No amount of crowing over a fig leaf Iraqi constitution by President Bush can hide the fact that the region's autocrats, theocrats and terrorists are stronger than ever.
Who lost Iraq?
Someday, as a fragmented Iraq spirals further into religious madness, terrorism and civil war, there will be a bipartisan inquiry into this blundering intrusion into another people's history. The crucial question will be why a "preemptive" American invasion -- which has led to the deaths of nearly 2,000 Americans, roughly 10 times as many Iraqis, the expenditure of about $200 billion and incalculable damage to the United States' global reputation -- has had exactly the opposite effect predicted by its neoconservative sponsors.
No amount of crowing over a fig leaf Iraqi constitution by President Bush can hide the fact that the region's autocrats, theocrats and terrorists are stronger than ever.
"The U.S. now has to recognize that [it] overthrew Saddam Hussein to replace him with a pro-Iranian state," said regional expert Peter W. Galbraith, the former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and an advisor to the Iraqi Kurds. And, he could have added, a pro-Iranian state that will be repressive and unstable.
Think this is an exaggeration? Consider that arguably the most powerful Shiite political party and militia in today's Iraq, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its affiliated paramilitary force, the Badr Brigade, was not only based in Iran but was set up by Washington's old arch-foe, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It also fought on the side of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war and was recognized by Tehran as the government in exile of Iraq.
Or that former exile Ahmad Chalabi is now one of Iraq's deputy prime ministers. The consummate political operator managed to maintain ties to Iran while gaining the devoted support of Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, charming and manipulating Beltway policymakers and leading U.S. journalists into believing that Iraq was armed with weapons of mass destruction.
Chalabi is thrilled with the draft constitution, which, if passed, will probably exponentially increase tension and violence between Sunnis and Shiites. "It is an excellent document," said Chalabi, who has been accused by U.S. intelligence of being a spy for Iran, where he keeps a vacation home.
What an absurd outcome for a war designed to create a compliant, unified and stable client state that would be pro-American, laissez-faire capitalist and unallied with the hated Iran. Of course, Bush tells us again, this is "progress" and an "inspiration." Yet his relentless spinning of manure into silk has worn thin on the American public and sent his approval ratings tumbling.
Even supporters of the war are starting to realize that rather than strengthening the United States' position in the world, the invasion and occupation have led to abject humiliation: from the Abu Ghraib scandal, to the guerrilla insurgency exposing the limits of military power, to an election in which "our guy" -- Iyad Allawi -- was defeated by radicals and religious extremists.
In a new low, the U.S. president felt obliged to call and plead with the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, Abdelaziz Hakim, to make concessions to gain Sunni support. Even worse, he was summarily rebuffed. Nevertheless, Bush had no choice but to eat crow and like it.
"This is a document of which the Iraqis, and the rest of the world, can be proud," he said Sunday, through what must have been gritted teeth. After all, this document includes such democratic gems as "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation," and "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam," as well as socialist-style pronouncements that work and a decent standard of living are a right guaranteed by the state. But the fact is, it could establish Khomeini's ghost as the patron saint of Iraq and Bush would have little choice but to endorse it.
Even many in his own party are rebelling. "I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur," said Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel last week, one of a growing number of Republicans who get that "we should start figuring out how we get out of there."
Not that our "what-me-worry?" president is the least bit troubled by all this adverse blowback from the huge, unnecessary gamble he took in invading the heart of the Arab and Muslim worlds. "What is important is that the Iraqis are now addressing these issues through debate and discussion, not at the barrel of a gun," Bush said.
Wrong again. It was the barrel of a gun that midwifed the new Iraq, which threatens to combine the instability of Lebanon with the religious fanaticism of Iran.
Robert Scheer is the co-author of "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq".
Posted: 3:35 a.m. EDT NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- A day after Hurricane Katrina dealt a devastating blow to the Big Easy, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Tuesday night blasted what he called a lack of coordination in relief efforts for setting behind the city's recovery.
"There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen," Nagin said in a phone interview with WAPT-TV in Jackson, Miss., fuming over what he said were scuttled plans to plug a 200-yard breach near the 17th Street Canal, allowing Lake Pontchartrain to spill into the central business district. An earlier breach occurred along the Industrial Canal in the city's Lower 9th Ward.
The rising flood waters overwhelmed pumping stations that would normally keep the city dry. About 80 percent of the city was flooded with water up to 20 feet deep after the two levees collapsed.
The Army Corps of Engineers is working to repair the levee breaches, the agency said Tuesday, but it gave no timetable for repairs.
The Corps has workers assessing damage at the two locations. The National Guard, Coast Guard and state and federal agencies are working with the agency to speed the process, it reported.
"These closures are essential so that water can be removed from the city," a statement from the Corps of Engineers' headquarters in Washington said.
Walter Baumy, the agency's engineering division chief, said the Corps is trying to line up rock, sandbags, barges, helicopters and cranes to patch the damaged levees.
Col. Kevin Wagner, a Corps official in Baton Rouge, told reporters that engineers also were eyeing the prospect of filling shipping containers with sand and lowering them into the breaches to stanch the flooding.
The National Weather Service reported a breach along the Industrial Canal levee at Tennessee Street, in southeast New Orleans, on Monday. Local reports later said the levee was overtopped, not breached, but the Corps of Engineers reported it Tuesday afternoon as having been breached.
But Nagin said a repair attempt was supposed to have been made Tuesday.
According to the mayor, Blackhawk helicopters were scheduled to pick up and drop massive 3,000-pound sandbags in the 17th Street Canal breach, but were diverted on rescue missions. Nagin said neglecting to fix the problem has set the city behind by at least a month.
"I had laid out like an eight week to ten week timeline where we could get the city back in semblance of order. It's probably been pushed back another four weeks as a result of this," Nagin said.
"That four weeks is going to stop all commerce in the city of New Orleans. It also impacts the nation, because no domestic oil production will happen in southeast Louisiana."
Nagin said he expects relief efforts in the city to improve as New Orleans, the National Guard and FEMA combine their command centers for better communication, followup and accountability.
A couple is being protected by police after their home was wrongly identified on Fox News as belonging to an Islamic radical.
After the report aired on Aug.7, people have shouted profanities at Randy and Ronnell Vorick, taken photos of their house, and spray-painted "terrorist" (misspelling it "terrist") on their property.
"I'm scared to go to work and leave my kids home. I call them every 30 minutes to make sure they're OK," Randy Vorick said.
John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor who appears on the Fox News segment "Inside Scoop with John Loftus," gave out the Voricks' address during the broadcast.
He said, however, that the home belonged to Iyad Hilal, whose group, Loftus said, has ties to those responsible for the July 7 bombings in London.
But Hilal moved out of the house about three years ago.
Since the day after the broadcast, police have patrolled the Voricks' house, and have kept a squad car across the street. Police Capt. John Rees said the department is "giving special attention to the family to make sure they're safe."
The couple sought a public apology and correction.
"John Loftus has been reprimanded for his careless error, and we sincerely apologize to the family," said Fox spokeswoman Irena Brigante.
Loftus also apologized and told the Los Angeles Times last week that "mistakes happen. ... That was the best information we had at the time."
The FBI has launched an inquiry into the activities of Hilal, a grocery store owner who is allegedly the U.S. leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been banned in parts of Europe and the Middle East.
Hilal, 56, is apparently not suspected of any terrorist acts, but FBI terrorism investigators want to know more about his and the group's activities.
comments from
Comment: This is the stuff of vigilantes, of taking the law into your own hands. Imagine broadcasting the address of someone, even if he was connected to a bombing. Isn't it the role of the police to handle such a case?
But the man identified on Fox "News" is not even suspected of any terrorist acts, and he no longer lives in the house.
Mr. Loftus, acting as one of far too many in-house vigilantes at Fox "News", moves from the usual ring-wing hate rhetoric to hate act when he gives out the address. To do such a thing is to incite his listeners to get involved, and, after years of calling liberals traitors who should be shot for supporting the "terrists", what kind of emotion do we expect to be produced when Loftus falsely declares a real, bone fide, "terrist" is living in California and broadcasts where to find him? A fear-primed public will terrorise the innocent victim. It's like clockwork.
And all it takes it one crazy to go further than spray-paint or insults and decide "to deal with them terrists" himself for an innocent man, woman, or child to die.
Sure, Loftus apologises.
"Mistakes happen. That was the best information we had at the time."
Sound familiar?
"There are WMD in Iraq. Saddam purchased uranium from Niger. Saddam was behind 9/11. The people living in that house over there are terrorists. Mistakes happen. Get over it."
But here, we know, or at least have an idea that it is very highly probable, that the London bombings were the work of British intelligence, MI5. We know that people of Middle East, Central Asian, and, in the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, Brazilian, descent are targeted as the patsies in order to stir up racial hatred, distrust, and fear. The propaganda whipped up by Fox "News" and its ilk since 9/11 is generating negative energy, and that energy will have to be manifested one way or another. It will express itself.
Stepping back and looking at how the scenario has developed, it even looks as if it was planned:
First, 9/11. Galvanise the population into hatred and anger towards Muslims, Arabs, and other from the Middle East and Asia.
Second, play on the great threat to the US from these forces. Make the population feel that they could be anywhere, even your neighbour.
Third, attack people who disagree by portraying them as the lackeys and patsies of the "terrorists". Portray them as do-gooders who don't understand the real world, who don't understand that the enemy will stop at nothing to conquer us, and that, therefore, we must respond in kind or be annihilated. Build up the rhetoric over a period of years, taking it up one notch at a time, until the link "dissenter=terrorist" is automatic.
Fourth, arrange an economic crisis in order to increase the pressure on the population. Arrange it so that people feel that their very way of life is under attack, not just in words, but by turning the screws ever tighter.
Fifth, at the same time, insist that everything is going well. In this way, individuals who are not making ends meet will internalise their problems and say "If the economy is doing so well, then I must be the problem."
Sixth, choose the moment for the fatal blow. Arrange it so that it can be blamed on the chosen target, in this case the Arabs (terrorism, oil), and allow the public to give vent to their anger, fear, and hatred to take out any internal opposition at home.
In another synchronous moment, we have just received the following from a member of the QFS. He points us to this recent statement from the people at urbansurvival.com, a group with web bots that patrol the net analysing data to get a sense for current tendencies and how they might develop. They write, in a piece on Cindy Sheehan:
What's so amazing to us - verging on mind boggling - is that while our technology doesn't get the precise presentation of the future, it does get the general outline close enough so that we know where to follow along and what to cover. Emotionally, we're not taken by surprise, either. We're pleased as hell that the next run should give us insight into the huge emotional tension starting to build now and which the time-piercing technology reports is scheduled for release around the first week of December.
This feeling of emotional tension is also what we are reading from our daily browsing of the Internet, though we have to resort to our own senses and aren't relying on web bots.
This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss.
Housing prices move much more slowly than stock prices. There are no Black Mondays, when prices fall 23 percent in a day. In fact, prices often keep rising for a while even after a housing boom goes bust.
So the news that the U.S. housing bubble is over won't come in the form of plunging prices; it will come in the form of falling sales and rising inventory, as sellers try to get prices that buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the process may already have started.
Of course, some people still deny that there's a housing bubble. Let me explain how we know that they're wrong.
One piece of evidence is the sense of frenzy about real estate, which irresistibly brings to mind the stock frenzy of 1999. Even some of the players are the same. The authors of the 1999 best seller "Dow 36,000" are now among the most vocal proponents of the view that there is no housing bubble.
Then there are the numbers. Many bubble deniers point to average prices for the country as a whole, which look worrisome but not totally crazy. When it comes to housing, however, the United States is really two countries, Flatland and the Zoned Zone.
In Flatland, which occupies the middle of the country, it's easy to build houses. When the demand for houses rises, Flatland metropolitan areas, which don't really have traditional downtowns, just sprawl some more. As a result, housing prices are basically determined by the cost of construction. In Flatland, a housing bubble can't even get started.
But in the Zoned Zone, which lies along the coasts, a combination of high population density and land-use restrictions - hence "zoned" - makes it hard to build new houses. So when people become willing to spend more on houses, say because of a fall in mortgage rates, some houses get built, but the prices of existing houses also go up. And if people think that prices will continue to rise, they become willing to spend even more, driving prices still higher, and so on. In other words, the Zoned Zone is prone to housing bubbles.
The first bar-headed geese have already arrived at their wintering grounds near the Cauvery River in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Over the next 10 weeks, 100,000 more geese, gulls and cormorants will leave their summer home at Lake Qinghai in western China, headed for India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and, eventually, Australia.
An unknown number of these beautiful migrating birds will carry H5N1, the avian flu sub-type that has killed 61 people in Southeast Asia and which the World Health Organization (WHO) fears is on the verge of mutating into a pandemic form like that which killed 50 to 100 million people in the fall of 1918.
As the birds arrive in the wetlands of South Asia, they will excrete the virus into the water, where it risks spreading to migrating waterfowl from Europe, as well as to domestic poultry. In the worst-case scenario, this will bring avian flu to the doorstep of the dense slums of Dhaka, Kolkata, Karachi and Mumbai.
The avian flu outbreak at Lake Qinghai was first identified by Chinese wildlife officials at the end of April. Initially it was confined to a small islet in the huge salt lake, where geese suddenly began to act spasmodically, then to collapse and die. By mid-May it had spread through the lake's entire avian population, killing thousands of birds. An ornithologist called it "the biggest and most extensively mortal avian influenza event ever seen in wild birds".
Chinese scientists, meanwhile, were horrified by the virulence of the new strain: when mice were infected they died even quicker than when injected with "genotype Z", the fearsome H5N1 variant currently killing farmers and their children in Vietnam.
Virus may kill 60,000 in California despite new drug, study says
By DAVID WHITNEY BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU
Last Updated: August 14, 2005, 04:26:59 AM PDT
WASHINGTON — They know it's coming. Hospitals already are monitoring for its arrival with every patient who checks in. Now scientists are swabbing wild bird bottoms in California and elsewhere in a hunt for the first signs of the deadly virus.
What has scientists worried is not the fact that the avian flu virus H5N1 already has killed at least 60 people overseas. Or that it has spread from Southeast Asia to China and Russia.
What has them convinced about the diminishing odds of escaping a worldwide health catastrophe — one study estimates that fatalities in California could top 60,000 — is that wild birds overseas no longer seem to be dying.
That means the virus is mutating, and scientists fear it has now adapted so that it can survive the annual migration of wild birds from Asia to North America without killing its hosts.
"That's a real danger sign," said veterinarian Carol Cardona of the University of California at Davis.
Cardona is part of the growing army of scientists and health care professionals gearing up to fight what could become the first flu pandemic since 1918, when a Spanish flu virus — also believed to have been spread by birds — killed between 20 million and 40 million people around the world.
More Americans died in that outbreak than were killed in World War I. And already the projections are that the next pandemic, perhaps just months away, will kill similar numbers of people.
So far, the virus has not mutated or combined with other influenza viruses so that it can spread from human to human.
"The great fear is that we will see a version of H5N1 that will spread very easily from person to person," said David Daigle of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Migrating birds may bring flu
"Most experts believe it is not a question of if, but when," he said.
According to a recent report by the Trust for America's Health, the U.S. toll could surpass 540,000.
In California, the report said, deaths could top 60,000 and hospitalizations could exceed 273,000 — unfathomable given that number is four times the amount of hospital beds in the state, according to the California Hospital Association.
Ken August, spokesman for the California Department of Health Services, said that if the nightmare scenario develops, mass quarantine of infected patients and other mandatory steps to stop the virus' spread could be inevitable.
"We could face asking the public to take some extraordinary measures," August warned.
Already, he said, hospitals throughout the state have been asked to begin monitoring for patients reporting unexplained respiratory illness and who have traveled recently to Southeast Asia.
"What we're concerned about is the flu virus mutating into something that no one has experienced and that would cause severe illness and death," he said.
While scientists and health officials stress that there is no evidence of an Asian variety of the H5N1 virus in the United States now, it could arrive at almost any time with passengers unloading from an overseas flight from Thailand, China or Russia.
Or it could arrive on the wings of an infected bird.
UC Davis' Cardona is helping oversee in California a national effort to detect the virus' avian arrival.
This year, she said, about 2,000 nonmigratory wild birds will be checked to see if they have any signs of the Asian H5N1 virus. The nonmigratory birds are easier to locate and swab, she said, and they are likely to pick up the disease from waterfowl and other birds migrating down from Alaska on the Pacific Flyway.
The goal is to keep the virus from poultry farms in the Central Valley and Southern California before they become breeding grounds for a deadly form that can be transmitted from human to human.
"We all believe that wild birds are not likely to cause a pandemic without an intermediate host for the virus," she said. "And poultry are likely to be that host."
Already, she said, poultry growers and backyard farmers are being urged to keep the water and feed for their chickens and ducks protected from wild birds so that the virus can't be passed along.
The deadly strain of the H5N1 virus was first detected in Southeast Asia more than two years ago. Tens of millions of domestic ducks and chickens have been slaughtered and burned to stop its spread, but the virus quickly migrated.
More than 60 people who have come into contact with sick birds have died.
While there have been no reports of the virus being transmitted between people, British researchers reported finding the H5N1 virus in the spinal fluid of a young Vietnamese boy earlier this year, indicating that the virus is mutating to the point it can infect the human brain.
Researchers working on a drug to fight the virus have been surprised by its mutation.
Recently there have been reports from the National Institutes of Health that a drug known commercially as Tamiflu has shown promise in studies involving rats that it could suppress the spread of the virus.
"That's very encouraging," said August of the California Department of Health Services. "But to produce enough for all Americans and then to distribute it to all who need it would be an enormous challenge."
That point was highlighted by the Trust for America's Health report. It said that if the 5.3 million doses of Tamiflu in federal possession were distributed on the basis of population, only about 639,000 of California's 30 million people would get the medicine.
The report's conclusions are grim.
"Overall, U.S. pandemic preparedness is inadequate," it said. "Both the federal pandemic plan and various state pandemic plans are insufficient for a national response to a pandemic influenza."
California is better off than most states.
Two years ago, the trust praised California for the way it had spent $160 million it had received for bioterrorism preparedness, citing it as one of the top four states in terms of preparation.
"One of the benefits of our preparedness for bioterrorism isthat we have an improved network of laboratories, we've improved our system for identifying outbreaks and we've strengthened our communication between public health, law enforcement and public officials," August said.
"But we can never be fully prepared for a pandemic."
[...] Could it ever be an evolutionarily stable strategy for people to be innately unselfish?
On the whole, a capacity to cheat, to compete and to lie has proven to be a stupendously successful adaptation. Thus the idea that selection pressure could ever cause saintliness to spread in a society looks implausible in practice. It doesn't seem feasible to outcompete genes which promote competitiveness. "Nice guys" get eaten or outbred. Happy people who are unaware get eaten or outbred. Happiness and niceness today is vanishingly rare, and the misery and suffering of those who are able to truly feel, who are empathic toward other human beings, who have a conscience, is all too common. And the psychopathic manipulations are designed to make psychopaths of us all.
Nevertheless, a predisposition to, conscience, ethics, can prevail if and when it is also able to implement the deepest level of altruism: making the object of its empathy the higher ideal of enhancing free will in the abstract sense, for the sake of others, including our descendants.
In short, our "self-interest" ought to be vested in collectively ensuring that all others are happy and well-disposed too; and in ensuring that children we bring into the world have the option of being constitutionally happy and benevolent toward one another.
This means that if psychopathy threatens the well-being of the group future, then it can be only be dealt with by refusing to allow the self to be dominated by it on an individual, personal basis. Preserving free will for the self in the practical sense, ultimately preserves free will for others. Protection of our own rights AS the rights of others, underwrites the free will position and potential for happiness of all. If mutant psychopaths pose a potential danger then true empathy, true ethics, true conscience, dictates using prophylactic therapy against psychopaths.
And so it is that identifying the psychopath, ceasing our interaction with them, cutting them off from our society, making ourselves unavailable to them as "food" or objects to be conned and used, is the single most effective strategy that we can play.
It seems certain from the evidence that a positive transformation of human nature isn't going to come about through a great spiritual awakening, socio-economic reforms, or a spontaneous desire among the peoples of the world to be nice to each other. But it's quite possible that, in the long run, the psychopathic program of suffering will lose out because misery is not a stable strategy. In a state of increasing misery, victims will seek to escape it; and this seeking will ultimately lead them to inquire into the true state of their misery, and that may lead to a society of intelligent people who will have the collective capacity to do so.
[...] Armageddon is seen by Christian fundamentalists as "nuclear and imminent", waiting only for proper orchestration from American political leaders. The Zionists, naturally, do NOT include Armageddon in their messianic aspirations. This conflict of interests at a higher level is exposed in Gorenberg's book.
Gorenberg's book was written before 9-11 and, in this sense, was extremely prescient. The reader who wishes to understand what is at the root of the current conflict that threatens to engulf our planet will find his history of those 35 disputed acres of the Temple Mount to be crucial. Gorenberg makes clear what is at the root of the volatile relationships between Arabs, Jews and Christians in Israel. He pays special attention to carefully documenting and analyzing the actions and beliefs of fundamentalist groups in all three religions.
Jewish messianists and Christian millennialists both believe that building the Third Temple on the site where both Solomon's and Herod's temples are alleged to have stood is essential for their respective prophetic scenarios to take place (never mind that they seem to both be using each other and each believe that the other is just a dumb tool), while the Muslim believers fear that efforts to destroy Al-Aqsa mosque to make way for the Third Temple will prevent fulfillment of the prophecy about Islam's Meccan shrine migrating to Jerusalem at the end of time.
Gorenberg calls Temple Mount "a sacred blasting cap".
The problem is, of course, as I show in Who Wrote the Bible, there probably never was a FIRST "Temple of Solomon," and the Old Testament is NOT a true "history of the Jews." So, the problem is: if Islam is predicated on two "manufactured" religions, what does that say about the faith of the Islamic fundamentalists?
The fact is: There is an alliance between America and Israel in the war on Islam. They are both determined to establish Israeli control over Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple where the Dome of the Rock now stands and the Palestinians are in the way. [...]
BY MICHAEL McAULIFF DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU August 10, 2005
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will hold a massive march and country music concert to mark the fourth anniversary of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an unusual announcement tucked into an Iraq war briefing yesterday.
"This year the Department of Defense will initiate an America Supports Your Freedom Walk," Rumsfeld said, adding that the march would remind people of "the sacrifices of this generation and of each previous generation."
The march will start at the Pentagon, where nearly 200 people died on 9/11, and end at the National Mall with a show by country star Clint Black.
Word of the event startled some observers. "I've never heard of such a thing," said John Pike, who has been a defense analyst in Washington for 25 years and runs GlobalSecurity.org.
The news also reignited debate and anger over linking Sept. 11 with the war in Iraq.
"That piece of it is disturbing since we all know now there was no connection," said Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq veteran who heads Operation Truth, an anti-administration military booster.
Rieckhoff suggested the event was an ill-conceived publicity stunt. "I think it's clear that their public opinion polls are in the toilet," he said.
Rumsfeld's walk had some relatives of 9/11 victims fuming.
"How about telling Mr. Rumsfeld to leave the memories of Sept. 11 victims to the families?" said Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband in the attacks.
Administration supporters insisted Rumsfeld was right to link Iraq and 9/11, and hold the rally.
"We are at war," said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.). "It's essential that we support our troops."
He also said attacking Iraq was necessary after 9/11. "You do not defeat Al Qaeda until you stabilize the Middle East, and that's not possible as long as Saddam Hussein is in power."
Cheap energy and relative peace helped create a false doctrine
James Howard Kunstler Thursday August 4, 2005
The big yammer these days in the United States is to the effect that globalisation is here to stay: it's wonderful, get used to it. The chief cheerleader for this point of view is Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times and author of The World Is Flat. The seemingly unanimous embrace of this idea in the power circles of America is a marvelous illustration of the madness of crowds, for nothing could be further from the truth than the idea that globalisation is now a permanent fixture of the human condition.
Today's transient global economic relations are a product of very special transient circumstances, namely relative world peace and absolutely reliable supplies of cheap energy. Subtract either of these elements from the equation and you will see globalisation evaporate so quickly it will suck the air out of your lungs. It is significant that none of the cheerleaders for globalisation takes this equation into account. In fact, the American power elite is sleepwalking into a crisis so severe that the blowback may put both major political parties out of business.
The world saw an earlier phase of robust global trade run from the 1870s to a dead stop in 1914. This was the boom period of railroad construction and the advent of the ocean-going steamship. The great powers had existed in relative peace since Napoleon's last stand. The Crimean war was a minor episode that took place in backwaters of Eurasia, and the Franco-Prussian war was a comic opera that lasted less than a year - most of it the static siege of Paris. The American civil war hardly affected the rest of the world.
This first phase of globalisation then took off under coal-and-steam power. There was no shortage of fuel, the colonial boundaries were stable, and the pipeline of raw materials from them to the factories of western Europe ran smoothly. The rise of a middle class running the many stages of the production process provided markets for all the new production. Innovations in finance gave legitimacy to all kinds of tradable paper. Life was very good for Europe and America, notwithstanding a few sharp cyclical depressions and recoveries. Trade boomed between the great powers. The belle époque represented the high tide of hopeful expectations. In America, it was called the progressive era. The 20th century looked golden.
It all fell apart in 1914. Historians are still baffled about what really brought on the first world war. What did France or Britain really care about Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of a country already in deep eclipse? There were no active contests over territory at the time, not even in the Asian or African colonies. And yet the diplomatic failures of that fateful summer led to the great slaughter of the trenches, the death of a substantial portion of the younger generation, and a virtual nervous breakdown of authority in politics and culture. It would take a depression, fascism, and a second world war to resolve these issues and a new round of globalisation did not ramp up again until the mid-1960s.
It may be significant that the first collapse of globalisation occurred as the coal economy was transitioning into an oil economy, with deep geo-political implications for who had oil (America) and those who might seek to control the other major region closest to Europe that possessed it (then the Caspian, since Arabian oil was as yet undiscovered). The first world war was settled by those nations (Britain and France) that were friendly with the greatest producer of oil most readily accessed. Germany was the loser and again in the reprise for its poor access to oil. Japan suffered similarly.
We are now due for another folding up of the periodic global trade fair as the industrial nations enter the tumultuous era beyond the global oil production peak, which I have named the long emergency. The economic distortions and perversities that have built up in the current era are not hard to see, though our leaders dread to acknowledge them. The dirty secret of the US economy for at least a decade now is that it has come to be based on the ceaseless elaboration of a car-dependent suburban infrastructure - McHousing estates, eight-lane highways, big-box chain stores, hamburger stands - that has no future as a living arrangement in an oil-short future.
The American suburban juggernaut can be described succinctly as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. The mortgages, bonds, real estate investment trusts and derivative financial instruments associated with this tragic enterprise must make the judicious goggle with wonder and nausea.
Add to this grim economic picture a far-flung military contest, already under way, really, for control of the world's remaining oil, and the scene grows darker. Two-thirds of that oil is in the possession of people who resent the west (America in particular), many of whom have vowed to destroy it. Both America and Britain have felt the sting of freelance asymmetrical war-makers not associated with a particular state but with a transnational religious cause that uses potent small arms and explosives to unravel western societies and confound their defences.
China, a supposed beneficiary of globalisation, will be as desperate for oil as all the other players, and perhaps more ruthless in seeking control of the supplies, some of which they can walk to. Of course, it is hard to imagine the continuation of American chain stores' manufacturing supply lines with China, given the potential for friction. Even on its own terms, China faces issues of environmental havoc, population overshoot, and political turmoil - orders of magnitude greater than anything known in Europe or America.
Viewed through this lens, the sunset of the current phase of globalisation seems dreadfully close to the horizon. The American public has enjoyed the fiesta, but the blue-light special orgy of easy motoring, limitless air-conditioning, and super-cheap products made by factory slaves far far away is about to close down. Globalisation is finished. The world is about to become a larger place again.
I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country at a later and more convenient hour. — Henry David Thoreau
"We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. And only when we realise, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognise that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed — only then will we act. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
Nobody predicted this one — not Orwell, not Huxley, not H.G. Wells.
I couldn’t believe the words that appeared on my screen in an e-mail:
Overthrow all the governments all at once
International criminal syndicate has taken control of world’s money; honest citizens must prevent them from destroying the world; Lennon was right: all borders are bogus. Is there any reason we can’t have an honest world?
What a radical idea! Isn’t that what decent people want? But is that the world we have? We have massive numbers of dead people turning up in strange and suspicious mortality categories. Shall I tell you Americans some of the causes of death inflicted by your sons and daughters on innocent children in Iraq, or will you turn your face away and return silently to your polite political dogma and the cringing ugliness of your own suppressed private nightmares? Hmm?
Giles Tremlett in Madrid Saturday August 6, 2005 The Guardian
Forest fires raged across south-west Europe yesterday as a heatwave hit an area already parched by a severe drought that has dried up rivers and led to water restrictions in many places. The emergency services were tackling dozens of blazes across Portugal, Spain and southern France as temperatures headed towards 45C.
The drought is the worst on record in Spain and Portugal. The Algarve region of southern Portugal has warned of water cuts.
Last Updated Wed, 03 Aug 2005 16:09:47 EDT CBC News
Disease experts are baffled by reports of a pig-borne bacteria outbreak that is being blamed for killing 37 Chinese farmers through internal bleeding.
Experts say an outbreak among humans is rare and not generally deadly. Some leading health and disease experts, such as Canada's Marcelo Gottschalk, wonder if the suspect streptococcus suis bacteria has combined with other strains or a virus to amplify its effects.
"Something is different," Gottschalk, who studies the bacterium at the Université de Montréal, told the Associated Press.
"We are worried and we are wondering what is happening."
Gottschalk said he would like to have the strain to study in his lab, the only one in the world dedicated to studying streptococcus suis.
He said he is mystified how the strain has infected 200 people in China since June when only perhaps 20 people contract it in Thailand in a year.
Farmers in southwestern Sichuan province who butchered, handled or ate infected pigs suffered vomiting, fever and bleeding under skin.
The disease is slow to develop in humans, but can progress to meningitis and hearing loss. Antibiotic treatment cures most cases. No human-to-human transmission cases have been reported.
Meanwhile, authorities in Beijing have confiscated about 3,600 tonnes of pork from Sichuan province, state media reported, but it wasn't clear where the meat was found or what happened to it.
Experts with the World Health Organization and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization have also questioned what they called the strange behaviour of the bacteria.
"One explanation is you have additional problems and it's not just streptococcus suis that's causing it," Juan Lebroth, an FAO official in animal health, said from Rome.
A pioneer of studying the bacteria said it is commonly found in healthy swine, but is a chronic condition that may turn deadly if pigs are kept in crowded and unclean pens.
"They're describing death in 24 hours," said Thomas Alexander, former deputy director of the Cambridge School of Veterinary Medicine in England. "What they're describing doesn't fit the picture."
With Long Sojourn at Ranch, President on His Way to Surpassing Reagan's Total By Jim VandeHei and Peter BakerWashington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; A04
WACO, Texas, Aug. 2 -- President Bush is getting the kind of break most Americans can only dream of -- nearly five weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time.
The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening for a stretch of clearing brush, visiting with family and friends, and tending to some outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.
The August getaway is Bush's 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford -- nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush's time away from Washington even further.
Bush's long vacations are more than a curiosity: They play into diametrically opposite arguments about this leadership style. To critics and late-night comics, they symbolize a lackadaisical approach to the world's most important day job, an impression bolstered by Bush's two-hour midday exercise sessions and his disinclination to work nights or weekends. The more vociferous among Bush's foes have noted that he spent a month at the ranch shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when critics assert he should have been more attentive to warning signs.
To Bush and his advisers, that criticism fundamentally misunderstands his Texas sojourns. Those who think he does not remain in command, aides say, do not understand the modern presidency or Bush's own work habits. At the ranch, White House officials say, Bush continues to receive daily national security briefings, sign documents, hold teleconferences with aides and military commanders, and even meet with foreign leaders. And from the president's point of view, the long Texas stints are the best way to clear his mind and reconnect with everyday America.
"I'm looking forward to getting down there and just kind of settling in," Bush told reporters from Texas newspapers during a roundtable interview at the White House on Monday. "I'll be doing a lot of work. On the other hand, I'll also be kind of making sure my Texas roots run deep."
"Spending time outside of Washington always gives the president a fresh perspective of what's on the minds of the American people," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Friday. "It's a time, really, for him to shed the coat and tie and meet with folks out in the heartland and hear what's on their minds." [...]
Until now, probably no modern president was a more famous vacationer than Ronald Reagan, who loved spending time at his ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif. According to an Associated Press count, Reagan spent all or part of 335 days in Santa Barbara over his eight-year presidency -- a total that Bush will surpass this month in Crawford with 3 1/2 years left in his second term.
Times Online By Daniel McGrory and Sean O'Neill August 01, 2005
THOUSANDS of police marksmen will be on London's streets and rooftops again today after warnings that another team of suicide bombers is plotting a third attack on the capital.
The new group is believed to be made up of British Muslims who were understood to be close to staging an attack on the Underground network last week. According to security sources the men are thought to be of Pakistani origin but born and brought up in this country. They have links with the Leeds-based terrorist cell that staged the July 7 attacks, in which 52 innocent people died.
Even with the transport system so heavily guarded, police and intelligence sources believe that the bombers are intent on once more attacking London's bus and Underground network. Another multiple suicide strike is also intended to demonstrate how the network can call on more recruits. The men are said to have access to explosives.
US security sources said yesterday that this third group of would-be bombers met at Finsbury Park mosque in North London, where some of the July 7 terrorists are also known to have stayed. There are reports that this team originally planned to strike last Thursday, which is why more than 6,000 police, half of them armed, were present at Underground stations. Scotland Yard said at the time that this exercise, the biggest since the Second World War, was to test their resources and reassure a nervous public.
As commuters return to work today police chiefs say that the arrest of five suspected bombers in house raids in Birmingham, London and Rome has not ended this threat. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the anti-terrorist branch, said: "The threat remains and is very real."
There is concern among ministers and police at how long officers can continue such an intensive operation to "lock down" London while a threat remains. Although reinforcements have been brought in and leave has been cancelled, resources are stretched to keep up the guard on the capital, which is costing £500,000 a day. Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, admitted that his officers were "very, very tired".
Comment: Well, gee, it looks like there are only two solutions:
Deport anyone who has dark skin or anyone that questions the government's actions in the war on terror to purge the country of "terrorists" Institute a police state While the priority is to thwart another strike, police are still investigating links between the attacks on July 7 and the botched operation a fortnight later. They are also hunting for what officers describe as "key logistical players" behind the attacks.
Seven more people - six men and a woman - were arrested in raids in Brighton yesterday, bringing the number of people under arrest in Britain to 18. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "This is a further indication of the fact this is a fast-moving investigation and we continue to progress. We are searching for other people in connection with this ongoing inquiry.
"There were quite a few other people involved in the incidents of the 7th and the 21st. It's extremely likely there will be other people involved in harbouring, financing and making the devices."
The major link between the two sets of bombers is that the alleged leaders of both groups attended Finsbury Park mosque. Experts are studying similarities between the bombs used on July 7 and 21. [...]
Ethiopian-born Hussain, 27, who has a British passport, claimed that the plot was orchestrated by another of those arrested on Friday, Muktar Said-Ibrahim. Hussain said that he had been recruited in an underground gym in Notting Hill.
Immigration officials are trying to find out how he managed to slip out of Waterloo station on a Eurostar train to Paris and make way to Italy where he met his brother, who lives in Rome. Officials want to know why Hussain, who says his real name is Hamdi Isaac and who has Italian citizenship, came to Britain posing as a Somali asylum-seeker in 1996. [...]
Italian police say they are using Hussain's phone records to unpick the international network that has been helping him. Alfredo Mantovano, an Interior Ministry official, said that the network "confirms the presence in our country of autonomous Islamic cells . . . which could represent a concrete threat." Italy is worried that it is the next target for Islamic terrorists.
