What Does the World Think Now?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.
Gadhafi has been a black hat for as long as I can remember. If we believe the adage that “where there is smoke there is fire,” Gadhafi is probably not a nice fellow. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that the current US president and the predecessor Bush/Cheney regime have murdered many times more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than Gadhafi has murdered in Libya.
Moreover, Gadhafi is putting down a rebellion against state authority as presently constituted, but Obama and Bush/Cheney initiated wars of aggression based entirely on lies and deception.
Yet Gadhafi is being demonized, and Bush/Cheney/Obama are sitting on their high horse draped in cloaks of morality. Obama described himself as saving Libyans from violence while Obama himself murders Afghans, Pakistanis, and whomever else.
Indeed, the Obama regime has been torturing a US soldier, Bradley Manning, for having a moral conscience. America has degenerated to the point where having a moral conscience is evidence of anti-Americanism and “terrorist activity.”
The Bush/Cheney/Obama wars of naked aggression have bankrupted America. Joseph Stiglitz, former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, concluded that the money wasted on the Iraq war could have been used to fix America’s Social Security problem for half a century. Instead, the money was used to boost the obscene profits of the armament industry.
The obscene wars of aggression, the obscene profits of the offshoring corporations, and the obscene bailouts of the rich financial gangsters have left the American public with annual budget deficits of approximately $1.5 trillion. These deficits are being covered by printing money. Sooner or later, the printing presses will cause the US dollar to collapse and domestic inflation to explode. Social Security benefits will be wiped out by inflation rising more rapidly than the cost-of-living adjustments. If America survives, no one will be left but the mega-rich. Unless there is a violent revolution.
Alternatively, if the Federal Reserve puts the brake on monetary expansion, interest rates will rise, sending the economy into a deeper depression.
Washington, focused on its newest war, is oblivious to America’s peril. As Stiglitz notes, the costs of the Iraq war alone could have kept every foreclosed family in their home, provided health care for every American child, and wiped out the student loans of graduates who cannot find jobs because they have been outsourced to foreigners. However, the great democratic elected government of “the world’s only superpower” prefers to murder Muslims in order to enhance the profits of the military/security complex. More money is spent violating the constitutional rights of American air travelers than is spent in behalf of the needy.
The moral authority of the West is rapidly collapsing. When Russia, Asia, and South America look at Europe, Australia and Canada, they see American puppet states that contribute troops to the aggressive wars of the Empire. The French president, the British prime minister, the “president” of Georgia, and the rest are merely functionaries of the American Empire. The puppet rulers routinely sell out the interests and welfare of their peoples in behalf of American hegemony. And they are well rewarded for their service. One year out of office former British prime minister Tony Blair had a net worth of $30 million.
In his war against Libya, Obama has taken America one step further into Caesarism. Obama did Bush one step better and did not even bother to get congressional authorization for his attack on Libya. Obama claimed that his moral authority trumped the US Constitution. The hypocrisy reeks. How the public stands it, I do not know:
“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and--more profoundly--our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
This from the Great Moral Leader who every day murders civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and now Libya and who turns a blind eye when “the great democracy in the Middle East,” Israel, murders more Palestinians.
The American president, whose drones and air force slaughter civilians every day of the year went on to say Libya stands alone in presenting the world with “the prospect of violence on a horrific scale.” Obviously, Obama thinks that one million dead Iraqis, four million displaced Iraqis, and an unknown number of murdered Afghans is just a small thing.
The rest of Obama’s speech showed a person more capable of DoubleSpeak and DoubleThink than Big Brother and the denizens of George Orwell’s 1984.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
War is Our Way of Life
August 6 - 8, 2010
Investing in War
House Slave Syndrome
By LINH DINH
A recent article declares, “Tired of war, thousands of Iraqis want to go to U.S.” What it fails to mention is who triggered all the bloodshed. Who made conditions in Iraq so intolerable that these people must flee?
You know who. Over and over again, the U.S. has instigated mayhem or carnage overseas, generating thousands if not millions of refugees, many of whom longing to escape, paradoxically, it seems, to the source of their suffering. You beat and humiliate me, so can I move in?
But there is no paradox here, really. Let’s call this phenomenon the House Slave Syndrome. With its vast military, petrodollar racket and control of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the U.S. dominates every single life on earth. It is a truly a full spectrum master. There is not a Panamanian, Nigerian, Georgian or Japanese, etc, whose life goes unmolested by American military or, more importantly, financial decisions. Each U.S. sneeze distorts the entire world. When its attention to your land includes a coup or a preemptive strike, then the plot just gets bloodier (and often oilier). No use hiding. Unless you’re Bin Laden, Uncle Sam can always reach you!
The fact that many Iraqis want to come here means that our way of life is superior to theirs, many Americans will conclude, and what we’re doing over there is entirely justified, if a bit costly on our end, but we’re such good people, we give so much. Ignored is the fact that we’ve sold their oil and gas and kept 98% of the gross receipt. Our occupation is also not called We Will Bomb You, Strip You Naked and Smear Shit On Your Face, but Operation Iraqi Freedom. We’re teaching them about civilization, even if they did start it five thousand years ago. A refresher course can’t hurt. Between waterboarding lessons, we’ll teach them about Angelina Jolie, and, for the more serious and advanced students, Megan Fox and Whoopie Goldberg. We’ll throw in easy to understand parables about Jesus. Turn the other cheek, you Satanist Terrorists!
There is nothing new here. We’ve been messing with Iraq for half a century. In 1963, we orchestrated a coup there. We supported Saddam Hussein even before he became president. Before we turned against him, Saddam was our boy, just like Ngo Dinh Diem, Ferdinand Marco, Mohammad Pahlavi, Manuel Noriega and so many others. It’s good that Uncle Sam is not a baseball executive, because his picks are always terrible, but just ask yourself, What sort of character, for cash or career advancement, collaborates with the C.I.A.?
Washington ditches foreign dictators when they no longer serve its needs, but even the most loyal servants of our ruling class are just disposable tools, if not collateral damages. It has come out that General John D. Lavelle, who died in disgrace 30 years ago, was unjustly blamed for a military decision authorized by Richard Nixon. As his career was destroyed, both White House and Pentagon said nothing. Consider also what happened to Old Blood and Guts. Sixty-three years after the death of General Patton, evidences emerged that he was killed by the O.S.S., precursors to the C.I.A., in a staged car crash.
So even the highest ranked house slaves are not safe. Still, it’s better to be inside than out. In fact, it’s best to be as close to the man as possible. Here’s a basic rule of survival: When shots ring out, run to the gang with the biggest guns, the one with the most tanks, planes and ships, and you’ll less likely to become kabob. If they’re smart bombing your neighborhood, you can save your own ass by moving into theirs, for even their least desirable real estate, even Detroit, for example, is safer than Baghdad, if not by much. In short, the closer you are to the baddest mofo, the less likely you are to be zapped by one of his drones or military contractors. If you sit next to the pilot, he’ll have a harder time bombing your ass. Sniffing the man’s deodorant, you will also have better access to his table scraps, preowned clothing and maybe even a bit of hand me down culture.
As long as we engage in wars on foreign soils, refugees will try to come here, but we simply can’t stop because war is our primary industry, what we export to the rest of the world.
War is our way of life.
We are a war servicing nation.
War nourishes our military industrial complex, cheers up stock holders of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Electrics, etc.
Without wars, our stock market would disappear.
College-aged children of the investment class may hold up cute signs protesting this or that conflict, but daddies and mommies need systematic and routine mass murders to maintain healthy stock portfolios.
Investing in War
House Slave Syndrome
By LINH DINH
A recent article declares, “Tired of war, thousands of Iraqis want to go to U.S.” What it fails to mention is who triggered all the bloodshed. Who made conditions in Iraq so intolerable that these people must flee?
You know who. Over and over again, the U.S. has instigated mayhem or carnage overseas, generating thousands if not millions of refugees, many of whom longing to escape, paradoxically, it seems, to the source of their suffering. You beat and humiliate me, so can I move in?
But there is no paradox here, really. Let’s call this phenomenon the House Slave Syndrome. With its vast military, petrodollar racket and control of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the U.S. dominates every single life on earth. It is a truly a full spectrum master. There is not a Panamanian, Nigerian, Georgian or Japanese, etc, whose life goes unmolested by American military or, more importantly, financial decisions. Each U.S. sneeze distorts the entire world. When its attention to your land includes a coup or a preemptive strike, then the plot just gets bloodier (and often oilier). No use hiding. Unless you’re Bin Laden, Uncle Sam can always reach you!
The fact that many Iraqis want to come here means that our way of life is superior to theirs, many Americans will conclude, and what we’re doing over there is entirely justified, if a bit costly on our end, but we’re such good people, we give so much. Ignored is the fact that we’ve sold their oil and gas and kept 98% of the gross receipt. Our occupation is also not called We Will Bomb You, Strip You Naked and Smear Shit On Your Face, but Operation Iraqi Freedom. We’re teaching them about civilization, even if they did start it five thousand years ago. A refresher course can’t hurt. Between waterboarding lessons, we’ll teach them about Angelina Jolie, and, for the more serious and advanced students, Megan Fox and Whoopie Goldberg. We’ll throw in easy to understand parables about Jesus. Turn the other cheek, you Satanist Terrorists!
There is nothing new here. We’ve been messing with Iraq for half a century. In 1963, we orchestrated a coup there. We supported Saddam Hussein even before he became president. Before we turned against him, Saddam was our boy, just like Ngo Dinh Diem, Ferdinand Marco, Mohammad Pahlavi, Manuel Noriega and so many others. It’s good that Uncle Sam is not a baseball executive, because his picks are always terrible, but just ask yourself, What sort of character, for cash or career advancement, collaborates with the C.I.A.?
Washington ditches foreign dictators when they no longer serve its needs, but even the most loyal servants of our ruling class are just disposable tools, if not collateral damages. It has come out that General John D. Lavelle, who died in disgrace 30 years ago, was unjustly blamed for a military decision authorized by Richard Nixon. As his career was destroyed, both White House and Pentagon said nothing. Consider also what happened to Old Blood and Guts. Sixty-three years after the death of General Patton, evidences emerged that he was killed by the O.S.S., precursors to the C.I.A., in a staged car crash.
So even the highest ranked house slaves are not safe. Still, it’s better to be inside than out. In fact, it’s best to be as close to the man as possible. Here’s a basic rule of survival: When shots ring out, run to the gang with the biggest guns, the one with the most tanks, planes and ships, and you’ll less likely to become kabob. If they’re smart bombing your neighborhood, you can save your own ass by moving into theirs, for even their least desirable real estate, even Detroit, for example, is safer than Baghdad, if not by much. In short, the closer you are to the baddest mofo, the less likely you are to be zapped by one of his drones or military contractors. If you sit next to the pilot, he’ll have a harder time bombing your ass. Sniffing the man’s deodorant, you will also have better access to his table scraps, preowned clothing and maybe even a bit of hand me down culture.
As long as we engage in wars on foreign soils, refugees will try to come here, but we simply can’t stop because war is our primary industry, what we export to the rest of the world.
War is our way of life.
We are a war servicing nation.
War nourishes our military industrial complex, cheers up stock holders of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Electrics, etc.
Without wars, our stock market would disappear.
College-aged children of the investment class may hold up cute signs protesting this or that conflict, but daddies and mommies need systematic and routine mass murders to maintain healthy stock portfolios.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
A Spokesman for Murderers and Crooks
Winding Down Obama
By LINH DINH
Occupying Iraq, the U.S. spends about $300 million a day. For Afghanistan, it’s $200 million. These numbers are approximations because the Pentagon doesn’t really know how much it has spent on anything, or how many it has killed in its several wars, big and small. It doesn’t really care, I don’t think. Imagine a team of alcoholics parked permanently at the bar, downing pints and shots with an open tab into infinity, or until the Second Coming, at least. In 2001, Donald Rumsfeld admitted that $2.3 trillion were unaccounted for. He blamed it on sloppy bookkeeping. It must be hard to keep track of so many digits.
As firemen and cops are being fired across America, as teachers are being told they must accept austerity measures, the country is broke, after all, as public radio and television, with their supposed liberal bias, lay on the chopping block, as more homeless sprawl and tent cities spring up, as casinos, a sure sign of desperation, mushroom, the United States has entered another costly war without any fanfare or discussion whatsoever. Obama didn’t have to persuade anybody, no sending a Secretary of State to make a fool of herself in front of the United Nations’ General Assembly, no congressional vote, which, last time I checked, was supposed to be a Constitutional requirement, no media blitz. No lies even. He simply ordered more than a hundred Tomahawk missiles, so far, to rain down on Libya, with many more to come. In any case, this it not even a war, but merely a “kinetic military action,” according to an Obama aide. Such straight faced butchery of language, even as one butchers real people, shows that the United States has entered a deep psychotic state. Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama himself declared, “I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.”
If this is Obama pacified, I hate to see him riled up, but of course he doesn’t get riled up. Suave, articulate and personable, Obama is proving to be just as deadly as Bush, but clearly more cynical. A great, loyal tool of the establishment, Obama has dampened protest from American liberals. Though they know he has betrayed them, they’re reluctant to show appropriate outrage because, not that long ago, they have cheered and wept for him so openly. The day after Obama won, Rebecca Solnit burbled in the Nation,“ Citizenship is a passionate joy at times, and this is one of those times. You can feel it. Tuesday the world changed. It was a great day.”
The President of the United States is a traveling salesman for the military industrial complex. In 2010, Obama came to India to visit the Mumbai home of Gandhi, a hero of his, someone he would most like to dine with, very touching, before announcing a mega arms deal of GE fighter jet engines and Boeing military transport planes. Now, as he bombs Libya, Obama tries to sell F-18 fighter planes to Brazil. According to an aide, “President Obama underscored that the F-18 is the best plane on offer” as he made a “strong pitch” to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
The President of the United States is also a spokesman for murderers and crooks. He doesn’t rule, but obeys. His main job is to deceive the masses as he serves his enablers. He can say anything at any time, and means none of it. The President of the United States is the world’s most visible actor, in short. Campaigning in 2007, Obama said, “If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States.” Quite a performance. This year, as Wisconsin teachers fight to retain their right to collectively bargain, Obama has said absolutely nothing. One would have to be a fool to think he would join them.
Offshoring began under Clinton, and has continued unabated. Under the banner of free trade, the only goal of Globalism is to couple capital with the cheapest labor available. Since organized workers are anathema to the bosses, American companies have moved their factories to totalitarian countries where workers have little rights, where they cannot be unionized. The idea is to roll back the clock to the earliest days of industrialism, where workers toiled all day long for next to nothing. In February, a bill was even introduced in Missouri to eliminate child labor laws. It seeks, in part, to get rid of “the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed.” Don’t laugh. This may be a sign of things to come.
As for work that can’t be outsourced, foreign workers are allowed or even invited in. U.S. borders are not porous out of charity or ineptness, but because this benefits American businesses. During the recent housing bubble, builders employed countless Mexican workers, and every stateside restaurant these days seems to be staffed by Mexican busboys, cooks and dishwashers. Chinese engineer students can stay after graduating from American schools, and Indian doctors and nurses are given special visas. There are certain jobs, however, that can’t easily be staffed by aliens, such as teachers, for example. If Albanians could be imported to teach English and American History to American kids, it would have happened already. The latest attack in this relentless war against American workers is the announcement that Mexican truckers will soon be allowed to drive into the U.S. Though ignored by the mainstream media, this calamity won’t just put tens of thousands of American truck drivers out of work, but also many American dock workers. Containers can be shipped to Mexico, then trucked into the U.S. by cheaper Mexican drivers.
Again, American borders are porous by design, just as other countries’ borders are routinely violated by the U.S.A. There is a huge difference, however: when Americans enter another country illegally, it’s never to empty foreigners’ bedpans or to wash their dishes, but usually to kill them.
As Obama fizzles out, as he loses legitimacy, the power brokers will come up with other figureheads and slogans for American liberals and conservatives to become passionate about. These candidates will jabber, jab and insult each other. As in professional wrestling, the battle will appear fierce. Barack, meanwhile, can look forward to a lucrative memoir and six-figure speaking fees. Even that man of malapropisms and snafus, the much despised Bush, is getting $150,000 each time he opens his mouth these days
By LINH DINH
Occupying Iraq, the U.S. spends about $300 million a day. For Afghanistan, it’s $200 million. These numbers are approximations because the Pentagon doesn’t really know how much it has spent on anything, or how many it has killed in its several wars, big and small. It doesn’t really care, I don’t think. Imagine a team of alcoholics parked permanently at the bar, downing pints and shots with an open tab into infinity, or until the Second Coming, at least. In 2001, Donald Rumsfeld admitted that $2.3 trillion were unaccounted for. He blamed it on sloppy bookkeeping. It must be hard to keep track of so many digits.
As firemen and cops are being fired across America, as teachers are being told they must accept austerity measures, the country is broke, after all, as public radio and television, with their supposed liberal bias, lay on the chopping block, as more homeless sprawl and tent cities spring up, as casinos, a sure sign of desperation, mushroom, the United States has entered another costly war without any fanfare or discussion whatsoever. Obama didn’t have to persuade anybody, no sending a Secretary of State to make a fool of herself in front of the United Nations’ General Assembly, no congressional vote, which, last time I checked, was supposed to be a Constitutional requirement, no media blitz. No lies even. He simply ordered more than a hundred Tomahawk missiles, so far, to rain down on Libya, with many more to come. In any case, this it not even a war, but merely a “kinetic military action,” according to an Obama aide. Such straight faced butchery of language, even as one butchers real people, shows that the United States has entered a deep psychotic state. Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama himself declared, “I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.”
If this is Obama pacified, I hate to see him riled up, but of course he doesn’t get riled up. Suave, articulate and personable, Obama is proving to be just as deadly as Bush, but clearly more cynical. A great, loyal tool of the establishment, Obama has dampened protest from American liberals. Though they know he has betrayed them, they’re reluctant to show appropriate outrage because, not that long ago, they have cheered and wept for him so openly. The day after Obama won, Rebecca Solnit burbled in the Nation,“ Citizenship is a passionate joy at times, and this is one of those times. You can feel it. Tuesday the world changed. It was a great day.”
The President of the United States is a traveling salesman for the military industrial complex. In 2010, Obama came to India to visit the Mumbai home of Gandhi, a hero of his, someone he would most like to dine with, very touching, before announcing a mega arms deal of GE fighter jet engines and Boeing military transport planes. Now, as he bombs Libya, Obama tries to sell F-18 fighter planes to Brazil. According to an aide, “President Obama underscored that the F-18 is the best plane on offer” as he made a “strong pitch” to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
The President of the United States is also a spokesman for murderers and crooks. He doesn’t rule, but obeys. His main job is to deceive the masses as he serves his enablers. He can say anything at any time, and means none of it. The President of the United States is the world’s most visible actor, in short. Campaigning in 2007, Obama said, “If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States.” Quite a performance. This year, as Wisconsin teachers fight to retain their right to collectively bargain, Obama has said absolutely nothing. One would have to be a fool to think he would join them.
Offshoring began under Clinton, and has continued unabated. Under the banner of free trade, the only goal of Globalism is to couple capital with the cheapest labor available. Since organized workers are anathema to the bosses, American companies have moved their factories to totalitarian countries where workers have little rights, where they cannot be unionized. The idea is to roll back the clock to the earliest days of industrialism, where workers toiled all day long for next to nothing. In February, a bill was even introduced in Missouri to eliminate child labor laws. It seeks, in part, to get rid of “the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed.” Don’t laugh. This may be a sign of things to come.
As for work that can’t be outsourced, foreign workers are allowed or even invited in. U.S. borders are not porous out of charity or ineptness, but because this benefits American businesses. During the recent housing bubble, builders employed countless Mexican workers, and every stateside restaurant these days seems to be staffed by Mexican busboys, cooks and dishwashers. Chinese engineer students can stay after graduating from American schools, and Indian doctors and nurses are given special visas. There are certain jobs, however, that can’t easily be staffed by aliens, such as teachers, for example. If Albanians could be imported to teach English and American History to American kids, it would have happened already. The latest attack in this relentless war against American workers is the announcement that Mexican truckers will soon be allowed to drive into the U.S. Though ignored by the mainstream media, this calamity won’t just put tens of thousands of American truck drivers out of work, but also many American dock workers. Containers can be shipped to Mexico, then trucked into the U.S. by cheaper Mexican drivers.
Again, American borders are porous by design, just as other countries’ borders are routinely violated by the U.S.A. There is a huge difference, however: when Americans enter another country illegally, it’s never to empty foreigners’ bedpans or to wash their dishes, but usually to kill them.
As Obama fizzles out, as he loses legitimacy, the power brokers will come up with other figureheads and slogans for American liberals and conservatives to become passionate about. These candidates will jabber, jab and insult each other. As in professional wrestling, the battle will appear fierce. Barack, meanwhile, can look forward to a lucrative memoir and six-figure speaking fees. Even that man of malapropisms and snafus, the much despised Bush, is getting $150,000 each time he opens his mouth these days
Friday, March 25, 2011
North Korea Suggests Libya Should Have Kept Nuclear Program
By MARK McDONALD
SEOUL, South Korea — A North Korean statement that Libya’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program had made it vulnerable to military intervention by the West is being seen by analysts as an ominous reinforcement of the North’s refusal to end its own nuclear program.
North Korea’s official news agency carried comments this week from a Foreign Ministry official criticizing the air assault on Libyan government forces and suggesting that Libya had been duped in 2003 when it abandoned its nuclear program in exchange for promises of aid and improved relations with the West.
Calling the West’s bargain with Libya “an invasion tactic to disarm the country,” the official said it amounted to a bait and switch approach. “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson,” the official was quoted as saying Tuesday, proclaiming that North Korea’s “songun” ideology of a powerful military was “proper in a thousand ways” and the only guarantor of peace on the Korean Peninsula.
As they have watched the attacks in Libya this week, senior North Korean leaders “must feel alarmed, but also deeply satisfied with themselves,” said Rüdiger Frank, an adjunct professor at Korea University and the University of North Korean Studies, writing on the Web site 38 North. North Korea is believed to have 8 to 12 nuclear weapons and last year disclosed a new uranium-enrichment plant.
Mr. Frank said that the Libyan situation was “at least the third instance in two decades that would seem to offer proof that they did something right while others failed and ultimately paid the price.” He said North Korea would probably see object lessons in the Soviet Union’s decision to end the arms race and to “abandon the political option to use their weapons of mass destruction,” and in Iraq’s agreement to accept United Nations nuclear inspectors and monitors. And now, Libya.
“To put it bluntly,” Mr. Frank said, “in the eyes of the North Korean leadership all three countries took the economic bait, foolishly disarmed themselves, and once they were defenseless, were mercilessly punished by the West.”
“It requires little imaginative power to see what conclusions will be drawn in Pyongyang,” he said, adding that anyone in the senior leadership who favored denuclearization “will now be silent.”
The United States said there was no link between Libya’s abandonment of efforts to develop nuclear arms and other weapons and the current military campaign by Western nations.
“Where they’re at today has absolutely no connection with them renouncing their nuclear program or nuclear weapons,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.
The comments by the anonymous North Korean official appeared to dim the chances for a renewal of the so-called six-party talks on the dismantling of North Korea’s atomic program. The talks ended in 2009 when North Korea withdrew, angry over international sanctions that followed a long-range missile test. The two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan are the participants in the six-party process, which began in 2003. China, North Korea’s only major ally, has served as the host country.
SEOUL, South Korea — A North Korean statement that Libya’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program had made it vulnerable to military intervention by the West is being seen by analysts as an ominous reinforcement of the North’s refusal to end its own nuclear program.
North Korea’s official news agency carried comments this week from a Foreign Ministry official criticizing the air assault on Libyan government forces and suggesting that Libya had been duped in 2003 when it abandoned its nuclear program in exchange for promises of aid and improved relations with the West.
Calling the West’s bargain with Libya “an invasion tactic to disarm the country,” the official said it amounted to a bait and switch approach. “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson,” the official was quoted as saying Tuesday, proclaiming that North Korea’s “songun” ideology of a powerful military was “proper in a thousand ways” and the only guarantor of peace on the Korean Peninsula.
As they have watched the attacks in Libya this week, senior North Korean leaders “must feel alarmed, but also deeply satisfied with themselves,” said Rüdiger Frank, an adjunct professor at Korea University and the University of North Korean Studies, writing on the Web site 38 North. North Korea is believed to have 8 to 12 nuclear weapons and last year disclosed a new uranium-enrichment plant.
Mr. Frank said that the Libyan situation was “at least the third instance in two decades that would seem to offer proof that they did something right while others failed and ultimately paid the price.” He said North Korea would probably see object lessons in the Soviet Union’s decision to end the arms race and to “abandon the political option to use their weapons of mass destruction,” and in Iraq’s agreement to accept United Nations nuclear inspectors and monitors. And now, Libya.
“To put it bluntly,” Mr. Frank said, “in the eyes of the North Korean leadership all three countries took the economic bait, foolishly disarmed themselves, and once they were defenseless, were mercilessly punished by the West.”
“It requires little imaginative power to see what conclusions will be drawn in Pyongyang,” he said, adding that anyone in the senior leadership who favored denuclearization “will now be silent.”
The United States said there was no link between Libya’s abandonment of efforts to develop nuclear arms and other weapons and the current military campaign by Western nations.
“Where they’re at today has absolutely no connection with them renouncing their nuclear program or nuclear weapons,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.
The comments by the anonymous North Korean official appeared to dim the chances for a renewal of the so-called six-party talks on the dismantling of North Korea’s atomic program. The talks ended in 2009 when North Korea withdrew, angry over international sanctions that followed a long-range missile test. The two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan are the participants in the six-party process, which began in 2003. China, North Korea’s only major ally, has served as the host country.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sarkozy Libya Plan Got Push From ‘American Vertigo’ Author Levy
By Helene Fouquet - Mar 22, 2011
French author Bernard-Henri Levy was present at the creation of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to intervene in the Libyan civil war.
With Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in Brussels, Levy, 62, attended Sarkozy’s March 10 meeting at the Elysee Palace with leaders of the Libyan opposition. Having arranged the encounter, Levy urged Sarkozy to become the first to recognize them as the government of Libya -- which he did.
It was Levy who confirmed a Le Monde report that day that Sarkozy was pushing for air strikes against Muammar Qaddafi. Juppe’s meeting in Brussels with his European Union counterparts failed to yield consensus on recognizing the Benghazi-based opposition and on military attacks. The United Nations voted a week later to authorize a no-fly zone.
“It’s too serious an issue to have someone like Bernard- Henri Levy tell France what to do in Libya,” said Stephane Rozes, who founded the Paris-based Cap Institute, a political- advisory firm. “His public posture is not good for France or its diplomacy.”
Sarkozy’s office declined to comment on Levy’s role in policy making.
France’s desire to play a leading role in the Libyan campaign has become embroiled in a dispute among coalition countries this week as French officials resist calls by the U.K. and Italy for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to take over. Norway suspended its participation unless leadership is clarified.
Levy’s involvement began on a trip to rebel-held parts of Libya, which he recounted in the March 5 Journal du Dimanche.
‘Good People’
He says he called Sarkozy on March 4 after his meeting in Benghazi with Libya’s opposition Transition Council leaders, according to an interview in Le Parisien. He told the president the rebel leaders were ”good people,”
On March 15, as Group of Eight foreign ministers met in Paris, Levy also organized a meeting of the Libyan opposition council with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he told Europe 1 radio.
Levy -- known in the French media by his initials “BHL” - - wrote in his online magazine La Regle du Jeu that his role in arranging the Elysee meeting was “modest” and that Sarkozy “is not a man who lets himself being influenced by anyone.”
Levy’s link to Sarkozy has also a personal side.
His daughter, Justine Levy, published a 2004 roman a clef, “Nothing Serious,” depicting how her then-husband, philosopher Raphael Enthoven, left her for the model and singer Carla Bruni. Bruni and Enthoven had a son in 2001. In 2008, Bruni married Sarkozy.
War Reporting
Levy the elder’s activities include journalism, philosophy and filmmaking. He has reported from war zones including Bosnia, Burundi, Rwanda and Sri Lanka. In 2006, he wrote about the U.S. in a book entitled “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville.” His 2003 book, “Who Killed Daniel Pearl?,” was made into a film starring Angelina Jolie.
In contrast to many in France, including former President Jacques Chirac, who opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2002, Levy did not rally against it. In a 2008 interview with Bloomberg Television, he said the war was “morally right, politically wrong.”
In his recent diplomatic foray, he says he and Sarkozy were on the same page.
“I felt very early on that the French President was ready to end Qaddafi’s bloodshed,” he told Europe 1 radio on March 20. “I felt he was going to go all the way.”
French author Bernard-Henri Levy was present at the creation of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to intervene in the Libyan civil war.
With Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in Brussels, Levy, 62, attended Sarkozy’s March 10 meeting at the Elysee Palace with leaders of the Libyan opposition. Having arranged the encounter, Levy urged Sarkozy to become the first to recognize them as the government of Libya -- which he did.
It was Levy who confirmed a Le Monde report that day that Sarkozy was pushing for air strikes against Muammar Qaddafi. Juppe’s meeting in Brussels with his European Union counterparts failed to yield consensus on recognizing the Benghazi-based opposition and on military attacks. The United Nations voted a week later to authorize a no-fly zone.
“It’s too serious an issue to have someone like Bernard- Henri Levy tell France what to do in Libya,” said Stephane Rozes, who founded the Paris-based Cap Institute, a political- advisory firm. “His public posture is not good for France or its diplomacy.”
Sarkozy’s office declined to comment on Levy’s role in policy making.
France’s desire to play a leading role in the Libyan campaign has become embroiled in a dispute among coalition countries this week as French officials resist calls by the U.K. and Italy for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to take over. Norway suspended its participation unless leadership is clarified.
Levy’s involvement began on a trip to rebel-held parts of Libya, which he recounted in the March 5 Journal du Dimanche.
‘Good People’
He says he called Sarkozy on March 4 after his meeting in Benghazi with Libya’s opposition Transition Council leaders, according to an interview in Le Parisien. He told the president the rebel leaders were ”good people,”
On March 15, as Group of Eight foreign ministers met in Paris, Levy also organized a meeting of the Libyan opposition council with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he told Europe 1 radio.
Levy -- known in the French media by his initials “BHL” - - wrote in his online magazine La Regle du Jeu that his role in arranging the Elysee meeting was “modest” and that Sarkozy “is not a man who lets himself being influenced by anyone.”
Levy’s link to Sarkozy has also a personal side.
His daughter, Justine Levy, published a 2004 roman a clef, “Nothing Serious,” depicting how her then-husband, philosopher Raphael Enthoven, left her for the model and singer Carla Bruni. Bruni and Enthoven had a son in 2001. In 2008, Bruni married Sarkozy.
War Reporting
Levy the elder’s activities include journalism, philosophy and filmmaking. He has reported from war zones including Bosnia, Burundi, Rwanda and Sri Lanka. In 2006, he wrote about the U.S. in a book entitled “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville.” His 2003 book, “Who Killed Daniel Pearl?,” was made into a film starring Angelina Jolie.
In contrast to many in France, including former President Jacques Chirac, who opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2002, Levy did not rally against it. In a 2008 interview with Bloomberg Television, he said the war was “morally right, politically wrong.”
In his recent diplomatic foray, he says he and Sarkozy were on the same page.
“I felt very early on that the French President was ready to end Qaddafi’s bloodshed,” he told Europe 1 radio on March 20. “I felt he was going to go all the way.”
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tribes With Flags
I do not agree with T Friedman's most articles (99.9%) except this one that accurately describes the situation in the Arab world.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
David Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The Times, wrote an article from Libya on Monday that posed the key question, not only about Libya but about all the new revolutions brewing in the Arab world: “The question has hovered over the Libyan uprising from the moment the first tank commander defected to join his cousins protesting in the streets of Benghazi: Is the battle for Libya the clash of a brutal dictator against a democratic opposition, or is it fundamentally a tribal civil war?”
This is the question because there are two kinds of states in the Middle East: “real countries” with long histories in their territory and strong national identities (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran); and those that might be called “tribes with flags,” or more artificial states with boundaries drawn in sharp straight lines by pens of colonial powers that have trapped inside their borders myriad tribes and sects who not only never volunteered to live together but have never fully melded into a unified family of citizens. They are Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The tribes and sects that make up these more artificial states have long been held together by the iron fist of colonial powers, kings or military dictators. They have no real “citizens” in the modern sense. Democratic rotations in power are impossible because each tribe lives by the motto “rule or die” — either my tribe or sect is in power or we’re dead.
It is no accident that the Mideast democracy rebellions began in three of the real countries — Iran, Egypt and Tunisia — where the populations are modern, with big homogenous majorities that put nation before sect or tribe and have enough mutual trust to come together like a family: “everyone against dad.” But as these revolutions have spread to the more tribal/sectarian societies, it becomes difficult to discern where the quest for democracy stops and the desire that “my tribe take over from your tribe” begins.
In Bahrain, a Sunni minority, 30 percent of the population, rules over a Shiite majority. There are many Bahraini Sunnis and Shiites — so-called sushis, fused by inter-marriage — who carry modern political identities and would accept a true democracy. But there are many other Bahrainis who see life there as a zero-sum sectarian war, including hard-liners in the ruling al-Khalifa family, who have no intention of risking the future of Bahraini Sunnis under majority-Shiite rule. That is why the guns came out there very early. It was rule or die. Iraq teaches what it takes to democratize a big tribalized Arab country once the iron-fisted leader is removed (in that case by us). It takes billions of dollars, 150,000 U.S. soldiers to referee, myriad casualties, a civil war where both sides have to test each other’s power and then a wrenching process, which we midwifed, of Iraqi sects and tribes writing their own constitution defining how to live together without an iron fist.
Enabling Iraqis to write their own social contract is the most important thing America did. It was, in fact, the most important liberal experiment in modern Arab history because it showed that even tribes with flags can, possibly, transition through sectarianism into a modern democracy. But it is still just a hope. Iraqis still have not given us the definitive answer to their key question: Is Iraq the way Iraq is because Saddam was the way Saddam was or was Saddam the way Saddam was because Iraq is the way Iraq is: a tribalized society? All the other Arab states now hosting rebellions — Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya — are Iraq-like civil-wars-in-waiting. Some may get lucky and their army may play the role of the guiding hand to democracy, but don’t bet on it.
In other words, Libya is just the front-end of a series of moral and strategic dilemmas we are going to face as these Arab uprisings proceed through the tribes with flags. I want to cut President Obama some slack. This is complicated, and I respect the president’s desire to prevent a mass killing in Libya.
But we need to be more cautious. What made the Egyptian democracy movement so powerful was that they owned it. The Egyptian youth suffered hundreds of casualties in their fight for freedom. And we should be doubly cautious of intervening in places that could fall apart in our hands, a là Iraq, especially when we do not know, a là Libya, who the opposition groups really are — democracy movements led by tribes or tribes exploiting the language of democracy?
Finally, sadly, we can’t afford it. We have got to get to work on our own country. If the president is ready to take some big, hard, urgent, decisions, shouldn’t they be first about nation-building in America, not in Libya? Shouldn’t he first be forging a real energy policy that weakens all the Qaddafis and a budget policy that secures the American dream for another generation? Once those are in place, I will follow the president “from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.”
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
David Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The Times, wrote an article from Libya on Monday that posed the key question, not only about Libya but about all the new revolutions brewing in the Arab world: “The question has hovered over the Libyan uprising from the moment the first tank commander defected to join his cousins protesting in the streets of Benghazi: Is the battle for Libya the clash of a brutal dictator against a democratic opposition, or is it fundamentally a tribal civil war?”
This is the question because there are two kinds of states in the Middle East: “real countries” with long histories in their territory and strong national identities (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran); and those that might be called “tribes with flags,” or more artificial states with boundaries drawn in sharp straight lines by pens of colonial powers that have trapped inside their borders myriad tribes and sects who not only never volunteered to live together but have never fully melded into a unified family of citizens. They are Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The tribes and sects that make up these more artificial states have long been held together by the iron fist of colonial powers, kings or military dictators. They have no real “citizens” in the modern sense. Democratic rotations in power are impossible because each tribe lives by the motto “rule or die” — either my tribe or sect is in power or we’re dead.
It is no accident that the Mideast democracy rebellions began in three of the real countries — Iran, Egypt and Tunisia — where the populations are modern, with big homogenous majorities that put nation before sect or tribe and have enough mutual trust to come together like a family: “everyone against dad.” But as these revolutions have spread to the more tribal/sectarian societies, it becomes difficult to discern where the quest for democracy stops and the desire that “my tribe take over from your tribe” begins.
In Bahrain, a Sunni minority, 30 percent of the population, rules over a Shiite majority. There are many Bahraini Sunnis and Shiites — so-called sushis, fused by inter-marriage — who carry modern political identities and would accept a true democracy. But there are many other Bahrainis who see life there as a zero-sum sectarian war, including hard-liners in the ruling al-Khalifa family, who have no intention of risking the future of Bahraini Sunnis under majority-Shiite rule. That is why the guns came out there very early. It was rule or die. Iraq teaches what it takes to democratize a big tribalized Arab country once the iron-fisted leader is removed (in that case by us). It takes billions of dollars, 150,000 U.S. soldiers to referee, myriad casualties, a civil war where both sides have to test each other’s power and then a wrenching process, which we midwifed, of Iraqi sects and tribes writing their own constitution defining how to live together without an iron fist.
Enabling Iraqis to write their own social contract is the most important thing America did. It was, in fact, the most important liberal experiment in modern Arab history because it showed that even tribes with flags can, possibly, transition through sectarianism into a modern democracy. But it is still just a hope. Iraqis still have not given us the definitive answer to their key question: Is Iraq the way Iraq is because Saddam was the way Saddam was or was Saddam the way Saddam was because Iraq is the way Iraq is: a tribalized society? All the other Arab states now hosting rebellions — Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya — are Iraq-like civil-wars-in-waiting. Some may get lucky and their army may play the role of the guiding hand to democracy, but don’t bet on it.
In other words, Libya is just the front-end of a series of moral and strategic dilemmas we are going to face as these Arab uprisings proceed through the tribes with flags. I want to cut President Obama some slack. This is complicated, and I respect the president’s desire to prevent a mass killing in Libya.
But we need to be more cautious. What made the Egyptian democracy movement so powerful was that they owned it. The Egyptian youth suffered hundreds of casualties in their fight for freedom. And we should be doubly cautious of intervening in places that could fall apart in our hands, a là Iraq, especially when we do not know, a là Libya, who the opposition groups really are — democracy movements led by tribes or tribes exploiting the language of democracy?
Finally, sadly, we can’t afford it. We have got to get to work on our own country. If the president is ready to take some big, hard, urgent, decisions, shouldn’t they be first about nation-building in America, not in Libya? Shouldn’t he first be forging a real energy policy that weakens all the Qaddafis and a budget policy that secures the American dream for another generation? Once those are in place, I will follow the president “from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.”
Monday, March 21, 2011
"What is a meme?"
Glenn Grant: Meme (pron. meem): A contagious information pattern that replicates by parasitically infecting human minds and altering their behavior, causing them to propagate the pattern. (Term coined by Dawkins, by analogy with "gene".) Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are typical memes. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic.
Tony Lezard: Richard Dawkins, who coined the word in his book The Selfish Gene defines the meme as simply a unit of intellectual or cultural information that survives long enough to be recognized as such, and which can pass from mind to mind. There's not much of a sense of describing thought processes, but nor is it just a model. As Richard Dawkins writes (this is from memory), "God indeed exists, if only as a pattern in brain structures replicated across the minds of billions of people throughout the world." (Of course the patterns aren't physically identical, but they represent the same thing.)
Richard Dawkins: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leading from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.
Memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn't just a way of talking -- the meme for, say, 'belief in life after death' is actually realized physically, millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of people all over the world.
H. Keith Henson: A meme survives in the world because people pass it on to other people, either vertically to the next generation, or horizontally to our fellows. This process is analogous to the way willow genes cause willow trees to spread them, or perhaps closer to the way cold viruses make us sneeze and spread them.
Peter J. Vajk: It is important to note here that, in contrast to genes, memes are not encoded in any universal code within our brains or in human culture. The meme for vanishing point perspective in two-dimensional art, for example, which first appeared in the sixteenth century, can be encoded and transmitted in German, English or Chinese; it can be described in words, or in algebraic equations, or in line drawings. Nonetheless, in any of these forms, the meme can be transmitted, resulting in a certain recognizable element of realism which appears only in art works executed by artists infected with this meme.
Heith Michael Rezabek: My favorite example of a crucial meme would be "fire" or more importantly, "how to make a fire." This is a behavioral meme, mind you, one which didn't necessarily need a word attached to it to spring up and spread, merely a demonstration for another to follow. Once the meme was out there, it would have spread like wildfire, for obvious reasons... But when you start to think of memes like that -- behavioral memes -- then you can begin to see how language itself, the idea of language, was a meme. Writing was a meme. And within those areas, more specific memes emerged.
Lee Borkman: Memes, like genes, vary in their fitness to survive in the environment of human intellect. Some reproduce like bunnies, but are very short-lived (fashions), while others are slow to reproduce, but hang around for eons (religions, perhaps?). Note that the fitness of the meme is not necessarily related to the fitness that it confers upon the human being who holds it. The most obvious example of this is the "Smoking is Cool" meme, which does very well for itself while killing off its hosts at a great rate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
alt.memetics resources page
bibliography
Glenn Grant: Meme (pron. meem): A contagious information pattern that replicates by parasitically infecting human minds and altering their behavior, causing them to propagate the pattern. (Term coined by Dawkins, by analogy with "gene".) Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are typical memes. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic.
Tony Lezard: Richard Dawkins, who coined the word in his book The Selfish Gene defines the meme as simply a unit of intellectual or cultural information that survives long enough to be recognized as such, and which can pass from mind to mind. There's not much of a sense of describing thought processes, but nor is it just a model. As Richard Dawkins writes (this is from memory), "God indeed exists, if only as a pattern in brain structures replicated across the minds of billions of people throughout the world." (Of course the patterns aren't physically identical, but they represent the same thing.)
Richard Dawkins: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leading from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.
Memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn't just a way of talking -- the meme for, say, 'belief in life after death' is actually realized physically, millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of people all over the world.
H. Keith Henson: A meme survives in the world because people pass it on to other people, either vertically to the next generation, or horizontally to our fellows. This process is analogous to the way willow genes cause willow trees to spread them, or perhaps closer to the way cold viruses make us sneeze and spread them.
Peter J. Vajk: It is important to note here that, in contrast to genes, memes are not encoded in any universal code within our brains or in human culture. The meme for vanishing point perspective in two-dimensional art, for example, which first appeared in the sixteenth century, can be encoded and transmitted in German, English or Chinese; it can be described in words, or in algebraic equations, or in line drawings. Nonetheless, in any of these forms, the meme can be transmitted, resulting in a certain recognizable element of realism which appears only in art works executed by artists infected with this meme.
Heith Michael Rezabek: My favorite example of a crucial meme would be "fire" or more importantly, "how to make a fire." This is a behavioral meme, mind you, one which didn't necessarily need a word attached to it to spring up and spread, merely a demonstration for another to follow. Once the meme was out there, it would have spread like wildfire, for obvious reasons... But when you start to think of memes like that -- behavioral memes -- then you can begin to see how language itself, the idea of language, was a meme. Writing was a meme. And within those areas, more specific memes emerged.
Lee Borkman: Memes, like genes, vary in their fitness to survive in the environment of human intellect. Some reproduce like bunnies, but are very short-lived (fashions), while others are slow to reproduce, but hang around for eons (religions, perhaps?). Note that the fitness of the meme is not necessarily related to the fitness that it confers upon the human being who holds it. The most obvious example of this is the "Smoking is Cool" meme, which does very well for itself while killing off its hosts at a great rate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
alt.memetics resources page
bibliography
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