You Know a General Is Lying When...

There's a line in Andrew Bacevich's book The New American Militarism to describe America's decade long Vietnam misadventure not as a ten-year war but as a one-year war fought ten times.  That seems like an apt metaphor for our nine-year and counting war in Afghanistan.

US commander, uber-General David Petraeus seems to think so.  In fact, it's that sort of logic that forms the basis of his recent remarks that progress in Afghanistan is going to take time.   From Associated Press:

"...Progress in Afghanistan only began this spring and needs time to take root, Army Gen. David Petraeus said in comments broadcast Sunday that were aimed at shoring up American support for the war.

Petraeus said in the interview that the war only recently has been given the right "inputs," or resources: more U.S. and Afghan troops to take over Taliban territory and more civilians to restore services to the population.



"There is understandable concern and, (in) some cases, frustration," Petraeus said. "Therefore we have got to really put our shoulders to the wheel and show during the course of this year that progress can be achieved."


Petraeus described Afghanistan as a tough and enduring fight that would require its "character and its size being scaled down over the years." If the U.S. loses, there would likely be a bloody civil war followed by a takeover by extremists. If the U.S. succeeds and Afghanistan stabilizes, the country could become the region's new "Silk Road" with the potential to extract trillions of dollars worth of minerals, he said."

Sorry, Dave, but Afghanistan has already turned into a "bloody civil war."  It transitioned from insurgency to civil war when the Taliban began occupying territory and establishing their own administration with security, law enforcement and judicial functions.   As for all that mineral wealth, why are the Chinese locking up the rights to that stuff while the West is doing all the fighting?  Silk Road, my arse.


"...But the goal is not to turn Afghanistan into an industrialized democracy, he said. Even if the nation relies heavily on tribal councils for governance, the central government in Kabul could still run the nation effectively without influence from extremist groups such as al-Qaida."

So, in essence, Petraeus is saying that the Bush/Cheney regime and the Pentagon that so duly served its every whim were just screwing around for the first seven years of this miserable war, not giving the conflict the "right inputs or resources."   Curious we didn't hear anything about that from the Pentagon all those years.   Curious the Canadian Parliament wasn't getting that warning from the guy who ought to have known up here, Rick "Big Cod" Hillier.

One of the disturbing aspects of 21st century Western militarism is the utter lack of accountability at the highest echelons, military and political.   In today's "long wars", winning often becomes a function of not losing until you can fob the war off on your successor, make it "his" war to lose.   If there was ever a formula for war without end, that's it.  It's waging war simply to fight, not to win.   Yet despite the treasure and lives squandered in this folly, no one is held accountable for it.  Breathtaking.

The Future of Clean, Alternative Energy

This is the AK-1000 tidal turbine soon to be installed on the seabed off Scotland.  Its 18-metre blades are expected to generate enough electricity to power 1,000 homes, day in-day out.   In many coastal areas, tidal power is by far the most reliable.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, British Columbia has a fantastic site for this sort of turbine along the entire 120-km. narrows where Vancouver Island approaches the mainland.   The narrows, stretching from well north of Sayward south all the way to Campbell River, are known for incredibly fast, even treacherous currents.   In some spots even the orca wait patiently for slack tide before passing through.

The CEO of the company that makes the AK-1000, Timothy Cornelius, says tidal energy is now viable.  "We are at the start of a new industrial boom, akin to the development of the North Sea oil and gas fields. If we receive the same support from all levels of government that the oil and gas industry received to make the North Sea the success that it is, then the future is very bright for marine power and even brighter for Scotland."

Friday Night and the Late, Great Zevon

Taken much too early, the great Warren Zevon:





Zevon, nearing the end, takes his leave on Letterman.   What a bittersweet memory.   Like many Zevon followers, we knew the guy had terminal lung cancer.   That made Letterman's tribute show powerfully significant to his fans.  Who but a real friend like Letterman could handle this?   My Ride's Here:



There are three more parts to the Letterman/Zevon show available on YouTube.

British Columbia's Great Untapped Clean Energy Option

British Columbia has an astonishing untapped source of clean energy.  It's found in the narrow passage between Vancouver Island and the mainland that runs from north of Sayward all the way down to Campbell River.  It's a treacherous stretch of water renowned for its high tidal currents, two highs and two lows, each and every day without fail.

The Brits have extensive experience with seabed turbine generators and now the Americans are going the same route.  Washington state's Snohomish country public utility district has applied to the feds for permission to put two of these turbines in Puget Sound.

Positioned carefully on the seabed, British Columbia could have a train of these turbine generators running steadily all day except for the brief slack tides.  It's energy that's there for the taking and unlike wind or solar energy it is absolutely reliable so long as Earth has the Moon.

The Long War and a Father Torn

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it.

 I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check.

It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

                                                                     -  Andrew Bacevich, on the death of his son in Iraq in 2007.

I'm just beginning to explore the writings of Andrew Bacevich after seeing him interviewed by Rachel Maddow a couple of weeks back.  He seems to be an extraordinary man of extraordinary vision.   A career soldier he served from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf before retiring as a colonel in the 1990s.  He holds a PhD in American diplomatic history from Princeton and has taught at West Point, John Hopkins University and Boston University.  His son, Andrew J. Bacevich Jr., also served as a lieutenant in the US Army until he was killed in Iraq by an IED in May, 2007.

I provide the background as an introduction to an incredibly moving item Bacevich wrote in the Washington Post following the death of his son.  It's a  powerful read if you're up to it.

Even before the death of his son, Bacevich was an outspoken critic of American imperialist militarism and what he calls "the long war" that America can never win.  I've just received two of his books,  Washington Rules, America's Path to Permanent War, 2010, and The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, 2005.  I expect to be reviewing them in due course.  I'm also hoping to get my hands on his latest book, American Military and the Myth of Civilian Control.

Bacevich's world view is a refreshing contrast to the dark visions of Canada's political leadership.  I guess that's because he's not just a first class intellectual but also a career soldier and father to a son whose life was sacrificed to a hopeless imperialist fantasy.

  

Wake Up Iggy. Climate Change Has Arrived and It's Here to Stay

I can understand why Slippery Steve Harper shuns climate change as a vampire to daylight but for the life of me I cannot grasp why Michael Ignatieff has to go the same route.

Global warming driven climate change is here.  Weather-related stories are on virtually every front page, every day.   Not only is climate change the new staple of the news business, they're almost never good news.

The World Meterological Organization warns that the climate disasters that have plagued the world over the past two months are entirely consistent with patterns predicted by climate scientists.  From the Toronto Star:

From smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Pakistan, a sweltering southern Ontario and the High Arctic, the planet seems to be having a midsummer breakdown. It's not just a portent of things to come, scientists say, but a sign of troubling climate change already under way.

..."There is no time to waste," because societies must be equipped to deal with global warming, says British government climatologist Peter Stott.



He said modelers of climate systems are "very keen" to develop supercomputer modeling that would enable more detailed linking of cause and effect as a warming world shifts jet streams and other atmospheric currents. Those changes can wreak weather havoc.

The article goes on with a survey of some of the weather disasters that have taken place of the past few months.   Read more here.

Look, global warming is happening.  It's not something to worry about in 2030 or 2050.  It's already here and it's going to keep getting worse and much worse if we don't address the problem.

You can't support the expansion of the planet's filthiest fossil fuel disaster, the Athabasca Tar Sands, and claim to be serious about the threats climate change poses to the world and our own nation.  In other words, you have to chose the Tar Sands or Canada.  It's that simple.

What's it going to be Ignatieff, bitumen or the Canadian people, short term profits or the welfare of future generations?   Once again you've planted yourself on the wrong side of an important issue but this time it's beyond important, it's critical and it's immediate.

Some devout Liberals claim the party can't afford to get rid of Ignatieff because that would weaken the party and hand Harper a majority.   If that's what you really believe you have to get this guy to change his mind on the Tar Sands and get a grasp of the global warming problem.  It's up to you to reset Iggy's priorities.

This is an issue the Liberal Party should absolutely own, one that is the LPC's for the taking.   As Stott warns, there's no time to waste.   Societies, including our own, must be equipped to deal with global warming.   Our government hasn't begun to get useful, reliable information out to the public on what's coming and what options we have for adaptation and remediation.   Harper has deliberately kept us in the dark and the Libs have let him get away with it.  

Environment Canada has all the information we need.  Force Harper to get that information out to the public and local authorities.   Without it we'll be hard pressed to effectively assess, plan and implement solutions.   That takes time and we've already wasted years thanks to an indifferent government and an incompetent opposition.   There is no more time to waste.

America's Tough Decision

The American people are going to have to make a hard call very soon.   Do they want their country to stay embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan and, for many Americans, that's an incredibly tough call.

Iraq is heading south, fast.  Remember the Petraeus "Surge" and the "Awakening" under which Sunni resistance fighters, with American backing and money, turned on their former al-Qaeda comrades?  Well, that was then, this is now.   The American media are reporting that those former enemies turned allies are turning yet again, frustrated by a Shiite government that they believe hasn't kept its promises and lured to al-Qaeda by a better financial deal.   Oopsie, Surge unsurged!  The rebirth of the Sunni/Baathist resistance.  Damn!

Then there's Muqtada al Sadr and his long dormant Mahdi Army.  Muqtada has been laying low in Iran waiting to make his move and that's anticipated to coincide with next year's scheduled withdrawal of American forces.  Sadr is expected to make a move on the Shia leadership before launching a crackdown on the Sunni.  Any way you cut it, that's nothing but ugly.

Add to that the unresolved grievances and claims of the Kurds in the north, especially the flashpoint referendum on the future of Kirkuk and the surrounding, oil-rich region.   Out of fear of igniting a powderkeg that referendum has been put through a series of postponements but the Kurds will have to seize the region or face losing it once the Americans depart.  Great - Kurd versus Arab, Sunni & Shia.

Then there's neighbouring Iran waiting to back the most pro-Iranian figurehead that emerges from the struggles.  With Iraq's oilfields potentially in jeopardy, that's a bitter pill for the U.S. to swallow.

L. Paul Bremer, the American proconsul of Iraq who botched everything he touched there, may have got one thing right.   He predicted that all the key issues affecting the future path of Iraq would be decided after the United States' presence was gone.   That seems to be the way this is playing out.

Poor Barack Obama.   Bush bailed at the end of his second term, dumping this steaming load of horse manure in his successor's lap.  That's the best exit any Frat Boy could hope for and he got it.   Now Obama has to take the hiding for leaving Iraq and watching it fall apart or staying and ensuring it fails later.  Some choice.

And how Obama decides to deal with Iraq will reverberate both on Main Street, USA and in Kabul, Afghanistan where he's saddled with Bush's other misconceived, misconducted and hapless war of whim.  How Obama plays the Iraq conundrum will shape his policies on Afghanistan.  He runs a very real risk of failing on both wars.

A Chinese General Calls for Democracy

People's Liberation Army General Liu Yazhou is poking China's Communist rulers with a sharp stick.  Writing in the prominent Hong Kong magazine Phoenix, Liu warns that China has two choices - embrace democracy or face Soviet-style collapse.   From the Sydney Morning Herald:

As officers of similar rank rattle their sabres against US aircraft carriers in the Yellow and South China seas, General Liu Yazhou says China's rise depends on adopting America's system of government rather than challenging its dominance off China's eastern coast.



''If a system fails to let its citizens breathe freely and release their creativity to the maximum extent, and fails to place those who best represent the system and its people into leadership positions, it is certain to perish,'' writes General Liu Yazhou in Hong Kong's Phoenix magazine, which is widely available on news stands and on the internet throughout China.

''The secret of US success is neither Wall Street nor Silicon Valley, but its long-surviving rule of law and the system behind it,'' he says. ''The American system is said to be 'designed by genius and for the operation of the stupid'.


''A bad system makes a good person behave badly while a good system makes a bad person behave well. Democracy is the most urgent thing, without it there can be no sustainable rise.''

General Liu's latest writings are extraordinary by any standards. His article urges China to shift its strategic focus from the country's developed coastal areas, including Hong Kong and Taiwan - ''the renminbi belt'' - towards resource-rich Central Asia.



But he argues that China will never have strategic reach by relying on wealth alone. ''A nation that is mindful only of the power of money is a backward and stupid nation,'' he writes. ''What we could believe in is the power of the truth.


''The truth is knowledge and knowledge is power.''


But such national power can only come with political transformation. ''In the coming 10 years, a transformation from power politics to democracy will inevitably take place,'' he says.


General Liu inverts the lesson that Chinese politicians have traditionally drawn from the collapse of the Soviet Union - that it was caused by too much political reform - by arguing that reform arrived too late.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on General Liu.  How he fares could be an important telltale to the future of China.

If You Want to Turn Those Polls Into Something, You Need to Fix What's Broken

There's something telling in the way Canadian polls on the federal parties seesaw back and forth.  From what I've seen they're usually tied to Harper screwups.   Harper goes ideologue and his numbers dip, sometimes enough to bring the Libs into 'statistical tie' territory.  Harper backs off and his modest lead returns.  It's like clockwork.

What this seems to suggest is that Harper drives the polls.   In other words, the Libs can expect to win when Harper self-destructs.  That's unacceptable.

What the polls appear to show is that the Libs need to focus not on Harper's failures but their own.  Michael Ignatieff should be seizing the initiative, taking the fight to Harper.   He ought to be acting much like Harper did when he took down Paul Martin.  Two problems - one, you can't really do that on the beer'n burger circuit, and, two, that's tough to pull off when you've positioned yourself so closely to your opponent.

What issues do the Libs have where they're so superior to Harper they'll motivate disenchanted, disengaged voters to show up at the polls to dump the Tories?   That's the only place the Libs are going to find the votes they need to retake power - the disengaged voter who has simply tuned out federal politics.  What electoral arrows do the Libs currently have in their quiver?  Arts funding, daycare?  C'mon, get real.  You're not going to beat Steve over the head with that stuff.

What about Afghanistan?  Martin might have been hoodwinked into the Kandahar gig but Harper embraced it, made it his very own.  Had the Libs stood their ground on the 2009 deadline, it might have cost them a bit initially but it would have stuck Harper with that foolish misadventure and cost him dearly afterward.  Instead he squirmed right off that hook and now it's Ignatieff and Rae looking to drag out this fiasco.  Good issue, dead loss for the Libs.

The economy?  Ever since the great recession landed in 2008 the Libs have abjectly failed to present an alternative economic initiative.   Instead Ignatieff was forced to back the Harper-Ignatieff Pinata budget and, even then, made a fool out of the Liberal opposition with his grandiose but hollow threats about putting Harper "on probation."   Geez that makes me wince every time I recall it.   No, sorry, way too close to Harper.   No room to swing even if you knew how to land a punch.

How about the environment, Canada's existential threat of the 21st century?   The Tories past paid dearly for accusing Jean Chretien of speaking out of two sides of his mouth but the Libs have painted themselves in just that corner on this one.  You cannot be a Tar Sands booster and appear serious about fighting climate change.  It can't be done.  The IgLibs have declared themselves inveterate Fossil Fuelers and they have failed to exploit Harper's vulnerability on global warming lest they reveal their own.   Once again, way too close to Harper.

Unfortunately there really is nothing useful for the Liberals at the centre-right.  It used to be the Libs succeeded by controlling the centre where, as needed, they could force the Tories farther to the right.  Now it's Harper who has control, who has managed to move to the centre-right where he's virtually immune to any effective IgLib opposition.  By blurring the distinction between Tory and Liberal, Harper ensures a disengaged, indifferent electorate and that's just what he needs.  It allows the Tories to retain power and to enjoy a complacent, timid opposition that, more often than not, can be maneuvered into advancing his agenda, bit by bit.

It's sad, really, to see this party so continuously mauled by a guy like Steve Harper but the Libs have no one to blame for that but themselves - and their leader.  Until you Libs fix what's broken you'll just have to sit around and hope Harper self-destructs.   Good luck with that.

North Carolina Needs Better Schools

Res Ipsa Loquitor

No Canadian Troops in Afghanistan After 2011 - Here's Why

There are some prominent Liberals who envision Canadian forces continuing to serve in Afghanistan beyond 2011 in a non-combat/training role.  In Afghanistan there is no mission for Canadian soldiers that won't be a combat mission.   That's the reality when your enemy is on the offensive, holds the initiative and has relatively free reign of the territory.

How many Canadian soldiers have died in direct combat with the Taliban?   Contrast that to how many of our troops have lost their lives to the by-now infamous "IED" or improvised explosive device.   That's how the Taliban prefers to bring the war to Western forces - stealthily and remotely.

I remember a few years ago watching an interview with a Canadian combat engineer whose job was to disarm IEDs.  Asked where the Talibs were getting the high explosives and other materials to make the devices, the soldier replied that Afghanistan was awash in the stuff after decades of war.   The only component that was hard to get, he claimed, were the "C" and "AA" cell batteries for the detonators.  They had to be trekked in from Pakistan.

No matter where our soldiers are based, even on a training mission, they have to secure the territory around them to ward off mortar and rocket attacks.   That means patrolling and that means trolling for IEDs.  That means more dead Canadian troops.  That's unacceptable.

Those who advocate a continued Canadian presence in Afghanistan are dishonest or delusional.  They've completely forgotten why we went to Kandahar - to take pressure off the Americans when Bush/Cheney decided to go play in the sandbox of Iraq instead.   That's why we committed to go there for a specified term of years.  We weren't there to win the war, we weren't there to achieve peace for the Afghans.  We were there to plug a hole for a few years.

Remember when we were scheduled to leave in 2009?   Remember when the former Liberal leader put his foot down and insisted we stay with that deadline - until he didn't?  That's how we got a new deadline, 2011.  We gave the Americans two more years.

That's a lot of giving for a place like Afghanistan.   The casualties actually have been pretty modest compared to previous wars Canada has fought.   In earlier wars there were several instances when we suffered more dead in one day - or one night.   But those wars meant something.   We weren't fighting to defend a thoroughly rotten government like Hamid Karzai's.  We weren't fighting to preserve a narco-state.  We weren't fighting someone else's civil war.

We need to train Afghan troops.   Now that's borderline hilarious.  What exactly has prevented us from fielding an effective Afghan army over the past 8 years?  We are, after all, amidst one of the most warlike peoples in the world - correction, four or five of the most warlike peoples in the world.  Warlike Pashtun, warlike Tajik, warlike Hazara, warlike Uzbek, warlike Baloch, warlike Turkmen.  If you're not warlike in Afghanistan, you're an historical footnote.   But there's your first clue.   You cannot build a lasting, reliable, national army in a country rent by tribalism and warlordism.  We have created something akin to a Tajik national army in Afghanistan but they're the ancient, mortal enemies of the Pashtun and they've got scores to settle.   Think that won't drive Pashtuns into the arms of their home team, the Talibs?  A square peg and a round hole.

Some years back a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer told the senators that there has never been a successful Muslim state that didn't first overcome both warlordism and tribalism.  Never has been, never will be.   There's your second clue.  Eight years ago we created a state that enshrined both and stuffed it behind the gossamer veil of a popularly elected democracy that never was more than an illusion.  What we created ensured that our past eight years in Afghanistan were really nothing more than us battling one side of their unresolved civil war with no way of winning.   Another square peg, another round hole.

The only conceivable purpose of training an Afghan National Army is to create an indigenous force to continue the war we've been waging so haplessly these past 8+ years.  There's your third clue.  Since we sent the Taliban packing across the border there have been two wars waged in Afghanistan, our war and their war.  Unfortunately we've fought but one of them, our war.  Square peg, round hole.

Our war is the military war, the type of war Western armies are trained and equipped to fight.  Our war is the type fought with tanks and artillery and close air support.   Our war anticipates fighting an enemy also armed with tanks and artillery and aerial firepower.   But in Afghanistan our enemy doesn't have any tanks or artillery or attack helicopters or strike fighters.   They don't even have but a fraction of our numbers.  Why not?  Because they don't need those things.  

They would only need all that high-tech firepower if they intended to defeat us in our war, the military war, but they don't intend to defeat us.   They're relying on time to bring us down.  It's a hackneyed phrase but it's oh so true - we have all the weapons, they have all the time.

They also know that they can win their war and that's the one that ultimately decides the issue.  Theirs is the political war, the war for the hearts and minds of the locals.  We're not fighting their war.  If we were, we'd have flooded the countryside with 300,000 soldiers or more back in 2002/2003 when they might have made a difference.  To defeat them in their war demanded that we field a massive force large enough to secure the civilian population and prevent them from falling under the sway of the Taliban.  We didn't even try.  They won their war by forfeit.

In a world in turmoil, Afghanistan cannot be the focus of the West for very long before we begin sacrificing our interests and committments elsewhere.   The lead partner, America, has been funding these misadventures for almost a decade now entirely on someone else's dime.  Bush/Cheney waged two foreign wars and gave tax cuts to the rich funded entirely out of foreign borrowings.  If that sounds insane, it is.  It's the sort of madness you get from ideologues.  You don't have to look further than our own Furious Leader to see that. 

The Taliban's war is cheap.   They can fund it out of their country's own poppy fields.  The West's war is very, very expensive and there aren't many players today that aren't facing heavy deficits at home.  Maybe America sees some future geo-political payoff from the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAPI) to secure control of the Caspian Basin oil and gas reserves for America and her regional allies, but for Canadians Afghanistan is just a hole into which to throw huge bags of money and scores of lives.

The RAND Corporation, oracle to the White House and the Pentagon, has already run its own assessment of our Afghan war and concluded that we've lost.  No matter how many artillery barrages and air strikes we call in tomorrow, from here on in it's all just banging on a drum.

So it seems that Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff in arguing for a post 2011-role for Canadian troops in Afghanistan are either delusional or outright dishonest.   If the pair of them at this late stage are intent on using this screwed-up war as some political football that's simply despicable.  Dishonest or delusional it doesn't really matter to me except as yet another reminder of why I parted company with the only federal party I have supported since I began voting forty years ago.

U.N. Condemns Khadr Trial

It's official.   The United States is the first country since World War II to try someone before a military tribunal for acts allegedly committed while he was a minor.   Of course, then again, Omar Khadr is accused of killing an American and that obviously puts his purported offence in an entirely different level.  The United Nations wasted no time in condemning the trial.   From Reuters Alternet:

The United Nations said the trial is of dubious legality and could set a dangerous precedent for child soldiers worldwide.



"Juvenile justice standards are clear -- children should not be tried before military tribunals," said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. special envoy for children in armed conflict.


But the military officers in the jury pool indicated they saw no problem with trying Khadr.


"Does anyone believe that juveniles should not be prosecuted for violent offenses?" Prosecutor Jeff Groharing asked them. "Does anyone feel the accused should be held to a different standard because he was 15 years old at the time of the alleged offenses?"


None said they held those beliefs.

One needn't have sympathy with Khadr to understand the prohibition against prosecuting child soldiers.  Invariably they are victims, coerced into fighting and international agreements require they be treated that way.  This is however the United States military which, over the past decade, has repeatedly demonstrated a skewed grasp of international law.

Mr. Cameron, This Is NOT Going to Go Down Well

In 1989, the average cost of a basic pint of lager in a British pub was just over one pound.  Last year that stood at 2.8 pounds sterling.   Now the British Beer & Pub Association is warning that soon could be headed to as much as four pounds a pint.

The BBPA blames the forecast increases on poor barley harvests in eastern Europe and Russia and a whopping 26% increase in beer duties over the past two years.

Britain is bracing for hefty across-the-board price increases on everything from gasoline to bread.   Russia's wheat failures and the resulting export ban, blamed on drought, have sent world prices soaring.  Higher taxes on petroleum are predicted to see gasoline prices climb steadily through 2011.

While the Cameron government plainly cannot be held responsible for Russia's wheat collapse, it is in the crosshairs for the mess Tony Blair left in embracing all things American, including casino capitalism.  I still don't know how he's going to get past the beer thing.

How Russia Fights Forest Fires

We're going to be paying a lot more attention to forest fire fighting thanks to global warming.   Russia is not only experiencing its own problems but it's working to get a share of the water bomber market.  This is the Beriev Be-200 water bomber which, while it may have close-in limitations compared to Bombardier's smaller, turbo-prop CL-415, is coming to be a frequent visitor to countries like Greece and Spain.

28,000 Dead - Mexico Yells "Uncle"

First it was Mexican president Felipe Calderone, now it's his predecessor Vincente Fox raising the idea of legalizing the production, distribution and sale of drugs in their country.   Mexico remains mired in a vicious drug war between gangs and the government that has claimed 28,000 lives in recent years.  Despite the government's efforts the gangs have grown increasingly powerful and increasingly bold aided, in no small part, by widespread police corruption.

Neither Calderone nor Fox will come right out and advocate for legalization.  Both present it as an issue that should be debated.   Mexico is keeping a wary eye on California where voters will decide in November whether to legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana and allow the state to tax sales.

Regardless of one's position on legalizing or decriminalizing drugs of any kind, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the "War on Drugs" initiated by Richard Nixon in 1970 hasn't worked.  Unfortunately the prohibitionists don't have a Plan B and the high-level narcotics industry has learned to thrive under the existing system.   While interdiction and eradication efforts can claim some successes, so long as there is a market for the drugs and massive profits to be derived, there will always be ample supply reaching the end consumer.

Nixon and every president since then has been highly successful at stuffing their prisons full of drug users but that too hasn't made a dent in the trafficking even as it has created an enormous drain on already debt-ridden states.

Leaders of the drug-importing states really have but two choices.   Stick with the current, failed approach, which is really just treading water, or decriminalizing the production and possession of some, but not all, street drugs.   Marijuana is the obvious candidate for decriminalization, something that Paul Martin was willing to recognize.   Ideologues like Harper, naturally, prefer to step up Plan A and simply build more prisons  ...except in Afghanistan where we stand by and allow our supposed ally to produce just as much illicit opium as it likes for processing into heroin and delivery to our own streets.   Wait a minute, doesn't that make Harper complicit in heroin trafficking?   No wonder he won't decriminalize drugs.

Photo - LA Times - 3 federal police officers gunned down by drug gangs

The Right to Survival

The impacts of climate change are sparking a debate on just what is a "human right"?

Some nations want adequate supply of potable freshwater declared a human right.   Not surprisingly that's something supported by countries with severe freshwater threats and dismissed by nations particularly well water-endowed, such as our very own.

India is now debating whether food should be a right guaranteed to all of its people.   For India that's not a rhetorical debate.   As pointed out in a New York Times article, India's eight poorest states have more people living in poverty than Africa's 26 poorest countries.

For the governing Indian National Congress Party, which has staked its political fortunes on appealing to the poor, this persistent inability to make government work for [the poor] ...has set off an ideological debate over a question that once would have been unthinkable in India: Should the country begin to unshackle the poor from the inefficient, decades-old government food distribution system and try something radical, like simply giving out food coupons, or cash?



The rethinking is being prodded by a potentially sweeping proposal that has divided the Congress Party. Its president, Sonia Gandhi, is pushing to create a constitutional right to food and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene. Such entitlements have helped the Congress Party win votes, especially in rural areas.

These are largely internal debates now but, as our reaction to the water question clearly shows, there's a growing sense of unease among the "haves" to future demands from the "have nots."   Do not doubt for a minute that, in a world where the burden of seven billion mouths to feed has already exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet's renewable resources, that faint whisper of calls for redistribution and equitable allocations, is bound to turn into a clamour.  It's just a matter of time.   And that's when we'll see just what kind of people we Canadians really are.

It's Just a Stage They're Going Through

Relax.  Most everything that's going on in the United States these days is more or less perfectly natural.  Unfortunate but natural.  It's an example of human nature we get to see only rarely when tribal mankind's Alpha male begins to slip and loses ground to its successors.  It happens.   Sometimes, as in ancient Egypt, it can take thousands of years.  Sometimes, as the British, Dutch and Spanish showed, it's just a century or two in coming.   Imperial America hasn't lasted quite so long in succumbing but it's far from over yet.

Kevin Phillips in his 2005 book American Theocracy offers a fascinating examination of the parallels in superpower supernovas.   From the Age of Sail through the Age of Coal and, now, the Age of Oil, superpowers have risen - and fallen - in similar fashion.   Two hallmarks seen in Britain's decline and now at the forefront of America's are religious zealotry and militarism.

At the closing days of their empire, many Brits thought themselves in a unique relationship to their god.  Britain and the British people were divinely chosen to bring light to the world, to shape lesser nations and their peoples.  Sound familiar?

Militarism seems ever popular at the end of a superpower run, the last hurrah of global supremacy.   Empires spend fortunes they can't afford, sometimes money they don't have, on elaborate and highly popular shows of force to temporarily mask decline.   Phillip of Spain sent his Armada to conquer underdog Britain but Elizabeth prevailed and Phillip had to preside over the bankruptcy of imperial Spain.

Britain's imperial ventures likewise brought it to ruin.   We don't often hear of it in our Churchillian narrative but Winston and his war cabinet were fully prepared to seek terms from Hitler very early in the war when it became apparent that their country was flat broke.  This is well chronicled in Clive Ponting's 1940, Myth and Reality.  Churchill's gang were quite prepared to cede control of Europe and big hunks of their empire if need be.   They fought on only when Roosevelt bailed them out but that laid the foundation for America's postwar ascendancy.

Look at America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.   As Stiglitz estimates, Washington has likely squandered three trillion dollars of America's declining wealth on those misadventures.   Three trillion dollars of borrowed money.   Not internally borrowed money - Americans didn't buy three trillion dollars worth of government savings bonds - but money borrowed from foreign lenders and a big hunk of that from America's own ascendant rival, China.   These wars of whim have cost America far more than the Vietnam war, entirely on borrowed money, at the same time an uber-right government decided to lavish big tax cuts on its elite rich.

America, like Britain half a century before it, is broke.    A recent report lamented how in many rural areas, once paved roads are being returned to gravel because there's no money to maintain them.   One state is considering making Grade 12 optional, others are steadily shortening the school year.   America's insane prison fetish is likewise breaking the bank.   Across the country infrastructure is failing.   And it's not just Washington that's in trouble.   So are most state governments and a great many municipalities.

Phillips documents that a surefire sign that a superpower is finished comes when its economy switches from manufacturing to a FIRE (finance,insurance,real estate) based economy.   That is when the dominant country seeks to enrich its rentier class, its elite, by outsourcing its manufacturing base in search of cheap labour.  It's a technique to maximize corporate revenues and shareholder dividends but at a huge, usually unnoticed cost.   The cancer it brings is that the dominant nation invests its wealth into growing its rival's economy and, in the process, pays for that rival's ascendancy.   Welcome to America in the 21st century.

Countries in the position America finds itself in today tend to go a little mad.   It's hard, it's really scary, when you've been brought up to absolutely believe you're Number One, God's chosen instrument on earth, overseer of all others, to find that pedestal crumbling beneath your feet.   That's not something you can adjust to easily.   Some people do go a little mad.   Take a look at America's Tea Party movement.  That defines "bat shit crazy."   Look at the Americans who look to Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin for leadership.   There's cave guano on the brain, big time.

The greatest uncertainty today is how America will manage its decline.   As Britain showed that can be done quite well or, as Spain showed, quite horribly.   France emerged from WWII not humbled and wiser but intent on reclaiming its pre-war empire, by force if necessary.   The French fought for years in Algeria and Vietnam only to be driven out.   Britain, by contrast, went for a relatively orderly, more or less peaceful, dismantling of its empire and was considerably more successful than the French.

In stepping down from the superpower pedestal instead of waiting for it to collapse, Britain entered a period of decline that was both managed and limited.   America took over and shouldered the burden the Brits could no longer carry.   For a generation or two, the Brits and other Euros lagged well behind America in material wealth but they made up for that with a better quality of life.

To us on the outside looking in, 21st century America may appear a bit crazy because it is.   What's happening today in the US is just a stage they're going through.   What we must do is recognize what's happening with our cousins to the south and do what we can not to get swept up in it.   If the guy next door starts wearing six-shooters and circles around his backyard, naked,  banging pots and pans, you might want to skip your invitation to his barbecue.   Will Canada's leaders have the foresight to keep our distance?

I guess what troubles me most is that America's decline is happening at the worst possible time.   With the environmental threats settling in on us, the world needs a clear-headed, decisive America not one wrapped up in angry delusion, denial and fundamentalist mysticism.   America is in no shape to meet the challenge that's coming, that cannot be shirked or ignored, a challenge that cannot be met by force of arms.  Britain, in dismantling its empire, arguably left the world a somewhat better place.   America does not seem destined to follow Britain's path.

In fact, America is poised to turn its decline into a freefall.   At all levels of government a form of nihilism has set in, one that promises to turn America into a train wreck.  It's been the subject of much commentary from the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.   Krugman wrote of it in yesterday's New York Times.  It's a scary look at a country gone mad.

Friday Night and This Sure Brings a Smile to My Face

"Too Fragile" For Vote

According to Furious Leader, Canada's economy is just too fragile to weather an "unnecessary election."  Reliable sources at the mannequin factory where Mr. Harper has his hair done report the fragility of the Canadian economy became apparent to the prime monster upon his reading the latest Ekos poll showing his government's popularity in the toilet.

Bring out the oracles.   Cast bones, read entrails.  Steve figures he can't engineer a reliable election crisis right now, that much is obvious.   This is, after all, the Prince of Political Darkness, Master of Opportunity.   If Steve thought he had the slightest chance of a breakthrough win at the polls, he'd jettison the Canadian economy into the nearest ditch in his race to Rideau Hall.

So, just what are the Harper Tories going to do to shore up Canada's economy?   What great policy vision do they have in store for us?  This is, after all, the very same, highly-trained economist who was totally blindsided as this global recession all too obviously barreled our way.  This is the same genius who told Canadians to fear not and instead take advantage of "bargains" in the stock market as it went into freefall.  Then he responded to it with that equally dim-witted Pinata "stimulus" budget that squandered untold billions of deficit bucks pointlessly.  The very same five-watt bulb who positively gloated at how Canada had bested our G8 rivals in coming through the recession relatively unscathed.   This is a persistently, profoundly stupid man with neither vision nor ability to lead the country to high ground.

Once again Harper's ace in the hole may be the opposition leader, Mr. Ignatieff.   When the recession first hit and Harper locked down Parliament, Iggy took the time off as a holiday to write a book on his mother's family rather than formulating a Liberal stimulus/recovery proposal to confront Harper when he could no longer hide behind the Governor General's skirts.   That left the IgLibs with no choice but to back Harper's pathetic Pinata Budget although with many dire warnings that later made the Liberal leader look just plain silly when he kept having to retreat from his own words.  (Can you say "On Probation?") Then, to make up for lost time and missed opportunities, Iggy convened a thinkers' conference last spring.   What came of that?   Daycare and funding for the arts?  Oh yeah, that'll win elections.

So it seems once again the Libs have an opportunity to wrestle the economy issue from the clumsy fingers of a demonstrated dolt.   And where is the Liberal leader?   Oh yeah, he's on a bus tour and I'm sure not one Canadian in fifty can say where and even fewer could care less.  I guess it could be worse.  Liberal fortunes have actually improved since their leader disappeared from view.

I will begrudgingly say this for Harper.   He's probably right about the fragility of the Canadian economy.   Responsibility for some of that lies directly at his and Ignatieff's feet.   While Harper's fiscal incompetence has been repeatedly demonstrated and chronicled, he can take comfort in knowing that his sole rival has done nothing to show he could do the slightest bit better.

Maybe it's the weakness of Parliament that renders our economy too fragile for an election.

Athabasca Emissions Set to Triple by 2020

Our planet's filthiest fossil fuel project, the Athabasca Tar Sands, are poised to get astonishingly worse and all within just one decade.

The Pembina Institute has released a report concluding that Tar Sands greenhouse gas emissions are "out of control."   From The Tyee:

Carbon output more than doubled between 1990 and 2008. And the Calgary-based think tank warns the latest numbers could nearly triple by 2020.

...From 1990 to 2008, total greenhouse gases from the oil sands shot up 121 percent, Pembina concludes.

Industry sources project huge production increases in coming years. Much of that will come from in-situ projects (essentially injecting high pressure steam deep underground).


On average, this method produces 91 kg of CO2 per barrel of oil – compared to 36 kg for mining, Pembina concludes. And that doesn't include emissions from the intensive upgrading process.


More in-situ, combined with growing U.S. demand, means huge spikes in carbon. That creates serious “implications” for Canadian and American attempts to fight climate change, the report says.


Both countries have pledged to reduce carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Canada risks falling far short of its target, Pembina warns.


“If emissions rise as projected under Environment Canada’s business-as-usual scenario,” the report reads, “they will reach 28 per cent above 2005 levels by 2020, with oil sands expansion accounting for nearly half of the projected increase.”

So, with the environmental indifference to the Tar Sands of the Conservatives and the Liberals, Canada is certain to remain a global climate change pariah only on a much higher order.   And, don't forget, carbon emissions are just one part of the environmental catastrophe that is the Athabasca Tar Sands.   Think of all those wonderful new tailing ponds that will be needed.   Think of all the heavy metals and other toxins that will be released into the atmosphere.   Think of all the carcinogens and toxins leaching into the groundwater.   Why it's a good thing Alberta can't find some way to bill Saskatchewan for all that acid rain.   And don't forget about all the freshwater and conventional energy they'll need to keep turning that tar into synthetic oil.

To all my former Liberal brethren, you have to make your current leadership wake up and listen.   This is your Canada as much as Mr. Ignatieff's and it's the only Canada your kids and grandkids will have.  Your leader's embrace of the Tar Sands is wrong-headed and seriously detrimental to our country and our people.  You need to tell Mr. Ignatieff that any Tar Sands policy that puts expansion of Athabasca ahead of environmental remediation is simply unacceptable and that Canada's already modest targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions must be met even if that means not becoming a fossil fuel superpower.   Tell Ignatieff he's got to give it up.