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JANUARY 2011
[Re Days of rage in
Egypt, Jan 29] Egypt's army has not yet intervened to quell the "days
of rage" which are spreading in depth and breath. Who knows what is going on
behind the scenes in the casernes. Ultimately Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak
will have to give to some popular demands or revert to a harsh crackdown, which
the military might not agree to since its sons and daughters, too, have taken
to the streets.
And the military might simply replace Mubarak and initiate a brief moment of
"peristroika" to quiet Egyptian streets. Any solution to today's crisis in
Egypt is a bad omen for Israel. Futhermore, change in Egypt - the largest and
most populous Arab state - would bring a new dynamic to the region which would
put into question the Sadat buyoff for recognizing the Zionist state.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Italy (Jan 31, '11)
The ominous clouds of the Tunisian-style revolt that toppled president Zin
al-Abidiene Ben Ali have entered Egypt - ignoring Libya in between, but for how
long? - where protesters are demanding the Egyptian government end its 30-year
state of emergency, pass a law preventing a president from serving more than
two terms, and for Interior Minister Habib al-Adly to resign.
Protests gaining momentum every day have afforded an opportunity for the
opposition parties to unite. The inevitable element of violence that becomes
part of such protests has started taking its toll and a few police officers
have died in Cairo. Government buildings at many places have been set ablaze.
Anticipating still uglier situations, Gamal Mubarak, the son of the president
Hosni Mubarak, has fled to the UK with his wife and children.
People all over the world now - thanks to the Internet - become instantly aware
of the happenings and in the process not only become more knowledgeable but
also more cognizant of their civil rights and liberties. The rulers are,
therefore, advised in their own interest to heed to the looming Tunisian
tsunami and look after the masses before it gets too late.
Col Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Pakistan (Jan 31, '11)
The recent warning from Moody's of Wonderland's impeccable credit rating being
in jeopardy barely merited a blip on the information consciousness here. With
"recovery" blossoming all around us, who wants to hear more bad news?
I mean, seriously, can't those fuddy-duddies at Moody's, the same geniuses who
kept rubber-stamping AAA ratings for Lehman and AIG and all the other
money-sucking black holes of 2008, understand that all this new financial
gloom-and-doom talk is just so, well, three years ago? Besides having a huge
deficit in credibility, the agency that didn't cry wolf at Enron or WorldCom or
at anyone during the entire subterranean mortgage era is now perceived as
trying to throw cold water on a limpid, halting, and painful crawling from the
economic grave.
Of course, what is most helpful in Wonderland is the unwillingness and
inability to make the simple calculations that shows America can never re-pay
its creditors at even diminished rates of expenditure, regardless of all the
bone cutting, tissue shredding and disembowelment that the Tea Partying GOP
that gave us these massive deficits fantasizes about.
Moody's, on the other hand, after having sinned egregiously with its shoddy
accounting practices in the past, is more than attentive to these tea leaves.
It's is also listening to the rumblings from America's creditors, who are
preparing the way for a post-dollar, post-America world. Thus, the venerable
credit agency issued its unacknowledged warning as the proverbial
shot-across-the-bow, the required red flag before the offending vessel is fired
upon and sent to the bottom. Such a move, heretofore not only unmentionable but
unthinkable, would send Wonderland's Potemkin-like house of tissue paper cards
dissolving in an avalanche of divestitures, bankruptcies and unemployed mobs.
Which may not be a bad thing in the long run. Impoverished and denuded of its
illusions of exclusivity and exceptionalism, forced to behave as a civilized
nation equal to all others, Wonderland may yet return to the founding ideals
that never left the paper they were printed on.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Jan 28, '11)
[Re Hu confronts ghost of
Stalinn, Jan 26] Both countries should understand the utility in
parading social progress. For the United States, it is in the amelioration of
racism. Even the election of Obama as the US president may not be sufficiently
salient demonstration to the Chinese of the American social progress of late;
the two Chinese-American cabinet members ought to, especially with their
prominent presence in the welcoming party for Hu.
For China, it is overcoming sexism; in this light, the former Wu Yi was a
salient display of Chinese social progress; China should not overlook the
utility of displaying the competent Chinese women in high positions. Likely,
mistrust of the US is to a large degree fueled by the bitter Chinese experience
stemming from Western virulent racism in the past two centuries and undoubtedly
many Chinese see the current American foreign policy toward China as racially
motivated.
The two Chinese-American cabinet members among the welcoming party should be
thought-provoking for many Chinese. Just as important, the extremely favorable
position of mainland China over Taiwan can be palpable from this light. As long
as war across the Taiwan Strait has not occurred but is possible, all
responsible countries will continue to toe the diplomatic line of one-China, as
the mainland’s superiority in all fields keeps accruing.
The Taiwan issue will be settled with a combination of pressure on Taiwan and
mainland China’s willingness to compromise without forgoing the ultimate goal
of reunification. Excessive assertiveness over the Taiwan issue to the extent
of hostility toward the US will be a blunder if it induces the US to sacrifice
Taiwan and uses it as a pawn in a proxy war against China - the US of 2025
won't do that unless driven by survival.
The issue of Tibet is even more mundane. The Dalai Lama will soon pass away and
Tibetan assimilation is a sociological predictable phenomenon, as social
progress in the US, that will not be derailed - political debate will be more
and more demonstrated as feckless. The Chinese should see that economic
relations with the slowly declining superpower, that is socially more
progressive, are paramount considerations. I believe future Chinese leaders
will be cognizant of this crux.
Jeff Church
United States (Jan 27, '11)
[Re US forces North Korea's
hand on uranium, Jan 25] Everyone, including North Korea, agrees that
there should be a stabilized and denuclearized Korean Peninsula, meaning a
check on enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. The utterance of the word
"uranium" by US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao does not
force Pyongyang's hand on the use of uranium in light water reactors, which the
South uses in its many nuclear plants.
The US media, for example, conveniently overlooked that during Dr Siegfried
Hesker's visit of an unknown North Korean nuclear facility, his hosts showed
him work on light water reactors. Now, the US promised North Korea it would
help build such reactors for them. It reneged on its promise, and chose a hard
line policy to cripple the North's nuclear program. It failed completely. Now,
Pyongyang has the bomb.
Washington has yet to learn that if it does not talk to North Korea, Pyongyang
will continue going its own way. China understands that, but not the US.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jan 26, '11)
[Re Leaks shake up
Israeli-Palestinian balance, Jan 24] The leaks published by Al-Jazeera
and The Guardian show, if ever we had a question, that the Israeli and American
fingers have been on the scales against Palestinian interests. The Palestinian
Authority have been willing to "compromise" to a considerable degree, but the
Israeli negotiators wouldn't hear of it. Baldly put, Israel wants its cake and
eat it too. The US keeps pressuring the PA who eagerly want a homeland of their
own. This, however, runs counter to the Zionist - revisionist or non
revisionist - of an Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Italy (Jan 25, '11)
[Re India's poor
paying for government folly, Jan 24] This was an excellent article, and
it is about time that people started paying more attention to food issues.
With respect however, there is one key issue neglected here; the role that
rapid population growth has played in the looming food shortage, and the fact
that, in general, this growth is due to specific government policies. Maximum
crop yields per acre have remained stable for about a decade: the green
revolution is tapped out, and genetically modified foods over virtually no
significant gains. Meanwhile the global population continues to expand by about
100 million a year.
It may well be that India's agriculture is inefficient, but consider this: no
amount of investment can significantly increase the absolute amount of fresh
water, so investment in irrigation has strong diminishing returns. Similarly,
one wonders if low crop yields in India could also be partially explained by
farmers being forced to use increasingly marginal land: more investment really
won't help here, at least not at the scale and time frames needed.
It will always be possible to raise crop yields, but increasingly this will be
a hard and slow process. However, it's easy to add more mouths to feed. It is a
common misconception that low fertility rates only come after living standards
have risen: the reality is that it is the opposite, because at least without an
open frontier it is almost never possible for the slow and steady building of
per-capita wealth to outstrip the potential of human populations to double
every 25 years or so...
What causes too-rapid population growth is, a surprising amount of the time,
government policies aimed at keeping wages low and profits high. In particular,
the elites deciding that they need to force or persuade people to have more
children than they would by themselves choose, because "the people" are too
stupid to be left with this decision on their own. It's a philosophy that
treats people like cattle. This really should be commented on more.
Consider that the recent population explosion of Mexico was engineered by the
oligarchs who waged a massive propaganda campaign to convince Mexicans to have
enormous numbers of children at an early age (see The Mexicans: a personal
portrait of a people, by Patrick Oster). Ostensibly to make Mexico
"bigger and better", the only reason I can think of for this policy is to
ensure that wages stay low. It's working. It's working so well that grinding
poverty now threatens utter collapse, and the same oligarchs that wanted more
people are now desperate to dump their surplus population on the United States…
Similar policies have been followed in many other countries, for example Iran,
where the ayatollahs encouraged large families so that they could use human
wave attacks against Iraq rather than hire competent generals. As usual, after
population growth rates picked up the Iranian standard of living began falling,
all those unemployed young men started making trouble, and the government is
now desperately trying to fight demographic momentum with a new set of
population control measures…
It gets little press that the current massive growth of China's population was
due to Mao's policy of encouraging the Chinese to have enormous families.
Economists arguing for restraint were purged: ''We lost one Ma Yinchu and
gained 600 million more Chinese". The current one-family one-child policy
(Official current fertility rate: 2 children/family. Probable real fertility
rate: three children/family) slowed but did not stop the demographic momentum
of the previous policy of maximizing population, and was only instituted when
the communists worried that not even they could keep order in the resultant
misery.
The Indian government has classified its demographics data (interesting, that),
so I have no direct evidence, but I suspect that India now has a policy
encouraging rapid population growth - or at least is doing nothing to slow it.
Recently on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart an Indian billionaire talked
about how they now know that population control is a folly because ‘people are
the ultimate resource', the rich build skyscrapers as private residences on the
profits of 25-cent-an-hour labor, and there are currently about 500 million
people in India suffering from chronic malnutrition… If the past is any guide,
the Indian government will pay no real attention to this poverty - it is so
profitable you see - unless the stability of the nation itself is threatened,
in which case the government will panic and try to reverse things. But these
"binge and purge" population policies rarely work out smoothly, and there is
usually a lot of suffering in the meantime. Surely we can do better?
I do not deny the role that increased investment and efficiency must play. But
population growth, and the role of governments in maximizing it to benefit the
rich at the expense of everyone else, surely deserves a mention as well.
Timothy Gawne (Jan 25, '11)
[Re Hu's dollar
frustration, Jan 21] While an excellent article which did answer some
questions remaining in my mind, it failed to answer the most burning question
among a number of possible solutions offered. Given the fact the existing
system largely unfairly benefits only one nation, why are all the other nations
on the planet not simply implementing unilateral reforms collectively?
What power does the United States exert against the rest of humanity and is
apparently able to prevent the blindingly obvious solution? That answer
completely eludes me.
Ian C Purdie
Australia (Jan 24, '11)
[Re A sliver of
hope in the Middle East, January 18, 2011] If you put aside all the
white noise, common sense would tell a right-thinking person that the greatest
damage done to US national security in the last eight years is the destruction
of America's economic strength at home. How? By making America fiscally pitiful
and broke, with policies or lack of them, that doubled the national debt, ie,
fighting two wars, a tax cut, and a Medicare fix, none of which were paid for.
Further damage was done by the captains of industry, aided and abetted by their
counterparts on Wall Street, not only by sending America's jobs overseas in the
name of globalization, but by their greed, looting and destroying the savings
and investments of millions of Americans. President Obama, having inherited all
of this, much to his credit, understood that without a strong, vibrant economy
at home, the national security of the US is at risk and is acting accordingly,
to bring about the much-needed changes.
To correct the record, Meir Dagan, the retiring Israeli intelligence chief,
first made his remark, now making headlines, over a year and a half ago, on
June 23, 2009, to Israel's Parliament Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He
is repeating now what the media, evidently given all the hype, missed then,
that if Iran did everything right, it could produce one nuclear bomb by 2015.
This has to be seen in the light of comments from Israeli political leaders,
starting in the 1990s, that Iran would have a nuclear weapon operational in one
year. They have repeated those remarks every year for the last 20 years.
There is not one scintilla of evidence that Iran's nuclear enrichment program
is a weapon's program. Yet, those who know better, and the media, for their own
design, constantly portray the nuclear enrichment program as a nuclear weapons
program.
Fariborz S Fatemi
United States (Jan 24, '11)
Some may wonder what Hu Jintao was thinking when Barack Obama began his usual
tired, cliched harangue about China's human rights record. Well, wonder no
more, Wonderlanders! Futureman sent me a copy of Hu's biography, to be written
in 2027.
I quote: "So Obama, whose soldiers were, as he was speaking, waging war on
Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis and God knows how many other people with the same
colored skin as his, started playing that same old broken record about China's
failures with human rights, civil liberties, free speech, blah blah blah. Huh.
Last time I looked, killing men, women and children in illegal occupations
qualifies as human rights violations too. And there were those activist people
outside waving signs about Tibet, which everyone, including this country,
recognizes as Chinese sovereign territory. "But maybe they're right. Maybe we
could have done something different with the Tibetans, instead of bringing
their feudal society into the 20th century and giving them roads and industry
and a higher standard of living. Perhaps we should have taken a page out of
America's stellar record in human rights and did to Tibetans what the
Anglo-Saxons did with the native red people; herd them into cramped, arid
deserts thousands of miles from their homes or simply kill those recalcitrants
who refused to go. Or maybe we could have treated Tibetans like American black
slaves. Why, we could have sold them to work in American cotton fields! And I
loved Obama's insinuating comments about his imprisoned fellow Nobel peace
laureate. What a sense of humor these Westerners have. "Peevishly, I wanted to
ask the president if the rumors were true that his own peace prize keeps oozing
fresh blood every day, but I was the gracious guest and refrained. I could have
been a real churl and asked the "Change" president why millions of his own
people were still denied health insurance, one of the most basic human rights
recognized as such by even most other white societies. But I didn't. No, I let
him drone on about currency manipulation, which God knows these Americans have
never been guilty of a million times over. "My speech writers even wanted me to
add a cutting comment about how some social historians think that huge wealth
gaps, capitalist speculation and a blind ideological devotion to unrestrained
human greed are the most egregious human rights violations of all, and boy, was
that one tempting. But I'm proud that I stayed above the pettiness to the end.
"Of course, we both had to go through these hollow exercises in play-acting,
pretending the Americans are still relevant. I even continued that habit with
the American dictator who overthrew their government in 2022. She owed us big
time too; we bankrolled her entire coup d'etat in return for Taiwan and Japan.
But that's another story."
Hardy Campbell
United States (Jan 24, '11)
Muhammed Cohen shouldn't get too excited. He forgets the original attraction of
Singapore to the British was that it was a good place for commerce. And the
Merlion City has lived up to its reputation. "The WSJ" and the "Heritage
Foundation" give the Singapore government high honors for its thriving economy
and the law and order it imposes on its citizenry. It is fair to say that with
less than two generations, Singapore's economy has gone from Third World status
to a First World rank. Yes, the city state has its problems and the recent
gazetting of the "Online Citizen" as a political organization raises issues of
freedom of expression as elections approach. Yet, one thing is clear, the PAP
has formed generations of citizens who are sharp enough to give their founding
fathers as good as they get. Nonetheless, the spirit of practicality and
commonsense prevails, and that, too, attraits the approval of America's right
wing.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jan 20, '11)
Victor Katsov's glass is half full. He sees cause for "optimism" in resolving
the Israeli Palestinian issue. Not so fast. The move by Israeli defense
minister Barak to leave Labor and form his own party is a sign that a power
struggle is in the works. The state of Israel is devolving into a three way
struggle for who is going to rule. Will it be Netenyahu or Lieberman or Barack?
What is at stake is democracy in Israel. Whoever wins the race will rule with a
right wing fist of iron. And what's more, he will incorporate the occupied
territory into a unitary Zionist entity. That spells trouble any which way you
look at it.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Palermo (Jan 19, '11)
[Re Masters of hate
locked and loaded, Jan 12] Pepe Escobar is absolutely right. The real
troublemakers in America have been excused and dismissed by the Obama
administration in a phony bid for unity. These consist of a growing list: major
parts of the past George W Bush administration; many in congress who incite
violence; media hate-mongers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and most of Fox
Noise; most of Wall Street and the corporate elite; and now the Obama
administration itself, the latter keeping Guantanamo, rendition and shielding
corporate criminals.
As you mention the proto-fascist flavor of government and its permitted
plutocracy continue. Sources that reveal secrets that protect democracy, like
WikiLeaks, are a danger to proto-fascism.
Citizens seem to have a voice that diminishes by the day, and neither party,
least of all the Repugs, belongs to the people.
Jim
United States (Jan 18, '11)
[Re Masters of hate
locked and loaded, Jan 12] I'd like to express my appreciation to Asia
Times Online, Donald Kirk, Andrei Lankov and Aidan Foster-Carter for their
remarkably good analyses of the recent tensions on the Korean Peninsula. I'd
also like to express my surprise for not disagreeing with everything that Pepe
Escobar wrote in "Masters of Hate Locked and Loaded" (Jan 12, 2011).
Unfortunately, Escobar always diminishes the impact of his points with
hyperbole. There is no trend toward fascism in the US. There is in America what
there has always been - a lumpy, inconsistent ideological stew that never quite
lives up to founding principles, especially when it comes to actions beyond our
borders. And American domestic politics have always been a blood sport. No one
will ever prove a direct connection between hate-filled political rhetoric and
the actions of a deranged killer like Jared Loughner.
But it is only common sense that such rhetoric breeds violence. It is exactly
what breeds terrorism in the Muslim world - a mainstream that preaches,
teaches, and thrives on intolerance. Terrorism has almost nothing to do with
American foreign policies, or Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. If the
Israelis were Muslims lording it over other Muslims, no one in the Muslim world
would care. Tea Partiers and right-wingers are America's Wahhabis. They
denigrate everyone they disagree with. Everyone whom they oppose is treated as
an existential threat. They want litmus tests to assess who is a true American,
or a true Republican. Ever since World War I, they habitually tar their foes as
"anti-American", or "Socialist".
Yes, they have some things in common with fascists. But their nastiness is
sometimes balanced by their better angels. There is not yet a threat of
right-wing fascism overwhelming America. McCarthyism ran its course, as did Jim
Crow. The Tea Party fad will burn brightly then fizzle out, victim of its power
to destroy but inability to build. Only their core belief will remain, agreed
to by all - our local and national governments are not governing responsibly.
Level-headed Americans still greatly outnumber the hotheads.
Fascism isn't the worry. The worry is a compliant mainstream that is repeatedly
duped into following the right's good intentions down their roads to hell:
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and the total lack of a national industrial policy.
Geoffrey Sherwood
United States (Jan 18, '11)
[Re Sino-US hatchet not
buried yet, Jan 14] One can observe that while history, experience of a
nation, and ideology breed suspicion, the core issue of Taiwan is actually
lucid and well-defined, if one observes objectively and understands the current
social and political climate.
First, greater Chinese military transparency will not diminish China's very
high chance of recovering Taiwan. Second, arms sales to Taiwan are quite
unlikely to alter the island's fate of eventual reunification. There seems to
be an elephant in the room that either side (media and government) wants to
acknowledge; it is Taiwan's vulnerable geography. This geographical reality
will be totally fatal to Taiwan independence and indefinite status quo.
To appreciate the overwhelming strength of this geographic factor, the Chinese
will have to appreciate, ultimately, Western social development of late;
Americans will have to calm their fervor for democracy and freedom and instead
defer to the virtue of peace. Taiwan's geography allows the mainland Chinese
very sharply distinct two-tiered assertiveness (aggressiveness, if one
insists); one it intimidates with, the other it executes. The United States
will be powerless in aiding Taiwan and it is in this context that greater
Chinese military transparency will not be relevant.
Eventually, after two or three decades, China, in essence, will not have to
start a war to control the Taiwan economy at will, due to Taiwan's
vulnerability as an island; the US will not, in essence, start a war at the
detriment of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and (less obvious but idealistically put) the
people of mainland China.
Social progress in the West, the diminution of racism, will be worth at least
this much sensitivity and induce this modicum of American commonsense. (At the
same time, the diplomatic reality that the US recognizes Taiwan is a part of
China will also exert its influence. Reunification is as peaceful as it will
ever get.)
Taiwan will have little or no chance to use any of the weapons it purchases
before it has to negotiate for a Hong Kong-like deal with the mainland, likely
with greater autonomy than Hong Kong but a unitary Chinese government inclusive
of Taiwan will not be negotiable. Curious will be that the mainland Chinese
will eventual own the weapons sold to Taiwan, but by then they will be
technologically obsolete by decades.
David Yang (Jan 18, '11)
[Re Sino-US hatchet not
buried yet, Jan 14] US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did not bring
much to his conversations with China leaders. On the issue of Taiwan, he
cannot. Furthermore treaties with the Republic of Korea cannot be wished away.
On the matter of North Korea, China will not front for the US. China's leaders
have not forgotten that their call for emergency consultations after the
exchange of fire between South and North Korea remained a dead letter in
Washington.
Then there is trade and currency reform and America's challenging China's
"suzerainty" in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea. The list of hurt feelings
is long on both sides. It is significant that having made little progress with
the Chinese that the US is now forging a military alliance with South Korea and
Japan to thwart China's claim to hegemony in east Asia. The US is playing a
dangerous game.
Mel Cooper
Singapore (Jan 18, '11)
[Re Sodomy and Sufism
in Afgaynistan, Jan 10] I'm at a loss to understand the purpose of
Spengler's "Sodomy and Sufism in Afgaynistan." Does Asia Times Online
automatically publish anything he submits? His comments don't provide us with
any insights or further our understanding. They simply represent the kind of
inflammatory, highly selective attack that can be used against any religion
with similar results and can be found on countless blogs. Am I to burn my copy
of the Mathnawi? Between Mowlana (Rumi) and Spengler, who is the wiser?
Ken Rund
United States (Jan 18, '11)
The new theatric release "The Green Hornet" is being generally panned by the
critics but raved by the proles. What most are missing is the brilliant and
modern symbolism of the characters. In the original radio and TV series that
the movie derives its inspiration from, Kato was the reliable, loyal Oriental
chauffeur who accompanied his rich white master to their crime fighting
adventures.
The hero identification was clear; the Green Hornet had the money, the skills,
intelligence and his race going for him; Kato was a valuable martial artist, to
be sure, but still very much an ethnic sidekick (this hierarchy was true even
when the TV series had the immortal Bruce Lee acting as Kato.) But in this new
comedic version, while "The Green Hornet" is still very much white, privileged
and moneyed, the skills, competence and technical know-how are very much
exclusively the Chinese Kato's domain. This Kato invents, manufactures and
operates sophisticated weapons, devices and vehicles to battle evil with. The
Green Hornet, who has led a dissolute life of hedonistic debauchery, just gets
in Kato's way.
Subtle it may be, but how wonderfully this relative juxtaposition of abilities
mirrors that of China and the US. The US, still enamored of its memories of
exclusive hegemony over non-whites, thinks itself at least the equal of China
in wealth and potential, just as the movie Hornet imagines that somehow he and
Kato are equal partners in their contributions to their crime fighting
crusading.
Whereas previous Katos kept their mouths shut in quiescent accommodation, this
modern Kato (portrayed by the Chinese star Jay Chou) will have none of it; he
reminds the bumbling Hornet who the real crime fighter is. So it is with a
newly confident, increasingly impatient China, who has to remind the pompous
Americans who the real industrial and financial power on the planet is. China
is no longer satisfied with playing second banana to a bumbling, incompetent
Wonderland which wags its fingers at a world that refuses to emulate its
catastrophic political, social and economic policies.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Jan 18, '11)
[Re Sodomy and Sufism
in Afgaynistan, Jan 10] Why is Spengler so obsessed with sex in the
Muslim world? Now he's discovered that there are gay men in Afghanistan. Maybe
he should look around the US or the world more extensively. He'll find that sex
is popular everywhere!
Lester Ness
China (Jan 14, '11)
[Re North Korea's end is
nigh - or is it?, Jan 12] Sunny Lee captures well the spirit that has
taken over the South Korean imagination that "North Korea's end is nigh". South
Korea's President Lee Myung-bak also exhibits messianic illusions that he will
reunify a divided Korea. Such thinking is nourished by a political and
religious eschatology that masks dissatisfaction within South Korea.
Alas, North Korea is not at the end of its rope in spite of shamanistic
readings of the innards of its society. If the North is going through a
transition of power, it is equally true that accelerated economic development
in the South has loosened the traditional nuts and bolts of its society. Its
discontent is ripe to satisfy the needs of false prophets who peddle snake oil.
No, the North is not going to collapse nor will it bow to the demands of the
Lee government. Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jan 13, '11)
[Re Budget battle
without principle, Jan 12] It may not really matter all that much who
holds which cards. As the US economy continues to teeter in the next year or
so, the blame will be partly shifted onto the House-majority GOP, a development
that can only benefit the current administration’s re-election prospects.
On a separate note, as Sunny Lee rightly noted, a regime change in North Korea
is and will remain nothing more than a South Korean pipe dream.
John Chen
United States (Jan 13, '11)
[Re Sodomy and Sufism
in Afgaynistan, Jan 10] Spengler should take a look at his own religion
and he will discover, if he already does not know, that Talmud sanctions
pedophilia.
Child rape was practiced in the highest circles of Judaism. This is illustrated
from Yeb. 60b: "There was a certain town in the land of Israel the legitimacy
of whose inhabitants was disputed, and Rabbi sent R. Romanos who conducted an
inquiry and found in it the daughter of a proselyte who was under the age of
three years and one day, and Rabbi declared her eligible to live with a
priest."
The footnote says that she was "married to a priest" and the rabbi simply
permitted her to live with her husband, thus upholding halakah as well
as the dictum of Simeon ben Yohai, "A proselyte who is under the age of three
years and one day is permitted to marry a priest."
These child brides were expected to submit willingly to sex. Yeb. 12b confirms
that under 11 years and one day a little girl is not permitted to use a
contraceptive but "must carry on her marital intercourse in the usual manner."
In Sanhedrin 76b a blessing is given to the man who marries off his children
before they reach the age of puberty, with a contrasting curse on anyone who
waits longer.
In fact, failure to have married off one’s daughter by the time she is 12-1/2,
the Talmud says, is as bad as one who "returns a lost article to a Cuthean"
(Gentile) - a deed for which "the Lord will not spare him." 13 This passage
says: "… it is meritorious to marry off one’s children whilst minors."
Vincent Maadi
South Africa (Jan 11, '11)
[Re The Koreas: Talking
peace, with menaces, Jan 10] South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak had
a plan to tumble North Korea. It failed miserably in the last days of November
2010. And 2010 is his "annus horribilus". He has no plan B in his desk drawer.
Furthermore events are pushing him towards dialogue with the North.
Lee is resisting and has kicked off the new year with another round of military
exercises. His reversal of fortune makes him a poor candidate to lead the GNP
in 2012. By scrapping the "Sunshine" policy, he has a weak hand in dealing with
the North, which has shown "sang froid" in dealing with Lee's braggadoccio and
his "pie in the sky" policy for regime change in Pyongyang. If there is going
to be regime change, it is going to happen in Seoul.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jan 11, '11)
[Re Israel-Palestine
theater starts a new act, Jan 7] Viktor Katsov is looking at the wrong
stage. What is clearly unfolding in Israel is the continuing drama and struggle
for the soul of Israel's right-wing nationalism. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's debonnair style of politics may not be a match for his
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's rough and touble in-your-face rhetoric.
Lieberman lives in the occupied territory and has an appeal not only from
Russian emigrants but also the extremist religious right.
Dealing with the Palestians comes in as a poor second in Israel's priorities,
and the roads which both Netanyahu and Lieberman have taken lead to the same
goal: complete and total annexation of the West Bank, which they call "Judea
and Sumaria".
Abraham Bin Yiju
Palermo (Jan 10, '11)
[Re Harris from India's letter, Jan 7] The same phenomenon is ongoing in the
USA, with evangelists, baptists and mormons having taken the high ground of
vocal true "Christianism" ... and they have very well infiltrated the system,
considering that more than a third of the generals are hard-core fanatical
christianists ... many with means to unleash untold destruction on the planet,
on their inspiration ... And making secret plans for their day of reckoning,
when they'll be able to purge America of its "vermin".
The world looks more and more like Europe in the 16th-17th centuries, where
those with an independent or rational or simply non-violent vision of life were
cut to pieces by the fanatic hordes of both Protestantism and Catholicism...
the poor chaps who were not part of this religious craziness were on the roads,
trapped between a rock and a hard place, and most often on the gallows.
Dr G Bittar
Switzerland (Jan 10, '11)
[Re Death to those who
disagree, Jan 6] The most worrisome aspect about murder of Salman
Taseer and the open support extended to the assassin in social media
(presumably from the educated) is that a "Zionist" kind of ideology is taking
firm root in Pakistan. Any knowledgeable person would agree that Zionism is
wholly a political project riding on the sentiments on religious to achieve its
goals.
Just as Zionists who pronounce any Jew who rejects Zionism or oppose Israel and
its policies as not being Jewish enough, or even worse a self-hating Jew, a
similar kind of reasoning in being bandied in the Islamic sphere.
Any Muslim who does not support the right-wing extremists or support their own
interpretations and views are rejected as not being Muslim enough or are
supporters of secularists and so can even be killed. This is a very dangerous
idea and ordinary Muslims supporting the extremists should remember that there
is no need for an Islamic version of "Zionism" in this world. Already the
extreme rightwing calling themselves Islamists point to such a scenario. It
should not be a case that in future, for a Muslim to be considered so he has to
be believe in some "ism" instead of just believing in Islam. Muslims should be
wary of such a development.
Harris
India (Jan 7, '11)
[Re Kim Jong-eun has Obama
blinking, Jan 6] Kim Myong Chol's somber article has an ironical side.
It gives one a cause to wonder how an untried and untested successor to Kim
Jong-il can make the world's only superpower blink.
Our attention has to be drawn to the failed US North Korea policy, aided and
abetted by South Korea's president affectionately called "Bulldozer" Lee
Myung-bak. Both Washington and Seoul have pursed a course of action which has
pushed political and military objectives to a dangerous point short of war.
North Korea called the bluff of joint military exercises along the Northern
Limit Line (NLL), which scared the bejesus out of the US but alas not South
Korea.
One only has to look at the sullen expression of US special envoy Stephen
Bosworth in Seoul and Beijing, to learn with certainty how much Lee's
intransigeance is causing the Obama administration.
Instead of talking with Pyongyang, the US is relying on China. Such a tack has
bought small beer, and begs the need to engage seriously with North Korea to
resolve issues on a divided Korean peninsula. Until Obama has the will to solve
differences diplomatically, he will in the words of Kim continue to "blink".
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jan 7, '11)
[Re Paul versus
Bernanke, Jan 5] Ron Paul no doubt has learned that lassooing the Fed
is not a job that can be accomplished by any one man. As much as the seasoned
congressman from Texas deserves plaudits for his words, in the end his actions
will likely disappoint, probably in a big way.
John Chen
United States (Jan 7, '11)
[Re The multipolar
hazard, Jan 4] Once a multipolar world order is attained, and as long
as the major powers of the future follow some form of free-market economic
system and are thus united to a considerable degree by mutual trades, the
probability of catastrophic disruption to world peace, whether it be caused by
a major or a smaller power, will appear quite small.
While the United States, the European Union, India and China have shown a great
deal of tendency toward the free-market system, Russia, even if it formed
military/geopolitical alliances with some current NATO member countries (which
is quite possible), would in all likelihood be kept rather content with high
energy prices driven by a vibrant world economy. In such a scenario, none of
these major countries will have an interest in upsetting this more or less
balanced state, and will in fact be collectively motivated to keep in check any
lesser power’s sinister machination. To me and no doubt to many others, the
worry actually lies in the parlous journey leading to that eventual multipolar
state. When the economic situation turns nasty in the US and the American
people feel despaired and desperate, anything will seem possible with a
military superpower. The next decade or so should prove one of the most
interesting and important periods in world history.
John Chen
United States (Jan 5, '11)
[Re Obama takes a
Syrian gamble, Jan 4] The US president's appointment of Robert Ford as
ambassador to Syria may run afoul of the Israeli lobby. The American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) can marshal its forces among members of the
House of Representatives almost at will.
Consider the haste that representative Howard Berman introduced a bill to throw
up road blocks in Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, and
hindering any discussions of a two state solution. It was passed with flying
colors by politicians who fear the Israeli lobby's attack dogs at the time of
elections: no one wants to lose his seat. By opening the door to Damascus,
Obama is giving US policy a slim, but very needed edge against the overwhelming
influence Israel has over US diplomacy.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Palermo, Italy (Jan 5, '11)
[Re Taiwan's surveillance
role for US in doubt, Jan 4] This article included a paragraph stating: According
to recent media reports, Randy Schriver, deputy assistant secretary of state
for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, last year held talks with relevant
Taiwanese officials in order to persuade Taipei to revive a triangular
US-Taiwan-Japan intelligence connection which has been in place since the
1990s. I apologize for having named Randy Schriver as the current
deputy assistant secretary of state while in fact, he no longer holds the
position. The recent media reports I referred to in my article were published
by the Hong Kong-based Chinese-language magazine Yazhou Zhoukan on December 9,
2010. Mr Schriver wishes to note that he has no knowledge of, or involvement
with, the initiative mentioned in the article.
Jens Kastner
Taipei (Jan 5, '11)
Editor's note: The article has been amended accordingly. [Re
The war that wasn't in Korea, Jan 3] Will South Korea's President Lee
Myung-bak stick to his New Year's resolution to reduce tensions with the North
and be ready to go back to the six-party talks in Beijing? That is an important
question to ask in light of Lee's words and actions in the months leading up to
the exchange of fire between the two Koreas in November 2010.
His brinksmanship has a limit short of war. Will the Obama administration also
show diplomatic pragmatism by returning to the Beijing talks? The US has cut
off any oxygen to strategies in dealing with North Korea other than threats,
sanctions, and heated words.
It is obvious that both South Korea and the US are betting on instability in
North Korea as the transition in power from one Kim to another is taking place.
It is also apparent that they have made certain assumptions that are not
panning out. Since war is not an option, will peaceful means take the high road
that will eventual lead to a peace treaty?
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Jan 4, '11)
The Most Dangerous Man in
Korea, Dec 23] Peter Lee's article was a pointed analysis of the PRC's
advantageous position during the current imbroglio on the Korean Peninsula.
Certainly President Lee's anti-Sunshine Policy has shown itself to be short on
gain. Like Japanese Defense Minister Maehara, he miscalculated entirely the
amount of US "support" he could count on during these conflicts that are
essentially over territoriality. In fact, the US military has shown itself
entirely removed from such issues as "borders"; what matters here is bases and
"force expression".
Lee's analysis of Japan's position - or lack thereof - in current affairs is
also on the whole palpable, but in need of some clarity. Japan's "also-ran"
status in the Northeast Asia security arena is lamentable from a political
perspective, but only if "security" is limited to issues of "militarism".
Unfortunately, defense analysts only look at this set of cards without
realizing there are others in the deck. "Security" is also achievable through
non-military means, through trade agreements, business cooperation, cultural
exchanges, etc. Although Japan has felt little need to ante up for its own
defense underneath the US's "nuclear umbrella", the lack of attention paid to
this aspect of has manifested itself in the pursuance of other means of
engaging China and finding security by other means.
Therefore, it came as a shock even to Chinese journalists knowledgeable about
Japan when Beijing withdrew invitations to 1,000 university students to the
Shanghai World's Fair in response to the ship captain's arrest. Again,
Maehara's language was certainly undiplomatic and often inappropriate during
this time, but even if a convincing argument can be made for reducing rare
earth exports, contact between citizens is something that should be considered
outside political disputes. Sadly, the numbers of Chinese tourists to Japan has
been impacted as well, and Japanese opinion polls concerning China have also
taken a nosedive.
In such tense times, journalism also has a responsibility to role to play. If
anything, it should not give the impression that citizens are fully in support
of the antagonistic policies taken by their government. When Lee says that
"Japanese opinion is beginning to support the abandonment of the peacetime
constitution and a return to overseas operations for the Japanese military"
minus citations, unfortunately this only serves to exacerbate. Yes, the
populist nationalist movements in Japan appear to be gaining steam, but this is
a global phenomenon that includes China. At the same time, there is vocal
support for the Constitution in the public arena, and a majority of Japan
simply want the economy to improve. China's cooperation is vital for this.
I look forward to reading more of Peter Lee on China-Japan relations. Since he
is a journalist of some stature, I hope he realizes his opinions can often sway
those of many other people, and that "security" is a multi-faceted issue.
Relations can and I hope will improve between these two nations, as long as the
respective political leaders choose to make the welfare of citizens a high
priority. This is achievable through peaceful means if there is the political
will on the part of citizens themselves, and I believe political journalism has
an obligation to focus on these possibilities for peaceful security as much as
it enjoys to focus on conflict.
Adam Lebowitz
Tsukuba, Japan (Jan 3, '11)
[Re Al-Qaeda finds new
friends, Dec 23] Syed Saleem Shahzad's article paints a fascinating
picture of the strategies of jihadi groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
If I have understood his thesis correctly, it is that al-Qaeda, through a
series of alliances with brutal sectarian jihadi outfits formerly sponsored by
the Pakistani military, has become a paramilitary force in the region
independent of the Afghan Taliban of Mullah Omar.
Based on his descriptions, this revived al-Qaeda's principal objectives seems
to be to destabilize Pakistan and Iran, as well as to conduct terrorism in
India and Europe. America’s enemies in Afghanistan are still by and large
Afghan Taliban of various stripes are they not?
My question then, is why would US policymakers see this al-Qaeda as a major
threat to them? A strong Pakistani state would attract greater investment from
China. Likewise with a stable Iran. Therefore, the US has little interest in
seeing either outcome. Furthermore, the shadow of jihadi terrorism in Europe is
a powerful counterweight to war-weariness among the European populations.
Likewise, an India faced with a permanent jihadi terrorist problem would find
it impossible to conduct d้tente with Pakistan and therefore be in
greater need of American and Israeli counter-insurgency advice.
Lest this hypothesis appear far-fetched, one can draw on the example of the
1990s when the US instrumentalized Albanian Islamo-mafia elements to create
instability in the Balkans so as to project itself as the guarantor of
stability in Europe.
At a time in history when the US dominance is tottering, there is, to
paraphrase Dr Brzezinski, surely more need than ever for the US to preserve the
dependency of its allies by simultaneously supporting and weakening them?
Jonathan X (Jan 3, '11)
[Re The Limits of
Chinese Expansionism, Dec 23] Shawn Crispin's article states that
Sompawn Khantisouk's "disappearance coincided with his efforts to mobilize
local villagers against Chinese-sponsored rubber plantations in areas used for
ecotourism". I am Sompawn’s friend and business partner. I worked closely with
him in the months and years leading up to his disappearance. I know very well
what Pawn was involved in at the time of his disappearance. He was absolutely
not involved in "mobilizing" villages against the rubber plantations. In fact,
our position was that rubber production could help local farmers if it was
properly planned and that forest lands could be converted to rubber plantations
if other forest lands were properly preserved.
Given the fact that the destruction of the forest and the abuses of land
concessions in Luang Namtha was the big story for the outside world at the time
of Pawn’s disappearance, many people naturally assumed that the disappearance
of an eco-lodge owner was connected with the environmental destruction. This
assumption obscures the deeper and more insidious reasons for Sompawn’s
disappearance. Bertil Linter comes closest to the truth in his Feb 2, 2008 Asia
Times article Fear
of Foreigners in Laos from which I think that Shawn Crispin is quoting.
Sompawn’s disappearance coincided with a general purge of Americans and
Christians in Northern Laos. Several Lao with close associations with Americans
or Christians disappeared or were given threats they would be abducted. Close
to 26 expatriates were forced to leave the area in an 18-month period.
The Lao People's Revolutionary Party fears peaceful evolution - the overthrow
of the socialist system by peaceful means. All of the foreigners purged from
Luang Namtha, Bokeo and Udomsai provinces were working with marginalized
communities to give them a voice in determining their own economic future. The
fact that these foreigners were giving people choices and were becoming more
influential than the local governments in the economic livelihoods of these
communities was the threat.
While there may have been some overlap with the conflicts over rubber
plantations, none of the people, businesses and organizations purged had ever
taken a stance against it. This purge had more to do with ideology, influence,
power and control.
For the sake of Sompawn’s memory, I would like to set the record straight. He
was, in fact, trying to work closely with government partners and agencies for
the welfare of remote villages and for the protection of the forest. He never
took a stand against rubber plantations and never organized opposition to it.
William Tuffin (Jan 3, '11)
[Re Naked emperor and
a conspiracy of silence, Dec 23] What a bizarre theory Spengler
proposes in his latest column, that the shrinking reach of US political and
military power is due to Obama's withdrawal from belligerent unilateralism.
Having already cited the non-existent gains of a trillion-dollar illegal
invasion of Iraq, one marvels to think Spengler would perhaps like us to spend
another trillion dollars. And to what end? To achieve his Pax Americana? I
wonder if that would be the same Great Peace that brought death to hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi civilians, who do not figure in his realpolitik calculus.
It is fitting that Spengler closes with an approving quotation of Henry
Kissinger, whom, we learned in recent weeks, told president Richard Nixon "And
if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American
concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern." This was around the time that Kissinger
was instrumentally involved with the illegal bombing of Cambodia, causing
millions of civilian causalities.
Leaving aside the obvious facts of international law and binding treaties,
which do not concern our author, it is hard to miss the fact that for Spengler,
as for Kissinger, "peace and prosperity" actually mean "peace and prosperity
for the US, its allies, and its client states," while the lives of millions
Iraqis, Cambodians, and other bystanders of US policy do not factor into the
equation. Unless, of course, Spengler believes that the aggregate peace and
prosperity of the world will be increased by his Pax Americana. He has hardly
made that case.
Another observer of the facts cited by Spengler might reasonably argue that the
disaster in Iraq is not that we are now withdrawing from an unwinnable war, but
rather that we foolishly invaded the country under false pretenses and with no
long-term strategy in the first place.
Similarly, another observer might conclude that the deep distrust evidenced by
other nations to the US market is rooted in the cataclysmic, short-sighted, and
criminally irresponsible policies of the last 15 years that brought the world
economy to the brink of total disaster, not the modest recovery efforts
instigated by Obama in the last 18 months - efforts that are demonstrably a
continuation of the recovery strategies employed by the Bush economic team.
These conclusions are, in fact, painfully obvious, and it is equally obvious
that Spengler's rationale can persuade only a baldly partisan ideologue.
Barnaby Thieme (Jan 3, '11)
December Letters
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