with the ballot box to overstate their numbers.
It should have been obvious to anyone, and particularly to our political and military leadership, that since Western forces went into Afghanistan beginning in 2001, we were merely babysitting an unresolved civil war. We virtually guaranteed this civil war would eventually reconstitute when we decided, out of expedience, to perpetuate, even embrace, the dual scourges of warlordism and tribalism. No modern, viable Muslim state has ever arisen without first overcoming both warlordism and tribalism. By ignoring that reality, we reduced our war in Afghanistan to merely banging away on Afghans for no lasting good.
The time we could have done some good for the Afghan people is long past. It expired while those goddamned fools Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld failed Afghanistan in their blind rush to conquer Iraq.
All the King's Horses and all the King's Men...
The ongoing insurgency in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan rightly commands attention, but it obscures a critical second conflict in the country. Long-standing antagonism between the non-Pashtun peoples of the north and the Pashtun people of the south are heading toward fissure. Paradoxically, settlement of the insurgency, through negotiation or force of arms, could exacerbate this divide.
...The center of the demographic dispute is the size of the Pashtun peoples of the south and east, who, on only sparing evidence, purport to be about 52% to 55% of the population and have so claimed since the 19th century.
Other groups, however, disagree. They insist that the Pashtun are perhaps slightly more than 40% of the population, while disinterested assessments say Northerners constitute 45% to 50% of the population. The dispute is not merely a matter for demographers or even for the issue of moneys doled out from Kabul. It now centers on who will preside over Afghanistan - and indeed if there will be an Afghanistan as presently constituted.
For a century or more the question of Pashtun majority could sit on the back-burner as most Afghans had far more interest in local government than in events in faraway Kabul where figures reigned but dared not rule. But decades of war and inept or intolerable central governments have brought the matter to the fore.
Over the past nine years, however, northerners have seen their politicians pushed out of key ministries, especially the Ministry of Defense, which was once administered by the Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim. That portfolio is now in the hands of Abdul Wardak, a Pashtun who has used his office to reassert his people's predominance in key military commands and simultaneously vitiated the militias of northern warlords. Northerners have been reduced to the rank-and-file of the Afghan National Army and ceremonial positions such as the country's two vice presidencies.
Outsiders have criticized the presidential and parliamentary elections as fraudulent. Karzai is widely believed to have interfered with local polling stations and given himself and his supporters wide victory margins. Northerners certainly agree but insist that outsiders miss an important aspect of Karzai's fraudulence. He not only inflated the national support for himself and his supporters, he also suppressed evidence of non-Pashtun voters and their support for Tajik, Uzbek, and other peoples' candidates. Pashtun politicians counter by insisting that it is the northerners who are tampering with the ballot box to overstate their numbers.
It should have been obvious to anyone, and particularly to our political and military leadership, that since Western forces went into Afghanistan beginning in 2001, we were merely babysitting an unresolved civil war. We virtually guaranteed this civil war would eventually reconstitute when we decided, out of expedience, to perpetuate, even embrace, the dual scourges of warlordism and tribalism. No modern, viable Muslim state has ever arisen without first overcoming both warlordism and tribalism. By ignoring that reality, we reduced our war in Afghanistan to merely banging away on Afghans for no lasting good.
The time we could have done some good for the Afghan people is long past. It expired while those goddamned fools Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld failed Afghanistan in their blind rush to conquer Iraq.
All the King's Horses and all the King's Men...
Rolling the Dice - Geo-Engineering the Planet
Game On! Quietly acknowledging we haven't got much hope of getting greenhouse gas emissions under control in time to prevent catastrophic as in runaway global warming, UN scientists will begin preparing an analysis of geo-engineering options to be presented at next year's UN climate summit. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
Later this year IPCC ''expert groups'' will meet in Peru to discuss geo-engineering. Options include putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or covering Greenland in a massive ''blanket'' so it does not melt.
Sprinkling iron filings in the ocean ''fertilizes'' algae, which absorbs CO2 and ''seeding clouds'' means that sunlight is blocked. Other options include artificial ''trees'' that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, and human-made volcanoes that spray sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun's rays back into space.
Okay, we're getting ready to roll the dice. These are uncharted waters. No one really knows if any of these things will work but that's not the main problem. What's also unknown, perhaps unknowable before they're implemented, is whether they'll blow up in our faces producing side effects no one could contemplate. Figuring out what something might do is a fairly direct problem. Assuring yourself about everything it won't do is an order of magnitude more complex. In other words, it's desperation time, the Hail Mary play.
What is or perhaps should be the greatest concern about geo-engineering solutions is that they increase our focus on global warming in isolation of the several other, potentially existential challenges facing mankind this century. Geo-engineering solutions to stop warming won't resolve desertification, deforestation, air/soil/water contamination, ocean acidification, overpopulation, species extinction, resource depletion and exhaustion, the freshwater crisis that is already rapidly setting in, nuclear proliferation, terrorism or any other global security threat.
Geo-engineering global warming solutions may actually make these other threats even more intractable. Geo-engineering will relieve us of having to address the fundamental flaws and imbalances in global economics, industrialism and geo-politics, the very toxic influences that underlie all the other threats that continue to imperil mankind. Know that adage about being unable to see the forest for the trees? Well, this is it.
Later this year IPCC ''expert groups'' will meet in Peru to discuss geo-engineering. Options include putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or covering Greenland in a massive ''blanket'' so it does not melt.
Sprinkling iron filings in the ocean ''fertilizes'' algae, which absorbs CO2 and ''seeding clouds'' means that sunlight is blocked. Other options include artificial ''trees'' that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, and human-made volcanoes that spray sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun's rays back into space.
Okay, we're getting ready to roll the dice. These are uncharted waters. No one really knows if any of these things will work but that's not the main problem. What's also unknown, perhaps unknowable before they're implemented, is whether they'll blow up in our faces producing side effects no one could contemplate. Figuring out what something might do is a fairly direct problem. Assuring yourself about everything it won't do is an order of magnitude more complex. In other words, it's desperation time, the Hail Mary play.
What is or perhaps should be the greatest concern about geo-engineering solutions is that they increase our focus on global warming in isolation of the several other, potentially existential challenges facing mankind this century. Geo-engineering solutions to stop warming won't resolve desertification, deforestation, air/soil/water contamination, ocean acidification, overpopulation, species extinction, resource depletion and exhaustion, the freshwater crisis that is already rapidly setting in, nuclear proliferation, terrorism or any other global security threat.
Geo-engineering global warming solutions may actually make these other threats even more intractable. Geo-engineering will relieve us of having to address the fundamental flaws and imbalances in global economics, industrialism and geo-politics, the very toxic influences that underlie all the other threats that continue to imperil mankind. Know that adage about being unable to see the forest for the trees? Well, this is it.
Will American Hypocrisy Doom COP16, Cancun?
The United States appears to be playing tough guy at the UN Climate Summit in Cancun. There's speculation that America's "all or nothing" demands could see the US delegation simply walk out.
Basically, the US wants any agreement on adaptation finance, technology, deforestation, etc., to incorporate tough terms for emissions cuts by emerging economies (i.e. China and India) and a verifiable system of auditing those cuts.
That might sound reasonable if America's Congress was intent on cutting US emissions to acknowledge its per capita emissions imbalance, but it's not. Anything but. The Republican-majority House of Representatives is packed to the gunwales with climate change denialists and is openly planning on blocking any emissions reductions initiatives.
It's a repeat of the same stupid child's game that's been going on for some time. America, whose per capita emissions are massive compared to the emerging economies, wants to mask that by focusing on overall emissions, country by country. China and India, whose populations dwarf America's, want the per capita emissions factored in. China also wants some recognition that a good deal of its overall emissions come from producing goods that are ordered for American store shelves. They argue that the end-user shares responsibility for the emissions from the goods they consume no matter where they're manufactured. Of course that would blow America's overall and per capita emissions right through the roof so there'll be no concessions on that approach.
The hard line – which some in Washington have seen as ritual diplomatic posturing – has fuelled speculation that the Obama administration could be prepared to walk out of the Cancún talks.
It is already under pressure for its green agenda from a new conservative Republican power bloc in Congress determined to block the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to act on greenhouse gases and other sources of pollution, and defund programmes dealing with climate change. There is next to no chance Congress would take up cap-and-trade legislation or ratify any UN treaty.
The administration's weak domestic position, in turn, has cast doubts on its ability to deliver even the very modest 17% cut on 2005 emissions Obama agreed at the Copenhagen summit last year.
But a walk-out would wreck any lingering hopes that small progress in Cancún might put the UN negotiations process back on track after the debacle of Copenhagen.
Mexico's Calderon hit the nail on the head when he said delegates have to stop approaching these talks from the perspective of their own governments and instead stand up for their countries' future generations. He's right. Once you shift that focus, the problem and the solutions become alarmingly obvious.
Basically, the US wants any agreement on adaptation finance, technology, deforestation, etc., to incorporate tough terms for emissions cuts by emerging economies (i.e. China and India) and a verifiable system of auditing those cuts.
That might sound reasonable if America's Congress was intent on cutting US emissions to acknowledge its per capita emissions imbalance, but it's not. Anything but. The Republican-majority House of Representatives is packed to the gunwales with climate change denialists and is openly planning on blocking any emissions reductions initiatives.
It's a repeat of the same stupid child's game that's been going on for some time. America, whose per capita emissions are massive compared to the emerging economies, wants to mask that by focusing on overall emissions, country by country. China and India, whose populations dwarf America's, want the per capita emissions factored in. China also wants some recognition that a good deal of its overall emissions come from producing goods that are ordered for American store shelves. They argue that the end-user shares responsibility for the emissions from the goods they consume no matter where they're manufactured. Of course that would blow America's overall and per capita emissions right through the roof so there'll be no concessions on that approach.
The hard line – which some in Washington have seen as ritual diplomatic posturing – has fuelled speculation that the Obama administration could be prepared to walk out of the Cancún talks.
It is already under pressure for its green agenda from a new conservative Republican power bloc in Congress determined to block the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to act on greenhouse gases and other sources of pollution, and defund programmes dealing with climate change. There is next to no chance Congress would take up cap-and-trade legislation or ratify any UN treaty.
The administration's weak domestic position, in turn, has cast doubts on its ability to deliver even the very modest 17% cut on 2005 emissions Obama agreed at the Copenhagen summit last year.
But a walk-out would wreck any lingering hopes that small progress in Cancún might put the UN negotiations process back on track after the debacle of Copenhagen.
Mexico's Calderon hit the nail on the head when he said delegates have to stop approaching these talks from the perspective of their own governments and instead stand up for their countries' future generations. He's right. Once you shift that focus, the problem and the solutions become alarmingly obvious.
Uganada, Ghana, Now Kenya - Africa's War on Gays
Well it's "Mission Accomplished" for the Christo-Fascist evangelists who've worked so hard to convince Africans that homosexuals present a dire threat to their children and their societies. Now it's Kenya where the Prime Minister Raila Odinga has ordered a nationwide crackdown on gays.
Addressing a rally in Nairobi on 28 November, Odinga ordered the police to arrest and bring criminal charges against anyone found engaging in sex with someone of the same gender. He added that the country’s constitution made it clear that homosexual activity was not tolerated.
...Homophobia is widespread in Kenya, but this is the first time such a senior political figure has openly called for legal action against homosexuals. In October, a cabinet minister who called for tolerance towards gays was urged to resign for promoting “un-African” culture.
Joseph Musili, a local pastor, said he fully backed the prime minister. “I am happy, but it took him too long; this is something he should have ordered a long time ago because you can’t allow things like homosexuality under the pretext of human rights and expect to have a moral society,” he said.
As reported here yesterday, U.S. evangelists have been instrumental in stoking the fires of homophobia in Africa where Uganda is proposing to make homosexuality a capital offence.
Addressing a rally in Nairobi on 28 November, Odinga ordered the police to arrest and bring criminal charges against anyone found engaging in sex with someone of the same gender. He added that the country’s constitution made it clear that homosexual activity was not tolerated.
...Homophobia is widespread in Kenya, but this is the first time such a senior political figure has openly called for legal action against homosexuals. In October, a cabinet minister who called for tolerance towards gays was urged to resign for promoting “un-African” culture.
Joseph Musili, a local pastor, said he fully backed the prime minister. “I am happy, but it took him too long; this is something he should have ordered a long time ago because you can’t allow things like homosexuality under the pretext of human rights and expect to have a moral society,” he said.
As reported here yesterday, U.S. evangelists have been instrumental in stoking the fires of homophobia in Africa where Uganda is proposing to make homosexuality a capital offence.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Would a Fresh, Moderate Leader Give the Conservatives Their Majority?
The Canadian people have mumbled: we don't trust Stephen Harper enough to give him a majority but we don't distrust him enough to return the Liberals to power either.
In a sense, weak Liberal leadership is the best thing Harper has going for him just as Stephen Harper's machinations keep the Liberals in the game. It's a Mexican standoff. But what if the Conservatives got smart and brought in a new gun, a moderate who could connect with the Canadian voter, someone in the mold of an old style "progressive" conservative?
My guess? I'm pretty sure that'd be a slam dunk for the Tories. They don't need to push a lot more buttons to get the five or six percentage swing needed to get into majority range. God knows the Liberals haven't reached the disaffected vote and the Tories have certainly gotten in there before. They know the way back.
I think the Canadian public is ready for a progressive conservative government - from the Tories, not the Liberals. Iggy's journey into the centre-right really hasn't paid off for the party, has it? C'mon, be realistic. He may have no end of fine qualities and talents but, politically, he's a dud.
If Harper & Company open the door to a moderate successor I'd bet Liberal support will collapse.
In a sense, weak Liberal leadership is the best thing Harper has going for him just as Stephen Harper's machinations keep the Liberals in the game. It's a Mexican standoff. But what if the Conservatives got smart and brought in a new gun, a moderate who could connect with the Canadian voter, someone in the mold of an old style "progressive" conservative?
My guess? I'm pretty sure that'd be a slam dunk for the Tories. They don't need to push a lot more buttons to get the five or six percentage swing needed to get into majority range. God knows the Liberals haven't reached the disaffected vote and the Tories have certainly gotten in there before. They know the way back.
I think the Canadian public is ready for a progressive conservative government - from the Tories, not the Liberals. Iggy's journey into the centre-right really hasn't paid off for the party, has it? C'mon, be realistic. He may have no end of fine qualities and talents but, politically, he's a dud.
If Harper & Company open the door to a moderate successor I'd bet Liberal support will collapse.
Six NATO Troops Shot by Afghan Trainee
Six NATO instructors were shot and killed by a man wearing an Afghan Border Police uniform during a training exercise.
The incident appeared to be the latest in a string of recent attacks by “rogue” police and soldiers, underlining the pressure on NATO-led troops as they try to train Afghan forces rapidly to allow the handover of security responsibility from next year.
Afghan authorities said last year they were tightening vetting procedures for the police and army after a similar incident when a renegade soldier killed five British troops on Nov. 3, 2009.
The Nangarhar shooting was the worst casualty toll suffered by ISAF since eight troops were killed in five separate incidents on Oct. 14.
“An individual in an Afghan Border Police uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Forces during a training mission today, killing six servicemembers in eastern Afghanistan,” ISAF said in a statement.
The statement said the person who shot the troops was also killed. ISAF said the shooting was being investigated but it gave no other details, including the nationality of those killed.
I expect the rebels will be stepping up their efforts to infiltrate ISAF training operations over the coming year. They do it because of the message it sends to the people at home in the West.
The incident appeared to be the latest in a string of recent attacks by “rogue” police and soldiers, underlining the pressure on NATO-led troops as they try to train Afghan forces rapidly to allow the handover of security responsibility from next year.
Afghan authorities said last year they were tightening vetting procedures for the police and army after a similar incident when a renegade soldier killed five British troops on Nov. 3, 2009.
The Nangarhar shooting was the worst casualty toll suffered by ISAF since eight troops were killed in five separate incidents on Oct. 14.
“An individual in an Afghan Border Police uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Forces during a training mission today, killing six servicemembers in eastern Afghanistan,” ISAF said in a statement.
The statement said the person who shot the troops was also killed. ISAF said the shooting was being investigated but it gave no other details, including the nationality of those killed.
I expect the rebels will be stepping up their efforts to infiltrate ISAF training operations over the coming year. They do it because of the message it sends to the people at home in the West.
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