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July 2006

China's new cultural revolution by Antoaneta Bezlova (Jul 29) gives a very informative account of what China is doing to promote Chinese culture. However, cornering the market of soap opera and songs, in which Bezlova praised South Korea's and Japan's success, should not be a defining goal. Interest in learning the Chinese language, as evidenced by the yearly expanding population of foreign students and scholars, will in due course lead to understanding, appreciation, and embrace of Chinese culture all over the world. I do not believe in the recipe of instant, complete abolition of censorship, but rather it should be done gradually. The reason is [that] it is human nature to readily learn the "not so good" first and the "good" later. One would not be eager to see sex, violence, and foul language pervade in movies and songs, nor irreverence for elders and teachers, and supremacy of individual interest in society. As outsiders' proficiency in the language gains, Chinese dances, songs, operas and literature, old and contemporary, will be appreciated. At present, the "revolution" is just starting. A measure of success will be evident when products of Chinese culture are increasingly translated into other languages and Chinese authors begin to win international prizes. That time will come but cannot be pushed.
S P Li (Jul 31, '06)

Re Rice wants beef from security forum [Jul 29]: Barry Desker gives a good bird's-eye view of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Although [US Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice skipped last year's confab in Vientiane, Laos, she did not miss this year's gathering in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is not very hard to find the reason: the United States' unconditional support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the glaring failure of America's regime change in Iraq and Washington's neglect of Afghanistan. [US President George W] Bush's secretary of state needs all the support that she can muster for her boss, whose heavy hand in diplomacy has fostered a growing malaise abroad and help forged a growing anti-Americanism everywhere but for the most stalwart of Washington's allies. Dr Rice did not have an easy time in Kuala Lumpur. She had to drink bowls of bitter tea of criticism and thinly veiled resentment with the United States. Unflappable, she bore her burden with her usual hangdog look. She did not ignore that at the same time that she was at the ARF, [Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah] Badawi's government had welcomed a high-ranking official from the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the past, Kuala Lumpur may have arranged the arrival of one and the departure of the other more tactfully. Malaysia's prime minister, however, wanted to signal his displeasure with Washington's muscular support of Israel. On the other hand, Dr Rice did not leave Malaysia without some prize. The ARF expressed disapproval of North Korea's missile tests. Yet one cannot help feeling as Professor Desker does, that the ARF is useful to the United States insofar as Washington can use it for America's purposes. On the other hand, the ARF needs the United States' military presence in Southeast Asia as a countervailing power to an awakening China with neo-imperial pretensions.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 31, '06)

Re A war without borders in the making [Jul 29]: Once again [Kaveh L] Afrasiabi has done us all a service by offering an alternative viewpoint, based upon intimate knowledge of Southwest Asia and its peoples, to the Friedmanesque fun-house-mirror view of the region, propagated by and serving the interests of various cliques within the ruling elite in the United States and/or Israel (to the limited extent that [New York Times columnist Thomas] Friedman is capable of distinguishing between the two). But to the question Dr Afrasiabi poses, "whether the US is prepared to eschew its hallucinations of an Israeli-dominated 'new Middle East' and adopt the parameters of political realism", the answer, it seems to me, based upon the present administration's track record, must be negative. The [US] administration's access to political power, to the degree that it is not simply based upon fraudulent elections, manipulated voting machines, and a complaisant Supreme Court, is dependent precisely upon those hallucinations which both [President George W] Bush's party - and large portions of what passes for an opposition as well; consider the case of [Hillary] Clinton and her husband - have made certain [resonations] with large sectors of the US electorate. It may be the case that reality will force its way into the fog of faith, but alas, in that case the effects on US policy will be felt only after January 20, 2009, at the earliest - in the event that any of us live so long.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Jul 31, '06)

[In] A war without borders in the making [Jul 29] Kaveh Alfrasiabi has spilled plenty of ink [about] the US backing Israel and not giving heed to Palestine. Maybe one reason is [that] Palestine, of all nations, decides to elect into power an internationally acclaimed terrorist group whose prime interest is the elimination of Israel. Any [commentator] from across this planet would not want his or her nation to be in the shoes of Israel. One must also look at the religious connection that the Jewish state has over the largest majority-Christian nation in the world - if not in history. Nazareth, Bethlehem [and] Jerusalem are as holy to the Christians as to the Jews. There is a natural affinity to protect Christianity's holiest sites. If anyone challenges me on this subject that Muslims are as good [at] protecting the monuments of other religions, one only has to take a look at the Bamiyan Buddhas and their fate. I would also like to point out this constant use of "disproportionate war". If a terrorist straps him or herself with bombs and blows themselves up in a crowd of innocent bystanders, isn't that too "disproportionate warfare"? At least the US coalition drops leaflets warning the citizens. The terrorist strikes at the innocent underbelly of civilization with full ferocity - well, that I will call "disproportionate warfare".
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
New Orleans, Louisiana (Jul 31, '06)

Re Strength in unity [Jul 29]: It should be obvious to most everyone by now that the parables attributed to Middle Eastern Arabs are as real today as when first pronounced in early recorded histories. To wit: I and my brother against my cousin; I and my brother and cousin against ... One would have to accept that to the average Muslim, whether man, woman and/or child, the Shi'ite and/or Sunni beliefs are not uppermost in their minds when viewing dismembered bodies in Lebanon and when viewing Hezbollah's missiles. According to word-of-mouth reporting at the time [US Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice stopped in Beirut, Lebanon [commented] to the effect that America should admit to honoring a flag that shows that the 50 stars have now been replaced by one star over the stripes. The present dilemma exemplifies the realities of the advances made by many of those who have been described as Islamofascists by those whose policies and actions reflected a neo-cons' 1950s view of the world.
Armand De Laurell (Jul 31, '06)

As a general rule, I am weary when it seems that not a single individual in a population [speaks] up against what is being done in their name, simply because I know that the mass media will cover [that] lonely voice with their deafening noise and propaganda. From a personal philosophical interest in the importance of the individual dissenter, I try to keep an eye on writings from such individuals, but sadly I am still not aware of a decent Israeli speaking up against the atrocities committed by his fellow country people against Palestinians or Lebanese; but again I know of the real dangers of being labeled a "traitor" in [that] country. On the other hand, despite the danger, there are quite a number of citizens from the USA who do speak up against the horrors committed by their own government and condoned, elections after elections, by the general population. A number of them, like [Jonathan] Schell [see The US: It's too late for empire, Jul 28] or [Tom] Engelhardt [see Bush's faith and the Middle East aflame, Jul 18], can express themselves on ATol, which offers easy access to many original articles which are simply impossible to read otherwise, and thus is becoming a most important medium in support of free speech for people living in countries where there is no real free press. An example of these lucid Americans with a sense of ethics is [Paul Craig] Roberts, who has written [The shame of being an American, Counterpunch], which I think is worth of being shared with ATol readers.
Bittar Gabriel, PhD
Kangaroo Island, Australia (Jul 31, '06)

I strongly disagree with Ian Williams (An accident waiting to happen, Jul 27) that the bombing of a United Nations camp killing four soldiers was an accident. We all know that laser-guided smart bombs made by the United States work best when the pilot sees the target. If you don't want to be attacked, don't mark your post, and especially don't call them and let them know where you are. This is how the Hezbollah managed to survive.
Giap
Hanoi, Vietnam (Jul 31, '06)

Regarding Hezbollah banks on home-ground advantage [Jul 26], the claim over Sheba Farms is just a pretext for war. It was never a part of Lebanon but rather Syria.
Richard Sol (Jul 31, '06)

According to Wikipedia, the border between Syria and Lebanon in the Sheba Farms area was never definitively demarcated by the French Mandate authorities, and has been in dispute since the two countries gained independence from France. However, although Syria has said it recognizes Lebanon's claim to the territory, it was from Syria that Israel seized the Farms during the Six Day War in 1967, and the United Nations considers them Syrian. Israel officially annexed the Farms in 1981. - ATol

The loudest proponents of war speak of courage as if they understand what it means. It is easy to die pointlessly in the slaughter of war. It is easy to lash out violently with a heart full of hate. It is easy to get sucked in by the hysteria of the mob. Real courage involves learning to empathize with one's adversary, to understand their point of view. We call on real courage when we think before succumbing to the venomous rhetoric of war. We call on real courage when we build relationships, as opposed to the cowardly destruction of other societies. People with real courage risk everything in the pursuit of peace. Peace is fragile because we often lose our courage in the face of provocation from the perpetrators of violence who know nothing of bravery. We shirk from our responsibility to stand up to the warmongers in our societies. Our world sits precariously on the edge of a dark abyss. The threat of descent into fascism is very real, in many societies around the world. It is time for all of us, in all societies, to call on our courage and stand up to the would-be warriors amongst us with one message: "Enough! Violence is not the answer."
Benjamin Habib
Adelaide, Australia (Jul 31, '06)

Before the recent Israeli attack in Lebanon, I used to believe that Hezbollah people are terrorist, but now after studying about them I found them protectors of Lebanese people. The Lebanese army is unable to protect the Lebanese but Hezbollah is able to do so. That is the reason the Western world wants to prove them terrorist. If Hezbollah can be disarmed, Lebanon can be occupied easily like Palestine and Iraq.
Dr Mahboob Hossain
University of Asia Pacific
Dhaka, Bangladesh (Jul 31, '06)

With the invasion of Lebanon on a filmy ground and slaughtering of innocent civilians, Israel has once again has [prove that it] can do whatever it wants with the Arab nations on the strength and support of the all-powerful United States that has already conquered Afghanistan and Iraq and is aiming at Iran mainly for its energy resources. The supply of US weapons to Israel has obviously made [it] feel itself the most powerful country in the region, next only to the USA. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the allied forces led by the USA attacked Iraq in addition to stopping Iraq's incursions into Kuwait. Why does not the USA, lecturing on civilized norms and democratic values, do the same now and invade Israel and stop the Israeli onslaught in Lebanon? Most probably the Pentagon expects the Israeli aggression in Lebanon would provoke Iran to intervene [and that] the hostilities would escalate into a major war with Iran. Does the American democracy not permit the Pentagon to do so? Funny [that] the USA, the world leader that produced a roadmap to West Asian resolution, has chosen to behave like this. By purchasing weapons from Israel, countries like India are only financing the killings of people in Lebanon and Palestine.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
Research Scholar, School of International Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, India (Jul 31, '06)

I want to know [whether] Asian Times is a daily newspaper or a magazine. If it is a magazine, then where we can find it in Kashmir or in Pakistan?
Muhsen Naseim (Jul 31, '06)

Asia Times Online is an Internet-only newsmagazine. There has not been a print version since the summer of 1997. - ATol

Jonathan Schell's article listing all the mistakes and supposed abuse of power by President [George W] Bush is a litany of falsehood [The US: Too late for empire, Jul 28]. Since he embarked on this career in the 1960s covering the unpopular Vietnam War, it should not surprise anyone his views are all anti-establishment and anti-government. But his writing should at least include a fair amount of truth. He claims President Bush lied about the purpose for the Iraq war. In fact the intelligence reports from all major countries around the world confirmed the existence of WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. Were all of these reports erroneous? Not likely. If these reports were wrong, why is President Bush the only one being [held] responsible? Schell claims the Abu Ghraib incident is the result of policy from higher authorities. In fact, investigations made never found any evidence supporting this claim. Schell then claims the terrorists deserve to be treated according to ... the Geneva [Conventions]. First of all, the terrorists are not signatories to the agreement. Secondly, the terms of the convention only apply to uniformed combatants fighting under a unified command with weapons in the open. Do the terrorists fight this way? The NSA [National Security Agency] eavesdropping and monitoring program is not a big secret. Members of the intelligence committee in Congress were briefed every 45 days. There was also judicial review. As for the reported prison camps being operated in other countries, independent investigation carried out by EC [European Commission] authorities indicated there was no truth to this. Does Mr Schell also believe the [September 11, 2001] attacks were engineered by the US government? No one should be surprised if he does.
J Chua
Montville, New Jersey (Jul 28, '06)

Most major countries did believe Saddam Hussein's Iraq possessed WMD of some sort, but very few besides the US and the United Kingdom wanted war on that basis; other remedies existed but were rejected or forestalled by the pro-war countries led by Bush. The decision that detainees of the US have rights pursuant to the Geneva Conventions was made by the US Supreme Court, not Jonathan Schell - he merely reported that fact. - ATol

Jakob Cambria's emergence as an important contributor to Asia Times [Online] via the Letters page over the past year or so deserves a compliment to the editors ... and my personal thanks to Mr Cambria for his well-informed, insightful commentary. Following the US ally and proxy Israel's jumping into a major military aggression in Lebanon, I noted a slight hedge in Mr Cambria's position on the possibility of war erupting between the US and Iran. He joins many close watchers of news the world over who are wondering if we are witnessing the lead-up to an attack on Iran or Syria by either Israel or the US. Jonathan Schell's article [The US: Too late for empire, Jul 28] points to that possibility due to true believers in military power as the sine qua non of foreign policy being in control of both the US and Israeli governments. While I agree with Schell that the adherence to the outmoded idea of massive military force as the most important force a government can wield can only lead to further decline in US prestige and influence in world affairs, I do not believe that the present US administration will make the decision to attack Iran (and probably not Syria) even though the financial rewards to the industrial complexes that support the militaries of both Israel and the US would be great. The possibilities of failure are too great for President [George W] Bush to venture into such a great gamble. He will keep Israel armed for [its] venture into Lebanon, but that will be it. If he can escape being the consensus pick as the worst president in US history, that would be a considerable accomplishment for him and one which he would probably welcome.
David Sheegog
Cabrespine, France (Jul 28, '06)

Jonathan Schell's The US: Too late for empire (Jul 28) is an analysis comparing the US to the Roman Empire, and specifically the US not achieving what the Romans did. He explains this primarily [by noting] that modern people reject imperial rule. What was missing from this insightful analysis is the fact that modern empires such as the British and the French were cowardly empires. They destroyed and occupied defenseless countries in order to loot oil and other resources, opium, Chinese palaces, and Indian and African wealth. They added nothing to the wealth of the occupied nations, and they created some rich puppet families at the expense of the underlying population in order to hinder development and transformations. These empires created their own misery and defeat when national-liberation movements (the counter-rational power), which Mr Schell ignored, were established to root out these coward empires. Eventually, these empires were defeated and humiliated. The US helped in defeating Germany and other countries in two World Wars, and aimed at becoming a great power. The US has not been an empire, because Americans are patriots and like their country to stay powerful without engaging in colonial adventures. Many Americans know that empires do not last. But American elites do make mistakes, and Vietnam and Iraq are crystal-clear examples of these historical errors. Currently, and thanks to new technologies, imperialist adventures cannot be successful, because other nations resist occupation and love to be free. People are patriotic and love their nations, as Americans love their country. When Americans defended their country against the British occupation they were not terrorists, and similar acts in the future will also not be deemed terrorism. But when the Lebanese, the Palestinians and the Iraqis defend their nations from imperialist occupation, they have been called terrorists. These conflicting usages of daily concepts have been rejected globally. US elites, including media pundits who encouraged the country to invade Iraq, will fully realize in the future the significance of their mistake when they decided to occupy Iraq. They have really damaged the statue of America, and they have been draining the financial and human wealth of the country for deceptive causes. President George W Bush states that those who want the US to withdraw its forces from Iraq are defeatists, because he has been thinking about the defeat of a great power. I disagree. Once the country received the accurate information through various careful investigations that Iraq was neither part of September 11 [2001] nor had WMD [weapons of mass destruction] that could be used to kill Americans, withdrawal of US forces becomes a victory of truth and reason, not a defeat. People must realize the essential fact that if the US and Israel do not completely de-occupy Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, those occupied people will fight not for weeks, months and years but for centuries. Even if the US and Israel are willing to battle for centuries, the cost will be enormous.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Jul 28, '06)

Chan Akya's [China and India in World War III, Jul 26] came across as extremely immature and poorly thought out. In particular his analysis of Indian and Chinese reactions/roles is completely flawed. As the Chinese racist Frank of Seattle (CRFOS) points out [letter, Jul 26], he has it backwards, as a simple review of the corresponding histories will show. For once CRFOS got something right (and I am saddened to admit it). China has very cleverly handled its foreign affairs and is in an enviable position. It will definitely keep out of conflicts that don't concern it directly and sit back and enjoy the sight of its opponents digging themselves into a hole they can't get out of. Having cleverly proliferated nukes to Pakistan and missiles to North Korea in spite of being a signatory to NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], MTCR [Missile Technology Control Regime[ etc, it then encouraged and facilitated a trade between the two. As a result it has managed to keep both its opponents, the US and India (or rather one opponent and one major irritant, respectively), occupied. In case either India (more likely) or the US is a victim of the corresponding nuclear nutcases, China can only be pleased, as it couldn't be directly blamed and would achieve the desired outcome of weakening its opponents. Chan Akya should choose another pen name as, in light of his writing, the present choice makes as much sense as calling CRFOS Master Tzu.
Kaiser Soze (Jul 28, '06)

Re The war Hezbollah is really fighting [Jul 25]: I agree with [Kaveh L] Afrasiabi that Hezbollah's best option, morally and practically, would be to focus exclusively on an invading Israeli army. However, I very much doubt Israel will ever mount a sustained invasion of Lebanon; and history is the reason why I feel so certain. Unlike an air campaign, a monopoly of the USA and Israel in the Middle East, a ground war against Hezbollah would probably go essentially the way the first Israeli war against Hezbollah went. That is, to complete victory for Hezbollah. Besides, aerial bombardment can maintain the present kill ratio of about 10 Arabs for every Israeli; especially since most of the Arabs killed are hapless civilians. A ground war is another story: Hezbollah is the only Arab force to have ever equalized the kill ratio when it's gone head-to-head with the Israeli army. It did so progressively and heroically over 18 years as it drove the Israelis out of Lebanon. I believe Hezbollah is fully capable of doing it again. Israel in Lebanon, like its golem (the USA) in Vietnam, does not have the moral fiber to win an infantry war against this determined an adversary.
Jose R Pardinas, PhD
San Diego, California (Jul 28, '06)

I don't know what to say about most of the mumbo-jumbo the scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal, said [letter, Jul 27]. But to this, "India, another so-called democracy, is bent on fighting with Pakistan ... in order to keep Indian Muslims under sustained duress ... shying away from the suggestions from Pakistan's president himself to track the so-called terrorism together", I must hope he is not serious. I mean, it is well-known fact that a noted criminal, Dawood Ibrahim, has been granted residence in Pakistan. If Pakistan is unwilling to even admit that, let alone hand him back, I am not sure what there is to discuss. However, he seems to be pondering hard about this problem. If he is looking for a solution, I can offer him one. Convert the Jawaharlal Nehru University Campus in New Delhi into a call center. It will finally make some scholars like Dr Colachal find gainful employment, save Indian taxpayers a lot of money and, by bringing more real estate in New Delhi in [the] open market, bring the prices down. If this experiment works, it can be replicated at Jamia Milia Islamia and other Deobandi [madrassas] all over in India. This would surely be a win-win solution for everyone.
Rocky (Jul 28, '06)

The Middle East has recently almost monopolized the pages of Asia Times Online and its Letters section. As an entertaining piece of news for its English readers, it has been verified and reported officially that personal expense receipts paid for by ordinary citizens at hotels, restaurants and department stores have been collected by a close friend of the first family of Taiwan and used to collect money out of the budget of the President's Office, such budget that should be authorized by the president himself. Whose pockets the money went into is being investigated. A hastily conceived and directed dharma is unfolding.
S P Li (Jul 28, '06)

Ian Williams' timeline in An accident waiting to happen [Jul 27] puts events in a certain light. The Israeli government has expressed regrets but denied any responsibility [for its bombing of a United Nations facility in Lebanon]. It is going to conduct an investigation into the bombings and deaths. Which is a diplomatic way of delaying judgment. No matter which way you slice the Hezbollah pie, [Israel] wants freedom of action in southern Lebanon, and the United Nations observers there for the last 20 years proved an embarrassing witness to dirty warfare. Thus it, too, had to be forced to leave or to lie low at the least, and not limit IDF's [Israel Defense Forces'] freedom of action. Despite Secretary General Kofi Annan's words, the media-savvy Israelis have turned it into a "he says, you say" matter. And one left for settlement at a later date. Dr Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region has bought time for [Israel] to carry out its grand design. Nonetheless, the Israeli army has found out that it is engaged in partisan warfare against Hezbollah. The Israel Defense Forces are no wiser in defeating Hezbollah, as it openly boasted at the beginning of its invasion of Lebanon two weeks ago. In fact [this week's] bloody battle in which the IDF took "heavy" casualties is a classic case of guerrilla warfare out of the pages of Mao Zedong's writings on people's warfare. Israel may be the military chief enchilada in the region but it is no more adept than the American forces in Iraq or the French in Algeria in defeating guerrilla fighters.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 27, '06)

I love conspiracy theories, a weakness obviously shared with Ian Williams, who develops one in [An accident waiting to happen, Jul 27]. When I spin mine, I attempt to avoid the "penny dreadful" emotionalism favored by Mr Williams and at least impose a veneer of logic on my construction. For the armchair strategist, any military plan and action [are] easy. Deviations are evidence of incompetence. Damage beyond the intended targets [manifests] rank incompetence or failure to properly execute orders. On the other hand, for the conspiracy theorist (or ideologue), such events are the stuff of plots, hidden agendas and so forth. A vague similarity of events is spun into a nefarious web of deceit. In the case of the attack on the UN observation post in Lebanon, Mr Williams appears to flatter himself by posing as a political dissident. By the most tenuous of associations, he now has a startling (and sinister, too!) theory implying nefarious Israeli design extending seamlessly all the way back to the attack on the USS Liberty. Like any theory, his must be tested and proved against fact. That's where this one falls apart. However, like all good theorists of Mr Williams' stripe, he is not especially troubled by incongruities of circumstance. While I cannot discount the possibility that the Israeli attack on the UN post was deliberate, I have no good evidence that it was, nor do I have a compelling explanation for it should it have occurred by design. After reading Mr Williams' article, I still don't.
Keith Comess (Jul 27, '06)

Gareth Porter's US sidelined in Iraq's sectarian war (Jul 27) is a good piece for some readers. This type of reporting conveys facts but does not make a reasonable conclusion for Americans and others. [US Ambassador Zalmay] Khalilzad has failed to convince the Iraqis to drop their weapons and to permanently stop the destructive resistance. In fact, he has neither candies nor flowers left in his pocket. [Democratic US] Senator Joe Lieberman's argument that the withdrawal of US military forces will intensify the civil war (or create a new one) is a contention for long-run occupation of Iraq, an imperialist occupation that generates huge profits for oil and military corporations. Simultaneously, the withdrawal of US forces will weaken Israel's comparative advantage in the region. These are expected from Senator Lieberman and other senators who have self-interest in imperialist adventures that use the pretexts of terrorism, national security, and democratization of other nations. The rest of the Democrats are interested in a timetable for withdrawal and others think it is reasonable to divide Iraq into three countries. The Bush administration shares the same rationales with Senator Lieberman and [thinks] that the occupation of Iraq will bring more delights, including democracy. A disagreement with these analyses and rationales means defeatism; given we value freedom and democracy. So where do we go from here? If US forces stay [in] or leave Iraq, the killing will continue; but less killing and destruction will occur if the forces leave, because the Iraqi mullahs who came to Iraq with the US invasion will leave to Iran. The mullahs leaving Iraq will weaken the influence of the Iranian mullahs in Iraq. There is also a high probability that the Iraqis have found another way for democracy, a way that can be accomplished after the occupying military forces depart. Whoever comes to power will be able to establish security and stability. There is a very high probability that the new sovereign government will be hostile to Israel, but this can be solved if Israel completely leaves Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine and establishes peace treaties with these countries. This may be a reasonable outcome for Israel. For me, I really do not think that Israel is the problem for the enduring peace in the Middle East; it is indeed the Bush administration, which has been using Israel to obtain the support of the American sympathizers of Israel. The only two losses the Bush administration will have to sacrifice if the troops leave Iraq are the Iraqi oil and less demand for weapons. I am sure oil will not be under the control of US corporations, nor will they be invited to explore it. If US troops are in Iraq for other goals, then the oil cause is immaterial anyway. The optimal solution for the Bush administration is to order the troops to take the same highways back out to Kuwait. This is the best solution because all other ways will cost the United States of America trillions dollars for managing the occupation of Iraq. By the end of the coming years, Americans will realize that the occupation of Iraq is not worth it, because day after day the killing and destruction will be intensified and multiplied - Iraqis do not like to be occupied.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Jul 27, '06)

I refer to the letter of Daniel Mazir of July 25 and agree with him that Spengler's psychopathic fascination for blood and fury, gloom and doom, as well as his racist attitude towards the Muslims and ignorant knowledge of Islam, makes him interesting reading. He is like a colonialist messiah preaching large-scale massacre of the defeated natives, destruction of their lands by dropping even atomic bombs, preaching capitalist Western lewd democracy as an evil excuse to install boot-licking, toe-sucking poodles [as] rulers and governments so [as] to loot and plunder their nations' wealth. I can offer another analogy, which often reminds [one of] reading Spengler: he is perhaps a reincarnation of one of the European Christian barbarian Crusades of July 1099 who conquered Jerusalem and killed over 70,000 inhabitants in one day and turned the city into a charnel house. It makes the massacre of September 11, 2001, and Lebanon look puny in comparison. Yet in Europe, scholars and monks hailed this as the greatest event in world history. It is exactly what is happening these days even with greater barbarity in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, and yet in America and in the West, pro-Israel politicians wearing blinkers and pretending deafness totally ignore the sufferings of innocent Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon. And in particular Bush & Yo Blair Ltd have so far failed to condemn the psychopathic and systematic destruction of Palestine and Lebanon. Zionist-owned media in America and in Europe [are] nothing but a disgrace and a shame in distorting the truth by lying shamelessly, depicting the Zionist state of Israel as the victim when the truth recognized by [most] of the world population is that it is the second-biggest rogue and terrorist state (after the USA), deliberating terrorizing innocent civilians of Palestine and Lebanon with the evil intent of grabbing their lands and killing them with impunity by dropping horrible bombs on their homes and buildings.
Saqib Khan (Jul 27, '06)

Israel in the company of Western powers seems to be hell-bent upon destroying the Muslims in that part of the world. As [Israel] wages a war with the Palestinians, it also invaded Lebanon with air strikes killing innocent people. Such provocative and inhuman killings leave much to be desired in terms of any better Israel-Arab relations. The USA should have been neutral at least and tried to bring the Israelis to the negotiating table along with the Arabs, instead of supplying weapons to Israel - also a strong weapons power - that emboldens that country to be ruthless with the Muslims.The silent spectators like Russia and China - both are [permanent members of the United Nations Security Council] - of the air strikes of Israeli forces in Lebanon could be catastrophic to the peace process of the Middle East initiated by the Israeli ex-prime minister, Ariel Sharon. The USA in Afghanistan and Iraq and trying to invade Iran and divide Syria, while Israel is in Palestine and Lebanon, here in ... India, another so-called democracy, is bent on fighting with Pakistan - purely for domestic political reasons - trying hard to name Pakistan the culprit whenever "terrorists" strike in India, thereby tarnishing the image of Pakistanis [by portraying them] as terrorists and projecting Indians as "sufferers" and "lovers of peace", in order to keep Indian Muslims under sustained duress and tension and, at the same time, showing reluctance to mend ways with Islamabad for better relations and shying away from the suggestions from Pakistan's president himself to track the so-called terrorism together. When the world's greatest power, the USA, is instigating other countries against the so-called Islamic nations, hopelessly divided amongst themselves, there is very little hope for any ray of light on the West Asian horizon. What is really happening? Where will it all end?
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
Research Scholar, School of International Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, India (Jul 27, '06)

I am astonished that New Orleans resident Chrysantha Wijeyasingha [letter, Jul 26] has such a short memory. India needs to build more livable homes for its citizens than air-conditioned bunkers for its elites. India will have another 400 million people to feed in the next 15 years. By the time India cannot provide for that many people, Indian elites will know that hungry mobs are more powerful than nuclear attacks. Besides, what kind of benefits could the attacker gain by attacking India? India's enemies are its own citizens, not its neighbors.
Frank of Seattle
Washington, USA (Jul 27, '06)

One of the three finalists still in the running to succeed Kofi Annan as UN secretary general is Thai. The UN requires the candidates to be individuals of unblemished integrity who have demonstrated a total commitment to transparency and to democratic values. Our candidate is currently at the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] meeting in Kuala Lumpur canvassing for support. Meanwhile, back home in Thailand, the aspiring candidate's TRT [Thai Rak Thai] government is unabashedly filling seven police assistant commissioner posts and 16 police commissioner posts with cronies of his boss who is also his primary supporter for the UN post. It must be hard to project a clean image to ASEAN and the world under these circumstances. Foreigners may fail to appreciate that this sort of cronyism is normal in Thailand and they may therefore measure the Thai candidate's commitment to democratic values against a higher standard.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jul 27, '06)

Concerning the article China and India in World War III [Jul 26], I would like to address India's preparedness against a nuclear attack. While here in the US we have underground bunkers for our leaders and the men and women who could rebuild the country after such an attack, India needs to seriously consider the safety of her urban populations. Bunkers where security guards can weed out any suicide bomber trying to sneak into the bunkers, to air-conditioning, food rations, and gas masks at a minimum. India, surrounded by hostile and unstable nuclear powers, needs to think of all defensive measures to both stop the bomb and protect its citizens if the bomb succeeds.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
New Orleans, Louisiana (Jul 26, '06)

[Re China and India in World War III, Jul 26] This is sheer high-handedness. Chanakya, the antique master of statecraft, was clearly a Pakistani! And just looking at where the mighty Indus flows, it is apparent as to who should own intellectual-property rights over the appellation "India". Desist or you will end up confronting serious royalty issues!
Usman Qazi
Palo Alto, California (Jul 26, '06)

According to Wikipedia, the original Chanakya (c 350-c 275 BC), "also known as Kautilya or Vishnugupta, was born in Pataliputra, Magadha (modern Bihar, India), and later moved to Taxila, in Gandhara province (now in Pakistan)". We make no comment on our Chan Akya's nationality, but Frank of Seattle has a theory. - ATol

To answer Francis' question [letter, Jul 25], I think Chan Akya is an audacious Indian writer. In his China and India in World War III [Jul 26] he wrote, "China can't, India won't." For anybody who is familiar with the history of these two countries, it is always the other way around. It is a typical Indian writer's mentality to judge others with their Indian minds. His wish that China will one day attack Pakistan is another proof that this shameless writer is an Indian. However, he is right about Taiwan. It is true that "no Chinese leader can survive Taiwanese independence". However, that does not mean Chinese will have to follow the orders to trade for unification. Akya must [have] mistaken China for India again. China never took and will never take orders from the West. China's "Great Wall Project" will keep Chinese out of any wars. Indians do not have the skills to build one themselves. And the old habits are hard to let go. Sooner or later, Indians will become other people's gun fodder again for sure. History never missed a step to repeat itself, although it is called outsourcing nowadays. For those readers who are looking for comic relief in my letter, just pay attention to this laughable Indian's prediction: Chan Akya predicts "that future generations of Indians and Chinese will literally worship George W Bush and Osama bin Laden". How many Chinese youth do you know, Mr Akya? Chan Akya must be either a gypsy joker or an Indian writer. Prove that I am wrong, Mr Akya.
Frank of Seattle
Washington, USA (Jul 26, '06)

I wish to respond to [letter writer] Frank's comments about Indians in his [Jul 25] outburst. Well, maybe the reason the Chinese kept out of other people's business was because they were too opiumed up to look past their next fix. It really seems to me that Frank lost his job to an Indian or is just plain jealous that people now talk about China [as] well as India, and not just China as far as economies go. Frank, it's time to get out of your mom's basement and find a new job, maybe learn a new skill or two.
Gaurav Savant
Jackson, Mississippi (Jul 26, '06)

In regard to China and India taking positions on the West-versus-Islam tensions centering on the Palestine issue, the following point needs to be noted. Israel is a European colonial settler entity created by US president [Harry] Truman to win the Jewish vote in the 1948 US election. The British colonialists allowed into Palestine European Jews with a fanatic religious ideology called Zionism (encouraged by the colonialist Balfour Declaration) against the wishes of the natives. The British suppressed the Palestinian uprising against the [Jewish] immigrants in 1936. Then in 1947 Truman blackmailed the UK to let in more European Jews by threatening to withhold Marshall [Plan] aid. The seas around Britain froze in 1947 and Britons would have starved if Marshall aid was stopped, so American blackmail let in more settler colonialists. The so-called UN vote was a sham. Most non-European countries were not in the UN as they were still colonized by the Europeans. The West was forcing Arabs to pay for Europe's historical guilt in persecuting the Jews. As [Iranian President Mahmud] Ahmadinejad says, why should the Arabs pay for Europe's crimes? If the Jews want a state, then America or Europe must give up land for them. As the UN vote in 1948 was about to be lost, Truman bullied Haiti, Liberia, US client Cuba and ex-US colony the Philippines so [as] to ensure that the US got its way in the so-called UN. Nowadays Jews from the USA and the UK who have not had relatives in Palestine for 2,000 years go and settle in this stolen land. They play football in UEFA [Union of European Football Associations] and sing in the Eurovision Song Contest. They collaborated with the apartheid regime in South Africa on nuclear weapons. In the 1980s Israel wanted Indian help to bomb Pakistan's nuclear sites (ie, they were prepared to create an Indo-Pak war in their own Zionist interests). The righteous position of Hindu Indians like myself and of the people of China is to show Asian solidarity against this American-imposed settler-colony Crusader state. It is not a question of Islam versus the West, it is about European colonialism and neo-colonialism forcing its will on non-European peoples. We should support the Muslims in their just struggle against the Zionist Crusader state.
Sutapas Bhattacharya (Jul 26, '06)

Re 'The Butcher' of Cambodia escapes justice [Jul 26]: Whatever the circumstances surrounding the death of Ta Mok, the "Butcher of Cambodia" during the years the Khmer Rouge held sway, history will judge him harshly. Marwaan Macan-Markar should remember that although the wheels of justice grind slowly, they grind fine. Even today former Nazis who are in their early 80s or older are brought to trial. Regardless of the so-called shakiness of the recently constituted United Nations war-crimes tribunal, enough of the old Angkor remains alive for trial and universal condemnation for genocide.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 26, '06)

Please tell Sami [Moubayed] to take a deep breath [Hezbollah banks on home-ground advantage, Jul 26]. Israel can and will pound the living daylights out of Hezbollah, because it wants to. Can Israel guarantee the deaths of the Hezbollah leadership? No. As I see the Israelis' goals, they know it is the same fight that they have had since the State [of Israel] was created: every few years Israel has to defeat an Arab group (state or non-state) that wants to destroy Israel. This is no different. Sami makes it sound like Lebanon is the enemy, when it seems obvious that Lebanese, in general, have nothing but contempt for the Shi'ites. Sad but true. Most Lebanese would probably enjoy having these religious fanatics rooted out and neutralized, so that they can get on with life and business. Who appointed Hezbollah the defender of "resistance", and how did they come to have a state within a state? Yes, Hezbollah knows the territory, and a lot of them are going to die there. Israel has as its goal killing as many of them as possible, not capturing them or territory. There will be few prisoners. Hezbollah will no longer have its own state, and it will either become a political party or try to launch rockets from true Lebanese territory. Or maybe Syria will allow it to use Syrian territory to launch the rockets? Not likely. Hezbollah is in Lebanon because Lebanon cannot say no. Israel also ought to destroy all the so-called "charity" buildings that Hezbollah claims as its own, and which are supported by Iran and Arab groups. This mixture of Islam, charity, and armed groups is a fraud, and a trick on the ignorant.
Richard Stone (Jul 26, '06)

Pepe Escobar's The spirit of resistance and Sami Moubayed's Hezbollah banks on home-ground advantage (both Jul 26) are excellent complementary intellectual pieces for the ongoing destruction of Lebanon by the Israeli invading forces (IIF), which has been supported by the Bush administration. Still, I would like to provide some comments. First, these analyses could be used by the US elites to understand the mentality and culture of the Arab world. It is indeed a culture of resistance to any imperialist intervention and expansion, a resistance that has been permanent over the history. If the US and Israel continue their cooperative games of destruction of some Arab countries by using the pretext of terrorism, the entire region will explode and cause the US to lose all its influence in the region - an important fact overlooked by both writers. Some reactionary and shaky regimes in the region such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia are suggesting to Syria [that it] join the imperialist camp. They have also diffused some remarks in order to create a sectarian division in the Arab world to help their imperialist masters dominate the region. Not surprisingly, the same regimes along with others were able to convince Saddam Hussein to [pit] Iraq against Iran in 1980 in order to kill the Iranian Islamic Revolution. Saddam Hussein did listen to the suggestion of the [George H W] Bush administration and invaded Kuwait in 1990. Now, we know what has happened to him and his regime. The same scenario seems to have been suggested to Syria, but not to invade Iran but to turn against the Iranian mullahs. If the Syrian leaders take this suggestion seriously, their country will soon join Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. Stated differently, some Arab regimes try to survive the humiliation by creating a sectarian clash in the Arab world, a clash similar to the one occurring daily in Iraq [which] still can be called democracy by imperialists. Second, the Israeli destruction of Lebanon has miserably failed, and so has US foreign policy. This is because the Lebanese have been resisting and defending their country, and the IIF will lose miserably if they decide to go deeper into Lebanon. Israel will be again in quagmire that will cost several times more than the cost of invading Lebanon in 1980s. Consequently, the world has started hearing the argument that peace will come out of this destruction. In my opinion this is nonsense, because hostility and hatred will follow this destruction of innocent Lebanese. Many Americans have been asking why we are hated by others. The neo-cons and some media pundits usually provide an answer such as "because we value freedom and democracy". Not really. The answer is very clear now, because we directly and indirectly drop bombs on people and their physical environment in order to destroy what they have built over the years. It is possible that many Americans do not understand the hypocritical duality in that the Bush administration provides Israel with very sophisticated bombs to destroy Lebanon, but only plans to send humanitarian aid to Lebanon. Indeed, this is a manifestation of a culture of destruction, which is usually associated with monopoly capitalism. At any rate, many thanks for the new technologies and all media outlets that have given us the information and the destructive images to see.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Jul 26, '06)

In Hezbollah banks on home-ground advantage (Jul 26), Sami Moubayed "explains" that [Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's analogy about] the conquest of Stalingrad is a "reference to the occupation of the Russian city - then as now called Volgograd - during the Russian Civil War in 1919". As far as I know, the city was called Tsaritsyn in 1919 and because [Bolshevik leader Josef] Stalin showed merit in defending it, it was named after him during the cult-of-personality period. And it certainly carried that name - ie, Stalingrad - in the years 1942-44, when it was a site of the battle between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army, one of the key turning points in World War II. The name Volgograd only appeared after the demise of [the] Stalin-centered cult in 1956. Of a different kind is Spengler's assertion in Fight a democracy, kill the people (Jul 25) that "conventional armies can defeat guerrilla forces with broad popular support, for it is perfectly feasible to dismantle a people, destroy its morale, and if need be expel them ... the Czechs did it to the Sudeten Germans after 1945" in connection with the current Lebanon crisis. The transfer (or expulsion, depends on which side you're on) of Sudeten Germans to Germany after World War II was a part of a larger resettling of German populations in Europe and was prepared, co-organized and approved by the Allies. It would not have been possible for the "Czech" (it was Czechoslovak, mind you) army, barely formed at that time, to expel 3 million people on its own. But I have got used to seeing this kind of simplistic historical arguments in Spengler's belligerent prose. Finally, I would like to express my shock and awe over the pseudo-history Chan Akya uses in World War III - what, me worry? (Jul 25) to argue about Chinese and Indian positions in the prospective war between the West and Islam. While I acknowledge that an opinion article is not a history lecture, such claims as "Buddhism also weakened the patriarchal Chinese culture, but did provide a benefit in that it acted to homogenize cultural practices across the country" or "The key development in China's history, though, was under the Emperor Qin, who unified the country through substantial warfare combined with a common language" or yet "the Western conquest of China followed a pattern similar to that of India's decline, namely gradual wars in the periphery that weakened central authority, finally culminating in an assault across the country" are nonsense to the point that it would be embarrassing to find them in a Czech weekend magazine, and my feeble English skills do not provide me with means to describe the feel of reading them in an analytical periodical based in Asia. I firmly believe that inaccuracy in historical facts (which can be checked so easily nowadays) casts strong doubt on the reliability of the other key assumptions of reports you publish, which often can't be checked anywhere immediately.
Jiri Hudecek
Prague, Czech Republic (Jul 26, '06)

You are correct that the city now known as Volgograd did not attain that name until long after the Russian Civil War (in 1961, according to Wikipedia), and that it was known as Tsaritsyn until it was renamed Stalingrad in 1925. The error was an editor's, not the writer's, and has been corrected. - ATol

Asia Times [Online] is appealing because of the breadth of coverage provided on a variety of topics. Many contributors offer new perspectives and information, the [Jul 25] Middle East articles by Spengler [Fight a democracy, kill the people] and Richard Bennett [Hezbollah digs in deep] being two cases in point. In stark contrast, however, are the articles on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict written by Pepe Escobar. Neither of them is redeemed by "on the scene" reporting, nor provides new information. Then again, distance always imparts an aura of enlightenment to the view and Mr Escobar seems to glow with enlightened, idiosyncratic and ideologically tinged perspectives on the Middle East. This might be a valid approach if Mr Escobar was a recognized authority in the field - but he's not. Here are but two examples to illustrate my point, excerpted from the article he contributed in [the July 26 Asia Times Online, The spirit of resistance]: (1) "There was never any intent by [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert to deal with the duly elected government of Palestine led by Hamas." Mr Escobar fails to note that the "duly elected government" does not recognize Israel and will not engage its government in face-to-face negotiations, making it rather "hard to deal with" diplomatically, at least. (2). "As far as Lebanon is concerned, Israel wants nothing less than a permanent buffer zone on its northern flank." It seems more plausible that Israel wants quiet on its northern border, either in the form of a de facto truce or a permanent settlement. Why would it want a "buffer zone", which implies separation of belligerents, when there is are more appealing alternatives? "He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak; From the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak; He crucified nobel, he sacrificed meak; He filled the old ladies with kerosine; And the newspapers over the water cried, 'A patriot fights for the countryside!'" wrote George MacDonald Fraser. Does Mr Escobar see any similarity to his work here?
Keith Comess (Jul 26, '06)

Dear terrorist sympathizers: So there is an outfit which kept lobbing rockets in [its] neighbor's territory six years after they left, made sure that the national army never managed to set its foot in its fiefdom, claims to represent one-half of the country's populace when it manages only 18 seats in the nation's parliament (I can only guess what other political parties it allows in its territories) and wants to claim all recognition for kidnapping two soldiers by raiding the border patrol in foreign territory but wants to be denied any punishment that comes with it. Collective punishment is indeed abhorrent, but after being on receiving end of dozens of unprovoked acts of terrorism for the last decade for some acts of (both real and imaginary) injustices, I rather give Israel benefit of the doubt than one for cheering onlookers of terrorists who had no problem serving as human shields for terror but want to be saved when Israel's patience gives away. The world does not have a problem if Hezbollah wants to be treated as a liberation movement, but it cannot have the luxury of acting like terrorists while being treated like a legitimate political movement. For the time being that is available only to General Mush.
Vinny
Mumbai, India (Jul 26, '06)

ATimes is one of the best-written papers in the world. Concise, to the point, no nonsense words. Thank you.
Mike McKenzie (Jul 26, '06)

Despite the nausea that seizes me when I read Spengler's articles, I cannot help going through every single word he writes. His thinking is not analytical but analogical - hence its appeal to many readers (including myself, to my shame). You cannot go through a paragraph of his without coming across an analogy: between [Adolf] Hitler and [Mahmud] Ahmadinejad, between Germany and Iran, between the 1930s and now, between displaced African-Americans from New Orleans and uprooted Chinese peasants, between the American Civil War and Iraq, between some obscure Middle Age episode in European history and some contemporary event, etc. The reason I accused him previously of being a psychopath, besides being a racist and an Islamophobe, is his tendency to substitute those analogies [for] reality and advocate military action, no less, on their basis, without noticing that the possibilities of analogical comparisons are endless: you can certainly compare Nazi Germany to Iran in some respect but you can also, more appropriately in my view, compare Nazi Germany to Israel or the United States. Having said that, I must admit that his [Jul 25] piece Fight a democracy, kill the people is closer to reality than anything I read on the subject. None of the ingredients he uses in his recipes were missing: the analogies, the racism, the Islamophobia and the disregard for human suffering are all present. He writes his essay from the point of view of Israeli and American war criminals, as one would expect, but that's precisely what is needed for understanding Middle Eastern politics. Nowhere did I found the dismantling of the Lebanese Shi'ite community as one of the objectives of the Israeli war planners in their biblical destruction of their neighboring country. Although Spengler's writings are full of religious references, I find it strange that he never mentions the name of the god that is worshipped by the neo-cons and which presides over the destiny of the industrial civilization: Oil. I hope he will look into the subject in future to draw some insightful analogies between Oil and Yahweh (or Allah, for that matter) or, more interestingly, between the Church and the Market.
Daniel Mazir
Suzhou, China (Jul 25, '06)

Spengler's Fight a democracy, kill the people (Jul 24) is a very simple analysis and partly intended to tarnish the reputation of a large segment of the Lebanese people. Although I have deep respect to his intellectual writings, I really differ with him fundamentally in this article and would like to counter his argument by providing the following points. First, the successful dismantling and depopulation of other nations by military forces do not necessarily mean that it can successfully happen in the Arab world. In fact, recent examples substantiate this proposition. For more than hundred years the French were trying to destroy the Algerian people but they could not make it. Eventually, they were defeated. The US killed millions of Vietnamese but was not able to eliminate them. Israel has been trying to liquidate the Palestinian people but has not been able to accomplish this objective, given the Americans' open support. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt killed many Muslim mullahs and dismantled their political parties during the 1960s but could not eliminate them. These facts may convince Spengler that bombing Lebanon and displacing innocent people will not eliminate the Lebanese people, nor will [make] extinct any segment of the people of Lebanon. In fact, it will revolutionize their resistance against the Israeli occupiers. Second, it is really naive to state in ATol, which is read by millions of people, that the destruction of Hezbollah will serve Israel. Even the ignorant person knows this fact. But it is true that the elimination of Hezbollah serves the US interest in many ways, including the diversion of people's attention from the recent failure of US foreign policy in Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Essentially, the Bush administration and Israel have just realized the true consequences of invading and occupying Iraq. For the Bush administration, it is now crystal-clear that no flowers will be given to the "liberators" of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi resistance-insurgency dichotomy will continue. Worst, the Iraqi mullahs are in controlling of Iraq, which are linked to the Iranian mullahs that a previous fundamental error in US foreign policy had brought them to power to rule Iran. It follows that the goal of eliminating Hezbollah in Lebanon is to create a security zone for Israel in case the US leaves Iraq. This means that Israel will face Syria alone in case of a future hostility. (I disagree with the proposition that the US tries to draw Iran to this conflict, because the US is not interested in such a risky adventure, because Iran has weapons.) This goal will not be accomplished, because Hezbollah will not die, nor will Syria be alone. In fact, the region currently is subject to an unfolding evolutionary process whose growing seed is a typical Fatimid Dynasty II, a dynasty that will draw the support of several North African Arab countries in the future. This dynasty will not be beneficial for either the US or Israel, and Karl Marx is really correct in this context when he contends that capitalists dig their own grave. Third, the continued exodus of the Lebanese, the Palestinians, and the Iraqis will make the plan clear for the millions: the push of millions of Arabs back to the desert. But this plan will not be successful, because it will be resisted by those people as they did in their previous history. Last, I disagree totally with the proposition that the people of south Lebanon are habituated to live on wars. In fact, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 compelled these people to take shelter. I am very sure the Israelis know these facts, because they know the region and its culture, but the financier of the Israeli destruction of Lebanon and Palestine, the United States of America, has the tendency to do things by using its own way (or no way), a tendency that has always created disorderly bubbles in the Middle East.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Jul 25, '06)

Just to keep the record straight, Asia Times Online does not claim an audience of "millions", at least not at any given time. Our statistics suggest a daily readership of around 100,000. - ATol

As coolly indifferent to human bloodshed as Spengler [Fight a democracy, kill the people, Jul 25] might try to sound in the name of some supposed grander good, he might do well to remember that Muslims, particularly of the Arab variety, cornered the market on cynicism long ago. The decreasing appeal the present-day Muslim finds in a civilized co-existence with the West emanates exactly from the kind of casual sport the West - Israel only its latest cannon - has made of entire destinies of entire peoples. Remember that post-World War I it was the Arabs who rose against their Turkish co-religionists and put faith in the West, faith in a future that would include their own honored place at the table of nations, faith in a peaceful Palestine even as the Zionists poured in, faith in the high-minded philosophies the West deliciously hurls at the world's idiots. Alas, that faith of the Arabs was a naive utopian faith based on false premises, betrayed inevitably by naked greed and racism. Let us not forget, then, that the modernist project has come and gone in the Muslim world and there is raw awareness now of history, of two-faced morality, and of how the whole satanic game is played.
Zaheer Akmal
USA (Jul 25, '06)

Re The war Hezbollah is really fighting [Jul 25]: Very few would deny the relevance of the concept of moral high ground attached to an army's exemption of [an] enemy's civilian populations from onslaught that [Kaveh L] Afrasiabi is pleading for so eloquently, but in the case of Israel, opponents raise persuasive countervailing arguments: (1) Israel is a highly militarized state where military service is compulsory for every citizen, regardless of gender. Every Israeli citizen has to train and serve in [the] military for a minimum of two years. Therefore, strictly speaking, in Israel there are very few true civilians. (2) In the hope of spurious benefit of favorable international opinion, it is against military wisdom to spare [an] enemy's supply lines and let [the] enemy rest and refresh itself amongst the civilian population, particularly when it is not sparing your civilian populations. Personally, I have a feeling that the current Hezbollah-Israel conflict is a blessing in disguise as a unifying element as far the sectarian violence and bloodshed here and there and totally agree with Mr Afrasiabi that al-Qaeda everywhere and Taliban will be the major beneficiaries. And it appears palpably from Hassan Nasrallah's July 16 rallying call that he foresaw all of this and that the conflict is meant to be protracted, like it or not.
Del Smith (Jul 25, '06)

[Kaveh L] Afrasiabi has chosen an odd metaphor for the war between Israel and Hezbollah: a mirror image [The war Hezbollah is really fighting, Jul 25]. War is not an exercise in narcissism, since he equates Israel as the spitting image or Hezbollah or the other way around. We are watching a slugfest, no more, no less. Let's call Israel's war an invasion of a sovereign nation, which happens to be Lebanon. It is destroying it bit by bit through massive bombardment; the bombs and the sophisticated materiel are supplied by the United States. Israel, as President [George W] Bush likes to say, has the right to defend itself if it is attacked or invaded. But has Lebanon the same right? The Lebanese army is hardly a player in this asymmetrical war, and truth be told, Hezbollah has become the national army of Lebanon defending the national territory and integrity. Like it or not, Israel has invaded Lebanon. Its forces are sweeping up the coast towards Beirut, which it did in 1982 and 1996. In the end, Israel had to withdraw. What is not said: Lebanon is an ally of the United States. And Washington has chosen, and chooses still, to [allow Israel] to do its worst before Israel has reached its objectives. So is this the mirror image Dr Afrasiabi is writing about? I think not. To equate equality of forces of Hezbollah with that might that is Israel is turning the world of logic upside down.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 25, '06)

Chan Akya (World War III - what, me worry? [Jul 25]) needs to read a few more history books about China. In the past 5,000 years, China or Chinese confederations have never participated in a single religious war. Only those ignorant people would believe that the secular Chinese will fight the war on Islam. Historically, Chinese were always trying to stay away from troubled area. They walled their country out of the violent regions of North Asia for 2,200 years. However, although Chinese are "soft and cuddly", they will fight to the last drop of their blood if invaded. I do not think any sane country that is familiar with Chinese history would invade China today. Chan Akya also made a mistake about India. India is completely different than China. India was oursourced to the West repeatedly by its people since Alexander the Great. In the last few hundred years, Indians were constantly used by the West as gun [fodder] to attack other people. That includes India's founding father [Mahatma] Gandhi. Many Indians today still yearn for those good old days that they can be with their masters. They are still proud that they can polish their masters' boots with their tongues while the other people have to work as laborers with their hands. It is those Indians' [attitude] that will decide India's future. Sooner or later, India will be part of the war on Islam. Chinese will try to stay out of that war. With its size and capability, China can stay out of it.
Frank of Seattle
Washington, USA (Jul 25, '06)

I just finished reading, and enjoying, Chan Akya's World War III - what, me worry? [Jul 25] But I looked in vain for a brief biography of this interesting writer on the ATimes website.
Francis
Quebec, Canada (Jul 25, '06)

Like Spengler, Chan Akya chooses to keep all details regarding his identity confidential. - ATol

Referring to the article Bunkered down for a war of attrition [Jul 22], I agree that the Hezbollah fighters know the mountains, the roads and every inch of their land and terrain and can inflict horrendous damage to Israel's army on the ground and will kill hundreds of Israeli soldiers in closeness of their vicinity. I believe Israel will only retreat and submit to international political pressure when it suffers massive loss of life on the ground, inside and outside Israel. Israel miscalculated or underestimated or, in the words President [George W] Bush once uttered, "mis-underestimated" the will of the Shi'as who consider themselves to be, first, proud Lebanese defending their land against aggression from the Zionist state of Israel as an punishment for their support of Hezbollah. There will always be one excuse after another, as we know; for the last 50 years, Israel has invaded Palestine and Lebanon and killed innocent [people] in thousands, destroyed their homes and leashed despicable barbarity by bombing the defenseless people sitting and sleeping in their homes. It amazes me when President Bush says that the root cause of the problem is Hezbollah and if they stop that shit, everything will be honky-donkey [sic]: typical cowboy‘s solution. Wisdom to Mr Bush is as alien as a slipper to a snake and because of this handicap, he refuses to believe that the root cause of all political problems in the Middle East is the state of Israel's belligerent and racist attitude, and its behavior towards the Arabs as well as America‘s bent policy in its favor. The merciless aerial bombardment on Lebanon and Palestine demonstrates its arrogance and pathetic disregard for the life of an Arab, who according to many Zionists must be killed off if considered to be a threat, pursuing President Bush's philosophy of life, "Kill your enemy before he hits you." Israel can bomb and kill from the air with impunity because its neighbors are so timid that they dare not fly even a paper kite over its airspace. Israel has caused so much misery and suffering on the innocent Lebanese that it is being condemned internationally for creating one of the worst man-made humanitarian disasters, a wasteland, depriving hundreds of thousands innocent people, the majority of them children, basic necessities of daily life, making over 700,000 homeless and refugees and deliberately and systematically destroying Lebanon's infrastructure to push it back a hundred years. Israel will always invent another Yasser Arafat, Hamas, al-Aqsa and Hezbollah to invade its neighbors to grab their land, kill the defenseless and bully them to destruction. Israel has defied 69 UN resolutions with utter arrogance in defiance of international outcry but is so insistent to implement Resolution 1559 ...
Saqib Khan
UK (Jul 25, '06)

Why don't your carry articles by the renowned Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery on your [website]? It will be a kind of a counterpoint to Spengler. Mr Avnery, by the way, is an ex-member of the Jewish paramilitary group Irgun and also a former member of the Knesset. I recommend Mr Avnery's recent write-ups on the Lebanon conflict (both are available on www.outlookindia.com). Just a suggestion, hope you don't mind.
Gautam
Noida, India (Jul 25, '06)

Uri Avnery has not seen fit to submit any articles to Asia Times Online. However, retired Israeli diplomat Emanuel Shahaf has done so; see his Speaking Freely piece Overreaching in Lebanon. - ATol

Kudos to Aidan Foster-Carter for his enlightening explanation of why the North Korean government fires missiles: "Why do dogs lick their ...? Carolla filled in the punch line for me. Because they can" [Of missiles and mercurial media, Jul 22]. Now I should like to know why, say, the government of the United States fires missiles, which it does far more frequently than its counterpart in North Korea. But as Mr Foster-Carter is only an honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea, perhaps we should ask an Americanologist instead. Wonder what sort of animal would then be used to construct the zoological analogy - a unicorn?
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Jul 24, '06)

Sami Moubayed's Bunkered down for a war of attrition (Jul 22) is a very novel explanation of the ongoing destruction of Lebanon, and I commend him for his excellent work. I would like to provide some comments, however, about some of the elements that may require further investigation from political scientists. First, the comparison between Hezbollah and PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] was not a valid one. The PLO and other Palestinian fighters moved into Lebanon after the king of Jordan drove them out of Jordan in 1970. Then the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 displaced those Palestinian fighters from Lebanon, but that invasion created Hezbollah. Hezbollah has become an important institution and an essential organization of the Lebanese society, whose members are Lebanese individuals. The Israeli invading forces (IIF) may be able to displace those members temporary but not permanently. That is, the members of this party will be in Lebanon fighting the Israelis for a long period to come. [Ehud] Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, and the Israeli people will soon realize that the strategy of destroying Lebanon, which is supported by the Bush administration, is not a successful one and that they will suffer from high cost and psychological pain. This pain will come mostly from the fact that regardless of the Israeli military power and the support of the Bush administration, Hezbollah is still around fighting them. Second, Israel has been destroying civilian's targets in Lebanon, hoping that the Lebanese will blame and fight Hezbollah. This wishful thinking is irrelevant, because first it is Israel, not Hezbollah, that has been destroying Lebanon and second it is so ridiculous that the Lebanese will fight Hezbollah for the benefits of Israel, because the Lebanese know that Israel will invade them again whether Hezbollah exists [or not]. In fact, the current Israeli strategy is reminiscent of the Bush administration's strategy when it led the occupation of Iraq rather than the elimination of [Osama] bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Currently, most Iraqis are resisting the imperialist occupation rather than blaming Saddam Hussein, and if the Lebanese think of their crisis in a similar way, then Israel will fail not only in rooting [out] Hezbollah but also in [persuading] the Lebanese [to sign] a peace treaty. Assuming this result holds, then the IIF will have to fight in Gaza and Lebanon, which they cannot sustain in the long run. This scenario will be worsening for Israel if the US decides to leave Iraq and if another Allah's party [is] created in Lebanon. Last, Israel had occupied Lebanon for 20 years and was not able to defeat and eradicate Hezbollah. In fact, the latter was able to push the IIF out of Lebanon. The irony is that Israel now tries to eliminate Hezbollah within a very short period of time. This irony suggests that Israel has another reason for this naked invasion and destruction of the peaceful Lebanon. Whatever that reason may be, the Israeli strategy will create its own negation.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Jul 24, '06)

If Jim Lobe's The drums of war sound for Iran (Jul 21) is correct in its assessment that what began as a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has now quickly become a proxy war between the US and Syria and, particularly, Iran, are we then beginning to see the biblical makings of the final apocalyptic battle of Armageddon? For many Jews, Christians and Muslims, such thinking is not entirely fanciful. Just three weeks before the 1967 Six Day War, Rabbi Harav Tzvi Yehudah Kook gave what Orthodox Jews now universally recognize to be a prophetic speech, when he revealed his despair over Israel's pre-1967 boundaries. With Israel's subsequent capture of the occupied territories, Rabbi Kook's words resounded as a confirmation from God that the redemptive process was under way in preparation for the coming of the Jewish messiah. Over half a world away, America's 80-million-strong evangelical Christians also came to recognize these events to be a sign from God, though with a slight variation. Instead of a Jewish messiah, evangelical leaders such as Hal Lindsey, in his groundbreaking work The Late Great Planet Earth, saw Israel's miraculous victory as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, indicating the End Time was near and that Jesus Christ would soon return. Moreover, a Time magazine poll conducted soon after September 11, 2001, found that almost two out of every three Americans believe the current events in the Middle East all lead to Armageddon. They join a vast majority of Jews, together with both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, who each hold to their own detailed version of this anticipated battle according to the interpretation placed upon their sacred writings. This is why the current crisis in Lebanon is potentially far more dangerous than just another proxy war. It is part of a religious holy war that neither Jews, Christians nor Muslims can ever hope to win in this life. And unless the children of Abraham each recognize its utter futility, there will never be peace.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Rivett, Australia (Jul 24, '06)

Pepe Escobar's Lebanon left for dead [Jul 21] masterfully and succinctly lays out the true story about the ongoing slaughter of the Lebanese people by the marauding IDF [Israel Defense Forces]. Truth like this is what one will not hear coming from the bloviating gas bags that Fox news channel seems to have in abundance. Even the Fox news affiliate in the White House that is anchored by Press Secretary Tony Snow can be depended on to read from duplicitous scripts that surely must have been written by the neo-cons. The fact that the IDF is killing both Lebanese and Palestine civilians at random and bombing the nation of Lebanon back to the Stone Age shows that Israel is not trying to rescue POWs [prisoners of war] captured by Hezbollah, but to inflict as much damage as possible on Lebanon's infrastructure. If the pathetic excuse Israel is using for its murderous assault on Lebanon is the kidnapping of two if its soldiers was used by other nations, then by now the US would [have been] getting frontier justice, Israeli-style, from all of the nations that have had [their] citizens kidnapped by the CIA [US Central Intelligence Agency]. This barbaric practice, given the innocent-sounding term of "extraordinary rendition", is nothing short of one nation - the US - using its power and force to literally sweep foreign nationals off the streets of their home countries. They are then held in Gitmo [Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] and tortured, shipped to undisclosed prison sites and tortured, or sent to countries that have abominable human-rights records and, you guessed right, tortured for information that turns out to be worthless. Besides an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, the world also needs to convene the 21st-century version of the Nuremberg war-criminal trials, arrest Israel's ruling elite and help eradicate this poisonous strain of inhumanity.
Greg Bacon
Ava, Missouri (Jul 24, '06)

Trita Parsi mentions the pointing of fingers at Iran by the US in It's not just about Hezbollah [Jul 20]. The shrill accusations by President [George W] Bush, Israel and its supporters of Syria's and Iran's role in supplying Hezbollah and Hamas with weapons to defend themselves against Israel's aggression ring hollow in light of the fact that the US has provided Israel with F-16s, howitzers, tanks, ballistic missiles and other high-end weaponry (as well as millions of dollars in aid provided by US taxpayers) to continue its campaign to impose its will on the region. In addition, the West seems to have forgotten that both Britain and France helped Israel develop its nuclear-weapons program. If Syria and Iran have indeed provided Hezbollah and Hamas with weapons to protect themselves against Israeli aggression, I say that it is about time that Arab leaders show some courage and cease the shameless bootlicking that they've done to appease Western/Israeli demands.
Timothy Stinson
Miami Lakes, Florida (Jul 24, '06)

The present Middle East crisis and other ongoing Asian crises in North Korea [and] Iran make one wonder the reason for all crises in Asia. In one article titled US dollar hegemony has got to go (April 11, 2002), Henry C K Liu argued why dollar hegemony should go. On the contrary, amidst all economic imbalances US dollar hegemony persists even more today in 2006. I [have tried to] correlate why dollar hegemony still exists with even higher intensity (in absolute terms) and who is paying the price, in this "race to the bottom" that Mr Liu referred to in his article. I found that the US and Europe control more than 65% of the global economy with hardly 14% of the global population. And unfortunately for Asia, with two-thirds of the global population, we in Asia hold [US]$2.9 trillion of forex reserves. With half of this reserve, Asian economies can potentially buy out Microsoft, ExxonMobil, GE, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Wal-Mart, Google and all the available gold for sale with central bankers of Western economies. We also have 70% of global proven oil reserves and 50% of present global oil production in Asia with us (with hardly 20% of consumption). With all these we contribute hardly 22% of the global economy, half of which comes from Japan alone (nominal figures). And we in Asia have 800 million [people], more than the population of the US and EU put together, who live with less than $1 a day. The above facts and figures show something terribly wrong with this region ... We don't have any Asian identity ... I believe truly Asian media [are] badly the need of the hour; it can facilitate that process [of creating an Asian identity]. As Asians, in spite of having all in terms of resources and having practically nothing in terms of consumption, we still look [to the] West (read US President [George W] Bush) to solve the Middle East crisis. It's high time that we, as Asians, help ourselves and regain our due rights in global geopolitical and economic areas, starting with "helping ourselves" as Mohammed A R Galadari commented in the Khaleej Times on July 21 in respect to ongoing war in the Middle East [while the] rest of the world watches on. He referred to the Arab World; I am referring to Asian identity to fix many of these imbalances of the present world. My sincere request to your publication, Asia Times [Online], and to other leading media companies of this region [is] not to compete in this internal "race to the bottom" but to cooperate and create (or scale up through consolidation) a truly Asian media company which would foster our Asian identity and thereby help us find solutions of our own problems [rather] than merely looking at the West.
Ranjit Goswami
Research Scholar
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur, India (Jul 24, '06)

It is difficult to watch the unfolding carnage in Lebanon without feeling a deep sense of sadness and frustration. Lebanon has been set back a generation due to the destruction of its infrastructure, and its fledgling democratic system has been deeply wounded. Israel's attack is radicalizing the Lebanese population and swelling support for Hezbollah. It is madness to suggest that the bombing campaign will make ordinary Lebanese come to see Hezbollah as a liability. When under attack, people always rally around those who will defend them. Israel's strategic logic here is deeply flawed and has ensured that Lebanon will become a major breeding ground of anti-Israeli extremism for generations to come, such that Israel will never again know peace on its northern frontier. This sorry affair highlights the danger to any society of allowing the military to become the most important decision-making body of a government, as the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has become in Israel. Military commanders continually prove themselves to be extremely poor political decision-makers. The only tool in their kit is the use of violence. The Israeli military is by far the preponderant war machine in the region. Israel is not a weak nation under siege in a sea of hostile Arabs. Strategic realities have changed and the balance of military power now heavily favors Israel, as the body counts in Lebanon and in the Palestinian intifada suggest. Israel's overwhelming military dominance should allow it the luxury of pursuing non-military solutions to its security problems. But by resorting to violence to manage every security issue, Israel has helped to fuel retaliatory violence from Hezbollah and Hamas. Through its own actions Israel will again find itself in a sea of hostile Arabs. This is not to condone the violence of Hezbollah and Hamas, but to acknowledge the structural reality feeding the flames of death and destruction in Palestine and Lebanon. After 2,000 years of persecution and the tragedy of the Holocaust, the Jewish nation should understand the evil of raining destruction down on another people. Their historic suffering should serve as a dire warning against violent oppression. Instead of claiming "anti-Semitism" at legitimate criticism towards its policies, the Israeli state needs to hear the cries from peace-loving people the world over that there is a better way. Israel would find many willing partners for peace if it could take its finger off the trigger and see the limits of violence as a political tool. As a loving human being I plead to the Israeli government: end this madness now.
Benjamin Habib
Adelaide, Australia (Jul 24, '06)

Raja M, in India grows a grain crisis [Jul 21], cites lowering of water tables as one principal reason for reduced grain harvests as he gives examples of China and the USA. Presumably, he is implying that to be the case with India as well. He then laments the lack of attention given by the present Indian government to this field. While his concern seems to be well founded, I am not sure about the message he is trying to impart. One of the primary causes of lower water aquifers is use of water-intensive crops in otherwise dry areas. These have been accomplished by irrigation, in the Indian case by handing [out] free electricity more as a means to affect political outcome rather than the grain harvest. That this government is not handing out even more doles of these wasteful expenditures seems to be the more prudent thing. Yes, if market forces warrant growth of cash crops, then so be it. It might be better to import wheat from countries that are willing to subsidize their farmers due to their own political compulsions. Second, Raja M's article seems to be incomplete without examining the inefficient role of the state in handling and storage of grains and agriculture produce, and efficiencies to be gained by its exclusion.
Rocky (Jul 21, '06)

Jim Lobe's The drums of war sound for Iran (Jul 21) may be a reasonable analysis for the eventual objective of a possible confrontation with Iran, but this analysis is problematic in structure and conclusions. Mr Lobe's structural point was built around the idea of the great plan of the transformation of the Middle East towards democracy, a Washington plan that has been hindered by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and pro-Iranian Iraqi militias. It follows that these entities have to be displaced by military strikes, starting with Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is a very naive argument which can always be cited to justify military attacks on any country, or as was used by the Bush administration to occupy Iraq for liberating the Iraqi oil from the Iraqi people. But the idea of democracy and the transformation of the Middle East should be incompatible with the war on terror, because it does not make sense to tell the Arab people, you are terrorists (or a small percentage of you are terrorists) and our goal is to transform you into civil and democratic societies. No people would accept such degradation and humiliation ... It follows that the US strategy with all its tactical elements is a failure and extremely costly, because it will involve US in a permanent costly war whose eventuality is unknown but with one exception, which is more profits for oil and military corporations. In short, the best strategy for US in a global setting is to lead by example rather than by military force.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Jul 21, '06)

Is Israel preparing the ground for the United States' strike against Iran? There is much support, it seems, for this idea in Jim Lobe's The drums of war sound for Iran [Jul 21]. Reading it, one has a sense of deja vu - the tam-tamming of the drums of war in Iraq. The attention span of the United States public is short indeed ... Iran as [part of] an axis of evil, and [US President George W] Bush & Co have been itching for a fight with Tehran, but America's European allies have pushed for settling differences through negotiations. Now, since July 12, when Israel began its invasion of Lebanon, Washington has an opening to settle scores with Iran, and perhaps with Syria, too. Mr Bush has pulled a rabbit out of the hat in St Petersburg during the G8 [Group of Eight] summit meeting. He persuaded the leading economic world powers to agree that Israel had the right to defend itself, and in saying so, gave wittingly their consent for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its pursuit of collective punishment which recalls the means the German and Japanese armies used during World War II. The Bush administration is not known for erring on the side of caution. It is willing to rush in where angels fear to tread. So the cheerleaders for a quick, surgical victory by Israel in Lebanon and in Gaza, and for client states obedient to [Israel]'s beck and call, are setting the stage for a possible shootout with Tehran. Judging from the way things are going in Iraq, it is to be feared that Washington and ... its client state Israel are willing to set the whole Middle East in flames. Already ordinary citizens in the United States are afraid of a third world war. It is hoped that the realists in and out of the United States government will be able to rally the troops to stay the foolhardy hand of Mr Bush & Co. Nonetheless, the White House is biding its time to intervene in Lebanon. Washington and [Israel] share the same world view. An unstable Middle East may, according to them, destabilize the area to a degree short of a general conflagration, but enough to keep Syria and certainly Iran in an endless state of tension and fear and trembling. If they achieve that, they will tacitly have the support of conservative Arab regimes and governments [that] see Damascus and Tehran as a threat to their power.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 21, '06)

Pepe Escobar, in his [Jul 21] ATol opinion piece Lebanon left for dead, would do well to realize a truism well known to those who pull the levers of state: "In matters of state, might makes right, and only with difficulty can the weak avoid being deemed wrong by most of the world," wrote Cardinal Richelieu around 300 years ago. Were the various Arab governments to succeed in overwhelming Israel one day, the Israelis would be in identical, if not worse, circumstances to those he imagines confront the hapless Lebanese today. Besides, this response by Israel should have been anticipated, especially in Lebanon: they've experienced similar punishment before. One might speculate that perhaps it was and the current carnage serves an engineered design. Isn't it time for a new approach undertaken by the antagonists themselves, rather than hope, as does Mr Escobar, for a deus ex machina in the form of UN or other outside agencies? These efforts, if experience is a guide, just don't appear to work.
Keith Comess (Jul 21, '06)

Is it correct to kill thousands of civilians [and] ruthlessly destroy their country from air, ground [and] sea for two Israeli soldiers allegedly kidnapped by Hezbollah ...? The lamb-and-wolf story is being repeated with indiscriminate frequency everywhere. WMD [weapons of mass destruction] were not in Iraq. Both [US President George W] Bush and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair drummed up the issue to gain time for preparing the illegal launch of war and making 1,000% sure that Saddam [Hussein] did not have WMD. Had he possessed these like North Korea, they dare not have invaded Iraq. They select the weakest targets against their mightiest power to cow the weaker world and establish their hegemony on their land, resources and weak leaderships. But the lessons of history and of recent [events] in Iraq should remind them that the spirit to live free from alien occupation is indomitable, and might, however technologically superior, [cannot] subdue it. It only escalates resistance ...
S J Khan
Lahore, Pakistan (Jul 21, '06)

I am certain that many decent-minded readers of ATol with slightest bit of feelings for the fellow human beings will definitely feel ashamed and disgusted looking on their screens the barbaric uncivilized, deliberate, systematic, brutal house-to-house, street-to-street, road-to-road destruction of Lebanon and its infrastructure by the utterly arrogant, ruthless and merciless Israeli military killing machine. Hundreds of innocent Lebanese, most of them babies and young children killed at random by indiscriminate bombing, as well as the exodus forced on half a million of its population, is nothing but medieval barbarity. People's houses were bombed when many could not escape, and God knows how many are still buried under the rubble of their ghost city ruined to pieces by shameless and gutless Israel's naked aggression. [The] houses and businesses ... destroyed would have taken them years and years of hard labor to build, and who gave the Israelis the right to bomb them to destruction? The sheer inhuman and sadistic show of military power by arrogant Israel to free three of its captured soldiers was not instantaneous but pre-planned and conspired by the White House for months in advance for international political maneuvering and bullying, capturing cheap votes in the mid-term election in November and distracting the American electorate's attention from the cock-ups facing President [George W] Bush at home and abroad ... America and Zionist Israel have [turned] Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza into wastelands of the Earth as a demonstration of their arrogant military strength and with the intention of bullying the world ... If for the sake of argument, it assumed that the Americans and Zionist Israel succeed in eliminating al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, al-Aqsa [and] Hezbollah, how could they guarantee that other similar groups will not emerge to fight against injustice, oppression and humiliation inflicted upon their people by their tormentors? How could a Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghan forget and forgive the Americans and Israelis for destroying their homes to rubble, making them homeless and killing their families?
Saqib Khan
UK (Jul 21, '06)

I am a frequent reader your website, particularly with respect to your coverage of Middle East affairs. I think you are doing very good work. Regarding Middle East affairs, I think people are not highlighting some of the basic issues of the conflict. The first and foremost fact is that Israel is an illegal country. The country was thrust upon the local native populations by the big powers after Second World War without any compunction with respect to natural justice with the active connivance of the nascent UN to give it some iota of legitimacy. People (ie unwanted, problematic Jews) were imported from other countries and an illegal, unjust artificially created country made for them to inhabit, completely displacing and deporting native populations which did not have any military strength at that time to repel such a measure. It is clear that the real purpose of the creation UN (with its undemocratic veto structure) was shielding Israel from questions about its illegal creation and existence. All other humanitarian endeavors of the UN are just a smokescreen to hide its real purpose ... All these years Israel was in the process of illegal land grabbing with unjustly enacted laws (all in the name of religious faith, which the Western media will not highlight, unlike that of al-Qaeda). It's also very interesting in the current conflict between Hezbollah and Israel [that] the boundaries between Israel and Lebanon are presented as internationally recognized boundaries when in reality these are illegally occupied by the Israelis with military might provided by the West ... People in the East are alive to these issues and even if they don't have the military strength, they will fight and resist until justice is done to them. In my opinion it's very unlikely this injustice to Palestinians can be continued. A more likely scenario will be that Israel will not survive this century and will be wiped out from the Middle East map very [much] sooner than expected. It's also well documented that in the US and the cowardly and colonial Europe, Israel is painted as the victim and people are presented a very biased, false side of the conflict. If terrorism is visiting the people in the West, they cannot claim innocence because the policies their governments are following are approved by them, either with their ignorance or deliberately.
K Harria
Bangalore, India (Jul 21, '06)

Maybe I am stupid. But I simply cannot understand why all the geopolitical strategists and Mideast experts writing for ATol don't just tell us the bare truth: (1) Israel's attacks on the Palestinians and Lebanon are dictated by the US; (2) the purpose is to draw Iran into the war; and (3) so that the US will have an excuse to strike Iran into the Stone Age. In fact, the US is horrified by the possibility of Iran accepting the nuclear package offered by the Big Six because that would mean the US cannot attack Iran for at least a few years and will see Iran obtaining civilian nuclear technology (while secretly pursuing the military part of it) and other trade and economic benefits in a period while the oil price is hopping towards [US]$100 per barrel. On the other hand, the only reason Iran is delaying its response to the Big Six on the nuclear package (I am sure CIA [US Central Intelligence Agency] knows it) is because its nuclear strategists have not yet developed a plan to separate the civilian and military section of its nuclear program and hide the military part away from future inspections. Once such a plan is finished and submitted to Iran's top leadership, Iran will officially accept the package. But now, with fingers pointing at Iran on the Palestine-Israel-Lebanon war, its tough-talking leadership has no way back out but to reject the nuclear package and get drawn into the war, soon after which bombs will begin falling. What a grand operation plan! Congratulations, Dick and Rummy!
Raymond Cui (Jul 21, '06)

Dr Trita Parsi's It's not just about Hezbollah (Jul 20) is an acceptable explanation from the Western viewpoint of the bombing of Lebanon by the Israeli military forces, but it falls short of reaching the right cause of the problem. This Israeli aggression on Lebanon was engineered by the Bush administration in order to divert attention from several problems grounded in US foreign policy. First, the North Korean missile problem has demonstrated to the entire world that the Bush administration's foreign policy has been hypocritical. This policy has been very tough against weak and defenseless countries such as Iraq and very weak against strong nations such as North Korea and Iran ... Second, the massacres of innocent people in Iraq such as in Haditha and the rape and killing of the Iraqi female and her family members have demonstrated to all people living on this planet the true nature of imperialism: disrespect of laws and traditions, killing of innocent people, humiliation, destruction, and looting. That is, it can be argued that not only have imperialists become more interested in looting economic resources, but they are also raping women as a tactic to submit people to advance the idea of imperialist democracy of death that has not made the world safer. Third, reality has demonstrated the failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy to deal with the Iranian mullahs who have capitalized [on] the benefits of the imperialist occupation of Iraq. The Iranian mullahs have become very strong financially as a result of high oil prices and will use this wealth partly to produce the necessary military hardware for achieving the mullahs' interests in the region. These indicators of power will assist the Iranian mullahs to utilize all that it takes to [persuade] other nations to be against the United States of America, and the Iranian mullahs will succeed as long as the US occupation of Iraq continues and the Israeli invading forces occupy Arab land and bomb Lebanon and Gaza ... In addition, this Israeli move has another political objective. Israel is currently a very nervous country about the future of the US imperialist occupation of Iraq, because this occupation will eventually fail. Israel thinks that it is the time to establish a peace agreement with Lebanon before it is too late. If US military forces leave Iraq, the tendency will not be in favor of Israel. So the best interest for Israel, one can speculate, is to establish peace with other countries, particularly Lebanon, but this peace cannot be achieved by an aggressive military method. Therefore, Lebanon and Israel have a significant problem, because weapons will be shipped to both of them from various sources, and bombs will be dropped on both sides, a situation that will generate more death and destruction on the one hand and more profits for the military and oil corporations on the other. Finally, one important implication of the bombing of the innocent people in Lebanon is the situation that this crisis may result in a unity of the various fighting social groups in Iraq, which will intensify the fighting against US forces. An important unifying figure between the Iraqi mullahs and Hezbollah is [Muqtada] al-Sadr, a link that has made the Saudis and other US allies in the region very nervous.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Jul 20, '06)

Dr Trita Parsi's excellent synopsis of current thinking on the Hezbollah-Israel war highlights the constraints all but the leading elements amongst the engaged parties share: specific knowledge of plans, contingencies and intentions [It's not just about Hezbollah, Jul 20]. The rest of us can only speculate on these matters. Concentrating on the political motives, rather than the military particulars, makes sense. As [Carl von] Clausewitz wrote, "The political object is the goal, war is the means of achieving it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose." Three brief comments: First, asymmetric warfare, as it is now called, is not new to the Middle East and is certainly not new to Israel. Recall the "war of attrition" conducted against it after the 1967 war. Numerous military authorities have their own favored coping strategies. Israel favors massive retaliation (collective punishment, perhaps). Second, Israel is constrained by the USA only in the literal sense; its various governments would likely have hit harder, sooner and with less provocation had the US not exerted restraint. Reduction in "strategic maneuverability" does not seem to follow from the current set of problems the US faces in the region, or elsewhere. Third, Hezbollah ought to have (and perhaps did) anticipate the current scenario. There has been ample precedent.
Keith Comess (Jul 20, '06)

Many of us look helplessly at the TV images of an evolving genocide in Lebanon and Gaza. The time has come for bold leadership from a powerful country such as Russia to deploy a peacekeeping force to the border of Lebanon, whether or not Israel agrees with the idea or a consensus is reached at the UN. Other nations would likely join the effort and by so doing legitimize, internationalize, and reinforce the initial peacekeeping force. The world has an important stake in seeing that the latest confrontation between Israel and its neighbors remains contained and controlled. Without the timely deployment of a peacekeeping force to the region, we may all pay a much higher price than just the moral cost of being a spectator to a humanitarian crisis.
Fatoum
Virginia, USA (Jul 20, '06)

President [George W] Bush is quoted to have provided an analysis of the crisis in Lebanon and Gaza over an open microphone saying that if you get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, it's over. We can only hope that this man has some wise counsel in the back office and that this kind of simplistic view of world affairs does not really drive American foreign policy, although deep down inside us, we are afraid that it does.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jul 20, '06)

It is reasonable to assume, as Ralph Cossa does [Pyongyang forces UN's hand, Jul 20], that the Chinese mission to Pyongyang ended on a sour note. It is also reasonable to suggest that the meeting was stormy, and that the North Koreans forcefully rebuffed Beijing's counsel. This pushed the Chinese to add their voice to a unanimous vote in the Security Council to sanction the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] for testing its missiles. Nonetheless, unwilling to abandon its ally to whom under a 1961 mutual-defense treaty it is tied, Beijing made sure that the resolution lacked bite. In other words, it would remain unenforceable and without sanctions. Mr Cossa sees the Security Council's unanimity as more than a moral victory. On the other hand, the agreement of the 15 members of the Security Council will not bring Pyongyang back to six-power talks. Mr Cossa myopically parses the question of North Korea. Pyongyang is but one player, and to put it colloquially, to make an omelet, one has to break eggs. And one of those eggs happens to be the United States. As long as Washington is unwilling to engage Pyongyang on a state-to-state basis, the six-power talks will remain stillborn.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 20, '06)

After reading [Ralph] Cossa's article Pyongyang forces UN's hand [Jul 20], one would like to ask him to explain why North Korea's missile testing is to be regarded as a "provocation", while missile tests by nations like the United States and Japan, which can reasonably be assumed to be a threat to North Korea, are not. Perhaps I'm missing something here. Gareth Porter's analysis of the US administration's thinking regarding its war in Iraq [US plays a double game, Jul 20] seems right on the money to me (as does his analysis of the opposition party's failure to offer the country an alternative). But when he writes, "But the evidence suggests that [US President George W] Bush has agreed to position the administration for an eventual peace agreement with the insurgents if that turns out to be necessary to avoid a disaster in Iraq," one must ask, "disaster" for whom? For the Iraqi people, the Bush-Cheney war on Iraq has long been an unmitigated disaster.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Jul 20, '06)

Re A proud imperial defeatist [Jul 20] by Michael T Klare: In this article, Mr Klare finally touched on the point that is the crux of the whole American debacle (not dilemma). It has ever amazed me that Americans have not recognized this fact and acted upon it long ago. Referring to the great American "war on terrorism", he wrote, "Only by cooperating with other countries on an equitable basis can the US diminish this risk." The fact is that all that has been necessary for peace and progress, worldwide, has been for Americans to "be nice to people, whoever and wherever they are". This is a lesson that every decent family teaches its kids. Indeed, if such a social practice had always been an American characteristic, rather than the creed "my country, right or wrong", this thing they call "terrorism" would not be an issue today; and Mr Klare's article - and book, which I have read - would not have been necessary.
Keith E Leal
Canada (Jul 20, '06)

Kudos to Swati Lodh Kundu's timely wake-up call to the catastrophe rural China faces [Rural China: Too little, too late, Jul 19]. I am eager to see if she has any suggestions and solutions for those dire problems. Being a big developing country like the PRC [People's Republic of China], perhaps India offers something that we can learn from in this regard? I am all ears.
Juchechosunmanse (Jul 19, '06)

Sitting inside her gated air-conditioned Bangalore complex, just a few blocks away from the city slums, looking through her gypsy crystal balls, Swati Lodh Kundu concluded that "more than 50 million farmers have been displaced and pushed on to the bottom rung of China's poverty ladder" [Rural China: Too little, too late, Jul 19]. That is laughable. She apparently has never been to China. The majority of those 50 million farmers who lost their farmlands live around China's eastern coastal cities. Many of them become rich during the city expansions. Those who are on the bottom rung of the poverty ladders live in the west part of China. Many Indians do not understand that China is completely different than India. Chinese cities do not have slums. That is why unlike India, the income disparities are so high between urban and rural Chinese. Underdevelopment in western China is the major reason for poverty in China. India's income disparity is within their cities between gated upper-caste communities and the lower-caste slums a few yards away outside of the wall. There may be too little and too late to help rural China, but too late of a help is always better than never. At least Chinese leaders are determined to help the poor. Both China's president and the premier remember their days living in the poorest part of west China with salaries of less than 25 cents per day. India's poor never had help from their government. India's wealthy elites do not care about their poor ... Swati should learn to obtain her own information herself. Why can't you visit a poor little girl living next door to you in a dirty tin shed and write us an article about your visit? Oh, I forget. You care more about Chinese than your poor little sisters.
Frank of Seattle
Washington, USA (Jul 19, '06)

Re India's soft response to the Mumbai bombings [Jul 19: I think that Pakistan believes that frequent terrorist strike will weaken India and create a communal divide. But, by doing so, it is inadvertently letting itself be trapped. Today the world knows well that wherever a terrorist strike happens, somehow [it is] linked to Pakistan. And the Iran and North Korea nuclear issue also finds its roots in Pakistan. Even if the Western countries manage to control the Iran and North Korea threats, being a source of a [disease], Pakistan is forever going to be a threat for the world. This is indeed a golden opportunity for India. If India, angered by Pakistan's terror tactics, declares war against Pakistan or prefers a limited strike against terrorist camps across the border, Pakistan will find little support among the world except China. And if the Western countries, led by the US and Russia (officially opposing but tactically supporting India), back India, China too will have to be a mute spectator. The only risk India will have to face is a nuclear retaliation. No sane leader will want to face a nuclear war because that will only produce a loser (India) and a major loser (Pakistan). But at the same time, no sane leader will want to see his citizens frequently being killed and helplessly watching it, not to mention India becoming a laughing stock around the world. If India ever loses its patience, then Indians may prefer to face a nuclear war once and for all. Well, my argument may be a bit of over-imagination, and probably the world [will] press Pakistan hard to curb the terrorists. But if Pakistan-backed terrorists continue to hurt Indian and Western interests, I am sure one day that will become a reality. The terrorists too are making a great blunder by killing innocent people. The Mumbai blast killed a few hundred people (Hindus) but they have surely made life hell for thousands of Muslims. The secular Maharashtra government may not back the hardline Hindu element to take revenge. But the pressure to find the terrorists will compel the authorities to apply hard measures against Muslims because failing to find the terrorists will give its opponent, the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party], a political plank. There are already reports that in many places (Mumbai), Muslims are not allowed buy houses in Hindu-dominated areas. If this bomb blast is going to make more Muslim ghettos, and [another] bomb blast took place, that will easily help the Hindu hardliners to target the Muslims.
Shivanantham
Cuddalore, India (Jul 19, '06)

Jim Lobe's US Hawks smell blood [Jul 19] is a good summary of the mindset of America's neo-conservatives. They may be looking to regild their coat of arms in order to recover influence and prestige in Washington, and tightening the grip on American foreign policy. And thus Israel's war has become "our war". It may come as a surprise to them that the field has suddenly grown crowded, for every politician who is running for office or re-election and every former policy wonk are raising voices loud and clear for support of beleaguered Israel, which is stemming the rising tide of radical Islam on two fronts: one in Gaza, against Hamas; the other in Lebanon, against Hezbollah. There is so much elbowing and boosterism afoot that it boggles the mind of the ordinary citizen that he may wonder under what flag the United States is pledging allegiance. This is further compounded by a press that regurgitates the same old slogans and bangs the drums for a heavily armed Israel that has donned the sheep's cloak of a defenseless David against a weak Philistine Goliath, which it seems unable to dominate.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 19, '06)

Pepe Escobar in [Leviathan run amok, Jul 19] merely reprises exhausted shibboleths. One can (and does, particularly in ATol) debate the relative merits of the Palestinian/Israeli causes ad nauseam, but there is one elemental point that often seems to escape notice. Philip K Dick probably said it best: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." The reality is, for better or worse, that Israel is a permanent presence in the Middle East. Israel, or so it appears, is resigned to accept the reality of its neighbors' existence. Perhaps the courtesy should be reciprocated. This seems a reasonable starting point. Thank you for publishing my letter [Jul 18] commenting on the piece by Kaveh Afrasiabi [Israel's path to total war, Jul 18]. You, in an editorial comment, took exception to one of my points, in which I rebutted a remark on "retaliation through Lebanon". You state that Mr Afrasiabi never made this comment, at least in the manner in which I apprehended it. Allow me to direct your attention to this line, from paragraph 6 of his article: "without the fear of any retaliation through Lebanon, thus depriving Iran of one of its multiple lines of defense". By my reading at least, retaliation through Lebanon linked to Iranian lines of defense implies either a defense in depth or advance and maneuver by an adversary in a direct attack. In this case, given that the US is already in Iraq, some sort of flanking maneuver is implied.
Keith Comess (Jul 19, '06)

Your July 18 letter alluded to a possible US/Israeli attack on Iran through Lebanon, and none such was referred to in the article. The remark in question referred to Iranian lines of defense through Lebanon, which could take some form other than a "flanking maneuver" around Iraq, perhaps including proxy forces within Hezbollah already present in Lebanon. - ATol

In response to the letter by Henry Murphy [Jul 18], and his claim that the Hezbollah raid was timed with the Western deadline to Iran on the nuclear question, my article [Israel's path to total war, Jul 18] actually does not address this issue, as I have no information to confirm or reject it. However, since Iran had repeatedly rejected the deadline and, as I have written in my previous articles, even the US and its European allies had backed down from the July 12 deadline, as a result I fail to see why Iran would be so worried as to seek a deadly distraction through Hezbollah. It simply doesn't wash. What we know for sure is the vicious campaign of exterminism against Lebanon, tearing apart the fabrics of that country and causing such monumental damage that will take a generation to set straight, assuming that Israel does not reoccupy (part of) the country.
Kaveh Afrasiabi (Jul 19, '06)

Spengler (The Gumps of August [Jul 18]) predicts a great and horrific bloodbath between the Muslims, America, Israel and anybody that gets in the way. I may be mistaken but in conflict, countries that are giants of innovation as well as unprecedented producers of manufacturing, technology, agriculture, transpiration, communications and most importantly weapons have a distinct advantage over adversaries that are not. Countries and cultures that add to the world economy tend to attract supporters more than those that do not contribute. The conflict between modernity on one side and the tribe, Islam and ancient grievances on the other may indeed be upon us but rather than a prolonged conflict it may be very nasty, short and brutish. In any case, one weeps at the prospect of what Spengler envisions.
Brad Lena (Jul 19, '06)

Re Israel's path to total war [Jul 18] by Kaveh L Afrasiabi: Israeli aggression and brutality are nothing new - Israel has been practicing both with impunity against the Palestinians for decades now. The Europeans make weak indignant sounds from time to time - but only enough to salve their sophisticated hypocrisy. As for the Americans, it is a well-known secret that AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] money has turned both the Democratic and Republican parties into equally subservient factions of the Knesset. One need only watch the senators paying their respects to [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert during his latest visit to Washington - an ancient Persian saprat visiting a distant colony could not have been received with more fawning. None of this is new. However, what truly stands out during this latest round of violence between Muslims and Jews is how thoroughly pathetic the Arabs as a people have become. In Iraq, faced with a vicious invasion and occupation by a foreign army, they can think of nothing better to do than to kill each other over their equally numbskull interpretations of the Koran. Arab leaders, on the other hand, seem to fall into essentially two types: they are either bought-and-paid-for dictators and puppets of the USA (eg [President Hosni] Mubarak of Egypt, [King] Abdullah of Jordan, etc) or quisling "royals" whose only loyalty is to their wealth, their privilege and their uninterrupted supply of European whores. Incredibly, all Arab governments would much rather continue to be trampled militarily by Israel and the USA than accede to Iranian military pre-eminence in the region. The Arab masses, deliberately besotted and addled by an overdose of religion, are incapable of catalyzing change. The amazing thing is not that Israel continues to occupy and oppress the Palestinians or that the US continues to occupy and savage the Iraqis, but that all of the Arab countries have not already been conquered and occupied by Western armies - it may yet happen.
Jose R Pardinas, PhD
San Diego, California (Jul 18, '06)

In Israel's path to total war [Jul 18] by Kaveh L Afrasiabi you allow the [writer] to make gross errors. Hezbollah crossed an internationally recognized border to kill (murder?) several soldiers and then kidnapped two others. They covered this clear incursion and act of war with another, a massive missile strike on several settlements and cities in Israel, again committing another act of war. Please make a note of this.
Arthur Rabinovitz (Jul 18, '06)

Many thanks to Kaveh L Afrasiabi for his courageous article Israel's path to total war [Jul 18]. It is so refreshing to read articles like this that [are] totally missing in the US media's coverage of this ugly war where civilians on both sides are suffering needlessly. Afrasiabi does a nice job in critiquing the right-wing establishment media in the US and also to take on the left and the right in Israel. His thesis that this war is a prelude to attacks on Iran is very interesting. But I wonder what he has to say about the other thesis that Iran timed the Hezbollah attack across the border with the Western deadline to Iran to answer by July 12. What evidence does Afrasiabi have to dismiss this hypothesis? A little more balanced approach that would have looked at the motives of the other side would have been nice.
Henry Murphy
Hartford, Connecticut (Jul 18, '06)

In regard to Kaveh L Afrasiabi's article Israel's path to total war [Jul 18], I think you need to find a writer who actually looks at facts and doesn't speak about something that is completely false. The conflict in the Middle East was rehashed by Hezbollah and other militants who kidnapped Israeli soldiers. This is considered an act of war, as they crossed the border into Israel and made the attack. Israel has every right to defend itself against nations around itself. Also the Lebanese people have done nothing wrong, and that they were brought into this by the Hezbollah terrorists is terrible. If your writers think that Israel is so bad, why is it that Hezbollah attacks civilians and Israel attacks infrastructure? Half of Israel's attacks only destroy buildings and hurt no one. I think you need to find a writer who doesn't wish to join a terrorist faction to write for your site.
George Smolar (Jul 18, '06)

At this writing, about 10 times as many Lebanese as Israelis have died in the current conflict, a ratio that has generally been reflected over the years during Israel-Palestine clashes. - ATol

[Kaveh L] Afrasiabi is certainly correct about the manner in which the Israeli leadership's responsibility for the wars and slaughter they have engendered in Southwest Asia is spun in US media, but alas, the difference between these latter and their European counterparts is merely one of degree - and very little, indeed, of that [Israel's path to total war, Jul 18]. As to the degree to which the Israeli tail is wagging the US dog, opinions are divided: that the Israeli leadership exploits to the full its stranglehold over the US media and the US Congress is certainly the case, but it is also the case that the political and economic leadership of the US permits this bizarre situation to continue for reasons of its own. When the dog gets wagged, its brain (?) positively delights in the phenomenon.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Jul 18, '06)

Kaveh Afrasiabi writes in [Israel's path to total war, Jul 18] that Israel has embarked on a path to "total war" by initiating military action in Lebanon. In support of this thesis, Mr Afrasiabi offers several statements, which he ... represents as facts. In order of statement in his article, these are: (1) The "myth of Israel as the assaulted party". In fact, whatever the ambient level of Middle Eastern violence and regardless of the legitimacy or lack thereof of Israel and its existence, an assault was, by its English definition, made by Hezbollah. This organization, now an integral part of the Lebanese government, conducted a military operation across an internationally recognized border. Therefore, Mr Afrasiabi's first point does not obtain. (2) He asserts that "the rest of the world ... does not share this perception of who is mainly at fault". Unfortunately, that is not true, either. Saudi Arabia, along with Jordan, Egypt and several Persian Gulf states, chastised Hezbollah for "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts" at an emergency Arab League summit meeting in Cairo on Saturday. The United States' posture has also been at variance with Mr Afrasiabi's assertion. Therefore, Mr Afrasiabi's second point about "the rest of the world" seems to be a bit porous. (3) He asserts that the Hezbollah action was undertaken "as a show of solidarity with the much-oppressed Palestinians". This might have a component of truth to it, but the implied altruism of Hezbollah's action is single-minded in its focus on this supposed motive for the action, rather than considering other probable motives, including the role of Hezbollah vis-a-vis Hamas (power and burnishing of radical credentials amongst constituents), the role of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the motives of Syria and Iran, etc. Thus, while the third point is potentially meritorious, it cannot stand alone as a valid observation. (4) He mentions, as a factor in Israel's military action, retaliation against Iran through Lebanon. Perhaps Mr Afrasiabi should consult a standard atlas of the region. In order to "retaliate" against Iran, Israel or its putative American ally would need to cross mountainous terrain (not precisely suited for rapid maneuver warfare), traverse Syria, then Iraq, finally landing in western Iran. Frankly, I doubt even Napoleon [Bonaparte] or [Erwin] Rommel could pull that off successfully. (5) Mr Afrasiabi invokes the philosophy of French philosopher Michel Foucault. His philosophical opus has no bearing, direct or tangential, on any of Mr Afrasiabi's arguments. If Professor Foucault were not dead, he might comment on this matter, too. Rather than continue to catalogue the logical ellipses of Mr Afrasiabi's article, perhaps I might simply note that there is an internationally recognized "doctrine of proportionality", which originated in The Hague Convention of 1907. Under this standard, Israel might be seen as having employed excessive force. Other doctrines obtain. For example, Israel was within its right to use force to protect its nationals (Article 51, UN Charter). The Lebanese government is legally responsible for Hezbollah's actions according to numerous legal standards, as Hezbollah is a formally acknowledged constituent of that government. One might also note Lebanon's failure to implement UN Resolution 1559, which called for the dismantling of Hezbollah's militia. If one keeps a pet scorpion, one always needs to worry about being unexpectedly stung. By other standards, however, Israel appropriately acted to remove a significant threat from its borders by dealing it a heavy blow. Since more condign forms of martial inducement have been useless and since tacit understandings with adversarial neighbors have now collapsed, one can fathom Israel's motives. Whether they are legitimate or not is open to question. This article, however, fails to make that case.
Keith Comess (Jul 18, '06)

Re your Point 4, the article said nothing about a possible "retaliation" against Iran through Lebanon. Rather, it mentioned a possible retaliation by Iran against Israel/US via its Lebanese ally, which a preemptive attack on Lebanon by Israel/US would forestall. - ATol

Is Keith Comess a staffer at ATol? It seems to be [the case], since his letters get published on a frequent and regular basis, leaving less room for alternative opinions.
Greg Bacon
Ava, Missouri (Jul 18, '06)

No, but he's a bit wordy. Thanks for not following suit. - ATol

An endless stream of tit for tat makes it easy for parties in a conflict to point to some particular incident to justify their own particular belligerence. In this regard Hamas, Hezbollah, and the present administration governing Israel are of the same ill mind. How convincingly they all rationalize their right to drop bombs and throw missiles! When it comes to responsibility for civil behavior they are mute, and it is their own citizenry that suffers. Likewise, the US president refrains from advocating a cessation to hostilities, all the while knowing full well that many Americans in both Lebanon and Israel are exposed to escalating war. Instead of seeing to a halt in the hostilities, he opts to risk evacuating those in the war zone, charging an evacuation fee to boot, so that Israel may better continue to bomb. He only props up the irresponsibility, somehow thinking that further violence will resolve the underlying problems causing the violence. War is not politics by other means as the well-known military tactician Carl von Clausewitz once phrased it, but rather it is man's spiral down to bestiality. Ultimately the continued violence will only draw the rest of America into this Middle East quagmire as in Iraq. Politicians need to learn that by the continued actions of war, eventually everyone loses.
Robert Shule
Hampton, Virginia (Jul 18, '06)

Re Sami Moubayed and Hezbollah and the art of the possible [Jul 18]: Israel is attempting to change the equation of power between Hezbollah and itself, putting Hezbollah in the position of either fighting or shutting up. If Israel cannot prevail militarily, it is doomed in any event. Why not crush them now? Hezbollah is not going to win a war by firing rockets at Israel. That was and remains nothing but terror, and does not do anything but annoy Israel. It is a big bluff. Hezbollah has a pair of 4s, not three aces. Israel intends to defeat Hezbollah, and see how Iran reacts after that. Possible for one person or country is not the same as possible for another. Every few years Israel has to kill a number of its neighbors to avoid extinction. The Arabs learn slowly, if at all. If Israel is seriously threatened with extinction it will nuke Iran.
Richard Stone (Jul 18, '06)

The phrase in the original article "two Israeli soldiers captured inside Lebanon last Wednesday" has been amended to say that they were captured inside Israel, which reflects the general (Western) media consensus. However, it should be pointed out that many of the Arabic media, and Hezbollah sources the author spoke to, assert that the soldiers were seized inside Lebanon. - ATol

Ashok Malik: Thanks for the very interesting and pertinent article India fighting fires, left and right [Jul 18]. The only sensible option for India is to mend its relationship with its neighbors, that is. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma and Sri Lanka. Look how China is managing its relationship with its neighbors, including even Russia and India, in fruitful dialogue plus action on the ground. Terrorism is the tactic of the poor and the weak. It was practiced by ETA [Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Liberty] and the IRA [Irish Republican Army] in contemporary times in Europe but none called them Christian terrorists; why when Muslims fight back, Ashok, [do] you label them as jihadist? In doing so you are being biased and hypocritical and are only stoking the fires that may hurt innocent human beings the way it has happened very sadly in Mumbai ... I wish India had statesmen of the caliber of [Mahatma] Gandhi today, who unfortunately was killed by a terrorist, not a Hindu terrorist, Ashok.
Arshad Malik
Hamilton, New Zealand (Jul 18, '06)

In fact, many did consider the IRA to be Christian terrorists, as the Northern Ireland struggle had Catholic vs Protestant roots. ETA's cause, however, is ethno-linguistic separatist, without a religious base. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu radical. - ATol

Re It's war by any other name [Jul 15]: [US President George W] Bush and his posse of neo-conservative nut-cases are promoting democracy everywhere and at the same time have been conducting a war on democracy. The administration's incessant backbiting at the Democratic Party, its denial of the democratically elected Islamist party of Hamas, Hezbollah's seats of power in Lebanon, its selected denial of a pro-Iranian Shi'ite democratically elected majority which with the ebb and tide of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East will certainly align itself with the - in the near future - nuclear-weaponized Iran after the soon-to-be end of the occupation by either force or by a cut-your-losses tactical exit. Point to ancient Rome's incompetent, half-mad Emperor Nero, who burned Rome trying to save it, to find a generic comparison to the madness of King George. What Nero did affected only the Roman Empire; what Bush has done has affected the whole world, and we are going into a cycle of history where the balance of power between the-once oppressed against the former oppressors, where the historians can only write outlines and brief summations in the interim to keep pace and come back later after the smoke has cleared to expand on the events. Bush in a mad game of geopolitical poker will be left with a handful of jokers when he will be forced to show his hands. They are headed for the last roundup.
James Phifer (Jul 18, '06)

Re [M K] Bhadrakumar on The roots of Muslim anger in India [Jul 15]: I just wanted to say what a terrific article it is. Certainly shows he has more awareness of ground realities than that investment adviser. I also want to say that Ashok Malik's article seems to lack understanding (deliberate or otherwise) of the left. Is he aware that other left parties look to the "Left Front" as a sellout? The fact [is] that parties who promoted and delivered land reform and allow tribal land to be taken away are not living up to their standards. By the way, I just came out about some more news about taking of land and a Reliance project. This time it is in another state (Maharashtra). Hmmm - and what is the Left Front doing? I personally think [that] due to water-scarcity issues farmers need to get off the land; but [failing to provide] proper compensation and capacity-building in helping them find another source of livelihood renders them open to the call of the Maoists.
May Sage (Jul 18, '06)

Re China: A smoker's paradise [Jul 11]: While Wu Zhong raises some real and serious concerns about the state of tobacco control in China, the idea that opening the market to private, foreign investment will improve this state of affairs is farcical. Experience in every other tobacco market shows that allowing these for-profit companies into the market will only further harm tobacco control. They will market tobacco in ways you never thought possible, increasing consumption rates among previously untapped sections of the market (particularly young women and children), lobby against any intervention that would help reduce smoking rates, and ultimately kill millions more smokers than the state monopoly could dream of. The only margin they care about is profit. At the least the government has some interest in the health and well-being of its population.
Dr Anna Gilmore
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
London, England (Jul 18, '06)

What is Spengler's full name?
Leanne (Jul 18, '06)

He calls himself Oswald in his e-mails, but we're pretty sure these are pseudonyms. - ATol

Every year around this time forest fires in Sumatra, intentionally set to clear land for plantations, send giant clouds of noxious smoke over Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, and sometimes even to Cambodia and Vietnam. The ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP) was signed in 2002 and the agreement was put into force in 2003 along with a Regional Haze Action Plan (RHAP). Yet nothing of substance has been achieved. Each year the haze returns as usual, whereupon ASEAN bureaucrats awaken from their slumber and make some pronouncements. They proclaim that they have an agreement and an action plan; that they are on top of the situation and that a solution is near. We believe them. Then they simply wait out the haze season and return to their slumber. The following year we play out this drama all over again. How long can this go on?
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jul 18, '06)

The otherwise interesting analysis by Sami Moubayed of the rapidly evolving Israel/Lebanon debacle is marred by two apparent errors of fact [It's war by any other name, Jul 15]. First, Mr Moubayed either reveals a newly discovered (and yet to be revealed by any other media source) fact, viz, that Hezbollah "arrested" two Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese side of the border, or he has misapprehended the incident. All accounts indicate that the Hezbollah action occurred on the Israeli side of the UN-recognized border. Even Hezbollah has not made a claim to the contrary. Second, holding "arrested" individuals for exchange is illegitimate, by any recognized legal standard. Arrest implies legal jurisdiction as it is implicit in the definition of the term that an infraction of applicable law has occurred. One does not offer exchange of "arrested" persons. Third, Mr Moubayed asserts that Hezbollah has received no arms support and (at least by implication) no diplomatic or logistical support. This assertion runs entirely contrary to all reports from other sources. Furthermore, it simply begs credulity: Syria was the suzerain of Lebanon (and still exerts considerable force in the country, despite its physical absence from Lebanese territory after nearly three decades of occupancy). To imply, as does Mr Moubayed, that Hezbollah did not receive arms from Syria, either directly or by tacit consent, is just preposterous. Similarly, the Hezbollah militia and its extensive base system in the Bekaa Valley could not have existed without Syrian complicity. Mr Moubayed's acknowledgement that there is some legitimacy in the assertion that Hezbollah (and Hamas) are acting in "self-defense" by kidnapping soldiers and launching rockets against civilian targets is insufficient. That form of response is tribalistic and unsophisticated: it would make [Carl von] Clausewitz vomit. It is not the form of action that a sovereign nation or any party to the government of a legitimately constituted nation-state would engage in - short of a declaration of war, which has become the de facto result of this most recent adventure in self-assertion ... Whatever the putative merits of "asymmetric warfare" as applied to the United States in Vietnam and now in Iraq, the Israelis don't see it as a problem. They see this as an opportunity to visit Armageddon on Hezbollah, and they may be right. They will be condemned regardless of their response. So why not engage in "asymmetric warfare" in a Lebanese buffer zone, denuded of infrastructure, as opposed to one on Israeli soil? After all, as Bob Dylan wrote, "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose" and, at this point, the Israelis figure they "ain't got nothin' to lose".
Keith Comess (Jul 17, '06)

Sami Moubayed's article [It's war by any other name, Jul 15] is welcome. It looks at the weights and chains of the past on the present "war" on Hamas and Hezbollah by the Israelis. Weeks after the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier on the border with Gaza, [Israel] despite the carnage and civilian deaths has been able to neither free nor find the young citizen soldier. The Israelis' inability surgically to "liberate" one of its own from the hands of its "enemy" is a sign of weakness. Had the Zionist generals and politicians read General Vo Nguyen Giap's People's War, People's Army, they should have dwelt on the tale of the elephant and the ant. Israel in today's setting is the elephant who, wounded, reacts blindly like a rogue elephant; it will bellow and lash out and stampede and crush everything in its path but the little ants, who scurry away unharmed. In the longer run, [Israel] will have to come screaming and kicking to negotiations, the more especially since rockets are falling on Haifa today and perhaps on other Israeli cities including Tel Aviv. The [president of the] United States, which has a strong card to play, once again ... is dodging his responsibility as a "peacekeeper", since Israeli materiel comes from the United States, and Washington keeps [Israel] afloat in cash militarily and economically with loans which it readily forgives. Had [US President George W] Bush the wisdom of Dwight Eisenhower exhibited during the Suez crisis of 1956, he would have let it be known that unless Israel withdraws and negotiates, America will shut hard its purse strings. A half century ago, [Israeli prime minister David] Ben Gurion got the message and withdrew his troops from the Suez Canal. Mr Bush's unconditional support of Israel will make an already bad situation worse. The typical tack of [the] poorly directed American foreign policy of hardball leaves Washington with little room to maneuver. It cannot count on the good offices of Syria, which it has tried to isolate and then overturn its government. Iran - well, we know Mr Bush's misreading policies of that country which he can do little to change. So the blood will flow in Lebanon, Gaza, and Israel. Ultimately, the Israelis will have to sit down with Hamas and Hezbollah and work out a formula to achieve release of prisoners and end [Israel's] carnage and wanton rapine.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 17, '06)

Ehsan Ahrari's article [The danger of an unequal struggle, Jul 15] spells out what an "asymmetric warfare" is and the outcome of such a war. To my recollection of world history there are very few "symmetrical" warfares. The preponderance of warfare has been where one party is stronger than the other. There is nothing unique in the US military engagement in Iraq or Afghanistan nor the current war between Israel and the Palestinians as well as the Lebanese. What is unique is the global spread of radical Islamic terror against all non-Islamic cultures and even Islamic nations that don't toe the line. Because of this unique nature of global Islamic terror, techniques of warfare will have to change. This renders the outcome of the current global reaction unpredictable. From politicians to the media we are now reminded that this war may last a long time, giving further impetus that we will not know exactly what the final result will be.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
New Orleans, Louisiana (Jul 17, '06)

I have been a regular reader of ATimes.com and really like the quality/content of most of the articles. But I was reading The roots of Muslim anger in India [Jul 15] by M K Bhadrakumar and found that there were some inaccuracies in the article. When he writes "recurrence of anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat two months ago", he is talking about the incident in which the municipality demolished a dargah (Muslim burial place) which was in the middle of a main street. Also, during the same demolition 10-15 Hindu temples which were encroaching the roads were demolished. But no riots happened; [it was] only when the dargah was demolished that the Muslims [rioted]. I know this because until I moved to the US five years back I lived in that town for 25 years and still most of my family [lives] nearby ...
Harsh (Jul 17, '06)

Here in Thailand, our embattled prime minister, standing accused of asset concealment, tax avoidance, election fraud, corruption, human-rights abuses, and interference with the freedom of the press and with the independence of oversight bodies constitutionally mandated to discipline the government, has seen fit to write a personal letter to US President George W Bush to complain that he is being badly treated here at home. His letter says, in essence, that he won the election fair and square and that the street protests in Bangkok and other anti-government activities of civil society in Thailand constitute a threat to democracy. In one of his wiser moments in office, President Bush sent a terse reply that says that democracy isn't always nice to politicians and it sometimes works in unpredictable ways. Thai citizens appear to be bemused and puzzled by this bizarre exchange.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jul 17, '06)

Masako Toki, in Forget Elvis, Japan must get its act together (Jul 4), correctly points out the inadequacy of Japan’s reliance on alliance with the US with insufficient emphasis on improving relations with China and South Korea. While the US may not be “courageous enough to admonish Japan on these issues”, it reasonably shares Toki’s view. The US is not as myopic as to wish for acrimony among the major East Asian countries. Japan should realize that the US share of global GDP, thus its global influence, would continue to decline; moreover, the war on Islamic terrorism would continue to drain US resources or would even alter the US sense of priority and sustain a need for pragmatism in East Asia. From the US perspective, Japan’s willingness to be more sensitive to the sentiment of its neighbors appears to be a cost-effective way to reduce the US burden. Mindy Kotler, in "The US-Japan alliance: unbalanced and unfulfilled", points out the sources of US dissatisfaction with Japan. Kotler states, ”Most symbolic of Japan’s self-absorption is the issue of continued visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. Columbia University’s Gerald Curtis, who followed the officials at the Senate hearing, noted the Yasukuni Shrine and nearby museum are ‘not simply a shrine to honor the young men who fought and died for their country ... Yasukuni is a shrine that honors the ideology and the policies of the government that sent these young men to the battlefields of Asia and the Pacific.’ Continuing visits to the shrine aggravate regional relations just as the US is working hard to stabilize them. Stopping visits to Yasukuni will not necessarily improve Sino-Japanese relations, but, said Curtis, ‘it is a necessary condition for making improvement of those relations possible’.”
Jeff Church
USA (Jul 7, '06)

[Re Pyongyang's global reach, Jun 20:] Bertil Lintner's assertion that Pyongyang has "some of the most developed missile systems in the world" is open to question. North Korea has missiles but no one is certain of the degree of sophistication. However, he is right in saying that Kim Jong-il's regime has "earned substantial revenue" by selling rocket technology to other countries, mainly in the Third World. Nonetheless, he leaves out the fact that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK] has sold the fruit of its practical knowledge in nuclear weapons as well. It is precisely this that raises a red flag as to Pyongyang's unpredictability and arouses distrust. It sets off bells about the danger its behavior poses and its disregard of treaty obligations that North Korea has undertaken. Let's look at the reaction to the latest testing of the DPRK's missiles. America's ambassador to Japan, John Schieffer, says that its behavior is intolerable. The Japanese government has proposed sanctions. South Korea has threatened to suspend financial aid, food, and other necessities. China remains worried. Russia has not said much. And John Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, is scurrying around to call for a meeting of the Security Council. One has to wonder what all this fuss and thunder and endless flow of indignation and diplomatic bluster will achieve. It is an open secret that the outside world knows very little of what is happening in North Korea. Kim Jong-il has an uncanny knack of setting Washington off like a monkey chasing its tail. One, he launched his missiles on July 4, America's Independence Day. Two, he did it immediately after NASA's liftoff of the Discovery space shuttle. Pyongyang's feat became grist for banner headlines the world over. It scored a propaganda victory, to say the least. No one should be the least surprised. For weeks now, Washington or Seoul or Tokyo has alerted the world to this impending event. No one had an idea when it would occur, but it was certain it would thanks to the Pentagon's LanSat imagery. Kim Jong-il is a past master in chutzpah and unmitigated gall. Saying this, he is also signaling for the umpteen then his willingness to sit down and negotiate with Washington. Mr Bush has steadfastly turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to any initiative coming out of Pyongyang. Bluntly put, it is Mr Bush's way or no way. And so the American president's bullheadedness now creates a universal fear and trembling about yet another American expeditionary intervention against not a new enemy but an old adversary from the Korean War. It may serve Mr Bush's purposes in the forthcoming by-elections, but it won't bring Pyongyang back to the six-power talks. The ball is in Washington's court. Will it leave it where it lays? Mr Bush's insouciance and devil-may-care attitude boggles the mind.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 6, '06)

Pepe Escobar: I just want to tell you something you already know. You're good. A couple of years ago, perhaps more, I read in one of your dispatches that al-Qaeda was decentralized and that bin Laden was probably not very important in the real scheme of things. By today's New York Times says the CIA has come to agree with you. (Of course, they don't say that in so many words...) I won't list all the other things I've learned from you first, but suffice it to say: you've been an invaluable source of information since Amerika got weirder. Not only that, it looks like you actually have fun doing your work. Thank you.
Jim Hill
Fairfax, California (Jul 6, '06)

Gareth Porter [US rejects German compromise on Iran, Jul 5] suggests that German foreign policy toward Iran, at least as embodied in the quoted remark made by Mr Franz Josef Jung, has accepted the inevitable: a nuclear-capable theocratic regime. While this makes a virtue of an apparent necessity, the German defense minister diplomatically elides a couple of points that I am quite certain both he and the German government fully understand. First, Mr Porter should take cognisance of the fact that Iran, already a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has successfully evaded scrutiny of its nuclear program by existing IAEA monitors and has broken it's obligations thereby. Second, Iran has tacitly admitted that it has extensive undeclared nuclear facilities, another breach of the treaty. Third, permitting Iranian enrichment to proceed (no matter the pretext) allows creation of a research and industrial infrastructure that permits rapid redirection towards nuclear weapons capability. Fourth, Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction capabilities not simply to show the US et al, "whassup", but rather to serve it's own ideological and nationalistic goals, vis a vis it's mostly Sunni neighbors, it's role as a regional power with interests in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and other countries. These are the facts. The issue, therefore, is engagement with or elimination of the current regime; a binary approach. Conveniently omitted by Mr Porter, the US and its allies have dealt diplomatically with Iran in the past as, for example, in Afghanistann during the tenure of the Taliban regime and during its demise. This suggests that a condominium can be achieved when it serves mutual interests. However, based on Mr Porter's writings, suggesting as they do that the US, France and Britain are too benighted and ideologically hidebound to accept the realities of the matter, I am less certain that these matters are evident to Mr Porter. It seems that Iranian rhetorical posturing, an incendiary combination of brinkmanship and populism, has advanced this matter nearly to the precipice. This, coupled with the obvious failure to adhere to international treaty obligations, indulgence of and participation in terrorism and other violations of norms of international comportment, has created consternation amongst the Western allies and Iran's near neighbors. Perhaps recognition of these behaviors and their contribution to the current mix might help explain why the US and certain members of the European Union are a tad skeptical about Iran and it's intentions.
Keith Comess (Jul 6, '06)

I can not understand why all these aid agencies keep telling us that the North Koreans are starving and desperately need the world's help. Does in not seem ridiculous that we aid a country that seems to have millions of dollars to spend on missiles? If they have so much money to waste on these stupid endeavors, do they really need help or are they taking the whole world for a ride? Stop all the aid , let them buy food, they have money to waste.
J Schoon (Jul 6, '06)

Re Forget Elvis, Japan must get its act together [Jul 4]: The Chinese and China suffer from a fatal disease which has affected their society for a very long time - "It has to be my way!" China cannot always get it its own way. They [Chinese] are not trying to find a common ground with Japan; China wants to humiliate Japan. No matter what Japan does, China will never be satisfied. The Japanese know this. I live and work in China. I love China, the Chinese people, and Chinese culture, but I find it rather difficult to deal with the Chinese when it comes to a point of difference. The trouble with China is that it has a superiority complex mixed with an inferiority complex - a very dangerous mix when a nation is attempting to be a world power. China sees no other way but its own way; it refuses to play by the "rules" and is building a nation of "everything outside of us is inferior". I firmly believe that China is unable to live with others, to validate differences in cultures and viewpoints, to realize that not everyone believes the Chinese are "soft and cuddly". Given a choice, I would take Japan any day - at least they can blend into other cultures realizing that they are one among many.
Joe (Jul 5, '06)

When Masako [Toki] wrote Forget Elvis, Japan must get its act together [Jul 4], it seems that she forgot a clear thing: Japan has always sought an amicable relationship with China and South Korea. Unfortunately, some narrow-minded leaders of these countries, expecting to achieve popular support, use any excuse to avoid a truly [open] conversation with Japan.
M Murata (Jul 5, '06)

Re Forget Elvis, Japan must get its act together [Jul 4]: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent visit to the United States has shown that Japan has put its act together. It may not be the turn on the world stage that Masako Toki might have expected, but it was a performance which was a class act. Mr Koizumi has, as Toki says, strengthened ties with the United States. Let's face it, his trip has begun the long-expected plotting of the course to eviscerate Japan's peace constitution, and thereby to open the way for a standing army. Japan's neighbors have provided the grist for the military mills. North Korea's firing of a missile into the Pacific over its territory in 1998, and later in 2005, was a wake-up call. Japan, although protected by American troops on its own soil, and under its nuclear umbrella, awoke to the fact that the country was naked to aggression from its immediate neighbor. And more important, a resurgent China, flexing its economic muscles, which the strong Japanese yen has partly encouraged, took the bold step to humiliate Japan by arousing its own masses by appeal to vengeful nationalism, to bash Japan through boycotts, [and] attack Japanese property in China. China's exercise in realpolitik threw cold water on a complacent Japan. In a world in which communist China is reasserting its millennia-old prerogatives as heir to imperial China, Tokyo realized that it was not only at the mercy [of] changing times in East Asia, but that its American protector is strategically tied down elsewhere. So Mr Koizumi's desire to put Japan on a footing whereby it can defend itself with its own standing army comes one step closer to realization. Japan's neighbors seem to have forgotten that Tokyo's Self-Defense Forces are awash in highly skilled and trained officers. The institution of an eventual draft would quickly transform raw recruits into a well-oiled army. A new and modern and technically savvy Japanese army would send shock waves of fear into both Koreas and China. China and North Korea might rue the very day that they thought that they could frighten, let alone intimidate and humiliate, a Japan which has at least 15 times apologized for unbecoming behavior during its colonial past and World War II.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 5, '06)

In Elvis and war crimes: One shrine or another (Jul 1), Todd Crowell writes, "The Yasukuni mindset holds that Japan fought a purely defensive war to liberate Asia. Countries from India to Indonesia owe their independence from European colonialism to the thankless efforts of Japan. Tokyo was provoked into going to war by 'Chinese terrorists' and Europeans who connived to hold down the rising but resource-poor power." While Henry Hyde has the opportunity to voice his objection as a member of the legislature, the US public has not been entirely mute on the apparent affront of the Yasukuni Shrine visit on US casualties in the war against Japan. David G Brown of CSIS [Center for Strategic and International Studies] wrote an illustrative article on the Yasukuni Shrine in Yasukuni: An American view [pdf file]. The Japanese war criminals' presence at the shrine is not incidental to the more innocent lives lost, but it is touted as a part of Japanese innocence and victimhood. Brown states, "In short, Yasukuni is not just a memorial to service members who gave their lives for Japan but a venue for propagating a warped and politically motivated view of Japan's modern history ... This in turn raises questions about the sincerity of official apologies for Japan's past aggression." Naturally, the two atomic bombs on a foe continue to create ambivalence in US opinion and the absence of any massacre on US civilians on US soil, unlike in Nanjing, China, continues to moderate US public sentiment.
Jeff Church
USA (Jul 5, '06)

It's interesting that people like Jakob Cambria and Thomas Snitch [letters, Jul 3] jumped out in defense of Junichiro Koizumi's visits [to the] Yasukuni Shrine by arguing [that] the US has no business interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. Aren't there much better examples of US interference in other countries' internal affairs than what [Todd] Crowell proposed [in Elvis and war crimes: One shrine or another, Jul 1]? Come on, interfering in other countries' internal affairs is the essence of the US foreign policy. What better example of it than the US invasion of Iraq, a sovereign nation? Many Iraqis died as a result of it; where is the outrage? How come I don't see Cambria and Snitch getting upset about it? What is truly outrageous is Snitch's pathetic attempt to compare chairman Mao [Zedong] to those convicted Japanese war criminals. No matter how many Chinese died as a result of his reign, he did not intend to kill millions of Chinese and foreigners through aggression and a grand war which was fought in the name of "kicking the white man out of Asia". Call me stupid and hopeless, Snitch, but I am just one of millions of Chinese who to this day still love and admire chairman Mao. Propaganda alone can't achieve that. Last, the person I usually have a lot of respect for, Jeff Church, spouted out some nonsense in his [Jul 3] letter such as "I don't doubt that that the USA has a contingent containment plan if China sought to expand, but the USA's ultimate objective is, as it has to be, the integration of populous China into the international community" and "the USA has been allowing China to rise as it has not been impeding Chinese economic progress". Mr Church, wake up and smell the coffee: the US is actively seeking to contain the PRC [People's Republic of China] regardless of whether the PRC seeks to expand or not. The American objective in engaging the PRC is not as noble as you proclaimed it to be; the US, like every other country, is selfish, [and] its ultimate objective in dealing with the Chinese is to ensure the PRC will not pose any risks and present any challenges to the US global hegemony and primacy. The notion that the Chinese should thank the US for "allowing China to rise" is by far the most ridiculous thing I have heard. Once again, Mr Church, the Americans don't do things just to help the Chinese or anybody - they won't do anything not in line with American interest ...
Juchechosunmanse
Beijing, China (Jul 5, '06)

Re The Chinese spam wars [Jul 4]: The PRC [People's Republic of China] is already the spam capital of the world. South Korea is No 2. Almost all spam is sent from Microsoft [operating system] computers owned by consumers with high-speed Internet links. They're infected with "viruses" (trojans, really) that obey a faraway botnet controller. These consumers seldom have any idea their computers are being used by distant criminals. The US still has more of those consumer PCs [personal computers], which is why the US leads the nations sending spam. Almost all spam advertises a website. More of these "spamvertised" websites are hosted in the PRC than in any other nation. There are more botnet controllers in the PRC than in any other nation. That's because Web hosting companies in most countries don't allow bot-controllers and spamming websites. But the Web hosting companies in the PRC and South Korea don't care, and the spammers pay extra for them to ignore all complaints. Spam can be sent from anywhere. You can't stop it by picking off the virus-infected PCs one by one. The only way to shut spam down is to shut down the bot-controllers and Web hosting for spammers. There is no sign that is happening in the PRC or South Korea. So the next time someone tells you China is trying to do something about spam, ask him or her when the provincial Chinanet and China Netcom companies are going to start taking action against the international spam syndicates they willingly host. Ask him when Chinanet will start paying attention to complaints. Likewise for South Korea: that nation will not be making a serious effort to curb spam until [certain Korean] companies ... start accepting complaints and throwing the spam criminals off their networks.
Cameron Spitzer
California, USA (Jul 5, '06)

For readers unfamiliar with Internet jargon, a "botnet" is a network of "robot" computers - that is, personal computers operating without their nominal user's knowledge after being reprogrammed remotely by way of a virus or some other surreptitiously installed software. If the sources of unsolicited e-mails (spam) simply used their own computers to send their unwanted messages, it would be easy to trace them and shut them down or, worse for them, flood their own computers with similarly unwanted mail. Therefore unscrupulous spammers hijack other people's PCs and turn them into "bots" to do the e-mailing for them. - ATol

In reference to the article US media ensnared in liberty vs security debate [Jul 4]: How long will it take for the world media to really investigate the cause of terrorism? Most writers speak of terrorism as a sickness of criminal minds instead of the result of criminal minds. Terrorism exists because of injustice or perceived injustice in the minds of affected people. No amount of military action or punishment will quell terrorism. Only impartial justice will do this job. Money, arms, and support will always find its way to oppressed people. Sometimes the motives of supporters are exploitative. In any case, this "war on terror" is a big sham designed to enrich corrupt individuals who are the instigators of terrorism in the first place. It is high time for the media to look deeper than the propaganda parroted by the Western press. Asia Times [Online], you people are more sincere than most about telling the truth of matters; why not a series on the reasons that make people strap on explosives and give up their lives for a cause? You could start with the British influence in the formation of Kuwait.
Ken Moreau
New Orleans, Louisiana (Jul 5, '06)

"Giving the order to enter battle, however, is another matter. China's leaders might believe the American public will not stand for another conflict, strengthening the case for attacking Taiwan before the election and the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008. China's generals might perversely then be the best defense against Beijing calling America's bluff" [China treated to a sight of US might, Jun 28]. David Fullbrook amuses me. His little piece is a nice attempt at fairy-tale writing, but he should not bother. Hans Anderson has done it all a long time ago. I am sure China's generals will not be playing blind man's bluff or any other kind of bluff. Fullbrook and [US President George W] Bush will do well to finish their little tiff in Iraq before they even dream of Iran or any point further east. Billion-dollar fighters have not frightened a tiny bunch of street fighters in Iraq or even in Afghanistan. Even North Korea is not impressed with the US record of defeats in the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the coming defeats of the Iraq war and the Afghan war, if they finish at all, that is.
Frank Yeo
Halifax, England (Jul 5, '06)

So Jakob Cambria (letter, Jul 3) is saying that Bill Clinton won a decisive victory when the US Congress failed to impeach him for the Monica Lewinski sex scandal and "so, in the political arena, [Mr Clinton] remains with the full powers of his office, and that in any language is a victory over his opponents". I wonder when Mr Cambria became a true Chinese, who believes that "all winners are kings and losers rebels". However, the similarities between the two presidents do not stop there. Clinton's party lost the next presidential election despite the effort made by his party to distance itself from Clinton. Few people in Taiwan believe Taiwan's next presidential election will be any different: Chen Shui-bian has, in his six years as president, completely destroyed the credibility and exhausted the electoral resources of the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party]. As a lame-duck president, Chen is even deprived of his long-harbored secret ambition - to declare independence before his term ends in 2008. That might be called a victory by naive Western supporters of Chen Shui-bian, but certainly not by Chen himself and his DPP comrades.
Raymond Cui
Beijing, China (Jul 5, '06)

The government of Thailand exercises a great deal of control over the media, and the use of such powers to gain political advantage is thought to corrupt the democratic process. In particular, a weekly fireside chat on the radio hosted by the prime minister has become the subject of a heated debate because it is alleged that he uses the show to campaign for elections and to attack political opponents. Critics feel that this show should be shut down. I would like to propose an alternative. There exists a more democratic option in the form of the "equal time" principle used in the USA. This principle prescribes that whenever the government's use of the media is deemed political, the opposition must be allowed equal time to respond. In the case of the weekly talk show hosted by the government, a forum of critics and political opponents might be given equal time on the same station immediately following the show. Free expression, open dialogue, and transparency are the hallmarks of democracy. Shutting down the government's ability to plead its case directly with the people seems antithetical to these values. Dialogue would serve democracy better than either monologue or silence.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jul 5, '06)

The "equal time" principle should be a given in any country that calls itself a democracy, and indeed it or something like it is commonplace in the developed world, not just the US. Unfortunately, in struggling democracies where both the government and the opposition are ruled by a small elite, such obvious solutions to abuse of power over the media may be resisted by politicians of all stripes because no one wants to face such restrictions once they have won office themselves. - ATol

[Todd] Crowell in Elvis and war crimes: One shrine or another [Jul 1] states that the US could easily stop the visits of Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, if it has the will to do so. Would Mr Crowell like to specifically state what the US government could do, in policy terms, to achieve this? After describing those steps, perhaps he can justify why the US has the right to tell any nation how to conduct religious ceremonies. It might be useful for Mr Crowell to visit the Mao Mausoleum, where the murderer of at least 20 million Chinese is stuffed, mounted and displayed in a trophy case to be venerated by the masses. Yasukuni = no but Mao = yes. We need some consistency here.
Dr Thomas Snitch (Jul 3, '06)

Todd Crowell makes an idle boast in Elvis and war crimes: One shrine or another [Jul 1]: "Washington could easily end Koizumi's Yasukuni Shrine visits, if it had the will to do so." Now, that is a mouthful. Is he sanctioning Washington's right to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries? Does he not know that the American military occupation ended in 1952 with a peace treaty which brought Japan fully back into the comity of nations, with full sovereign rights? Mr Crowell seems to imply that Yasukuni Shrine gives shelter to Japan's Showa's war dead. The shrine at Yasukuni offers sanctuary to the souls of fallen soldiers and sailors from Meiji, Taisho, and Shomei. It is true that 13 Class A war criminals, duly judged and sentenced by an international tribunal for war crimes committed during the Pacific phase of the Second World War, reside there too. Nonetheless, these 13 do not take one whit away [from] the significance for the Japanese people. In fact, popular opinion favors [Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi's visits to the shrine, and especially on August 15, date of Japan's Hirohito's unconditional surrender to the Allies in 1945. Todd Crowell is being a tad politically correct. An addendum: As an answer to S P Li and Frank of Seattle [letters, Jun 30], the KMT [Kuomintang] failed to unseat [Taiwanese President] Chen Shui-bian and drive him from office. It met defeat. And so, in the political arena, Mr Chen remains with the full powers of his office, and that in any language is a victory over his opponents.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jul 3, '06)

"But US oil production is flat while demand keeps rising" [Petro-hysteria grips a superpower, Jul 1]. Excuse me, how does someone get a job as a "Middle East and energy analyst" when they are so profoundly ignorant as to make such a gross error on such a basic fact? US oil production is in decline and has been for decades, and a failure to grasp the significance of that fact and to put it in the context of future global production declines truly makes your analysis essentially useless. That's like somebody trying to analyze the Cold War while being completely oblivious to the existence of nuclear weapons.
Deodand X (Jul 3, '06)

Peter Kiernan, who wrote your article Petro-hysteria grips a superpower [Jul 1], describes himself as "Middle East [and] energy analyst". For someone who has that job description he displays an astonishing lack of knowledge about the oil-production market. US and Chinese production is not flat; in fact US production is in decline and has been since 1970. Chinese production on the other hand is growing, albeit slowly. It is, however, a reducing proportion of Chinese demand. He also repeats verbatim EIA [US Energy Information Administration] data as if [these data are] somehow solid and lacking in controversy. In fact some of the claims of the EIA are outlandishly and obviously incorrect. It is astonishing that he should repeat these forecasts without comment.
Rod Campbell-Ross
Roseville, Australia (Jul 3, '06)

Re Canberra quenches Beijing's energy thirst [Jul 1] by Purnendra Jain: It's hard to sit back and read some of the claims from some contributors to ATol without being compelled to comment. (1) Australia only exports uranium to countries that are signatories to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. (2) India is not a signatory to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear and the PR [the People's Republic of] China is. (3) From my latest research on the oil equivalent of energy consumed per capita from oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and hydro-electric, China ranks 54th in the world, which correlates to there being 53 states suffering more "energy thirst" per capita than China. Furthermore, the article is pretty short on any argument to support the claim that Australia is "treading a dangerous path with its uncritical support for China". [There is] a lot of outdated "reds under the beds" rhetorical humbug from the 1950s and 1960s. Give us a break, mate. Even Australia has moved on from those days.
Tony Wiffler
Xinjiang, China (Jul 3, '06)

Recent articles such as China treated to a sight of US might [Jun 28] by David Fullbrook, Hu Jintao's reform tightrope [Jun 29] by Francesco Sisci, and The lame duck and the greenhorn [Jun 23] by Henry C K Liu illustrate a divergence of opinionated mindsets, as all three authors are thoughtful from their perspectives. Letter writer Harry Lee (Jun 30) states: "To most thinking Chinese, those politicians in Taiwan are no more than puppet-clowns. However, this is not to say that they agree with Jeff Church that Chinese need do little by way of unification effort, and that unification would simply come when China achieves its economic growth and augments its national strength. Will the US allow China to rise? That is the question." I also feel that many ... even intelligent mainland Chinese share Henry C K Liu's distrust of the USA, to the point of repudiating its basic humaneness. The top mainland Chinese leadership, however, tend to have more realistic understanding of the USA, which I attribute partly to interpersonal diplomatic contacts over the decades, and simply to age and maturity (no greenhorns). I think [former Chinese president] Jiang Zemin, the entertainer with the soft diplomatic touch, has been a seminal figure in this direction among the Chinese leadership (hence [former US president Bill] Clinton's attribute of "extraordinary intellect" about Jiang). I don't doubt that that the USA has a contingent containment plan if China sought to expand, but the USA's ultimate objective is, as it has to be, the integration of populous China into the international community ... Ultimately and basically, what humane alternative is there? Harry Lee's final question has been answered for quite some time; the USA has been allowing China to rise as it has not been impeding Chinese economic progress. Only nationalistic anger can obfuscate this obvious reality. Detractors of China in the USA are lamenting the current reality, the current US policy of engagement. Last, any reasonable assessment on the Taiwan Strait has to place Taiwan's geography, an island without energy just 100 miles off the Chinese mainland, in focus. Many analysts do not even acknowledge Taiwan's geography as a major factor, so their analyses are quite useless. This simple geographic factor will likely be the crux as it would eventually, within a couple of decades as the mainland achieves lopsided commercial and military advantages over Taiwan, allow the mainland to profoundly affect Taiwan without major bloodshed and in an erosive way. The absence of major bloodshed would likely dictate the international diplomatic texture, as any insistence on Taiwan not becoming another Hong Kong would subject the island to great peril: devastations that could well happen but have not happened. The prevention of bloodshed will be the most compelling and arresting factor on global governments when the time comes. The mainland side develops tremendous international economic prowess and presence to weather through consternation of the global populace, which would affect Chinese exports for a period of time. Global governmental reactions, any economic sanction (certainly not military actions), however, would not be a factor eventually. I think the mainland side has won strategically, if it [can] overcome problems inherent within the Chinese mainland, to almost naturally achieve lopsided commercial and military advantages over Taiwan in the decades to come.
Jeff Church
USA (Jul 3, '06)

There has been a great deal of Putin-bashing in the West of late. Yet in Russia itself, [President Vladimir] Putin is widely loved and even revered. There appears to be a sense of satisfaction and optimism there these days in spite of the gloom and doom the West sees when it looks at that country and its government. The dichotomy likely arises from a recent history that Russians remember well but the West appears to have forgotten. Not so long ago, well-meaning and lovable Boris Yeltsin, who turned out to be an inept and disorganized drunken fool, led the country not only to freedom but also to chaos. I was in St Petersburg at the time. There were young men begging for handouts on Nevsky Avenue and university students turned prostitutes were looking for tricks right outside the campus. My doctor at the Hospital for Infectious Diseases slept in her office because she had not been paid in a year and could not afford to go home. The country and the ruble were in free fall. Stores in St Petersburg had begun pricing their goods in US dollars. Russia was on the verge of [becoming] a failed state and there was a real fear that its thousands of nuclear warheads and hundreds of nuclear scientists would open up a catastrophic spread of nuclear weaponry. At the same time, the war in Chechnya was not going well and there were stories that Russian soldiers there were not only deserting en masse but selling their weapons and ammunition to the enemy for a few bottles of vodka. It was from this abyss that Putin rescued Russia and the world. At the time, in an exuberant sense of great relief, the West welcomed Putin with open arms. Now they call him a cuckoo. They appear to have forgotten. The Russians still remember.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jul 3, '06)

Putin points to the Russia of the future (May 16) expands on some of your points. - ATol

The Jubilee Celebration of Thailand's King is a significant and historical event. Your magazine should run an article on the celebration and achievements of the Thai King.
Joseph Soon (Jul 3, '06)

The 60th-anniversary celebrations of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej's ascent to the Thai throne were adequately covered by mainstream media. We have been more interested in Bhumibol's handling of Thailand's political crisis. See Hail Thailand's democratic king (May 11). - ATol

Asia Times [Online, re note under Chrysantha Wijeyasingha's letter of Jun 30]: You are right, al-Qaeda is a movement and not a nation. But if one [were] to look at how the US reacted to [the attacks of September 11, 2001], the US government went after the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the Tora Bora bombing was extremely severe. In a nuclear situation, if the US follows the same strategy, an atomic bomb along the Afghanistan/Pakistan territory cannot be ruled out or governments that openly support terrorism and the al-Qaeda. What a perfect excuse to nuke Iran's nuclear-weapons program.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
New Orleans, Louisiana (Jul 3, '06)

Iran at the present time has no worries - Washington's democracy is not quite a real democracy [but] is more business. In this respect petrol deceit is the issue, as the Iraq war was a business decision. In the end Tehran will win as the West cannot function without petrol, therefore it [threat against Iran] is a useless intimidating masquerade. Washington is in fact a danger to our planet - it creates pollution, and the Saudi kingdom and its rulers are behind it. They are mainly to blame for this toxic wasteful situation the planet is finding itself in, and the petrol wars are as well their doing. Israel exists to protect the oil in the Middle East, not the Holy [Land] ... however, propaganda turns lies into truths and truths into lies.
Alfredo Bremont
Paris, France (Jul 3, '06)

Re the US-India nuclear deal: The US House and Senate have approved the deal as expected. In fact this deal is the mother of all nuclear proliferations and will give birth to many a proliferation in times to come. In fact this mother of all proliferation was rushed into the act with total disregard of international norms, rules and proliferation laws. Its purpose is nothing else than to give India a jump-start to make 50 bombs a year. On electrical-energy capabilities, this whole deal of 20 reactors involving 8,000 megawatts will cost more than [US]$30 billion to produce only one-third as much power that the $7 billion IPI [Iran-Pakistan-India] gas pipeline will have the capacity for. China and Pakistan [will] take reciprocal measures for their defense and survival.
Anwar Mahmood
Calgary, Alberta (Jul 3, '06)

I want to compliment you on your clever cartoons introducing many of your articles. Spengler as Baron Samedi, voodoo god of death [on Spengler's Forum], is a good example.
Lester Ness (Jul 3, '06)

We thought that was Spengler's passport photo. - ATol

June Letters

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