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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Their Vilest Hour: HUMAN SMOKE DEMOLISHES OUR POPULAR HISTORY OF WW2!
This is the first chapter of the book that is re-writing the history of World War 2! If you are not registered at the N.Y. Times- do so - these articles alone are worth it!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/chapters/first-chapter-human-smoke.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Human%20Smoke&st=nyt
“Human Smoke” deliberately has no argument, but Churchill appears as more of a warmonger than he is usually portrayed, and there is far more than in most textbooks about pacifist opposition to the war in the United States and Britain and to Britain’s pre-Blitz bombing campaign of German cities.
He added: “I’ve always had pacifist leanings, and so one of the things I wanted to learn was how do you react to the Second World War if you’re a pacifist. That war is always held up as the great counterexample, the one that was justified. And I got hungrier and hungrier to answer the question: Did the Allies’ response to Hitler really help anyone who needed help? One of the things I discovered, for example, was that the most impressive opponents of the war were also the people most actively arguing that we had to help the refugees. There was a complete overlap.”
Talking about starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto during the British blockade, Mr. Baker became so worked up that he had to pause, take off his rimless glasses and rub his eyes, and then he went on: “What are you going to do when Europe is threatened by Hitler, this paranoid, dangerous person? My feelings about the war change every day. But I also feel that there is a way of looking at the war and the Holocaust that is truer and sadder and stranger than the received version.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/books/04bake.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=Human+Smoke&st=nyt&oref=slogin
In 1939 the editor of a Zionist newspaper in New York sent a letter to Mahatma Gandhi pointing out that in Nazi Germany “a Jewish Gandhi would last about five minutes before he was executed.” Gandhi stuck fast to his nonviolent principles. “I can conceive the necessity of the immolation of hundreds, if not thousands, to appease the hunger of dictators,” he replied.
The actual number, of course, was six million, a figure that haunts Nicholson Baker’s “Human Smoke,” a pacifist interpretation of the events leading to World War II. As Mr. Baker sees it, the United States should never have entered the war; France made a civilized decision when it decided not to fight on; and Roosevelt and Churchill deserve equal billing with Hitler as the grand architects of history’s most destructive war.
Muddled and often infuriating, “Human Smoke” sounds its single, solemn note incessantly, like a mallet striking a kettle drum over and over. War is bad. Churchill was bad. Roosevelt was bad. Hitler was bad too, but maybe, in the end, no worse than Roosevelt and Churchill. Jeannette Rankin, a Republican congresswoman from Montana, was good, because she cast the lone vote opposing a declaration of war against Japan. It was Dec. 8, 1941.
Mr. Baker’s title, a grim reference to the crematoriums at Auschwitz, effectively demolishes the edifice he tries to construct. Did the war “help anyone who needed help?” Mr. Baker asks in a plaintive afterword. The prisoners of Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald come to mind, as well as untold millions of Russians, Danes, Belgians, Czechs and Poles. Nowhere and at no point does Mr. Baker ever suggest, in any serious way, how their liberation might have been effected other than by force of arms.
Almost unbelievably, he includes multiple instances in which Churchill and Roosevelt rejected the idea of negotiating with Hitler. Although he offers no commentary on the matter, the reader is forced to draw the conclusion that negotiation was a sensible idea cavalierly tossed aside by leaders who preferred war to peace.
On Nov. 10, 1941, Churchill delivered a ringing speech declaring that Britain would never negotiate with Hitler or with “any party in Germany which represents the Nazi regime.” Mr. Baker, in a rare departure from his affectless delivery, writes, “There would, in other words, be no negotiation with anybody in Germany who was actually in a position to order an end to the fighting.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/books/12grim.html?scp=5&sq=Human+Smoke&st=nyt
Slowly, as you read, because of the variety in the tone and the shocking or tragic nature of the quotation, and because of how well chosen they are, “Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization” becomes riveting and fascinating. It is as though a brilliant film editor, with an urgent argument to make, began to work with gripping newsreels.
The main figures in the book are Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt; members of the pacifist movement including Gandhi; Hitler and his entourage; and diarists like Victor Klemperer in Dresden and Mihail Sebastian in Bucharest. But sometimes it is the simple stark fact that makes you sit up straight for a moment, like this one from early in the book: “The Royal Air Force dropped more than 150 tons of bombs on India. It was 1925.” This, coming soon after an account of the proposed bombing of civilian targets in Iraq in 1920 (with Churchill writing: “I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes”), sets a theme for the book, which Baker will skillfully weave into the fabric of events mainly between 1920 and 1942 — that the bombing of villages and cities from the air represents “the end of civilization.”
Baker is adept at managing the reader’s emotion. His vignettes about the treatment of the Jewish population, the deportations and the planned mass murders, are just as carefully chosen, with the same amount of barely contained anger in them as his pieces about what was done to the civilians of Germany and to the civilians of Britain by bombers. It seems that he wishes to stir up an argument as much as settle one. In his afterword he says of the pacifists: “They failed, but they were right.” It is an aspect of the subtlety of his book that the reader is entitled to wonder if it’s true.
Churchill emerges here as a most fascinating figure — impetuous, childish, bloodthirsty, fearless, insomniac, bookish, bullying, determined, to name just some of his characteristics. Baker writes: “He wasn’t an alcoholic, someone said later — no alcoholic could drink that much.” The prime minister of Australia noted of Churchill: “In every conversation he ultimately reaches a point where he positively enjoys the war.” After the bombing of British cities Baker quotes him: “This ordeal by fire has, in a certain sense, even exhilarated the manhood and the womanhood of Britain.”
“One of our great aims,” Churchill wrote in July 1941, “is the delivery on German towns of the largest possible quantity of bombs per night.” Soon afterward, he said publicly: “It is time that the Germans should be made to suffer in their own homeland and cities something of the torments they have let loose upon their neighbors and upon the world.” Baker quotes large numbers of people who seemed to feel in these years that the entire German population, including women and children, were to blame for the Nazis and should be punished accordingly. For example, the writer Gerald Brenan: “Every German woman and child killed is a contribution to the future safety and happiness of Europe.” Or David Garnett (the author of the novel “Aspects of Love,” on which the musical is based), who wrote in 1941: “By butchering the German population indiscriminately it might be possible to goad them into a desperate rising in which every member of the Nazi Party would have his throat cut.”
The problem, as Baker makes clear, was that the bombing served to kill and maim the civilian population, yet the survivors did not blame the Nazi leaders, who used the bombing as a further excuse to inflict suffering on the Jewish population, claiming, for example, that evictions of Jews were “justified on the grounds that Aryans whose houses were destroyed by bombing needed a place to live.” As early as 1941 a member of Churchill’s cabinet could write: “Bombing does NOT affect German morale: let’s get that into our heads and not waste our bombers on these raids.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Toibin-t.html Posted at 03:01 pm by Psychomike
Monday, March 24, 2008
CHINA ARMY FIRES ON NUNS, NUCLEAR SUB IN PERSIAN GULF, GERMANY INTEL FED U.S. WMD INFO ON IRAQ, GOODBYE MUSHARRAF!
Hundreds of monks, nuns and local Tibetans who tried to march on a local government office in western China to demand the return of the Dalai Lama have been turned back by paramilitary police who opened fire to disperse the crowd.
Local residents of Luhuo said two people – a monk and a farmer – appeared to have been shot dead and about a dozen were wounded in the latest violence to rock Tibetan areas of China.
The demonstration began at about 4pm local time when about 200 nuns from Woge nunnery and a similar number of monks from Jueri monastery marched out of their hillside sanctuaries and walked towards the Luhuo Third District government office in the nearby town. They were swiftly joined by an estimated several hundred farmers and nomads, witnesses said.
Shouting “Long Live the Dalai Lama” and “Tibet belongs to Tibetans”, they approached the district government office. However, paramilitary People’s Armed Police swiftly appeared and ordered the crowd to turn back. Town residents reported that, in the ensuing melee, shots were fired and two people appeared to have died.
An American nuclear submarine has crossed the Suez Canal to join the US fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf, Egyptian sources say.
Egyptian officials reported that the nuclear submarine crossed the canal along with a destroyer on Friday and Egyptian forces were put on high alert when the navy convoy was passing through the canal.
An American destroyer recently left the Persian Gulf, heading towards the Mediterranean Sea; earlier on Thursday, a US Navy rescue ship crossed the canal to enter the Red Sea.
The deployment comes as recent reports allege that US Vice President Dick Cheney is seeking to rally the support of Middle Eastern states for launching an attack on Iran.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=102736
Five years ago, the US government presented what it said was proof that Iraq harbored biological weapons. The information came from a source developed by German intelligence -- and it turned out to be disastrously wrong. But to this day, Germany denies any responsibility.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,542840,00.html
In naming its candidate for prime minister Saturday, the party of Benazir Bhutto has taken a further step toward sidelining Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) loyalist Yousuf Raza Gillani, jailed for several years during Mr. Musharraf's rule, is expected to easily win the approval of parliament in a vote Monday. With the public still firmly against Musharraf and his allies now out of power, each success of the new government leaves him more isolated.
Musharraf has been an American ally in its war on terrorism, but his weakening position could certainly affect the way the United States battles Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. The new ruling coalition has stressed the need for dialogue with militants – a position that reflects public opinion but may not be welcome by Washington. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0324/p01s04-wosc.html Posted at 06:19 pm by Psychomike
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Why should anyone, especially you, care about Tibet?
Until 1949, Tibet was an independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. It existed as a rich cultural storehouse of the Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism. Religion was a unifying theme among the Tibetans -- as was their own language, literature, art, and world view developed by living at high altitudes, under harsh conditions, in a balance with their environment.
The Dalai Lama, an individual said to be an incarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, had been both the political and spiritual leader of the country. The current Dalai Lama (the 14th) was only 24 years old when this all came to an end in 1959. The Communist Chinese invasion in 1950 led to years of turmoil, that culminated in the complete overthrow of the Tibetan Government and the self-imposed exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans in 1959.
Since that time over a million Tibetans have been killed. With the Chinese policy of resettlement of Chinese to Tibet, Tibetans have become a minority in their own country. Chinese is the official language. Compared to pre-1959 levels, only 1/20 monks are still allowed to practice, under the government's watch. Up to 6,000 monasteries and shrines have been destroyed. Famines have appeared for the first time in recorded history, natural resources are devastated, and wildlife depleted to extinction. Tibetan culture comes close to being eradicated there.
Peaceful demonstrations/protests/speech/writings by nuns, monks, and Tibetan laypeople have resulted in deaths and thousands of arrests. These political prisoners are tortured and held in sub-standard conditions, with little hope of justice. Unless we can all take part and recognize Tibet's loss as our own, the future looks grim.
Some Startling Facts
1. The peaceful buddhist country of Tibet was invaded by Communists China in 1949. Since that time, over 1.2 million out of 6 Tibetans have been killed, over 6000 monastaries have been destroyed, and thousands of TIbetans have been imprisoned.
2. In Tibet today, there is no freedom of speech, religion, or press and arbitrary dissidents continue.
3. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's political and spiritual leader, fled to India in 1959. He now lives among over 100,000 other Tibetan refugees and their government in exile.
4. Forced abortion, sterilization of Tibetan women and the transfer of low income Chinese citizens threaten the survival of Tibet's unique culture. In some Tibetan provinces, Chinese settlers outnumber Tibetans 7 to 1.
5. Within China itself, massive human rights abuses continue. It is estimated that there up to twenty million Chinese citizens working in prison camps.
6. Most of the Tibetan plataeu lies above 14,000 feet. Tibet is the source of five of Asia's greatest rivers, which over 2 billion people depend upon. Since 1959, the Chinese government estimates that they have removed over $54 billion worth of timber. Over 80% of their forests have been destroyed, and large amoutns nuclear and toxic waste have been disposed of in Tibet.
7. Despite these facts and figures, the US government and US corporations continue to support China economically. This shows their blatant lack of respect for these critical issues of political and religious freedom and human rights.
Yes, things are bad, but you may still ask, why Tibet? There are hundreds of other countries in which equal or worse environmental and human rights devistation has occured. Why Tibet? Tibet can be used as the catalyst for change in human rights, womens rights, political, religious and cultural freedom across the globe. Through a concerted effort, the citizens of Earth can stand up and say "NO!" to the corporations and governments that continue to abuse it's people and misuse it's resources. The struggles in Tibet are symbolic for every human rights struggle. Please, get involved. There is only a limited time left until there will longer be a Tibet to save.
Early History
Although the history of the Tibetan state started in 127 B.C., with the establishment of the Yarlung Dynasty, the country as we know it was first unified in the 7th Century A.D., under King Songtsen Gampo and his successors. Tibet was one of the mightiest powers of Asia for the three centuries that followed, as a pillar inscription at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa and Chinese Tang histories of the period confirm. A formal peace treat concluded between China and Tibet in 821/823 demarcated the borders between the two countries and ensured that, "Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China."
Mongol Influence
As Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire expanded towards Europe in the West and China in the East in the 13th Century, Tibetan leaders of powerful Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism concluded an agreement with the Mongol rulers in order to avoid the conquest of Tibet. The Tibetan Lama promised political loyalty and religious blessings and teachings in exchange for patronage and protection. The religious relationship became so important that when, decades later, Kublai Khan conquered China and established the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), he invited the Sakya Lama to become the Imperial Preceptor and supreme pontiff of his empire.
The relationship that developed and continued to exist into the 20th Century between the Mongols and Tibetans was a reflect of the close racial, cultural, and especially religious affinity between the two Central Asian peoples. The Mongol Empire was a world empire and, whatever the relationship between its rulers and the Tibetans, the Mongols never integrated the administration of Tibet and China or appended Tibet to China in any manner.
Tibet broke political ties with the Yuan emperor in 1350, before China regained its independence from the Mongols. Not until the 18th Century did Tibet again come under a degree of foreign influence.
Relations with Manchu, Gorkha and British Neighbors
Tibet developed no ties with Chinese Ming Dynasty (1386-1644). On the other hand, the Dalai Lama, who established his sovereign rule over Tibet with the help of a Mongol patron in 1642, did develop close religious ties with the Manchu emperors, who conquered China and established the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The Dalai Lama agreed to become the spiritual guide of the Manchu emperor, and accepted patronage and protection in exchange. This "priest-patron" relationship (known in Tibetan as
Choe-Yoen), which the Dalai Lama also maintained with some Mongol princes and Tibetan nobles, was the only formal tie that existed between the Tibetans and Manchus during the Qing Dynasty. It did not, in itself, affect Tibet's independence.
On the political level, some powerful Manchu emperors succeeded in exerting a degree of influence over Tibet. Thus, between 1720 and 1792, Emperors Kangxi, Yong Zhen, and Qianlong sent imperial troops to Tibet four times to protect the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people from foreign invasions by Mongols, and Gorkhas or from internal unrest. These expeditions provided the emperor with the means for establishing influence in Tibet. He sent representatives to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, some of whom successfully exercised their influence, in his name, over the Tibetan government, particularly
with respect to the conduct of foreign relations. At the height of Manchu power, which lasted a few decades, the situation was not unlike that which can exist between a superpower and a satellite or protectorate, and therefore one which, though politically significant, does not extinguish the independent existence of the weaker state. Tibet was never incorporated into the Manchu Empire, much less China, and it continued to conduct its relations with neighboring states largely on its own.
Manchu influence did not last very long. It was entirely ineffective by the time the British briefly invaded Lhasa and concluded a bilateral treaty with Tibet, the Lhasa Convention, in 1904. Despite this loss of influence, the imperial government in Peking continued to claim some authority over Tibet, particularly with respect to its international relations, an authority which the British imperial government termed "suzerainty" in its dealings with Peking and St. Petersburg, Russia. Chinese imperial armies tried to reassert actual influence in 1910 by invading the country and occupying Lhasa. Following the 1911 revolution in China and the overthrow of the Manchu Empire, the troops surrendered to the Tibetan army and were repatriated under a sino-Tibetan peace accord. The Dalai Lama reasserted Tibet's full independence internally, by issuing a proclamation, and externally, in communications to
foreign rulers and in a treaty with Mongolia.
Tibet in the 20th Century
Tibet's status following the expulsion of Manchu troops is not subject to serious dispute. What ever ties existed between the Dalai Lama and the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty were extinguished with the fall of that empire and dynasty. From 1911 to 1950, Tibet successfully avoided undue foreign influence and behaved, in every respect, as a fully independent state.
Tibet maintained diplomatic relations with nepal, Bhutan, Britain, and later with independent India. Relations with China remain strained. The Chinese waged a border war with Tibet while formally urging Tibet to "join" the Chinese Republic, claiming all along to the world that Tibet already was one of China's "five races."
In an effort to reduce Sino-Tibetan tensions, the British convened a tripartite conference in Simla in 1913 where the representative of the three states met on equal terms. As the British delegation reminded his Chinese counterpart, Tibet entered the conference as "independent nation recognizing no allegiance to China." The conference was unsuccessful in that it did not resolve the difference between Tibet and China. It was, nevertheless, significant in that Anglo-Tibetans friendship was reaffirmed with the conclusion of bilateral trade and border agreements. In a Joint Declaration, Great
Britain and Tibet bound themselves not to recognize Chinese suzerainty or other special rights in Tibet unless China signed the draft Simla Convention which would have guaranteed Tibet's greater borders, its territorial integrity and fully autonomy. China never signed the Convention, however, leaving the terms of the Joint Declaration in full force.
Tibet conducted its international relations primarily by dealing with the British, Chinese, Nepalese, and Bhutanese diplomatic missions in Lhasa, but also through government delegations travelling abroad. When India became independent, the British mission in Lhasa was replaced by an Indian one. During World War II Tibet remained neutral, despite combined pressure from the United States, Great Britain, and China to allow passage of raw materials through Tibet.
Tibet never maintained extensive international relations, but those countries with whom it did maintain relations treated Tibet as they would with any sovereign state. Its international status was in fact no different from, say, that of Nepal. Thus, when Nepal applied for United Nations' membership in 1949, it cited its treaty and diplomatic relations with Tibet to demonstrate its full international personality.
The Invasion of Tibet
The turning point of Tibet's history came in 1949, when the People's Liberation Army of the PRC first crossed into Tibet. After defeating the small Tibetan army and occupying half the country, the Chinese government imposed the so-called "17-Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" on the Tibetan government in May 1951. Because it was singed under duress, the agreement lacked validity under international law. The presence of 40,000 troops in Tibet, the threat of an immediate occupation of Lhasa, and the prospect of the total obliteration of the Tibetan state left Tibetans little choice.
As the resistance to the Chinese occupation escalated, particularly in Eastern Tibet, the Chinese repression, which included the destruction of religious buildings and the imprisonment of monks and other community leaders, increased dramatically. By 1959, popular uprising culminated in massive demonstrations in Lhasa. By the time China crushed the uprising, 87,000 Tibetans were dead in the Lhasa region alone, and the Dalai Lama had fled to India, where he now heads the Tibetan Government-in-exile, headquartered in Dharmsala, India. In 1963, the Dalai Lama promulgated a constitution for a democratic Tibet. It has been successfully implemented, to the extent possible, by the Government-in-exile.
Meanwhile, in Tibet religious persecution, consistent violations of human rights, and the wholesale destruction of religious and historic buildings by the occupying authorities have not succeeded in destroying the spirit of the Tibetan people to resist the destruction of the national identity. 1.2 million Tibetans have lost their lives, (over one-sixth of the population) as a result of the Chinese occupation. But the new generation of Tibetans seems just as determined to regain the country's independence as the older generation was.
Present Situation
In the course of Tibet's 2,000-year history, the country came under a degree of foreign influence only for short periods of time in the 13th and 18th centuries. Few independent countries today can claim as impressive a record. As the ambassador of Ireland to the UN remarked during the General Assembly debates on the question of Tibet, "for thousands of years, for a couple of thousands years at any rate, (Tibet) was a free and as fully in control of its own affairs as any nation in this Assembly, and a thousand times more free to look after it own affairs than many of the nations here."
From a legal standpoint, Tibet has not lost its statehood. It is an independent start under illegal occupation. Neither China's military invasion nor the continuing occupation by the PLA has transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to China. As pointed out earlier the Chinese government has never claimed to have acquired sovereignty over Tibet by conquest. Indeed, China recognizes that the use or threat of force (outside the exceptional circumstances provided for in the UN Charter), the imposition of an unequal treaty, or the continued illegal occupation of a country can never grant an invader legal title to
territory. Its claims are based solely on the alleged subjection of Tibet to a few of China's strongest foreign rulers in the 13th and 18th centuries.
Source:(Michael C. van Walt van Praag practices international law. His publication include The Status of Tibet: History, Rights and Prospects in International Law (Westview Press, Boulder, Colo., Wisdom Press, London, 1987) and numerous articles in book collections and magazines.) Posted at 10:24 pm by Psychomike
The Legacy Of Fidel Castro
Viva Castro's departure
Cuba in 2008 should be the Hong Kong or Singapore of Latin America
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| Mark Milke |
| For The Calgary Herald |
Saturday, March 01, 2008
In 1958, the year before Fidel Castro came to power in a revolution and promised prosperity, democracy and the restoration of Cuba's 1940 constitution, the Caribbean island, while troubled by poverty, a corrupt dictator and the American Mafia, was also better off than most developing nations.
While poor compared to the United States, Cuba in 1958 had a per capita GDP of $3,170 according to the OECD. (Canada's was $8,947.). But Cuba outranked all other Latin American countries except four: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Tellingly, in 1958, the island nation's per person wealth was higher than any East Asian country or colony, save Japan, which barely beat Cuba at only $3,290. Hong Kong had a per capita GDP of $2,924, Singapore's was $2,294, the Philippines' was $1,447, Taiwan's per person GDP stood at $1,387 and South Korea's was $1,112.
Thus in 1958, Cuba was almost as rich as Japan, one and half times as wealthy as Singapore, richer than Hong Kong, and three times as prosperous as South Korea.
Fifty years later, Cuba is one of the poorest countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan (the latter two also had dictators and problems similar to Cuba in the 1950s) have long eclipsed Cuba. They've done so not only in per capita wealth, but in measurements Castro's defenders point to when they assert the Marxist revolution "worked," such as in health care and education
The irony of Cuba's position became even more evident recently.
By happenstance, I was in Cuba when Castro resigned. It should have happened long ago and I doubt his replacement, his brother Raul, will change much.
Human Rights Watch puts it this way: "The repressive machinery (Castro) constructed over almost half a century remains fully intact."
That machinery, documented extensively by a plethora of sources in the decades since 1959, includes secret police, plenty of snitches, summary executions, concentration camps, sadism against male and female inmates alike, "re-education" and forced labour. One refugee I spoke with last year told me how his father was sent away for three years to work in the sugarcane fields after the family applied to leave Cuba in 1969.
The abuse of Cubans continues even recently. In 2003, the Cuban government gave 75 journalists jail terms of 20 years and more for expressing something other than the state line.
Sometimes, Cuba's government is just petty. In 2005, a chambermaid, Leidys Morales Quinteros, was fired after she was overheard criticizing Castro. (Note to Canadian tourists: this is why Cubans tell you they don't want to discuss politics.)
On the economic front, the effect of 49 years of Castro's communism is clear.
One travel guidebook estimates that 45 per cent of Cubans live in substandard shelter. That might be a wild underestimate. Walk around Havana and much of the housing is literally crumbling. It's also substandard and cramped.
Peer into an apartment and you'll notice the ubiquitous dividers in rooms. It's common for several families to live in apartments and houses designed for just one.
Then there's the social fallout of the glorious revolution and its Marxist doctrines.
One acquaintance chatted with a Cuban training to become a doctor. Her rent was 100 pesos a month. Her income was 30 pesos. When asked how she paid the bills, she replied that she prostituted herself once a week -- twice weekly when the rent was due.
Some will point to the U.S. trade embargo as the source of Cuba's economic ills.
I agree. It's a significant reason for Cuba's poverty, that and the Communist system itself -- and both should end. Cuban-Americans don't have to give up their claims to property confiscated by Castro and his thugs, but that can be dealt with if and when Cuba becomes a liberal, market-oriented democracy.
In the meantime, money is power and the Americans should try another strategy: wash the Communists out to sea on a tidal wave of U.S. dollars from investment, trade and tourism.
If Castro cared about Cubans instead of raw power, he could have long ago admitted that his economic program had failed, reversed course, and/or even resigned. He could have called elections as did other Marxists such as Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega in the 1980s.
But instead, precisely similar to past Cuban dictators, Castro tightened his grip and now has a worse economic and human rights record than the dictator he toppled, Fulgencio Batista.
Cuba in 2008 should be the Hong Kong or Singapore of Latin America. That it is not is the fault of Castro and his cronies.
Mark Milke is author of A Nation of Serfs? His column appears every weekend. http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=5c8b72dc-092d-4ded-bab7-20633223bf80&sponsor= Posted at 10:39 am by Psychomike
Thursday, March 20, 2008
SPY AGENCIES FAIL TO INFILTRATE AL QAEDA, BUSH TO ARM KOSOVO, OBAMA AND CLINTON MISS THE POINT ABOUT IRAQ, CHINA BEGINS CLAMPDOWN
A decade after al-Qaeda issued a global declaration of war against America, U.S. spy agencies have had little luck recruiting well-placed informants and are finding the upper reaches of the network tougher to penetrate than the Kremlin during the Cold War, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials.
Some counterterrorism officials say their agencies missed early opportunities to attack the network from within. Relying on Cold War tactics such as cash rewards for tips failed to take into account the religious motivations of Islamist radicals and produced few results.
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said, al-Qaeda has tightened its internal security at the top, placing an even greater emphasis on personal and tribal loyalties to determine who can gain access to its leaders.
Alain Chouet, former chief of the security intelligence service of the DGSE, France's foreign spy agency, said it can take years for informants to burrow their way into radical Islamist networks. Even if they're successful at first, he said, new al-Qaeda members are often "highly disposable" -- prime candidates for suicide missions.
He said it might be too late for Western intelligence agencies, having missed earlier chances, to redouble efforts to infiltrate the network. "I think you cannot penetrate such a movement now," he said.
At the same time, those agencies have made their task harder by blowing the cover of some promising informants and mishandling others.
In January, Spanish police arrested 14 men in Barcelona who they suspected were preparing to bomb subways in cities across Europe. Investigators disclosed in court documents that the arrests had been prompted by a Pakistani informant working for French intelligence.
The revelation infuriated French officials, who were forced to withdraw the informant -- a rare example of an agent who had successfully infiltrated training camps in Pakistan. Spanish authorities expressed regret but said they had no choice; after they failed to find bombs or much other evidence during the arrests, the case rested largely on the informant's word.
"Suicide attacks don't allow for a lot of margin to make a decision," said Vicente Gonzales Mota, the lead prosecutor. "Acting after an attack would be a tragedy."
Ten years ago, on Feb. 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa declaring it "the individual duty of every Muslim" to kill Americans and their allies around the world. Looking back, some U.S. and European intelligence officials said their governments had underestimated the enemy and thought they could rely on old methods to destabilize al-Qaeda.
During the Cold War, for example, the CIA had enjoyed some success in recruiting KGB moles and persuading Soviet officials to defect. The agency was also able to buy off Afghan warlords with suitcases of cash, persuading them to fight Soviet forces in the 1980s and to turn on the Taliban in 2001. A similar approach has worked, to a limited extent, against insurgents in Iraq: An informant's tip led directly to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the group al-Qaeda in Iraq, in 2006.
But al-Qaeda's core organization in Pakistan and Afghanistan has so far proved impervious to damaging leaks.
Part of the problem is that the CIA and FBI had very few Arabic-speaking officers who could handle or recruit informants. Instead of making it a priority to develop human sources, the agencies assumed they could rely on spy satellites and other high-tech tools.
Arab and Pakistani spy agencies, preoccupied with domestic politics and other threats, weren't much help either, officials said.
A home-made bomb thrown at a paramilitary police patrol in Lhasa has hardened Beijing’s resolve to punish anti-Chinese rioters, with officials issuing wanted lists for 17 Tibetans, including two monks and a woman.
The hardline Communist Party secretary of the Buddhist Himalayan region warned officials they faced a “life or death” struggle that involved nothing less than the stability of the entire country as it prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August.
Anti-Chinese protests flared this week across Tibet and in neighbouring provinces where many Tibetans live. In a remote corner of Gansu province, hundreds of Tibetans on horseback galloped through a town shouting “Come back Dalai Lama” and “Free the Panchen Lama”, before ripping down a Chinese flag and raising a Tibetan snow lion banner.
In Lhasa, where howling Tibetan mobs turned on ethnic Han Chinese and Hui Muslims last Friday in the worst violence in nearly 20 years, a homemade bomb was thrown at a paramilitary vehicle yesterday. Police fired teargas to disperse onlookers and schools were ordered to close early. It was unclear how many people were hurt. Residents said four police were killed or wounded but officials would not comment.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3581791.ece
In a memo to the State Department made public by the White House, Bush said: "I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to Kosovo will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace."
A senior official said the authorization followed US recognition of Kosovo's independence and was part of the normal process of establishing relations with a new government. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080319/pl_afp/uskosovodefensearmsrussiaserbia_080319215906
35 videos of the Tibet riots are now available in one spot despite the ban by China!
Both Obama and Clinton Miss the Point on Iraq
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Throughout the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, Barack Obama has taken Hillary Clinton to task for her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq. Obama says that Clinton’s vote reflected poor judgment on her part.
Clinton has claimed that when she voted in favor of the authorization, she never imagined that President Bush would actually use it go to war. She thought it was only going to be used for negotiating purposes to encourage Saddam Hussein to “disarm.”
Both Obama and Clinton miss the real point, however—the Constitution, and specifically that portion of the Constitution relating to the powers to declare war and wage war.
We should remind ourselves, first and foremost, what the Constitution actually is. The Constitution is a set of rules that the American citizenry have imposed on the federal government (and the state governments). Just as federal officials impose laws on us, we have imposed a law on them, which is the Constitution. Just as we are expected to obey their laws, they are expected to obey our law.
In addition to setting up the federal government, the Constitution establishes the powers that can be exercised by each of the three branches of government. The Constitution enumerates the powers for each branch. If a power isn’t enumerated, then it cannot legally be exercised.
By the same token, a power delegated to one branch of government cannot be delegated to another branch of government. The power belongs only to the branch of government to which it has been delegated in the Constitution.
With respect to war, the Constitution delegates to the president the power to wage war. However, it delegates to Congress the power to declare war.
What’s the difference between these two powers? The power to declare war is the power to decide whether to go to war or not. Under the Constitution, the president cannot legally wage war against another nation unless Congress first declares war. Again, that’s the law of the land — the law that the American people have imposed on the president, the Congress, the judiciary, and all of their subordinates.
Why did the Framers divide the power to declare war and the power to wage war? Because they didn’t want the president making the decision to go to war. They knew that throughout history rulers have gone to war for the stupidest of reasons, including pride and hubris, and thus they wanted the decision to be made by Congress, the elected body of representatives of the people.
The Iraq War is a perfect example of what the Framers were trying to protect us from. In the build-up to the 2002 invasion, President Bush scared the American people half to death with the prospect that Saddam Hussein was about to unleash WMDs on the United States. “Saddam must disarm!” he repeatedly cried. Alternatively, he argued, the United States should go to war in order to spread democracy in the Middle East. Alternatively, he suggested, there was an al-Qaeda-Saddam link. As Americans are slowly discovering, all of the president’s rationales for going to war have turned out to be bogus.
Hillary Clinton, along with many Americans, argued the importance of placing our faith and trust in the president. “He knows best. He’s got information that we’re not privy to. He would never lie to us.”
Those who made such an argument forgot one important thing: the Constitution, and specifically the part dealing with declaring war. Under the law, President Bush’s judgment on invading Iraq was quite irrelevant, except as a factor that Congress could have taken into consideration in deciding whether to declare war on Iraq.
The law required President Bush to go to Congress and request a declaration of war against Iraq. When Congress convened, the president would have had ample opportunity to make his case for declaring war on Iraq. By the same token, the members of Congress would have had ample opportunity to show that the president’s reasons for going to war were bogus and that all he wanted to do was to effect a regime change in Iraq.
Would Congress have declared war after hearing the president make his case for war? It is impossible to know, but it is entirely possible that the president’s case for going to war might have collapsed like a house of cards under close scrutiny by a few conscientious members of Congress. What we do know is that by declaring war himself, President Bush violated the law — the supreme law of the land that the American people have imposed on him.
But Clinton and the other members of Congress also violated the Constitution as well as and the trust that Americans have place in them as members of Congress. With their vote authorizing the president to decide whether go to war, they essentially said, “Mr. President. We know that it’s our responsibility under the Constitution to decide whether to declare war. But that’s going to be a tough call, especially in an election year. We want you to make the decision. Therefore, we are authorizing you to decide whether the nation is going to war against Iraq.”
Yet, under the Constitution the Congress is precluded from delegating its power to declare war to the president. Therefore, the congressional vote authorizing President Bush to make such a determination was illegal under our form of government. (By the way, it was also quite cowardly.)
Obama’s beef is that the president exercised bad judgment in going to war on Iraq. Clinton’s response is that she didn’t realize that the president would exercise bad judgment after she authorized him to exercise his judgment. What neither of them get is that under our system of government, the issue of going to war against Iraq does not depend on the judgment of the president but rather on the judgment of Congress. This is where Obama, Clinton, McCain, and other members of Congress failed America.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Posted at 11:14 am by Psychomike
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
What The Next President Faces
Richard E. Friedman is the President here in Chicago of the National Strategy Forum, a group I have been involved with for over 15 years. The National Strategy Forum is recognized worldwide as a place where policy makers can go to express the stories behind their policies. Forget the soundbites and chatter of the media, this is where one can dig behind the headlines with the actual news makers.
The upcoming event on the Presidential Campaign and U.S. National Security will deal with issues no candidate to date has been asked about, but are the crucial issues facing the next President.
Here are the issues you probably have never heard before, inspired by Mr. Friedman's thoughts on our future:
Although as Americans we may not see it this way, but in a curious way troops in Iraq have provided a stabilizing effect on the region. Al Qaeda has made Iraq a primary base of operations, as our troops leave battle hardened Al Qaeda vets will return to their countries of origin: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Yemen. They will return riding a crest of popular support and will begin overthrowing governments in the region. Consequences could include a Shi'ite revolution in Bahrain against the pro-U.S. minority Sunnis and a Shi'a attempt to take over oil facilities in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia.
I bet you haven't heard that from any of the candidates!
How will our troops be able to leave? By supporting succession of the nation, we would trigger other nations intervention, for example a Kurdish state would force Turkey to invade. Iraq would become a staging ground for confrontation between Mideast states, and a petri dish of terrorist activity.
The concept of grand coalitions that are being promised by all candidates running is absurd. That concept is now a thing of the past. Already nations are hedging their bets by setting up deals with China. It is disturbing that candidates all talk of returning to an era when coalitions and mutual trust existed, those days are over and security relationships will focus on narrow specific issues.
Our Intel remains in shambles, it is clear top to bottom re-education needs to take place with all 16 (that we know of) national security groups.
As many of you know, I have said that Al Qaeda is an idealist based group, and our propaganda and psychological warfare should be as strong as it was during the Cold War. Yesterday on NPR it was announced that we are going to try the kinds of tactics we used in the Cold War. The reason I'm not in government? Imagine how I would have felt from 2001 saying we need to try this, and waiting 7 years for someone to OK it! I'm just glad we finally are!
If the President continues the practice of unlimited executive power that we have had the last 15 years will this lead to a National Security impasse in Congress?
Will the next President take on individual states with military contracts (from Boston to California) and insist on a military re-organization that will focus on irregular warfare?
Within the next 20 years 30 nations will have nuclear weapons. Are we prepared to in the short term prevent it, in the long term having a strategy for a nuclear world including unstable states?
There will be no conclusion to the immigration issue in the foreseeable future- so can we have a strategy that can cover the national security part?
China and Russia are already expanding their spheres of influence. North Korea, Iran and Syria are challenging the U.S. more openly than ever before.
Are we prepared for a collapse of Gulf Energy? Have we thought about the power Russia and Iran would have on us if this occurs?
We hear talk of change, experience and everything but what we actually face. Let's hope the person chosen to be President has been studying these issues. Or we will be in big trouble.
Posted at 11:06 am by Psychomike
Monday, March 17, 2008
The night before speaking with Haaretz, Levine says he ate dinner with Israeli friends, one of whom asked him: "Would Obama be willing to use force to defend American interests?" "I was astonished by the question. He's made it very, very clear, repeatedly, even in the speech that he made in 2002 opposing America's invasion of Iraq, which he gave basically to a group of pacifists. He said 'Let me be very clear. I'm not a pacifist. It's not that I don't believe in war. I don't believe in dumb wars.'" Obama, Levine says, "fully understands that the greatest threat to Israel at this time is Iran, and that Iran's ability to obtain a nuclear weapon is completely unacceptable. He's made absolutely clear that his priorities with regard to Iran are to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, to stop Iran from continuing to support terror, and to stop Iran from threatening Israel's existence." What differentiates Obama's approach is that he believes in a combination of "aggressive diplomacy" and a willingness to use force, Levine maintains. "He feels that if you have opened with aggressive diplomacy, it gives you better credibility with your friends, to help you to accomplish your objectives. "If he uses both carrots and sticks, and says to the Iranian leadership, 'Look, if you do the things that we have been pressing you to do, you will be welcomed back into the community of nations. And if you don't do them, we keep all options on the table, including the use of military force.'" If Obama uses that approach at the outset, Levine says, he stands a much greater chance of getting Europe and the Arab nations "to support whatever sticks need to be used, if the carrots don't work." Given the tenor of the e-mails, which suggest that Obama would readily negotiate with Hamas, Levine says that many people voice surprise when they learn of the senator's true stance. "He doesn't believe we should talk to or negotiate with Hamas until Hamas accepts the famous three conditions" (the third was that the PLO honor past UN decisions regarding Israel) which Levine himself wrote into U.S. law in 1983, barring the U.S. from negotiating with the PLO unless and until it accepted them. "Obama insists on those conditions." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/964124.htmlPosted at 08:11 am by Psychomike
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The New Face Of Al Qaeda!
THE NEW FACE OF AL QAEDA IS VERY FAMILIAR TO CHICAGO
Al Qaeda has moved to a new level inspired by previous Islamic terrorist plots. 14 years before 911 the following story didn't even make the national press:
Four members of Chicago's El Rukn street gang, including imprisoned Jeff Fort, were indicted yesterday on charges that they conspired with Libyan officials to carry out terrorist bombings and attacks in the United States for pay. Beginning last March, the 46-count federal indictment charges, the group contacted representatives of the Libyan government about receiving money to carry out violent acts in this country. CHICAGO SUN TIMES
October 31, 1986
The idea was to take trucks full of gasoline to downtown Chicago, line them up and set them off. To shoot down planes with weapons they were to buy on the black-market. The payoff for the gang would be 2 1/2 million dollars. The gang happily agreed to. The Democratic Party had poured millions into the street gang ( as they had dozens of others of groups to "take care of anti-war protesters and Black Panthers", the part of the history of the Democratic Party if you are under 34 you have never been told), in 1987 Jeff Fort became the first American convicted of aiding Islamic terrorists. Control was maintained on the Southside not by the police, but by Jeff Fort's street gang. Gun sales had been banned in the city, leaving a defenseless population at the hands of armed gangs. The Democrats felt that would be easier to control the Black population.
When I first moved to Chicago, there had been a series of rapes in the Hyde Park area with University of Chicago students. The rapists knew the police would not go to the Southside at night, so they were dumping the naked raped students on the Southside after dark. Imagine my surprise to open a University of Chicago newspaper to see a full page open letter to the police begging them to rescue the students at night, and stop the practice of waiting until daylight to rescue the naked students. The school finally gave up, and created its own mini- police security group.
Watch this video about the plot to blow up Chicago:
There have been over 200 attacks worldwide orchestrated by Al Qaeda the last few years. Sadly because we are a self centric nation, only a handful have been reported here. This has had the effect of lulling us to sleep and caused conspiracy theorists to conjecture there is no Al Qaeda. Not only is there an Al Qaeda, but in nation after nation it is winning converts. It is happening in our prisons, with gangs, and as we learned in Spain, people you wouldn't think of as suicide killers.
In Spain one well known ecstasy dealer blew himself up which shocked the police and Spain's Intel. He had been known as a high living, surrounded by beautiful women and living large drug dealer. Even when his name emerged as a terrorist, Spain's Intel couldn't believe it. He had been converted to Al Qaeda in prison, where just like all western prisons Al Qaeda has been recruiting members taking advantage of the West's freedom of religion rules.
Although we have failed to infiltrate Al Qaeda, they were able to infiltrate Gitmo. It was discovered after over a year that the men allowed to come into the facility and lead prayers were Al Qaeda agents.
When Al Qaeda began it used money to control the various terror groups it influenced. The new face of Al Qaeda is home grown. I have been asked many times why I say Al Qaeda today is idealist based and the next round of attacks on our nation will probably be home grown.
Hopefully, you are starting to get the picture. Posted at 09:13 am by Psychomike
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The first video of the riots in Tibet!
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=62984
BOOK REVIEW
Ancient tactics for modern battles
The 36 Secret Strategies of the Martial Arts by Hiroshi Moriya with translation and foreword by William Scott Wilson
Reviewed by Michael Jen-Siu
When groups of protesters tire out Chinese officials with relentless payment demands after state-sponsored heists of their property, savvy authorities often settle disputes without a stroke of a baton or even a sentence in a labor or re-education camp. They research each protest leader looking for exploitable weaknesses. Some agitators shut up if they get paid. Others go away if faced with a minor threat against a relative. Eventually the local government weakens the whole movement by indulging the weaknesses of enough potential threats.
Payoffs, threats and other bloodless sneak attacks happen throughout ambitious, but largely lawless, China today. Government agencies use these methods to take people's land for rapid, lucrative redevelopment and then squelch dissent. University students quietly flatter or bribe weak-willed teachers to get good grades after months of cutting classes. No-name job seekers send gullible prospective employers anonymous notes to smear more illustrious fellow applicants.
The core strategies for foiling opponents came from China centuries before any of today's practitioners of the tactics were born, author-professor Hiroshi Moriya would argue in his book The 36 Strategies of Martial Arts. In the early 1980s, Moriya, an accomplished scholar of Chinese culture and philosophy, analyzed and explained these strategies in a book published in Japanese. Now, renowned translator William Scott Wilson has translated the original Chinese maxims and Moriya's interpretive research into English. The ancient Chinese generally didn't want a bloody fight, especially if there were high odds of losing, Moriya argues. Today's officials, wary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, know they would lose an international public relations battle if they used violence against protesting citizens. So they, and other modern Chinese in schools, offices and even big messy families, use some of these old battle strategies to get one over on perceived adversaries while minimizing aftershocks. The strategies, taken from the I Ching, which was theoretically written almost 5,000 years ago, rely on deception and other psych-outs, eliminating the need for much real firepower, Moriya effectively explains. His 255-page guide to shafting your enemy concisely describes each strategy and gives examples of how Chinese dynastic leaders would wield it in battle. Several chapters describe how Mao Zedong's armies applied the theories, and how those ruses were adopted by the former Soviet Union and Germany in World War II and elsewhere. Among the more memorable strategies: Make an enemy think you're doing one thing while you sneakily do another; divide a strong army geographically and then reduce it by attacking the weak points; exploit dissent within enemy ranks and keep faking attacks until an enemy thinks you're not really up for a real fight - then finally wage war when least expected. A garrison commander during the Tang Dynasty, for example, twice lowered 1,000 soldier-like straw mannequins down a fortress wall in front of rebel forces, who rolled their collective eyes. When he sent in real soldiers later, the enemy imagined mannequins again and quickly lost the battle.
Another strategy explains how ancient Chinese would delude an enemy into suspecting internal dissent among powerful leaders, leading to the elimination of the people most likely to win a battle. In that spirit, Stalin executed a top general, Marshal Tohachevski, after Hitler secretly fabricated documents that accused him of treason.
"Recent times have produced good examples of this strategy, even though you might think that such a transparent, wedge-driving ploy would no longer be effective," Moriya writes. He adds that this strategy "has an equally comfortable home in the relations between individuals as well".
Other lessons, we learn, can be used to beat bigger rivals in business, say by introducing niche products that mega-companies haven't produced. "I would request strongly that it be read as a book whose practices can enliven our present world," Moriya writes.
MORE HERE: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JC15Ad01.html
I advocated talks, even in secret, with Al Qaeda shortly after the Irish peace accords were first announced. This went over like a fart in church.
I felt, and still do, that guiding the group could only occur with contact and infiltration. We have done neither.
When Ron Paul made the same comment during the debates McCain thought it was a chilling, out of touch idea. The other candidates were as stunned as they were with his call to return to the Constitution. THE WHAT??????
(Democrats believe the entire matter should be a law enforcement matter, and remember the revolutions and insurgencies of old they supported and think it will all just take care of itself without any help. Or strategy.)
Under Clinton we tried ignoring the Al Qaeda dragon. And it bit us over and over.
Under Bush we have tried fighting it, but insurgents don't need to win. They only need to survive. The people have grown weary of fighting, and the fighting has only begun with more battles ahead in Iran and Kosovo.
Now we need to negotiate, infiltrate, guide the dragon. Tame it. Only Ron Paul got that. Let's not let the people forget it! Pass the following on:
Top Blair Aide: We Must Talk to al-Qaida By Ian Katz The Guardian UK
Saturday 15 March 2008
Former No. 10 chief says Irish peace process showed link to enemy needed.
Western governments must talk to terror groups including al-Qaida and the Taliban if they hope to secure a long-term halt to their campaigns of violence, according to the man who for more than a decade was Tony Blair's most influential aide and adviser.
Jonathan Powell, who served as Blair's chief of staff from 1995 to 2007 and is widely regarded as having been instrumental in negotiating a settlement in Northern Ireland, said his experience in the province convinced him that it was essential to keep a line of communication open even with one's most bitter enemies.
Powell said: "There's nothing to say to al-Qaida and they've got nothing to say to us at the moment, but at some stage you're going to have to come to a political solution as well as a security solution. And that means you need the ability to talk."
In his first major interview, ahead of the publication of his book on the behind the scenes drama leading to the Northern Ireland peace deal, Powell also delivered a remarkably candid assessment of the Blair years, revealing that:
- He did not think Labour had governed boldly enough because it feared losing power.
- Blair had a tendency to change his mind about things and could be "a bit of a flippertygibbet".
- Blair had failed in 10 years of government to sell Europe to the British.
- Relations between the Blair and Brown camps were so toxic that Gordon Brown did not talk to him for 10 years.
Powell, the most senior member of the Blair circle to survive the prime minister's full term in office, said that he had realised, after reviewing government papers and his diaries, that a secret back channel between the British government and the IRA, first opened in the 1970s, was one of the key factors that contributed to a peace deal three decades later.
"It's very difficult for democratic governments to do - talk to a terrorist movement that's killing your people," he said. "[But] if I was in government now I would want to have been talking to Hamas, I would be wanting to communicate with the Taliban; and I would want to find a channel to al-Qaida."
Powell's remarks will be highly controversial, as all western governments have insisted any contact with al-Qaida would be immoral and pointless. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said last night: "It is inconceivable that HMG would ever seek to reach a mutually acceptable accommodation with a terrorist organisation like al-Qaida."
The government's position on the Taliban and Hamas has been more nuanced: it did communicate with the Palestinian group for a period through an MI6 officer, but broke off contact and now insists Hamas must recognise Israel and end violence before talks can resume. In December Brown ruled out talking to the Taliban leadership, but said he would "support [Afghanistan's] President Karzai in his efforts at reconciliation."
Powell, whose book, "Great Hatred, Little Room," will be serialised exclusively in the Guardian from Monday, conceded that the idea of talking to al-Qaida and the Taliban was fraught with practical problems: "Who do you talk to? And what do you actually have to talk about?"
Reflecting on Blair's time in office, Powell said ministers had been slow to act in many areas because "we were mesmerised by the notion that we'd be another Labour government that came in, a flash in the pan, and then disappeared again ... And so the huge emphasis was on not spending all our political capital, hoarding it and saving it to win another election and stay in power."
He said that Labour's first term in office had also been hampered by the poor calibre of many ministers, including the health secretary Frank Dobson, whom he described as "a disaster," and the environment minister Michael Meacher.
Although he said he believed Blair had increased Britain's influence in Europe, one of his biggest regrets was that the government had failed to sell Europe at home. "We didn't manage to change British attitudes about Europe ... Tony made lots of speeches, but we never could do that."
Powell also offered a remarkable insight into the intensity of the years-long Blair-Brown feud, revealing that the former chancellor had walked past him weekly for more than 10 years without ever saying hello.
Periodically, he said, he could hear the two men yelling at each other through the door of the prime minister's office.
Though he said he regarded Blair as a "remarkable, visionary leader" who would go down as one of the greatest British prime ministers, he conceded that he found some of his personality traits irritating, in particular his habit of "not sticking to things once you'd decided them."
He said: "I take a very strong view, once you've decided to do something you should really stick to it and see it through and he would sometimes be a bit of a flippertygibbet about things and change his mind."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/15/uksecurity.alqaida
Posted at 01:24 pm by Psychomike
U.S. Troops Discuss Torture!
SMOKING GUN FOUND: HUGE INTEL FAILURE LED TO IRAQ, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE: U.S. TROOPS DISCUSS TORTURE!, LIBERIAN PRESIDENT FORCED CANNIBALISM, RON PAUL WARNS OF ECONOMIC RUIN!
The majority of people today believe that Bush lied to get us into Iraq. It turns out to have been a tremendous Intel failure- just like the one that screwed up 911. And nothing has been fixed. If only Intel was as powerful as the conspiracy freeks think it is!
Protesters in Tibet's capital burnt shops and vehicles and yelled for independence on Friday as the Himalayan region was hit by its biggest protests in two decades, prompting the Dalai Lama to warn Beijing against using "brute force".
There were also reports at least two people died in the violence, possibly more.
Peaceful street marches by Tibetan Buddhist monks over past days gave way to angry crowds of hundreds who confronted anti-riot police in the remote region -- testing China's grip on control just as it readies for the Olympic Games.
"Now it's very chaotic outside," an ethnic Tibetan resident said by telephone.
"People have been burning cars and motorbikes and buses. There is smoke everywhere and they have been throwing rocks and breaking windows. We're scared."
U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia said Chinese police fired on rioting Tibetan protesters http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=85991
Hundreds of Serbs stormed a United Nations courthouse in northern Kosovo on Friday, took control of the site and hoisted a Serbian flag to replace the U.N.'s.
By nightfall, the flag had come down but about 100 Kosovo Serbs remained in the yard of the building in the Serb-dominated city of Kosovska Mitrovica. More were locked inside the courthouse, refusing to leave without a deal with U.N. authorities, a spokesman for Kosovo's police said. Their demands were not immediately clear.
A spokesman for Kosovo's police in Kosovska Mitrovica said the regional U.N. representative was negotiating with Serb leaders to deal with the situation. But talks later broke off for the night, authorities said.
U.N. special police units were on standby to take control of the court and remove protesters.
The Serbs broke through two entrance gates and pushed aside U.N. riot police guarding the building, a police spokesman said. The dozens of U.N. police did not intervene. http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=86426
Ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor ordered militias to eat the flesh of their enemies, a former death squad leader has told his war crimes trial.
Joseph "Zigzag" Marzah said Mr Taylor had instructed his fighters in Liberia to even eat UN peacekeepers to "set an example for the people to be afraid".
Mr Taylor is on trial at The Hague for backing rebels in Sierra Leone in an 11-year war in which thousands died.
He has denied the 11 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has been moved away from West Africa because of fears that it could lead to renewed instability in the region.
It began last June, but was adjourned until January after only one day when Mr Taylor dismissed his lawyer. Many witnesses have since testified behind closed doors.
Cannibalism MORE HERE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7295300.stm
Smarting at mounting criticism of its human rights record amid escalating civil war, Sri Lanka's government has accused the United States of throwing a lifeline to the widely banned Tamil Tiger rebels.
In its annual report on human rights practices, the U.S. State Department said the Sri Lankan state's respect for human rights continued to decline in 2007, citing reports of killings by government agents and collaboration between the state and paramilitaries accused of major rights abuses.
"The report presents a distorted view of the actual situation in Sri Lanka during the year 2007 and is unfortunately a litany of unsubstantiated allegations, innuendo and vituperative exaggerations," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued late on Friday.
"It is indeed a matter of concern that the report, based on hearsay ... has resulted in throwing a lifeline to the LTTE (Tigers) at a time when it is struggling to maintain its position both militarily on the ground and internationally."
The United States is among a host of nations which have outlawed the Tigers as a terrorist group. The U.S. embassy in Colombo said the government stood by its report.
Rights groups have reported hundreds of abductions, disappearances and killings blamed on one side or the other since the increasingly dirty civil war, which has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983, resumed in 2006. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL126048.htm
"Taxi to the Dark Side" doesn't contain anything wholly new; it just provides more complete detail and important clarifications, such that Guantanamo uses very much the same basic methods as Abu Ghraib, though the location is cleaner and of course wasn't formerly used by Saddam Hussein.
Dilawar, the Afghan taxi driver, was essentially beaten to death by American soldiers in the Bagram prison. He did not live long once his ill-trained though plainly-directed captors got hold of him—but his final hours were terrifying and horrible. They kicked his legs till they turned to pulp and would have had to be amputated, had he lived. A heart condition caused an embolism that went to his brain and was the cause of death, which on the official US papers given to Dilawar's family, in English so they did not know what they meant, was "homicide," but the officer in charge of the prison denied this when queried. READ ABOUT THE VIDEO HERE: http://baltimorechronicle.com/2008/022308Knipp.shtml WATCH THE VIDEO HERE- NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH! http://www.surfthechannel.com/info/documentaries/BBC_Documentarys/63717/Taxi+To+The+Dark+Side.html
Intervening Our Way to Economic Ruin
|
| by Rep. Ron Paul |
On Wednesday, March 13, Rep. Ron Paul addressed the House of Representatives on the costs of intervening around the world.
I am pleased to address the House tonight about the budget because there has been a lot of concern expressed here today on both sides of the aisle about the kind of financial trouble we're in. And there's no doubt about that. But sometimes I think we go back and forth spending more time blaming each other rather than dealing with the real problem.
One of the contentions I've had about the budget is that we look at it as an accounting problem rather than a philosophy problem because the spending occurs because of what we accept as the proper role of government. And right now, it's assumed by the country as well as the Congress that the proper role of government is to run our lives, run the economy, run the welfare state, and police the world. And all of a sudden, it puts a lot of pressure on the budget.
Today, the national debt is going up almost $600 billion. And the economy is getting weaker, there's no doubt about it. We're in a recession, it's going to get much worse, which means that the deficit is going to get a lot worse. And I'm predicting within a couple of years, it will not surprise me one bit to see the national debt, the national obligation for future generations to rise in 1 year three-quarters of $1 trillion. And that is a very possible number.
And like it has been expressed so often today, we need to do something about it. The question is, what are we going to do about it? One side, it seems like, well, if we just raise taxes, we're going to solve the problem. The other side says, well, all we have to do is get rid of the earmarks. Well, that argument, I think, falls short, too, because you can vote to cut all the earmarks, but it doesn't cut any spending, it just delivers the authority to spend the money to the executive branch. I think the job of the Congress is to earmark the money. It's our obligation to tell people how the money is spent.
And those who think that we can solve this problem by just getting rid of earmarks, they never talk about the earmarks overseas, the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars we spend overseas. We earmark them to certain countries, into building military buildings overseas. What about the earmark for the embassy in Iraq? It has cost $1 billion. That's an earmark. But the side that said that we can solve this problem by cutting earmarks never talks about these earmarks.
Just think of the earmarks in the military budget. I mean, billions. We finally elect a different Congress to deal with some of these supplementals and emergency spending that we don't have the guts to put on the budget. And what do we do? We have the continuation, in all the budgets presented today, we're still going to finance the war as an off-budget emergency item. We're not being honest with ourselves. And we pretend that the problem is there, and that if you talk about it, it's going to go away.
The way I see it is there's only one way that we're going to attack this, and that is, decide what our government ought to be doing. And the Constitution is very clear, the government ought to preserve our liberties and give us a strong national defense. It shouldn't run our lives, it shouldn't run the economy, it shouldn't police the world. We're not supposed to be the policemen of the world. But everybody talks about it.
And both sides of the aisle have no hesitation to spend every cent the executive branch asked for to run a war that was never declared. We now spend $1 trillion a year going up, this year it's going to go over $1 trillion to run the operations overseas. That means all the foreign aid and all the military, $1 trillion to do things we shouldn't be doing.
They interviewed 3,400 military personnel just recently, military leaders, and 82 percent of them said our military is weaker today than it was 5 years ago. So, all of this money spent and all this policing in the world, and all this deficit.
And financially we're coming down. I mean, just today the dollar went down 1.2 percent in one day, after this steady erosion. It comes from the fact of deficits. And why does that hurt the dollar? Because we don't have enough money. We don't tax enough. We can't tax anymore. People are overtaxed. We can't borrow anymore because interest rates will go up. So, we print the money. And the more money you print, the further the dollar goes down, and then everything goes up in price. So it's a cycle that's coming to an end.
The value of the dollar is really telling the whole story. We've overextended ourselves because we do not challenge the whole notion of what we ought to be doing here and what our government ought to be all about because we have drifted so far from the original intent of the Constitution. There is no hesitation, there are debates that go on here endlessly. One side of the aisle says, well, we need more and more money for the military; we can't cut one single cent on overseas expenditure. And the other side says, oh, no, we can't cut the entitlements. And then there's an agreement, we raise both.
My idea is to have a strong national defense and to get this budget under control. Reject the notion that we need to run an empire; we can't afford it, it's going to come down, it always comes down. It has come down all throughout history because eventually the currency is destroyed.
We're in 130 countries. We have 700 bases. Our military now is in worse shape than it was 5 years ago, according to our military. So it's time we look at the strategic, the philosophic problems. And I will say, unless we do this, this will end badly. It's going to end with a major economic crisis. It's going to be worldwide, and we here at home will suffer, not only economically but inevitably. Under these conditions the people lose their liberty, and our liberties are being eroded every single day.
So, yes, we take an oath to obey and uphold the Constitution against foreign and domestic. But we're domestic, and we should protect our rights and our budget and the greatness of this country. | Posted at 01:52 am by Psychomike
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