Kate McMillan of Small Dead Anmials does cool airbrush art for a living and breeds some of Canada & the US' top champion miniature schauzers under the kennel prefix 'Minuteman'. Like her dogs, she's tough and persistent in taking on vermin and other annoying little critters. For your reading pleasure, here's an old column that's still relevant.
I'll just post the link, as it's a YouTube video/song. Posting in Opinion, as I'm sure we'd come up with some more folks to put in this video, but he's made a GREAT start.
Posted by: BA ||
08/21/2007 08:11 ||
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Rantburgers, please help me educate this gentleman. My brain hurts from reading the entire article. Comrade Brook can be reached at editor@dissidentvoice.org
by Dan Brook / August 20th, 2007
Dripping, spilling, spreading, burning. Welcome to the New World Chaos, what the Bush administration is now calls the long war.
They've been calling it "the long war" since late 2001.
The cost is mounting: over 3,700 Americans
Still a smidgeon compared to previous wars. They'd have been barely noticed at Tarawa.
and perhaps three-quarters of a million Iraqis,
That number, we'd guess, would be based on the inflated Lancet figures, with a fudge factor addition. It would also include the number of dead the hard boyz have created. But even with their liking for mass casualties and mass graves, I'd doubt that we're close to the 750,000 dead mark except in the overheated imagination of Indymedia.
as well as over 100 British and over 100 people from other countries not to mention over 1,000 privatized contractors, whose outsourced
"Outsourced," you know is a bad word. When jobs are "outsourced" they're taken from honest Merkin workers, with lunch buckets and cloth caps and union cards, and given to shifty-eyed furriners, who go sniffin' 'round our wimmin... In this case, apparently the shifty-eyed furriners are from places like Texas and Kansas and even parts of southern California.
And some of those Texans and Kansans may have even...voted Republican.
jobs were formerly done by soldiers now dead from this latest oil war,
Oh. Gotcha. The soldiers are all dead now, so we had to hire the shifty-eyed furriners...
in addition to the tens of thousands (or more) with physical and mental injuries, each one a human being with a family and friends;
I'm not an expert in the field, though I do know quite a bit more about it than the writer, but as an educated guess I'd say we were running at just a smidgeon over one serious injury for each KIA, with a serious injury defined as one that gets the victim a trip home with a stop at Walter Reed or Bethesda. I don't have any figures on psychological effects; I don't think anyone does, since they'll be somewhat subjective. Probably everyone who'd ever been under any kind of stress feels its results for the rest of his/her/its life. Certain sights, sounds, and particularly smells can briefly put me in another place at another time. On the other hand, life with no stress at all is bland and tasteless and maybe even pointless, probably something like what the author leads. For the most part people deal with those stresses. As a compassionate society, we try to help those who can't. But the mere fact of stress doesn't negate the value of the effort that produces it, anymore than do the casualties.
more international ill-will and terrorism,
International ill will from Castro, Mugabe, Chavez, and the ayatollahs doesn't bother me in the least. In fact, ill-will from them is usually an indicator of the rightness of the action.
Count me as also unmoved by any approbation flowing from Brussels or Turtle Bay.
due to U.S. aggression and arrogance,
We were pretty much at peace with the world on 9-11-2001...
as well as a raging civil war; fewer civil rights, due to the so-called Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act;
If they're only "so-called," what is their actual designation?
less privacy, due to domestic spying; hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps even a trillion dollars, in public tax money gone and at least $2 billion more each week; and hundreds of billions of dollars in private profits for giant corporations (ExxonMobil, the worlds largest oil company, announced soaring profits of $36 billion for 2005, exceeding any corporation in U.S. history, based on revenues of over $1 billion per day, which include continuing subsidies from the U.S. government).
He's making the assumption that profits in and of themselves are bad, naturally...
In his 2006 State of the Union speech, Kingpin Bush
President Bush to you, bub...
admitted the obvious: America is addicted to oil.
We have a nation that's 3000 miles from sea to shining sea, about 1500 miles from 54-40 or Fight to the home of the Brownsville Tigers. Connecting our far-flung cities across the fruited plain is a transportation system that's based for the most part on long strips of concrete called "highways." Traversing those "highways" are things called "trucks," which carry "goods." Those "goods" can consist of anything from machine parts to the organic kohl rabi favored by people like the writer as a garnish to their tasty vegetarian meals of radishes and mushrooms. Making those "trucks" move is something known as "fuel." We are addicted to having our strawberries in March, instead of having to wait until July. We're addicted to having our stores' inventories up to date, rather than having to check on alternating Thursdays to see if the shipment of gingham's arrived by wagon train yet. "Fuel" still comes from oil, and it's that to which we're addicted. It would be nice to be able to grow organic gasoline in our urban balcony gardens, but it requires extraction, transport, and processing that's beyond the average citizen's means. Being "addicted" to oil means that it's one of very few absolutely basic requirements to run our society.
What George Bush the Lesser
Can we dock him 10 points for ad hominems?
didnt admit, among other things, is that the U.S. military is the worlds largest consumer of oil and the worlds largest polluter.
Really. If we just shut down the U.S. military all skies would be blue and the smog would lift...
America is also addicted to war for oil,
Which is why we're in Iraq and we've seen the price of oil double. It's a real pity we're not addicted to war for oil, because every fluctuation in the price of transportation has an effect on the rest of the economy. I think most of the public would gladly accept the return of 35 cent per gallon gasoline, even at the cost of imposing Wal-Mart on most of the Muddle East. Having gone without it since 1973 - a mere four years after Congress repealed the Oil Depletion Allowance, the start of disincentives to domestic oil production - the public would probably look with disfavor on those who might want to make it go away again.
with the Bush Administration addicted to lying, deception, secrecy.
Another 10 for ad hominem.
Indeed, the warmongers and war profiteers have us over a barrel. As they say, to the victor go the oils.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone outside Indymedia say that. Military people certainly don't think in terms of oil production, and diplomatic policy from what we can make out here isn't predicated on oil. Many of us wish it was, since that might bring back 35 cents a gallon high test.
Prior to formally ordering the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003,
It was "illegal" because the author disagreed with it.
self-declared war president George W. Bush
... since he's under the illusion that we've been at war since 9-11-2001...
(who even the Washington Post repeatedly calls the worst president ever)
... and we all know what right-wing stooges the WaPo is...
sternly warned the Iraqis: Do not destroy the oil wells. The war on Iraq was, reportedly, originally named Operation Iraqi Liberation, instead of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Someone quickly realized, however, that the acronym would be OIL.
Sounds pretty apocryphal to me. What about Gog and Magog? Do they fit in?
That wouldnt make for good PR not that it didnt clearly represent their interests, but not the interests the criminal Bush gang cares to advertise.
Another 10 for ad hominem...
In either case, they seem to have meant liberalization of the economy instead of liberation and free markets instead of freedom.
Now there's an interesting statement, and I could probably spend the rest of the day dissecting it. To put it in the short form, rather than boring all and sundry with a 130-page disquisition on elementary economics and political theory, I'll point out that liberalization of the economy is liberation and free markets are essential for freedom. The writer obviously favors managed economies, like Cuba or Zim-bob-we or some other success story, and considers free markets harbingers of the return of the kulaks. To the totalitarian, freedom accrues to the state, rather than to the individual, whose place is to produce goods and services according to plan and of course to sacrifice him/her/itself in the service of the state. That's elementary Mussolini.
We can suppose, therefore, that it was a concession as well as a salute to their Capitalist-in-Chief
Capitalist is bad, of course. Capitalist is robber barons and plutocrats, not venture capital and startups and such...
to name some of the U.S. military bases in newly-occupied Iraq after oil companies. (The 101st Airborne Division really did name a Base Exxon and a Base Shell somewhere in the deserts of Iraq!)
Never heard of them, but if they existed I'd doubt they were named by the White House. I'd also doubt that they were named for the shadowy hands behind the war. For one thing, if the hands were shadowy, why would they advertise?
While there are now reported to be over 100 U.S. bases in Iraq, both large and small,
... all of them named after oil companies...
it appears that the long-term plans are to build and maintain four to six permanent super-bases each as large as 20 square miles and as sprawling as American suburbia
"Suburbia" is bad. It evokes visions of Stepford. "Urban" is good. "Rural" is pretty much non-existent.
with its requisite multinational fast food outlets,
"Fast food" is bad. It will be replaced by tasty vegetarian meals of radishes and mushrooms, come the Revolution, garnished with organic kohl rabi.
not to mention movie theaters
No! Not movie theaters!
and golf courses costing several billion dollars.
I'm already signed up for the Baqouba Open...
Following the recent U.S. wars in former Yugoslavia,
... where we were defending Muslims, in large part. We didn't become involved when the Serbs and Croats were fighting it out...
Afghanistan,
Home of al-Qaeda. Was there a particular reason we shouldn't have been there? Or were we there to despoil the Afghans of their oil?
and Iraq, U.S. military bases have mushroomed in these regions,
Better to fly the troops in for operations from U.S. bases, after getting rid of their movie theaters and golf courses...
adding to the already extensive empire.
Have we received our tribute from Germany this year? And who's slated to become the next satrap of Korea?
With occupied Iraq slated to have the largest U.S. Embassy staffed with more than three thousand personnel and costing $1 billion to construct in addition to the permanent super-bases, those immense material and human resources should be able to adequately guard their financial interests and liquid assets.
At which point are they going to start turning a profit for us? To date it's been all investment with no return.
In the first combat operation of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, navy Seals claimed a bloodless victory, according the New York Times (22 March 2003), seizing two oil terminals in the battle for Iraqs vast oil empire. Tellingly, administration officials are now referring to the long war.
You said that. Y'know, one of the signs of senility is when you start to repeat yourself. And another thing: one of the signs of senility is when you start to repeat yourself, so watch it!
The battle is fixing to be longer than a transcontinental pipeline.
Boy. That's witty. Which continent?
Even though Commander-in-Mischief Bush
Another 10 for ad hominem...
declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, after landing under a giant banner on an aircraft carrier barely off the coast of San Diego announcing Mission Accomplished, and transferred so-called sovereignty
Remember, it's only "so-called." It's actually something else, entirely different. The disignation is there to fool those who aren't privy to the secret knowledge...
to Iraqis on June 28, 2004, the business-oriented Bloomberg News reports that The battle for Iraqs oil is just beginning (June 18, 2004). Whether speaking of insurgents, pipelines, or profits, in July 2003, bombastic Bush brashly declared: Bring em on!
I'm sorry. This is not thought. It's pure regurge.
I suppose we should first determine Mr. Brook's sincerity - was his piece of excrement produced without consuming any oil? Of course not. Like the rest of America, he too is addicted to oil.
Indirectly the Iraq war is 'about the oil' - but not just Iraq's oil, and not just the US supply. All the world suppliers and consumers are inextricably interconnected. And the Persian Gulf states are a huge part of that supply - the stability of the region is in the best interest of pretty much the whole world. And, like it or not, what we have now is 'stability' - relative to what it could be.
If it was only about the US supply, and the US cared nothing about international law or world opinion, it would have almost certainly been cheaper and easier to attack and annex the oil regions of Venezuela and/or Mexico (shorter supply lines and fewer language problems.)
I do kind of like the OIL acronym - maybe we can use it for Operation Iranian Liberation!
Sorry, I don't have the stomach to read the rest of this mess.
#3
it appears that the long-term plans are to build and maintain four to six permanent super-bases .........American suburbia with its requisite multinational fast food outlets, not to mention movie theaters and golf courses
I've been to a few of them here in the last 30 days..... anyone got a grid on the ones he's talking about? My golf game is indeed suffering.
#4
Cut that guy some slack, he's writing at DISSIDENT voice, he's a Rebel, a Non-conformist, a Free-thinker in a sea of sheeples, and he's trying to Enlighten the sweating masses. He is our better, we should acknowledge that.
#5
"Rantburgers, please help me educate this gentleman."
Forget it, Marine0352; people like him are beyond educating. They believe the crap they believe not because they're misinformed, but because they NEED to believe it lest their entire self-image collapse.
People like him are mentally defective, not uneducated.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/21/2007 9:52 Comments ||
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#6
This is what over 70 years of marxist and neomarxist subversion produces : self-replicating memetic warbots hellbent on weakening/destroying their own society because they've been taught it's Evil.
#7
The article is unreadable. Clearly Mr. Brook did not acquire a degree in any of the many fields where clear written communication is required. The verbs with which he starts the article are only tangentially related to the subject matter, and the second paragraph is comprised almost entirely of a single run-on sentence totalling 203 words. Perhaps when Mr. Brook can write better it will be worthwhile to fisk his attempt at thinking. In the meantime, the editor at Dissident Voice should be hung for dereliction of duty.
#9
#3
I thought the entry fee for the Baqouba Open was much too high.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2007 11:05 Comments ||
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#10
I think the world would be a safer and more stable place if the US did seize all the oil fields in the ME, walled them off and sold the oil to the world markets at just above cost. The terrorist backers would be out of cash and the rest of the world would have a stable source of energy.
#11
Just one (of many) lil' problems with his theory:
Those "sprawling, huge metropolis like" bases in the Middle East we're building? Won't that actually decrease the amount of CO2 the military puts out because they're closer to "ground zero" where we need to be most of the time? I consider that a plus in the War on Air Pollution.
Posted by: BA ||
08/21/2007 15:52 Comments ||
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#12
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR > MUST WE STOP FLYING TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING, SAVE THE PLANET. Support your local Hosses/Asses-and-Camels distributor(s). Smokestack- and Union-intensive industries = Amers must live in Tents + Togas + Polygamy, etc.
Of the many things the Army teaches you, foremost is contingency planning, especially meeting the unforeseen. This axiom was apparently not factored into the run-up to the 123 Agreement with the US, singularly the most widely and hotly debated agreement in 60 years of India's foreign policy. Not only was there no fallback position, the political czars had also taken the Left opposition for granted. The Government expected future battles to be fought in the NSG, IAEA and US Congress, not on its own turf threatened by an unpredictable ally.
They were lulled into equanimity partly due to the fact that treaties and agreements in India do not require to be ratified by Parliament. In most countries you need a two-thirds parliamentary majority for the consummation of any agreement which impinges on national security. But in India national interest seldom figures prominently in any political calculus: Survival of the Government and electoral prospects determine the national agenda. Soldiers, on the other hand, fight for their regiment and their country. There is no other consideration except service before self.
Notwithstanding the current hiccups, it has to be acknowledged that the 123 Agreement with all its alleged imperfections and improprieties is a good deal, the result of skilful negotiations with experienced American interlocutors. With the deal, we are better off, not net losers, as the nay-sayers to the deal are claiming. The agreement has been politicised both in content and context. The opposition to the deal has come from the Left parties, historically antagonistic to the US. They support the UPA Government from the outside only to keep the 'bigger evil' - the BJP-led NDA - at bay.
Did the Government foresee the Left threat of withdrawal of support - "heavy political consequences" - if they went ahead with the agreement? The answer is probably is no, judging by the crisis that was generated over the spat between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, which the former passed on to a Kolkata daily in the citadel of the Left. The 'Breaking News' story catalysed the crisis.
Rumours about the aftermath to the crisis wafted across the central lawns of the Rashtrapati Bhawan on a hot and sticky Independence Day reception by President Pratibha Patil, where, for the first time, the ropes had been reconfigured to create a separate enclosure for Cabinet Ministers. It was conspicuously empty as Ministers chose to mingle with the aam admi. The Prime Minister, went the rumour, will have to go, as UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was not kept on board about his 'Take-it-or-leave-it' challenge to Mr Karat. That this so-called non-Prime Minister had strategised his operational plan through the media showed the high value and credence he attaches to it.
It is strange that instead of lauding the Prime Minister for showing political spine in calling the Left's bluff over the 123 Agreement, Ms Gandhi chose discretion over valour and put the UPA on the defensive. She did not share the Prime Minister's new-found aggressiveness, ignoring a life-threat to the Government. One learns in the services the importance of the clarity in the chain of command and no premature deviations from a plan once it has been implemented. The dual command system followed in the Congress-led UPA Government is confusing as well as dangerous for scoring self-goals. Now everyone knows, if they did not earlier, that the UPA chairperson and not the Prime Minister has the last word. By retracting his challenge to Mr Karat, Mr Manmohan Singh had to eat crow.
Ms Gandhi may have saved the Government for some time and her electoral plans of the future, but her actions have severely undermined the office of the Prime Minister and the credibility of the Government at home and abroad. Gen KS Thimayya used to say, "Never make your subordinate lose face." By asking Mr Pranab Mukherjee to find a middle path, Ms Gandhi has let down her Prime Minister, the Government and the country in the larger interest of political survival. The lesson for the political class from this brief brush with brinkmanship is to be found in Sun Tzu's Falling off the Precipice. He offers a simple suggestion: "Be calm, firm and keep both feet on the ground."
The face-saving formula the media has described as deal-breather, not deal-breaker, was found in a meeting between non-Government actor No II and CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, sometimes the Government's special envoy to Nepal, and Mr Pranab Mukherjee. It is not clear who among the two re-discovered the evergreen committee formula, but it was Mr Yechury who announced that a panel would examine how the US Hyde Act will impinge on the 123 Agreement.
The Left is insisting that while this panel is in place, negotiations with the IAEA and the NSG should be put on hold, which effectively means the 123 Agreement is dead. A middle path to this would be for both to function in tandem, as time is at a premium due to the US election in 2008. US Under-secretary of State Nicholas Burns has said that India-related NSG and IAEA certifications have to be in before year-end for passage through Congress.
Over two-and-a-half years, the pros and cons of the 123 Agreement have been thrashed out in micro detail by all manner of experts. The debate has now turned into political theatre: India needs nuclear energy; no, it does not. India will join the nuclear club; no, it will freeze and roll back the nuclear programme. The US will help India in becoming a great power; no, it will make India subservient to the US... and so on.
Guess who's having the last laugh? The non-proliferation ayatollahs of the world, apart from China and Pakistan. Never reconciled with India's nuclear tests, which were attributed to China, Beijing has frequently criticised the 123 Agreement and, in fact, demanded India join the NPT as a non-nuclear state. Pakistan has said the 123 Agreement will disturb the strategic balance in South Asia and has asked Washington to do an equivalent agreement with Islamabad. Last year, President George W Bush told Gen Pervez Musharraf to his face, "India and Pakistan are two different countries with different histories." Consequently, the US will not apply the parity principle. Instead, all-weather ally China has agreed to oblige in case the 123 Agreement is done.
If this deal does not go through, China will rise as the dominant power in Asia, leaving India behind, tied down in the region countervailed by Pakistan. Blame it on the culture of coalition Governments, thanks to Mr VP Singh's Mandalisation of politics.
Ashok K. Mehta is a retired Major General of the Indian Army
Posted by: john frum ||
08/21/2007 15:43 ||
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#1
Tomorrow never dies
By Ashok Malik
The India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement is just one element of a grand bargain that Japan and America are offering India. It is to the credit of the CPI(M) that only it has realised the implications
It is a strange week in Delhi. Communists don the garb of ultra-nationalists. India's formerly Right-wing party becomes an add-on of the Left Front. The accidental descent into an election that nobody - with the exception of Ms Mayawati and the BSP - is ready for is a clear and present danger.
In a week like this, only the big picture can provide reassurance. The small picture, alas, is simply too smudged.
While they are the villains of the day, Mr Prakash Karat and the CPI(M) need to be thanked for having brought into the open the philosophy behind the India-US nuclear deal. Yes, this deal is about energy security and containing greenhouse gas emissions from thermal fuel sources and such noble and good intentions. Yet, slipped into the 123 Agreement is the blueprint for 21st century security architecture.
By openly opposing the relationship with America - and by aligning their position with that of the Chinese Government - India's Communist parties have made a public debate on an overarching foreign policy decision simply unavoidable.
It is now becoming increasingly untenable to pretend that India's economic rise is simply a matter of higher GDP, better trade figures, more outsourcing contracts - and has no strategic implications. That may be the view preferred by the Indian ostrich, but the rest of the world is not looking at it that way. It is seeing India as a potential counterweight to China, at least as part of a mutually balancing concert of powers that would include, of course, both Asian giants and others such as the US and Russia.
In an extreme situation, India could have a role in a containment of China, though that eventuality seems far away. In any case, the very need to contain China would depend on how China and its polity evolve over the coming decade or two. To reflect on that right now would be to gaze into a crystal ball. For the moment, the world is only hedging its bets, which is why it is courting India.
The rise of China and what India should do vis-à-vis its northern neighbour are obviously exercising various groups of Indians. They are also the subject of cogitation in other countries. In offering India the civilian nuclear deal, the Republican Administration in the US has shown its cards.
In Australia, the degree of the national economy's dependence on China - Chinese factories are hungry for Australian commodities - has caused some disquiet. There is a perception, particularly to the right of the political spectrum, that this will compromise Canberra's ability to maintain an independent foreign policy, free of Beijing's influence.
It is this sentiment that is driving strategic affairs pundits in Australia to advocate sale of uranium to India. The point was made, for instance, in Widening Horizons: Australia's New Relationship with India, a paper brought out by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in May 2007.
In Japan - as the current visit of that country's Prime Minister, accompanied by 150 odd businessmen, makes clear - India is seen as the next Asian manufacturing hub. The 1,500 km long Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is, essentially, envisaged as a 10-year project for the transplanting of Japanese manufacturing facilities.
Japanese investment in India is the economic analogue of the nuclear deal or the American promise to provide India military hardware worthy of a future power. Why is Japan doing it? For one, it has a historically unsteady relationship with China. Second, Japan is an ageing society and moving its factories to India is part of an enormous retirement plan.
If it wants to retain the factories at home, Japan will have to open itself up to immigrant workers and managers - many of whom may be Chinese. It is looking at a more agreeable alternative - outsourcing manufacturing to India.
It is not television sets and mini-CD players that Japan wants to make in the DMIC. From high-end industrial electronics to elements of aerospace manufacture, very sophisticated technology transfer is on offer. The Japanese are also investing heavily in infrastructure.
There are no free lunches in economics, no free dinners in diplomacy. In return for Japanese investment, Australian uranium and American weaponry, India would not need to go to war with China - but it would need to make small, subtle and unavoidable choices. It is to the credit of the CPI(M) that it has understood the contours of the grand bargain and made its position clear.
In no country do complex foreign policy issues become the bread and butter of domestic, provincial politicians. India is not going to be an exception. As such, one cannot expect every member or party in Parliament to have an informed, enlightened view on the fork India finds itself at.
Yet, the role of the BJP in the entire discourse has been a trifle disappointing. As a nationalist party, which led a government that crafted the framework of 'modern diplomacy', surely it could do better than merely mimic Marxists and give them certificates of patriotism? Today, the credit for the deal lies with the Congress - even though it built on the gains of the NDA years - and the Opposition space lies with the Left. The BJP is everywhere - and nowhere.
Where will the Karat-Manmohan Singh brinkmanship on the nuclear deal lead to? In terms of ancillary negotiations and the wider foreign policy roadmap, it could delay matters rather than reverse the course. India's direction is inevitable; the Left is defending a lost cause.
Not that there isn't a precedent. Between the Spanish-American War and Pearl Harbour, 1898 and 1941, the US swung in and out of the international system. It saw intense internal debate over whether its economic muscle now obligated it to be a global power - or whether old-style isolationism was still feasible.
In 1919, at the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson helped frame the Treaty of Versailles, and helped found the League of Nations as part of 20th century security architecture. The US Senate, however, snubbed Wilson, rejected the treaty and kept America out of the League.
Wilson warned another war would engulf Europe within a generation. Provincial politicians, American exceptionalists and hyper-nationalists thought he was talking nonsense. Two decades later, Wilson was proved prescient. The US walked into World War II and recognised that this time there was no going back.
Do all aspirant powers go through such existential dilemmas? The big picture, remember, does look reassuring!
Posted by: john frum ||
08/21/2007 16:27 Comments ||
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The visiting Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, find their carefully planned party this week to celebrate the worlds newest strategic partnership ruined by their domestic political opponents.
After his big defeat in last months elections to the Upper House of the Japanese Diet, Abe is fighting for political survival. Singh, too, is under pressure from his communist allies for the sin of engineering independent Indias greatest diplomatic victory the liberation of the nation from three and a half decades of nuclear isolation. In politics no good deed ever goes without being punished.
Underlying the political instability staring at Abe and Singh is the deeper challenge of getting Japan and India to overcome decades of reactive foreign policy and end the historic under-performance of the two nations on the Asian and global political stage. As Abe and Singh try to establish Japan and India as great powers, they face strong domestic political reaction.
In Japan it goes by the name of pacifism that has become a cover for avoiding regional and global responsibility. In India it is called non-alignment. When India is well on its way to become the worlds third largest economy, and poised to shape the security order in Asia, our communists want India to stay for ever the third world subaltern mouthing empty slogans.
For different reasons, both Japan and India were unable in the second half of the 20th century to fulfil their national aspirations for leading Asia and securing a seat at the global high table. Defeated in the Second World War, Japan consciously chose to forgo great power aspirations in favour of an undiluted focus on national reconstruction.
Newly independent India had a sense of its own destiny to lead Asia. Its fascination for state socialism, however, saw Indias relative decline amidst the Asian economic boom. Its alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War put it at odds with much of Asia, including China.
Since the end of the Cold War, both Japan and India have struggled to elevate their power positions in Asia. Japans emphasis has been on lending political muscle to its well-known economic strengths. Indias in turn was on acquiring an economic foundation to match its strategic ambitions.
The foreign policies of both nations have undergone considerable changes in the last few years. Thanks to the efforts of Abes predecessors, especially Junichiro Koizumi, Japan has begun to liberate itself from many of the self-imposed restrictions of the past.
These prohibitions amounted to eight nos in Japans foreign policy during the Cold War: no dispatch of the armed forces abroad, no collective self-defence arrangements, no power projection ability, no more than 1 per cent of the GNP for defence spending, no nuclear weapons, no sharing of military technology, no exporting of arms, no military use of space.
In post-Cold War Japan, all these taboos, except the one on nuclear weapons, have been either modified or are up for change. Even the difficult question of nuclear weapons is being openly discussed after the North Korean atomic tests last year.
The recent changes in Indian foreign policy have been no less dramatic. If the relationship with the US has grabbed the most attention, the positive evolution in Indias relationships with all the great powers, including China, has been impressive. And it is on the verge of being accepted as a de facto nuclear weapon power.
Indias rising profile in the extended neighbourhood stretching from Africa to East Asia through the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and Southeast Asia has been equally significant. India is also actively seeking to reintegrate its periphery with the framework of regional cooperation.
Despite the rapid transformation of their foreign policies, Japan and India have run into a new political barrier, China. Barring left-wing ideologues, few have difficulty in recognising the fact that China does not want other powers to rise in Asia. It was equally predictable that China would do its utmost to prevent Japan and India from gaining permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council. Nor is it shocking that China is the only nuclear weapon power that opposes the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Chinas clout to limit the political aspirations of India and Japan is not limited to the international domain. Beijing has been adept at leveraging domestic lobby groups in both countries to prevent outcomes it considers unacceptable.
Thanks to the CPM, China does not have to wait for the International Atomic Energy Agency or Nuclear Suppliers Group to kill the nuclear deal. It has got the Indian communists to demand the deal never go before either grouping.
Neither Japan nor India has a desire to contain China. Japan is today Chinas largest trading partner and has a complex but intimate relationship with its neighbour. New Delhis relations with Beijing have been better than ever before.
Yet a much larger challenge confronts Tokyo and New Delhi. Will they accept a subordinate status in a Sino-centric order that has begun to emerge in Asia? Or will Tokyo and New Delhi persist with the construction of a multipolar Asia in the face of Chinese resistance at home and abroad?
If Japan and India want a place in Asia equivalent to that of China, they have no alternative but to impart a strategic dimension to their bilateral economic engagement, deepen their political cooperation on issues ranging from maritime security, high technology transfers, regional stability and global warming.
If they rise to the occasion this week, Abe and Singh will be remembered for their leadership in transforming Asian geopolitics and not by the length of their prime-ministerial tenure.
The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Posted by: john frum ||
08/21/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
EINNEWS/OTHER > CHINA, JAPAN TO BENEFIT MUCH FROM COOPERATION. Related - may also alter traditional US-Japan/US-Asia security arrangement. *OTOH, SSSSSHHHHHHH RUSSIA'S POWER GRAB - IS IT TOO LATE FOR USA TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT? article.
FREEREPUBLIC Poster [paraphrased] > India's de-regulated economy, comparative to the China's, in LT will make it more resilient than China's, and in fact to eventually surpass China.
#2
I agree with your Freeper poster, JosephM. Also, as far as I am aware, Indians are in the habit of supplying what they claim to be selling, as opposed to the many recent stories of Chinese corner-cutting to the point of killing the customer.
#1
The comments on the MRE's are priceless. Classic american soldier, giving his (relatively) honest evaluation.
Some of the entrees you have to ask "what were they thinking?" Stuffed Cabbage? Chicken loaf? Some of the menu ideas are clearly heading toward Chiken ala King or Tuna with Noodles territory. Blargh!
Posted by: N Guard ||
08/21/2007 15:18 Comments ||
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#2
The comments are a laff riot:
This meal should be fiesta breakfast party. That would be funny.
Someone didn't like it though. "fiesta breakfast" was about as much of a fiesta as a full bodies dry heave. You're killin' me smalls.
Sounds British.
The way it turned my mouth blue flooded my mind with childhood memories, and for a slight moment, I was at peace!
Franklin Foer to the white courtesy phone, please.
This was a rough meal! Don't make it look like flat poop.
Words to live by.
I noticed this meal # is 666 I will probably die of a massive heart attack thank you for feeding me possessed food.
Maybe change the name "chicken loaf" scares me.
Our brave fighting men!
Put ranch dressing on everything! Airborne!
The pudding is the schnitzel.
Does this require translation?
Cig, chew, liquor
You want we should throw in a dame, too?
Seriously, several of these expressed a desire for chaw or cigarettes? Do they still do that?
RTWT
The United States is at last making significant progress against al Qaeda in Iraq--but the road to victory now requires cutting off al Qaeda's road to Iraq through Damascus.
Thanks to Gen. David Petraeus's new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, and the strength and skill of the American soldiers fighting there, al Qaeda in Iraq is now being routed from its former strongholds in Anbar and Diyala provinces. Many of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, are uniting with us against al Qaeda, alienated by the barbarism and brutality of their erstwhile allies.
As Gen. Petraeus recently said of al Qaeda in Iraq: "We have them off plan."
But defeating al Qaeda in Iraq requires not only that we continue pressing the offensive against its leadership and infrastructure inside the country. We must also aggressively target its links to "global" al Qaeda and close off the routes its foreign fighters are using to get into Iraq.
Recently declassified American intelligence reveals just how much al Qaeda in Iraq is dependent for its survival on the support it receives from the broader, global al Qaeda network, and how most of that support flows into Iraq through one country--Syria. Al Qaeda in Iraq is sustained by a transnational network of facilitators and human smugglers, who replenish its supply of suicide bombers--approximately 60 to 80 Islamist extremists, recruited every month from across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, and sent to meet their al Qaeda handlers in Syria, from where they are taken to Iraq to blow themselves up to kill countless others.
Although small in number, these foreign fighters are a vital strategic asset to al Qaeda in Iraq, providing it with the essential human ammunition it needs to conduct high-visibility, mass-casualty suicide bombings, such as we saw last week in northern Iraq. In fact, the U.S. military estimates that between 80% and 90% of suicide attacks in Iraq are perpetrated by foreign fighters, making them the deadliest weapon in al Qaeda's war arsenal. Without them, al Qaeda in Iraq would be critically, perhaps even fatally, weakened.
That is why we now must focus on disrupting this flow of suicide bombers--and that means focusing on Syria, through which up to 80% of the Iraq-bound extremists transit. Indeed, even terrorists from countries that directly border Iraq travel by land via Syria to Iraq, instead of directly from their home countries, because of the permissive environment for terrorism that the Syrian government has fostered. Syria refuses to tighten its visa regime for individuals transiting its territory.
Coalition forces have spent considerable time and energy trying to tighten Syria's land border with Iraq against terrorist infiltration. But given the length and topography of that border, the success of these efforts is likely to remain uneven at best, particularly without the support of the Damascus regime.
Before al Qaeda's foreign fighters can make their way across the Syrian border into Iraq, however, they must first reach Syria--and the overwhelming majority does so, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, by flying into Damascus International Airport, making the airport the central hub of al Qaeda travel in the Middle East, and the most vulnerable chokepoint in al Qaeda's war against Iraq and the U.S. in Iraq.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad cannot seriously claim that he is incapable of exercising effective control over the main airport in his capital city. Syria is a police state, with sprawling domestic intelligence and security services. The notion that al Qaeda recruits are slipping into and through the Damascus airport unbeknownst to the local Mukhabarat is totally unbelievable.
This is not the first use of the Damascus airport by terrorists. It has long been the central transit point for Iranian weapons en route to Hezbollah, in violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions, as well as for al Qaeda operatives moving into and out of Lebanon.
Now the Damascus airport is the point of entry into Iraq for most of the suicide bombers who are killing innocent Iraqi citizens and American soldiers, and trying to break America's will in this war. It is therefore time to demand that the Syrian regime stop playing travel agent for al Qaeda in Iraq.
When Congress reconvenes next month, we should set aside whatever differences divide us on Iraq and send a clear and unambiguous message to the Syrian regime, as we did last month to the Iranian regime, that the transit of al Qaeda suicide bombers through Syria on their way to Iraq is completely unacceptable, and it must stop.
We in the U.S. government should also begin developing a range of options to consider taking against Damascus International, unless the Syrian government takes appropriate action, and soon.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/21/2007 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[10 views]
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#2
wx,
Or maybe we could just take over operation of Damascus airport for them (even if they don't like the idea). But not with TSA doing the screening - sub-contract that to the Israelis.
Iran is threatening to strike the U.S. with "stronger punches" while Hezbollah vows it is ready to become "dismembered limbs to keep Iran strong and dignified." This will likely leave Lebanon in the crossfire.
The Commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Gen. Rahim Safawi, who met Hizbullah's deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem at a religious conference in Tehran, has threatened the United States with "Stronger Punches" and an Iranian dissident expected the group to strike in Lebanon. Safawi made the remarks in an interview with the Iranian daily Keyhan stressing that "America will receive stronger strikes and punches from the Revolutionary Guards in the future."
"We will not remain silent in the face of American pressure and we will use all the force we have to confront the Americans. The Revolutionary Guard Corps has a tremendous power ? and we have sophisticated weapons," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2007 00:00 ||
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[5 views]
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#1
EINNEWS > IRAN > IRAN READIES MISSLES FOR NUKE WARHEADS, + US OFFICIALS: THERE WILL BE AN [US?] ATTACK UPON IRAN articles.
#2
Hezbollah vows it is ready to become "dismembered limbs to keep Iran strong and dignified."
Yeah, we can accommodate dismemberment of Hezbollah. Iran was never strong and dignified you dipwad. We can also dismember Iran. Every a$$hat in the mideast wants to be a comedian.
Aug 21 02:40 PM US/Eastern
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Liberals read more books than conservatives. The head of the book publishing industry's trade group says she knows whyand there's little flattering about conservative readers in her explanation.
"The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,'" Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."
Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress' most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.
She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion."
The book publishing industry is predominantly liberal, though conservative books by authors like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and pundit Ann Coulter have been best sellers in recent years. Overall, book sales have been flat as publishers seek to woo readers lured away by the Internet, movies and television.
Rove, President Bush's departing political adviser, is known as a prodigious reader. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Schroeder was "confusing volume with quality" with her remarks.
"Obfuscation usually requires a lot more words than if you simply focus on fundamental principles, so I'm not at all surprised by the loquaciousness of liberals," he said.
"As head of a book publishing association, she probably shouldn't malign any readers," said Mary Matalin, a GOP strategist who oversees a line of books by conservative authors, Threshold, at Simon & Schuster. Matalin said conservatives and others aren't necessarily reading less, but are getting more information online and from magazines.
The AP-Ipsos poll found 22 percent of liberals and moderates said they had not read a book within the past year, compared with 34 percent of conservatives.
Among those who had read at least one book, liberals typically read nine books in the year, with half reading more than that and half less. Conservatives typically read eight, moderates five.
By slightly wider margins, Democrats tended to read more books than Republicans and independents. There were no differences by political party in the percentage of those who said they had not read at least one book.
The poll involved telephone interviews with 1,003 adults and was conducted August 6 to 8. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
#1
I think that its just that liberals have a lot more disposable time than that of conservatives. I work for a living and don't have the time for taking stupid polls.
They're spinning a difference of ONE in the AVERAGE as something meaningful? And do you count short books with large type the same as a thick book with itty-bitty type?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/21/2007 16:49 Comments ||
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#3
I'd love to see the fiction vs. non-fiction statistics. As near as I can tell, liberals are largely into fantasy.
#5
No wonder 90%+ of what gets published is crap...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/21/2007 17:12 Comments ||
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#6
well, I read books - all the time. Usually 2/week, which explains the bags under my eyes. On my week-long vacation I read 5 books. Pat "Weepy" Schroeder can kiss my literate ass. I'll put big money down that I've read more in any two years than she has her entire life. She was a partisan loser in Congress, As a Presidential *snort* candidate, and in her current job, apparently
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/21/2007 17:23 Comments ||
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#11
And Liberals are less likely to tell pollster the truth.
If this were based on hard evidence like the number of books purchased and actually read I'd give it some credence. As it is, it says more about the unreliability of polling to determine people's real behaviour.
#13
She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion." she said slapping a NO BLOOD FOR OIL bumper sticker onto her car and putting her BusHITLER protest sign into the backseat of her car.
Fact is liberals carry their politics on their sleaves and all about show. They would buy up BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME to leave for people to see so they would look more intelligent. I imagine bookshelves filled with unread liberal titles to impress guests. This does not make one more intellectual, it makes one a mindless consumer with pretentions of granduer.
#16
Over here! Over Here! (waves hands, jumps up and down frantically)
I've written a book! (link here) A very nice book all about the frontier west and the greatest adventure no one ever heard about, and it's kinda conservative, not very much bad language, and the main love story is between a couple who have been married for years and are still crackers about each other... and I have to sell another 1,999,985 copies before I can even think of moving into a castle next door to JK Rowlings'!
Prove that Pat Shroeder is wrong, wrong, wrongedy wrong! Conservatives do so want to read books... just not the ones that the current literary industrial complex is pushing!
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/21/2007 19:37 Comments ||
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#18
I wonder how many liberals have read the, for weeks, #1 book on the NYTimes list, and just this week, dropped to 2nd? I've smiled big time everytime I look to follow the ranking of Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell
#20
The book publishing industry is predominantly liberal, though conservative books by authors like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and pundit Ann Coulter have been best sellers in recent years.
This one fact alone explains that (statistically speaking) virtually neck-in-neck of "who reads the most" poll. We've had NOTHING to read that was worth the paper it was printed on until fairly recently. 9/11 was a BIG cause of that (at least for "young whipper snappers" like me, born AFTER the 1960's). Now, I can't get enough! I'm off to go get the SEAL Team 10 book as soon as I can.
Posted by: BA ||
08/21/2007 20:40 Comments ||
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#21
They conducted the poll on three weekdays. How many bets that they called peoples homes in the middle of the workday, spoke only with those who were not occupied with something USEFUL and discarded anyone who used words with more than two syllables?
When I was young and had the time and inclination I read 4-8 books a week. I am down to 1> per week because of time restraints, as well as the lack of anything interesting to read. Not being wealthy I do not buy books I don;t think I will like, restricting what I will read.
I tend to avoid political books, though. I have no trust for politicians and will not willingly give them money.
#22
Conservatives no longer read books. Only e-books.
Something to it. My eyesight is not what it used to be and sometime tired after a long day of coding. Too much squinting and headache follows. I prefer e-book format, where I can enlarge text so it is legible for me without much effort, the degree of enlargement varies from time to time.
#23
Thanks Frank G and Sherry, too! You won't regret it... and if you really, really like it, the next one will be a trilogy about the German settlements in Texas; adventure, true love, Indian raids, Texas Rangers, murder, revenge and Civil War too!
And cows. Gotta have cows... the cattle ranching thing, y'know.
#24
You know, that's pretty odd. Most of the liberals I run into on campus couldn't read an actual paragraph to save their life. Much less a full book.
#25
#23 Thanks Frank G and Sherry, too! You won't regret it... and if you really, really like it, the next one will be a trilogy about the German settlements in Texas; adventure, true love, Indian raids, Texas Rangers, murder, revenge and Civil War too!
And cows. Gotta have cows... the cattle ranching thing, y'know.
Sarge,
Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862
Nathan Bedford Forrest
<;-)
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
08/21/2007 22:42 Comments ||
Top||
#3
RUSSIA > debate on "RUSSIAN DOCTRINE" i.e. preservation of Russian traditions and values = "Russian/SLavic-ness"???. Also,COUNTERTERRORISM
BLOG > THE DECENTRALIZED [Regional-Global]NETWORKS OF MUSLIM TERRORISTS AND TRANSNATIONAL MAFIAS. LUCIANNE > Islamist Terror and Mexican Mafias.
#4
It is also waging an aggressive, under-the-media-radar campaign for a cabinet-level Peace Department in the United States. Sponsored by Ohio Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich (along with more than 60 cosponsors), House Resolution 808 would authorize a Secretary of Peace to establish a Peace Academy,
Most people, and most of his colleagues, realize that Kucinich is a Looney Tune Quack who should be on serious meds. If he is one of the authors main worries then we should be all right.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Iran is threatening to strike the U.S. with "stronger punches" while Hezbollah vows it is ready to become "dismembered limbs to keep Iran strong and dignified." This will likely leave Lebanon in the crossfire.
