In his latest audiotape, al-Qaeda Symbol-in-Chief, bin Laden, sang one of his long time faves, "Death to the Zionist Entity and the Apostate Arab Leaders Who Protect It." This time he added some new lyrics.
Specifically the hermit sage named names and pointed fingers.
Bin Laden pointed his Flying Finger of Blame at Hezbollah. The name he named was that of Hezbollah's capo de tutti capi, Hassan Nasrallah.
Apparently the al-Qaeda Leader In Hiding was unimpressed by the outcome of the Hezbollah vs Israeli Defense Forces match up back in 2006. From the Geek's perspective, Hezbollah did very well against the IDF. Much better than, say, Taliban against the minature US invasion force and its Northern Alliance confederates four years earlier.
Maybe Osama is bent out of shape because he is the Running Man while Nasrallah sits in front of al-Jeezera cameras.
Deep in his twenty-two minute rant, the Troglodyte Sheik rhetorically demands why Nasrallah and his Hezbollah fighters allowed the UN peacekeepers "to protect the Jews." The Mystic of the Mountains alleged Nasrallah was deficient in manliness. "If he was honest and has enough (resources), why then he did not support the fight to liberate Palestine."
Golly, Mr bin Ladan, you sure do ask the tough questions.
Perhaps Nasrallah stopped fighting when he did because he has enough brains to know that Hezbollah had won. Did you consider that, Osama?
Hezbollah did win in a substantial and meaningful way. The IDF lost heavily. Israel did not accomplish any of the goals for which its military had been employed. Hezbollah gained status with Sunnis and Shias alike. It showed to its sponsors, Iran and Syria, that their investments had been well worth the price.
Perhaps Hezbollah's greatest victory in 2006 was undercutting Israeli self-confidence, certainty and political will.
It's second greatest victory?
The al-Qaeda Pontificator told us that. Hezbollah has replaced al-Qaeda as The Great Hope of Islamic Irredentism.
The rise of Hezbollah to the top of the Islamist/jihadist charts rebounded to Iran's advantage as the audiotape acknowledges. Bin Laden's admission comes in characteristically backhanded fashion. He accused Iran of wanting to dominate the Mideast--a charge he usually levels only at the United States.
Way to go, Nasrallah! You've pushed Iran ahead of the US at least on points.
Interestingly, the tape made no mention of the recent events in Lebanon where the US supported government failed in its attempt to rein in Hezbollah. Either the tape was made long before these events or The Grand Interpreter of Allah's Will did not want to give Hezbollah even more credit.
Hezbollah has emerged in the past two years as a major player in Mideast politics and Western anxieties. It has done this as al-Qaeda has faded.
Hezbollah has shown itself able to successfully confront Israel both directly and through proxies. It has treated with its "host" government as an equal--perhaps as something more than a mere equal.
In comparison, al-Qaeda and its Fugitive Generalissimo have managed to have their "host" government destroyed. In addition, the Peerless Band of Godly Warriors have managed to make themselves detested in Iraq, distrusted in most of the Mideast and doubted in the rest of the Muslim world.
No wonder Osama is feeling poopy and letting it show.
This leads to several questions--
The first is simply, what is al-Qaeda going to do about its diminished status? Skulk around in the mountains of the Pakistani Tribal Agencies or stage a spectacular act?
The Geek would hope for the first but prepare for the second. Al-Qaeda is down but most assuredly not out.
The second question is: Should the West, particularly the US, put Hezbollah and its chief sponsor, Iran, on the top of the International Worry List? The answer to that is self-evident.
There is a third question. What ever happened to Adam Gadhan? Was he killed along with Abu al-Laith last January in Mir Ali, Pakistan by a Predator launched Hellfire? Or is the one time California environmentalist studying for an advanced degree at some backwater madrassa?
The Geek misses Adam's translations since it means he has to improve his Arabic--a distasteful expenditure of time and energy.
Come on back, Adam (if you're still with us), we need you.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Iran, The Bomb and The Candidates
George W. Bush brought the matter of Iranian nuclear ambitions back out of the closet during his speech last week to the Israeli parliament. Apparently he continues to think that the Iranians are up to something icky-poo in that area and believes something should be done about it.
That's nice.
The question of what might or should be done was not addressed by the Decider Guy.
Neither has it been addressed meaningfully by any of the senatorial trio seeking electoral preferment.
We the People know the following. One candidate, Senator Obama, would go the route of negotiations backed by incentives--including a summit meeting without preconditions. The second, Senator Clinton, would go with negotiations and incentives albeit at the sub-cabinet level until fundamental agreement had been achieved. Finally, Senator McCain eschews negotiations beyond those necessary to lower Iranian involvement in the Iraqi War and would employ sanctions to achieve an end to unacceptable Iranian nuclear programs.
Those platitudinous adumbrations fail to impress the Geek. They should fail to impress anyone well oriented as to time and place as well.
The Iranians and their nuclear ambitions are not going to just evaporate no matter how hard any of us might wish they would. The mullahocracy is not going to have a sudden change of heart and mind.
They are going to need an effective kick in their collective rear end to mend their troublemaking ways. Perhaps a hard kick.
Now, don't go thinking that the Geek has joined up with the neocon ninnies and their hallucination of improving the world through force imposed regime change. He hasn't.
The Iranians have already preempted the next offer of inducements by the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, PRC and Germany) by their letter to EU negotiator Solana and UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon. In it the Tehran regime allows that it might join an international consortium provided that its domestic enrichment program goes on as scheduled. With an arrogance that is breathtaking, the letter goes on to demand that any discussions also consider a remarkable range of irrelevant matters including the Balkans, the Mideast, Africa and Latin America!
The Geek is of the opinion that had the California Supreme Court issued its ruling on gay marriages a few days earlier, the Iranian letter would have placed that on the agenda as well.
The EU in its attempts to show Washington how real diplomats do the job has offered Tehran train loads of carrots with the results best illustrated by Iranian progress in deploying more improved centrifuges in their enrichment cascade. With this reality establishing the context, it is easy to see why the Tehran regime exhibited such intransigence and arrogance in their letter.
Senators Obama and Clinton, particularly the former, should think long and hard over the experience of the European Union before embracing inducement based negotiations.
In addition that Nice Young Man From Chicago, B.H. Obama, might take a cold hard look at the personality of the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Leaving aside Ahmadinejad's jeremiads against Israel, attention might be given to the Iranian Chief Executive's statements regarding the direct involvement of the Twelfth Imam in the daily actions of the government (a position rejected by many clerics in the mullahocracy) or his comment that his country's economic problems might be solved if more Iranians followed a "culture of martyrdom." Whatever that might mean.
Check out one Western account of the call for martyrdom from the French press agency, a good source, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jelVVHDZfukEAiK80qF88B6Q1Tpg.
On balance, Ahmadinejad gives the impression of being off balance.
To date the various rounds of sanctions imposed by the UN and followed with varying degrees of enthusiasm by countries and companies around the world have hurt Iran.
But hurt isn't enough. The hurt hasn't worked. The centrifuges keep on spinning.
This doesn't mean that sanctions will not work if more are applied with greater precision in targeting and greater compliance by corporate and government agencies.
Get a grip on these unpleasant (for the Iranians) realities. PRESS TV admits the inflation rate in Iran ran twenty-four percent for the year ending last April. The outlet quotes the Central Bank in its coverage. (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=54275§ionid=351020102) Ahmadinejad responded by firing some financial wallahs and claiming that the inflation rate was lower, only about nineteen percent and claiming Iran's "enemies" were responsible anyway.
Then there is the unemployment problem. About one out of every four young Iranians doesn't have a job. http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=080512115831.nd5ex4ol.php. In urban areas the figure is over twenty-eight percent. That's a right large passel of unemployed, frustrated teens and twenty somethings. Worrisome for any government.
But wait! There's more.
As if massive unemployment, exo-atmospheric inflation, chronic shortages and periodic "wage holidays" weren't enough, the Iranian government is proceeding with its "privatization" program. Over the past three years privatization has been an ad hoc affair, but as of 15 May, it went official, organised with the release of five or so percent of Republic Shipbuilding to the public.
The well-off, well-connected (or the sons thereof) will do even better than they did under the previous fit-and-start approach.
The idea apparently is to sop up some of the excess liquidity which has driven so much of the inflation to date. But, like previous attempts sponsored by Ahmadinejad, including housing construction and an order that banks lower interest rates to say nothing of directed increases in government salaries and pensions, this stab at privatization will prove counterproductive.
The economic difficulties confronting Iran suggest that strengthened sanctions calculated to hit the Iranian commercial class and sagging infrastructure may yet prove effective. This will take a greater effort on the part of the P5+1--particularly the PRC.
To accomplish the goal of more effective sanctions more effectively implemented will require more patience on the part of the current, lame duck US administration. Even that won't be enough.
For the sanction approach to work it is necessary that Tehran be allowed no comfort in the thought that barely more than six months from now a new administration, presumably with new policies and approaches, will take office.
Only John McCain to date has refused to give Tehran that comfort.
"What about oil prices?" You ask.
"What about the new Iran-Venezuela axis?" You object.
The Geek buys gas and LPG. He knows the pain in the skinny wallet all too well.
But, he also knows history. The US has been through periods of (at the time) astronomical oil and gasoline prices. During the previous oil shocks in 1973 and 1979-80 and the late '90s, the US was hurt badly by rising prices. But, we muddled our way through. The market forces eventually worked.
They will again. Provided the wallahs in Congress can hold their emotions (and driving need to be re-elected) under control. While not an unreconstructed free marketeer by any stretch of the imagination, the Geek cannot help by notice that the market has worked better than government actions in limiting and eventually reversing the damage of shocks to the economy.
Taking a quick look at Iran's attempt to horizontally escalate its confrontation with the US by linking with Venezuela (a subject for a later post), the Geek gives it a thumbs up.
What!
Yes, the Geek thinks it couldn't happen to a better bunch of guys. Hugo Chavez is clearly as deep an economic thinker as Ahmadinejad and the mullahs as his latest nationalization scheme shows. Venezuela is expected to have an inflation rate of twenty-six percent. http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=70644, http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/05/07/en_eco_art_inflation-at-1.7-per_07A1561241.shtml. Food prices have jumped over forty percent--and it isn't because of the oil price boom. http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/05/14/en_eco_art_venezuela-records-th_14A1576685.shtml.
With a meeting of such potent economic minds as those running Iran and Venezuela, the outcome can only be beneficial to those who live in other countries.
The next administration will have a full foreign policy plate whether they want to eat it or not. The incompetent neocon ninnie cooks in the current regime have made sure of that. We the People had best demand full, candid explanations of goals and means of acquiring those goals from the candidates.
We must not let any of the wannabe residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue glide on by with a handful of poorly thought out but nice sounding campaign platitudes.
Unless we want to see us and the rest of the world slide further down the slope so well greased by the Bush-Cheney regime.
That's nice.
The question of what might or should be done was not addressed by the Decider Guy.
Neither has it been addressed meaningfully by any of the senatorial trio seeking electoral preferment.
We the People know the following. One candidate, Senator Obama, would go the route of negotiations backed by incentives--including a summit meeting without preconditions. The second, Senator Clinton, would go with negotiations and incentives albeit at the sub-cabinet level until fundamental agreement had been achieved. Finally, Senator McCain eschews negotiations beyond those necessary to lower Iranian involvement in the Iraqi War and would employ sanctions to achieve an end to unacceptable Iranian nuclear programs.
Those platitudinous adumbrations fail to impress the Geek. They should fail to impress anyone well oriented as to time and place as well.
The Iranians and their nuclear ambitions are not going to just evaporate no matter how hard any of us might wish they would. The mullahocracy is not going to have a sudden change of heart and mind.
They are going to need an effective kick in their collective rear end to mend their troublemaking ways. Perhaps a hard kick.
Now, don't go thinking that the Geek has joined up with the neocon ninnies and their hallucination of improving the world through force imposed regime change. He hasn't.
The Iranians have already preempted the next offer of inducements by the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, PRC and Germany) by their letter to EU negotiator Solana and UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon. In it the Tehran regime allows that it might join an international consortium provided that its domestic enrichment program goes on as scheduled. With an arrogance that is breathtaking, the letter goes on to demand that any discussions also consider a remarkable range of irrelevant matters including the Balkans, the Mideast, Africa and Latin America!
The Geek is of the opinion that had the California Supreme Court issued its ruling on gay marriages a few days earlier, the Iranian letter would have placed that on the agenda as well.
The EU in its attempts to show Washington how real diplomats do the job has offered Tehran train loads of carrots with the results best illustrated by Iranian progress in deploying more improved centrifuges in their enrichment cascade. With this reality establishing the context, it is easy to see why the Tehran regime exhibited such intransigence and arrogance in their letter.
Senators Obama and Clinton, particularly the former, should think long and hard over the experience of the European Union before embracing inducement based negotiations.
In addition that Nice Young Man From Chicago, B.H. Obama, might take a cold hard look at the personality of the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Leaving aside Ahmadinejad's jeremiads against Israel, attention might be given to the Iranian Chief Executive's statements regarding the direct involvement of the Twelfth Imam in the daily actions of the government (a position rejected by many clerics in the mullahocracy) or his comment that his country's economic problems might be solved if more Iranians followed a "culture of martyrdom." Whatever that might mean.
Check out one Western account of the call for martyrdom from the French press agency, a good source, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jelVVHDZfukEAiK80qF88B6Q1Tpg.
On balance, Ahmadinejad gives the impression of being off balance.
To date the various rounds of sanctions imposed by the UN and followed with varying degrees of enthusiasm by countries and companies around the world have hurt Iran.
But hurt isn't enough. The hurt hasn't worked. The centrifuges keep on spinning.
This doesn't mean that sanctions will not work if more are applied with greater precision in targeting and greater compliance by corporate and government agencies.
Get a grip on these unpleasant (for the Iranians) realities. PRESS TV admits the inflation rate in Iran ran twenty-four percent for the year ending last April. The outlet quotes the Central Bank in its coverage. (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=54275§ionid=351020102) Ahmadinejad responded by firing some financial wallahs and claiming that the inflation rate was lower, only about nineteen percent and claiming Iran's "enemies" were responsible anyway.
Then there is the unemployment problem. About one out of every four young Iranians doesn't have a job. http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=080512115831.nd5ex4ol.php. In urban areas the figure is over twenty-eight percent. That's a right large passel of unemployed, frustrated teens and twenty somethings. Worrisome for any government.
But wait! There's more.
As if massive unemployment, exo-atmospheric inflation, chronic shortages and periodic "wage holidays" weren't enough, the Iranian government is proceeding with its "privatization" program. Over the past three years privatization has been an ad hoc affair, but as of 15 May, it went official, organised with the release of five or so percent of Republic Shipbuilding to the public.
The well-off, well-connected (or the sons thereof) will do even better than they did under the previous fit-and-start approach.
The idea apparently is to sop up some of the excess liquidity which has driven so much of the inflation to date. But, like previous attempts sponsored by Ahmadinejad, including housing construction and an order that banks lower interest rates to say nothing of directed increases in government salaries and pensions, this stab at privatization will prove counterproductive.
The economic difficulties confronting Iran suggest that strengthened sanctions calculated to hit the Iranian commercial class and sagging infrastructure may yet prove effective. This will take a greater effort on the part of the P5+1--particularly the PRC.
To accomplish the goal of more effective sanctions more effectively implemented will require more patience on the part of the current, lame duck US administration. Even that won't be enough.
For the sanction approach to work it is necessary that Tehran be allowed no comfort in the thought that barely more than six months from now a new administration, presumably with new policies and approaches, will take office.
Only John McCain to date has refused to give Tehran that comfort.
"What about oil prices?" You ask.
"What about the new Iran-Venezuela axis?" You object.
The Geek buys gas and LPG. He knows the pain in the skinny wallet all too well.
But, he also knows history. The US has been through periods of (at the time) astronomical oil and gasoline prices. During the previous oil shocks in 1973 and 1979-80 and the late '90s, the US was hurt badly by rising prices. But, we muddled our way through. The market forces eventually worked.
They will again. Provided the wallahs in Congress can hold their emotions (and driving need to be re-elected) under control. While not an unreconstructed free marketeer by any stretch of the imagination, the Geek cannot help by notice that the market has worked better than government actions in limiting and eventually reversing the damage of shocks to the economy.
Taking a quick look at Iran's attempt to horizontally escalate its confrontation with the US by linking with Venezuela (a subject for a later post), the Geek gives it a thumbs up.
What!
Yes, the Geek thinks it couldn't happen to a better bunch of guys. Hugo Chavez is clearly as deep an economic thinker as Ahmadinejad and the mullahs as his latest nationalization scheme shows. Venezuela is expected to have an inflation rate of twenty-six percent. http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=70644, http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/05/07/en_eco_art_inflation-at-1.7-per_07A1561241.shtml. Food prices have jumped over forty percent--and it isn't because of the oil price boom. http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/05/14/en_eco_art_venezuela-records-th_14A1576685.shtml.
With a meeting of such potent economic minds as those running Iran and Venezuela, the outcome can only be beneficial to those who live in other countries.
The next administration will have a full foreign policy plate whether they want to eat it or not. The incompetent neocon ninnie cooks in the current regime have made sure of that. We the People had best demand full, candid explanations of goals and means of acquiring those goals from the candidates.
We must not let any of the wannabe residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue glide on by with a handful of poorly thought out but nice sounding campaign platitudes.
Unless we want to see us and the rest of the world slide further down the slope so well greased by the Bush-Cheney regime.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
History Challenged Politicos Do It Again!
The Decider and Commander Guy got it wrong again in his speech to the Knesset the other day. His analogy between talking with "terrorists" and the so-called "appeasement" of Adolph Hitler by the United Kingdom and France at the Munich Conference seventy years ago was as wrong as a cat barking.
The Nice Young Man From Chicago, Senator B. H. Obama, was no less wrong in his shrill, quasi-hysterical response accusing the current administration of sins ranging from the usual "failed policies" to the ludicrous, "fear mongering." The Geek senses that what the NYMFC wanted to say was that the Commander Guy is actually a "war monger slavering after breaking things and killing people throughout the Mideast." Senator Obama's remark was another cat barking.
Other commentators in the political, journalistic and blogging worlds damned Senator McCain over an alleged "flip-flop" in that the presumptive Republican nominee allowed as how Hamas would have to be brought into negotiations a few months ago and more recently has said his administration would not "negotiate" with terrorists. "Oy veh!" thinks the Geek.
"Appeasement" is a favored pejorative in the American political lexicon. It is one of those blobs of mud that is hurled with great emotion, some effect and absolutely no knowledge. Back during the Vietnam War, LBJ as well as supporters of our armed effort in Southeast Asia used it time after time. So there is no surprise that the Commander Guy has brought the golem back out its crypt in recent years.
Time out!
Time to get a grip.
Admittedly the Munich Conference happened a long time ago. It predates both Bush and Obama. It even predates the Geek. John McCain was barely out of three cornered pants when the Munich Conference gave the word "appeasement" its connotation of cowardly betrayal on 30 September 1938.
That's a long, long time ago.
Time to go to the videotape. The conference was brought about by the German dictator Adolph Hitler's desire to engulf the most important part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudentenland. In a perfect world the existence of mutual aid agreements between the threatened state and France and indirectly with the UK would have deterred the German ambition.
But the world in 1938 was far from perfect. Neither France nor the UK had either the military ability nor the political will to use force in support of policy. The German dictatorship knew that.
(Even the Soviet Union, whose capo, Joseph Stalin, was bent out of shape over having not been invited to sit at the Munich table, lacked the ability to use military force. The purges assured that the Red Army was a headless, brainless force. The Germans knew that as well.)
The Munich Agreement was not a cowardly betrayal of the Prague government even though then and now that is the way the Czechs and Slovaks define it. Rather, it was the product of military and political exigency.
The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, whose name and signature umbrella have become an icon for snivelling sell-out and his counterpart the French Premier Daladier were not brainless. They were not bereft of backbone.
Neither did either man believe that tossing steak to a wolf would result in the wolf becoming a vegetarian.
They signed the Munich Agreement, which not only transferred the Sudentenland and its German majority population to Berlin but opened the strategic door to the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Agreement also announced that the western democracies were uninterested in what happened to the rump state--a virtual invitation to Hitler to gulp down the rest of Czechoslovakia at his pleasure.
Any number of sinister interpretations can be put on the Anglo-French action. Most have, including the favorite: both governments saw Stalin's Soviet Union as a threat far greater than Hitler's Germany and hoped to urge the Beast of Berlin to bare his fangs in an easterly direction.
At bottom there were real reasons why neither the British nor the French had any option other than the one taken.
The French people still suffered the pernicious anemia of World War I. The lives lost, ruined or blighted to say nothing of the destruction of the industrial plant of northeast France by the war had blighted French politics, French society, the French economy to an extent that war was simply not a thinkable option.
The British might have had more political will than the French, but not by much. Even if the Brits had been pawing the ground for war, there was still one small problem. The British Army would have been hard pressed to take on the Albanian Girl Scouts. The Royal Air Force might have been able to bomb Iraqi tribesmen effectively but that was all they could do with their collection of obsolescent aircraft. The Royal Navy was flatly irrelevant.
If your people don't have the will to fight on behalf of a diplomatic policy (or even in their own longer term interest) or if your country's armed forces lack the ability to fight effectively, what choices do you have when it comes to diplomatic put-up or shut-up?
That's right, bucko.
You acknowledge reality and buy time. Time during which political will might be mobilized or military competence developed.
That's exactly what Chamberlain and Daladier did at Munich. They practiced the hardest, most bitter form of realpolitick. That neither man effectively used the time purchased at the expense of the Czechs and Slovaks is another story.
The US has the military ability to confront "terrorist groups" and rogue states. It might not have sufficient troops to contemplate adventures in regime change with attendant occupations. But it has more than sufficient capacity to break things and kill people if such becomes necessary.
Anyone well oriented in time and place knows that and takes it into account.
Arguably the American public has the political will to accept the use of force in support of policy provided a rational, credible and truthful explanation as to the necessity is forthcoming from the president. States and non-State actors who wish the US ill know this and probably factor it into their plans.
This is why Bush's equation was wrong. If the US chooses to negotiate with any State or pretender to statehood it does so from an automatic position of strength. It is asymmetrical diplomacy.
The Nice Young Man From Chicago is wrong in his characterization of Bush's remarks as the mongering of either fear or war. His quick and shrill response underscores a reality that has already become apparent during the campaign: The Senator does not understand the nature and character of diplomatic conversations.
Diplomacy, no matter how private, no matter how tentative, works only when there is a goal and a process agreeable to all parties. A further precondition is that all parties must be open to compromise in the achievement of a solution to a mutually perceived problem.
Appeasement, correctly understood, is simply capitulation spelled differently. Surrender with a diplomatic cover. Absent the preconditions for effective negotiation, there are only two possible outcomes: surrender or a further hardening of positions and ramping up of warlike preparations.
Those who dump on McCain for the alleged sin of "flip-flopping" fail to differentiate between the demands of diplomacy on the one hand and the requirements for domestic political campaigning on the other. The Geek has no doubt but Senator McCain well recognises that some day the US will have to deal with Hamas and possibly some other equally unsavory gangs of thugs and assassins at the conference table.
Much as none of us may like the idea, Hamas is currently what the Israelis call a "fact on the ground." Calling it a "terrorist group" might be both correct and politically necessary in the context of a domestic campaign, but the fact will have to be dealt with realistically both at the conference table and, if necessary, over the sights of a gun.
History shows clearly that refusing to talk to states or groups because they are morally or politically distasteful is counterproductive. History shows that talking without preconditions is like masturbating with steel wool--neither productive nor pleasant.
Finally, history shows that the great type case of appeasement, the Munich Conference and Agreement, is actually a type case of the effects of political and military realities upon the capacity of governments to do the right and necessary thing.
We can only hope that We the People do not place a future American government into having no option other than that presented to Chamberlain and Daladier.
The Nice Young Man From Chicago, Senator B. H. Obama, was no less wrong in his shrill, quasi-hysterical response accusing the current administration of sins ranging from the usual "failed policies" to the ludicrous, "fear mongering." The Geek senses that what the NYMFC wanted to say was that the Commander Guy is actually a "war monger slavering after breaking things and killing people throughout the Mideast." Senator Obama's remark was another cat barking.
Other commentators in the political, journalistic and blogging worlds damned Senator McCain over an alleged "flip-flop" in that the presumptive Republican nominee allowed as how Hamas would have to be brought into negotiations a few months ago and more recently has said his administration would not "negotiate" with terrorists. "Oy veh!" thinks the Geek.
"Appeasement" is a favored pejorative in the American political lexicon. It is one of those blobs of mud that is hurled with great emotion, some effect and absolutely no knowledge. Back during the Vietnam War, LBJ as well as supporters of our armed effort in Southeast Asia used it time after time. So there is no surprise that the Commander Guy has brought the golem back out its crypt in recent years.
Time out!
Time to get a grip.
Admittedly the Munich Conference happened a long time ago. It predates both Bush and Obama. It even predates the Geek. John McCain was barely out of three cornered pants when the Munich Conference gave the word "appeasement" its connotation of cowardly betrayal on 30 September 1938.
That's a long, long time ago.
Time to go to the videotape. The conference was brought about by the German dictator Adolph Hitler's desire to engulf the most important part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudentenland. In a perfect world the existence of mutual aid agreements between the threatened state and France and indirectly with the UK would have deterred the German ambition.
But the world in 1938 was far from perfect. Neither France nor the UK had either the military ability nor the political will to use force in support of policy. The German dictatorship knew that.
(Even the Soviet Union, whose capo, Joseph Stalin, was bent out of shape over having not been invited to sit at the Munich table, lacked the ability to use military force. The purges assured that the Red Army was a headless, brainless force. The Germans knew that as well.)
The Munich Agreement was not a cowardly betrayal of the Prague government even though then and now that is the way the Czechs and Slovaks define it. Rather, it was the product of military and political exigency.
The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, whose name and signature umbrella have become an icon for snivelling sell-out and his counterpart the French Premier Daladier were not brainless. They were not bereft of backbone.
Neither did either man believe that tossing steak to a wolf would result in the wolf becoming a vegetarian.
They signed the Munich Agreement, which not only transferred the Sudentenland and its German majority population to Berlin but opened the strategic door to the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Agreement also announced that the western democracies were uninterested in what happened to the rump state--a virtual invitation to Hitler to gulp down the rest of Czechoslovakia at his pleasure.
Any number of sinister interpretations can be put on the Anglo-French action. Most have, including the favorite: both governments saw Stalin's Soviet Union as a threat far greater than Hitler's Germany and hoped to urge the Beast of Berlin to bare his fangs in an easterly direction.
At bottom there were real reasons why neither the British nor the French had any option other than the one taken.
The French people still suffered the pernicious anemia of World War I. The lives lost, ruined or blighted to say nothing of the destruction of the industrial plant of northeast France by the war had blighted French politics, French society, the French economy to an extent that war was simply not a thinkable option.
The British might have had more political will than the French, but not by much. Even if the Brits had been pawing the ground for war, there was still one small problem. The British Army would have been hard pressed to take on the Albanian Girl Scouts. The Royal Air Force might have been able to bomb Iraqi tribesmen effectively but that was all they could do with their collection of obsolescent aircraft. The Royal Navy was flatly irrelevant.
If your people don't have the will to fight on behalf of a diplomatic policy (or even in their own longer term interest) or if your country's armed forces lack the ability to fight effectively, what choices do you have when it comes to diplomatic put-up or shut-up?
That's right, bucko.
You acknowledge reality and buy time. Time during which political will might be mobilized or military competence developed.
That's exactly what Chamberlain and Daladier did at Munich. They practiced the hardest, most bitter form of realpolitick. That neither man effectively used the time purchased at the expense of the Czechs and Slovaks is another story.
The US has the military ability to confront "terrorist groups" and rogue states. It might not have sufficient troops to contemplate adventures in regime change with attendant occupations. But it has more than sufficient capacity to break things and kill people if such becomes necessary.
Anyone well oriented in time and place knows that and takes it into account.
Arguably the American public has the political will to accept the use of force in support of policy provided a rational, credible and truthful explanation as to the necessity is forthcoming from the president. States and non-State actors who wish the US ill know this and probably factor it into their plans.
This is why Bush's equation was wrong. If the US chooses to negotiate with any State or pretender to statehood it does so from an automatic position of strength. It is asymmetrical diplomacy.
The Nice Young Man From Chicago is wrong in his characterization of Bush's remarks as the mongering of either fear or war. His quick and shrill response underscores a reality that has already become apparent during the campaign: The Senator does not understand the nature and character of diplomatic conversations.
Diplomacy, no matter how private, no matter how tentative, works only when there is a goal and a process agreeable to all parties. A further precondition is that all parties must be open to compromise in the achievement of a solution to a mutually perceived problem.
Appeasement, correctly understood, is simply capitulation spelled differently. Surrender with a diplomatic cover. Absent the preconditions for effective negotiation, there are only two possible outcomes: surrender or a further hardening of positions and ramping up of warlike preparations.
Those who dump on McCain for the alleged sin of "flip-flopping" fail to differentiate between the demands of diplomacy on the one hand and the requirements for domestic political campaigning on the other. The Geek has no doubt but Senator McCain well recognises that some day the US will have to deal with Hamas and possibly some other equally unsavory gangs of thugs and assassins at the conference table.
Much as none of us may like the idea, Hamas is currently what the Israelis call a "fact on the ground." Calling it a "terrorist group" might be both correct and politically necessary in the context of a domestic campaign, but the fact will have to be dealt with realistically both at the conference table and, if necessary, over the sights of a gun.
History shows clearly that refusing to talk to states or groups because they are morally or politically distasteful is counterproductive. History shows that talking without preconditions is like masturbating with steel wool--neither productive nor pleasant.
Finally, history shows that the great type case of appeasement, the Munich Conference and Agreement, is actually a type case of the effects of political and military realities upon the capacity of governments to do the right and necessary thing.
We can only hope that We the People do not place a future American government into having no option other than that presented to Chamberlain and Daladier.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Evo Morales--The Chicken Becomes a Fox
The Geek has to admire a slick job when he sees one. Bolivian president Evo Morales has pulled off one super slick trick. No doubt about it.
Morales, Bolivia's first Indio president has signed a recall election bill into law. Pushed by his "white" opponents who hallucinated that the soccer playing one time peasant had been weakened by the results of the Santa Cruz provincial autonomy referendum on 4 May could be removed from office through a recall vote.
The bill which Morales signed provides for himself and all nine provincial governors to face recall in a special election on 10 August. So far, so good. Or so it seems.
The devil, of course, was hiding in the details. Apparently so blinded by the glorious vision of removing the uppity Indian from office, the opposition didn't look closely at the precise wording of the new legislation.
To be removed from office Morales or any of the nine governors must receive a "no" vote total that is greater in both absolute numbers and percentage of the vote cast than the votes they received in the last general election.
The Geek tips his hat to the shrewd high school dropout president.
Get a grip on this. Morales received approximately 1.5 million votes, or more than fifty-three percent of those cast. To be removed from office the "no" vote total must be greater than 1.5 million and the percentage must exceed the 53.7 percent.
There ain't no way that's going to happen.
Some of the governors aren't so fortunate. Take, for example, Jose Luis Paredes the governor of La Paz and an opponent of Morales. He won the Morales supporting state with thirty-eight percent of the vote. If thirty-nine percent of the voters check the "no" box, Paredes is out and the llama herder turned president gets to appoint a replacement.
Sweet?
You bet. There is no way that Morales is going to wake up sad come morning on the 11th of August.
Slickness may be enough to keep Morales in office. It may even be enough to remove pesky governors who don't march to the tune of Evo's Populist Band.
It isn't enough to assure the best future for Bolivia. It isn't even enough to give Morales a good write up in future history texts.
Morales, like his colleagues Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, is a populist. He came to power through the democratic process as did the other two. He, along with Chavez and, to some extent, Correa, doesn't like globalization.
More to the point, in common with the other two is the latest round of a long standing South American political disease.
The name of that disease?
Economic populism.
It is amazing how little so many South Americans fail to learn from their continent' political history.
Economic populism has a long record of abject (and often bloody) failure through the length and breadth of the continent. The narrative is always the same. It is always based on ethno-nationalism and a hyped sense that "we" (the locals, the working class, Los Indios, the peasants) are being heartlessly exploited by "them" (the ricos, the Norteamericanos, the "whites.")
The populist demagogue rouses fear and anger. Fear and anger produce enthusiasm and votes.
Badda-bing! The populist is elected. Ain't democracy grand?
Comes now the redistribution of land, the nationalization of basic industry, of financial institutions, the confiscation of wealth. Now the landless will have land. The jobless will have jobs. The poor will have wealth.
In the short term everything will look good as the history of Juan Peron in Argentina shows,
Eventually the wheels fall off the Great Socialist Vehicle. Inflation. Hyperinflation. Loss of agricultural and industrial productivity. Systemic inefficiency. Infrastructure collapse. An end to investment both foreign and domestic. Middle class flight.
The process used to take years, even decades. Now it can occur in months given the speed with which information moves and decisions made.
The Bolivian Slicky-Boy may be lucky. Lord knows, the ex-paratrooper Chavez has been.
Morales' running buddy, the inventor of "Socialism For the 21st Century" Hugo Chavez, has been a favorite son of Lady Luck. The rocketing price of oil has buoyed the more-or-less democratically elected semi-authoritarian.
While as many of the middle class as can get visas and plane tickets to Panama or points even more to the north, while the production of Venezuela's oil fields slides due to loss of skill and degradation of plant, Chavez has been able to fund the FARC insurgents in Columbia, make wink and nudge agreements with the mullahocracy in Iran and sign contracts for two gigabucks worth of Russian weapons.
Will Morales be so fortunate?
Bolivian natural gas is critical to both Argentina and Brazil. At least for the moment.
But how long will that last?
Large hydrocarbon deposits have been discovered in the waters of Brazil's Exclusive Economic Zone. With foreign direct investment and co-production agreements in the offing, Brazil will not only be able to meet its own needs but become a major exporter.
Assuming that the Brazilians do not engage in another of their recurrent flights of economic populism, the market forces will work in Brazil's favor. The country already has a firm industrial base and a fair amount of indigenous capital. Exportation of hydrocarbon, particularly natural gas, will enhance not only Brazil but countries such as Argentina who can use the resource beneficially.
For the market to work the context must be stable and predictable. This means that excesses of democracy must be avoided. It also means that the region must be free from both violence and threats of violence.
Here Evo Morales the current Fox of the Andes may be out foxing himself and his fellow Bolivians. By linking himself ideologically with Hugo Chavez who is shaping up as the The Continental Thug, Morales may be helping to assure the very instability which will undercut the potential of regional economic prosperity.
Take a look at history, Presidente Morales. Look at Argentina. At Juan Peron and the lingering effects of the Peronistas. Take a look at Mexico. Take a close look at what has happened recently in Mexico with the lack of foreign investment in the oilfields.
Take a long, hard look at history and think. Is this really in the best interests of Bolivia?
True, globalization is not an undiluted good (pace Alan Greenspan) and the "whites" have not been without major flaw, but is heavy handed, short-sighted seizure of land and resources the best way to provide the best future for all Bolivians?
Economic populism is a great way to get power. It is a piss-poor way to run a country.
Morales, Bolivia's first Indio president has signed a recall election bill into law. Pushed by his "white" opponents who hallucinated that the soccer playing one time peasant had been weakened by the results of the Santa Cruz provincial autonomy referendum on 4 May could be removed from office through a recall vote.
The bill which Morales signed provides for himself and all nine provincial governors to face recall in a special election on 10 August. So far, so good. Or so it seems.
The devil, of course, was hiding in the details. Apparently so blinded by the glorious vision of removing the uppity Indian from office, the opposition didn't look closely at the precise wording of the new legislation.
To be removed from office Morales or any of the nine governors must receive a "no" vote total that is greater in both absolute numbers and percentage of the vote cast than the votes they received in the last general election.
The Geek tips his hat to the shrewd high school dropout president.
Get a grip on this. Morales received approximately 1.5 million votes, or more than fifty-three percent of those cast. To be removed from office the "no" vote total must be greater than 1.5 million and the percentage must exceed the 53.7 percent.
There ain't no way that's going to happen.
Some of the governors aren't so fortunate. Take, for example, Jose Luis Paredes the governor of La Paz and an opponent of Morales. He won the Morales supporting state with thirty-eight percent of the vote. If thirty-nine percent of the voters check the "no" box, Paredes is out and the llama herder turned president gets to appoint a replacement.
Sweet?
You bet. There is no way that Morales is going to wake up sad come morning on the 11th of August.
Slickness may be enough to keep Morales in office. It may even be enough to remove pesky governors who don't march to the tune of Evo's Populist Band.
It isn't enough to assure the best future for Bolivia. It isn't even enough to give Morales a good write up in future history texts.
Morales, like his colleagues Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, is a populist. He came to power through the democratic process as did the other two. He, along with Chavez and, to some extent, Correa, doesn't like globalization.
More to the point, in common with the other two is the latest round of a long standing South American political disease.
The name of that disease?
Economic populism.
It is amazing how little so many South Americans fail to learn from their continent' political history.
Economic populism has a long record of abject (and often bloody) failure through the length and breadth of the continent. The narrative is always the same. It is always based on ethno-nationalism and a hyped sense that "we" (the locals, the working class, Los Indios, the peasants) are being heartlessly exploited by "them" (the ricos, the Norteamericanos, the "whites.")
The populist demagogue rouses fear and anger. Fear and anger produce enthusiasm and votes.
Badda-bing! The populist is elected. Ain't democracy grand?
Comes now the redistribution of land, the nationalization of basic industry, of financial institutions, the confiscation of wealth. Now the landless will have land. The jobless will have jobs. The poor will have wealth.
In the short term everything will look good as the history of Juan Peron in Argentina shows,
Eventually the wheels fall off the Great Socialist Vehicle. Inflation. Hyperinflation. Loss of agricultural and industrial productivity. Systemic inefficiency. Infrastructure collapse. An end to investment both foreign and domestic. Middle class flight.
The process used to take years, even decades. Now it can occur in months given the speed with which information moves and decisions made.
The Bolivian Slicky-Boy may be lucky. Lord knows, the ex-paratrooper Chavez has been.
Morales' running buddy, the inventor of "Socialism For the 21st Century" Hugo Chavez, has been a favorite son of Lady Luck. The rocketing price of oil has buoyed the more-or-less democratically elected semi-authoritarian.
While as many of the middle class as can get visas and plane tickets to Panama or points even more to the north, while the production of Venezuela's oil fields slides due to loss of skill and degradation of plant, Chavez has been able to fund the FARC insurgents in Columbia, make wink and nudge agreements with the mullahocracy in Iran and sign contracts for two gigabucks worth of Russian weapons.
Will Morales be so fortunate?
Bolivian natural gas is critical to both Argentina and Brazil. At least for the moment.
But how long will that last?
Large hydrocarbon deposits have been discovered in the waters of Brazil's Exclusive Economic Zone. With foreign direct investment and co-production agreements in the offing, Brazil will not only be able to meet its own needs but become a major exporter.
Assuming that the Brazilians do not engage in another of their recurrent flights of economic populism, the market forces will work in Brazil's favor. The country already has a firm industrial base and a fair amount of indigenous capital. Exportation of hydrocarbon, particularly natural gas, will enhance not only Brazil but countries such as Argentina who can use the resource beneficially.
For the market to work the context must be stable and predictable. This means that excesses of democracy must be avoided. It also means that the region must be free from both violence and threats of violence.
Here Evo Morales the current Fox of the Andes may be out foxing himself and his fellow Bolivians. By linking himself ideologically with Hugo Chavez who is shaping up as the The Continental Thug, Morales may be helping to assure the very instability which will undercut the potential of regional economic prosperity.
Take a look at history, Presidente Morales. Look at Argentina. At Juan Peron and the lingering effects of the Peronistas. Take a look at Mexico. Take a close look at what has happened recently in Mexico with the lack of foreign investment in the oilfields.
Take a long, hard look at history and think. Is this really in the best interests of Bolivia?
True, globalization is not an undiluted good (pace Alan Greenspan) and the "whites" have not been without major flaw, but is heavy handed, short-sighted seizure of land and resources the best way to provide the best future for all Bolivians?
Economic populism is a great way to get power. It is a piss-poor way to run a country.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Muhammad: The Lenin of Religion
Both Christianity and Islam are political institutions.
The Geek wants to make that clear. Both Christianity (irrespective of denomination) and Islam (regardless of sect) have sought and continue to seek the ability to directly, materially and substantially manipulate the perceptions, beliefs, and, therefore, the actions of people.
That's what politics is all about. Power.
Both Christianity and Islam use the same tool to gain, retain and expand power over people.
It's a great tool. A sovereign tool. An almost never fail tool. It's used by all who pant after power. All who in one way or another slaver over the thought of controlling others.
The tool?
Fear.
That's right. Fear. The increase of fear. The reduction of fear. Fear.
Fear, chum, yeah, it's wonderful. We all have it as the ready lever for others to yank.
There is one very big, very fundamental and very important difference between Christianity and Islam.
Jesus, the Itinerant Sage and Healer of Galilee whose kerygma was the foundation stone for the towering edifice called Christianity, did not exploit fear to gain either an audience or followers. Indeed, Jesus seemed to be of the view that fear was irrelevant to a full human life.
(Trouble accepting this? The Geek suggests the publications of the Jesus Seminar as a good starting point. On the web, http://jesusseminar.org/Jesus_Seminar/jesus_seminar.html.)
In the message of Jesus there is no mention of hell. No words of God's Wrath. No intimations of judgement. He does not embrace suffering. Neither does he argue that humans must tremble before the deity or kneel in submission to either God or messenger.
Later, even much, much later, as the words of the Wandering Sage and Healer were transmogrified into an institution, a Church seeking authority. Power was the lever of fear pulled. Pulled long and hard.
Jesus didn't seek power. He sought only to deliver a message. A simple, profound message that was easy to hear, easy to understand but hard to live.
Churches, Catholic and protestant alike were and are institutions. They exist to exercise power. Whether the power is used for good or ill is less relevant than the fact that churches are political institutions trafficking in the power business. They must have dogma and creed, liturgy and rituals, rules and standards of membership. They must define themselves by exclusion even as they seek to convert. In all that they do the basic tool is fear. Raise fear. Lower fear.
In this respect churches are just like governments. The difference resides in the ability of governments to use coercion in the here-and-now while churches must rely upon an eschatological system of rewards and punishment.
In short: follow the rules, follow the creed, follow the liturgy, follow Authority and you will be rewarded postmortem. Otherwise--that's right, the eternal cooker for you, pal.
Muhammad was to Jesus as Lenin was to Robert Owen, the gentle Nineteenth Century Utopian socialist.
Muhammad sought to create a political movement, a movement which would successfully unite under a single banner the fractionated society of the Arabian Peninsula. Without commenting on its theological attributes, suffice it to say that the Koran is a political document exploiting fear.
The content of the Koran is well rooted in the Arabian Peninsula's cultural context and is largely derivative in its theology. These aspects are not to be held against either the Koran or the collected sayings of Muhammad. Quite the contrary they are part of the core strength of Islam as a religio-political movement.
The consistency of the creedal statement with a recurrent emphasis upon the unity of religion with social and political life, the need for submission to the deity and the visions of rewards and, more importantly, punishments postmortem have given Islam its ideological power. In this department Islam trumps Christianity.
The pornography of hellfire and brimstone winds through Christianity like a river in the desert, occasionally disappearing for a stretch only to reemerge in full flow.
But, in Islam, hell is right there. In your face. Up close and personal. It even outranks paradise as a subject of lovingly detailed description. Even the Geek feels little shakes and shudders run up his back as he reads the travelogue of perdition.
Like the old theatrical saying has it: The villain gets the best lines.
Lenin said the purpose of terror is to terrorise.
Muhammad must have believed that the purpose of hell is to terrorise.
Of course he was right. Fear of death is a biggie on the chart of human apprehensions. Fear of what happens after death is right up there too--particularly if gruesome visions of hell have come along with mother's milk.
(Perhaps that is why Muslims so often address Allah as the Merciful and Compassionate, even in a declaration of intent to kill infidel women and children. They are hoping against hope that they will receive a little of that mercy, that compassion.)
From a practical perspective it is impossible to argue with Muhammad's approach. It gave him the organizing methodology for a highly successful political movement. The same approach is still at work today.
It is just as effective today. Fear of death and dread of hell are the tools of choice for assorted mullahs and ayatollahs today. It gives the ambitious a clear avenue to power. It gives individuals a reason to die in the hopes of paradise rather than to live under the threat of damnation.
The power of hell to stimulate political action including violent jihad is alive and well as we all know all too well. Quite possibly the suicide bombers and their ilk seek death not because they are enchanted by the possibilities of paradise with cool water and waiting soulless virgins but because living with the nagging image of the fire-filled pit becomes impossible.
Lenin terrorised his way to power. Stalin terrorised his way to expanded power. But terror has its limits. Humans become inured to it. It loses its black magic. It fades away into the background noise of life and the risks of life.
At some point fear reaches its limits as well. This is the ultimate weakness of a religion which relies too much upon it. Life is for living--not obsessing on eternity either with or without burning sulfur.
For awhile relief from fear may be found in hatred or joining with others to chant, "Death to (fill in the blank.)" For a while fear can be defeated by jihad, either violent or not. For a bit the fear might be limited by tossing acid in the face of an unveiled woman.
But not for ever.
The Soviets ultimately found that Lenin's dictum had very real limits. The Islamists who exploit the hellfire of the Koran to their political advantage will find limits as well.
Life is for living and as Jesus reputedly said, "Let the dead bury their dead."
The Geek wants to make that clear. Both Christianity (irrespective of denomination) and Islam (regardless of sect) have sought and continue to seek the ability to directly, materially and substantially manipulate the perceptions, beliefs, and, therefore, the actions of people.
That's what politics is all about. Power.
Both Christianity and Islam use the same tool to gain, retain and expand power over people.
It's a great tool. A sovereign tool. An almost never fail tool. It's used by all who pant after power. All who in one way or another slaver over the thought of controlling others.
The tool?
Fear.
That's right. Fear. The increase of fear. The reduction of fear. Fear.
Fear, chum, yeah, it's wonderful. We all have it as the ready lever for others to yank.
There is one very big, very fundamental and very important difference between Christianity and Islam.
Jesus, the Itinerant Sage and Healer of Galilee whose kerygma was the foundation stone for the towering edifice called Christianity, did not exploit fear to gain either an audience or followers. Indeed, Jesus seemed to be of the view that fear was irrelevant to a full human life.
(Trouble accepting this? The Geek suggests the publications of the Jesus Seminar as a good starting point. On the web, http://jesusseminar.org/Jesus_Seminar/jesus_seminar.html.)
In the message of Jesus there is no mention of hell. No words of God's Wrath. No intimations of judgement. He does not embrace suffering. Neither does he argue that humans must tremble before the deity or kneel in submission to either God or messenger.
Later, even much, much later, as the words of the Wandering Sage and Healer were transmogrified into an institution, a Church seeking authority. Power was the lever of fear pulled. Pulled long and hard.
Jesus didn't seek power. He sought only to deliver a message. A simple, profound message that was easy to hear, easy to understand but hard to live.
Churches, Catholic and protestant alike were and are institutions. They exist to exercise power. Whether the power is used for good or ill is less relevant than the fact that churches are political institutions trafficking in the power business. They must have dogma and creed, liturgy and rituals, rules and standards of membership. They must define themselves by exclusion even as they seek to convert. In all that they do the basic tool is fear. Raise fear. Lower fear.
In this respect churches are just like governments. The difference resides in the ability of governments to use coercion in the here-and-now while churches must rely upon an eschatological system of rewards and punishment.
In short: follow the rules, follow the creed, follow the liturgy, follow Authority and you will be rewarded postmortem. Otherwise--that's right, the eternal cooker for you, pal.
Muhammad was to Jesus as Lenin was to Robert Owen, the gentle Nineteenth Century Utopian socialist.
Muhammad sought to create a political movement, a movement which would successfully unite under a single banner the fractionated society of the Arabian Peninsula. Without commenting on its theological attributes, suffice it to say that the Koran is a political document exploiting fear.
The content of the Koran is well rooted in the Arabian Peninsula's cultural context and is largely derivative in its theology. These aspects are not to be held against either the Koran or the collected sayings of Muhammad. Quite the contrary they are part of the core strength of Islam as a religio-political movement.
The consistency of the creedal statement with a recurrent emphasis upon the unity of religion with social and political life, the need for submission to the deity and the visions of rewards and, more importantly, punishments postmortem have given Islam its ideological power. In this department Islam trumps Christianity.
The pornography of hellfire and brimstone winds through Christianity like a river in the desert, occasionally disappearing for a stretch only to reemerge in full flow.
But, in Islam, hell is right there. In your face. Up close and personal. It even outranks paradise as a subject of lovingly detailed description. Even the Geek feels little shakes and shudders run up his back as he reads the travelogue of perdition.
Like the old theatrical saying has it: The villain gets the best lines.
Lenin said the purpose of terror is to terrorise.
Muhammad must have believed that the purpose of hell is to terrorise.
Of course he was right. Fear of death is a biggie on the chart of human apprehensions. Fear of what happens after death is right up there too--particularly if gruesome visions of hell have come along with mother's milk.
(Perhaps that is why Muslims so often address Allah as the Merciful and Compassionate, even in a declaration of intent to kill infidel women and children. They are hoping against hope that they will receive a little of that mercy, that compassion.)
From a practical perspective it is impossible to argue with Muhammad's approach. It gave him the organizing methodology for a highly successful political movement. The same approach is still at work today.
It is just as effective today. Fear of death and dread of hell are the tools of choice for assorted mullahs and ayatollahs today. It gives the ambitious a clear avenue to power. It gives individuals a reason to die in the hopes of paradise rather than to live under the threat of damnation.
The power of hell to stimulate political action including violent jihad is alive and well as we all know all too well. Quite possibly the suicide bombers and their ilk seek death not because they are enchanted by the possibilities of paradise with cool water and waiting soulless virgins but because living with the nagging image of the fire-filled pit becomes impossible.
Lenin terrorised his way to power. Stalin terrorised his way to expanded power. But terror has its limits. Humans become inured to it. It loses its black magic. It fades away into the background noise of life and the risks of life.
At some point fear reaches its limits as well. This is the ultimate weakness of a religion which relies too much upon it. Life is for living--not obsessing on eternity either with or without burning sulfur.
For awhile relief from fear may be found in hatred or joining with others to chant, "Death to (fill in the blank.)" For a while fear can be defeated by jihad, either violent or not. For a bit the fear might be limited by tossing acid in the face of an unveiled woman.
But not for ever.
The Soviets ultimately found that Lenin's dictum had very real limits. The Islamists who exploit the hellfire of the Koran to their political advantage will find limits as well.
Life is for living and as Jesus reputedly said, "Let the dead bury their dead."
Sunday, May 11, 2008
A Roosting Chicken Named Evo Morales
"The worst enemy of humanity is US capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like ours. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge that nation states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then fundamental human rights are being violated." So crows the rooster of Bolivia's Los Indios not only on his successful campaign for the presidency, but on an almost weekly basis for the past two years.
Evo Morales, a soccer playing former grower of coca, is, if anything, restrained in his view of US economic and foreign policy compared to Hugo Chavez. The motor-mouthed Venezuelan president is not only noted for insulting personalities as disparate as SecState Rice and the King of Spain but also for a unique ability as a political contortionist leaning simultaneously on the Commissars of Cuba and the Iranian mullahocracy.
In Ecuador, Rafael Correa is a comparatively low-intensity version of Morales and a near midget in the Uncle Sam bashing game next to Chavez. Dr Correa (PhD, economics, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 2001) distrusts the market, particularly the US dominated global one as an instrument for the concentration of wealth but apparently appreciates the weaknesses of command economies. Even though the doctor of the dismal science and the political party he created have embraced the Venezuelan notion "Socialism for the 21st Century," Correa does not seem quite so gripless as either one-time paratrooper and originator of "Socialism For the 21st Century," Chavez, or high school dropout Morales.
Nonetheless Correa shares a very important feature with his academically challenged colleague in Bolivia--the view that globalization, including transnational corporations and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, favor not only the wealthy nations of the world but the domestic "white" elite.
Both believe fervently that the poor, particularly the indigenous descent peoples, Los Indios, get the short and very dirty end of the status and power stick.
The majority of the Bolivian population, unlike that of either Ecuador or Venezuela, is indigenous. Approximately fifty-five percent of all Bolivians are of ingenious ancestry. (In comparison Ecuador's population is sixty-five percent mestizo, twenty-five percent indigenous, seven percent white and three percent African. The CIA World Factbook gives no percentage breakdown for Venezuela.)
The majority of Bolivia's Los Indios lives in the mountains of the country's west. The eastern, resource rich provinces of the country led by Santa Clara are home to most of the "whites" and most of the wealth. Physically, economically and demographically there are two Bolivias. One is high altitude, barren, resource scarce and brown. The other is resource rich, flat and white.
That's the problem. A problem made worse by both globalization and the effects of democracy.
Bolivia has had more than its share of problems. More than 200 coups and counter coups blighted its existence down to 1982 when the first civilian government in recent history was voted into power. The civilian governments for the next quarter century were unable to deal effectively with endemic, deeply-rooted poverty, drug production, social unrest and corruption.
Morales was elected in 2005 by the largest margin on record. His platform was simple: castrate the long entrenched elite, empower the poor, use the hydrocarbon riches of the eastern provinces for the good of all and confiscate large estates for redistribution to the landless.
Utopian?
Quite probably.
Historically as well as today, Bolivia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in South America. Bolivian life expectancy is a full decade less than that in Venezuela. Nearly that many years behind Ecuador. Sixty percent of Bolivians live below the local poverty line. The lowest decile of the population has only three tenths of one percent of the gross national income while the highest decile enjoys nearly fifty percent.
Sounds bad? Right, maybe even obscenely rotten.
Now for the irony behind Morales.
It used to be worse. Much worse.
Bolivia went straight down the economic tubes in the early Eighties. The catastrophe not only brought civilians to power but spurred a series of basic economic, political and legal reforms. These in turn brought a sharp increase of private investment from both domestic and foreign sources. This development was followed, unsurprisingly, by strong economic growth and a drop in the poverty rate.
In short, from the late Eighties through the Nineties the good times (comparatively speaking) were rolling in Bolivia.
The discovery and initial exploitation of large natural gas deposits in the east were seen by the government as well as members of the elite as the cash cow from heaven. Plans were made to milk it by sending the hydrocarbon manna North. These plans died in an outbreak of violent protests and ethnic violence. Los Indios as an ethno-national identity was coming into effective existence during the years 2002-2005.
Evo Morales was not a simple peasant face-in-the-mob during this period of movement consolidation and expansion. No. Not hardly. His face was right out front. Accompanied by his mouth. A highly effective mouth backed by an able enough brain and a simple message.
The essence of the message?
Very simple. Even an illiterate llama herder breathing hard at 11,000 feet could grasp it.
The white guys are at it again. Just like when the Spanish came and ripped off the Incas. Now its the North Americans, the Europeans and their local stooges. They're going to rip us off again! Wealth and land to the poor and landless! Bolivia for the true Bolivians--Los Indios!
The good which globalization arguably had done for Bolivia a few years earlier was wiped out in the minds of the Bolivian majority by fear. Fear of an ethnic "other." The white guy. The guy in a suit carrying a brief case.
The guy who would grind the sons of the Incas further into the the arid rock of the Andes while the money in his brief case would stick to the hands of the "whites" in the flatlands. The "whites" who owned the land over the hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons which would go to the outside while Los Indios sold trinkets to tourists and shoveled llama poop.
Democracy is wonderful. if you have the numbers behind you. If you have the numbers lined up under the lash of fear and the carrot not of pie-in-the-sky but land and money in the here-and-now.
Also, wouldn't it be lovely (heh-heh) to watch those blanco ricos squirm as we give the orders for a change? Bolivia for Los Indios!
Lovely? You bet.
Nationalise the hydrocarbons! Seize the land! All power to the people! Watch the ricos sweat, bluster and beg!
Join with Venezuela and yank Uncle Sam's beard.
Sounds good. Even some Americans like the idea.
Then came the fourth of May in Santa Clara. The autonomy referendum. The wave of the future?
Perhaps. That's not certain. Not yet.
One thing is certain: Morales thinks so. So does Chavez. And Correa.
Another thing that is sure. It's another foreign policy chicken come home to roost in Foggy Bottom, the White House and Congress.
More on that later
Evo Morales, a soccer playing former grower of coca, is, if anything, restrained in his view of US economic and foreign policy compared to Hugo Chavez. The motor-mouthed Venezuelan president is not only noted for insulting personalities as disparate as SecState Rice and the King of Spain but also for a unique ability as a political contortionist leaning simultaneously on the Commissars of Cuba and the Iranian mullahocracy.
In Ecuador, Rafael Correa is a comparatively low-intensity version of Morales and a near midget in the Uncle Sam bashing game next to Chavez. Dr Correa (PhD, economics, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 2001) distrusts the market, particularly the US dominated global one as an instrument for the concentration of wealth but apparently appreciates the weaknesses of command economies. Even though the doctor of the dismal science and the political party he created have embraced the Venezuelan notion "Socialism for the 21st Century," Correa does not seem quite so gripless as either one-time paratrooper and originator of "Socialism For the 21st Century," Chavez, or high school dropout Morales.
Nonetheless Correa shares a very important feature with his academically challenged colleague in Bolivia--the view that globalization, including transnational corporations and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, favor not only the wealthy nations of the world but the domestic "white" elite.
Both believe fervently that the poor, particularly the indigenous descent peoples, Los Indios, get the short and very dirty end of the status and power stick.
The majority of the Bolivian population, unlike that of either Ecuador or Venezuela, is indigenous. Approximately fifty-five percent of all Bolivians are of ingenious ancestry. (In comparison Ecuador's population is sixty-five percent mestizo, twenty-five percent indigenous, seven percent white and three percent African. The CIA World Factbook gives no percentage breakdown for Venezuela.)
The majority of Bolivia's Los Indios lives in the mountains of the country's west. The eastern, resource rich provinces of the country led by Santa Clara are home to most of the "whites" and most of the wealth. Physically, economically and demographically there are two Bolivias. One is high altitude, barren, resource scarce and brown. The other is resource rich, flat and white.
That's the problem. A problem made worse by both globalization and the effects of democracy.
Bolivia has had more than its share of problems. More than 200 coups and counter coups blighted its existence down to 1982 when the first civilian government in recent history was voted into power. The civilian governments for the next quarter century were unable to deal effectively with endemic, deeply-rooted poverty, drug production, social unrest and corruption.
Morales was elected in 2005 by the largest margin on record. His platform was simple: castrate the long entrenched elite, empower the poor, use the hydrocarbon riches of the eastern provinces for the good of all and confiscate large estates for redistribution to the landless.
Utopian?
Quite probably.
Historically as well as today, Bolivia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in South America. Bolivian life expectancy is a full decade less than that in Venezuela. Nearly that many years behind Ecuador. Sixty percent of Bolivians live below the local poverty line. The lowest decile of the population has only three tenths of one percent of the gross national income while the highest decile enjoys nearly fifty percent.
Sounds bad? Right, maybe even obscenely rotten.
Now for the irony behind Morales.
It used to be worse. Much worse.
Bolivia went straight down the economic tubes in the early Eighties. The catastrophe not only brought civilians to power but spurred a series of basic economic, political and legal reforms. These in turn brought a sharp increase of private investment from both domestic and foreign sources. This development was followed, unsurprisingly, by strong economic growth and a drop in the poverty rate.
In short, from the late Eighties through the Nineties the good times (comparatively speaking) were rolling in Bolivia.
The discovery and initial exploitation of large natural gas deposits in the east were seen by the government as well as members of the elite as the cash cow from heaven. Plans were made to milk it by sending the hydrocarbon manna North. These plans died in an outbreak of violent protests and ethnic violence. Los Indios as an ethno-national identity was coming into effective existence during the years 2002-2005.
Evo Morales was not a simple peasant face-in-the-mob during this period of movement consolidation and expansion. No. Not hardly. His face was right out front. Accompanied by his mouth. A highly effective mouth backed by an able enough brain and a simple message.
The essence of the message?
Very simple. Even an illiterate llama herder breathing hard at 11,000 feet could grasp it.
The white guys are at it again. Just like when the Spanish came and ripped off the Incas. Now its the North Americans, the Europeans and their local stooges. They're going to rip us off again! Wealth and land to the poor and landless! Bolivia for the true Bolivians--Los Indios!
The good which globalization arguably had done for Bolivia a few years earlier was wiped out in the minds of the Bolivian majority by fear. Fear of an ethnic "other." The white guy. The guy in a suit carrying a brief case.
The guy who would grind the sons of the Incas further into the the arid rock of the Andes while the money in his brief case would stick to the hands of the "whites" in the flatlands. The "whites" who owned the land over the hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons which would go to the outside while Los Indios sold trinkets to tourists and shoveled llama poop.
Democracy is wonderful. if you have the numbers behind you. If you have the numbers lined up under the lash of fear and the carrot not of pie-in-the-sky but land and money in the here-and-now.
Also, wouldn't it be lovely (heh-heh) to watch those blanco ricos squirm as we give the orders for a change? Bolivia for Los Indios!
Lovely? You bet.
Nationalise the hydrocarbons! Seize the land! All power to the people! Watch the ricos sweat, bluster and beg!
Join with Venezuela and yank Uncle Sam's beard.
Sounds good. Even some Americans like the idea.
Then came the fourth of May in Santa Clara. The autonomy referendum. The wave of the future?
Perhaps. That's not certain. Not yet.
One thing is certain: Morales thinks so. So does Chavez. And Correa.
Another thing that is sure. It's another foreign policy chicken come home to roost in Foggy Bottom, the White House and Congress.
More on that later
Saturday, May 10, 2008
More Chickens Coming Home
As anyone who has not been in a persistent vegetative state knows, Senator Obama's one time pastor, Reverend Wright, stated infamously that the attacks of 9/11 were simply America's foreign policy chickens coming home to rest. On that the Reverend was more wrong than right.
Only an agenda driven mind would draw a straight line connecting the dots of US actions during World War II, the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War of 1991 with the WTC and Pentagon jihadists. (OOPS! Sorry! Bad History Geek! That term can't be used anymore according to sensitivity folks at the National Counterterrorism Center, Homeland Security and State Department)
Still the concept of home roosting chickens is useful. Bad policy will ultimately lead to bad results. Or, at best, poorly thought through policy will come back to bite us in the patootie. The law of unintended consequences guarantees that.
Consider globalization of markets.
Consider democratization.
Over the past quarter century or so, under administrations of both parties the US has huffed, puffed and proclaimed that the combination of economic globalization and national democratization would bring a plethora of peace, love and flower power to the world. We have used all the instruments of national power, both hard and soft, to bring the blessings of stock markets, shopping malls and ballot boxes to the benighted of the Earth.
We have crowed on an annual basis that democracy was on the march everywhere from Albania to Zimbabwe. With the exception of a handful of truly icky-poo places like North Korea, Cuba and Syria, the voices of the people were being heard.
Yeah. Right.
During the same period we have heard so many loudly sung hymns of praise to free enterprise and open markets that it seemed the heavens were opening for the Second Coming of Adam Smith. From Washington and Wall Street the tune never changed--A Mighty Fortress Is the Market.
Yeah. Right.
It's not that the Geekmo is opposed to either democracy or free enterprise. They're both OK. In their place and under adult supervision.
So, why the rant, Geek?
Simple. The chickens are coming home to roost.
Consider three terms. Ethnonationalism. Economically dominant minorities. Politically dominant majorities.
Say what?
These concepts do not come easily to the American mind in the late 20th or early 21st Centuries. They are, quite literally, foreign to us. They are not foreign, however, to folks in the Mideast or Africa. Neither are they far from the minds of people in Indonesia, the Philippines, Venezuela, Ecuador, or Bolivia.
These terms have real world power. They were behind the elections of Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales. They haunt the narrow streets of Sadir City. They lurk in the shadows of Pakistan's frontier areas.
They even coexist with the Quran at camps from Algeria to the Philippines. They nestle, suitably coded, cheek to cheek with tips on how to grow anthrax or make an IED on websites.
Ethnic identity is a wonderfully slippery beast. A shape shifter of great fluidity. At once it is seemingly objective--the color of skin, the native language, the religious beliefs and perfectly subjective--how do I define myself? In it nature and artifact combine seamlessly.
Ethnic identity is a perfect tool for the manipulation of people.
The other two terms are self-evident in their meaning. In some countries such as the Philippines or Indonesia, a small, very small, minority of people belonging to an ethnically definable group dominate the economy, own most of the wealth, control most of the means of finance, production and distribution. At the regional level the same dynamic might be seen: think Israel in relation to the rest of the Mideast.
On the global level the West or even the US alone can be defined as the economically dominant minority. (Get a grip on that one and tuck it away for future reference. The Geek will be getting back to it, if not today then in the not-too-distant future.)
Politically dominant majority needs no elaboration. It need only be highlighted that the notion of majority rulership only matters in a democracy. The democracy doesn't have to be real. Appearance is enough. The motions of elections complete with speeches, votes being cast and counted is sufficient. (All the more so if Jimmy Carter is standing by to smile benignly on the charade.)
For twenty years the Geek has scratched his head wondering why the US pursued the goals of globalization AND democratization.
He had no trouble with the first. Globalization has been (at least until quite recently) good for the US. Perhaps second only to the PRC the US has benefited from the global movement of goods and capital. The influx of both goodies and money provided Americans with much to buy and the borrowed money with which to by it.
The second, democratization, really boggled the Geek. At first he hoped that seemingly rational political leaders were simply shoveling feel good platitudes to the multitude. You know, the good old domestic consumption for political gain gambit.
Wasn't so. We (or at least a passel of politicos, pundits and professors) were serious as a heart attack.
The Geek hears the rustle of wings in the distance. Chickens. One of them is named Bolivia.
Only an agenda driven mind would draw a straight line connecting the dots of US actions during World War II, the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War of 1991 with the WTC and Pentagon jihadists. (OOPS! Sorry! Bad History Geek! That term can't be used anymore according to sensitivity folks at the National Counterterrorism Center, Homeland Security and State Department)
Still the concept of home roosting chickens is useful. Bad policy will ultimately lead to bad results. Or, at best, poorly thought through policy will come back to bite us in the patootie. The law of unintended consequences guarantees that.
Consider globalization of markets.
Consider democratization.
Over the past quarter century or so, under administrations of both parties the US has huffed, puffed and proclaimed that the combination of economic globalization and national democratization would bring a plethora of peace, love and flower power to the world. We have used all the instruments of national power, both hard and soft, to bring the blessings of stock markets, shopping malls and ballot boxes to the benighted of the Earth.
We have crowed on an annual basis that democracy was on the march everywhere from Albania to Zimbabwe. With the exception of a handful of truly icky-poo places like North Korea, Cuba and Syria, the voices of the people were being heard.
Yeah. Right.
During the same period we have heard so many loudly sung hymns of praise to free enterprise and open markets that it seemed the heavens were opening for the Second Coming of Adam Smith. From Washington and Wall Street the tune never changed--A Mighty Fortress Is the Market.
Yeah. Right.
It's not that the Geekmo is opposed to either democracy or free enterprise. They're both OK. In their place and under adult supervision.
So, why the rant, Geek?
Simple. The chickens are coming home to roost.
Consider three terms. Ethnonationalism. Economically dominant minorities. Politically dominant majorities.
Say what?
These concepts do not come easily to the American mind in the late 20th or early 21st Centuries. They are, quite literally, foreign to us. They are not foreign, however, to folks in the Mideast or Africa. Neither are they far from the minds of people in Indonesia, the Philippines, Venezuela, Ecuador, or Bolivia.
These terms have real world power. They were behind the elections of Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales. They haunt the narrow streets of Sadir City. They lurk in the shadows of Pakistan's frontier areas.
They even coexist with the Quran at camps from Algeria to the Philippines. They nestle, suitably coded, cheek to cheek with tips on how to grow anthrax or make an IED on websites.
Ethnic identity is a wonderfully slippery beast. A shape shifter of great fluidity. At once it is seemingly objective--the color of skin, the native language, the religious beliefs and perfectly subjective--how do I define myself? In it nature and artifact combine seamlessly.
Ethnic identity is a perfect tool for the manipulation of people.
The other two terms are self-evident in their meaning. In some countries such as the Philippines or Indonesia, a small, very small, minority of people belonging to an ethnically definable group dominate the economy, own most of the wealth, control most of the means of finance, production and distribution. At the regional level the same dynamic might be seen: think Israel in relation to the rest of the Mideast.
On the global level the West or even the US alone can be defined as the economically dominant minority. (Get a grip on that one and tuck it away for future reference. The Geek will be getting back to it, if not today then in the not-too-distant future.)
Politically dominant majority needs no elaboration. It need only be highlighted that the notion of majority rulership only matters in a democracy. The democracy doesn't have to be real. Appearance is enough. The motions of elections complete with speeches, votes being cast and counted is sufficient. (All the more so if Jimmy Carter is standing by to smile benignly on the charade.)
For twenty years the Geek has scratched his head wondering why the US pursued the goals of globalization AND democratization.
He had no trouble with the first. Globalization has been (at least until quite recently) good for the US. Perhaps second only to the PRC the US has benefited from the global movement of goods and capital. The influx of both goodies and money provided Americans with much to buy and the borrowed money with which to by it.
The second, democratization, really boggled the Geek. At first he hoped that seemingly rational political leaders were simply shoveling feel good platitudes to the multitude. You know, the good old domestic consumption for political gain gambit.
Wasn't so. We (or at least a passel of politicos, pundits and professors) were serious as a heart attack.
The Geek hears the rustle of wings in the distance. Chickens. One of them is named Bolivia.
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