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JULY 2009
Perhaps a more down-to-earth view of the China-US relationship than
China and the US: A G-2 by another name [July 30] is that these two
countries are locked together in an unhappy marriage of convenience without any
possibility of a divorce in sight. Since World War II, the United States's
insatiable hunger for global domination and domestic consumption has fueled the
country's borrowing needs. And since the country discovered the art of making
money on the back of financial derivatives and the service sector and retail
trade - without actually producing much at home - they have had no option but
to soak in imports from China. On the other side of the coin, since China
discovered the magic of the market place and placed its faith in the
trickle-down effect of poverty - prompting them to adopt a strategy of
export-led growth - they have had no escape from their largest export market.
China has neglected domestic income distribution, so the country cannot fall
back on demand from home. So, China has no escape from the strategy of lending
to the US, and the US has no escape from borrowing from China. The trillion
dollar question is, for how long will the US dollar stay afloat, given its huge
budget and trade deficit?
TutuG
UK (Jul 31, '09)
Daniel McCarthy [letter July 30], are you telling us that Taiwan would have
1,200 pandas facing China if the two sides' roles were reversed? Did you ever
bother to find out it was the Kuomintang party's stated goal to retake China by
force? How about the United States strategy of using Taiwan to contain China?
Your country is the single biggest threat to world peace.
Tang (Jul 31, '09)
[Re Unraveling a
patchwork of disaster, July 30] I have always thought that former
British prime minister Neville Chamberlain had little choice in the matter when
dealing with German leader Adolf Hitler. What would his detractors have him do?
Immediately declare war on Germany? Fight a war without adequate resources? As
it turned out, technical developments made after the [1938] Munich agreement up
until the fall of France undoubtedly helped Britain stave off invasion.
Precious time gained and used to refine radar and science; precious time to
construct and improve fighters, recruit servicemen and develop armaments. As
events eventually unfolded, it was a very near-run thing anyway. A little
research will also reveal that around that very same time as Munich, United
States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt approached Congress for a
substantial increase in defense spending and achieved nearly twice as much as
asked. I have always doubted Chamberlain seriously believed he would see "peace
in his time" but, he did know he could garner some extra precious time
desperately needed to develop defenses.
Ian C Purdie
Sydney, Australia (Jul 31, '09)
When the cockroach archaeologists unearth the ruins of human society, buried
beneath the rubble of collapsed structures and McDonald's food containers, they
will face a daunting task. They will piece together the bric-a-brac of all we
held dear as a bi-pedal civilization, examine it under their invertebrate
microscopes, and gasp at the miracle that humans lasted as long as they did.
How is it, they will ask, that a race whose development was tied so religiously
to law and its enforcement, allowed itself to become so lawless? How is it
possible that the greatest banding of these spined creatures voluntarily
elevated rapacious criminals, who had nothing but contempt for the law they so
loudly trumpeted as their secular deity, as their leaders? They will
reconstruct the history of the United States and scratch their antennae as they
ponder the mystery of how the laws of America justified slavery for profits,
killing natives for land, imprisoning citizens without cause, waging war on
defenseless nations, and stealing billions of dollars from poor countries and
peoples. They will examine the noble words of the constitution, the Rights of
Man and the Magna Carta and come to a startling conclusion - that all these
proclamations about justice and fairness were merely camouflage for the strong
to oppress the weak. Far from being created to prevent anarchy and injustice,
the law was actually created to codify and institutionalize this oppression. So
effective was the propaganda and education of the weak that the concept of the
law made them accept their oppression as part of the natural order of things.
The roach historians won't help but notice that the practitioners of the law
were universally considered no better than venal roaches themselves, yet time
and again these scoundrels were elected into positions of power, as if they
would miraculously metamorphose into law-abiding defenders of the public good.
How could such a race exist if its villains become its protectors? How could
societies of sentient beings reconcile their golden ideals with their dirty
criminal reality? The roach-men will conclude that the fact that such creatures
are extinct, whether done in by their own hypocrisy or some awakened force
reeking long-delayed revenge, was merely Natural Law meting out Natural
Justice.
Hardy Campbell
Houston, Texas
USA (Jul 31, '09)
The legislature of the US state of California just passed a resolution to
apologize to Chinese-Americans for past discrimination and abuses against them.
The root of those abuses was a prevailing racial prejudice against Chinese.
This baseless prejudice lingers even today, as shown in Peter J Brown's
A midsummer tale of two Chinese spies [July 29] on Asia Times Online.
Brown, a formerly self-claimed specialist in satellite and emergency planning
and now presumably northeast Asia "expert", framed two recent cases (none of
them involving classified information) involving ethnic-Chinese in such a way
that casts a negative shadow on all Chinese-Americans about their loyalty
towards America. He managed to support his warped insinuation against
Chinese-Americans by lining up little known pro-Israel neo-conservative hacks
affiliated with quasi-think-tanks (more like "three men with a phone and a
receptionist" kind of operation) with important sounding names. It would be a
mistake to dismiss Brown as a hired gun for Chinese-haters who were infuriated
about China's ties to Iran. As we are experiencing the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression, this kind of demagoguery will find an increasing
audience in the US. A pertinent question is, are Chinese-Americans (or Asian
Americans in general) going to fare better than Jews were in Europe after the
Great Depression?
John
Chicago, USA (Jul 31, '09)
[Re Monsanto,
Dow stack up the genes, July 30] You might as well go sue city hall if
you think that you can stop "SmartStax". The influence of Milton Friedman
during the former United States president Ronald Reagan years accelerated the
decline of US government watchdogs, such as the Food and Drug Administration.
Judged an unnecessary waste of taxpayers monies and as intrusive state
interference in the marketplace, these agencies have never recovered their
authority in overseeing the welfare of American citizens. It might take the
impact of another blockbuster like Frank Norris' The Pit to awake the US
public to the untested use and the absence of laws as to genetically modified
food. For the moment, companies like Monsanto and Dow monopolize the field of
public relations and contributions to politicians slush funds, without forceful
challenge.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 31, '09)
[Re Stars align for a
Hu-Ma meet, July 23] Your reader Wendy Cai wrote a letter (July 24)
stating, "It is the wish of all overseas Chinese to see China truly unified."
While I suppose it is possible for Cai's assertion to be true, it is certainly
not the case that Taiwanese wish to see China take over Taiwan. But Cai is
certainly correct when she says, "Chinese and Taiwanese should treat each
others as brothers ..." Indeed. One side of the Taiwan Strait building 1,200
missiles to fire at the other, and preventing the other side of the strait from
obtaining international help with the SARS virus, is not a brotherly way to
behave.
Daniel McCarthy
Salt Lake City, Utah
USA (Jul 30, '09)
[Re Israel
wrestles with Iran problem, July 29] In the New York Times Online, an
op-ed piece appeared by an editor of the Israeli newspaper of note Ha'aretz,
asking why isn't Washington talking to Jerusalem. Judging by the steady stream
of high-level visiting firemen from the Obama administration, Washington is.
And how! For the right-wing government government of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran is an "existential problem", no more, no less. You
don't need to read Jean Paul Sartre to find out what this means. Israel is in
the Middle East, armed to the teeth with a stockpile of nuclear and biological
weapons. It has the complete support of any administration in the US, and the
American taxpayer heavily subsidizes its economy and military. So why is
Netanyahu sweating with anxiety over Iran? For one thing, the rise of Tehran
challenges the Israeli monopoly of armed terror in the Middle East. The Israeli
leader can thank former US president George W Bush's preemptive war [in Iraq]
for propelling Iran into its position of dominance in the region. Additionally,
Jerusalem's failure to knock out Hezbollah and Hamas has exposed the limits of
its military might. Thus to regain its prominence, Israel is itching to bomb
Iran. Obama is staying the Israeli finger on the nuclear button as Bush did
before him.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 30, '09)
The Birther movement (people who question United States President Barack
Obama's birth in the US) and Harvard Professor Henry Gates' arrest in his own
home are manifestations of the same racist mentality that has defined, shaped
and codified the American zeitgeist. Without this conviction that white
Anglo-Saxon Protestants were deemed by God Almighty as the New Chosen People,
the ability to slaughter, enslave, subvert and violate non-whites would have
been severely compromised by religion, ethics and morality. The Birthers have
to insist on Obama's illegitimacy to be president because their mindset cannot
tolerate the concept of a non-white leader leading a white nation; Heaven
forbid if we actually had to start thinking of non-whites as humans, because
then our capacity to destroy them would be hampered. Imagine a native American
as president in the 1890s; would a massacre at Wounded Knee have been possible?
Would an Arab-American president have invaded Iraq? The farcical arrest of a
non-white professor in his own home symbolizes the ongoing, persistent and
calculated effort by a racist white police force to remind the non-whites that
the white security state still owns you, regardless of where you live or what
lofty position you've achieved. ...
Hardy Campbell
Houston Texas USA (Jul 30, '09)
[North Korea sees an
opening, July 28] We are not seeing "deja vu all over again" in North
Korea's proposal for face-to-face discussions with the United States. United
States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still calling for Pyongyang's
return to the six-party talks in Beijing. North Korea has pointedly and clearly
stated that for them the Beijing talks are history. Brushed aside like a house
of cards is the US move to use Beijing as a lever to force Pyongyang back to
the negotiating table. United States diplomacy is relying on a mental crutch in
pursuing an in-your-face policy towards North Korea. It seems as though the
experience the US has garnered in dealing with North Koreans has not led to it
developing a more sophisticated approach. ... Clinton has publicly rejected
North Korea's call for bilateral talks now. But what alternatives does the US
have, other than its own ones that have died on the vine? It is sad to conclude
that Washington is up the creek without a paddle.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 29, '09)
The launch of Atimes.net is an fantastic success in my opinion. I just realized
I have not seen a Spengler column for a while. If that is because you moved him
to the new site, Hallelujah! I never have to see the visage of that hateful
propagandist again. If you really wanted to make money all of these past years,
you should have offered people the option of paying to not see Spengler. I bet
you would be millionaires by now.
Woodrow Gillian
USA (Jul 29, '09)
[The return of
Thomas Mun, July 28] Other than the two means proposed by Martin
Hutchinson to avoid a Thomas Mun world, ie, prohibitively expensive
interstellar explorations to find new living space and draconian measures to
reduce world population (read wars), there exists a third and less troublesome
option. This would be employing the awesome power of the human brain to, rather
than create financial mirages and despoil nature in the pursuit of profit
maximization, develop better technologies that will enable greater resources
utilization. We could enforce a more disciplined and responsible lifestyle so
that a small fraction of the human population doesn't use up a
disproportionately large amount of the earth's finite natural resources. Of
course, if world leaders harbor the same beliefs that Hutchinson does, major
wars will be upon us before long, except the outcome likely will not be as
Hutchinson wishes.
John Chen
USA (Jul 29, '09)
Sreeram Chaulia's Xinjiang
riots confound Islamists [Jul 28] sounds so mischievous and malicious
that he seems to be telling Islamists to go at the throats of Chinese Hans or
else they risk being called hypocrites and traitors to their own cause. There
is not a single shred of sympathy for those who were beheaded on the streets.
There are many Indian contributors to Asia Times Online who write with
excellent English but suffer a very deliberate bias on subjects concerning
China. Indians seem to suffer from a severe inferiority complex and enjoy the
mindless pastime of "measuring" up to China. Typical Chinese men on the streets
simply despise Indians and everything that India stands for. [Some] believe
India is simply two or three notches below China and hence not worth a second
look. All the hype about India attaining so-called world power status is simply
a geopolitical ploy by the West, to play the elephant against the dragon so
they self-destruct without the West expending a single bullet. Chinese are
smart enough to see through this conspiracy, but obviously Indians are too
self-deluded to do the same. Indians, enjoy your self gratification. But
Chinese shall treat everything Indian with a pinch of salt.
Lee WS
Kuala Lumpur (Jul 29, '09)
[Re No exit for
Ben, July 27] Peter Schiff recycles a shopworn critique of US Federal
Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. At this very moment, when global stock markets
are rising fast and banks and private bankers are raking in the chips,
inflation is not the villain, nor is the generous hand of the government in
saving the bankers from themselves. The fault lies in the unwillingness of the
industry to heal itself. It has proven itself capable of causing a panic in the
markets, thus ushering in a global recession. It would be instructive for
Schiff to read Nouriel Roubini's defense of Bernanke in the Sunday edition of
The New York Times, July 26, 2009. Roubini has never been shy of criticizing
the chairman of the Fed, but he does recognize Bernanke's usefulness in saving
world capitalism from another Great Depression.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 28, '09)
[Re Xinjiang riots
confound Islamists, July 27] Perhaps it is Sreeram Chaulia who is
confounded and confused in his banner article on the Xinjiang [riots]. His
article seems to miss a few salient points about the recent riots, namely (1)
most of the 181 people killed were Han not Uyghur, and (2) the government moved
quickly to diffuse any retaliation by street mobs. What does Sreeram want China
to do? Follow the Indian sub-continent's post-colonial example and opt for a
religious partition? That recent history of conflict does not provide an
example the rest of Asia is keen to emulate. China has to make China work (the
cat must catch mice), for all its citizens, together.
Francis Chow
Canada (Jul 28, '09)
[Re Hezbollah
stalls Syrian-Saudi detente, July 24] How come Sami Moubayed doesn't
mention that the March 8 Alliance overwhelmingly won the popular vote and
therefore veto power in the cabinet is not an unreasonable gesture (it was in
place before the elections)?
Sam
USA (Jul 27, '09)
[Re Clinton
talks tough in Thailand, July 24] Weeks of physical therapy has, it
seems, honed more sharply US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's pointed
remarks. It is significant to note that the Barack Obama administration cannot
stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, just as the George W Bush
administration's mishaps godfathered North Korea's entry into the club of
nuclear powers. ... Clinton's words should make Asia and the Middle East
nervous, since it seems the US is willing to risk nuclear war. ...
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 27, '09)
Of the many myths Americans routinely delude themselves with, one stands out as
particularly galling to me as a progressive/liberal/pinko American. That is the
hagiography, if not deification, of the memory of former president John F
Kennedy. His real accomplishments include having a rich daddy who rigged his
presidential election, philandering with an East German spy (one of hundreds of
paramours), starting us on the road to Vietnam ruin, bringing the world to the
brink of annihilation over a few obsolete missiles, while ignoring civil rights
legislation as much as possible. He also actively sought the death of a heroic
revolutionary like Cuban leader Fidel Castro while turning a blind eye to the
assassination of an erstwhile ally (then president of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh
Diem), consorted with the Mafia, and expanded the nuclear arms race. He blinded
generations of Americans to the perils of charisma and smooth-talking charm at
the expense of substance, sincerity and truthfulness. His martyred legacy
belies his lack of morals, ethics and principles and his surfeit of
recklessness and duplicity. Yet he is held up by the so-called liberal cognoscenti
as an example of Camelot, a what-coulda-been-ville, a fantasy America where the
wealthy sip wine from the same goblets as the vast unwashed. Kennedy would have
had none of it, of course, as he was as vested in the looting of America as any
other plutocrat, but the illusion fuels a cottage industry of conspiracy
theorists, convinced that some evil military-industrial complex did the hero in
because he wanted to suddenly "see the light'" and abandon everything his
family was founded on.
Hardy Campbell
Houston, Texas (Jul 27, '09)
[Re Stars align for a
Hu-Ma meet, July 23] If Jian Junbo's article indeed reflects the true
picture, it is sad to see that China's unification issue is still tied to form
rather than substance. It is the wish of all overseas Chinese to see China
truly unified. The leaders from both sides of the Taiwan Strait should look at
the long-term interests of all the Chinese population. Chinese and Taiwanese
should treat each others as brothers and settle their differences, which are
"light as feathers". If China cannot quickly settle the unification issue, it
will never be looked upon in the world as a rising power.
Wendy Cai
USA (Jul 24, '09)
An important angle on the Kashmir jihad has been left out by Arif Jamal in his
interview with Pepe Escobar
Kashmir: Ground zero of global jihad[July 17]. While Muslims are the
majority in Indian-held Kashmir, Pakistan-held Kashmir is virtually devoid of
non-Muslims. This is true of the rest of Pakistan itself. In fact, before
Pakistan was born in 1947, it was part of the British-controlled "old India".
By many estimates, over 20% of its population was non-Muslim. The aftermath of
1947 saw most non-Muslims in this Muslim majority region driven to the newly
independent Hindu majority in India, though many were slaughtered and some
converted to Islam to in order to keep their properties. In South Asia during
the past 60 years, in every Muslim majority region, the moment Muslims achieved
political power, the ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims followed. This data in the
broader context points to conquering land and people for Islam - and this is
what the Kashmir jihad is all about. A fair deal on Kashmir could be for
Pakistan to take the disgruntled Muslims living in the Indian Kashmir, minus
the land, and settle them in Pakistan-held Kashmir and elsewhere in Pakistan -
just like India had to absorb all of the non-Muslims driven out of
Pakistan-held Kashmir way back in 1948. Using Indian Kashmir as a staging post,
jihad has now been extended to the heart lands of India. As I have discussed in
my new book, Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War, India is under
an escalating Islamist siege from within, designed to subvert and conquer it in
the long run. How India deals with Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir and what
role the United States plays in the region will likely determine whether India
can emerge as a leading stabilizing force in South Asia, or become the next
victim of global jihad.
Moorthy Muthuswamy PhD
United States of America (Jul 24, '09)
[Re Cash cloud
hangs over Georgia's tax-free zone, July 23] With a surfeit of cheap
labor in Egypt, it makes you wonder why at this moment the Egypt-based Fresh
Electric Company (FEC) is willing to invest US$2 billion in Georgia's new "free
industrial zone" (FIZ). It plans to equip three new home appliances plants, and
FEC will benefit from tax benefits and laws governing foreign investment. But
is the new FIZ strategically placed for FEC's appliances to break into Central
Asian, Turkish, and European Union markets? The bigger Russian market is closed
to it for obvious political reasons. In the face of the lackluster performance
by Georgia's first FIZ's, does FEC feel that its investment will do better? Or
at the prodding of Egypt's powerful United States ally, has the FEC been
encouraged to shore up a seriously troubled Georgian economy?
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 24, '09)
The great kleptocracy that is the United States of Wonderland achieves ever
greater ways to impoverish the poor and increase the wealth of the wealthy.
Never has such ingenuity for theft on such a mind-boggling scale been achieved
before, and there may not be much left afterward to challenge this dubious
accomplishment. Convincing the masses that what's good for Wall Street is good
for them was just the start, but a vital one. Pumping hard-earned middle class
sucker bucks in the market primed the pump for the cyclic balloon/bust
mechanism by which the plutocrats routinely enriched themselves and forced
busted workers to accept ever lower wages and benefits. Then there was the
propaganda machine created to make Americans think they were being afflicted
with every malady known to man, with a corresponding miracle pill available
from your friendly neighborhood pharmaceutical mega-conglomerate at a pittance.
... Not to miss out on this soak-the-poor party, insurance companies thrived in
the synergistic atmosphere created by periodic media-fueled panics over heart
attacks, cancer, plane crashes, AIDS, and terrorism ... Was there any end to
the imaginative ways of relieving the average Joe of his dwindling cash
reserves? No, wait, then there was the manufactured wars against every -ism in
the book, then the subprime collapse, then the fall of Detroit, all calamities
that required money from, not the rich and powerful who could afford to shell
out the dough, but the crushed lower-middle class, whose pathetic dreams fell
from living in a white picket fenced home in a suburban paradise to surviving
in a cardboard box under a bridge. ...
Hardy Campbell
Houston Texas (Jul 24, '09)
[Re Last chance
saloon in Helmand, July 24] If Afghanistan is the last chance saloon
for the United States to prove itself in Afghanistan, [authors] Aziz Ahmad
Shafe, Mohammad Ilyas Dayee and Aziz Ahmad Tassal would do better to look at
the big fight at the OK Corral in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The American
presence in Helmand province is pushing the Taliban who are in majority Balochi
into a tactical retreat. Which means slipping across Pakistan's fissiparous
border into its Balochi-majority province with Quetta as it capital where
Mullah Omar allegedly resides. So, suddenly Pakistan finds itself with hardly
enough troops to stop a flood of Taliban fighters who do sympathize with the
grievances of Pakistani Balochi whom the Pakistan army put down in an open
rebellion. Islamabad is now caught in the mire of its own former lax pursuit of
its own Taliban and al-Qaeda, who benefited from aid and comfort of its own
political and military elite. Does Pakistan have the will to fight and defeat
the Taliban, that is, its own and the migration of Afghani Balochi Taliban into
its own Balochi territory? Islamabad now is being forced by events to think of
withdrawing a goodly part of troops from its irredentist claims on India's
Kashmir. The big showdown that is currently preparing is the survival of the
Pakistan state itself.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 23, '09)
There are many pro-American pieces now on ATol concerning Afghanistan and the
coming farcical general election of a puppet versus a would-be puppet waiting
for their strings to be pulled by the regime of US president Barack Obama. What
the West intervened in was a civil war in Afghanistan. Pakistan has nothing to
recommend it when you consider the prosperous, elitist nature of its rulers and
the poverty of its citizens. The civilians will always be the target in any
major conflict for they are the water for the fish. The attack on the Swat
Valley meant that the water was drained to expose the fish. Similarly the
attacks on wedding parties, funeral gatherings and other social gatherings in
Afghanistan will continue after this so-called election is over. I expect
everyone who continues to resist a brutal Pakistan military and their allies in
Afghanistan - the West - will be be called Taliban. That will be only to the
Taliban's benefit. Can the Taliban be any worse than the dictatorial
pro-Western governments in countries such as Saudi Arabia or the the United
Arab Emirates? Does the West worry about democracy there and decide on
regime-change by force? Do they care about Israeli attacks on Gaza?
Wilson John Haire
London (Jul 23, '09)
Congratulations on Atimes.net; it's rather snazzy looking, I must say.
And 20 cents a day doesn't seem all that much to help keep alive a publication
that no doubt serves as the main source of intellectual pretensions for
individuals such as myself who take pride in being just a tad more
knowledgeable than the next guy.
John Chen
USA (Jul 22, '09)
[Re Contexts of
terror in Indonesia, Jul 21] It is a good stretch of the imagination to
think that the July 17 terrorist bombings of two Western chain hotels in
Jakarta was an exercise in trying to gain the "sympathy" of Indonesians.
Rather, it was a signal to the central government that its has not destroyed
sleeper fundamentalist Islamic cells nor destroyed jihadi-like organizations.
Such groups can and do fade into the local population at will, and intelligence
services - domestic or foreign - lack sufficient knowledge to counter or
destroy them. Further, fundamentalists are joined to the hip with fellow
Malaysian militants, and Malaysia is a convenient location for them. So the
context of Indonesian terror is larger than we are led to believe. If Arab
history could serve as a guide in combating terrorism, it is instructive to
look at the long period of decades it took to combat and put an end to a
network of assassins known as "Hadshishin".
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 22, '09)
[Re Atimes.net: A
new star in cyberspace, Jul 20] About two years ago, I told Asia Times
Online that I would be willing to pay to read it. While my circumstances are
not terribly good and I just paid about US$2,300 for my dog Mara's surgery, I
am going to have my sister purchase a subscription for ATol.
Adam Albrett (Jul 21, '09)
[Re Conflicts in China's
North Korea policy, Jul 22] Ad hoc resolutions like the United Nations
Security Council's Resolution 1874 sanctioning North Korea are hastily
arranged. ... It would be inaccurate to accuse Beijing of being duplicitous to
its North Korean ally. The Security Council's unanimous vote reveals more about
its confusion over Pyongyang's second nuclear test, which hasn't been
scientifically verified. Cynthia Lee dwells narrowly on why China won't go
along with the US in giving strength to Resolution 1874, for internal reasons.
But it is well known that China [has] broader geopolitical concerns. It has
equally been noted that in spite of Beijing's economic aid to Pyongyang, its
influence there has over time diminished. Furthermore, as a major player in the
region, it does not want to cause tensions which could spin out of control into
war. Hence its repeated counsel to Washington to practice patience in dealing
with North Korea.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 21, '09)
[Re War of
words for Cambodia, Thailand, July 16] Stephen Kurczy, a bit
disappointed in your article. While the Thai [foreign minister] called
[Cambodian Prime Minister] Hun Sen a gangster, it was in a precise context that
you neglected to cite in your article. The term was, in fact, used in a
complimentary fashion. That fact was left out in your write-up.
Frank G Anderson
Korat, Thailand (Jul 21, '09)
[Re War of
words for Cambodia, Thailand, July 16] Are you trying to say that the
temple historically belongs to Thailand? Because you said: ''.... [Preah
Vihear] is more readily accessible from Thailand ... '', and '' ...
[Cambodians] celebrated what they referred to as a victory over Thailand ...
''. You also wrote, "Thailand controlled Preah Vihear for much of the 20th
century ... ". But you did not say that Thailand started this by sending troops
into our territory. The temple definitely belongs to Cambodia. It can be
accessed from the Thai side because that area used to be part of Cambodia. If
Thailand lost its land to Cambodia, why are there Khmer-speaking people in
Thailand and no Thai-speaking people in Cambodia? We did not celebrate a
victory over Thailand but we celebrated the listing of our temple as a [United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] World Heritage site.
The temple issue in Cambodia is not so much about domestic politics as it is in
Thailand. For us, it is about our sovereignty being invaded, it is about the
possibility of losing things to an aggressive and coveting nation, it is about
defending our territory. I, as a Cambodian citizen, would be happier to see
more impartial articles from Asia Times Online.
Paul Chhan (Jul 21, '09)
[Re War of
words for Cambodia, Thailand, July 16] You wrote, "Leading up to the
UN's July 7, 2008, recognition of Preah Vihear as one of the world's important
historical relics, nationalistic and anti-government Thai protesters amassed at
the temple to protest the [Thai] Foreign Ministry's acknowledgement of the UN's
designation. Tensions eventually spread to two additional disputed temples
along the border. Thai and Cambodian troops clashed in October, leaving one
Thai and three Cambodians dead." This whole "dispute" was manufactured by
Thailand's People's Alliance for Democracy in an attempt to discredit the
then-ruling party ... It was invented and is maintained for purely domestic
reasons in Thailand and used for the same purposes in Cambodia.
John Francis Lee
Chiang Rai, Thailand (Jul 21, '09)
[Re War of
words for Cambodia, Thailand, July 16] Most of your stories are not
fair, and I don't think you understand our [Cambodian] history in the right
way, especially regarding this statement: "... Thailand controlled Preah Vihear
for much of the 20th century, but relinquished control ... ". Do not base your
story on Thai-written books. Most of these stories are invented.
Nophea Sasaki (Jul 21, '09)
Any article on the year-long military standoff between Thailand and Cambodia at
Preah Vihear temple tends to become a Rorschach test for readers. A number of
Asia Times Online readers accused
War of words for Cambodia, Thailand [July 16] of either a Thai
bias or a Cambodian bias. Frank Anderson in Thailand said the article took Thai
Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya's reference to Hun Sen as a "gangster" out of
context because the term was "used in a complimentary fashion". This was
certainly Bangkok's spin on Kasit's comment, but the point remains that it was
poor diplomacy and it stirred ill-will between the nations. Paul Chhan in
Cambodia said the article implied that Preah Vihear belonged to Thailand
because it stated the temple was "more readily accessible from Thailand". But
this is a simple fact, as anyone knows who has taken a motorbike up Cambodia's
steep, treacherous access road to the temple, only to see Thailand's smooth,
paved road leading down the other side. Chhan also argues that the July 7
celebrations in Phnom Penh were not celebrating a victory over Thailand but
rather the temple's heritage listing. To that, this quote from Cambodian Deputy
Prime Minister Sok An on July 7 provides the best response: "When our soldiers
show our ability, our bravery in protecting our land, in protecting our
sovereignty and also protecting our border, clearly this is one factor that has
allowed us to win the international battle." John Francis Lee in Thailand said
the temple tiff was manufactured by the anti-former Thai prime minister Thaksin
Shinawatra's People's Alliance for Democracy "to whip the people into line" and
the conflict was now "maintained for purely domestic reasons". Sources have
told me that both nations' are certainly using the dispute for political gain,
but the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' non-interventionist approach
and a lack of comity between the countries also prolongs the conflict. Nophea
Sasaki in Cambodia said the article was unfair because it stated, "Thailand
controlled the temple for much of the 20th century but relinquished control …"
The International Court of Justice considered Thailand and Cambodia's claims to
the temple in 1962, and each country argued it controlled the temple in the
first half of the 20th century. Thailand said it always possessed the temple,
which is why it never sought legal recognition. It is debated whether Thailand
or France controlled the temple until 1954, when the French granted
independence to Cambodia. That same year, Thailand stationed forces at Preah
Vihear and controlled the temple until the 1962 ICJ court ruling in favor of
Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took power and held out at the temple until
the 1990s. - Stephen Kurczy (Jul 21,
'09)
In China, please invade
North Korea [July 16], Francesco Sisci deploys the former US president
George W Bush doctrine of do unto others before they do unto you. Perhaps he
thinks there's no point retaining the very fundamentals of civility and
repudiation of an aggressor's war, if to do so is to risk a future nuclear
strike from North Korea or Iran. So he swallows a grenade to dodge a potential
bullet. The world would not end if Iran and/or North Korea committed suicide
Samson-style. But how can it last more than a few decades in this nuclear age
if international relations retain as a norm the preemptive aggression Bush
atrociously pursued and Sisci shamelessly pushes?
Simon Floth (Jul 20,'09)
In China, please invade
North Korea [July 16], Francesco Sisci touched upon the issue of Korean
nationalism and its role in the current stalemate over North Korea's nuclear
ambitions. This is a major problem for China if it is to deal seriously with an
increasingly belligerent North Korea. China is more than willing to get rid of
Kim Jong-il's regime by force provided that the US does not stay on the Korean
Peninsula after the country is unified. Neither China nor Russia wants to face
US soldiers across their borders. But a xenophobic and Korean-supremacist
population in South Korea would deter any serious attempt on the part of China
to overthrow Kim Jong-il by military means. What would China gain by invading
North Korea? A hyperventilating, nationalistic Korean population calling for
Chinese blood and a cynical Japan and India finding excuses to build their
arms. And the worst of all, the US would soon turn its attention to a supposed
military threat from China to the US and US domination of the Pacific. Of
course, China wants no part in invading North Korea.
Sean Liu
Peoria, IL, USA (Jul 20,'09)
Corruption has become so engrained, institutionalized and rationalized in
Wonderland that no one thinks twice about it. From "campaign contributions" to
collateralized securities, with pork-barrel bridges to nowhere and weapons even
the Pentagon won't touch, the malignant, pervasive and tentacled reach of
corporate money, bribery and influence distorts every facet of America. The
hot-air politicians blow about regulation and reform, the familiar refrain
every time hands are caught in cookie jars - they could at least be useful as
an alternative energy source if it wasn't so fraudulent itself. The dirty
little secret of finance is that with the cyclic movement of bankers, Wall
Street honchos and stock market wizards between government and high-rise CEO
offices, there is no division between the public and private sector anymore. If
a rule exists that a banker doesn't like, he merely gets his former or future
employee at a government agency to write a waiver and the "problem" is solved,
while the spirit and intent of the regulation is gutted like a fish. New magic
financial instruments to dazzle the sucker and beguile the market are created
out of fantasy, while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "guardians",
mindful of their next employment opportunity, nod their heads in supine
subservience and Congress swoons over American financial ingenuity. Hardy
Campbell
Houston Texas USA (Jul 20,'09)
Washington funds its
Uyghur 'friends' [July 16] lifts the veil on what in the good old Cold
War days was called "front groups". It is a useful way for a government not to
put its fingerprints on a subject by disbursing funds through intermediaries to
dissident groups, while at the same time holding high to diplomatic principles
of conduct. Donald Kirk has shone the light of his inquiry on the
non-governmental organization the National Endowment for Democracy. It is but
one in a panoply of private foundations and organizations benefiting from
public funds. Furthermore, it is very much in line with America's belief in
private initiative for the public good. The US is not alone in this practice.
China, too, "indirectly" funds overseas Chinese organizations.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 20,'09)
Today's New York Times Online has a front page feature story on the origins of
unrest in China's autonomous region of Xinjiang. It is undeniable that coverage
of Xinjiang will in conventional media find space in inner pages of newspapers,
as filler more often than not. But the story of the Turkmen minority simply
won't go away from front page headlines either. The interesting point in
Antoaneta Bezlova's article
Beijing can't bury the Xinjiang story [July 17] is how media-savvy the
Chinese have become since the crackdown in Tibet in 2008. Furthermore, Beijing
allowed the foreign press, albeit with restricted in movements, to go to Urumqi
for background information. It did as Bezlova reported, allowing broader
coverage in events in Xinjiang across China. This did electrify the men and
women in the streets to support the government's heavy hand in putting down
Uyghur protests. On the other hand, it did awaken concern from the more
enlightened intellectuals about seriously addressing Turkmen grievances.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 17,'09)
[Re Behind the
mind games in the Gulf, July 17] Richard M Bennett and others who write
about bombing Iran's reactors should consider the contamination consequences.
Reactors are encased in concrete to contain accidental releases of radiation.
Using bunker-buster bombs to destroy the containment and cast the radioactive
fuel into the atmosphere will kill millions of people. The Union of Concerned
Scientists has estimated that bombing the Esfahan nuclear refinement facilities
will kill three million civilians in two weeks and will expose 35 million
people in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to lethal doses of radiation.
In 1981, two United States physicists, Fetter and Tsipis, wrote in Scientific
American on "Catastrophic Releases of Radioactivity" caused by bombing nuclear
reactors. In one scenario, bombing a reactor in Wisconsin would send a
radioactive plume across Chicago, New York City and all the way to Bermuda,
making those areas uninhabitable. In another scenario, bombing a reactor
complex in southern Germany would make all of northern Europe and the United
Kingdom uninhabitable. Iran's Bushehr reactor, loaded with 80 tons of enriched
uranium, sits right on the Persian Gulf shore, just east of Kuwait. Bombing
that reactor will render the Persian Gulf uninhabitable. Most of the world's
known oil reserves are in the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran).
Bombing Iran's reactors will be an act of economic warfare against the US,
European Union, China, Japan and everyone else who needs oil for their
industries, agriculture and transportation. Bombing Iran's reactors will mean
that all nuclear reactors in the world are now targets for conventional or
unconventional attack. When the royal families of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia all
take sudden holiday trips to New Zealand or Argentina, then the rest of us know
that a new Dark Age is about to begin.
Floyd Rudmin
Kingston, Ontario, Canada (Jul 17,'09)
Regarding China, please
invade North Korea [July 16] by Francesco Sisci, I would like to remind
Mr Sisci that North Korea's missiles are in many respects virtual copies of
Chinese designs, and this was obviously achieved with technology transfer from
the People's Liberation Army. Why would China wish to invade an ally that is
doing exactly what China wants it to do?
Daniel McCarthy
Salt Lake City, Utah (Jul 17,'09)
Francesco Sisci would do well to hit the history textbooks. Vietnam is not
North Korea. China's volunteer soldiers did "invade" North Korea during the
Korean War to fight alongside North Korean troops, to repulse and [ruin] US
general Douglas MacArthur's mad designs to bring war to the Chinese mainland,
it has to be pointed out. The tone and temper of
China, please invade North Korea [July 16] betrays a feeling of
irrational frustration with Kim Jong-il's outmaneuvering the Barack Obama
administration's revival of the Truman Doctrine which offers Pyongyang little
or no room to negotiate but rather calls for "unconditional surrender" to
United States demands. It is time cooler heads prevailed in the media and among
the diplomats and military. Invasion of North Korea certainly is not the way to
go.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 16,'09)
The article China,
please invade North Korea [July 16] suggesting that China should invade
North Korea to take care of America's problems with the red Hermit Kingdom must
be somebody's idea of a geopolitical joke. How about the Chinese attacking Iran
while they're at it, or nuking Sudan? Maybe that's [United States Federal
Reserve chief] Ben Bernanke's supersecret Plan B for America's economic
salvation; asking Beijing to just fork over all its money, gold and securities
to us and wiping our debt sheet clean. In exchange, we promise not to give
communism a bad name by not adopting it as our next failed gee whiz
get-rich-quick ideology. In Wonderland USA, of course, the impossible is just
an invitation for creative financing; bundle up all those preposterous
bailout/no-pain ideas into derivatives, put them on the equities market and viola,
all our problems go away! Chinese surrender! Iran adopts evangelical
Christianity! Europe abandons the metric system! In the meantime, before this
divine intervention occurs, California will crank out IOUs like Grade Z indie
flicks ("Terminator 5: I Guess I WON'T be Back"). President Barack Obama will
continue his George W Bush-metamorphosis (wood chopping practice everyday in
the Oval Office), and Congress will remain the best refutation of evolutionary
theory around (monkeys, apes and chimps are planning a class action suit).
These are all good markers on the road to ruin, but none stands out as the
defining moment of unavoidable decline. Rome had Alaric at its gates, Britain
had Suez rubbed in its faux-imperial face and France has long lost count of all
its debacles, but what will America's Waterloo be known as? That's hard to day
right now, but I wager asking China to do our dirty work for us would rank up
there with Iraq and the subprime meltdown.
Hardy Campbell
Houston, TX (Jul 16,'09)
[Re California
nightmare, July 15] Richard Daughty is either being completely
disingenuous, or is completely ignorant about California and its
political-economic history. The idea that California is in any way "leftist",
let alone "socialist" is laughable and easily contradicted by both its present
and past political leadership, dominated first by Ronald Reagan (1966-1974),
who was followed by neo-liberal Jerry Brown, two equally right-wing governors
(George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson), an inept liberal (Grey Davis), and now
Arnold Schwarzenegger who is not merely conservative but incompetent.
California's economic history follows a similar path from the liberalism of Pat
Brown (Jerry Brown's father) to the neo-conservative Reagan, Brown II, George
Deukmejian, Wilson and Schwarzenegger. Along the way, state social services
have shrunk, not expanded, homelessness and lack of effective public health
became the norm, public education went from fueling economic innovation to
promoting consumerism and economic privatization, and California as a
consequence long ago lost its golden luster. I would strongly recommend against
Daughty's services as a consultant as he seems not to have a clue.
Darrell Whitman
Proud native Californian (Jul 16,'09)
[Re California
nightmare, July 15] Richard Daughty, or "The Mogambo Guru", has
produced one of the most ridiculous perspectives on California's current budget
and economic crises. He claims that California is socialist, left-wing, and
crazy. The crazy part may be true, but California is not socialist, and the
state has been leaning toward the right since the late 1970s. From Ronald
Reagan to Pete Wilson to Grey Davis to Arnold Schwarzenegger, California has
had a series of economically right-wing governors. In 1978, an amendment to
California's constitution, known as Proposition 13, reduced property taxes by
nearly 60%. Much of this had to do with California's inequitable public
education system; local governments used revenue from local property taxes to
fund public education; as a result, wealthier districts had excellent public
schools while primarily low-income districts had poorer-quality schools. In the
early 1970s, the California supreme court declared this system to
disproportionately favor the wealthy, and thus cut the amount of local revenue
that districts could receive for public schools, and mandated that education
revenues from local property taxes be distributed not by local districts, but
by the state of California, in order to more equitably distribute revenue for
public education throughout the state, allowing poorer districts to have
quality public schools. Proposition 13 ended that by drastically reducing
property taxes. Since the Reaganite revolution of the 1980s, the rich in the
United States have been paying less and less taxes, culminating in the George W
Bush administration's infamous tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
California, having one of the best public school systems in the country, now
has one of the worst. Because of its right-wing taxing structure, the state has
been struggling to pay for its public education, healthcare, welfare, and
transportation systems. Instead of raising taxes for the wealthiest
multimillionaires and billionaires (California, after all, is the 8th largest
economy in the world) in the state, California's right-wing governor and
Republican congressional minority (due to a rule that a two-thirds majority
vote from California's legislature is required to approve the state's budget,
also a result of Proposition 13) refuse to raise taxes and instead claim that
the solution lies in getting rid of California's social spending programs.
California, just like other victims of the free-market revolution of the 1970s
until today, from Chile to Bolivia to the Philippines to Poland to Egypt to
Iraq, is currently facing radical, right-wing, free-market shock therapy, with
the current financial-economic crisis as the pretext to attacking California's
social spending. California's low-income and middle-income populations are
suffering, and the suffering will only get worse. California's best hope is for
a planned constitutional convention in 2011 to get rid of the two-thirds
majority budget rule, and to create a more progressive state for the 21st
century. Otherwise, California, like Russia in the 1990s, will be shocked by
the right wing into feudalism and oligarchy.
Bradley Bradley (Jul 16,'09)
Reading Spengler's latest anti-President Barack Obama rant [Blame
Michael Jackson, July 14] is the visual equivalent of listening to the
mindless drumming of the occasional pounding on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley,
California. Spengler doesn't miss a beat in his celebration of dumb. Too
numerous to score, I'll limit myself to only one: "... Japan pours more cement
than anyone else". He should have said "concrete", as in writing concretely -
rock-solid as opposed to sand or only cement. Perhaps one day Spengler will
step out of neverland and take his shadow with him; and arrest his childish
fits and show the mature writing that is just waiting to come forth.
Doug Baker
Oakland, CA (Jul 15,'09)
Chan Akya wrote an interesting article on July 13 recommending doing the exact
opposite of whatever economics Nobel laureate Paul Krugman recommends [Krugman
best taken in reverse]. As a layman trying to figure out the madness of
modern economics I read Krugman's opinion pieces religiously because they are
written in a language that's easy for ordinary people to follow and the logic
presented usually makes sense. In defense of Krugman, he too has partially
blamed excess savings and investment by Asian banks for the current debacle (as
Chan Akya himself also suggested). Having said that, Krugman's entire
philosophy (just like almost all other economists) seems to rest on the belief
that the model unleashed by the Industrial Revolution must continue for the
betterment of mankind - ie, unlimited growth fueled by technological innovation
that constantly enables improved efficiency. However, there is nothing in
nature that grows forever! The Industrial Revolution worked only for the
countries that industrialized by preventing others (their Third World colonies)
from doing so. For example, India's labor-intensive textile industry was
brutally demolished to enable British factory products to monopolize the
market. The efficient mass-production technologies unleashed during the
Industrial Revolution have led to 200 years of colonial rape of the Third
World, mass unemployment (and consequent racism and xenophobia) due to
replacement of humans by machines, two world wars (essentially over access to
captive markets), and several catastrophic periodic depressions whenever the
economy temporarily hit a bottleneck. Yet economists keep glorifying
never-ending growth fueled by efficiency improving technology even though it's
painfully obvious that almost all modern problems are due to overproduction. I
am not advocating a return to the pre-Industrial Revolution state, but surely
something needs to be done to change the fundamental way we approach economics
because the current wisdom doesn't make any sense at all. Chan Akya hinted in
his article that for the economy to be profitable its size must be reduced. I
hope he can elaborate on that in future articles.
Amit Sharma
Cincinnati, OH (Jul 15,'09)
[Re California
nightmare, July 15] Mogambo Guru has slandered socialism by saying that
California is "leftist". California, in fact, is far right, as is every state
in the United States. The leftist, socialist welfare societies (Norway, Sweden,
Canada, Denmark, etc) all have their problems, but in comparison to most of the
economies in the world, they have minimal difficulties. The so-called socialist
societies are successful because they are pragmatic. They have the crazy idea
that government should serve the interests of the population. In comparison,
the right-wing societies, led by the US, believe that governments should serve
an ideology that is blinded by belief and faith, unable to see reality. No
pragmatism here. "Stay the course", hold true to the faith, come hell or high
water. California and the US are like the old Soviet Union in this respect. The
outcome will probably be similar.
Floyd Rudmin
A Canadian in Norway (Jul 15,'09)
[Re Pipeline deal
is sweet music for Iran, July 14] Oh dear! Not very good news for
Israel then. Looks like after the misadventure in Iraq the United States and
the Europeans have learned that trying to ensure energy security at home by
attacking the perceived enemies of Israel at the same time can be costly and
humiliating. What is [US Vice President] Joe Biden's advice to Israel now?
TutuG
United Kingdom (Jul 15,'09)
[Re Australia lands in
Chinese soup, July 14] When foreigners steal China's and Russia's state
secrets, it's standard business practice. When Russia and China act tough
against the perpetrators, it's out of the norm. Maybe Sreeram Chaulia can
enlighten us on the proper protocol for handling this issue. And he makes using
market size by China to gain a business advantage sound like a crime. Let's
remind him that it's standard business practice by the Anglo-Americans.
Pierce
Texas (Jul 14,'09)
[Re Pyongyang's
cyber-terrorism hits home, July 10] The big media blitz drawing the
world's attention to Pyongyang's hanky panky in cyber-terrorism attacks
targeting South Korea and the United States has died down with little fanfare.
The mystery - if mystery there be - is quickly solved. South Korea's own Korea
Communication Commission (KCC) has released its findings on Pyongyang's
so-called cyber-terrorism. The KCC report has located the source of the
computer attacks in the Republic of Georgia, Austria, Germany, South Korea and
the US itself. Nowhere does the finger of blame point to North Korea. Looking
at the list, every country is an ally of the US, with the exception of
neutralist Austria. So, it makes you wonder who is really at the origins of the
reports of North Korea's responsibility of the cyber attacks on the US and
South Korea.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 14,'09)
The article Iraq
catches it from all sides [July 14], portrays the dilemma the Iraqi
government has regarding the remains of the Ba'athist groups, but it falls
short of revealing the reasons behind Iraqis not willing or wanting to
reconcile with the Ba'athists. For several years now, the Americans have tried
to create discord between the Iraqi government and the Iranians, without much
success. The Americans believe by creating discord between these two bordering
countries they will achieve several objectives. First, they will be able to
apply the principle of "divide and rule". Second, they make Iran weak in the
region and possibly in the world to subjugate them into compromise on their
national interests, especially their nuclear program. Third, they will be able
to stage a limited attack on the Iranian nuclear facility, or allow the
Israelis to do that using Iraqi air space without Iraqis lodging much protest
or possible repercussions ... However, from my point of view, I can argue that
the Americans will not be able achieve these objectives for the simple fact
that Iraqis have become much wiser and tired of wars imposed on them by others
... for the other's own interest. The Iraqis should ... never allow the
Ba'athists to return to power ... How delighting it is to the Americans and
Israelis to find again these Ba'athist doing their dirty work for them. Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki has stated rightly in his speech, "To reconcile with
those responsible for widowing women, orphaning children and destroying the
country." These people, he noted, took the country from war to war, "and did
not apologize, not even until this moment". They should be punished, he added,
not rewarded by being brought out of jail and put into government positions.
M Hashemi
Dallas, Texas (Jul 14,'09)
[Re The great invisible
wall in China, July 14]. Sun Tzu said, "Know your enemy, know yourself,
and you shall be victorious in battle." While an outright adversarial
relationship between the United States (or the West, led and represented by the
US) and China can be tentatively precluded now that the two countries are
mutually dependent economically and increasingly cooperative geopolitically,
the two sides know unhealthily little about one other. This lack of
understanding, and the attendant mutual mistrust between the two nations, is
one important reason why I feel David Goldman's seminal idea for greater
Sino-US financial and economic integration may not be feasible at this
juncture. The second reason, in my opinion, is that the Chinese economy is not
yet sufficiently developed, or mature enough, to engage in such a full-scale
linkage with the US economy. That said, the proposal deserves serious debate on
both sides and may well prove prescient in a few years.
John Chen
USA (Jul 14,'09)
In Indian might met
with Chinese threats [July 10] by Sudha Ramachandran, the Chinese
response quoted by the author shows that the Chinese government remains mired
in its 1960s rhetoric, and Chinese irrational ultra-nationalism still rules the
day ... It will be at least another 50 years, and probably 100 years, before
the collective Chinese intellect and psyche can deal with the facts regarding
such issues as the border with India, Tibet's historic status as a separate
country from China, and Taiwan's present status as a country separate from
China.
Daniel McCarthy
Salt Lake City, Utah (Jul 13,'09)
Peter Brown tells a tale twice told in
China labor straining neighborly ties on July 11. China's aid is a
double-edged sword. On one hand it funds and builds say a country's
infrastructure; on the other, it floods the receipt country with its own
laborers and managers which in effect undercuts any benefits the aid obtains.
Equally important is that in true colonial style, Chinese imports flood the
local market and surplus population, undercutting native small businesses and
private enterprise. Think of the way the British killed India's once-thriving
textiles sector. And it is not only its neighbors that China beggars; cast a
glance at Africa. The case of Zambia is instructive. China's exploitation of
Lusaka's rich copper mines has the odor of former British colonial masters.
Little wonder Vietnam fingers worry beads.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 13,'09)
In reading Kaveh Afrasiabi's latest article,
US moves closer to Iran, Europe drifts [July 11], I doubt that the [US
President Barack] Obama administration can pass the test of consistency. If
Obama's quick reaction to [Vice President Joseph] Biden is any indication,
there is a lot of internal struggle over Iran that is sure to continue in the
foreseeable future.
Tim
Toronto (Jul 13,'09)
[Re A leaner,
meaner Iranian regime, July 9] In some measure, Mahan Abedin's analysis
of the post-election political environment in Iran recalls the situation in
Iraq under Saddam Hussein. A seemingly vulnerable head-man, strengthened and
supported via single party hegemony (with US taxpayer funds and weapons) rule
with a quasi- "populist" mandate, while the left or the intelligentsia get
co-opted and take what they can get or simply submit. We all know how that
ended for Iraqis. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad should thank his cohorts
in the White House and Congress for his consolidating grip on the factionalism
in Tehran. Single-party hegemony works best as Americans know very well.
Speaking for the empire: Thank you President Barack Obama for not ending the
former president George W Bush's criminal US$400 million covert Central
Intelligence Agency "change" program in Iran, as we can all clearly see the US
taxpayers benefiting from such colorful actions. A special taxpayer thank you
to the National Endowment for Democracy for all their fantastic and heroic work
in supporting "freedom and democracy" in Iran. I'm sure all those tweets and
Blackberrys and bandanas helped "stimulate" our GDP back here at home. Now, if
we can only get them to eat spam and order Girls Gone Wild on late-night
cable, our conquest of the pesky Iranians will be done and we can move on to
Honduras and those ballsy little Latin Americans!
Jubin Ajdari
Los Angeles (Jul 10,'09)
[Re Indian might
met with Chinese threats, July 9] Arunachal is truly "South Xizang
(Tibet)". It is a territory that belongs to China. It was placed as an Indian
territory by way of the "McMahon Line" which is not recognized by China,
whether under Kuomintang or under the People's Republic of China. Sir Henry
McMahon was a British minister who drew that border when India was a colony of
Britain. China will never cede that piece of its land to India.
Wendy Cai
USA (Jul 10,'09)
[Re Pyongyang's
cyber-terrorism hits home, July 9] The jury is still out as to
Pyongyang's "role" in the cyber-terror attacks in South Korea and the United
States. Until now, the press, pundits, and people in the know have never missed
an opportunity to cry from the rooftops that North Korea not is only computer
unsavvy but computer backward. Suddenly, like Sax Rohmer's Dr Fu Manchu, Kim
Jong-il is a computer mastermind evily hacking into Seoul's and Washington's
computers. You cannot have it two ways. Time magazine's Internet maven Keith
Epstein suggests that the proof is not there to lay at North Korea's doorstep.
The footprint of hacking could easily point to hackers, usually students, in
the US itself or for that matter to hackers in China. But, South Koreans blame
North Korea for the Internet mayhem. And given the current tension between
Washington and Pyongyang, so do Americans.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 10,'09)
Amit Sharma's recent letter (July 9) made an interesting statement. I quote:
"Despite China's achievements, lauded in Hardy Campbell's [July 8] letter, the
fact remains that it is a dictatorship and like all dictatorships it needs to
maintain the people in a constant state of war by brainwashing them with an
us-versus-them mentality - we are in a national crisis; our enemies are out to
destroy us; we are good and they are evil; we must stand behind our leaders and
not ask any questions." Let me see now, which other country has used these
strategies to subvert constitutional freedom and abrogate international law,
wage unprovoked war and justify innumerable crimes? What country's president in
2001 proclaimed its enemies as the embodiment of evil and conversely, that his
countrymen represented all that is good and noble on the planet? What nation's
citizens pilloried all those who denounced these illegalities as traitors,
subversives and terrorists? What nation demanded that everyone rally behind the
flag and unquestioningly accept their preposterous version of the September 11,
2001, attack and weapons of mass destruction? I must assume that, intentionally
or not, Sharma is calling the United States a dictatorship. If so, he and I are
in complete agreement. The tactics he describes are exactly those perpetrated
by the American neo-conservative terrorists during the illegal Bush
administration in order to force their radical imperialist plan down the
planet's throat. That this plan is being continued under a new president merely
reinforces the fact that the international plutocratic class cares not a whit
which puppet it manipulates. The main issue of Sharma's letter, the admonition
to Indians to beware the dragon because it is big and bad and lest I forget
(shudder) a "dictatorship," conveniently ignores democratic India's own
bullying local hegemonic imperialism (Goa 1961, Sri Lanka 1987-90, Pakistan
1965, 1971). The border war with China in 1962, a tailwhupping that Indians
still flinch at the mention of, was, from my reading at least, the result of
former president Jawaharlal Nehru's arrogant illusions and Indian military
ineptitude, not sinister Chinese dictators plotting to deflect attention from
the Great Leap Forward. An India beset with its own internal ethnic stewings,
from Assam to Tamil land to Kashmir, is in no position to point a finger at any
country's internal woes.
Hardy Campbell
Houston TX USA (Jul 10,'09)
Sudha Ramachandran's excellent article
Indian might met with Chinese threats [Jul 9] highlights how Chinese
troop incursions into the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh,
which China claims as its own, have spiked in the last year. However, the
economic basis for this was left unsaid. China is hurting as badly as every
other country due to the global economic crisis - in fact it is probably
hurting much worse than others since its economy is built almost entirely
around exports to Western markets, which have pretty much frozen up; we just
don't know it because of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) strict control
over all information. It is well known that economic misery and mass
unemployment create conditions that bring out the worst in human behavior
(racism, xenophobia, scapegoating of minorities, etc). The best-known example
of this is the rise of the Nazis in Germany before World War II. China right
now is in exactly the kind of situation where it needs an enemy to beat up and
distract people's attention from their economic misery, and India is the ideal
target because of its perceived weakness.
Amit Sharma
Cincinnati, OH, USA (Jul 10,'09)
According to Amit Sharma [July 9], almost every government in the world is a
dictatorship because, to varying extents, nearly all governments use the fear
of foreign threats to further their own agenda. You don't need a PhD to figure
out this simple fact. What is interesting, however, is that some of these
governments call themselves democracies, and the clueless eat up all their
tripe.
John Chen
USA (Jul 10,'09)
[Re Obama
discredits Iran 'green light', Jul 8] Although US President Barack
Obama has poured cold water on his vice president's remarks on the right of
Israel to attack Iran if it felt threatened, Joe Biden's slip of the tongue may
have had the encouragement of Washington. Reading the world's press, the eye
has the impression that the Obama administration is becoming more and more
irritated by Tehran's unwillingness to seize his "open hand". Biden's words
therefore may be seen as a veiled warning that Iran would be better of talking
to the US than fretting over the more and more bellicose threats emanating from
Jerusalem.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 9,'09)
[Re Raining on
the Blue Fox, Jul 7] The analogy of a man leaping from the top floor of
a high rise and, while passing every floor, proclaiming, "So far, so good," is
an apt one for Wonderland USA (not to be confused with the relatively logical
abode of the late Michael Jackson). The one modification to this appropriate
metaphor is that the average American would be oblivious to the "successful"
transit of each passing floor, since they would be twittering away about the
lovely view from up there and checking out the latest pop star gossip on their
iPhone. The gap between reality and Wonderland must widen as fast as the gap
between Twitterer and sidewalk shrinks. The fascination of my countrymen for
the trivial, the ridiculous and the sublimely unimportant becomes
understandable when the alternatives are weighed. To do otherwise would be to
allow recognition of the unthinkable, so to avoid this, new terms are added to
the Lexicon of the Lost. "Green shoots" are the modern equivalent of Pink
Elephants and White Rabbits, imaginary sightings that bespeak of desperation,
nostalgia and illusion. The idea that that dreams can exist in a de-Americafied
world will be the last Green Shoot to be shot down, since without it, the very
worth of being an American vanishes. But there remain plenty of diversions that
will keep Iraq, Afghanistan, deficits, depressions and unemployment off the
front web pages. Americans can always count on a steady diet of overdosed
megastars, sobbing, tell-all congressmen and the shooting of the week to
distract us. Nero may have fiddled, and the Titanic's deck hands may
have rearranged chairs, but Americans are convinced that that fast-approaching
sidewalk is the promised land.
Hardy Campbell
Houston, TX USA (Jul
9,'09)
Francesco Sisci wrote a recent article
Beware the Tiananmen reflex [Jul 8] in which he cautioned that the
world should not be too quick to blame the Chinese government entirely, or Han
Chinese alone, for the riots in Xinjiang. That is perfectly true - however, one
also needs to remember that China practices the strictest information control
in the world. Whatever we know right now is what the Chinese government is
allowing us to know, and what we do know is that state TV has been carrying
extensive footage of the carnage inflicted by Uyghurs (but not by any Hans).
You don't need a PhD to figure out that this will increase the violence by
inciting Han mobs to extract vengeance. Is that what the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) wants? This brings me to Juchechosunmanse's letter (July 8): some
foolish Indians (far fewer than you think) may experience glee/schadenfreude
upon hearing of the Xinjiang riots, but all the sensible ones are trembling
with fear because China right now is in exactly the kind of situation where it
needs a foreign enemy to beat up and distract people's attention from their
economic misery and India is the ideal target - in fact we have been down this
road once before in 1962! Asia Times Online has carried a series of articles in
the past describing how Chinese leaders whip up anti-Japan xenophobia whenever
they want to distract attention from their own actions or inaction. Further,
Chinese troop incursions into the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal
Pradesh, which China claims as its own, have spiked in the last few months.
Despite China's achievements, lauded in Hardy Campbell's (July 8) recent
letter, the fact remains that it is a dictatorship and like all dictatorships
it needs to maintain the people in a constant state of war by brainwashing them
with an us-versus-them mentality - we are in a national crisis; our enemies are
out to destroy us; we are good and they are evil; we must stand behind our
leaders and not ask any questions. In this scenario, whenever the leadership
feels that their authority is being threatened they must quickly find a weak
opponent that they can score a military victory over and drown out all internal
dissent through pure jingoism. India needs to watch developments very, very
carefully.
Amit Sharma
Cincinnati, OH, USA (Jul 9,'09)
I feel that the position of Beijing, that the killings in Urumqi were a
terrorist attack, needs some airing here too. I would like to take issue with
the central theme in Francesco Sisci's article
Beware the Tiananmen reflex[ Jul 8]. For about 20 years, many
publications, mainly in the West, have revolved around the issue of the threat
of the rise of Chinese nationalism. Some advocated the breaking up of China
into seven pieces in order to ensure world peace. Some warned the governments
in Southeast Asia that the Chinese in those countries could very likely become
"fifth columns" for Beijing. Sisci's emphasis on the part that "Han" Chinese
nationalism played in the flare-up in Urumqi is another example of the
misreading of a current event arising from this obsession with Chinese
nationalism. Even Sisci himself admitted that Chinese nationalism had never
oppressed the Tibetans and the Uyghurs in their 1,000-year relationship. This
fact explained why the Uyghurs and the Tibetans were not completely won over by
the new master-wannabes like the Russians, the British and the Americans in the
last century. In short, the recent killings in Lhasa and Urumqi are the result
of the foreign anti-China forces linking up with the separatists in launching a
pre-planned terrorist attack. The random killings and the coordinated efforts
demonstrated this.
Jason
United Kingdom (Jul 9,'09)
[Re Another UN
failure in Myanmar, Jul 7] You cannot fault United Nations secretary
general Ban Ki-moon for trying. Yes, he did take Myanmar's generals to task on
their own turf, but they remained unmoved. They know no shame. Still, it won't
stop the UN from knocking again on Myanmar's repressive junta's door. Sanctions
won't work since such neighbors as China and India, who are vying for Myanmar's
favor, will violate them. The nation's Association of Southeast Asian Nations
neighbors are forced to utter weak words of protest, bolstering the pillars of
the junta's rule through timidity, as they fear strong action will have a
backlash on their own authoritarian regimes.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jul 9,'09)
In the article Ghost of
Marx haunts China's riots[Jul 7] by Jian Junbo, the author concludes:
"The shared identity of the Chinese - as socialist labor - is gradually falling
to pieces." Is this guy for real? He is more than 20 years late in drawing such
a simplistic conclusion. Although I appreciate the detailed chronology provided
in the article, his analysis is not at all insightful. Further, his assertion
that "the economic and political marginalization of ethnic minorities is
destroying the foundation of some ethnic groups' Chinese identity" is based on
a false premise that members of ethnic groups in China ever felt themselves to
be Chinese at all. Just ask any Tibetan about their "Chinese identity". They
have none.
Daniel McCarthy
Salt Lake City, Utah USA (Jul 8,'09)
[Re Inside the unquiet
west, Jul 7] Somehow I knew the Indians would be watching what is
happening in Xinjiang, China, with a lot of glee and schadenfreude.
That's why I was not surprised by one of Asia Times Online's resident Indian
"China hands" Sreeram Chaulia's comments. I do want to say though that I agree
with him that instead of always blaming "foreign-based diaspora provocateurs"
for this type of thing, the Chinese government should think hard and figure out
what went wrong. Why are so many ethnic Uyghurs, Tibetans and others not happy
and content? It is all too convenient to blame foreign-based provocateurs
instead of looking for the root cause of the problem. If these people were
happy in the first place there would be little to do for those who wish China
ill. However, Chaulia, like many of his fellow Indian and Western commentators,
has developed the knee-jerk reaction of implying (without any shred of
evidence) that somehow the Chinese security forces were responsible for those
156 plus people who perished. I challenge him or anyone else to come up with
the evidence. I am all for revealing the truth. It never ceases to amaze me how
some "China hands", most of whom have never set their feet on Chinese soil,
appear to know so much (so they think) about what is going on in China. It also
never ceases to amaze me how obsessed some are with China. If only they could
focus their energy on their own country.
Juchechosunmanse
Beijing (Jul 8,'09)
The People's Republic of China will soon celebrate its own version of
"Independence Day", October 1. Sixty years will have elapsed since that
momentous day when 100 years of foreign-imposed ignominy was wiped clean from
the Middle Kingdom's history. Say what you will about Mao Zedong and his
methods, he wrought an enormous sea-change in the Third World's perception of
what they were capable of achieving in spite of the white man's opposition. It
may or may not be a coincidence that the domino chain of collapsing European
overseas empires began in the next decade, but the power of China's example has
in my opinion been underestimated by historians. Indeed, the success of the
largest "communist" nation on Earth in trumping all of the so-called
Euro-capitalist countries is without equal in world history (with a nod to
Japan.) However, I have come to the conclusion that the People's Republic of
China must now be prepared to break with success and acknowledge a tumultuous
future calling for change. Other success stories, heady with the wine of
exploding economies and self-deluding mythologies, have seen that the
continuation of the tried 'n true was not a recipe for continued prosperity.
Witness the United States' refusal to read the tea leaves about massive debts
and imploding industry, or Rome's refusal to see that hiring mercenary
barbarians to do their dirty work was not a viable long-term game plan. The
continued suppression of dissent, ethnic unrest, wealth inequity, corruption,
cronyism and peasant riots demand a change in the status quo, lest the ruling
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) go the way of other late-to-the-party communist
parties. If done gradually, the release of pent-up frustrations, resentments
and desires can be defused gradually over time, with the CCP maintaining
hegemony. After all, regardless of the West's double-standards on human rights
and freedom, etc, the CCP has presided over an unparalleled improvement in
Chinese living standards, and merits a "second chance" of its own making. The
form that that chance takes will be different than Eurocentric visions of
progress and enlightenment (thank God) but will nonetheless be a break from the
current non participatory status of the Chinese citizenry. Let's all hope that
happens. What will doom the CCP and China to future pain and suffering is a
denial that interesting times demand interesting courage.
Hardy Campbell
Houston TX (Jul 8,'09)
[Re Ghost of Marx haunts
China's riots, Jul 7] United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:
"Wherever it is happening or has happened the position of the United Nations
and the secretary general has been consistent and clear: that all the
differences of opinion, whether domestic or international, must be resolved
peacefully through dialogue." This is clearly not acceptable statement from the
UN chief. Instead of condemning the violence from the terrorists and criminals,
he gave them equal ground. There was no dialogue offered from the terrorists
and there should be no dialogue offered to the Uyghur terrorists. The only
proper response is a ruthless crackdown. I am also saddened that the Chinese
government was not able to protect the Chinese people.
John Johnson
California (Jul 8,'09)
I am somebody who has trouble trying to figure out the craziness of modern
economics, probably just like 99% of the world population. I know of very few
economists who write in simple enough language for ordinary people to follow,
mainly Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who writes opinion pieces for the New York
Times, and Asia Times Online's Mighty Mogambo Guru (MMG) and Kunal Kumar Kundu.
In a recent article (Mukherjee
budget bows to politics, [Jul 7] Kundu warned that the Indian
government was going overboard with deficit spending to stimulate the economy
and that there was an urgent need to balance the budget. However, what I've
gathered from Krugman's articles is that there have been only three occasions
in modern economics where a lack-of-spending crisis hit at a time when the
usual weapon to combat it has already been used up - ie, when the government
can no longer spur economic activity by lowering the interest rate since it has
already been lowered close to zero. The first case was during the Great
Depression of the 1920s: the US government started off right by massive
infrastructure development to create jobs and spending but then it became too
eager to balance the budget prematurely, decreased spending and promptly
re-plunged the country into a prolonged economic sickness (just short of
full-fledged depression) that did not go away until World War II came along and
created a massive demand for all kinds of products. A sort of similar scenario
happened in the second case in Japan in the 1990s, with the added fact that
there was no world war to lift the economy out of its sickness by creating a
massive demand for industry to satisfy so the sickness never truly went away.
The third case is unfolding right now and we are yet to know how it will work
out. However, the logic is easy for laymen like me to follow: the time to save
for a rainy day is when things are going OK and the capacity to save exists;
when a super-crisis hits just borrow, borrow, borrow and think about repaying
the debt tomorrow! Of course, the debt must eventually be repaid so there do
need to be limits on deficit spending. I hope Kundu and the MMG can shed light
on these issues in future articles - at what point is government debt starting
to get out of hand, and what level of short-term debt is tolerable for the sake
of long-term economic stimulation?
Amit Sharma
Cincinnati, OH, USA (Jul 8,'09)
Re Urumqi counts dead,
awaits crackdown, Jul 6] Context please. The spark which ignited the
protest in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, began in Guangdong province. There, two
Uyghurs were killed by a Han Chinese mob, for allegedly raping a Chinese woman.
This added to the anger that Uyghurs feel at the oppressive Beijing government.
What makes the demonstration significant is that as long as protests remained
on the borders of Xinjiang, China had little to worry about; now, chickens have
come home to roost in the capital Urumqi. Remember, Xinjiang, like Tibet, is
one of the yellow stars in China's flag, and it is a province of immense
mineral wealth and business opportunities for the Han population. This policy
works against the rights of the Uyghurs, who have long felt strangers in their
own land. Beijing cannot dismiss the "riot" as splitist since at the heart of
the problem, like the anger in Tibet, is the Chinese Communist Party's own
blindness.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 7,'09)
The passing of Robert McNamara makes one speculate about the ability of
Americans to learn anything at all from their past. As secretary of defense in
the Vietnam era he misapplied the lessons that should have been learned from
the Korean war and the French debacle in Indochina in the 1950s. He presided
over the nearly catastrophic policy of nuclear confrontation with the USSR in
Cuba, and ratcheted up the arms race thereafter, again drawing the wrong
conclusions. And he was one of the brighter, less reactionary Republicans at
the time (when the GOP actually had some relevance), a sensible man whose major
failing was his inability to comprehend that not everyone on the planet Earth
is an American. But that is not a uniquely McNamarian defect. Indeed, one could
argue that the American stubbornness in ignoring history is precisely because
it continues to show us that simple, unequivocal fact, that not everyone
ascribes to our definitions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Apparently that conviction, that what is good for America is good for the
world, whether they like or not, is the sine qua non of our manifest
destiny. Evidence to the contrary is an unnatural aberration or worse, showing
that the defiant, recalcitrant non-Americans are either stupid, insane or
demonically evil, in which case lethal violence and the miscreant's extinction
is wholly justified. So history is the real villain for Americans, an
unyielding repeater of a bizarre and illogical concept that no American can
fathom.
Hardy Campbell
Houston TX (Jul 7,'09)
[Re Urumqi counts dead,
awaits crackdown, Jul 6] "Peaceful" demonstration with knives, batons,
bricks and stones, killing more than 150, how ridiculous is that? I recommend
the Chinese government strike down the criminals with fierce force. Don't worry
about the West or the West's media because the Chinese won't ever be right in
their minds anyway. China should also reconsider its foreign policy and
strategies against terrorists. China should not cooperate with countries
harboring terrorists against China. Let these countries fight their own "war on
terror" and China fights China's.
John Johnson
California (Jul 7,'09)
[Re Iraq
celebrates a victory of sorts, Jul 1] On the cusp of America
celebrating the day in 1776 when we asserted our independent sovereignty in
defiance of British colonialism, it may be useful to pause and reflect on the
meaning of that term in the modern world. The definitions in the various
dictionaries and thesauri deal with the means by which states regulate
activities inside their delineated geopolitical boundaries without interference
from extraterritorial influences. But this is fantasy and has been imploded
time and time again by the strong at the expense of the weak. The proclaimed
policies espoused by various countries to assert their "selective sovereignty"
over other states, such as America's Monroe Doctrine and the USSR's Brezhnev
Doctrine, have been used to justify invasions, subversions, coercions and
perversions of justice, culture and peace. "Limited sovereignty", indeed, is
the implicit philosophy of a First World still governed by racist ideas of
white Judeo-Christian superiority and wisdom over the Third World. Iraq's
celebration over its new "sovereignty" highlights the yawning gap between a
First World's implicit definition of that concept for themselves (ie, no
foreign troops on their sacred soil) to the first world's definition of that
concept for non-Western states (ie, you're as sovereign as our troops allow you
to be.) Whereas Iraq with its relatively benign history of acquiescence to
foreign conquest can accommodate the rationalization necessary to swallow this
bitter pill of national humiliation, that attribute cannot be said of the
Afghan people, who have repeatedly shown their willingness to destroy their
country 1,000 times over rather than submit to a foreigner's heel. All the
noble and Westernocratic sentiments about improving education, health care,
women's right, etc, matter not a whit to the average Afghan. They will die to
the last man, woman and child until the last North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Crusader is either buried or leaves with his tail between his legs. What
Americans haves shown an utter inability to comprehend is that the people of
Afghanistan share America's implicit definition of sovereignty, which forbids
the presence of foreign control and barracked troops. That is very strange,
since otherwise Americans automatically assume that all our little brown
brothers are secretly harboring concealed Americans under their turbans and burkhas.
Yes, America, celebrate your independence, and while you're at it, show some
understanding why others share what that means.
Hardy Campbell
Hosuton TX (Jul 3,'09)
[Dollar's
future in US hands, Jul 1] by Henry C K Liu is again an excellent
contribution. I realized long ago the unfairness of having the dollar as world
reserve currency, especially for poor nations. It was always unclear to me why
this was never mentioned in the mainstream media. It was a no-brainer for the
United States just to make (print) money out of thin air to finance wars, trips
to other planets, huge research projects, etc. But who was really paying for
all those expensive adventures? Hardly the US, since they have run such a huge
deficit for such a long time. The answers have been given by Liu. I can't see
how the US can save the dollar (as a reserve currency) since they are already
bankrupt but keep acting as before (as an imperial power). At this moment, I
think that China would suffer too from a sudden dollar devaluation, due to the
huge dollar reserves it possesses.
Manuel de la Torre (Jul 3,'09)
I've been puzzled for a very long while now on two aspects of Asia Times
Online's letters pages. Why is spelling always the American way? Why don't you
use paragraphs?
Ian C Purdie
Sydney, Australia (Jul 3,'09)
One word answers both questions - style. - ATol
[Re China boosts
gas imports from Turkmenistan, Jul 1] Money talks. No question about
it! China has the wherewithal. So it is hardly eyebrow-raising news that it is
ramping up purchases of gas from Turkmenistan. And Beijing has opened new lines
of credit to Turkmenistan to sweeten the deal. China is very active in snapping
up energy related contracts in former Soviet Central Asian republics. One only
has to think of Kazakhstan as an example. For these countries, China is a
"safer" partner in energy to do business with. Their former master Russia is
quick to take slight at what it perceives as say the Ukraine's refusal to jump
to the crack of its gas price whip, thereby blocking the delivery in winter of
the very fuel which heats its West European customers' homes and runs its
industries. Although Moscow is clawing back influence in Central Asia - as
often reported in Asia Times Online - Russia lacks the cash flow China has. We
therefore see a potential rift among the two strongmen of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization and its goal of opposing America's growing influence
in Central Asia.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 2,'09)
[Re Obama creates
a deadly power vacuum, Jun 29] Perhaps it is time that commentators
like Spengler realize that US President Barack Obama or not, the US's coffers
are no longer well enough stocked for it to continue playing the role of
world's policeman. Given the size of its trade, budget and credibility deficit,
perhaps it is time that the US starts policing the likes of Bernard Madoff and
Halliburton and comes to recognize its own limitations.
TutuG
Scotland (Jul 1,'09)
[Re People's
power and manipulated masses, Jun 30] The Philippines is one of the
most corruption-infested countries in the world. Taking bribes is done openly
without fear. The size of the bribe can approach 50% of project costs and
government officials are the ones making the demands. The corruption in the
country reaches up to the top echelons of the government. The Catholic Church
in the Philippines has been overly extremist in opposing any type of birth
control and has caused the population to reach over 90 million. Vote-buying is
rampant in the poor rural areas.
Wendy Cai
USA (Jul 1,'09)
[Re Lessons
from the revolution, Jun 30] Historical parallels are a tricky
mistress. Martin Hutchinson's review of The British Industrial Revolution in
Global Perspective is a case in point. Consider "imperialism". It is a
word coined in the late 19th century, and by a conservative British writer.
Lenin picked it up as a useful instrument to condemn capitalism. Take the
twists and turns of the financial markets which have brought the world's house
of cards down. Since memories are amazingly short, who has read Rudolf
Hilferding's Finanzcapitalism today? Or for that matter John Kenneth
Galbraith's The Great Crash, which documents the same credit default
swap-like financial hoodwinks which Goldman Sachs practiced in the 1920s
leading up to the world recession? Although Hutchinson mentions Max Weber, he
forgets the extraordinarily sweeping historical account of sheep and coal and
the explanation of the global nature of capitalism in Marx's Das Kapital.
As George Santayana famously put it, say, those who forget the lessons of
history are fated to repeat them.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jul 1,'09)
[Re Up, down,
out and doomed, Jun 30] Once again the Mogambo Guru provides excellent
information and analysis. What I wish he had emphasized is that the financial
and government "experts" act as though the fake data from the government are
true. When they are deceived by their own deceptions they make egregious
mistakes. Then we all suffer. As Mogambo would say, "We are doomed."
Tom Gerber
USA (Jul 1,'09)
[Re Up, down,
out and doomed, Jun 30] Martin Hutchinson's review was enjoyable. This
article reminds me of one of Henry C K Liu's continuing observations that
personal incomes are too low to pull modern economies. In North America,
personal incomes have been static while real GDP has risen. If high real wages
were a key part of the British rise, what is the ultimate effect the steady
decline of real wages as a share of GDP?
Steve McCaffery
Canada (Jul 1,'09)
The righteous are happy today in Wonderland. Bernie Madoff, that
personification of evil incarnate, has been convicted and sentenced to a life
of Ponzi schemes involving license plates and nail files embedded in cakes. It
seems that monsieur Madoff's embodiment of capitalism left many dissatisfied,
seeing as they banked their life savings on a smooth talker who promised them
the moon and a piece of Pluto too. Madoff's mistake was that he didn't claim it
was all a mistake, a horrible, massive, colossal booboo of mythological
proportions. If he had, an America accustomed to universal incompetence would
have shrugged its collective shoulders and said, "Huh. To err is human, to
forgive is sooo American." He would have gotten a slap on the wrist, followed
by a book deal, movie and a cozy job in the Obama administration. How many
grossly negligent, criminally stupid events have been dismissed with a "tsk
tsk" in the last 10 years?
Hardy Campbell
Houston TX (Jul 1,'09)
June Letters
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