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Please note: This Letters page is intended primarily for
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The Edge is the place for that. The editors do not mind publishing one
or two responses to a reader's letter, but will, at their discretion, direct
debaters away from the Letters page.
February, March Letters
Ah the WonderSphere. The Flavah-of-the-Week Controversy surrounding the
unprovoked murder of a black teen wearing a hoodie and sipping tea says all you
need to know about the type of gas that denizens of the WonderSphere breathe.
Only humans whose biology can metabolize this gas, known to science as
UgottaBkiddinum, are capable of the kind of mindless blather, inane
rationalizations and BizarroWorld logic that this senseless tragedy has
inspired.
The right wing, of course, always eager to condone the killing of colored
people regardless of their politics, religion or nationality, is defending the
so-called "Stand Your Ground" law with the moral righteousness reserved here
for ranting street prophets, pulpit-pounding preachers and politicians. Like
all neo-con rhetoric, it is barely-concealed code lingo for open season on
blacks, latinos and white people who stay in tanning booths too long. The law,
adopted by the usual suspect list of nut-job red-neck WonderStates, allows
anyone to shoot anyone else that they feel "endangers" them, much like US
foreign policy that endorses unprovoked preemptive war. Indeed, one sees such a
causal link between the WonderPassion for all forms of violence, mayhem and
death that believing such insanity has legal sanction is easier than shooting
fish in a barrel (an approved form of fishing here.)
Some wannabe journalist types even suggested the youth endangered his own life
by wearing the hoodie, an article of clothing popular with young black gang
members. Such rhetoric, whose only intent was to generate TV ratings, popular
fury and the obligatory crocodilian apology, has made the wearing of the hoodie
at mass rallies, and even in legislative assemblies, positively de rigueur.
Naturally, like all things fueled by the inhalation of UgottaBkiddinum, the
effects will pass until another school multiple shooting, serial killing
involving prostitutes or teen party-turned-murder-frenzy rivets away our
ready-to-be-outraged consciences.
I will make a confession to Asia Times Online readers, though, and beg they
conceal this from the WonderAuthorities. I have developed a really bad
addiction for oxygen, the surest antidote for UgottaBkiddinum known to man.
It's available from seedy "O-Two Pushers" who smuggle it in from Canada, who
are making a killing. Only not the kind that gets Wonderlanders interested.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Mar 30, '12)
[Re North Korean missile
ultimatums fall short, Mar 28, '12] If my eyes do not deceive me, it
was US President Barack Obama who issued an ultimatum to North Korea to put off
its satellite launch during the 100 birthday celebrations of its founder Kim
Il-sung.
What was Washington's murky calculus in signing the February 29 agreement when
as we now know the North Koreans had already spoken of putting a satellite into
space in mid-April?
A cynic might say that the North Korean project gives the Obama administration
the cover to continue its policy of "patient restraint" by not really want to
speak to Pyongyang. Or, he might ponder on the low level of quality of the
administration's negotiators.
By now, the US should be long accustomed to North Korea's legalistic tradition.
Without dotting the i's or crossing the t's, any American administration shall
leave itself open to more than one interpretation of a signed document: the
February 29 agreement is a case in point; it does not mention satellites.
Obama's raising Pyongyang's violations of UN Security Council resolutions is
very much besides the point. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has
rejected them as interference in its inner affairs - a right accorded to any
member state by the UN Charter. Pyongyang's satellite once in space will
broadcast patriotic tunes. Who recalls China's first satellite launch almost a
half century ago? Its satellite played "The East is Red".
By stigmatizing North Korea for its peaceful launch of a satellite on a long
range missile, Obama is acting like the Egyptian Pharaoh telling the Hebrew
slaves to make bricks without straw. Is there another method of putting a
satellite into space other than on a long-range missile?
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 29, '12)
[Re North Korean missile
ultimatums fall short, Mar 28, '12] If my eyes do not deceive me, it
was US President Barack Obama who issued an ultimatum to North Korea to put off
its satellite launch during the 100 birthday celebrations of its founder Kim
Il-sung.
What was Washington's murky calculus in signing the February 29 agreement when
as we now know the North Koreans had already spoken of putting a satellite into
space in mid-April?
A cynic might say that the North Korean project gives the Obama administration
the cover to continue its policy of "patient restraint" by not really want to
speak to Pyongyang. Or, he might ponder on the low level of quality of the
administration's negotiators.
By now, the US should be long accustomed to North Korea's legalistic tradition.
Without dotting the i's or crossing the t's, any American administration shall
leave itself open to more than one interpretation of a signed document: the
February 29 agreement is a case in point; it does not mention satellites.
Obama's raising Pyongyang's violations of UN Security Council resolutions is
very much besides the point. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has
rejected them as interference in its inner affairs - a right accorded to any
member state by the UN Charter. Pyongyang's satellite once in space will
broadcast patriotic tunes. Who recalls China's first satellite launch almost a
half century ago? Its satellite played "The East is Red".
By stigmatizing North Korea for its peaceful launch of a satellite on a long
range missile, Obama is acting like the Egyptian Pharaoh telling the Hebrew
slaves to make bricks without straw. Is there another method of putting a
satellite into space other than on a long-range missile?
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 29, '12)
[Re What would
James Q Wilson tell Mexico?, Mar 19] I have a very different suggestion
on how to approach the drug war. Rather than targeting the drug lords, or the
masses who violate the petty rules of the state, let us imprison the
prohibitionists. Their numbers are smaller, their identities are known, and
that will get to the root of the problem.
Paul O'Day
United States (Mar 28, '12)
[Re Bob Van den Broeck's letter, March 26] Mr Van den Broeck accuses me of
fabricating history. His claim over the sinking of the South Korean naval
vessel the Cheonan is that only the US and South Korea blamed the North.
The truth is an international commission made up of six nations including
Canada, Sweden, Britain and Australia came to the conclusion it was a North
Korean torpedo attack. This commission had 24 foreign experts as members.
These facts can easily be checked on line, so why he continues to insist it was
only the US and South Korea I have no idea. On July 9, 2010 the UNSC in a
presidential statement condemning the attack without naming the attacker. China
would not allow North Korea to be named, so his claim the the UN did not want
to get involved is also untrue. Then he seems to want to claim the US sunk the Cheonan
in a "military training blunder"; I ask Mr Van den Broeck to cite a reputable
news source anywhere in the world to back up this claim. He won't be able
because no such source exists.
I accuse leftists of lying and he defends them, with two bold faced lies in his
first three sentences, I don't get it. Leftists in the twentieth century backed
governments by men like Stalin and Mao that killed tens of millions of people.
When given the choice between FDR and Stalin, choosing Stalin was an idiotic
thing to do, and this does not mean FDR was a perfect person. However the US
did not kill tens of millions of its citizens in the 1930's.
Mr Van den Broeck seems to be a supporter of the government of North Korea.
There are now over 20,000 North Koreans who have fled south, and he should look
up what they have to say about that government and their lives in the North. I
researched my Jeju island claims and on many leftist websites and saw the claim
that it was to be a US base. Type "Jeju island navy base" into an online search
engine, and you will see I am telling the truth.
Dennis O'Connell
United States (Mar 28, '12)
[Re Sealed lips at Korea
talkfest - or else, Mar 23, '12] During an interview on NPR, Evans
Revere - former senior diplomat, ex-president of the Korea Society, and now
member of Madeleine Albright's Washington thinktank - gave the game away when
asked about North Korea's satellite launch in mid-April. According to him,
before the US-DPRK agreement was signed, North Koreans had already informed the
US that it intended to put into space a satellite at the time of Kim Il-sung's
100 birthday.
So in spite of the high dudgeon in the press, in State Department and White
House press conferences and releases, the US did know and may have demurred
over the issue of a satellite launch, the Barack Obama administration, however,
did go on to sign the food for cessation of nuclear and long range missile
testing for military purposes. Nowhere in the accord mention is made of
satellites.
If Obama makes a big issue of the launch and hold back on food aid, it would
clearly be a signal that the US was not really interested in talking to North
Korea. In other words, the US set itself up for failure.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 26, '12)
Here we go again, Dennis O'Connell has made fabrications of history on his
letter to the editor on March 20. As stated before the North Koreans were only
implicated in an attack on South Korean corvette by the US and the South
Koreans. The United Nations did not want to get involved in a US military
training blunder. The UN did not find the North Koreans guilty of anything or
condemn them.
O'Connell also misstated when he wrote, "engages in one of the left's favorite
tactics, repeating a lie enough times so that people believe it is the truth".
This is a known right-wing maneuver, remember former US vice president Dick
Cheney and the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. O'Connell continues to
offend other readers with his name calling and labeling. "However, that plan
only works with leftists and idiots". Asia Times Online should insure that
other readers are not subjected to O'Connell's distorted view of world affairs,
and name calling bouts. Bob Van den Broeck
Arizona (Mar 26, '12)
[Re The China-US rare
earth games, Mar 23, '12] According to Peter Lee, China accounts for
97% of the world's exports of rare earth yet China has only 30% of the world's
reserve. This lopsided trend cannot and should not continue. Very soon China's
reserve on rare earth will have depleted and it will become a net importer of
those minerals. On the more important point is that processing rare earth tends
to create huge environmental pollution. Again, China is being criticized for
the pollution. Besides, Japan and the West are purchasing these minerals to
stockpile. They are not in such dire position as they want the world to think.
It is very evident that the West and Japan are applying the same strategy as
they are doing with oil producing countries and that is to keep importing oil
from these Middle Eastern countries and withholding their own oil exploration.
The strategy aims to deplete other countries' natural resources and leave its
own resources intact. By the time the other countries' natural resources are
depleted, oil and rare earths will be priced at 10 times or more of its current
market price and the world will be on their knees.
The US and its allies should dig for their oil and rare earth minerals under
their own feet.
Wendy Cai
United States (Mar 26, '12)
[Re New Korea: Muddler
or mastermind, Mar 21, '12] North Korea announced long ago that 2012 is
a banner year to celebrate the centenary of Kim Il Sung's birth. 2012 is also a
year the North Korean leadership would also show the world that technically it
was an advanced society. So, why the uproar?
The announcement of a launch of a satellite (the recently announced United
States-Democratic People's Republic of Korea agreement remains silent on the
matter of satellites) can be seen as part of commemorating the memory of Kim
Il-sung: it is though it were a candle on a giant birthday cake.
The knee-jerk reaction of South Korea and Japan borders on hysteria. The US
options remain narrowly open whether to send food or not. Russia and China
preach caution. Yet, North Korea does not see the matter in this light.
Chief of general staff of the Korean People's Army Ri Yong-ho's announcement
that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are returning to monitor
North Korea's nuclear program is a strong sign that Pyongyang is doing its part
of the agreement.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 22, '12)
That violence is as American as a blown up, stabbed and machine gunned piece of
blood spattered apple pie is a given in the rest of the world. The almost
routine school shootings, the rabid legal struggles over possession of ever
more lethal weapons, the casual ease with which we wage war on other countries,
the fact we are the world's top exporter of deadly arms, all these facts make
it easy for "furrners" to understand why American gridiron football is
acknowledged as our national sport, if not addiction (and I confess to being a
fan.)
This game features large, fast athletes hitting each other at high speeds. It
is these collisions that the NFL (National Football League), the professional
franchise owners, routinely celebrate in highlite reels as part of the
"controlled" violence that endears it to its aficionados. But today the NFL
decided that the recent revelation that one team had engaged in "bounties"
(payments made to players for delivering punishing blows to opponents) required
unusual and unprecedented punishment, the suspension for one year without pay
of its head coach.
The hypocrisy of the NFL's all-male, all-white, all-rich gang of pampered one
percenters merits comparison to that of the US military, government and
citizens with respect to the crimes, such as those alleged of Sergeant Bales,
committed by its troops in the Middle East. The idea that men paid to be
violent on a football field and men paid to be violent in a war zone can fine
tune that encouraged aggression to fit the pre-conceived fantasies of those
ignorant of the kind of stress, comradely machismo and testosterone (and other
drugs) fueled hostility these men are subjected to in the name of football and
patriotic "glory" is itself a hallucination of the willfully blind.
For those who characterize the "bounties" revelation and the Afghan execution
murders as aberrations and one-offs, let me suggest riding your unicorn to the
Tooth Fairy Clinic of Diet Chocolatiers for a mental checkup. The truth is
these bounties have been going on for years in the NFL as common knowledge, as
commonly known as the regular executions, robberies, rapes and gang beatings of
Afghan civilians committed by US soldiers since 2001. But those images don't
conform to our pollyannish Wonderview that we can inflict hideous harm to
people's bodies, minds and souls without consequence, conscience or calamity,
that we can make humans hurting machines that can calibrate their damage,
deliver it in precisely measured doses and walk away unaffected.
In similar fashion, we relentlessly expose our children to movies and TV ads
replete with sexy bodies, alcohol, pills, cigarettes and fancy cars and are
shocked when they get pregnant, drunk, drug addicted or jailed before they
leave high school. America is rife with Bales and bounties, dirty little
secrets we try to keep under the mattress but, once exposed, we will tsk tsk
the travesty, punish it with fire-and-brimstone fervor and continue the
behavior that encouraged it in the first place.
Hardy Campbell
Home of the NFL Houston Texans (Mar 22, '12)
[Re Insider
trading 9/11 ... the facts laid bare, Mar 20, '12] I read Lars Schall's
article on insider trading. I had previously interviewed Paul Zarembka, a
professor of econometrics at SUNY (State University of New York) regarding the
same facts or contents that Schall used in his article. I support Schall's work
as an example of strong scholarship and journalistic integrity. It leaves me
with confidence in the objectivity of Asia Times Online's reporting.
Adnan Zuberi
Toronto, Canada (Mar 21, '12)
[Re Swift blows to
Iran and nuclear talks, Mar 20, '12] Interesting that Kaveh L Afrasiabi
does not even consider Iran's Kish oil bourse which as of yesterday no longer
accepted the US dollar in payment. Many South American countries are
dedollarizing and China, India, Pakistan and others have already agreed to pay
for Iranian oil in currencies other than the US dollar. The withdrawal of SWIFT
three days ago was timed to cut off Iran's banks from payment orders from
foreign banks and thus make it exceedingly difficult for Iran to settle payment
for it's oil. The US is terrified that dedollarization (of which this bourse is
an example ) will spread and that the US dollar will no longer be a fiat
currency which will cause it enormous economic problems. Why should the US be
able to dictate to Iran or Iraq or any other oil exporting nation for that
matter (remember Iraq and it's non-existant weapons of mass destruction ...
Iraq was selling it's oil in currencies other than the US dollar) what currency
it uses for oil sales? Iran will, by dedollarization, cause enormous financial
harm to the US without firing a shot.
Economist (Mar 21, '12)
[Re Iran focus
blunts Israel's Gaza response, Mar 16, '12] I appreciate the
comprehensive reporting in Asia Times Online. However, I was very disappointed
to see the lopsided piece by Victor Kotsev in your online paper. Unfortunately,
this inaccurate report was placed prominently as the lead article in the March
17 issue.
One never would have divined from reading this article that Israel had
precipitated the rockets from Gaza by assassinating a Palestinian leader. As
there was no court trial before this murder, we will never know what the facts
of this case truly are. The Gazans acted in response to Israel's breaking of
the former truce; they did not initiate the action.
When an article like this makes such a serious omission, either it should not
be published or the editor should correct it. If it is published as "news", as
this appears to be, then a correction should be made in the editing process. If
it is an opinion piece, as this actually is, then your paper should clearly
indicate this.
Nell Farr
Elk Grove, California (Mar 21, '12)
[Re Why North Korea
talks must go on, Mar 19, '12] Yes, US talks with North Korea should
continue. Contrary to all the hand wringing going on in Washington circles
about what Kim Jong-eun will do, he has fooled everyone by carrying out his
father's policy of engaging the US in talks. However, the talks have not
changed US President Barack Obama's studied indifference to North Korea.
The death of Kim Jong-il offered the US an opportunity to test the new North
Korean leader: surprise, surprise, negotiations went swiftly and with little
discord. North Korea agreed to stop nuclear testing and refrain from long-range
missile launches. However, Pyongyang's announcement that it will launch a
satellite in honor of the centenary of Kim Il-sung's birth may jeprodize the
agreement.
The accord says nothing about satellites, and what's more the North Koreans
have long announced that the 100th birthday of its founder in 2012 was a banner
of economic progress and achievements for North Korea. So, putting a satellite
into orbit should not send the US back to its tortoise-like attitude of
ignoring North Korea.
Parliamentary elections in South Korea in April will likely see a more flexible
policy towards Pyongyang take hold in Seoul. This change in the wind should say
something to Washington.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 21, '12)
Many Wonderlanders may be shocked at the latest floodtide of mishaps, murders
and misfortunes to befall our "defenders of freedom" in Afghanistan. They
should not be surprised. Even a casual perusal of the Amerikan military's
history reveals an unbroken continuum of corruption, denial, "incompetence,"
lies, coverups and whitewashes that would make Watergate look like a teen
Facebook confessional.
The dangers of unquestioned obedience to the demands, threats and coercion of
the Political-Industrial-Intelligence- Governmental-Military-Economic-Narcotics
complex (whose acronym is appropriately enough, PIIGMEN) were first so
memorably flagged by departing president Eisenhower in 1960, but subsequent
developments have demonstrated that, not only did his heedings fell on deaf
ears, they warned of merely the uppermost molecules of a criminal iceberg whose
submerged secrets involve Wall Street, drug lords, spies, banks, shadow
governments, mercenaries, fundamentalist Jewish and Christian fanatics, false
flag "terrorist" operations, assassinations, contrived economic bubbles, ethnic
mafias and population eugenics, to name but a few. So the fact that the US
military "accidentally" burns the holy book of Islam just before a "rogue"
soldier commits multiple homicide may, to the naive, look like a bad day at the
office. But nothing happens without reasons in the US military, whose monopoly
on patriotic fervor, whenever challenged by scandal, embarrassing revelation or
the demise of a reliable devil-bogeyman, has always landed on its booted feet,
saved by political pork barrels, flag waving excuse makers or drone airplanes
hitting skyscrapers on crisp, cool autumn days.
The primary reason for the military's existence is not to fight wars or
"defend" an illusory freedom, of course, but to provide a means of transferring
wealth into the plutocracy it serves. In anatomical terms, the military bone is
connected to the armaments bone is connected to the politics bone is connected
to the banking bone is connected to the money laundering bone is connected to
the drug cartel bone is connected to the intelligence bone is connected to the
military bone in an infinite cycle of self-perpetuating thievery.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Mar 20, '12)
Thalif Deen in, Nuclear
summit comes amid rising threats [Mar 16, '12], engages in one of the
left's favorite tactics, repeating a lie enough times so that people believe it
is the truth.
However, that plan only works with leftists and idiots. Deen states that the
naval base that South Korea is building on Jeju Island is for the US, it is
only for South Korean naval vessels and larger cruise ships that will aid the
economy of Jeju Island. Deen quotes Rebecca Johnson of the leftist Acronym
Institute that South Korea should not build the navy base, I guess she believes
in unilateral disarmament. She must have forgotten that South Korea has
recently suffered two unprovoked attacks by the North, doing multiple millions
of dollars of damage and killing 50 South Koreans.
Sixteen days after North Korea signed a deal with the US to place a moratorium
on its nuclear enrichment and missile tests it has decided to renege on the
deal, I only wonder what took them so long. The US had offered 240,000 metric
tons of food aid including baby formula and other items for malnourished women
and children, however, the North wanted rice it could steal and give to its
military so that why the have backed out.
Dennis O'Connell
United States (Mar 20, '12)
[Re West silent of
Tibetan self-immolation, Mar 17 '12] It's saddening to see many
innocent lives sacrificed just because of political difference. But, after
reading the article and some additional stuff from other Western media outlets,
we may have the impression that: the self-immolation campaigns were carefully
planned and highly organized. From knowing who is the actor, which monastery is
he/she is located, collecting the photo of the self-immolators and on how the
Dalai Lama prayed for the dead; all show how 'exile government' fully informed
of every links of the incidents, and at the same time the Chinese local
authorities caught off guard.
The "exile government" and the Dalai Lama attract less and less urbanized,
highly-educated and secularized Tibetans. Those who did self-immolation are
mostly less-informed Tibetans that believe in better "after-life", especially
when they knew their 'God-king' is willing to pray for them after their death.
However, I agree with the writer, Saransh Sehgal, there's no sign that the
self-immolation incidents will stop soon. The "exile government" need Western
government's support. To orchestrate sensational incidents, attracting
attention and appeal for more support from the West will be the pushing factors
for those who reap benefits from the incidents to plot for more
self-immolation.
Weston Fan (Mar 20, '12)
[Iran focus blunts
Israel's Gaza response, Mar 16, '12] Straightaway, let's clear the air:
Hamas is not firing the homemade rockets into southern Israel. It was Islamic
Jihad responding to Israel's targeted assassination of its militants. The law
according to the Zionist state, it seems, allows Israel to kill with impunity
members of Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the Al Aqsa Brigade, but they have no
right to defend themselves.
The Israeli street has been a buzz of another "Cast Lead" aggression against
Gaza. Will it occur? When will it happen? It's anyone's guess.
On the other hand, the risk of an attack on Iran is too costly for Israel.
Already the Obama administration is buying off Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu with advanced military materiel far superior than anything they have
in his arsenal.
Gaza is a softer target which won't cost the Zionist state much. Its US ally
will back it up and Egypt with the military in command won't object much
either.
Overall, the rule of the ultra right in Israel has sapped the democratic
instinct. And so much the worse for us all.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Italy (Mar 19, '12)
In West silent on
Tibetan self-immolation [Mar 16, '12] by Saransh Sehgal, the author
stubbornly refuses to question of the validity the Tibetan cause. The West is
silent on self-immolation not only because of China’s economic rise but because
the cause of cultural preservation and the tactics of suicide for kindred
causes have become too commonplace. There is no dearth of fervent and religious
people willing to commit suicide for the cause of preserving a
cultural/religious tradition and shunning contamination. The hatred of Zionism
in the Middle East and suicidal missions serve to create much indifference. As
much as the self-immolations for the Tibetan cause do not involve another
victim, suicide attacks for the anti-Zionist cause show just have fervent
resentment from cultural contamination can be, and how unjustified.
The entire idea of preserving any minority culture is anachronistic. Human
beings simply do not need any intact culture or any ethnic cultural identity in
order to be happy. In fact, the barometer of minority happiness is social
inclusion, particularly in courtship and marriage; hence assimilation. If there
is “cultural genocide” from the perspective of ethnic parents and their
champions, then cultural suicide must be the most thrilling social experience
many minorities can ever wish for. Ask Obama senior or OJ Simpson if they
prefer cultural preservation or cultural suicide. Then ask their parents and
grandparents, both black and white.
“The US Government repeatedly has urged the Chinese government to address the
counterproductive policies in Tibetan areas that have created tensions and that
threaten the distinct religious, cultural and linguistic identity of the
Tibetan people." Such US position is untenable. The very existence of US
President Barack Obama threatens the distinct cultural identity of the Kenyan
people. How does Obama honestly address the issue of cultural preservation?
Should I not exist, Obama asks himself?
May be the Chinese government should urge the US government to address the
issues of coercive busing on 85% of black parents for assimilation of black
children and the rejection of the Akaka Bill of 2000 that could have granted
the Hawaiians cultural autonomy. Are coercive busing and the rejection of the
Akaka Bill not also counterproductive policies? There is only one product for
any country: assimilation; such should be the touchstone of being
“counterproductive” or otherwise. Who should be the judge? A country with
sovereign right. Would Americans want the Chinese to judge the correctness of
the US Senate’s assessment that there is an American “tradition of
assimilation" and therefore the Akaka Bill is against such a tradition? Who
should judge the logical rigor in the battle cries for coercive busing:
"separate is inherently unequal" and "segregation instills a sense of
inferiority on black children", China or the US? Why would Tibetans not want
equality and why would segregation, autonomy or other euphemism, not instill a
sense of inferiority on Tibetan children?
Jeff Church
United States (Mar 19, '12)
[Re Bridging East-West
historical divides, Mar 15, '12] Some very interesting points came out
of the Interview of Tonio Andrade, the writer of the book "Lost colony"
regarding the war tactics initiated by Koxinga against his Dutch opponents in
the battle of Taiwan.
Koxinga's use of the concept of "divide and rule" here is fascinating. Firstly
he used Dutch ex-slaves as his troops thereby enabling them turn their guns on
their former masters, and secondly he induced the drunkard Dutch senior
commander Hans Radij to defect, ensuring the surrender of the redoubtable Dutch
fortress. These instances clearly show that Koxinga was supplied with extremely
useful military intelligence and he deduced that the irascible Dutch ruler of
Taiwan, because of his inconsistent temper, may well have made enemies at
important positions. This is absolutely brilliant usage of using the dissidents
in the enemy camp to one's own advantage. In my opinion this is one of the rare
moments in history when the East was successfully able to play the military
tactics of "divide and rule" over its Western opponents.
Koxinga's tactics have interesting parallels in history. In 1757, the British
General Robert Clive obtained help from the dissidents in the camp of
Siraj-ud-doulah, the last independent Muslim ruler of Bengal, to secure victory
in the famous battle of Placey [Plassey], thereby securing British rule in
India for the next two centuries.
Thanks to both Victor Fic and Andrade for bringing to light this long-forgotten
but very exciting piece of Asian history.
Debanjan
India (Mar 16, '12)
[Re Iran's legal
right to attack Israel, Mar 13, '12] What a timely article by Afrasiabi
on Iran's legal right to attack Israel! After all the pro-Israel
rationalizations for war it was about time someone wrote a tit-for-tat legal
response that hurls it back at them. Thank you.
Tim
Toronto (Mar 14, '12)
[Re Iran's legal
right to attack Israel, Mar 13, '12] Another interesting and thought
provoking article by Kaveh L Afrasiabi. Kaveh says "Iran is now openly
contemplating the idea of pre-emptive strike". I would be very surprised if
that were the case for the very simple reason it would play right into the
hands of the US, Israel and others. I've been quite convinced for a long time
now that this ploy is just one part of their "game plan". Prod and provoke Iran
as much as possible into a first strike. Western media would then go into
salivating hyper-drive, setting whole new levels in hypocrisy.
I've also been recalling in my mind a little discussed issue, going back 70
years where, for better or worse, both Britain and the United States provoked
Japan into a war by denying it precious resources, principally oil. Japan could
either capitulate to their demands or prepare for war, with little time to
prepare. I know as a fact the US was expecting war with Japan as early as June
1941 because US military delegates had by then came to Australia to discuss
those preparations and my father was part of them as a Royal Australian Air
Force signals intelligence officer. The Americans just never anticipated Pearl
Harbor would become the initial focal point.
I find the parallels here chilling and the consequences likely just as bad, if
not worse. Nobody ever seems to want to learn from history, Afghanistan is
total proof of that.
Kaveh also lists many legal arguments under the umbrella of "Israel's stated
intention to attack Iran violates international law for a number of other
reasons". Neither Israel nor the United States has a stellar history of
respecting international law, except when it suits their own nefarious
purposes. Further Kaveh reminds us that Iranian diplomatic efforts to date have
been "to no avail as the Security Council has turned a blind eye". No surprises
there either.
My modest representations to my government over these issues always come to
naught because in the eyes of the vast majority of members of our parliament,
neither Israel nor the US can ever do any wrong. In fact I'm convinced the real
Australian foreign minister is actually US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Ian C Purdie
Australia (Mar 14, '12)
"Rough 2012 so far in LoseYourAssistan," Futureman quipped. "Suicide bombings,
Koran burnings, brain injured GI murdering civilian Afghans. Wow. Imagine. In
Afghanistan of all places. Who woulda thunk it?" His sarcasm was pointed,
hurtful and, of course, entirely justified. "Dude, you don't need to tell me. I
had two buddies come back from that hellhole heroin addicts. The war sucks."
"Oh don't worry, PastDude. Obama and the Pentagon came up with solutions in
2017. They started using drone soldiers. It turned the tide." "What? Drone
soldiers? What are those?"
"LIke drone planes, only they looked and sounded like humans. They conducted
counterinsurgency, police actions, crowd control, they even escorted kids to
classes in democracy and capitalism. Each drone was controlled by guys riding
joysticks in Steubenville, Ohio. The Taliban was really frustrated by these
robots; no matter how many they destroyed, another replaced it the next day, so
they gave up attacking them. They decided to target Afghan politicians, until
the Americans one upped 'em and replaced all the native leaders with drones
also." "So the real human Afghans controlled these drone politicians?" "Oh no,
of course not. It was five guys riding joysticks in a Slippery Rock,
Pennsylvania, computer center, who wound up running the country."
"What? Are you kidding me? Americans? Did they anything about the country, the
language, customs, anything?" Futureman laughed. "Dude, we are talking about
American high school dropouts, remember, the very core of the US military. Of
course, they knew nothing about Afghanistan, just like the presidents, generals
and civilians who kept you in that 'hellhole' for decades." "But the Taliban
must have mobilized tremendous support because of that infringement of their
sovereignty. No one would put up with that for long." "You're absolutely right.
They didn't. There were horrible outbreaks of violence in virtually every major
city in 2019. That's when President Santorum authorized the gassing of the
entire Afghan population. All dead. Every last Afghan was killed." I was
horrified. Shocked. Incredulous. "How...how could that happen? How could the
world let that happen? How...could the country survive without its people?" "Oh
, that was simple; Santorum said it was God who told him it was OK, that they
were all terrorist heathen anyway and besides, he had a plan to repopulate
Afghanistan really fast." My head reeled, so I could only mutter a feeble,
"With what?"
"Drone Afghans, controlled by Americans living in the rural South. Eventually
there were 3,565,000 unemployed Americans paid by the government to ride
joysticks at home and be 'replacement' Afghans. Except this time with Baptist
churches, McDonalds and adult video stores all over Afghanistan. Two years
later the country was annexed as US state. It would have been the perfect
solution..."
"'Would'? What happened?" Futureman sighed, again recognizing he has said too
much. But this time he explained. "Well, in some kind of weird feedback loop,
all the good ol' boy southerners who controlled the Afghan drone people stared
arguing amongst themselves, then attacking and killing each other. They formed
warlord-led tribes in the US itself, and conducted guerilla operations against
government forces. Somehow these drone controllers assimilated all the warrior
instincts of the Afghan people they has replaced. It was the country of
Afghanistan itself that was the problem." 'And...?" "The first Drone President
signed a peace treaty with the good ol' boy Afghans, who all immigrated to
Afghanistan. Soon afterwards, they all converted to Wahhabi Islam and started
taking flying lessons."
Hardy Campbell
Texas (Mar 14, '12)
[Re Meth madness in Hong
Kong, Mar 10, 2012] Dear Editor, Firstly, thank you for publishing a
review of my book, Eating Smoke. However, your reviewer, Kent Ewing,
really did not understand this book or the psyche of the audience at which it
is targeted. The book now has over 23,000 supporters on Facebook and has been
on the bestseller list in Hong Kong and UK airports for seven months.
Although I appreciate that reviews are subjective, I'm sure that you, too, are
aware of just how much sway a publication such as yours holds, and, as such,
reviews should not be unregulated and subsequently biased by the tunnelled
experience and personal taste of the reviewer.
Chris Thrall (Mar 10, '12)
The cybershere is all abuzz about the documentary some Amerikan kids put
together about the malevolent Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. Of course, he's been
around forever, killing and maiming and torturing his fellow Africans, but only
when Americans "discover" events do they exist in the WonderReality.
Indeed, on a regular basis, Wonderlanders trot out some newly revealed
atrocities in Africa to cry rivers of lamentations about evil, child suffering
and the "neglect" of the materialistic, coldly indifferent white West. Before
the web, it was Ethiopia's famines in the 80s, then the Somalian, Sierra
Leonean, Liberian and Rwandan civil wars in the electronically virginal 90s,
followed with dizzying regularity in the hyped-up, new century Web Zone by the
fratricides in Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan, Kenya, etc, ad Africanum. These human
rights Flavors-of-the-Month exercises in guilt, self-promotion and the
empowerment afforded Joe Schmoe by the Internet, always decades late to prevent
these tragedies, were invariably championed by some liberal actor, athlete or
wannabe celebrity eager to show the universe they're not just two dimensional
tabloid fare cartoons.
Don't get me wrong, these are genuinely tragic events, worthy of fixing and
healing and all that. But why do white people insist that they have to be the
heroes riding to the rescue? Have these activist youths heard of the African
Union, the so-called collection of African states whose mission statement
includes preserving peace on their continent? That these political savants have
failed uber-miserably ever since the golden age of African independence in the
50s and 60s should be a wake up call to these good hearted westerners, who seem
to cherry pick their causes because to do otherwise would overwhelm their
One-Tragedy-at-a-Time cerebellums.
Because of this limitation, expect any number of ongoing conflicts in Africa to
be coming to your neighborhood laptop/PC once the Amerikan attention span is
exhausted by Konymania; the impending religious war in Nigeria, the Western
Sahara's ongoing oppression by Morocco, Zimbabwe's racist powderkeg, Somalia's
continuing anarchy, Libya's and Egypt's descent back into military
dictatorships, Sudan's subversion of South Sudanese sovereignty, the
never-ending "African World War" in the Democratic Republic of Congo...
In short, Africa affords Americans every opportunity to show their humanitarian
credentials and concern for the "natives" while its government cynically ships
weapons, corruption and oodles of string-attached IMF/World Bank "loans" to
these country's leaders, who profit immensely from all this Western guilt.
Exactly what their incentive is to stop these tragedies seems to elude them and
their Swiss bankers.
This two-faced paternalism is merely a reflection of WonderRacism, the
all-pervasive philosophy (even held by American blacks) that colored Third
Worlders are inherently unable to fix their own domestic problems because of a
deficit of American-inspired democracy, freedom and entrepreneurship. We will
show them the light, the truth and the vision, at a price, of course, for our
honed expertise. It matters little that many parts of Amerika resemble the
Third World, and that many US demographics are beginning to resemble those in
Africa. No, what matters most is how Americans think about themselves. If we
shed tears over mutilated Ugandans, maybe we offset the Afghan babies mutilated
by American bombs. If we send checks to alleviate hunger in Ethiopia, perhaps
we negate the thousands of Iraqis who starved in the 90s from American-led
sanctions. If we wring our hands and grit our teeth about Joseph Kony, we
nullify the atrocities committed by CIA-funded Joseph Savimbi in the Angolan
civil war.
Perhaps in the KarmaSphere, sins are washed away by equivalent good, a
Get-Out-of-Jail card, if you will, that allows us to be ignorant and humane
simultaneously. Until a 15-year-old nerd YouTubes a tragedy that reminds us
that we're in desperate need of an ocean of Karma Juice.
Hardy Campbell
Texas (Mar 10, '12)
[Re Why Putin is
driving Washington nuts, Mar 8, '12] Every genuinely conservative
American should be a natural ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Forget
about cheap "former KGB agent" labels, in the Orwellian world of today this
means "staunch conservative". The truth is, Putin is as pro-Western as domestic
Russian politics allow him to be. Since the main opposition to him consists of
soft-core fascists (liberal democrats) and hard-core fascists (national
Bolsheviks), as well as soft-core communists (Fair Russia) and hard-core
communists (the Communist Party of the Russian Federation), trying to discredit
and diminish him should be seen as an ironclad indicator of collective Western
madness, a thinking as delusional as it is self-defeating.
Oleg Beliakovich
Seattle, Washington (Mar 9, '12)
Futureman was giddy, elated, and more than a little shocked when he called last
night. "Incredible, " he gasped. "Unbelievable." I knew my cue. "OK, I'll bite.
What's so unbelievable? A politician in the future turned down a campaign
contribution?" He chuckled politely at my lameness. "That would simply be an
impossibility come true. But this... what we discovered in a buried archive of
DVDs... goes way beyond that." I waited patiently. "But according to this DVD
recorded from your TV cable shows, on March 6, 2012, criticism of Israel was
actually made and broadcast to millions of Americans, for the first and, as we
understand it, last time in the few remaining years left of your country." I
sighed. "Yes, dude, I know of what you speak. I saw that program, the "Daily
Show" with Jon Stewart.
What actually happened was that criticism of the hysterical mouth-foaming of
the Israeli Prime Minister, Nut-Job-Yahoo, was indeed voiced, but not by
Americans. Those were quotes from other Israelis in the Israeli Knesset
(parliament). So technically, Americans didn't criticize the Israeli state."
I almost heard Futureman deflating. "Really?" he moaned. "I'm crushed. I had a
longstanding bet here in the United States Anthropological Institute that
evidence would be found someday, someway, that someone actually stood up to the
Israel lobby in your country and murmured a faint whisper of dissent to their
overwhelming influence. When we found this DVD...well, I was sure I was going
to collect."
"Sorry, Futuredude. I would have told you that there was a better chance of the
Pope trading his tiara in for a yarmulke than winning that bet. In fact, that
same week, President Barack Obama competed in a Kiss-Israeli-Gluteus-Maximus
Contest with the GOP presidential nominees, each of whom became shriller and
more vitriolic in their I-Love-Israel rhetoric. It ended in a televised
circumcision of both Mitt Romney and Obama. Without anesthesia." "Ouch. I
remember reading about that," he said. "Yeah, Obama screamed the least, so the
Israelis decided he would win the presidency in November. Obama showed his
gratitude by nuking Iran the next day," Futureman said. "You destroyed Tehran
but one of your stray nuclear missiles hit Russia and two hit China and..." He
stopped talking, but by now he had me scared. "Oh my God. How did they
respond?" Futureman stammered, hesitated and gagged; he knew he had said too
much already. "Gotta go, guy. But here's some friendly advice. See if you can
live amongst penguins."
H Campbell
Texas (Mar 8, '12)
[Re Holes in North Korea
nuke deal, Feb 6, 2012] You've got to give North Korea watchers a
thumbs up: they never fail to find fault with anything the DPRK does. Like the
common crowd of Pyongyangologists, Aoki Naoko cannot keep looking back; the
past is inscribed in stone and thus North Korea's behavior is so wired in its
DNA that it cannot but help breaking any deal it makes on its nuclear program.
And if that is not bad enough, Pyongyang is has a bag of nuclear tricks which
would put a magician to shame. It makes you wonder if someday there will be a
meeting of minds between North Korea and the US. Judging by the endless flow of
ink, North Korean watchers are hoping such a meeting will never happen; but if
it does, they do their best to upend the apple cart of any breakthrough.
In Pyongyangologist theology, North Korea is forever cursed; it wears until the
end of time the brand of Cain. Underneath, these guardians of their truth fear
any progress that will end the well funded cottage industry of theirs.
It's about time to look towards the future. A sign of an early spring is the
three-day visit to Syracuse's Maxwell School by vice minister Ri Yong-ho,
hardly after the ink had hardly dried on the recently announced agreement
between the US and the DPRK. That should tell us something. But will it?
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 7, '12)
[Re Is Bibi the
Bully wagging the American dog?, Mar 5, '12] Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu went to Washington not to praise US president Barack Obama
but to bury him at the voting booth in the November 2012 US elections.
The American president is no Caesar, and he had the rashness to make a speech
in Cairo which inspired the prime minister's contempt and set Israel against
any American initiative to solve the Palestinian-Israel issue. Though the
permanent stationing of US troops in neighboring Arab countries has taken
Israeli bullying down a peg or two.
Throw the Republican Party's determination to defeat Obama into the mix, and
you've the makings of a powerful meeting of minds to fully embrace Netanyahu
and his ultra-nationalist allies' vision of a Jewish state from the sea to the
Jordan. And in this sense, the prime minister is trying to wag the US dog's
tail.
Obama's clever speech may have deflated Netanyahu's efforts for now, but future
prospects remain bleak.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Palermo (Mar 6, '12)
[Re Damage control, not
the end of nukes, Mar 3, 2012] Kosuke Takahashi's logic leads to only
one nightmarish conclusion: war against North Korea, since as he says diplomacy
will not put an end to North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
He is not alone in his thinking, alas. No one in Washington is thinking of
ending the long Korean War; a peace treaty would go along way to deal with, as
well as solve, outstanding issues between the US and the North, including the
nuclear issue.
North Korea has shown time and time again that when they want to do something
like inspection of Yongbyon or staying long range missile tests, it has carried
out its designs with alacrity and efficiency.
Pyongyang has never stopped signaling that it was willing to talk to the US
with no preconditions. Sorry to say, Washington has remained tone deaf and will
act only in extreme situations - president George W Bush back-peddled so fast
on his decision to "dis" North Koreans and have no contact with them; only the
testing of a nuclear device showed him the error of his ways.
The US, especially with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the state
department, has forsaken traditional diplomacy for a show of strength - a show
of strength that usually blows up in America's face like a trick cigar.
It is time wiser and cooler heads prevailed in the Barack Obama administration.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 5, '12)
The latest hubbub in WonderBlunderLand concerns the ongoing Republican War on
Women and its ripple effects in the NeoConSphere, a rarified strata of earth's
protective blanket where nostalgia for The Good Ol' Days reigns supreme and
oxygen is an inconvenient hindrance to conservative brain activity.
US President Barack Obama started the brouhaha by requiring government funded
institutions to offer women contraceptives as part of their health coverage, a
no-brainer in every other part of the universe where neo-con infants are
suffocated in the crib. Alas, no such enlightened prophylactic natal care
exists here in Alice's Fun House USA, so we regularly have to go through these
exercises in the GOP once again trying to stuff the Women's Liberation movement
back into the magic lantern from whence it came way back in the 60s and 70s,
that era of the pill, hip-hugger boots-made-for-walkin' and burning bras. As a
result of the "controversy", looney-toon neo-con electro-pundits have been
quick on the trigger to expose their misogyny and nostalgia for a long-dead
universe where women's hobbies were bare-footed pregnancy and silent
repression.
One in particular, Rush-to-Ill-Considered-Judgement Limbaugh, has found that
characterizing one female advocate of women's besieged rights as a sexual
libertine is an expensive exercise of his First Amendment rights to make a
derriere of himself (not that this incident was required for this conclusion.)
His daily radio program, listened fervently to by the madhatters, march hares
and tweedledumbs that infest DodoLand, has had a slew of sponsors yank their
financial support from under his bloated, drug-addicted carcass. Doubtless
Rushin' Rush will survive his latest foot-in-throat incident, and equally
certain is the continuing crusade the GOP wages against the "FemiNazis" who
represent the vanguard battalions of the culture war.
To be sure, the average Amerikan neo-con TeaBagger hates any group who gets
"uppity" about those constitutional rights every same Anglo-Saxon Republican
knows apply only to white men with money. But independent women who want
control of their bodies and sexual freedom merit special opprobrium from the
lily white XY chromosomers of the GOP, who view the "fairer" gender through the
Ozzie and Harriet prism of subservience to chauvinism, acquiescence to double
standards and fawning adoration for workplace glass ceilings. Yes, I know,
Rest-of-the-World; anywhere else these sexist Neanderthals would have joined
the T Rex, wooly mammoth and great auk in the Hall of Evolutionary Derelicts,
but only in Wonderland can such a cacophony of sociopaths form a major
political party, win elections and drive their country towards the extinction
they themselves so richly merit. Perhaps because they have survived despite
such Darwinian odds explains why the Englishman's theory finds such resistance
here.
Hardy Campbell
Texas (Mar 5, '12)
[Re Lee dealt out of
high-stakes Korean game, March 1, 2012] According to the Barack Obama
administration, South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak was not "dealt out of the
high stakes Korean game." He knew of and approved the the final agreement
worked out by the US and North Korea in Beijing.
Modest as the terms of the document are, it is causing unease among hardliners
on North Korea. The terms of the agreement coalesced during two meetings with
North Korea in late summer and mid autumn. Had Kim Jong-il not died
unexpectedly, he would have probably consented to similar terms. His death
provided Obama's team an opportunity to test his son and successor Kim
Jung-eun, but they did not get more than what they would have with the late
Dear Leader.
The article does raise a specter that's spent 59 years hovering over US-DPRK
relations. Lee and the South Korean elite are very well aware of history
dealing them out: South Korea refused to sign the 1953 Armistice Agreement;
Mark Clark for the US, Kim Il-sung for the DPRK, and Peng Dehuai for the
Chinese People's Volunteer Army did. So, technically, owing to the stubbornness
of president Syngman Rhee, South Korea dealt itself out any settlement
involving the US and the North. It has to live with its own past, and thus,
play second fiddle to any US initiative.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Mar 2, '12)
[Re Diplomacy to
seal Iran's fate," February 29, 2012] What this article does not tell
you is that perhaps the most dangerous man with the potential to do the most
damage to America's national security interest in the Middle East is coming to
Washington. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had to be
dragged, kicking and screaming, to say the words "two-state solution," in
regard to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, has frozen any discussion of that
disaster by his hysterical demonization of Iran.
Furthermore, he, by the continuous threats to bomb Iran, could drag the United
States into a war that no right-thinking person believes would be in America's
national security interest. The prime minister, when he came to office, had a
real opportunity to build a legacy as a statesman by concluding that elusive
peace with the Palestinians. Instead, he chose to pander to the worst elements
of his right-wing coalition and to change the subject by creating Iranophobia.
The question is who benefits? Consider the following facts: 1) Since early
1990s, the Israeli leadership has been predicting that Iran will have a nuclear
weapon the next year. That leadership includes some who are in power today. It
is time to confront them with their own erroneous predictions.
2) To be talking all the time that Iran is an existential threat is total
nonsense. Two former Israeli intelligence chiefs, Meir Dagan and Efraim Halevy,
and one current, Tamir Pardo, and a former military chief of staff Dan Holutz,
recently said Iran is not. Iran has not attacked another country in several
centuries. The same cannot be said for its neighbors.
3) All credible intelligence agencies, including Israel's, have attested that
there is no nuclear weaponization program going on in Iran. In fact, Israel is
the only country with nuclear weapons. And there are over 40 nations that
possess more enriched uranium than Iran and have mastered the nuclear cycle.
4) The characterization of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
reports must be put in context. Time and time again, under the strictest on
site inspections the "agency (IAEA) continues to verify the non-diversion of
declared materials at the nuclear facilities and outside facilities (LOFS)."
What more needs to be said? If there is hyperbole and blatant speculative
fiction that misinforms rather than informs, it is because, as the Wikileaks
cables showed, Yukiya Amano, the chief of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) "is solidly in the US court on Iran". For example, in the most
recent IAEA report, if you are objective and not in someone's pocket, why make
such an issue of access to Parchin an Iranian military base? And leave out the
fact that in January and November of 2005, as reported by Gareth Porter in Asia
Times Online on February 25, that site was inspected and the IAEA reported "no
relevant dual use equipment or materials in the location visited." This is a
matter that all relevant facts should be reported and access negotiated not
used to cast suspicion. His predecessor, on the other hand, Mohamed ElBaradei,
has said on numerous occasions that during his tenure, he never saw any
credible evidence that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon.
5) Why the amalgam of nightmarish scenarios, of apocalyptic statements and
warmed-over myths? Because some Israeli leaders say it. And that narrative,
without question, is propagated by the Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd in the US
Congress, the media and the think tanks. It is well to ask, who then is the
real aggressor? There is deep mistrust on all sides and real diplomacy is the
only way forward. The Obama Administration must be commended for holding the
door open for negotiations and disregarding the noise coming from the
aforementioned and the clowns in the Republican circus. He knows after two
wars, the legacy of president George W Bush/vice president Dick Cheney,
countless lives, trillion of dollars and counting, the US does not need a third
one. For diplomacy to succeed, there must be real constructive engagement and
for that to succeed this madness of threats on all sides must stop.
Fariborz S Fatemi
Former Professional Staff Member,
House Foreign Affairs Committee,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
United States (Mar 2, '12)
Dmitry Shlapentokh's
China locked out of Russia's far east [Mar 1, 2012] is interesting for
what it does not say as well as for what it does. He does not mention that
everything south of the Amur (including Vladivostok) was part of the Chinese
Empire until the 1860s. Nor does he mention that the natives of the Vladivostok
area (mostly Koreans) were deported to Central Asia by Stalin. Perhaps they
should be invited back? On the other hand, in my many years teaching in the
northeast of China, I never heard anyone say "I want to move to Siberia!"
Lester Ness
Kunming
China (Mar 2, '12)
[Re China's chance to to
stem Syrian blood, Feb 29, '12] Francesco Sisci wrote that China should
not just sit in the back and accept or refuse other people's choices. The
problem is that the US and its Western allies, always tend to side with the
armed rebels and judge that the person in power is the one at fault without
further investigations. This is a rush to judgement.
The West, especially the US, always look at these rulers as despots and
therefore cannot be trusted. Ergo, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. At all
times, Western media label the armed rebels as "protesters" innocently as if
they are just milling in the streets and shouting their slogans demanding
democracy.
Unarmed protesters should be allowed to voice their demands. But, an armed
group of protesters should be correctly labeled as armed rebels and nothing
else. Besides, do they represent the wishes of majority of the citizens in
Syria? In all recent cases of the Arab spring, the people that demonstrated are
elites. Do elites represent the whole populace? All the resolutions in the UN
should be calling for the state and the opposition to talk to one another in a
truly neural country and then the moderators can urge the state to listen to
the grievances of the oppositions and also ask the opposition to be more civil
and reasonable with their demands.
Constant calling for the rulers to step down right away is not a reasonable
demand. Asking for reforms is reasonable. China cannot just accept the demands
of the west and the Arab league for regime change because that is a blatant
interfering in another country.
Would China trust the West after what they did in Libya? The resolutions on
Libya did not ask for regime change per se. The resolutions did not specify
that the west can bomb the government forces of Libya yet they did just that.
Are their actions correctly followed UN mandates? After passing the referendum,
US claimed it is a farce right away. What was their basis? Didn't the people of
Gaza vote Hamas to lead? US and the West said they do not recognize that. The
West wants other nations to follow the path the West laid out for them. Is this
democracy, freedom, and justice?
Wendy Cai
United States (Mar 1, '12)
Reading The US fans
Afghanistan flames[Feb 29, '12], regarding the panic response to
"infiltration". It suddenly hit me, the US is finally waking up to the
realization that Afghanistan is just swarming with Afghans. They seem to be
everywhere over there.
Francis
Quebec, Canada (Mar 1, '12)
[Re: The waning
of finance and
Young America and China's dream, Feb 28, 2012]. Martin Hutchinson's
exhortation for our "intelligent offspring" to eschew a career in the currently
overblown financial sector is certainly a sound one. I might also advise the
youths of today and tomorrow to commit to learning a foreign language (or two),
maintain a catholic worldview and be tolerant of ethnic differences - in short,
strive to be useful/responsible global citizens of the future.
John Chen
USA (Feb 29, '12)
[Re The genius of
propaganda, Feb 27] Ben Kolisnyk in his defense of North Korean
propaganda starts out by citing Bruce Cumings, probably the most hardcore
Marxist apologist for North Korea, so I guess we can tell where Kolisnyk is
coming from.
Anyone wanting to know about Cumings should read the September 2004 article in
the Atlantic Monthly by BR Myers where he cuts Cumings up into little pieces
and then puts the pieces in a Cuisinart. Cumings wrote about the causes of the
Korean War right before the files of the Soviet Union became available and made
a fool of himself and then repeated this with his next book about how North
Korea was a successful country just as the famine was killing millions of North
Koreans.
If we only could get Cumings to write a book about how North Korea will never
collapse, they would fall the next week. Kolisnyk must think the North Korean
people are idiotic fools who can be made to believe anything. He writes that
the "majority of North Koreans may be starving", but the North Korean state can
win them over by building a few apartment buildings, some statues and
completing the Ryugyong Hotel, which sat half completed in the heart of
Pyongyang for 20 years.
Evidently he has a very low opinion of the Korean people. The Daily NK website
had a story several weeks ago about how modern apartment buildings in Pyongyang
were not being heated and the pipes were bursting. If this is happening in the
capital, how are conditions in the rest of the country?
In his final sentence, Kolisnyk seems to allude to the oppression in North
Korea when he writes about "other tools of authoritarian control". However,
since terror is now more than 90% of the equation that keeps the North Korean
regime in power, it deserves more than a passing mention.
In regards to regime survival, propaganda is a mole hill. The ability of the
government to jail over 200,000 people including whole families and torture and
murder them, that is the Mount Everest of regime survival. Kolisnyk makes no
mention of the horrific drug problems in North Korea that effects all levels of
society, including the elite. Couple this with levels of corruption that are
the highest in the world. Then add in the breaking down of the firewall of the
North Korean public knowledge about the outside world, the public now knows
that China is rich and South Korea even richer.
You also have the infiltration of South Korean movies and television shows; you
may not think the scene of a South Korean dinner table is revolutionary but to
the hungry people in the North it is. South Korean media especially affects the
North Korean elite which has more access to it.
Unfortunately, the people of the North have been brutalized and terrorized for
so long that any revolution in the North will probably have to start at the top
and move downward. However, China is spending billions to prevent a regime
collapse.They can slow it down, but the evil regime in North Korea will fall;
it is rotten to the core and only needs a triggering event to bring about its
downfall.
The US should pledge that no US forces will be based in the North and stress a
general amnesty for the North Korean elite. However, the people in the North
will want revenge, so I propose we round up all the Western defenders of the
Kims and turn them over for trial. That sounds like justice to me.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Feb 28, '12)
[Re US misreads the real
equation, Feb 24] The US-North Korea exploratory talks currently
underway in Beijing will break on the question of food aid. The Obama
administration had already promised aid in food shortly before the sudden death
of Kim Jong il. His untimely demise allowed it to put the matter on hold until
Washington could revisit it with the new North Korean leadership.
And yet, as we learn from the press, North Korea and the US are in disagreement
on what is meant by "food aid".
The US is offering 240, 000 tons of food, with a large dollop of fortified milk
and high energy bars; North Korea is wanting 300,000 tons mainly in grain.
For North Korea, fortified milk and high energy bars simply won't meet the
feeds of its people on the verge of starvation; for milk is hardy a staple in
the country's diet and high energy chocolate bars is more fitting for US GIs'
mess kits. Grain will go a long way in feeding North Koreans.
You have to really wonder if the US is ingenuous in its desire to "coax back"
North Korea if it continues to play games with food aid. It is important to
recall that the Obama administration cut off all aid in food to North Korea; it
has used food as a political weapon to bend Pyongyang to agree to Washington's
demands. The results of this policy have been nil, and yet, the US continues a
wrong headed policy.
You have to wonder if after more than 60 years, the US has learnt anything
about North Korea.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Feb 27, '12)
[Re A Chinese vision
begins to emerge, Feb 24] Peter Lee's piece is superb, meaning, first,
that it is actually journalism, ramrod straight down the middle, with no hint
of bias. The journalistic profession has always been more a playground for
political hacks than a refuge for those endeavoring to tell it like it is.
Lee's ability to suppress his own biases in his writing seems to be matched by
a doggedness to cover all the angles.
As I was reading his account of China's proffered peaceful solution to the
Syrian strife, I was thinking that, after Assad's abominable assault on his own
citizens, the opposition may now consider any negotiated solution to be
hopelessly naive. Sure enough, a little further into the article, Lee raised a
similar point. And it only got better. He ended up raising several interesting
points that I have not read elsewhere. That is why Asia Times Online is
unparalleled. More nuggets per column than anywhere else.
Geoffrey Sherwood
United States (Feb 27, '12)
In Wonderland, corporations are viewed with a mixture of fear, respect and awe.
They buy and sell politicians, they are "job creators" and they can resist
popular discontent at their shenanigans with a deft mixture of propaganda,
litigation and threats to move elsewhere. On top of that, the Supreme Court has
long granted them not only the same civil liberties as human beings but by so
doing given them superhuman powers to boot.
An ad promoting a new action film about such SuperCorporations might entice
viewers with promos such as "Able to leap over tall regulations with a single
lobbying call, faster at blaming others than a speeding congressman, more
powerful at getting tax breaks than a charity on steroids." Not to mention
being virtually bulletproof in the proudest tradition of caped crusaders.
While corporations may exercise the rights of flesh-and-blooders like you and
me, unlike you and me, they can literally commit murder and walk away
unscathed. All they need to do is offer compensation to escape what for us
bipedals would be hard time or execution. They can ignore or pay lip service to
federal and state and even their own safety rules, they can evaluate on a
cost-benefit basis the value of human life versus maintenance and repair costs,
they can be shown in court to willfully neglect precautionary measures to
protect their employees who wind up dead because of their malfeasance, and
Amerikans will blithely accept that the correct punishment for such crimes is
financial loss and nothing more, and not even a particularly burdensome loss of
money at that. But if I were shown to have exercised the same contempt for
human life, could I bargain my way to a financial settlement of my crime? No
way, Jose; I would swing in the breeze from the tallest pine in East Texas and
all would nod in sheep-like agreement that "Justice was served".
Not so for companies. It seems that by assuming such constitutionally protected
"superness", their humanity has been exalted to a loftier level than those of
us born of woman. This is simply because corporations have become unto
demigods, somewhere between economic Olympus and political Utopia. While not
quite immortal or invincible, they can hide behind their masks as capitalist
icons and pretend that they protect and defend liberty, justice and the
Amerikan Way. But sooner or later we shall all see them for the devious Jokers
they really are.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Feb 27, '12)
[Re US torn over
arming Syrian rebels, Feb 22] It seems to me that the US is shedding
crocodile tears "over arming Syrian rebels". Publicly the Obama administration
says one thing, covertly through it large network of secrecy it has been
sending materiel through third parties to Syrian rebels as well as funding the
Syrian opposition abroad. The scenario is not new.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Italy (Feb 23, '12)
Asia Times Online has been an essentail daily reading for me for some time and
I wish to thank you again for the insightful articles especially by [MK]
Bharadkumar, [Pepe] Escobar and [Kaveh L] Afrasiabi. In my opinion, the trio of
writers have made Asia Times Online a leader in global political analysis and
indespensible for any one concerned about international affairs in general and
Middle East in particular.
Tim
Canada (Feb 23, '12)
[Re Romney lays
ground for China trade war, Feb 21] despite his grandiose rodomontade,
word is that Beijing would actually prefer Mitt Romney to be the next White
House occupant.
John Chen
United States (Feb 23, '12)
[Re Romney lays
ground for China trade war and
'Unfair' cudgels are out, Feb 21] It was stated, "That is precisely why
Romney's ongoing diatribe against China is so distressing: he is supposed to be
one of those calm, level-headed people that could be trusted not to demagogue
China in order to score cheap political points."
Republican candidate Mitt Romney's action probably speaks more about the
distressing state of the GOP than anything else. Interestingly, despite his
grandiose rodomontade, word is that Beijing would actually prefer Romney to be
the next White House occupant. You think maybe the Chinese know a thing or two
about Romney's high ideals and principles?
John Chen
United States (Feb 22, '12)
Before I get to the point of my letter, let me say I wholly support the view of
Geoffrey Sherwood in the first paragraph of his letter, and here's hoping I can
avoid Siberia. Thomas Meyer in his comment about my letter regarding Noam
Chomsky and his views of Mao claims that Mao was not responsible for the deaths
of between 50 and 70 million people because China lacked democracy and a free
media. Yet it was Mao's policies not to allow democracy or a free media. This
reminds me of the story of the boy that killed both his parents and asked the
judge for mercy because he was an orphan.
Mr Meyer should read Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang. She clearly
states the case that Mao knew of the deaths caused by his polices and did not
care. Mao was a sadistic murderous thug on the best of his days. As for the
last part of his letter he writes "the failures and crimes of the Lenisist
regimes are the failures of their leadership as opposed to consequences of the
regime structures, thus Trotskyism and Maoism as opposed to Stalinism."
Evidently Mr Meyer has spent to much time on university campuses and imbibed
the pseudo intellectual gobbledygook that passes for scholarship there.
About the letter of Monsoonwind on Chomsky. Monsoonwind attacks the US invasion
of Grenada as an example of evil US Gunboat diplomacy. However Grenada had
three governments in the week before the US invasion each one a coup, the
second one involving the murder of eight of the previous government officials.
The day of the invasion is now the Thanksgiving day of Grenada, is this in
Gunboat diplomacy may we have more of it, my first candidate would be Zimbabwe
and the murderous thug Mugabe may he soon join Mao in the Nether regions. Dennis
O'Connell United States
Editor's note: Correspondence on this matter in the letters
section is now considered closed after giving writers a fair airing in the same
place. Readers are kindly invited to address each other in
The Edge, where contributions are welcomed to make the forum far from a
Siberia, but a warmer place for debate. (Feb 22,
'12)
[Re North Korean secrets
lie six-feet under, Feb 17] When it comes to news about North Korea, it
is as though we are standing on a supermarket check out line; awaiting our
turn, we leaf through the gossip magazines for the latest rumors. Michael Rank
dusts off the story of Kim Jong-nam's mother Song Hye-rim. Periodically, a
journalist breathes new life into it.
On the other hand "Young Kim shows silent talent" bathes Kim Jong-eun in a
reflective light, and as such, enhances his "aura" through silence. He exudes,
by keeping his counsel to himself, skill and courage, yet he projects himself
as the symbol of the unifying communal culture and continuity of the North
Korean people.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Feb 21, '12)
[Re Bob Van den Broeck's letter, Feb 13] At the risk of getting exiled to the
Asia Times Online version of Siberia - The Edge - I'll respond to a few of Mr
Van den Broeck's comments. (Besides, the letters page is much more lively and
interesting when there is a mix of coherent and semi-coherent debate, instead
of exceedingly banal, repetitive monologues by a few writers).
It was not my intent to obfuscate or mislead when I explained my objections to
Pepe Escobar's putting the term "rebels" in quotes when referring to the Syrian
rebels. Many Syrians are rebelling, not "rebelling", against Assad's
thug-ocracy. I did not say that rebellion or "war" is the only road to
progress. I asked, rhetorically, if "tragedy" is. That's not a defense of war
or tragedy; it's merely an observation of history. Wars create entropy and
chaos only in the short-run. The heretofore unheard-of peace among European
nations and between Japan and her neighbors is evidence of progress sired by
tragedy. And Russians would certainly argue that one has an unusually blinkered
view of their history to distill the demise of their seven-decades-long
communist nightmare into a short, simple declaration that they "overspent
themselves."
Many present-day Russian historians say that their debacle in Afghanistan, and
decades of suffering within a slave-state, had plenty to do with it. And
Gorbachev would tell you that he started down the reformist path when he
learned of the tragic suffering of his own family, and their native village, at
the hands of Stalin. To Mr Van den Broeck's credit, though, he almost got one
thing right: "Left" is not a pejorative in my lexicon. "Far left" is. So is
"far right."
Geoffrey Sherwood
United States (Feb 21, '12)
[Re Dennis O'Connell's letter, Feb 16] I am curious as to Dennis O'Connell's
claim that Mao killed 50 million people. While I am well aware that Mao's
regime had about that death toll, the death toll is usually ascribed to the
failures of Mao's regime to understand the consequences of its actions, such as
crop failures and failures to plant sufficiently, and that this failure to
understand was in no small amount due to the lack of independent media,
opposition and democracy causing a lack of trustworthy information, at least if
Amartya Sen is anyone to go by.
Normally, the argument advanced (by O'Connell here) is advanced by Leninists;
namely, that the failures and crimes of the Leninist regimes are the failures
of their leadership, as opposed to consequences of the regimes' structures,
thus Trotskyism and Maoism as opposed to Stalinism. Chomsky has in the past
been rather clear on that matter, and has been attacked for it. O'Connell's
third-last paragraph seems flatly wrong on exactly that score.
Thomas Meyer
Canada (Feb 21, '12)
Obama confidently says that 2 million jobs will be added in Wonderland in 2012.
Really, Mr Obama? I have been driving around Houston the last few days and
stores, shops, malls and restaurants that I have seen for years and years are
now shuddered, closed and extinct.
These are the same small businesses and entrepreneurship that the eco-wonks
have been insisting would be the vanguard of the latest "recovery." And if they
are disappearing in Houston, the Mecca of international oil and gas, where I
routinely see car licensee plates from Hawaii to Maine belonging to job
seekers, what is happening in the states these people have abandoned? The White
House, in fact, believes those statistics with the faith of an atheist at Mass,
ie not a whit, but what does it hurt?
Conflated numbers that have no bearing on reality are such a part and parcel of
Washingtonian mathematics that (Debt + War) x Statistical Propaganda =
"Recovery" + Re-Election, the only formula politicians need know in these
parts. The accounting manipulations that have masked decades of federal and
state inefficiency, corruption, theft, waste and pork have turned debts into
surpluses, expanding unemployment rolls into hopeful "green shoots" (I wonder
why that term lost popularity?), Wall Street gyrations into Resurgent
Capitalism, Social Security insolvency into a giant piggy bank for political
looting, Pentagon purchases of inflated goods into defense industry growth and
making all the knock-on costs of returning unemployable, depressed, suicidal,
homicidal, maimed plutocratic war veterans disappear into thin air. WonderMath.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Feb 21, '12)
[Re 'Losing the
world', Feb 15] I am glad that two regular Asia Times Online devotees,
Ian Purdie and Dennis O'Connell, took time out to challenge disinformation
included in Noam Chomsky's diatribe. While still withholding endorsement to Mr
Chomsky's slanted overview, I would like to challenge a couple of points made
by the two above-mentioned challengers (even though the outcome shall likely be
a scattergun content to this letter).
Gunboat diplomacy went out in the 19th century (Ian Purdie). Not so Ian, it was
still being used by the US on its small Central American and Caribbean
neighbors deep into the 20th century. The most recent example that comes to
mind was the 1986 invasion of Grenada to replace a government that did not suit
the Reagan administration. Given the unenviable track record of US meddling
elsewhere in the Americas, never wonder about Latino anti-Americanism.
The US did not invade Vietnam but was invited in by the government of South
Vietnam (Dennis O'Connell). Technically true Dennis: but what you fail to
mention is that the Republic of South Vietnam was itself of dubious legitimacy.
After France had been compelled to cease its efforts to re-impose colonial rule
on Vietnam with their military defeat at Dien Bien Phu (1954), a peace
agreement was entered into where northern Vietnam was handed directly to the
stewardship of the Viet Minh (led by Ho Chi Minh) while South Vietnam (where
the Viet Minh did not have such unequivocal support) would be governed
separately until a United Nations supervised referendum could be held in both
parts within five years on the issue of re-unification of the country as a
single state. The Diem regime that had by then entrenched itself in the south
then reneged on the referendum, undoubtedly because they knew the Communists
would win.
Without endorsing either the Vietnamese Communist Party or its policies, it
should be clear that the North Vietnamese regime and the Viet Cong guerillas in
the South had a valid case for a war of re-unification given the Diem regime's
betrayal of the earlier peace deal. The US arguably chose to support a rogue
regime lacking majority support at home; the consequences of whose continuing
existence was to keep the Vietnamese nation divided. It was a victim of the
infantile American Cold War power politics impression that ' if it is not
Commie than it must be "ours"'.
Monsoonwind
Australia (Feb 17, '12)
[Re 'Losing the
world', Feb 15] In his comment on Noam Chomsky, Ian Purdie of Australia
wrote in this letters page: "Is the US is going to unleash a nuclear holocaust,
or send drones across the planet to deal with those who disagree with its
morally bankrupt foreign policy? I don't think so."
I don't know about nukes, but the US government has been droning critics pretty
frequently of late. Remember, there are tens of millions of Americans who look
forward to the end of the world some time soon and probably plenty more who
think that "life is cheap in Asia [Africa, South America...]"
Lester Ness
China (Feb 17, '12)
[Re 'Losing the
world', Feb 15] We see the great activist acting as a caricature of
himself. Chomsky calls the "invasion of South Vietnam, [and] later all of
Indochina", "the most destructive and murderous act of aggression of the
post-World War II period". He has chosen to ignore the tens of millions
slaughtered at the behest of Mao Tse Tung. One wonders why.
I applaud the other readers who have pointed out this inconsistency (to put it
most charitably) for continuing to read the piece even after encountering this
ridiculous falsehood.
Miles Chewley
Indonesia (Feb 17, '12)
[Re Syria, the new
Libya, Feb 13] Pepe Escobar's contribution is outstanding as usual. It
really helps to understand what is actually going on in Syria. The censored
news broadcast in North America is very poor. The media organizations simply
repeat back what they are being told by the opposition, "Opposition rebels
say", is being parroted by news staff across the Western channels. There has
been no verification of what is being reported by the rebels.
Al-Jazeera showed video from the rebels that proved later to be from atrocities
in the Tunisian rebellion. One would think that the Western peoples were
enduring an Orwellian media attack to create an alternative reality. It is so
important these days to get as much of the truth out as possible.
Asia Times Online is plagued by name-calling "Conservative" types. These middle
of the road self-proclaimed conservatives need to label people (eg leftist) to
create a world in which their thinking appears to make sense. They do not
present real factual data to back up their claims. I just read a letter that
does a pseudo psychological evaluation of Pepe Escobar, and why he writes what
he does, trying to make Escobar's writings somehow of less value; references to
Karl Marx, who was not a Syrian citizen, of Sunni or Shia religious background;
explaining the rebels are not leftist, but they are not rightists either.
Complete obfuscating, misleading drivel along the lines of:
1) They only want their facts shown: The fact that the head of al-Qaeda
supports action against President Bashar al-Assad. The disbursement of weapons,
terrorists, and mercenaries joining the Free Syrian Army, fighting the Syrian
army, physically shielded by the bodies of the Syrian protesters. Often when
the truth gets out, it hurts. That why it was hidden.
2) That the tragedy of war is the only tool for "progress": The fall of the
Soviet Union is one prominent example where force was not needed and does no
require tragedy for change to occur. The Russians did it to themselves. A real
conservative would abhor war. War creates entropy and chaos. The Russians
overspent themselves. The rouble was not the world currency so to simply turn
on the printing presses did not alleviate their problems in the end.
3) The truth as reported was done so to somehow promote bias: Like Asia Times
Online has a secret agenda? The US ambassador to Syria was attending opposition
rallies, speaking to the crowd, and making negative remarks about Assad and his
government, in the fall of 2011. It is what it is, this really happened and is
pertinent. To somehow imply that something like this shouldn't have been
reported because it makes the Syrian rebels look bad. The Syrian Sunni rebels
are human beings and they are suffering. So are the Christians that are being
driven out of the Middle East by Western actions. Omission of the truth is a
lie.
4) America must always be portrayed as a positive force: Whatever is being
complained about involves how things are perceived in America but not the
world. The left is perceived to be an insult. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden,
"They saved lives," is the usual response given; American military lives over
those of civilians. Most countries have socialist programs, social security,
full standing armies, health insurance. These are fully socialist in nature yet
widely supported in America by the left and most of the right, except Ron Paul
and the libertarians.
I will read Hardy Campell's letter's from Wonderland more closely. The
Wonderlanders are all around us.
Bob Van den Broeck
Canada (Feb 17, '12)
The approaching showdown with Iran is being preceded with interesting domino
effects in other fields. Recently the American Petroleum Institute has decided
to severely curtail relations with the International Standards Organization,
simply because the inclusion of Iran in that body can theoretically provide
that Muslim state with sanctioned US petroleum recovery technology. This
despite more than 20 years of efforts in "da oyl bi'ness" to harmonize and
standardize American, European and Asian oilfield practices, the natural result
of globalization and international business cooperation in the most
cosmopolitan of industries.
All that is being abandoned as Wonderlanders gnash their teeth in frustration
at the last Islamic state standing in the way of Judeo-Christian hegemony, a
domination that would have swept all before it even 20 years ago. Alas, in the
cruelest of WonderIronies, the very globalization movement instigated by the
capitalist-imperialists to cement western supremacy now renders that the
sheerest of fantasies. By enabling previous Third World countries that were
wholly dependent on white man largesse now able to stand on their feet through
global trade flows, notably India and China, the efforts of neo-colonial mad
dogs like the US have failed spectacularly in preventing Iran from defending
itself.
Not that you can't chalk up a string of pseudo-successes to the madmen of
Washington and their evil masters in Tel Aviv. The supposedly "spontaneous"
revolutions in the Middle East were as unplanned as a May Day parade, each
carefully orchestrated, provoked and sustained by minions and agents of the
Mossad and CIA with just enough home-grown enthusiasts to make the false flag
civil conflicts believable to the gullible of both sides (think Guatemala and
Iran in the 50s for similar native "revolutions".)
All that stands in the way is defiant, recalcitrant Iran, who probably believes
like the US that only a good war can unite the people enough to forget economic
malaise and insatiable political corruption. I suspect Kaiserine Germany and
Tsarist Russia thought pretty much the same way in 1914.
Hardy Campbell United States
[Re 'Losing' the
world [Feb 15, '12] Is the US is going to unleash a nuclear holocaust,
or send drones across the planet to deal with those who disagree with its
morally bankrupt foreign policy? I don't think so.
Ian C Purdie
Australia (Feb 17, '12)
In Noam Chomsky's,
'Losing' the world [Feb 15, '12], we are treated to Chomsky's extreme
leftist views and his even greater hatred of the US. He starts out denouncing
the 50th anniversary of the US invasion of Vietnam. The US did not invade
Vietnam but was invited in by the government of South Vietnam. Also, US
advisers arrived in Vietnam in 1950 not in 1962 with a large increase in 1960
from 327 to 685.
In Chomsky's mind, words have no meaning other than to advance the warped views
of Chomsky, a strange belief for a linguist. He also writes, "In 1949 china
declared independence", China already was independent what happened in 1949 was
that the communists defeated the nationalists. Chomsky know this but uses words
to lie to further his ends.
Chomsky sites a study where "mortality sharply decreased in China during the
Maoist years", however this was brought about mostly by vaccines and pesticides
and other 20th century advances. Chomsky fails to mention that Mao killed 50
million people to advance his power, because this does not fit in with his
world view. So Chomsky fails to report 50 million dead, but how does he feel
about the US aid to Europe after WWII. From 1945 to 1951 the US gave $25
billion to Europe one-tenth of our GDP or 1.5 trillion in today's terms. Yet
Chomsky claims that US aims were to keep the world poor and subservient to the
US, writing "(US) Planners were naturally well aware of the enormous disparity
of power and intended to keep it that way."
The US has given almost complete access to US markets to many nations and was a
major role in the advancement in many countries especially those in Europe,
Japan, South Korea and China. Even as those set up many barriers to American
trade. South Korea sells over a million cars in the US and we sell less than
5,000 in Korea but does the South Korean left see this, No .
Chomsky fails to realize that when WWII ended the Soviet Union captured
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, East Germany,Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and
Czechoslovakia and shortly after that the communists gained power in
Yugoslavia, North Korea, China, Cuba and North Vietnam along with countless
insurgencies in the third world. These communists did not believe in any human
freedoms no free speech, no rights to freedom of religion or the press and
certainly no free elections, yet
Chomsky cheered them on and hoped for their victory. Chomsky writes about
Indonesian leader Suharto and how he was "welcomed by the Bill Clinton
administration in 1995 as "our kind of guy"." But he fails to mention US
military aid to Indonesia was radically reduced starting in 1991 and the US
delegation in the UN human rights commission helped pass a resolution
expressing deep concern over human rights violations in East Timor. This might
make some people believe that Chomsky is "some kind of lair".
His last section, The concentration of wealth and American decline, is largely
true; however the entire world economy in unsustainable and what is happening
in Greece and other European countries will soon spread around the world
bringing about a global depression that will effect everyone.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Feb 16, '12)
I must seriously take issue with a few points, among many others, from Noam
Chomsky's article 'Losing'
the world [Feb 15, '12].
Firstly, the front page introduction says: "the US remains the world's dominant
power by a large margin, with no competitor in sight, not only in the military
dimension, in which the US reigns supreme".
Who seriously cares about US military domination except for the fantasists in
the Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency and other neo-cons? Is the US is
going to unleash a nuclear holocaust upon the world, or send drones across the
planet to every corner of the world where people disagree with its morally
bankrupt foreign policy? I don't think so. Even the delusional aren't that
insane. Or are they?
Gunboat diplomacy went out in the 19th century. Emerging nations are much less
insecure today, they are not entirely overwhelmed by bully-boy threats. They
know they certainly have time on their side. Slowly, ever so slowly, they are
asserting themselves in the modern world. Only the US and its decrepit poodle
followers fail to see this writing on the wall.
Secondly, in my belief, Noam falsely asserts "president John F Kennedy's
decision to launch the most destructive and murderous act of aggression of the
post-World War II period: the invasion of South Vietnam". My personal belief is
that Kennedy realized the false and very dangerous advice he had previously
been given and was in fact withdrawing troops at the time of his death.
It is no coincidence to me that within two weeks of John F Kennedy's death,
president Lyndon Johnson, on advice, rescinded that withdrawal, upped the ante
and, later fell for the Gulf of Tonkin incident hook, line and sinker thus
leading to the catastrophe we now know as Vietnam.
I could go on and on. The US is a spent force. Possibly and, probably horribly,
they might even eventually be deluded enough to roll the dice with China and
Russia. The way things are progressing in this delusional world that might in
fact even be inevitable. At some point in time, China and Russia will most
certainly have to draw the line in the sand. They have no choice.
Will Iran now prove to be the catalyst for these American madmen?
Ian C Purdie
Australia (Feb 16, '12)
[Re Syria, the new
Libya, Feb 13, and
Syria through a glass, darkly, Feb 8] Pepe Escobar's recent articles
about the Syrian rebellion are instructive, not because they shed any light on
the rebellion, but because they illuminate the conflicted mindset of the far
left.
When he speaks as a human being Escobar shows the natural empathy that we
should all have for the "dissidents and the fragmented civilian opposition
[who] were always peaceful and unarmed."
When he speaks as a politicized being he refers to these same people as
"rebels" with the your-motivations-are-suspect quotes. The rebels don't know
Marx and don't have a manifesto, but they do know they aren't free, and they do
know that Bashar al-Assad and his thugs can incarcerate, torture, and kill
anyone they please. But the rebels are not leftists, so they are merely
"rebels" to the guardians of leftist orthodoxy.
The politicized Escobar takes every opportunity to diminish the legitimacy of
the Syrian rebels. He quotes the Qatar Foundation survey that shows that 55% of
Syrians still support Assad. Over 55% of Americans supported the policies of
George W Bush at one time or another. That only proves that majorities will
support the darnedest things. And it proves that on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Escobar takes information from a Qatari source at face value. On other days
Qatari information is "crude propaganda" (his description of Qatari-controlled
media).
Escobar and the left do not have a monopoly on hypocrisy and conflicted
perspectives. I don't know if it is possible to honestly deal with a situation
like the Syrian rebellion and not feel conflicted, and trip over your own
tongue on occasion. Escobar's concern is, I think, shared by most: If you arm a
rebellion that is not united by any motive other than hatred of the Assad
regime, you are risking an enormous humanitarian disaster. Then again, isn't
progress punctuated by, and even dependent upon, tragedy?
Geoffrey Sherwood
United States (Feb 14, '12)
[Re A Chongqing man
walks into a consulate ..., Feb 13] Francesco Sisci writes, "This is
because people in Germany, Italy, or the US believe the local investigation
procedures and the political power struggles are fair and open."
I don't know about Germany or Italy, but lots of Americans didn't trust US
investigation procedures, or political power struggles, even before the Patriot
Act and NDAA.
Lester Ness
China (Feb 14, '12)
Futureman was excited about a paper he was reading from one of his doctoral
students. It was titled "Who Needs to Die? The Amerikan Military's Quest for
No-Muss-No Fuss War." "Yeah, he's researched the last 500 years of warfare
technology in the US and found some amazing stuff." I wanted to sleep so I
tried to brush him off. "Like what? Invisibility cloaks? Weaponizing the
weather? Bionic weapons suits? Death rays from space? Old hat comic book stuff
everyone nowadays knows the Pentagon is pursuing."
"Oh, dude, that's small potatoes compared to this gold mine. Listen here; in
2031 Raytheon developed tiny robotic cockroaches, each less than an inch long,
that could coordinate infestation attacks using mini lasers. They were used to
wipe out the Thai Confederacy and the Belarus Mafia a year later. There was a
later hitch though; the mechanical bugs formed a union and demanded retirement
benefits, so they were all sold for scrap. A minor setback. Two years later,
after the invention of the cerebral implants, it was found that five-year-old
children from East Timor could create wormholes and travel through time, so the
Pentagon kidnapped the entire population and began indoctrinating the young
kids as Time Warriors."
He had me intrigued. "You're kidding, right?" "No, no, honest! It was wild, the
whole idea being the kids would go back in time and kill bad guys before they
were born. But they found out that the consequences were kinda nasty; most of
the generals, who had become soldiers in the first place because of these
targeted evildoers, instantly turned into non-military professionals when the
assassinations took place. Half the Pentagon staff in 2035 became insurance
salesmen and laundromat owners when Osama bin Laden was killed as a fetus. The
enthusiasm for the program waned pretty quickly."
I was sure this was Futureman's idea of a futuristic joke. "OK, I'm waiting.
What's the punchline here? I do need to sleep, you know." "Yes, this
dissertation is massive, but here's the 'punchline', if you will. Before the
Pythonic Republic fell to the Astro-Goths, the president, Sasquatch Limerick
Alphabetically Speaking-in-Navel Lint, personally devised a machine that killed
people the instant they had sexual thoughts. He never survived trying to sell
it at a swinger's convention, and, you can imagine, the slaughter was
horrendous. Even the Octagon was scared of the machine, dubbed the Libidinator.
The Astro-Goths, Jovian eunuchs every one of 'em, got ahold of it, and well,
the rest, as they say, is history."
"So what happened to the device? Is it still around in your time?"
"Oh sure, only it's now used as a screener for conservative presidential
hopefuls. Whoever survives the Libidinator automatically becomes the neo-con
candidate."
Hardy Campbell
Texas, USA (Feb 13, '12)
[Re The Russian
winter of discontent, Feb 9] Truth be told, the United States, as Yong
Kwon well notes, has opted out of any contact with North Korea. The Obama
administration is sticking to its guns in refusing to have anything to do with
Pyongyang unless it agrees to American demands, which North Korea recognizes as
nothing short of capitulation. Obviously, Washington enjoys issuing ukases
even though they are not only short-sighted but doomed to failure.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Feb 10, '12)
Dennis O'Connell must not have read my letter on the sinking of the Chenoan
correctly. I did not state that I believed in anything. I pointed out that the
world body the UN, (not six Western allies), did not blame North Korea for the
sinking. It was not a North Korean torpedo, it was an expensive German torpedo,
with expensive Western-made explosives. The torpedo looked like it had been
corroding at the bottom of the sea for a year or two. I am an ex-chem Eng;
metal corrosion is basic chemistry. Chinese and Russian investigators did not
agree with any Western conclusions on the sinking. Stuff your book, more
hearsay.
It is good to know that Mr O'Connell believes in aliens, and offered an
explanation that the CIA or illuminati were behind the sinking. It was more
likely a blunder by US forces, leaving an underwater mine armed. Who sold the
North Koreans a German torpedo? America is learning that the majority of the
world is very skeptical of anything that the US does abroad anymore. Dennis
O'Connell is proof of this. Dennis, Americans are the only people to use
nuclear weapons against civilians. It is what it is.
Bob van den Broeck
American in Canada (Feb 10, '12)
Editor's note: Mr van den Broeck kindly pointed out that
correspondence which is personal in nature is better suited to debates in our
readers' forum,
The Edge. From now on we will be referring such correspondence to the
forum.
Bob Van den Broeck in his recent letter [Feb 9, 2012] stated that he does not
believe North Korea sank the South Korean vessel the Cheonan. A few days
ago a Japanese journalist Yoji Gomi published a book about Kim Jong-il's oldest
son, Kim Jong-nam, based on over 150 e-mails and three interviews. The books
states that Jong-nam acknowledges that North Korea sank the Cheonan to
justify its military-first policy.
The conclusion of an international group of experts made up of six nations
including Sweden agreed it was a North Korean attack. Part of the evidence was
the partial remains of a North Korean torpedo. However, leftists are immune to
the truth and have their own reality, so they will blame the Central
Intelligency Agency or the illuminati or it could be those pesky space aliens.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Feb 9, '12)
Bill McKibben's
The great carbon bubble [Feb 9, 2012] brings the usual marketing to the
hard-to-die climate alarmism. Well, I'm not a climate scientist on the payroll
of the oil industry, just a geologist who knows the geological history of the
Earth well enough to leave a simple challenge to the true believers in the
so-called human-made global warming like McKibben.
Please, instead of rhetoric or computer model contrivances, come up with one
single peice of physical evidence that proves that the temperature and sea
level variations (specially their gradients) that occurred since the Industrial
Revolution are in any way anomalous as compared to the variations that occurred
before the 18th century.
Geraldo Luํs Lino
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Feb 9, '12)
After reading, Gulf
crisis ripples across the globe [Feb 7, '12] by Brian M Downing. I was
perplexed by this statement:
"His father, [late North Korea leader] Kim Jong-il, secured his son's
succession by allowing the military to embark on aggressive actions against
South Korea, including the sinking of a frigate and the shelling of an island."
The official statement by the United Nations at the time was a condemnation of
the sinking of the South Korean Corvette. No nation was named, mentioned,
stated or implicated by the UN statement. I would like to remind the author
that what may pass for reality in the United States, does not always do so for
the majority world's population. Where are those pesky Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction?
Bob Van den Broeck
Canada (Feb 8, '12)
In Cross-strait winds of
change blow cold[Jan 31, 2012] by Jens Kastner , the author seems
preoccupied by the structural component of democracy such as voting but
oblivious to the cultural component, namely, genuine respect for differences in
opinion. Taiwan is not well-developed in terms of the latter: One who sees an
existential threat from China is not likely to respect the opinion of one who
wants eventual reunification. Due to the threat from China, democratic culture
in Taiwan has found it vastly more difficult to mature than other elsewhere.
The author criticizes China's lack of democracy, structural and cultural, but
the global experience is that there are two ways toward democracy: economic
progress that leads to education and aspiration of the masses (South Korea),
and being conquered by a repentant power that is more democratic domestically
and later wishes to spread democracy to its subjects (India). One has to opt
for the former for China so economic development has to be the prerequisite and
China is still a poor country per capita.
There is at least a subjectively valid link between ethnic culture and
democratic culture; hence Taiwan, even with immature democratic culture, can
have a unique influence on China's democratic development. However, for Taiwan
to be such a beacon, it must first be a part of China - for two reasons.
Firstly, as long as mainland Chinese see Taiwan as a threat to the integrity of
their country, Taiwan's value in being such a beacon is greatly diminished.
Secondly, for Taiwan's democratic culture to develop, the reunification issue
has to be settled. Often the mainland Chinese see bitter acrimony among
Taiwan's people and politicians with disturbing rhetorical excesses, and would
not like to see this replicated for mainland China.
Hong Kong has better a democratic culture because the reunification issue has
been settled. As such, Hong Kong is the better beacon for democratic culture
for the rest of China: universal suffrage is only a part of democracy, the easy
part to copy from democracies worldwide; the more difficult part is democratic
culture.
Jeff Church
USA (Feb 8, '12)
"You gotta love capitalism," Futureman gushed last night. "It paints itself in
the colors of prosperity, freedom, opportunity and merit, but that's just
camouflage for its true meaning." I was used to Futureman's diatribes about
what ailed my-time Amerika, but I was a little surprised by his follow through.
"Capitalism is really another word for 'God-ism.'" "Huh? What did you say?
God-ism? What's that?" "Look, our research has gone back thousands of years,
and the result is always the same. The priests who said they represented the
gods needed money to buy suitably impressive vestments, build pyramids,
temples, statues, etc. They weren't going to work for it themselves - Heaven
forbid! - but they convinced the peons that they needed to fork over their cash
in order to propitiate the gods. Otherwise, Big Trouble - droughts, floods,
locusts, etc.
But poor dirt farmers in Mesopotamia weren't going to provide enough dough for
very good looking clothes or buildings, so the priests convinced their "front
men", the kings, nobles and landed classes, to start enslaving thousands of
"other peoples", who became "others" believing in different gods, or having a
different language or skin color - whatever. Once slavery became fashionable,
the money rolled in, little or no wages, maximum profits, big towering temples
and costly gold-trimmed robes to impress the illiterate, dumb and frightened
masses. The slaves became property, the land they worked on became property,
the goods the slaves produced became property, and all that property was worth
money the churches/temples/ziggurats hungered for.
Futureman's logic was intriguing but seemed tangential. "How does that make
capitalism 'God-ism'?" "Don't you see, Pastman? Back then, before the priests
took over, the idea of owning people or land or things was totally alien, just
like your Native Americans who were baffled by the white man's lust for
material things - the natives could not fathom anything belonging to any human
being, only to their nature gods.
However, that was because their religious men didn't have the light bulb snap
on over their heads and figure out the Ultimate Scam of capitalism - making
gods out of each property owner allowed them to accumulate things they had no
business claiming as their own as mere mortals. But if each slaveowner or
landowner was a god unto themselves, blessed by the religious muckeddymucks,
then all that possession and exploiting stuff was OK."
I was annoyed once again by Futureman's seductive logic. "Hmm ... well, the big
wigs that have gotten us into trouble have called themselves "Masters of the
Universe' and the like," I reasoned. "I suppose that sounds kinda godlike,
doesn't it?" "Think about it, dude. Your own Christian church in Amerika
condoned slavery as being Biblical, it attacked labor groups and progressive
movements as being 'troublemaking traitors', it even endorsed that Mitt Romney
character who believed in his becoming a Mormon god on some zombie planet. I
mean, need I say more?" "No, I guess not" I whispered, as I looked at a dollar
bill, adorned with a pagan pyramid, topped by an omnipotent seeing eye, and
telling me that "In God We Trust."
H Campbell
Houston (Feb 8, '12)
[Re Desperate
wheeling and dealing, Feb 6] United States Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton's scalding remarks about Russia's and China's veto of the Arab
League-sponsored UN resolution on Syria are an expression of sour grapes.
Suddenly, America is a champion of the oppressed Syrians. We cannot cavil that
Bashir al-Assad is a poster boy for democracy, but we can demand explanations
from the "freedom loving" US why it consistently vetoes Security Council
resolutions condemning Israel for violation of the rights of the Palestinian
people.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Italy (Feb 7, '12)
The recent "revelations" from a certain Colonel Davis of the US Army that the
Pentagon has been deceitful in reporting the true situation in Afghanistan is
making news in Wonderland these days. My question is; Why? Why on earth is
anyone surprised that the American military/government routinely and
consistently lies, distorts, spins, twists and mangles the truth? I mean, aside
from that old dictum that "The first casualty in war is Truth", just how many
times do these lies have to be exposed before Wonderlanders smell the coffee?
Vietnam provided so many lies that the credibility of the Pentagon should have
been permanently impaired, but no, Americans still insisted that "our fighting
men" were pristine, honest warriors imbued with an adoration for democracy, the
love of freedom and the bravery of lions. Nor could the truth leaking out about
the opera buffon of Grenada and the inept tragedy of Beirut in 1983 deter us
from accepting reality (never an easy sell here.) And the litany of lies has
droned on like some monotonous metronome of military mendacity, from Mogadishu
to Abu Graib to the Pat Tillman fratricide coverup to the fantasy of
Afghanistan joining the ranks of Western democracies.
Colonel Davis' bluntness may or may not cost him his career (I suspect the
Pentagon will quietly assign him to latrine duty in Greenland), but just like
another military man being persecuted for his honest and integrity in revealing
via WikiLeaks the lies of the American government, he will recognize that
solidarity among soldiers frequently means considering such attributes as
treason, subversion and sedition of the first order.
And Americans appear willing to look the other way and see the universe through
the rose colored blindfolds that the Pentagon wants them to wear. We seem eager
to ascribe all sorts of moral virtues to soldiers and reasons for their killing
civilians that are completely at odds with unpleasant truths about them, such
as their drug addictions, their drug peddling, their thefts, their gang rapes,
their kickbacks and bribes and cold blooded executions of the people they
supposedly are "protecting" from turbaned evildoers.
Wonderlanders want desperately to believe that all their blood and treasure is
being expended for a good reason. So we swallow whole the myriads lies about
spreading freedom, fighting terror and defending the distant shores of Amerika.
Indeed, Wonderland has become so perverse, bizarre and insane that we are once
again willing to believe the same lies that took us to war in Iraq once again,
this time changing the victim's identity by only one letter. And that's because
lies are the real currency in Wonderland, having much more value than the
debased and debauched greenback. Lies reflect our fervent desire to make
reality something other than what it is, a safe refuge from the consequences of
all the lies that came before.
Lies are thus immortal, self-perpetuating and invincible. Little wonder the
Pentagon has made Lies and Lying Numero Uno in its arsenal "defending America."
Hardy Campbell
United States (Feb 7, '12)
[Re Question time for
North Korea, Feb 3] Does it strike the curious eye the symmetry of
impending threats of rocket attacks by two "axis of evil" states? Israel is
claiming that Iran is developing an advanced rocket with potential atomic
payload and a range of 6000 km, which could hit the US. And now North Korea,
which sells its advanced rocket technology for hard cash, is the nefarious
force behind Iran's missile program.
On one hand, this is old news, often recycled. On the other, as Ronen Bergmann
wrote in the "New York Times Magazine", Moshe Ya'lon who is floating this
"rumor" about Iran's long range rocket development, is itching to advance a
2012 timetable to attack Israel's existential enemy Iran. Even though the
Pentagon and US intelligence downplay the Israeli deputy prime minister and
strategic affairs minister, it would suit Israel fine to push an unwilling
American ally to sanction its attack plan.
Are we witnessing another case of fabricating evidence of WMD for launching
another failed war in the Middle East?
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Feb 6, '12)
[Re US tells
Israelis it won't join their fight, Feb 2] This is just noise to
confuse and distract. I find it ludicrous when a journalist use the word "right
wing" to refer to any mildly conservative idea. However, they fail to use the
term "left wing lunacy" to refer to some of those wacko ideas that attempt to
bend us over; and at the same time let insignificant enemies "service our
account." Israel could take down Iran on its own. Israel's military might and
possibly gigantic arsenal of nuclear "toys" is enough to take down a crippled
Iran. Iran's threat is an invention of the US and some of our friends which in
my opinion has just over empowered Iran.
Iran must feel important that we use them for propaganda purposes. One thing is
clear though; the enemies of America are not afraid of blood, death, and
destruction while America and its allies seem to be horrified by a couple drop
of bloods and a few dead terrorists.
Until we pay violence with violence, and hatred with even greater, more
virulent hatred, our enemies won't respect us. When they take down an American
such as Daniel Pearl, we should take down an entire city in a clean sweep. Then
the madness will stop. As of those generals babbling nonsense to the press or
leaking information via an "unnamed" source, shame on them. These admirals or
whatever they are are acting like a group of college, gossip chicks. This is
how low we have come under this current democratic administration.
What's next General Martin Dempsey? Will you and your men play with a barbie
while drinking tea? Decaffeinated of course and harvested from ONLY "fair
trade" brands.
Ysais Martinez
United States (Feb 3, '12)
[Re Call for 'more
credible' US military threat, Feb 3] Our informed friend Jim Lobe tells
us that "according to the fourth in a series of studies released here on
Wednesday by a 13-man "bipartisan" task force dominated by Iran hawks". Whoa!
Do we actually know who these lunatics are? How can any normal, sane people
arrive at these scenarios? Obviously, I have no knowledge of Iranian
preparedness nor, their capability to respond to an unwarranted attack by
either the USA or, Israel or, both. Such an event would be a tragedy for us all
but none more so than the Iranian people. Certainly Iran must have made
contingency plans for this eventuality. Which particular doomsday scenario do
you prefer? Iranians are certainly no fools. Iranian generals also don't lie to
their government about preparedness as was the stunning case in Iraq.
In the event an unwarranted attack does occur, make no mistake, everyone on
this planet will pay dearly for it one way or another. Neither I, nor anyone
else, yet knows how, but we will all certainly pay, even if only in escalating
oil prices. That would prove critical, perhaps fatal to fragile economies
across Europe with a domino effect.
Were such an attack to take place, the last remaining shreds of American,
British, European and Israeli integrity will be in the dust and all future
attacks upon them should receive no sympathy. They obviously would have
demonstrated they have zero respect for their own very, very fragile economies
and will have proved to have an infinite capacity for making "own goals".
Remember, the West hasn't won a war since 1945.
The question needs to be asked: "How do we put these lunatics back into the
bottle of the asylum where they rightly belong before the world becomes an even
bigger mess than the West has already made it?"
Ian C Purdie
Australia (Feb 3, '12)
[Re Even in Pyongyang,
politics will out, Jan 31] The pillars of the North Korean regime are
not going to fall soon, Mr Foster-Carter. The fallible laws of "social science
[may] still appl[y]' in deducing what is going behind the arras in Pyongyang,
but we can never say for sure. And some abstracts may be on target, yet most
are wild guesses as the long years of Sovietology inform us, and that's why
North Korea remains a Western intelligence failure.
Immediately after Kim Jong-il's death, China shipped 500,000 tons of food and
250,000 tons of crude oil to underscore its support of Kim Jung-eun's
succession. More recently though a South Korean NGO, more food aid has moved to
the North. Such a gesture indicate that even an adversary like the Lee Myung
bak government acknowledges that the power has consolidated around the person
of the younger Kim, the fancy guesswork of which relative or which faction
vying for attention, favor, or power will emerge on top notwithstanding.
Cynical reports are appearing in the press of military formation drills at the
Mirem base. Are these war exercises? More likely they are being carried out for
the giant parades marking the centenary of Kim Il-sung. And, surprise,
surprise, this is no secret since festivities of such magnitude have been
previously announced. How different is this kind of "well choreographed
emotion" from, say, the British preparation for the 2012 Olympics?
It seems to me silly to say that "politics prevail even in Pyongyang when we
know that in Communist regimes "politics are in command", as much as they are
in the Cameron cabinet in London.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Feb 1, '12)
It's been 50 odd years since Mao Zedong proclaimed the United States a "paper
tiger." That was when the US was universally recognized, even by its Soviet
bloc foes, as the unquestioned Alpha Dog on Planet America. Imagine how the
venerable Sino-Sage would describe us today. He would witness the continuing
flailing futility against Iran, the stagnating economy, the polarized domestic
politics, the quagmire in Afghanistan, the endless pursuit of the al-Qaeda
chimera, the transfer of middle classdom to the East, the gradual collapse of
the US military, the declining health of the population, the explosion of
narcotics and home-cooked drug use, the educational dumbification of its
children, the proliferation of cults, sects and religious zealots, the failure
of the once-vaunted US space program, the chasm in wealth and incomes, the
feeble rebellion of the Occupy movement, the mortgage meltdown, the bailouts of
once-invincible industries ... well, you get the point.
And so did Chairman Mao. He would doubtless have framed his opinion in that
inscrutably Chinese way of his but it would amount to a recognition that his
previous assessment of the US had little to do with material strength or power
and everything to do with moral rectitude, spiritual fortitude and cultural
attitude. The US, despite its arsenal of nuclear weapons, its vast armies and
fleets and unlimited industrial capacity, lacked a perspective of history and
the "long haul."
By this Mao would have meant that, with such a short history unblemished by
major defeats, invasions or conquests by others, Wonderland had no relativistic
way of judging success, prosperity or superiority. Instead, Americans, the
proverbial bull in the China shop, confidently and unabashedly bullied, cajoled
and intimidated everyone in the world, convinced of their moral righteousness.
Humility, consciousness of hubris and respect for the fickle gods played no
part in the US zeitgeist. Other lesser nations, who may once have had their
moment in the sun but now genuflected before US power, had "history," and look
where they were now.
But with all that power detached from the constraints of historical education,
Mao realized that, while the immature western Tiger could claw and bite with
ferocity, eventually so much time would be spent clawing and biting to maintain
its supremacy in the jungle that, sooner or later, it would exhaust itself. The
older and wiser eastern Tiger, who fought only for survival rather than
supremacy, patiently waited for the young buck feline to stagger away on paper
claws.
And so it has come to pass. The irony is that it is the youngster who now
exhibits all the signs of advanced age, while the geriatric beast is robust,
energetic and vigorous. But Mao would nod his head in complete concordance with
this seeming conundrum of history.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Feb 1, '12)
January Letters
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