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Letters

Please provide your name or a pen name, and your country of residence. Lengthy letters run the risk of being cut.

Please note: This Letters page is intended primarily for readers to comment on ATol articles or related issues. It should not be used as a forum for readers to debate with each other. The Edge is the place for that. The editors do not mind publishing one or two responses to a reader's letter, but will, at their discretion, direct debaters away from the Letters page.

October 2006

Syed Saleem Shahzad: In your article [Another deadly blow for Pakistan, Oct 31] you mentioned President [General Pervez] Musharraf is very keen to purge the constitution of harsh Islamic laws against women. What are the areas wherein he is striving to improve the lot of women in Pakistan? In India the divorce laws are loaded in favor of the women as otherwise men may become prone to apply for divorce at the drop of a hat. Laws against rape of women are stringent, resulting in imprisonment for seven to 10 years and [the] death sentence for gruesome and cruel rape. Women occasionally come forward bravely to submit before the criminal courts against the rapists, which is a welcome sign ... Newly married women who are ill-treated by their in-laws for reasons of dowry problems can be arrested and imprisoned if a compliant is lodged by the aggrieved daughter-in-law. What are your views on this issue?
Narayanswamy (Oct 31, '06)

India is fortunate that it has democracy and that many of its leaders and heads of state have been visionaries, so they succeeded in evolving a better solution for their social problems. Pakistan has always been ruled by military dictators, directly or indirectly. As a result, nobody has really bothered to resolve the problems of the masses. Even these present proposed amendments in the laws under the Women's Protection Bill were brought under Western pressure; otherwise, who cares? - Syed Saleem Shahzad

ATol is to be commended for consistently providing a rainbow of views. [Jim] Lobe's Bringing Syria into the fold [Oct 31] confirms recent intelligence reports that at the instigation of Washington a grouping of Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia has formed an intelligence-sharing connection as a counterbalance to the second leg of the axis of evil. A news report that power struggles in Saudi Arabia's ruling family is added reasoning to the effort to bring in Syria from the cold. The price for Syria coming into the fold will present a problem to the neo-con lobby. But then the consistency of ad hoc policies true to form only produces inconsistent results.
Armand De Laurell (Oct 31, '06)

[Nicolai N] Petro's irony on the hypocritical and up-nosed double standards of the so-called "Western Civilization" (WC) clarions is most enjoyable - and right to the point [Sticking it up Vladimir the Impaler, Oct 31]. He rightfully reminds us that WC needs, and always needed, to define a boundary separating the good and civilized guys (we, "us", the WC guys) and the bad and the savage (them, not "us", the people who have no WC and shouldn't even dream of it). The WC people congregate together, sit down together, slap each other on their backs, sometimes celebrate a smallish newcomer, proof of their vast spiritual generosity. But the larger non-WC armies, keep them away by any means - you don't need to mention how they look, "but you know", they are "different" ... Don't dare you ask, you bighead: "Ah-ha! In what way exactly? Why cannot they sit down with you and participate [in] your highly minded WC celebration?" Because if you do, you wouldn't get any answer, just an offended gaze, but be assured that from now on you're no more one of "us": you too are - "different", obviously. Asking such tasteless, ungracious questions, when the answer is so obvious to the right-minded people! Looks like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a spoiler too, asking that kind of perverse questions, daring tit-for-tatting, not humbly bowing his head to the superior people, those who know which countries need to be excluded from the WC wealth, which countries need to be bombed to oblivion ... Well, Putin is not exactly a tenderheart, but at least when he talks he can be wily and funny and, most important, he does not insult the intelligence of those around him. Not really the way of the pompous, babbling UStatian "leaders" of "us", the supremo WC leaders.
Dr Bittar Gabriel Jivasattha
Australia and Switzerland (Oct 31, '06)

Mario de Queroz tells a sad story [East Timor on the precipice, Oct 31]. Nonetheless the breakdown of internal order in East Timor stems from the Byzantine warfare waged by one of the historic founders. If East Timor rests on the precipice of failing as a state, the blame lies with the Byzantine struggles within FRETILIN [Frente Revolucionaria do Timor Leste Independente; Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor]. Everyone is not familiar with the name of [former prime minister Mari] Alkatiri, who spent the years of struggle against Indonesia in Mozambique. There he fought alongside Samora Machal and FRELIMO [Frente de Libertacao de Mocambique; Front for Liberation of Mozambique] against Portuguese colonialism. There he imbibed the harsh inflexibility of would-be Marxists. Returning to a free East Timor, he assumed a post worthy of a historic founder. And as such, he struggled to outmaneuver other historic leaders. The fractionalization of the army forces led to internal disorder and the current mess which East Timor is going through. Alkatiri is a Muslim in a country where the overwhelming majority of citizens are Roman Catholic. Some want to see a split along the religious divide, but if they do, they are taking the tree for the forest. Despite a compromise, which forced Alkatiri from power and neutralized his opponents, Alkatiri's stab at power and wish for a Marxist state [are] at the bottom of the current crisis which de Queroz is describing.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 31, '06)

China is being threatened now not by its neighbors or the all-powerful USA, but by the networks that encourage and promote corruption. Corruption has seriously affected Chinese society as well and spreads its poisonous tentacles across the society with the help of the Western market forces having strong roots in China. Over 17,000 corruption-related cases have been reportedly dealt with by the Beijing government so far this year. A country that has established close contacts with the Western world filled with pernicious corruption cannot escape the menace of corruption, and Russia is another glittering example of how corrupt practices have firmly rooted in that country. Corruption undermines equality, common goodness and overall prosperity and is incompatible with the ideals of communism and socialism, and Chinese leadership committed to these ideals should address this serious ailment quite earnestly. Or else Beijing would have to consider getting rid of communist goals, as was done by the Soviet Union towards its final years of existence. Marketization, globalization and privatization, liberalization, etc would be all right for the West and new East alike, but if followed religiously by a communist country, that would eventually put an end to its social and socio-economic goals. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been at loggerheads with the oligarchs in order to suppress corruption that is eating up Russian society ... making people increasingly poor and creating a pro-rich society, and the situation arising out of anti-corruption measures has reached alarming proportions, with the USA-led West condemning Putin for his "anti-democratic" style of functioning. Chinese President Hu Jintao would have to consider measures, although [they] failed miserably in the erstwhile Soviet Union, to weed out corrupt practices for establishing a strong humanistic society by de-linking the Western links for economic prosperity from China's long-term goals. If, however, China has already decided to wind up the "torturous" communist experiments once for all, as its former friend the USSR had done, it can declare communist construction closed and openly shake hands with the USA and allies. China is strong both in agricultural and industrial sectors, is also a formidable military power in Asia, but still has a long way to go to meet the genuine concerns of vast sections of Chinese people who stand by the leadership through thick and thin. Tolerance of corruption, a pernicious phenomenon of capitalism, is not good for them. The world is closely watching the developments in China after the fall of the mighty Soviet state in 1992.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, India (Oct 31, '06)

Donald Kirk has his ear to the ground in Seoul. No doubt about it. In Seoul dodges the dragon but feels the heat [Oct 28], he explains the conservative side to the question [of] how to respond to Pyongyang's nuclear test. The jury is out on the matter, the more especially since South Korean companies find profit in setting up special economic zones in North Korea, and the ruling circles, left, right and center, tilt towards firmer ties with Kim Jong-il's regime. Dissatisfied voices on the right raise the specter of war or fall back on Cold War stereotypes. Nonetheless, the Sunshine Policy has defanged this hoary tiger. Seoul's blunt refusal to receive [US] Ambassador John Bolton speaks volumes on the shakiness of UN Security Council Resolution 1718, for despite the call for sanctions, the flow of capital and food has not diminished at all. [South Korean] President Roh [Moo-hyun], as Kirk says, is on the eve of shuffling his cabinet, for upcoming elections, but he has little worry about more nuclear surprises from the North. Beijing has seen to that. It has forcefully flexed its Pax Sinica muscle with Kim Jong-il, who has promised his "liege" he has no plans for more nuclear tests. This backing down without a "by your leave" should send a signal to South Korea that it has nothing to fear from Pyongyang's destabilizing not only a divided Korean Peninsula, but wider geopolitical realities. China's vote for sanction at the United Nations and its sending a senior party member to read Beijing's riot act to Kim Jong-il throws more an ominous shadow on the survival of Kim as the Dear Leader than his being a cause of very serious concern to President Roh.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 30, '06)

[In] the article Inside Myanmar's secret capital, published on October 28, you refer Clive Parker as "possibly the first foreign journalist to report from Myanmar's new capital". But I am afraid it is not correct. A correspondent of Yomiuri Shimbun already did it on August 25. Moreover, he was formally admitted to enter the capital, while Clive Parker appeared to just have a peep when he passed through. It cannot be "first", or a "report" in any sense. His analysis and military materials are interesting, but he cannot be referred [to] as above ...
Makoto Ota (Oct 30, '06)

Hence our use of the word "possibly". - ATol

Pepe Escobar, the writer of 'Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq [Oct 27], is clearly a fool. It is astounding that you would publish his article full of nonsense. For example, he writes: "Baghdad had been under siege by the Assyrians and later by Cyrus the Great from Persia." Assyrians had no military power since 612 BC and Cyrus the Persian lived in the 6th century BC. Baghdad did not exist until the 7th century AD. How would it possible for the ancient Assyrians and Cyrus the Persian to have attacked Baghdad a thousand years later? ...
William Warda (Oct 30, '06)

Baghdad in its current iteration was traditionally founded on July 30, AD 762 (ie, the 8th century, not the 7th), but earlier cities on the site - a mere 80 kilometers from Babylon, and just 30km from the great city of Ctesiphon - are mentioned in ancient texts. The Assyrians and Persians were active throughout that region. - ATol

The article Asia's spectacular monument of gratitude [Oct 25] clearly demonstrates the ongoing renaissance of Buddhism in its birth country. I read a previous article where India is constructing the world's tallest statue of Lord Buddha, and this monument is another example of Buddhist resurgence in India. What most puzzles me is that in the article the Indian architects "expressed their doubts, saying this was almost impossible" to build a monument with interlocking stones, yet the palace of Jodhpur built in the early 20th century to help alleviate a famine used exactly those principles. The entire palace that measures 195 meters long [and] 103 meters wide and [has] a 56 [meter] high dome is built with interlocking stones with no masonry. Indian architects need to study in depth the various methods of construction of India's monuments, both ancient and modern, as they obviously were not aware of the Umaid Bhavan Palace built between 1929 and 1944.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, Louisiana (Oct 30, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: Thank you for that promising answer [under S Grund's letter of Oct 27]. That means Iraqis will understand that a breakup of their country will be a disaster for all, that only outside forces would benefit from it, not Iraqis themselves, since their standing would be much reduced internationally. Should that not help to finally end the horrible violence, which is so painful to watch on TV?
Sabine Grund (Oct 30, '06)

I've been reading ATimes for some time now and decided that I've been remiss in writing to say thank you for the fantastic articles and writers. The best on the Web.
Richard Gauthier (Oct 30, '06)

Re 'Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq by Pepe Escobar [Oct 27]: Yes, yes, yes. I am more convinced than ever that Pepe Escobar does his homework. Having lived and worked in the Middle East in the late '70s and early '80s, plus constant Middle East/Central Asia-watching since January 1996, I have no trouble seeing that Pepe digs deep for his stories. In this one, however, he makes passing reference to a very important factor in the whole, evil mess: he mentions that "vast swaths of the US electorate have now understood how the whole Iraqi adventure has been built on lies". I suggest that one could also say that vast swaths of the US people are coming out of their force-fed "my country, right or wrong/America the beautiful" reverie to discover that their minds and lives have, long since, been taken over by an un-American "evildoer". I once asked a wise, well-read old friend of mine whether he thought the American people would ever come out of their state of denial and clean house; and he said no, that they were/are too far gone and ... would get no more fractious than a grumble. He said that the military on the ground is another matter - they would eventually have enough of "the reality" and come home to eliminate their enemy at its core. And the more I look at the situation, day by day, the more I believe that my friend was right.
Keith Leal
Pincher Creek, Alberta (Oct 27, '06)

In Pepe Escobar's 'Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq [Oct 27], he spins a fantasy of how big American oil companies are going to steal billions of dollars from Iraq in the coming years. He also claims the "US ordering by decree" that Iraq dismember itself. First let me assure Mr Escobar that for the $1 trillion to $2 trillion the US will spend on [President George W] Bush's Iraq fiasco, the US will get precious little Iraqi oil, and if it is figured on a cost basis, the oil will cost about $20,000 a barrel, not Mr Escobar's $1 oil. As for the dismembering of Iraq, the Sunnis bear the lion's share of the blame. Granted, the Sunnis where forced into a corner by the gross stupidity of the Bush administration, [but] their aiding al-Qaeda plans to murder Shi'as and start a civil war will lead them to ruin. The breakup of Iraq into three parts is all but guaranteed in the coming months. This will leave the Shi'as [with] the southern oil, the Kurds with the northern oil, and the Sunnis with nothing. This will lead to a civil war which the Sunnis will not win. The Sunnis are only 20% of Iraq, and the Shi'as will get more aid from Iran than the Sunnis will get from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Shi'a oil deals will not go to Exxon or other US firms because of their [Shi'ites'] closeness to Iran, but are much more likely to go to Chinese or Russian firms, and this accounts for two-thirds of Iraq's oil. It seems likely the Democrats will win control of the [US] House of Representatives in two weeks. When the Democrats take over in late January, they will begin to hold hearings on the debacle in Iraq, and the last vestiges of popular support will vanish with the tales of incompetence and theft on a monumental scale. Mr Escobar repeats for the 10,000th time the left's favorite lie about the death of 500,000 children because of UN sanctions. The fact that Saddam [Hussein] chose to spend billions of dollars on his palaces and cronies [and] not on food and medicine is Saddam's fault. Those that took part in the "oil for food" scams of the UN also bear a share of the guilt. I can already see the helicopters flying out the last of the Americans from the Green Zone in Iraq; the only difference from Vietnam is that the Americans will not line up [on] the roof, but [in] the cellar of the embassy, because the $500 million we have paid on the building has only given us a shell. So much for Bush's legacy.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Oct 27, '06)

It's nice to see that Pepe Escobar ('Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq, Oct 27) is back. Any morally decent person would have the same sentiments as his. He's probably right that US Vice President Dick Cheney's "total victory" in Iraq would result in more deaths and destruction. A precedent of this is US president Richard Nixon's "peace with honor" in Vietnam. The next thing we knew was the devastation of Laos and Cambodia. It's only a matter of time that the Vatican-seized US Embassy in Baghdad (A peek behind the walls of 'Fortress US', Oct 27) [will] not be used by the people [who] have it built, [in] much the same way as the deep-water port at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. Escobar's surmise that Baghdad may bury George W Bush is wishful thinking, though. Nobody can bury him except the American people. They didn't, and never will. They are paying a high price for the illegal occupation of Iraq, up to US$2 trillion as estimated by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
Paul Law
Berlin, Germany (Oct 27, '06)

ATol, the latest contributions by [Pepe] Escobar ['Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq, Oct 27], [Henry C K] Liu [Korea under Park Chung-hee, Oct 25], [F William] Engdahl [The Emerging Russian Giant, Part 1 and Part 2] and [M K] Bhadrakumar [Rice gets a taste of tough love, Oct 27] are excellent - I would underline: as usual. These authors have good brains, a warm heart and solid guts. Their writings are a far cry from the loud shouts and incessant chatter of the global, Orwellian newspeak that is spreading on the planet. They can at the same time get to the gritty details of realpolitik and position themselves at the historical-distance viewpoint necessary for a meaningful analysis. Neither shortsighted nor longsighted - not bad! Dr Bittar Gabriel Jivasattha
Australia and Switzerland

A peek behind the walls of 'Fortress US' [Oct 27] by David Phinney is a wake-up call to the governments of the countries of these affected workers to enact and enforce legislation banning their citizens from going to Iraq and also hold those transferring these [workers] illegally to Iraq criminally responsible, whoever they may be. Arab governments have a nasty record of bad/horrible treatment of laborers as they only respect people with money and/or power, and it is time countries like India take the lead in holding them liable for their actions. We should also use the abilities of these workers to fuel our [India's] own growth.
Kaushik Venkatasubramaniyan
Indian Living in Poland (Oct 27, '06)

Re Rice gets a taste of tough love [Oct 27]: M K Bhadrakumar looks at the fragile ties which hold up the sagging house which is the six-party talks. As a former diplomat, he has the distance to evaluate [US] Secretary of State Condoleezza [Rice's] fly-by-night diplomacy to Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow to press for full implementation of applying sanctions against Pyongyang, as stipulated in [United Nations Security Council] Resolution 1718. She has come home exhausted, and with few promises. As [former] ambassador Bhadrakumar observes, the coalition of six is coming apart at the seams. He is right to say that a year has passed since the six have met, and they won't meet in 2006. Dr Rice would do good to [take] counsel from [former US presidents George H W] Bush Jimmy Carter on how to approach North Korea. G H W. Bush took small but important steps to dampen tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula in the last years of his presidency. And Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang in 1994. He met with Kim Il-sung, and achieved a breakthrough with North Korea over the nuclear issue. Many think that trip helped avert a collision course to war.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 27, '06)

Re Ehsan Ahrari's Iraq's defiant but doomed democracy [Oct 27]: Rather than bringing in crusaders, Arabs, Zionists and/or Muslims, why not ask the Russians if they would be interested in providing a UN peacekeeping force in Iraq?
T Sullivan
USA (Oct 27, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: It strikes me that your piece in ATol, Osama's answer to Iraq's violence of October 26, advocates violence as a strategy against the present violence. Writing from Berlin, Germany, I remember our terrorism experience in the 1970s, when violence solved nothing. Since then, police strategies have been refined, as have political strategies. With regard to the US (over)reaction to terrorism at present, many Europeans are arguing in a 20/20 hindsight attitude that is unbecoming, as Europeans were rather hysterical in their encounter with national terrorists. Do you see any chance to reduce the killing in Iraq by trying to convince Iraqis that their present actions are plain silly and self-defeating? Once Iraq may be broken up into three parts, it will be wiped off the world map, no more reminiscences of Mesopotamia. Plus given so many powerful neighbors, that seems an even more stupid course to allow [to happen]. Would Iraqis be less open to rational arguments than others? Or has anyone even tried to convey such thoughts to the Iraqi public debate in the media etc?
S Grund (Oct 27, '06)

Iraqis are the most educated people in the Arab world, yet their tribal bonds are very strong. There is a strong need to stress upon Iraqis that they revive political activism and their strong national spirit instead of gun power, and there is a need to stress upon Americans to bear with political activism in Iraq at all cost. - Syed Saleem Shahzad

Syed Saleem Shahzad: Congratulations on another excellent piece in ATimes [Osama's answer to Iraq's violence, Oct 26]. Perhaps you are eligible to run for some office in the US. We desperately need people like you with common sense and who understand the lay of the land. As an American, I have been agonizing over Iraq for the last several months. My basic question to you is, in your mind, what would be the most noble thing for America to do now? Understanding that there is a big distinction between wisdom and nobility, what option is best? I do feel as though we went [to war in Iraq] with noble intentions, but we are now paying for our presumptuousness and shocking lack of wisdom, not to mention basic lack of understanding of the Iraqi people and the whole Middle East region. Who could have possibly not thought through the implications of fighting a phantom enemy that is [in] no way squeamish about blood? Should we stay until the "job" (until democracy and freedom are enforced? Until there aren't car bombings every hour? I don't even know what the "job" is anymore) is complete? Should we leave? Should we facilitate/initiate partition? I understand that creating three potentially economically unviable separate nations may not be the wisest thing, but I do feel like there would be something noble in that if the majority wills it. What's the big deal with redrawing borders that were arbitrarily drawn in the first place anyway? Initially in support of the war, I realized several months back what grave underestimations and miscalculations we have made. Contrary to popular belief of the American left, whining about this doesn't do any good. But the question remains, what in the world do we do now? Perhaps you or someone at ATimes could write on this subject, I would be interested to see various solutions instead of just constant counterproductive America-bashing ...
Robby Brumberg (Oct 26, '06)

We are ordinary people, talk to ordinary people and understand the language of ordinary people and their mindsets, but if we got the chance to hold any office, we would soon be the same as what present office holders in the US are. I do not know much about solutions, but strictly believe in one thing. Give a chance to political activism but bear with it no matter how much it costs and it will eliminate all sorts of extremism, militancy and terror. - Syed Saleem Shahzad

Mohammed A Salih's Iraqis fight over oil spoils (Oct 26) demonstrates how vested interests fight for oil revenues. I think all oil discovered in the Kurdistan region, excluding Kirkuk province, should be controlled by the Kurds and must be allocated to rebuild Kurdistan. A small share of this revenue can be saved now and allocated later on for the civilian rebuilding of the country after Iraq is de-occupied. US oil corporations and the secretary of state must leave the Kurds alone in determining the allocation of oil revenues. If the Kurds and Baghdad's government negotiate a sharing deal, there is a very high probability that an essential part of oil revenue will be looted by the imperialist invaders in order to solve the budget deficit. Thus the choice is very clear in that either the Kurds or the imperialists should control oil revenues, and I would let the Kurds be in charge of these revenues. And the Iraqi oil minister as an honest man should understand this fact, because it will stimulate the Kurds to be an essential contributor to the unity of Iraq. Another important issue that needs clarification is the fact that Iraq's oil reserve is more than 220 billion barrels, but the Bush administration has discounted that reserve to 110 billion barrels. This amount of 220 billion is so important because the country has been occupied for its huge oil wealth.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Oct 26, '06)

In response to Dennis O'Connell's letter (Oct 25) regarding my article US sends the wrong messages to Iran (Oct 25), his dismissal of any idea of US invasion of Iran or use of tactical nuclear weapons as "pure fantasy" is revealing of what he likes to believe as reality, which stands in stark contrast to military doctrines and "war scenarios" based on leaked information. O'Connell confuses my views with those of Scott Ritter when mentioning Iran's oil boycott in reaction to any attacks. I do not subscribe to everything said by Ritter, and my article mostly reports on the recent talk by him and Seymour Hersh. O'Connell's figure of 25% for Iran's unemployment rate is exaggerated: in March, Iran's central bank cited a figure of 12%, and most economists agree it is below 15%. As for his other comments on Iran's nuclear program, he fails to mention that Iran's bitter experience of numerous nuclear agreements canceled by the US and Europe in the past is a driving force behind its determination to master an independent nuclear-fuel cycle. As for his comments on Iran's "Islamist democracy", again O'Connell simplifies Iran's complex political reality by his reference to rule by mullahs. While I agree with his criticisms of the serious limits imposed on the press, the fact remains that Iran is ridden with factional politics and, in light of regular, semi-competitive elections, the adjective "Islamist democracy" is not inappropriate, albeit with the necessary qualifications that I have elaborated on in other articles.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Oct 26, '06)

In the article Speaking with the enemy [Oct 24], Ashraf Fahim attempts to paint a picture of a Bush administration that is allergic to diplomacy. This may be true. Ashraf Fahim seems to suggest that the Bush administration exudes arrogance. This may also be true. What strikes me as odd is that Mr Fahim, recognizing the problem, prescribes more arrogance as the cure by suggesting the Bush administration resolve China's problems. Observe the following passage: "Take North Korea's recent testing of a nuclear bomb. It would seem that this reversal - nuclear proliferation to a founding member of President Bush's 'axis of evil' (along with Iraq and Iran) - would inspire a rethink of the refusal to hold bilateral talks, part of Pyongyang's price for forgoing its weapons program." What Mr Fahim fails to recognize is that it is China that is responsible for the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]. It is China, not the US, that is the DPRK's major benefactor. It is China, not the US, that will suffer most if the whole of East Asia launches a nuclear-arms race in response to the DPRK. Therefore, if the DPRK reverses non-proliferation and disrupts the whole region, then it is China that must bring the DPRK to heel, not the US. I ask Mr Fahim, who has the most to gain from resolving this crisis? Who has the greater need to resolve the problem? Is it not the epitome of arrogance to presume that the US could and should resolve China's problem? If not arrogance, then perhaps it is naive to endorse bilateral talks between the US and the DPRK as a way to solve the Korean crisis.
Terence Redux
USA (Oct 26, '06)

The president of Iran is Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad, or more simply just Ahmadi Nejad, as he is known throughout the Middle East. I am not sure why the Western press runs these words together into an unpronounceable glob.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Oct 26, '06)

Transliterating from a non-Roman writing system such as Persian is always hit-and-miss, but once a decision on how to romanize a particular name has been made, it makes sense for the media to stick to that decision more or less uniformly. If ATol suddenly started calling the Iranian president "Ahmadi Nejad" while the rest of the media were calling him "Mahmud Ahmadinejad", it would just cause confusion. - ATol

Kudos to [F William] Engdahl's series The Emerging Russian Giant and for shedding light on what will surely become the new Cold War [Part 1: Moscow plays its cards strategically, Oct 25]. From what I understand, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's graduate thesis was on how to use Russia's energy reserves for geopolitical advantage. If so, he`s implementing his treatise to great effect. The acquisition of oil/natural-gas deposits can be used as a Rosetta Stone to decipher much of what's happening globally.
Steve Kettrey
Austin, Texas (Oct 25, '06)

To add to F W Engdahl's thesis (The Emerging Russian Giant [Part 1: Moscow plays its cards strategically, Oct 25]) that it is Russia as an independent and influential geopolitical player that worries the United States, one might also bring up another point in Z Brzezinski's book, quoted by Engdahl, The Grand Chessboard. Throughout the book, but especially on pages 193-207, Brzezinski discloses his hopes for two anchors in Eurasia: in the West a united Europe, but strictly under US political and defense leadership, and a cooperating and understandable China in the East while "American relations with China and Iran should be formulated with their impact on Russian geopolitical calculations" (p 118). This geopolitical situation in turn is assigned a task of determining Russia's "post-imperial" geopolitical identity. What the latter should be is clear, as Brzezinski presents two alternatives for Russia: either a strong Eurasian power or a "democracy" (p 44); Russia should have "a decentralized political system ... a loosely confederated Russia composed of European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic" (p 202). While these are very transparent designs, and Brzezinski is a Cold Warrior and a reputed russophobe of Polish pedigree, they do point to the persistent US hostility towards and designs on Russia and its geopolitical sphere. Brzezinski's ambitious - and perhaps fearful - book was written in 1996-97, when Russian power had already declined precipitously. Had it been written today, after Russia's dramatic financial recovery, improved political situation and consolidation, and economic growth of 6.7% per year during the eight years of 1999-2006, would The Grand Chessboard be less ambitious? Would it be more alarmist? Also, Mr Engdahl makes an important point regarding the comparative Russian and Chinese vulnerability vis-a-vis the United States. Russia does not rely on US markets, China does to a much greater extent; Russia exports energy security, China imports energy security; Russia has already moved to deploy anti-ABM [anti-ballistic missile] technology on it latest Topol-M and Bulava missiles, China has not been able to deploy a fully operational strategic submarine nor the fast-deployment/launch on warning long-range missiles; tariffs placed on Chinese goods can hurt the Chinese producers and the American consumers, but the latter can get these from other sources in Asia; tariffs on Russian oil and gas exports can hurt the consumers and raise the international energy prices. After the commissioning of the Siberia-Pacific oil pipeline and the Siberia-western China gas pipeline, Russia will play a key role in ensuring China's energy security; when and if the US missile defense becomes real, Russia can acquire an additional role vis-a-vis China by preserving its unique status as the USA's equal in strategic discourse.
Leon Rozmarin
Hopedale, Massachusetts (Oct 25, '06)

The concluding article of F William Engdahl's two-part report, Washington's nightmare, is now online. - ATol

In US sends the wrong messages to Iran [Oct 25], Kaveh Afrasiabi refers to Iran as an "Islamist democracy". A democracy, I believe, is described as rule by the people. Iran is no democracy. Iran is ruled by a group of mullahs who get to decide who gets to run for political office and disqualify over 90% of the candidates. Also a democracy needs a free press to survive - I hope Mr Afrasiabi doesn't want us to believe Iran has a free press. I believe most sensible people who are not blinded by their own ideological prejudices believe Iran is trying to achieve nuclear-weapons status. And as to messages, what message should American take from the weekly chants of "death to America" coming from Iran? As for scenarios for an American attack, any talk of a ground invasion or American use of nuclear weapons [is] pure fantasy. Mr Afrasiabi also writes, "Tehran [will] impose an oil embargo on the United States." Since the US has not bought oil from Iran in more than 30 years, this might be a little difficult. Iran could buy for a few million dollars nuclear fuel for its reactor from many nations including Russia, hardly an American puppet. Yet Iran is spending billions of dollars to achieve the nuclear-fuel cycle when it has an unemployment rate of 25%, about the US rate in the Great Depression. Something is wrong with this picture. As for Iran's true intentions, several years ago the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] asked to examine one of Iran's nuclear sites; Iran stalled for a few months and then tore the building down. That to me is not the act of an honest nation telling the truth about its nuclear intentions.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Oct 25, '06)

Re US sends the wrong messages to Iran [Oct 25]: From US Ambassador John Bolton's standpoint, the United States is sending the right messages to Iran. Like it or not, the hardliners are in the catbird seat, and it is they [who] call the shots. Among the inner councils of the Bush administration, there are voices calling for flexibility and diplomatic avenues as to the matter of Iran's processing nuclear material, but they do not prevail. [President George W] Bush is intractable in foreign diplomacy. He is achieving the very opposite [of] what he set out to do. North Korea is now a nuclear power, and Iran shall follow in its wake.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 25, '06)

Ajai Sani (Gross stupidity in Afghanistan, Oct 25) wrote an interesting piece of anti-Pakistani propaganda, clearly aimed at the American audience. However, the underlying facts seem to be solid and have very frightening implications for my country [US]. Maybe if my leaders had decided to send 140,000 soldiers to Afghanistan instead of Iraq, and spend the money we waste arming the Israelis and Egyptians on reconstruction, there could have been prosperity and (relative) peace in Afghanistan. But they didn't. America wasted our moral high ground after the September 11 [2001] attacks by invading Iraq. We were forced to back warlords in Afghanistan because our army was stretched too thin. In a final act of stupidity, we attempted to destroy the economic viability of the Afghan farmer through poppy-eradication efforts. The results were entirely foreseeable. All people would rather live under the domination of their own dogmatic tyrants than that of foreigners and warlords who cannot kill their way to peace.
Brendan O'Reilly
Bellingham, Washington (Oct 25, '06)

Spengler's latest [Frailty, thy name is Tehran, Oct 24] is a pure frothing call for blood and death (not his, of course). The laptop warriors Spengler so admires represent, like Spengler himself, a subphylum of humanity best suited for latrine duty in some faraway outpost of former colonial "glory". It's pointless to list the absurdities of this latest attack on the Muslim world, or to point out the seemingly endless gaps (gulfs?) in logic, but one does wonder that such mindless and hate-filled rhetoric doesn't cause the author a coronary. Note to Spengler: Yes, the US is a dying empire - check the economy (a perpetual war economy) and facts like one in three Americans take anti-depressants or that 40% of the population is clinically obese, never mind the addictions to cyber-porn and video games like Carjack, never mind the consumerism of breast-implant imagery and the six hours a day the average citizen of Empire spends watching TV. It's Iran that is in decline, right? It's the Muslim world, right? So for the lunatic fringe Spengler belongs to, the answer is always more death and more military spending. More violence, not less. It is, as it has always been, the cry of small, scared and hurt little rodents ...
John Steppling
Lodz, Poland (Oct 25, '06)

Spengler's latest musings in his Frailty, thy name is Tehran (Oct 24) show that he is growing more hawkish by the minute. No one would doubt that the US has its eyes set on destabilizing the Iranian regime. And as Spengler correctly argues, this would be a natural outcome of what the US has already started in Iraq. But to suggest that such widening of the conflict "is just what the US could not do in Vietnam without risking war with Russia or China" is plainly wrong. The Cold War nuclear architecture is more firmly in place than ever, and the power of this strategic backdrop to whatever happens in the Middle East (or elsewhere) should not be underestimated. Fresh evidence unveiled recently by Greenpeace has shown that a new nuclear warhead is being planned at Britain's top-secret Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. There has also been a reported doubling in the number of meetings between Aldermaston scientists and their US counterparts. Moreover, as Ehsan Ahrari has outlined in US turns space into its colony (Oct 20), America's National Space Policy sends "unmistakable" signals to Russia and China that "the US intends to monopolize its long-standing space presence by militarizing it". Ahrari further posits that "there is little doubt that the space arms race is on". With Washington now looking to make a policy U-turn by entering into a truce arrangement with Iraq's two main Sunni insurgent factions, the US is avoiding a far greater conflagration than Spengler presently imagines: an all-out nuclear war.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (Oct 25, '06)

It was nice to see the informative and analytical article of [Dhruba] Adhikary in ATimes [Nepal still in a state of flux, Oct 24]. His viewpoints about the intention of Indian bureaucrats are particularly the concerns of Nepalese residing abroad. In fact, I was not aware of such approaches of India, where Indian officials seem to conclude unbalanced treaties on the shadow of political instability in Nepal. Neither was I aware of the exchanges of the drafts whenever there was trouble in Nepal. Evidence presented by Mr Adhikary prove there has been a traditional and colonial mindset of the authorities in South Block. I particularly agree with the analysis of Mr Adhikary with respect to the people's opinion on monarchy.
Kishor
London, England (Oct 25, '06)

Robert Dreyfuss' A coup in the air (Oct 21) intends to show that there is a sentiment or a plan for a coup in Iraq to bring a group of five strong men to control the country. I totally disagree with such a plan. It must be understood that the Iraqi election was not really a significant step for building democracy in Iraq; rather, it was a step for chaos. When people elected [Ibrahim] Jaafari as prime minister, [US] President [George W] Bush vetoed that election. The chaotic condition brought to power the current prime minister, who lives, like the rest of the heroes, in the Green Zone area, a modern and luxurious cage compared to the one in Guantanamo [Bay], Cuba. [Prime Minister Nuri] al-Maliki has no power and cannot run the country under the occupation condition. The Iraqi people will not respect such a leader who is a puppet for American imperialism that has killed more than 1,665,000 Iraqis over the last 15 years. Building on Maliki's condition, the new plan for a coup has been formulated. If this coup occurs, the same killing and destructive conditions will continue as long as the imperialist occupation of Iraq exists. The Ba'ath Party had made up its mind before the imperialist invasion in 2003 to destroy the country upside down in order to defeat the imperialists and their Green Zone puppets. Whatever President Bush brings of new plans and tactics about the occupation of Iraq, the Ba'ath Party has decided to defeat US forces even if the war against them will take centuries. When they defeat US forces In Iraq, they will not rebuild Iraq but they will continue the fight with the Israeli forces, with the possible support of Hezbollah and Syria, until the final victory of the Palestinian people. This prediction seems for many unrealistic, but the future will show that this analysis is correct one. President George W Bush has forced this condition on the Arab people, and those fighters will make him pay for his historical mistake. The implication of this analysis is a very simple one. Iraq was never run by a dictatorship as many individuals think. Rather, Iraq was managed by the Ba'ath Party, which has huge popular support in Iraq. Saddam Hussein or any other leader would not have been able to control the country without the popular support of the Ba'ath Party. Therefore, even if a magnificent five-member committee of strong dictators will be formed to run Iraq, that committee, I strongly argue, will not be able to achieve any success. If the Bush administration is really interested in solving the Iraqi situation, the optimal solution is to give the country back to the previous leadership of the country and leave Iraq immediately with one condition, assuming it is acceptable, that the Ba'athist fighters will pay their attention to rebuild Iraq. This will in fact save US face by not having a new defeat and will provide a peaceful environment for US allies in the region.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Oct 25, '06)

I do respect ATol, perhaps the best publication worldwide, but America's Acupuncture Points, Victor N Corpus's articles dated October 19 [Striking where it hurts most, and Part 2: The assassin's mace, Oct 20], should not have been published. This write-up is squarely aimed at the general public of the United States of America and best described as a scarecrow tactic, cleverly disguised as an individual but with the credentials necessary to achieve maximum penetration. All of a sudden a society without knowing much about the real world is being hit with an aggressive article of fantasy. By default, one had to begin to hate a people and nation which [are] obviously capable (a retired brigadier-general of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and former chief of the Intelligence Service should know now, would he not?) [of behaving] in such a horrendous manner. Using ATol as the media host, I must congratulate the author and therefore the initiators of this saga. US defense spending must go up, even the simplest person surely will agree. Third World nations are getting ready to do the unthinkable, perhaps even take away our oil ... How many people in the US are aware that on September 28, Chinese scientists successfully conducted the first test of an experimental thermonuclear fusion reactor, which replicates the energy-generating process of the sun? If the thermonuclear fusion technology is commercialized, it will provide energy for a very long time ... [Are] the English-speaking media bringing news as such? Perhaps not ... Unfortunately, an uninformed public signs a [blank] check to our overpaid leaders. The global media system is now dominated by giants such as Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. My belief that the rise of the Internet would eliminate the monopoly power of the global media giants is wishful thinking, as they've done everything within their powers to colonize the Internet, at least neutralize its threat. The sad truth is that this entire process of global media concentration has taken place with little public awareness. Lately, very lately indeed, there might be a glimmer of hope yet. Can ATol survive? I wish it can and will - as I said , not many [are] left ...
Leo Berger
Bern, Switzerland (Oct 25, '06)

Spengler: In your October 18 column Reason to believe, or not, you wrote: "Kurt Goedel, the 20th century's greatest mathematician, proved that no mathematical system can prove its own axioms, which must be accepted as if it were a matter of faith." First of all, by definition, axioms are statements which are accepted without proof, because one must have initial statements from which proofs can then be spun out. So there is no question of proving axioms unless one wishes to show that one of them can be proved from the others and is therefore redundant; that is mere economizing, not philosophically significant. What Goedel proved was quite different. Look up his Incompleteness Theorems. Also, [Rene] Descartes' dictum to which you referred should be corrected as follows, in my opinion: I think, therefore I think I am.
Marvin Jay Greenberg
Berkeley, California (Oct 25, '06)

[Re Frailty, thy name is Tehran, Oct 24] The original Spengler (Oswald, that is) must be turning in his grave to regard with indignation this petulant child posturing in his name: "As for the Persians, they have been rather a nuisance since Thermopylae in 480 BC, and it is time that someone taught them a lesson."
Rowan Berkeley (Oct 24, '06)

I am terribly sorry for Asia Times Online to publish Spengler's nonsense [Frailty, thy name is Tehran , Oct 24]. He ... knows nothing about Iran and Iranians. He should be told that the land of the Persian Empire is undefeatable. it has been so throughout the history. If his bigot president, Bush bully, could do it, he would [have given] it a try some time ago. After all, it was the Persian Empire which once ruled the world from the East to the West, including Spengler's ancestors.
Shiri
Iranian Student
Tokyo, Japan (Oct 24, '06)

Re Frailty, thy name is Tehran by Spengler (Oct 24): Although this author has a great command of history and must be given respect for that, his negative bias towards the Middle East detracts from that erudition. He advocates attacking Iran, in hopes of destabilizing that regime, and further destabilizing the entire Mideast. He seems to despise the Middle East. He seems to think that the US's imperial ambitions are legitimate and real, and lasting. Further, he seems to think that if Iran is attacked, the US can just go about business as usual, and there will not be repercussions from that act. At least, he does not mention any. He must be one of the neo-cons in league with Israel hardliners. I think Israel is desperate, as [it knows] there is no way for [it] to survive through the next 20 years. They [Israelis] will try [to] bring everyone down with them - including their benefactor, the US. Maybe an appropriate response for his loosely using [William] Shakespeare would be to say, "Be careful what you wish for."
William D Stockwell
Bartlesville, Oklahoma (Oct 24, '06)

The incomparable Spengler "runs" at the mouth again in Frailty, thy name is Tehran [Oct 24]. Shared his latest with some who have had real-life experiences both in the region and in diplomatic posts pre- and post-Khomeini days. A couple had an acute case of "the runs" and the other three opted for a bottle of Napa Valley Pinot. For myself, I have come to accept the probability that certain symptoms of mental delusion may be easily communicable between a select few individuals whose idols comprise the likes of [Franz] Rozenzweig and the Bard of Avon.
Armand De Laurell (Oct 24, '06)

Spengler points out at the end of his latest essay [Frailty, thy name is Tehran, Oct 24] that the mullahs who run Iran need to be taught a lesson. Insha'Allah, from his lips to Allah's ears. The shocking cruelty and medieval barbarism of this regime - in the name of Allah - knows no bounds. These are the clerics who gave made-in-China plastic "keys to Paradise" to 12-to-15-year-old boys and infamously sent them out as human minesweepers against Iraq during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. If Iran nuclearizes its weaponry, Allah have mercy upon the Jews, Sunni Arabs and all Westerners wherever they are, not to mention the Iranian peoples themselves ([whom] their own fanatical leaders will all too gladly turn into vaporized/radioactive shaheeds, holy martyrs). This is from the entry on Stoning from Wikipedia (subtopic: "Iran"): "According to Amnesty International, Article 104 of the Iranian penal code states, with reference to the penalty for adultery: '... the stones should not be too large so that the person dies on being hit by one or two of them; they should not be so small either that they could not be defined as stones'. Amnesty argues that this is clear evidence that 'the punishment of stoning is designed to cause the victim grievous pain before death'. In Iran, the convicted person to be killed is wrapped in a sheet and buried; male convicts are buried from the waist down, female convicts are buried deeper to prevent the breasts from becoming exposed. The crowd then pelts the victim with stones small enough so that one cannot cause death by itself." ... Imagine - if you will - the fanatical mullocracy with nuclear bombs. Get the picture?
Richard Greene
USA (Oct 24, '06)

Amnesty International's position on capital punishment, regardless of methodology, is that it is "the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights. By working towards the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, Amnesty International USA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty looks to end the cycle of violence created by a system riddled with economic and racial bias and tainted by human error." Amnesty withholds comment on whether the technology a nation favors for killing its own citizens makes it less or more worthy of possessing planet-destroying weaponry. - ATol

Re Speaking with the enemy (Oct 24): [Ashraf] Fahim's comments reveal the ideological travesty of Bush administration "non-diplomacy", and suggest the eminent dangers of the same. A sort of comical but also tragic situation was pinpointed by media commentators who, with grave faces, reported Condi's [US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] trip to somewhere of remote relevance (China) to talk to no one directly involved in the worsening fiasco, a fiasco created by Bush forces that refuse to talk to "axis" leaders. While I watched the disclosure of Condi's trip, I wondered if the media commentators realized how ludicrous and wasteful such trips - imitations of doing something fruitful - really are.
Jim of Southern California
USA (Oct 24, '06)

The Bush White House would do well to read Bruce Klingner's North Korea is not done yet [Oct 24]. [US President George W] Bush would, too, do well to talk to his father on dealing with North Korea. [President George H W] Bush sent signals to Pyongyang which ultimately cooled down the enflamed rhetoric in the early 1990s. Had Bush fils the wisdom of his father, he would treat Kim Jong-il with the same degree of respect his father showed to Kim Il-sung. Only by offering a face-saving exit to Kim Jong-il will Bush fils seize the moral high ground, marked by restraint of hyperbole and less resort to threats and sanctions, and thereby undercut any grounds for misunderstanding which would and could in the standoff with Pyongyang trigger a war. It is an anachronism to say that Americans have no sense of history. Nonetheless, judging by President Bush's immovable position on North Korea, such a judgment is out of place. For had he reviewed the dealings with Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il by his father and president [Bill] Clinton, he would have an epiphany of understanding in how to achieve his goals through patient diplomacy.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 24, '06)

Regarding the use or misuse of the term "American(s)" for things and people from the USA [re letter of Eli de S, Oct 23], it should be noted that [French speakers] more and more use the equivalents of the Spanish terms estadounidense and norteamericano, ie, etatsunien(s) and nord-americain(s), the latter being use for the non-Latin americains (USA and Canada). You can have a rough idea of the political tendencies of a newspaper from the words used: if pro-US, it's "americain", if more or less neutral it's "etatsunien", if there's a strong dislike or contempt it's often "amerloque" (a bit like "yanqui"). In the anglophone news, personally I have never come across "United Statesian(s)", but (at least in Australia) I have sometimes come across "UStatian(s)".
Dr Bittar Gabriel Jivasattha
Switzerland and Australia (Oct 24, '06)

I will be accused by some of "getting personal" with my politics, but we should never lose sight of the fact that the way a nation's "rulers" deal with other rulers is usually not very different from the way a man deals with another man. It is far from insignificant to remember that [US President George W] Bush was an alcoholic and his "silent treatment" towards those he cannot control (or beat in an argument) cannot be so different than the way he acts on a personal level. We all pretty much know the type, the kind of weak man who, quite simply, could not even endure it if Laura left him - or even disagreed with him. If the other North American oligarchical elites were not alcoholics, it doesn't matter, because if one were to investigate their day-to-day relationships, we would find the same pattern over and over again. Look at North American society, and how can one wonder! Of course, the same rationale can be applied to the whole world over: all countries are fighting or using each other and calling it friendship and soon enough, we will all be vomiting out our blood and guts and dying [from] nuclear fallout. Come on people, why do you all keep writing about "democracy" as if it existed (it can, but only among small tribes or communities, and never on a large scale)? And do you not see that by repeating and guessing the World War III scenario over and over, you are just making it happen that much quicker and actually giving ideas to the "rulers" - not to mention that those who spend most of their time thinking and writing and reading about the geopolitical and sociological events of the day are in fact no less shallow and exterior [sic] than the very politicians who are destroying this precious world? In short, let us never forget that what is happening in the world outside us is nothing but a mirror image to what is happening inside us. A man like Bush is in office because North Americans are what they are - and the same can be said for all the "leaders" of the world.
Krischer (Oct 24, '06)

Robert Dreyfuss' article [A coup in the air, Oct 21] does a service to readers in providing them with salient and presumably accurate information on the thinking making the rounds in conservative circles (whether described as Democratic or Republican) in Washington. But when Mr Dreyfuss, after describing the head of present front regime for US military power in Iraq as both "hapless" and "feckless", writes that a "coup d'etat in Iraq would put a period - or rather an exclamation point - at the end of the Bush administration's bungled experiment with democracy there", he is playing to a self-serving mythology which makes it difficult to penetrate the spin regarding US policy, which in the fertile soil of subservient media, hydra-like grows two new head for every one that is dispatch. The US administration's Iraq "experiment" has indeed been "bungled", not least by such neo-conservative beacons as [President George W] Bush, [Vice President Richard] Cheney, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, [former deputy defense secretary Paul] Wolfowitz, et al, but it was never an experiment in "democracy". Rather it was an experiment in gaining strategic control over major energy resources and eliminating a regime which could represent a threat to Israel's attempt to attain and maintain the role assigned it by Washington - that of regional hegemon in Southwest Asia. This could be done either by installing a government pliant to US wishes behind a facade of "democratic elections" (the nature of the democratic elections so beloved by the Bush administration comes, perhaps, best to the fore in the US presidential elections of 2000 and 2004) or, if that did not prove to be feasible, by destroying the country. It is this latter course which has been adopted, and I find it highly anomalous to describe it as an "experiment with democracy", however "bungled". Journalism Professor Robert Jenkins has described the United States as "a society in which people not only can get by without knowing much about the wider world but are systematically encouraged not to think independently or critically and instead to accept the mythology of the United States as a benevolent, misunderstood giant as it lumbers around the world trying to do good". The motto of Mr Bush and his courtiers is certainly something other than "Do no evil," and benevolence is definitely not an attribute of present-day US foreign policy (or its domestic counterpart, for that matter).
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Oct 23, '06)

As regards Iraq, and to some extent the larger struggle against Islamic extremists, the raging 800-pound gorilla in the room, the one no one seems to mention or acknowledge, is the prevailing Arab perception that the US is in the Middle East for the purpose of hegemony and perpetual control of their oil reserves. This necessitates a permanent military presence - permanent military bases. Are these Arab impressions correct? Behind all the high-sounding ideals, is the American effort truly selfless, or is it only a ruse - a smokescreen for long-term military bases? If it is a ruse, then one can better understand why there are no plainly spoken reassurances from [President George W] Bush of our [US] eventual complete military withdrawal from a sovereign Iraq. Eighty percent of Iraqis now want us to leave, and a strong majority now favor attacks on American forces. Without an unequivocal pledge of US military withdrawal, these numbers will only grow. Most Iraqis now view their isolated "Green Zone" government as a mere puppet of US interests. Such an atmosphere is good breeding ground for extremists. [Grand Ayatollah Ali] al-Sistani, a proven peacemaker and moderate Shi'ite spiritual leader, has called for just such a pledge, combined with an announced schedule of US redeployment. He recognizes that only this will quell the raging hatred for the now despised foreign occupiers, and lead to a national reconciliation of Iraqi factions. Until US leaders publicly and unequivocally pledge a complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraqi soil, there will be no resolution to this conflict, much less any sense of "victory". And staying in Iraq presents al-Qaeda with a propaganda bonanza on a silver platter.
John R Bomar
Arkadelphia, Arkansas

Re All teeth and lips - for now [Oct 21]: Chastened like a younger brother by his elder brother, Kim Jong-il openly apologized to Tang Jiaxuan, a high-ranking Chinese envoy, for testing a nuclear device. And what's more, he conditionally promised to not undertake a second test. Thus the reflexes of an attachment to an old Confucian discipline have restored order and harmony of sorts between the two allies and neighbors. Had not North Korea jumped the gun by exploding a nuclear engine, China, as Scott Zhou rightfully remarks, would not have been caught by surprise, thereby losing face. Visibly embarrassed Beijing supported the United States-sponsored Security Council Resolution 1718 as a warning to Kim Jong-il of its displeasure. Yet China full well knows that sanctions are ineffective against North Korea and in fact, if not in deed, encourage Pyongyang to harden positions and take more extreme measures, feeling as they do, that the United States' saber-rattling will turn into a hot war. Although China voted for sanctions, it will do the minimum to enforce them. Beijing fully knows from experience that if it does, it will lose the influence it can exercise on Pyongyang. And although it is North Korea's main supplier of food and oil, harsh, cool logic tells it that, by withholding [from] Kim Jong-il an economic and political lifeline, it will destabilize North Korea. As a dying state, Pyongyang is a threat to China's own stability and economic health, as it is to South Korea's and even Japan's. Consequently, the 45-year-old friendship treaty between North Korea and China will weather the current crisis. It would do for Korea watchers and hands to reflect on the Southern Sung aphorism "lips to teeth". That dynasty appealed to the Northern Sung to unite against the invading hordes to China's north. The North Sung rejected the call for unity, and as a result the two Sung dynasties became a chapter in a history book. When Deng Xiaoping offered this saying in a toast to Kim Il-sung during his visit to Pyongyang, he was talking in earnest and thus acknowledged that today's China had learned its history lessons well. His toast reaffirmed a lasting alliance with North Korea, which it saved from utter destruction during the Korean War. That should be a warning to [US] Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice, who is running from pillar to post to nail down to the letter application of Resolution 1817.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 23, '06)

[Victor N] Corpus paints a very bleak picture of what might happen to "super"-America if it ever takes a crack at eliminating the Russia-China "threat". The read is all very impressive, until Section 3 [of Part 2: The assassin's mace, Oct 20], where he suddenly extinguishes any dim light of reality in the piece by, twice, apparently accepting the US regime's Osama/box-cutter spiel for [September 11, 2001]. For me, that turns the whole article into a fantasy.
Keith Leal
Pincher Creek, Alberta (Oct 23, '06)

Many thanks to Victor N Corpus for his articles in ATol - Part 1: Striking where it hurts [Oct 19] and Part 2: The assassins's mace [Oct 20]. He appears to have deep knowledge of the military might on the Asian continent. We here on the continent of Europe don't get such well-researched articles. What we get is mostly propaganda from the media in the backing up of the British/American/NATO axis. It is valuable to know that a China/Russian alliance can face down the US threat against the world in general. It is not that I want to see [the United States of] America destroyed, but I do want to see it draw in its horns and deal with the more severe problems within its own borders like unemployment, hunger, racism, gunmen going amok against the innocent (like the recent Amish incident) and the continual humiliation of the native American through falsified history. Thus engaged former European colonial nations may stop trying to re-enact their former glory days in their former colonies. But I am aware that America, like the adolescent boy who has been whipped in the school playground (Vietnam), still struggles on bloodied (Iraq and Afghanistan) and looking for an easy victory to get back something of its street cred. The uneasy subject of nuclear weapons has been raised recently by British politicians who want to upgrade their nuclear arsenal but Britain, being a small country, is unlikely to survive even one H-bomb hit. The last time Britain faced an equally powerful military nation was Germany in 1940. It was defeated and raced home through Dunkirk. It then called on American help during World War II. After that it has been fighting Third World nations. Similarly America also went to war against the Third World. When faced by the ... USSR, an equal foe, it decided stalemate was the best option. Now Third World nations are beating back the armies of the developed world and nuclear weapons are again on the agenda. [Do] the US and the European powers want a world of equality or a world in nuclear ruins? This is what Victor N Corpus is asking us without indulging in sleight-of-hand politics or mindless patriotism.
Wilson John Haire
London, England (Oct 23, '06)

Victor N Corpus indeed paints a scary scenario in his article series America's Acupuncture Points. It would appear that overnight, Russia and China could turn the tables on the US, not by destroying America but by disabling it ... In depicting what amounts [to] a 21st-century replay of the 1941 Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor, Mr Corpus fails to allude to the possibility that two can play at that game. While an EMP attack [such as described in Part 1: Striking the US where it hurts, Oct 19] may indeed temporarily blind and immobilize the US command structure, presumably the US would still have military units offshore beyond the effect of the blast over the central mainland USA. These include CINCPAC [Commander in Chief, Pacific Command] at Pearl Harbor along with perhaps dozens of US nuclear-armed and -fueled submarines on patrol around the world's oceans at the time that the immobilizing blast takes place. I know that with the failings of US intelligence over Iraq and the broader Middle East in recent years, some might have gained the impression that "American intelligence" constitutes an oxymoron. Yet I doubt whether America, even under an administration as myopic as that of George Bush Jr, would be so stupid as to allow itself to be caught so unprepared. More likely it would leave standing orders with its military commanders overseas that should the China-Russia alliance stage such a sneak attack, they are to retaliate in kind without awaiting orders from the Pentagon. The likes of CINCPAC and other, lesser US command centers would know that the EMP attack took place within minutes when they found that none of their signals to the US - Internet, radio or even landline telephone - are being replied to. If no such standing orders existed, then it is highly likely that at least one US commander overseas would take matters into his own hands by ordering the reprisal attacks on his own initiative. It would presumably take only one American EMP blast over central China to disable China's electric supply, telecommunications, computers etc and perhaps three to have the same effect on Russia. This would presumably place the China-Russia axis in the same position as the USA. Despite this and one or two other oversights, Mr Corpus has written a timely pair of articles that may well give US defense policymakers (and others) food for thought. Mr Corpus brings credit upon the agency of which he used to be head. Frankly, until I read America's Acupuncture Points I was unaware that the Philippines even had an intelligence service.
James S Greaves
Sydney, Australia (Oct 23, '06)

With respect to your editor's and Dennis O'Connell's comments [letter, Oct 20] regarding Victor Corpus' fearmongering articles [America's Acupuncture Points] about China (and, to a lesser extent, Russia), I think the best word to emphasize about Mr Corpus is retired. We should all count this among our blessings. Hasn't Mr Corpus ever heard of the United States Air Force? Or, maybe allies? Does Mr Corpus really think that Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Britain, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Israel, etc would simply just sit idly by while the Chinese, Russians and Iranians wipe out the US Navy? Mr Corpus either wants to sell more books or champion an increase in American defense spending. The US Navy isn't going to be wiped out by asymmetrical warfare, but unfortunately US defense spending probably will go up and Mr Corpus probably will sell more books. Both will leave the world a lesser place to live. By the way, if Mr Corpus has not written a book yet - please encourage him not to do so.
TaMu
China (Oct 23, '06)

All that military might and all those allies ... better warn the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgents. - ATol

I must remark that after reading several of the scenarios regarding looming conflict between China and the USA, it seems a rather myopic assessment by the authors. Of course there will be tension and friction, but at the end of the day it will be the Chinese leadership saying to its hawks, "Tell me again why we want to kill our best customers," and the US counterpart saying, "Tell me why again we want to kill our creditor and most efficient and lowest-cost supplier." Such a scenario certainly lacks the drama of power politics and the "Grand Game", but when consumers rather than conquerors or fanatics decide history, we'll all be better off.
Brad Lena
Asheville, North Carolina (Oct 23, '06)

Re Reason to believe, or not [Oct 18] by Spengler: The notion that Islam lacks reason, especially in comparison to Christianity, is absurd. I converted from Christianity to Islam because Islam has always welcomed scientific and logical analysis. Muslims laid the foundations of all the major modern sciences and mathematics, with help from the Hindus. Christians were too busy excommunicating the scientists of the day. Spengler needs to read the book The Bible, the Quran, and Science written by a French author. He would likely change his mind.
Cheryl Hutchinson (Oct 23, '06)

The United States is not America - there are 870 million Americans, of [whom] only 300 million are United Statesians. When you refer to the US as America, it is a slap on the face to all Americans. America is not a nation. America is a continent with many nations in it. The US never named itself; the name of the United States is a designation [that] comes from the end of the Declaration of Independence: "WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled." The preamble to the US constitution reiterated the phrase: "We the People of the United States ..." (The authors of these two documents probably used the phrase "united states" in place of a list of colonies/states because they remained uncertain at the time of drafting which colonies/states would sign off on the sentiments therein.) The geographic term "America" specifies the states' home on the American continent. It is therefor incorrect to refer to US citizens as Americans with the intent of denoting citizenship, or the United States as America with the intent of denoting a nation. Americans have a term for US citizens, we are called United Statesians by the rest of Americans, to say "American" with the intent of denoting citizenship or "America" when we mean the United States reflects poorly on our attitude towards the 70% of Americans [who] are not United Statesians.
Eli d S (Oct 23, '06)

The term "United Statesian" is not current in English, either in the US itself or in other English-speaking American countries such as Canada or Guyana, or adjacent island states such as Jamaica or the Bahamas. The Spanish equivalent estadounidense is widespread in Latin America, as is norteamericano. While it may be true that the name "America" is more correctly applied to the continents of North and South America and nearby islands, there is no convenient adjectival derivative of "United States" in English. Asia Times Online avoids ambiguity by preferring "US" to "American", but in fact the context of a passage nearly always makes clear whether a writer is referring to the country or the continental region. - ATol

[Re Reason to believe, or not, Oct 19] Richard Greene's vacuous defense of Spengler's usual inane commentaries on Muslims is aptly represented by the quote attributed to the Prince of Peace, "Ye know them by their fruits". Mr Greene conveniently and/or ignorantly does not employ his statistical references to the non-Muslim population of China, India and other parts of the non so-called Western cultures [that he] assumes includes an exclusive number of [Jews and Christians]. It is highly probable that the other side of the statistical references could be explained in presuming that the Nobel group has had a selection process that was principally exclusionary. In referencing the connection between people and their fruits, a most striking example is the one alluding to what barefooted Lebanese children call the "cluster bombs" left behind.
Armand DeLaurell (Oct 20, '06)

[Re US turns space into its colony, Oct 19] The United States does not own outer space - it is stupid and egregious in the extreme for Bush to claim that it can extend the Monroe Doctrine to outer space and deny anyone the [right of] peaceful exploration of space. He truly is insane if he thinks the rest of the world will sit still for this, or his fellow Americans, too.
Robert McSwain (Oct 20, '06)

This is regarding Moin Ansari's letter [Re Afghanistan's stability lies with Pakistan, Oct 19]. Mr Ansari is deluding himself that there's always been peace in Balochistan, the Mohajirs and Punjabis love one other, the Shias have never been massacred, the Ismaelis have always been respected as equals under Pakistani law, there's never been separatist movements in Pakistan, and the Pakistani army has always been in control of Pashtunistan. It is even more wishful thinking on the part of Mr Ansari that that the United States, after having felt threatened enough by the wayward antics of a one-eyed Mullah, would invade Afghanistan for the sole purpose of [getting rid] of him alone. Only a Paki[stani] would think that the US might lose Afghanistan while [ignoring] the underlying reasons for the attacks on their soil and their global interests in the first place.
Samillah Pashton (Oct 20, '06)

[Re Afghanistan's stability lies with Pakistan, Oct 19] I can clearly say that Haroun Mir's negativity towards Pakistan oozes from his article, he forgets to mention that the people who came to power after the fall of Najibullah's regime were the Northern Alliance. He also quite conveniently forgets to mention that it was the Northern Alliance who refused to let a Pashtun, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, become prime minister after the Tajik, Burhanuddin Rabbani. The bloodshed around Kabul was caused by the Northern Alliance wanting to stay in power even though they are not the majority in Afghanistan and then going back on the deal for power sharing. His comments about the Muslims in India being happy with their lot is a direct insult to the 10,000 or so Muslims who have been killed by rampaging Hindu mobs in the last decade or two; their places of prayer are destroyed and their [right to live there] is questioned all the time. But my response to Haroun Mir is that I wish Pakistan had never let the 5 million Afghan refugees into Pakistan. They destroyed Pakistani society with their gun and drug culture, which they spread all over Pakistan and caused criminality wherever they went. Using forged Pakistani documents, they travelled abroad with drugs into Arab countries, giving Pakistan a bad name. The effect on Pakistan's economic wellbeing can be judged by [the fact that it had to] host 5 million refugees. What I find surprising is the hatred of these people against Pakistan, which helped the Afghan people, and their love of the Russians who invaded their nation and killed around 2 million Afghans. I feel that [because] people like Haroun Mir have a kind of psychotic hatred of Pakistan, they are unable to talk about Pakistan with sincerity.
Rob
UK (Oct 20, '06)

The Nobel Prize committee's decision to confer this year's most prestigious Nobel Peace Prize on Dr Muhammad Yunus for his contributions to uplift and empower the rural poor through economic means has rightly caught the attention of the world media, mainly because the committee has chosen a non-nuclear power and developing nation, Bangladesh, to award the coveted prize to, instead of a heavyweight in international politics. It is indeed a most welcome step by an [international] body in promoting world peace, considering the prevailing regional and world tensions owing to arms races and the resolve by the nuclear powers to retain their nuclear and other strategic weapons arsenals intact while imposing sanctions on developing countries trying to develop their legitimate nuclear programs for energy and security purposes. Japan is said to possess no nuclear weapons but it is also under the US security umbrella. If the international committees such as the Nobel Prize committee deny the nuclear powers the privilege of being honored with such prestigious medals and prizes, it would help promote awareness among the masses of the nuclear powers of the [urgent need] for disarmament and to exert enough domestic pressure on the nuclear regimes to give up their nuclear arsenals and withdraw from the arms trade and arms race. That step would consequently pave the way for real disarmament in place of the present dirty sanctions regime being followed by the much discredited United Nations Security Council, [which is] led by the US. Sanctions are nothing but economic terrorism perpetrated by the US to impose its will on others.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi (Oct 20, '06)

I am struck numb by the complete naivete of Victor Corpus in his article Striking the US where it hurts. Mr Corpus pictures a world where China completely destroys the US and sails away to lead the world to peace and prosperity, while the US does nothing and is completely overcome by China's brilliance. Yes, China could do many destructive things to the US, but to think that they would not be met with the most destructive retaliation is beyond insane. Iran could also attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, but Mr Corpus has never seen the results of a single B-52 bombing run. If he had, I don't think he would talk so foolishly. The United States could destroy 10% of Iran's electricity grid every day until they lifted the blockade if they could even [maintain] a successful blockade to begin with. Also, any blockage would hurt China and many other countries far more than the US. He then warns that "Chinese and Russian submarines" could stop the flow of Mideast oil to the US. The American naval capability is probably 100 times the combined power of Russia and China. These acts that Mr Corpus describes are acts of war and they would be met with a massive military response including nuclear weapons. Mr Corpus should do a little studying of American military power. The United States has 18 Ohio-Class nuclear submarines. Each sub carries 24 missiles with 10 warheads apiece. Each missile has a range of 7,000 miles and each warhead has the destructive power of over 200 million tons of TNT. Each sub on its own has far more destructive power than the entire Chinese nuclear arsenal. Finally, China could badly damage the US dollar, but then they would be putting 20 million Chinese factory workers out of work.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Oct 20, '06)

"Naivete" is probably the last word that should be applied to the former chief of Philippines military intelligence. Please be sure to read part 2 of "America's acupuncture points", The assassin's mace, where you will find at least some of your criticisms addressed. - ATol

[Re Beware empires in decline, Oct 18] The conditions for perpetrating a foolhardy military action are indeed ripe. Michael T Klare's hunch about overstepping capabilities seems to be supported by the risks taken by this administration and its stubborn inflexibilities in the past. When you are affirmed by all around you and have lived a life of affimation for minimal accomplishment, the insularity - imposed by high office and by political handlers - of a position like president must give [one] a feeling of omnipotence. For someone more prone to self-delusion the tendency to overstep your capabilities must be heightened. Couple that with rather radical-thinking ideologues giving you advice and the conditions are ripe for foolhardy actions. Arrogance and a resultant abuse of power is always a danger for those in positions of power, but when the occupiers of these positions have messianic tendencies, we may be in trouble.
James Hoover
USA (Oct 19, '06)

I agree with Michael T Klare's analysis in Beware empires in decline. An American military strike against Iran is still very likely. Air strikes alone, however, will prove to be very disappointing, and any commitment of ground forces will likely provoke a military coup, not in Tehran or Baghdad, but in Washington.
Francis
Quebec, Canada (Oct 19, '06)

Others have already criticized the Spengler article Reason to believe, or not at some length. When Spengler quotes the Muslim clerics as stating "[T]he dichotomy between "reason" on one hand and "faith" on the other does not exist in precisely the same form in Islamic thought", but distorts this to his version; " [t]o state that the dichotomy between faith and reason simply doesn't exist in Islam" indicates that Spengler's own reasoning has limited depth if it requires such an obvious twist to support the case he attempts to make. As contributor Eduard EF Vandoorne documented, rational Islamic thought has a long history and was perhaps instrumental in helping spark the European Renaissance. It is perhaps only in modernity that this tradition suffered, especially after the Mongol invasions and then later European colonizations. How about an article on the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the US and the subsequent attacks on science and rationality in that country? A comparison between sections of the two religions in this respect might have made for a far more interesting read. At least I now know not to waste my time following a link to another of this author's rants.
Shane
Australia (Oct 19, '06)

I refer to the article Reason to believe, or not and would once again tell Spengler with good reason that loading a donkey with books does not make him wise or a scholar. With regard to the Pope’s understanding of Islam, it is as deaf and dumb as Spengler’s and both are on a messianic mission to demonize and sully Islam with deliberate distortions. A fundamental difference in the scriptures of Christianity and Islam is the fact that Christianity does not have a text, which are both revealed and written down. Islam has the Koran, which meets both descriptions and was written down immediately when revealed to Mohammed by Archangel Gabriel and also memorized and recited by the faithful especially during the month of Ramadan. On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that the Bible is not a word as we know it of God but written by many men and told by many mouths of wanderers long after the death of Christ who were mainly storytellers. It is a book of many stories of the biblical times; some of them very lewd indeed. There is not a single [piece of] historical proof that Christ wrote it and it is precisely the reason that it is twisted, amended every year and turned around by the secular Western world to make it look small and is daringly published every [few] years with many amendments. Another point to remember is that confrontation between the texts of scriptures and science has always been a test of their authenticity and corroboration between the two is a necessary element of the authenticity of the scriptures and the sacred text. St Augustine established this principle but with advance in science, it became evident that there were numerous discrepancies between Biblical scriptures and science and their authenticity could not be accepted. On the other hand, the Koran revealed to the Prophet Mohammed (who was illiterate)1400 years ago is not a textbook of science, it is, however, a highly scientific book and makes numerous references to natural phenomena backed by modern science that has astounded many modern scientists. The main theme of the Koran is the relationship between humans and their creator and reminds us again and again of the oneness and supremacy of Allah and his worthiness of worship and none other, and eventual fate of every soul to be held accountable for its deeds on the Day of Judgment. But no description of the Koran can surpass its own description: Alif Lamm Rae. A Book which we have revealed unto you in order you might lead mankind out of the depth of darkness into light by the leave of their Lord - to the way of exalted in power, worthy of all praises: Allah to whom belong all things in the heavens and on earth." (Ibraheem 14:1). So that is what the Koran is but we should also be sure about what it is not? People like Spengler and those he has quoted with a hatred for Islam have described it with harsh terms, seemingly without ever having read it or grasped it sublime essence. It is not a book calling on people to kill and cause harm to people but in fact a book teaching us how to live our lives in the most beautiful manner. It is not copied from the Bible but is in fact a unique book that confirms the revelation given to Moses and Jesus but points out that they have become corrupted. Thirdly, and most importantly it must be stressed that the Koran is not a science textbook. It is however a scientific book. It makes numerous references to natural phenomena including the movements of heavenly bodies and the behaviour of various creatures. These are in perfect harmony with observed realities and this is an amazing fact, the significance of which is not often underlined. In a book from its time, one can see that it makes so many claims about physical as well as spiritual matters that it would not be surprising to find errors, but the Koran is totally free these. The Quran is [also] scientifically remarkable in another way. It makes statements about natural phenomena that show a foreknowledge of future discoveries and a superior intellect aware of things of which no human in the seventh century could have been. Such verses serve more than one purpose that we can think of. One example of this the verse on the development of the human embryo in the 23rd chapter, which concludes with “So blessed be Allah the best to create!”. On another level they provide information or incentives to investigate the wonders of creation. Muslims are told at least 756 times that the author of the Koran is aware of scientific facts that have only recently been confirmed. Since it is impossible that any person could have guessed these things so accurately, it follows that the only possible author of these verses was God Himself. What are aspects of the Koran that make it so inimitable? There is its unique use of language, its sublime style, its comprehensiveness, its legislation setting out a whole way of life, its narrations of the unknown, its consonance with scientific knowledge, its fulfilment of human needs and its effects on the hearts of these who read it or hear it recited. The Koran is regarded as a literary masterpiece and is respected by both Muslims and non-Muslims and its place in classics of world literature is well established. In his translation of the Koran, Marmaduke Pickthall described it as “that inimitable symphony, the very sound of which moves man into tears and ecstasy”, and the German poet, Goethe said: “However often we turn to it, it first sounds terse, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence. Its style is truly sublime, stern, grand and magical. Thanking you.
Saqib Khan
UK (Oct 19, '06)

Asian Times Online has published a number of lengthy attacks on Spengler's latest essay [Reason to believe, or not], which basically points out that in Islam faith trumps reason, period, end of story. The discussion on both sides of the argument is quite rarified. But what is the reality where the rubber hits the road, ie, in real life? The last 500 years of "Islamic civilization", as compared to Western civilization, attest to the incontrovertible conclusion that Islamic culture is anti-science and anti-reason. How else to explain the dearth of real-world contributions of Arabo-Muslims to the betterment of the human race for the last half millennia and continuing? From a pool of 1.4 billion Muslims, at least 20% of the world's population, nine Arabo-Muslims or Muslims have won the Nobel Prize. Parenthetically, this includes Yasser Arafat (Norwegian Kaare Kristiansen was a member of the Nobel Committee, but resigned in 1994 to protest the awarding of a Nobel "Peace Prize" to Arafat, whom he labeled a "terrorist") and Najib Mahfooz, who was stabbed in the back by Egyptian Muslim fundamentalists in 1997 because he supported the peace process between the Arabs ("Palestinians") and Israelis. Najib was partially paralyzed as a result. In contrast, 170 Jews have been awarded the Nobel Prize since 1910, from a pool of 12 million Jews (0.2% of the world's population or two out of every 1,000 people on the planet). To quote another Jew (albeit in another context), also known as The Prince of Peace - revered by Muslims and Christians alike - who made his own contributions to world civilization, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." Fruits, indeed.
Richard Greene
USA (Oct 19, '06)

This is an attempt to enlighten Spengler on his Reason to believe, or not. The faculty called reason is essentially cut and dry, almost robotically regimented in its preferences. This makes it only a contemplative tool to arrive at a truth. In sharp contrast, the heart is known to have a mind of its own. It does not need a reason to love or to believe. If God were to pass judgment on the human race solely based on reason, we, the human race, would not be able to withstand his damnation. His reason, is therefore moved by his passion for his creation. Because his mercy intercedes where his reasoning should prevail, He, the God, becomes worthy of being worshipped. All doubts evaporate in those who have faith in him. They, in turn, emulate such attributes of reasoning and the Socrates of our times are spared.
Iqbal Rahim
Canada (Oct 19, '06)

Nowhere, in his Reason to believe, or not does Spengler ever mention the groundbreaking work of the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, and the monumental challenge he presented to 16th century Roman Catholicism. A century before Descarte declared "I think, therefore I am", Luther had declared: "Here I stand, I can do no other". In other words, the major paradigmatic shift from the primacy of Catholic tradition to the primacy of the human conscience had already begun. Moreover, the retaliatory forces of the Counter-Reformation were finally expended when the Second Vatican Council had given (ever so reluctantly) its official imprimatur to human reason. Pope Benedict XVI has now seized upon this belated development in the hope of landing a king-size strategic blow to the foundation of Islam: the infallibility of divine revelation believed to be given to the Prophet Mohammed. But clearly, this is nothing but pure hypocrisy given the fact that the bloodiest religious war in human history - the Thirty Year War (1618-1648) between Protestants and Catholics - was fought precisely over the Catholic church's objection towards the freedom to exercise one's individual conscience. This hypocrisy deepens even further when we consider how utterly unreasonable are such fundamental Catholic doctrines as trans-substantiation, the virgin birth and the resurrection from the dead of believers to eternal life. Ultimately, by the necessity of reason itself, a dichotomy will always exist between reason and faith - irrespective of whether we are speaking about Roman Catholicism or Islam.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (Oct 19, '06)

Chrysantha Wijeyasingha's reactionto the article [It's official: China is India's security threat, Oct 17] is indeed unwarranted. While there has been no hostility between these two giant Asian nations - who are trying to become better neighbors - since 1962, these articles betray the well-being of the people of these two countries. "The land is still confiscated" is misleading. China completely withdrew after that war. What is being "confiscated", I believe, is what the British willy-nilly designated to be whithin British India by the McMahon Line, which China claims to belong to the province of Tibet. In that sense it is much more vital to reclaim Pakistan, Bangladesh, and all of the Kashmir area. To arouse more animosity is doing a disservice to India.
SP Li (Oct 19, '06)

China isn't the only country seeking closer ties with Central Asia [China seeks closer ties with Central Asia]. You can say the same thing for any oil and gas company privately or publicly owned. We're living in the age of the oil rush. India, China's rival for hegemony in Asia, has an anxious eye on Central Asia. So does Japan. America's and Europe's petroleum exploration and production companies are in that area, too. Everyone has big bucks to spend, and spend them they shall. Russia holds strong cards in Central Asia, for each and every one of the republics there once belonged to the old Soviet Union [until] it collapsed in 1991. Moscow looks with a jealous eye towards any investment which might strive to prove a strong competitor to its own oil and gas empire. China is seeking the goodwill of Central Asian republics, which have majority Muslim populations. It has to tread lightly because of its harsh rule in Xianjiang, and its internal policy of overwhelming a Turkic, Muslim people with Han Chinese who are more privileged in everything whilst the indigenous population [becomes] more and more marginalized. That concern may prove a peripheral matter, for dollar-rich China can well afford to pay for investing in oil and gas companies, and the size of the investments are such, it will fill the pockets and coffers of Central Asian leaders and officials.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 19, '06)

Haroun Mir has twisted a lot of facts in his article [Afghanistan's stability lies with Pakistan, Oct 18]. He says: "In 1992, the communist regime fell in Afghanistan; mujahideen groups entered Kabul, where two alternative options were presented to Pakistan", yet he does not explain who presented these options to Pakistan? He makes it sound like the mujahideen all got together and asked Pakistan to chose one of the two options, which is just not true. If the Mujahideen ever got together at that stage, there would not have been the bloodshed that followed. And even if they did present these options to Pakistan, the fact of the matter was that it was not in the hands of Pakistan to bring peace in Afghanistan by itself, other than by supporting the one group that it thought would be able to dominate all others. It did so by first supporting [Gulbuddin Hekmatyar], and then the Taliban. A negotiated peace at that stage was not possible by one country alone, and it required the will and efforts of all the countries in the region. This will was simply not there. All countries in the region wanted a stable Afghanistan, but one that was governed by a friendly government to their own perspective country. Pakistan too wanted a stable Afghanistan that would give them access to Central Asia. A Afghanistan that was run by a Pushtoon-dominated government that would be friendly to Pakistan. The reality is that the Pushtoons form a majority in Afghanistan, and there will never be a stable government in Afghanistan that is not Pushtoon-dominated. Pakistan knows this fact, and this is why it had friendly relations with the Taliban. While the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, Pakistan had millions of troops lined up on the India border and none on the Afghan border, because it had nothing to fear from that side. This has all changed ever since the Pushtoons were booted from power. As for the Taliban, they did not close the schools down in Afghanistan because they wanted their kinsmen to be in "ignorance and darkness". If they did so, they would not be so popular in Afghanistan today. They were the only ones that were able to bring stability to Afghanistan, and they are still the only ones that are able to do so today. Secondly, I do not know what makes him think that the Muslims, or any other minority for that matter, are living a "satisfied" life in India. He obviously knows very little about the struggle for Pakistan and how so many Muslims of the Indian continent struggled for Pakistan even though they knew that they themselves would not be able to live in that country. Not all people justify the existence of their country by the presence of democracy, or even economic benefits. One last thing I woud like to say to him is that when he describes [Hekmatyar], as "Pakistan's best puppet", he should not forget that in the early days, he was only "one of Pakistan's two best puppets". The second being Ahmad Shah Musood himself. The reality was that these people used Pakistan just as much as Pakistan used them. At the end of the day, neither Hekmatyar nor Masood sold his soul, and they were true Afghans, just like the Taliban.
T Kiani
London, UK (Oct 19, '06)

Haroun Mir's article Afghanistan's stability lies with Pakistan has serious errors in it. It is a simple regurgitation of the failed rhetoric of the Afghan communists who were swept away by the tide of time and people power. Today, another tide is threatening Kabul - it is the tide of the angry Pashtuns. The problems in Kabul are home-grown. There is abject poverty, warlordism, rampant heroin production, no central authority, a complete collapse of law and order, and no jobs for Afghans. Lack of representation to the Pashtuns, a lack of freedom, and a dearth of even the basics of life are the main reasons that the government in Kabul is losing it's battles to the Taliban. The precarious nature of the Afghan state allows the non-representative mayors of cities to disparage Pakistan. Every day, Kabul and NATO cede more territory to the Pashtuns (sometimes labeled as Taliban). After the Soviets were thrown out of Afghanistan, they left the Khalq and Parcham parties in charge. The Afghans again came begging for Pakistani support to dislodg Afghanistan, but the intransigent warlords, poppy-growers and Tajik-led government in Kabul would not negotiate with the other Pashtuns and refused to share power with the Afghans. President Hamid Karzai is a self-professed Taliban, as are many members of his government. Karzai himself was on the ISI payroll and lived in Quetta fighting the regime in power in Kabul in 1992. Karzai was proposed as the Afghan representative of the Taliban to the UN. The Americans will one day leave. The present leadership in Kabul should build bridges with her neighbors Mir's article has some gross inaccuracies based upon urban myths and generic Pakistanphobia of the garden variety. According to the Indian Independence Act of 1947, the princely states of the subcontinent had one year to decide to join the dominions of either India or Pakistan. Mir's attempts at rewriting the history of the subcontinent are hilarious. Mir's claim that Balochistan did not join Pakistan is telling only a half-truth. The Nawab of Kalat acceded to Pakistan in March 1948 after holding a referendum in the portion of Balochistan that he controlled. Other parts of Balauchistan not under his control had already joined Pakistan. In fact Balochistan was the first province to agree to the creation of Pakistan. Out of 88 Balochi sardars [commanders], 77 support the current actions in Balochistan. Only three do not support it, and they are financed by India. This can hardly be called a struggle for independence! The debacle of 1971 was a conspiracy to destroy the largest Muslim state in the world and stop it from becoming a regional power. Internal bickering added to this break-up, but it was external aggression that led to the break-up. Here are some historical data points, refuting the revisionism of Mir: During the period of the British Raj, there were four princely states in Balochistan: Makran, Kharan, Las Bela and Kalat, the largest and most powerful.
1) In 1876, Sir Robert Sandeman concluded a treaty with the Khan of Kalat and brought his territories - including Kharan, Makran, and Las Bela - under British suzerainty.
2) After the Second Afghan War (1878-80), the Treaty of Gandamak was concluded, and in May 1879, the Afghan Emir ceded his districts of Pishin, Sibi, Harnai, and Thal Chotiali to the British. 3) In 1883, the British leased the Bolan Pass, southeast of Quetta, from the Khan of Kalat on a permanent basis.
4) In 1887, some areas of Balochistan were declared British territory.
5) In 1893, Sir Mortimer Durand negotiated an agreement with Amir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan to fix the Durand Line running from Chitral to Balochistan to as the boundary between the Afghans and the British.
5) The Government of India Act (1935), treats Kalat as an Indian state and provides representation for it in the Federal Legislature.
6) In 1947, Kalat was ruled by Mir Ahmed Yar Khan.The British had given all princely states (about 526 of them) the choice of [joining] either India or Pakistan during the immediate pre-partition period - they were worried about there being too many independent nations.
7) The Indian Independence Act (1947) allowed the independent states to join either India or Pakistan. There was no other choice.
8) The people of Balochistan, overwhelmingly voted to join Pakistan in a referendum that was held on June 30, 1947.
9) The Khan of Kalat acceded to Pakistan on March 27, 1948. Like Kalat, Hydrabad and Kashmir, hundreds of other states also had the choice of either joining India or Pakistan.
Pakistan has hosted more than 4 million refugees from Afghanistan. More than 3 million Afghans still refuse to go back to Afghanistan. The Afghan refugees and most Afghans think of Pakistan as their second home. The Pashtuns of Pakistan cannot even think of being part of Afghanistan. In fact, many want the Eastern Pashtun part of Afghanistn to break away from Afghanistan and join Pakistan. Pakistan would gladly rescind the Duran Line. Pakistan is a successor state of British India. If the Durand Line did not exist, all of Afghanistan would be part of Pakistan! Alternatively, all of Pakistan would be part of Afghanistan. Either way, Islamabad would rule all of Afghanistan, like it always has. Obviously, Kabul has been unable to create a state. NATO will one day leave. The solution to Afghanistan is to break it up into Pashtun, Tajik and Shia parts and parse them out to Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan.
Moin Ansari (Oct 19, '06)

This is a response to Spengler's latest article [Reason to believe, or not, Oct 17]. Allah says in the noble Koran (67.23): "Say (unto them , O Muhammad ) - he it is who gave you being , and hath assigned unto you ears and eyes and hearts. Small thanks give ye! Allah brought his servants from their mothers' wombs not knowing a thing then he gives them hearing to recognize voices, sight to visualize and hearts" - meaning reason, and with his reason a person can distinguish between what is harmful and what is beneficial. Spengler uses Christoph Luxenberg to prove borrowing theories of the Koran. Please allow me to quote a scholarly article by Francois de Blois, (Journal of Qur'anic Studies, 2003, Volume V, Issue 1, pp 92-97, "[A]ny reader who wants to take the trouble to plough through Luxenberg's 'new reading' of any of the numerous passages discussed in this book will concede that the "new reading" does not actually make better sense than a straight classical Arabic reading of the traditional text. It is a reading that is potentially attractive only in its novelty, or shall I say its perversity, not in that it sheds any light on the meaning of the book or on the history of Islam.... He is someone who evidently speaks some Arabic dialect, has a passable, but not flawless command of classical Arabic, knows enough Syriac so as to be able to consult a dictionary, but is innocent of any real understanding of the methodology of comparative Semitic linguistics. His book is not a work of scholarship but of dilettantism."
BrightStarVision
Ĺrhus, Denmark (Oct 18, '06)

I have been an avid reader of Asia Times Online due to its good analysis of the events happening around the world. However, the articles by Spengler are turning out to be hilarious with the passage of time. His recent article [Reason to believe, or not, Oct 17] is another low from him. He claims that "Muslims have yet to come to terms with similar objections, including such scholarly arguments as the following". He then cites the works of various modern Western scholars. The first one from Spengler says that "there are numerous variant versions of the Koran, making it quite unlikely that the Archangel Gabriel dictated the entire document to the Prophet Mohammed". How did the Western scholars reach this conclusion? We have to assume that Archangel Gabriel came and spoke to the unnamed Western scholars. According to [Professor Gerd R] Puin, approximately a fifth of the Koranic text is "just incomprehensible". Puin mentioned this in an article published in The Atlantic Monthly and, not surprisingly, this soundbite has no evidence attached to it. Apparently, it is assumed that the reader is only supposed to look into the soundbites rather than the actual evidence. Perhaps Spengler has some evidence stacked somewhere to show us to bolster Puin's assertions. Thirdly,[there is] the issue of Syriac as the actual language of the Koran. Curiously enough, Luxenberg claimed that "the Koran was composed, Arabic did not exist as a written language". The evidence of six pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions from Raqush, Jabal Ramm, Umm al-Jimal, Zebed, Jabal Usays and Harran show that Arabic script existed over a wide geographical area. Strangely enough Luxenberg mentions the pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in Grohmann's classic Arabische Paläographie. Deducing from the early form of Arabic alphabets, he says that it is safe to assume the cursive Syro-Aramäische script [ie, Syriac] served as a model for the Arabic script. What now becomes almost unbelievable is that Luxenberg uses Grohmann's Arabische Palaographie as a source to support his argument that the Syro-Aramaische script served as a model for the Arabic script. Grohmann in this book, in fact, was one of the earliest scholars to refute the origins of Arabic script from Syriac script! Furthermore, there are no Syriac inscriptions to be found in the Arabic Peninsula but the geographical spread of Arabic inscriptions is far and wide; even in the strongholds of Syriac inscriptions on the Syria/Turkey border. One can cite quite a few howlers of this sort in Luxenberg's thesis to make his Syriac origins of the Koran fall apart. Fourthly, Spengler says that "archeological evidence (assembled by Yehuda Nevo) from the Koranic period strongly contradicts the notion that a finished text of any sort existed within a century of Mohammed's death". Spengler is unaware that Nevo's thesis has been refuted by Estella Whelan in her article "Forgotten Witness: Evidence For The Early Codification Of The Qur'an", Journal Of The American Oriental Society, 1998, Volume 118, pp 1-14. Fred Donner says about Yehuda Nevo's claims: "Recently, Yehuda Nevo has analyzed the content of a number of early Arabic inscriptions from the Negev and elsewhere in geographical Syria and concluded that the information in them seems to support Wansbrough's theory of the [Koran's] codification, both as to date (relatively late-second or third century AH)) and place (Fertile Crescent, rather than Arabia). His argument, however, is circular. The absence of specifically Koranic or Muslim phraseology from the generic monotheism of the earliest Negev texts, which he carefully demonstrates, may be taken as evidence for late codification of the Koran only if we knew that the Koranic text crystallized in this region (ie, the Negev, or at least geographical Syria) rather than somewhere else, such as Arabia; but the crystallization of the Koran outside Arabia is merely another of Nevo's (and Wansbrough's) assumptions, not a known fact." [Fred M Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings Of Islamic Historical Writing, 1998, Darwin Press, Inc, Princeton, New Jersey, p 62] To put it bluntly, Yehuda Nevo, in his work on Negev inscriptions, has simply used Wansbrough's "conjectural", "provisional" and "tentative and emphatically provisional" hypothesis without substantiating them with evidence, as his conclusions to "show" that Islam originated from a Judeo-Christian sectarian environment. In other words, Nevo's argument is circular. As a passing mention, I must add that the alleged Judeo-Christian sources of the Koran which Spengler claims are now considered as post-Islamic and post-Koranic redactions. He should check Zunz's classic Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortrage der Juden: Historisch Entwickelt, published in 1892, for the dates of redactions of almost all the Jewish sources which are claimed to be the alleged sources of the Koran. I do not have enough time to take on his article like this point by point. But it is sufficient to say that Spengler's claim that "Muslims have yet to come to terms with similar objections, including such scholarly arguments as the following" is patently false. It is in fact him who is unaware of the modern non-Muslim Western scholarship, or even if he is aware he is unable to come to terms with it.
Saifullah
Singapore (Oct 18, '06)

I do not pretend to be an eminent [expert] on Islamic faith, beliefs or knowledge. However, Spenglers' notions do not seem to run much more deeply than mine. Islamic faith is basically "submission" to one single deity, named Allah. This last addition is essential each time we mention Allah whether we are believers, and even if we are non-believers, to show our respect for other people who, yes indeed, do believe. As we are still in the holy month of Ramadan, we should be exquisitely polite to their faith and so, show respect to all of them - as they do to the other "Faiths of the Book" which means Hebraic and Christian believers. Respect then is basic to what I would call "reason". Spengler doesn't even get the basics of it. If we go back to the Independent Caliphate of Cordoba (starting in the year 931 of our counting) we can see Islamic, Hebraic and Cristian scholars, students and searchers working all at once, and accepting reason as their main direction for research. Mathematics, algebra (from the Arabic al-jabr or "zero"), medical sciences, ofthalmology, chirurgical operations, astronomy, agriculture and its' transformations (paper, silk, sugar, etc.), music and compositions, new instruments, libraries and universities, theology and philosophy, and many others I'm leaving out, flourished, which simply put means that: reason had a main place in their good "reasoning" and getting to very positive results (like in. capitalism?); this was being financed and favored by the caliphs and by the market and by two commercial roads, the Silk Road and the African Gold road, both reaching Cordoba; it is those Muslims who will collect, save, and translate the ancient texts of Rome and Greece which will allow our very own European Renaissance to come into being (reason came up and supplanted blind faith); we Europeans will use their medical, veterinarian and other manuals in our universities during the next 400 years and so will raise our knowledge in all scientific fields, of which we still draw rewards nowadays under the form of inventions, patent, and production systems. So here's the explanation for "our reason", dear readers. Basically, a lot of the information we have had between the year 1.131 (end of the Caliphate of the West in Cordoba, Spain) and the year 1520 (Emperor Charles the Fifth), came from Cordoba through the Translation School of Toledo, but the basic knowledge came from the very reasonable and reasoning inhabitants of Córdoba. And they were basically Muslims, and some were Jews and others were Christians. My guess is that some people, like Spengler, do not like this history. They prefer to leave it out, and cite only Rosenzweig who, although interesting, is very German and very, very conservative. Conservatives prefer to see Muslims as never-being-able-to-change, as "anti-modern" if it were, and so, on the boundaries of civilization. Therefore, they may get killed. Because, you see, they "have no reason" so the "reasoning" of Spengler goes. Just like the Spanish of old used to say: "They have no soul, because they are not baptized, so ... they can be killed without punishment of God" of the poor inhabitants of South America in the 1500s and 1600s. Just look at what this kind of thinking leads to when applied to Iraq which was, possibly, one of the most advanced "free-thinking" countries of the Arab world, before being invaded illegally by the United States. Women were free and participating at all levels of society. This is what the United States has destroyed. A recent Johns Hopkins study just puts numbers to the horror of the extermination. Is it genocide, possibly? Shouldn't we have a Nuremberg Tribunal Revisited, with all the warmongers on the benches? Including the "intellectual" perpetrators? All of them at the Tribunal of The Hague. And is Spengler aiding in these travails? Is he, just possibly, giving the good "moral grounds" to do the work? After all, Spengler never wrote Muslims have "souls". Of course, he believes that only Christians can have souls (it's just a belief, and an untrue one, nothing to do with reason). Now he does not even allow Muslims the main characteristic of humankind, which is, simply put, to have "reasoning" capacity. Well, in his article he wrote that they don't have "reason", only "faith", so... there is no other way than to classify Mr Spengler amongst the war perpetrators against Islam. Let us hope he doesn't invoke the Pope next time, because he will be, and is now, absolutely wrong. Muslims of all kinds would still be willing to take part in the greater goals of mankind, join in, and make a better world all-together. But first we have to stop the war-and-politicians-complex from making war against them. That, Mr Spengler, would be "reason", real reason for working together. And not what you are doing, Which is treason to reason, and so granting a "freedom-to-kill" of all Muslims, who, as you say and write repeatedly, do not have "reason", so if they have no "reasoning capacities"... Open the hunt and fire! And in other articles you wrote that Muslims know they have only a window of opportunity of one generation to take power and overtake say, Europe. They don't try to, and we don't believe that, and besides we have our own ways to take care of our own population. There are now 450 million [people] in Europe. And mind: "we take care" of all people. And they like that as soon as they're 30. The young have never been lame, tame or well-behaved. That comes later, with age. And so will the young Muslims coming of age, inside Europe. Simply put, I think you are twisting history, theology, religions, and seriously damaging the good relations between people who basically only wish to raise their families and be happy wherever they are. With which intentions you do this, I cannot know. Nor do I wish to ascertain them. Mr Spengler, there's a lot more to write about, you know. For instance, how capitalism robs all the people on all the continents. If you change tack, many readers will be happy, and few will miss the former Mr Spengler. This is my message to you. Enjoy your days and be happy. Keep it up, dear Asia Times Online. I've been reading you for the last four years. You are the most interesting [international] publication on the Internet, and probably one of the most influential. Just "clip" Mr Spengler's articles, when he is slandering and ranting against Muslims and their faith. He is not - I repeat is not - credible anymore. He's just dangerous to all of us in this world.
Eduard EF Vandoorne
Andalusia, Spain (Oct 18, '06)

Spengler is again fully in his Islam-bashing mode [Reason to believe, or not, Oct 17.] Apart from repeating the (according to most modern scholars) grossly obsolete opinions about Islam and reason and now already boring references to Rosenzweig's failed attempt to understand Islamic theology, he has now returned to his conspiracy theories about the Koran. A person of average intelligence needs no further evidence to realize the absurdity of his claims other than the fact that a failure of a Western professor and a non-native Arabic speaker (obviously not versed in traditional Koranic hermeneutics) to understand a fifth of the Koran is a valid enough argument for Spengler to use. Argument out of ignorance, I believe they call it. If I try to provide even a very short response to each of his flawed arguments, I fear my letter will be characterized as a sermon; to avoid that, I would like to propose that Atol invites a Muslim scholar to address and refute them. If you decide to do so, I suggest that you first try Professor Abdal Hakim Murad (aka TJ Winter), director of the Sunna Project at the Center of Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge University and secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust (London). Your otherwise great website's image has been visibly damaged by Spengler's rants, an opinion I believe is shared by many of your readers. This I believe would allow you to efficiently undo the damage.
Mustafa

The article [Nine paradoxes of a lost war Oct 17] makes sense to me. But it misses the main paradox as I see it. War should be fought from a defensive stance only if it is to have any legitimacy - not as an illegal aggressor and especially not one in which (disregarding internal injustice or strife as it is not any of our business) there was no provocation at all from the now occupied country. The US public has a majority of people who are the convinced subjects of government propaganda. It is the military/war profiteers/religious zealots who are in control of the information fed to the US population and the perpetrators of this mess. I don't know the answers to all of this, but I do know that if you take away the profits of an enterprise or a war, it quickly dies. It is also a great help to mind your own business and not to interfere with your neighbors. Maybe we should try this sometime in the future.
Ken Moreau
New Orleans, USA (Oct 18, '06)

Aidan Forster Carter [From Sunshine to sunset Oct 17] reasons well. It, however, is too soon to see Korea's sun[shine] setting in the west. Even Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine Policy sinks on the horizon, owing to North Korea setting off a nuclear device with the power of a plutonium bomb that America dropped on Nagasake. It is too late to turn the clock back on the small steps towards reconciliation between Pyongyang and Seoul. As China's reluctance to enforce to the letter UN Resolution 1718, Beijing is willing to blacken the eye of North Korea for testing a nuclear weapon, thereby making it lose face. [However, it is not willing to destabilize its erstwhile ally, fearing the strong ripple effects the downfall of Kim Jong il's government, would have on China and its neighbors. North Korea has savaged brutally the [George W] Bush administration single-minded diplomacy to bring about regime change in North Korea. Pyongyang saw that as an act leading up to war. It detonated its bomb out of desperation, seeing sanctions forcefully cobbled to gether by the UN Security Council as an act of war. Too little attention has been paid in the West to weigh Pyongyang's standpoint. This disconnect has set Pyongyang and the United States on a collision course. One side is [the same as] the other side - committed to painting itself into a corner. China understands it neighbor better, as Tsai Ting I shows in 'Business as usual'. China is gently forcing open the doors to North Korea's market. Although Beijing is "inspecting" cross-border trade with Pyongyang, it is also a way of controlling smuggling and putting a damper on illegal emigration. Washington has won a Pyrrhic victory. Pyongyang now is preparing for more nuclear tests, which is its way of reasserting its claim to independence and full sovereignty. Washington has no recourse but to push for more draconian sanctions, which are, one way or the other, easily breached; recall the sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq years before the United States invaded that country. So if the Sunshine Policy is losing its brightness, the same can be said for Bush's Korea policy. Ultimately, Washington will have to sit down with Pyongyang to work out a settlement; for military action calls for nuclear weapons, something is unthinkable unless he fancies himself a Herman Kahn or an Edward Teller.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 18, '06)

India has every reason to be cautious regarding China in the article ]It's official: China is India's Security threat Oct 17]. The 1962 war between China and India was initiated by China, and the Indian land that China confiscated is still being held by Beijing. Echoes of suspicion can be found in the US where many Chinese companies in the guise of doing business in the US have been headquarters for spies. The US has lost national security secrets to these Chinese agents. The trust the US gave to China was not reciprocated. China used that trust to gain whatever it needs to advance her standing in the world. If this could happen to the world's most powerful nation with highly advanced security organizations like the FBI and the CIA, what chance does India have, especially now that India and the US have signed a strategic alliance where US intelligence will be shared with India. If the situation were reversed and Indian companies cocoon Indian spies to steal Chinese technology, China would react in a similar if not harsher manner to Indian companies. China has demonstrated to the world that it looks out for itself even at the expense of its economic allies. From refusing to lower the yuan to vacillating on the embargo rules on North Korea, Beijing plays the "China hand" to her advantage each and every time. If India takes security measures in doing business with China then China should understand this action by New Delhi. The Indian economy is growing rapidly and no nation can afford not to be part of it even if security measures are put in place for certain nations.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, USA (Oct 18, '06)

With regard to the article If it comes to a shooting war ... [April 20] , we have an article which on the surface appears to have a lot of merit, BUT it has totally ignored two things. Communist China and Communist Russia are the construct of the "Illumined Ones" who THINK that they will be able to use as their "Iron Fist" to smash the last vestiges of freedom, mankind and Christianity from the face of the earth. It is God the creator NOT god the created who shall rule the earth for eternity and that crucial error will prove to be their end. Lucifer was designed to rule the earth for a period. Even after his rebellion when his creator renamed him Satan, God did not go back on his word that he (now Satan) would rule for a period. That time is about up, so Satan and all his followers are about to find out just exactly who is the creature and who is the creator.
J Brogger (Oct 18, '06)

ATol is one of the most informative online sources of information available on the Internet. I'm curious as to why registration has been shut off by the the administrator of The Edge? "The administrator has turned off registration for this forum. Only registered members are able to log in." Just curious.
Laurens Robinson
USA (Oct 18, '06)

Automatic registration is turned off due to excessive spam affecting our system. Please click here for instructions on how to register. - ATol

I respectfully request that you please explain why ATol declined to publish Spengler's October 18 essay, the text of which Spengler has posted on his forum.
Robin Collingwood
United States (Oct 17, '06)

Asia Times Online did not decline to publish Spengler's essay. The essay was returned to him because certain problems needed to be addressed. Those problems have been addressed and a revised version of the essay is published in this edition of Asia Times Online. The original text is no longer on the forum, in fact the entire forum is offline for the time being at least as it is in breach of its host's policy. - ATol

I defer to Syed Saleem Shahzad's familiarity with what is going on in Pakistan today [Al-Qaeda scare jolts Pakistan into action , Oct 16]. President General Pervez Musharraf since September 11, 2001, has never hesitated to go up against al-Qaeda. On the other hand, he has a more supple policy towards the Taliban. So, the latest al-Qaeda scare may very well be a smoke screen to root out hostile elements to Musharraf who are allied with the more extreme elements of the Taliban. After all, Islamabad has always looked on Afghanistan as its hinterland, and keeps a paternal eye on Kabul so that no regime there will threaten its brotherly [relationship with] that country. It doesn't take much to see that Musharraf's siding with Washington has aroused anti-American elements witin the military, who see the war in Afghanistan as a threat by proxy to Pakistan, which it is not. Musharraf can well afford to hand over - or even kill - members of al-Qaeda, whome he regards as interlopers. The Taliban are another kettle of fish; as long as they don't try to destablize or overthrow his government, he will look the other way, and as incursions into Waziristan have shown, carry out a shadow war which is quickly concluded with [false] of non-support for the Taliban, who are waging a protracted guerrilla war against [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai's government and NATO forces.
Jakob Cambria
United States (Oct 17, '06)

Thank you for your response regarding my enquiry of October 16 in relation to the editing policy of ATol. To allow me to better understand this policy of yours, I mentioned as an example an article by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail, entitled US military 'turns blind eye to killings'(October 10), of which you transformed their last sentence from "The number of Iraqi casualties runs into hundreds of thousands" into "Some analysts believe the number of Iraqi casualties may run into hundreds of thousands". In my enquiry, I was asking whether this transformation had been done with the authors' approval - could you please let me know the answer clearly? You also mention as a "pertinent point" if the author of an article is an AToL contributor or not: must one infer that you have a different editing policy (I do mean editing, not editorial) if an author is a regular contributor or not? I would appreciate if you could be more specific on this matter. Be assured that I am not seeking to get involved in a controversy with anyone, let alone with ATol or its contributors, but since I regularly read your articles and the Letters to the Editor, I do wish to know, for my own sake, what exactly are the internal dynamics of ATol - after all, "Letters to the Editor" can indeed be meant to be... to the editor. Again, I believe the questions I raise are of the utmost interest to many of your readers. ATol is not only attractive for the diversity of what it publishes, but also for the manner it does it ...
Dr Bittar Gabriel Jîvasattha
Switzerland and Australia (Oct 17, '06)

We're sure editing and editorial decisions are of great interest to some readers, but we are not about to present a blow-by-blow account of our normal working day. Please look at the bottom of the article. It comes from a subscription service called Inter Press Service. We are not in contact with their writers. - ATol

Regarding the article [ Al-Qaeda scare jolts Pakistan into action, Oct 16] demonstrates the depth that the al-Qaeda has penetrated some of Pakistan's most sensitive military establishments. If this is the case then the assassination of [President General Pervez] Musharraf may be just one of al-Qaeda's objectives. Whether Musharraf survives or not, al-Qaeda had and may have more recruits [possessing] sensitive information that they can use elsewhere. The arrest of 40 people sounds like it is only the tip of the iceberg. The al-Qaeda has terrorist objectives around the world, especially in the Middle East and the US. Gaining advanced military knowledge from a government that is just coming to terms with its predicament puts Islamabad and Musharraf in a losing battle. Obviously, al-Qaeda must have gained some advanced military knowledge by now and if there are more than the 40 arrested, the process may be speeded up by those still within these institutions before they get caught [themselves]. Though the headline of this article reads "...jolts Pakistan into action", it may be after the proverbial barn door has already been opened and the military secrets are [already] streaming out.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
United States (Oct 17, '06)

North Korea has finally played its trump card by testing a nuclear weapon. In doing so, it has challenged the United States, shook South Korea, deeply alarmed Japan, paid little heed to Russia, and risks humiliating China for the big reward of appearing independent and daring. Emboldened by its own actions, Pyongyang will be less accommodating in future negotiations, especially since it has successfully provoked international attention while raising the stakes for the United States, South Korea and Japan. The sanctions passed by the Security Council are not strong enough to force Pyongyang to relinquish its nuclear weapons. To prevent the situation from spinning out of control, the Bush administration must conduct direct talks with North Korea. The administration may praise the UN resolution, arguing that even a weaker resolution strongly signals international condemnation. But since when has North Korea worried about international condemnation? The truth is that the sanctions will neither have an immediate nor a crippling effect. North Korea knows that China will not allow it to become a failed state and inherit the insurmountable burden of dealing with millions of refugees and possibly millions more starving to death. This is why China and Russia will continue to insist that the situation be peacefully resolved. Pyongyang also knows that by seeking multilateral punitive measures through the UN, Washington has ruled out a military response. In fact, President George W Bush conceded defeat when he publicly switched from a policy of nonproliferation to one of deterrence and defense. Thus, in his statement after the test, he basically acknowledged that he can no longer seek to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons but will try to deter North Korea from their use or transfer. Pyongyang is also fully cognizant that South Korea, regardless of its internal debate on how to deal with a nuclear North, wants to preserve the "Sunshine Policy". Seoul is eager to keep the prospect of unification alive and will do everything to prevent a war that could completely devastate it. Finally, although realizing how sensitive Tokyo is about a nuclear North Korea, but obsessed with its historic enmity to Japan, Pyongyang went ahead with its nuclear test willingly, risking the loss of Japanese economic assistance in order to assert itself as a regional nuclear power to be reckoned with. In sum, North Korea skillfully capitalized on the divergent interests of the group of five it has engaged with in on-and-off negotiations during the last few years. The test’s aftermath finds North Korea in a much better bargaining position. Washington’s refusal to negotiate directly with Pyongyang for the past six years has allowed it to proceed with its nuclear program with impunity. The administration’s stubborn insistence on regime change and its refusal to enter into a non-belligerency agreement have given North Korea every reason to defy and successfully defeat the Bush administration policy. Pyongyang has certainly succeeded: there is not even a hint of an [impending] American military attack, and to assure the American public, Secretary of State Condolezza Rice has categorically removed that option. The Bush administration may choose to be satisfied with the passage of the Security Council’s sanctions. But by themselves, they will not force North Korea to the negotiating table nor abandon its nuclear program. Kim Jong-il has skillfully raised the stakes at a time of his choosing: US troops are bogged down in Iraq fighting an ever-widening insurgency in a country that has plunged into civil war; the administration is fighting for its political life in mid-term elections, and Iran has rejected international demands to end its uranium enrichment program, thus presenting another daunting challenge to Washington. To be sure, North Korea has scored another impressive victory in its brinkmanship game with the Bush administration, leaving it scrambling for a face-saving way out. Six years of failed policy has added another nation to the nuclear club, but one that is reckless, unpredictable, and potentially extremely dangerous. The argument by some administration officials who boast that the UN resolution is evidence of a united, multilateral front agreeing to punish North Korea is dangerously naive. It is critical to move quickly beyond the sanctions because North Korea’s first nuclear test hardly signals the end of its nuclear program. Kim Jong-il seeks a functional nuclear deterrent, and this requires more testing of larger magnitude as well as the development of long-range missiles. Moreover, now that scores of countries are involved in uranium enrichment programs, the problem of proliferation assumes far greater urgency. To prevent North Korea from pursuing this dangerously ambitious goal, there is an urgent need for long, sustained talks between Pyongyang and Washington. In this context, the Bush administration must give up the idea of regime change in North Korea to assuage its main concerns and begin the process of building a positive relationship. Only bilateral dialogue will permit Washington to gauge Pyongyang’s intentions and requirements and reach a verifiable and enduring agreement. Such an agreement will permanently remove the danger of transfer of nuclear technology and the growing risks of nuclear conflagration in Asia.
Alon Ben-Meir
United States (Oct 17, '06)

Commenting on the article, US military 'turns blind eye to killings' (October 10) by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail, the stomach-churning images of sectarian slaughter and butchery on Iraq seen every day on our TV screens defy all human intelligence and conscience. There is something very sinister behind these killings and facts are not analysed properly to hide who is behind these killings and why. Anyone familiar with American counter-insurgency tactics and espionage will not be the least bit surprised. During the 1980s, the CIA trained, armed and directed "death squads" throughout Central and South America against the regimes threatening US hegemony. El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua and Colombia were among the countries who suffered the most. In Vietnam, the US funded and trained death squads [who were given monthly kill quotas of, by the CIA's own admission, 1,800 per month. Guatemala was the one of the worst to suffer, with 200,000 dead and 40,000 missing till today. The US link is so well documented that in 1999, President Clinton apologised for the US role. From the time of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 till June 2004, the phenomenon of death squads was unknown to Iraq and the US soldiers were being killed and injured daily by the Iraqi resistance, something the Americans were unprepared for and had not expected. The US response was to send John Negroponte, the former US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 - during the worst death squad operations there - to Baghdad as ambassador. Negroponte was notorious during his tenure in Honduras for not only failing to admit to the existence of death squads there, he was almost universally believed to be directing death squads in both Honduras and Nicaragua. His appointment as ambassador to Iraq by US President George W Bush in June 2004 until April 2005 marked the development and the formation of the now notorious Iraqi death squads within the Interior Ministry‘s machine. Death squads were formed by the US and let loose on the long-suffering Iraqi Sunni population suspected of being against US interests and the illegal occupation. Tey must pay a price for their alleged support for the insurgents. The deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate whole Sunni population is the solution that Bush and his neo-cons have envisaged for Iraq. What a profound shame that Bush has so far failed to achieve anything positive to show to the Americans except that he has been responsible for the death of over 650,000 Iraqis since the illegal invasion to loot, to bring order, freedom and democracy to the Iraqis but has propagated nothing but disorder, chaos, death, destruction, gloom and doom, and instead of democracy has created anarchy in Iraq. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing the American tax-payers over US$1.5 billion a day and the Bush administration’s excessive borrowing to fund the wars is making his nation poorer. For the last five years the interest rates have been kept low to borrow more and more to cut taxes while the war expenditure builds up. As a result, the government ‘s interest bill and not borrowing in 2006 is expected to rise from 184 billions dollars in 2005 to $220 billion this year, nearly a rise of 20% and will go on increasing as the war is prolonged. As a result, the United States economy and its people are bound to suffer as their government is borrowing trillions from foreign creditors and in 2005 alone paid $77 billion in interest to China, Japan and others. Bush’s pea-brain has failed to grasp that it has always been the aim of al-Qaeda and the Taliban to defeat their enemies both militarily and economically .
Saqib Khan (Oct 17, '06)

In their three-part article on the recent Hezbollah/Israel conflict [ How Hezbollah defeated Israel , October 14], Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry reach a series of conclusions based on information gleaned from a variety of sources all of which, by their analysis of the data, suggest that Hezbollah dealt Israel a resounding defeat this past summer. While that may be, more circumspect analysts reserve judgment. If, however, their conclusion was based on several of the flawed statements made in their article, their validity is in question. Crooke and Perry, with an obvious literary flourish, assert that the CSIS analysis of the conflict by Professor Anthony Cordesman (which they used as the matrix for their Asia Times Online articles) was hardly, "... passed hand-to-hand among military experts ..."; they probably downloaded the manuscript from the CSIS website as I did. While this seems a pedantic and captious point, it indicates the potential problems that can arise when literature and data analysis are mixed, as do the following issues in their report. Because there are many of these, I have chosen only four for illustrative purposes. First, Crooke and Perry assert, with no evidence whatsoever, that Hezbollah had the ability to intercept and decrypt Israeli signals data. While that may be true, it suggests an area of expertise that exceeds that of the US National Security Agency, which still cannot even crack open-source data encryption such as Phillip Zimmerman's PGP software. Israeli SIGINT is, as Cordesman states and as can be confirmed from many other sources, on par with or better in some areas than that of the US. In other words, it is state-of-the-art. A much more plausible analysis of Hezbollah's seeming ability to "predict" Israeli tactical and strategic moves is the one noted by Cordesman, to wit, "When the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] finally did decide to go for the Litani, it signaled its advance for at least two days and had to advance along predictable routes ... because of the terrain." The authors also, again without citing relevant sources, suggest that Hezbollah engineers were able to construct a network of sophisticated and resilient fortifications without being detected. Although candidly admitting that they had no direct ability to confirm their subsequent assertions that these fortifications largely survived the conflict and enabled Hezbollah to triumph, Cordesman (who did visit the region) states otherwise: "The IDF probably did destroy most fixed Hezbollah facilities both in the rear and forward areas." Crooke and Perry also neglect to mention one of the salient features of Hezbollah strategy which pertains to this "in depth defense", viz, Hezbollah's use of civilians as a "defensive weapon" (Cordesman). Cordesman expands on this point, which was largely ignored by Crooke and Perry: "It [Hezbollah] used Lebanon's people and civilian areas as both defensive and offensive weapons." He further notes that most Hezbollah strong points were in civilian zones and he does not place the emphasis on entrenched, prepared, fixed-position/bunker warfare (like Japan's island defense campaign during World War II) that find such strong purchase in Crooke and Perry's work. A third point is Crooke and Perry's startling characterization of IDF ineptitude. Cordesman note: "The Israeli air force probably did destroy most Iranian medium- and long-range rocket and missile launchers during the first two days of the war and it seems to have systematically destroyed most remaining Iranian and Syrian medium- and long-range missile launchers that fired during the weeks that followed." Cordesman also clearly states: "The initial air campaign against the medium- and long-range missiles makes sense." Crooke and Perry find agreement with Cordesman in their conclusion: "The ground campaign, however, makes far less sense." Blame for this rests on the IDF and the civilian leadership, especially as impetus for military action against Hezbollah had been building since 2000. A fourth point against Crooke and Perry is their categorical conclusion that anti-armor rockets devastated a modern armored force. Again, Cordesman's data contradicts that assertion: "...a total of 60 armored vehicles of all types (reports those were all tanks are wrong) had been hit. Most continued to operate or were rapidly repaired in the field and restored to service. Only five to six of all types represented a lasting vehicle kill." When asked about the historical impact of the French Revolution, North Vietnamese negotiator (to the Paris Peace Talks) Le Duc Tho remarked, "It's too soon to tell." Historical analysis following promptly after events allows for glib and facile conclusions, as access to records and other sources is often restricted and the impact of events has yet to become clear. Cordesman carefully notes the preliminary nature of his observations: Crooke and Perry do not acknowledge the limitations in theirs. The sweeping judgements of Crooke and Perry, taken absent first-hand knowledge from participants on both sides of the conflict renders their apocalyptic conclusions regarding the strategic balance in the Middle East following the recent conflict tenuous ... at best. These points are, however, quite clear: the perception of Israeli defeat is widespread, the political implications are potentially profound and the outcome will effect the West in many and unpredictable ways.
Keith Comess (Oct 16, '06)

Thank you for your response regarding my enquiry of October 11 in relation to the editing policy of ATol. Please allow me not to be entirely satisfied with your answer. The clarification of the following point should allow me to better understand your policy. On October 10, you published an article by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail (US military 'turns blind eye to killings'). The last sentence in this article was published in ATol as: "Some analysts believe the number of Iraqi casualties may run into hundreds of thousands." On the other hand, the same article in "Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches" (October 9, Inter Press Service), published under the title "An unknown city erupts", had this last sentence as: "The number of Iraqi casualties runs into hundreds of thousands." You would agree there is an obvious semantic difference between these two sentences. Could you please let me know if the change was of your own, or a deliberate one from the authors themselves? In the first case, is it done with their approval? In the second case, is it a case of spontaneous self-censorship, or was it done after some suggestions from the editor? Again, I am not looking for an answer that addresses the specifics of the occupation of Iraq by the Anglo-US troops, but rather one that addresses the notions of freedom of expression, and of enlightenment in the respect of qualified opinions. And I hope again that you will find time to answer me. I believe this is of the utmost importance to many of your readers.
Dr Bittar Gabriel Jîvasattha
Switzerland and Australia (Oct 16, '06)

The change you refer to was no doubt made by an ATol editor, and for a good reason: ATol does not know for a fact what the Iraqi casualty toll is, or have first-hand evidence to back up any claim. Therefore the statement was qualified (actually, over-qualified, using the words "believe" and "may"). If we had at the time the evidence provided by the latest Johns Hopkins study, we would probably have let the statement stand as originally written. Another pertinent point is that the authors of this particular article are not ATol contributors. - Atol

Shawn Crispin's (The democratic way to prosecute Thaksin [Oct 13]) [fails] to mention other factors which tend to support his comment that the Thai junta has no wish to pursue Thaksin [Shinawatra] or his cronies. In the 1991 coup, ousted prime minister Chatchai Choonhaven and several of his ministers had their assets frozen on the grounds that they were "unusually rich" (Thai journalese for corrupt). After a period of months, no charges were brought and their assets were unfrozen. The Thai capacity for excusing illegality is seemingly boundless. So far, neither Thaksin nor any of his family or associates have had any of their assets frozen. In fact, quite the reverse. A week before the coup, press articles described a hired Russian cargo plane being parked at Don Muang Airport and being loaded with a vast number of suitcases by Thaksin associates. The plane left for Europe. After the coup, Thaksin's wife, Potjamarn, was allowed to leave Bangkok for Singapore. She then returned to Bangkok before flying to London with 114 suitcases (contents not known). All this suggests that a deal was done with Thaksin before the coup took place: provided he and his family left Thailand without protest, they would be allowed to take the bulk of their wealth with them. As to the US$1.9 billion from the Shin share sale, the whereabouts of this money is not clear. Strangely, the issue has fallen by the wayside and has not been mentioned in the media recently. But there has certainly been no attempt to use legal means to prevent it from leaving Thailand. Someone knows where this money is. Perhaps we should be told.
Stan Harrold (Oct 13, '06)

Pyongyang's [reported] setting off of a nuclear device has sent everyone [scrambling] for ways to bell the North Korean cat [Time plays into Pyongyang's hands, Oct 13]. Although everyone is in favor of imposing penalties on Pyongyang, no one is of a common mind as to the severity of such sanctions. John Bolton, America's ambassador to the UN, tilts toward draconian measures, which the new Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, supports. (In fact, Tokyo, didn't sit by idly, awaiting for a consensus among its neighbors and allies; it imposed sanctions of its own, by stopping money transfers from Koreans living in Japan who have a nostalgic attachment to North Korea.) Seoul, Beijing, and Moscow lean towards a condemnation which would amount to "appropriate" punishment, to induce North Korea to come to its senses and return to the six-party talks. Nonetheless, to regain face, Beijing may side with Washington in calling for strong sanctions, to teach its neighbor and ally a costly lesson. Pyongyang's nuclear test has opened the floodgates of editorials, op-ed pieces, and inflammatory rhetoric on radio and television; the armchair generals have come out of retirement to denounce Kim Jong-il in terms that often defy logic at times. Pyongyang, on the other hand, rattles sabers, and sits by as confusion reigns. In the short run, time is on its side as Donald Kirk says. Yet, the Tower of diplomatic Babel sows more confusion when cooler heads should prevail. For, the answer is as plain as the nose on US President George W Bush's face. It is time to open [face-saving] talks with Kim Jong-il.
Jakob Cambria
United States (Oct 13, '06)

By threatening to test a powerful hydrogen bomb, North Korea brings us all face to face with this most inconvenient truth: nuclear weapons are still the world's preferred weapon of choice. To think that so many nations either possess, or aspire to possess, a weapon that utterly destroys human life on such an unimaginable scale raises some very disturbing questions about the present state of human civilization. Governments argue that the demands of national security necessitate the need for nuclear parity for the sole strategic purpose of deterrence. Yet this is based upon the flawed logic that the most effective way for a nation to deal with one's real (or imagined) enemy is to hold the lives of their entire population to ransom. Does anyone ever stop to ask: is this the only way we can all be held in check? It seems we have allowed our own humanity to be consigned to a level in which it is of no more value than a mere bargaining tool. And despite all the rhetoric since the Holocaust about human dignity, we are no closer to affirming the value of human life while the spectre of our own destruction hovers over us at the push of a button. At present, while the United States leads the world in condemning North Korea's nuclear ambitions, the US Space Warfare Center in Colorado Springs is on course to deploy nuclear weapons in space by the year 2020 . Moreover, the next generation of nuclear weapons based on the far more devastating potential of thermonuclear fusion are being secretly developed at the National Ignition Facility located at the Los Alamos Laboratories in California. If this civilizational race towards the abyss of a nuclear Armageddon is to stop, then we must call for the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Nothing short of abolition will prevent countries such as North Korea from acquiring what so tragically symbolizes humanity's collective inability to respect all life on Earth.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (Oct 13, '06)

The testing of a nuclear weapon by North Korea has revived Cold War rhetoric of a most negative kind. This rage at an Asian nation becoming an equal in the destruction stakes knows no bounds. Washington seems to have set the agenda of abuse of this small communist country. In the past they have used the threat of bombing some nations into the stone age. That sort of action creates stone-age politics.
Wilson John Haire
London, England (Oct 13, '06)

Thanks are due Sanjay Suri for his piece (A deadly Iraqi numbers game [Oct 13]) on The Lancet article by Professor [Gilbert] Burnham et al. But when the former writes that the report [says] that as many as 655,000 Iraqis have died as a consequence of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, he has, surely inadvertently, misunderstood it.The authors of The Lancet article write: "We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 (392,979-942,636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2.5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 (426,369-793,663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire. Thus, within a 95% confidence interval, the results of the survey indicate that since March 2003, approximately 655,000 Iraqis had died who would not have died in the conditions existing before the US/UK invasion, but that the true figure may have been as few as 426,000 or as many as 942,000. Note that in 87% of the cases of reported deaths in the survey (545 of 629) death certificates were requested and that these were obtained in 92% (501 of 545) of these cases. Thus, with regard to [US President George W] Bush's comment to the effect that he did not consider it a credible report, after reading the article I can only say that in my eyes, the credibility of Professor Burnham et al far exceeds that of Mr Bush and his courtiers.
Dr M Henri Day
Stockholm, Sweden (Oct 13, '06)

Despite all the verbose analysis of and comments on North Korea's economy, army, nuclear blast, intentions, etc, one thing that stands out is that the North Koreans just want to talk with the US one-to-one. Why does the world's [only] superpower need four chaperones to talk to a little bankrupt twinky state, which it can blow away with half a fart?
Walter Tseng
Hong Kong, China (Oct 13, '06)

North Korea's nuclear test has caused anger and dismay in the international community. Apart from threatening the nuclear non-proliferation regime and creating serious security challenges for the international community, it has created further obstacles for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The growing list of countries with nuclear weapon capability is disastrous for the world and has been a setback in the international community's endeavor to achieve complete disarmament. It is really disgusting to see Kim Jong II, the despotic ruler, [spending money on] nuclear weapons and missiles instead of providing food for the starving millions. The nuclear test could force many countries, such as Japan and South Korea, to develop nuclear weapons. The Indo-US nuclear deal, which is already facing a tough battle with the US congress, could also be affected. Now Pakistan would also be in a spot of bother as questions would now be raised as to what kind of help [Pakistani] nuclear scientist AQ Khan provided to North Korea for developing nuclear arms. Iran, too, could cock a snook at the US and carry on nuclear testing. There would be no use in [imposing] sanctions with the help of China and Japan, etc, or threatening North Korea, because the neighboring countries would not want to jeopardize their country and put the lives of millions at risk. US President George W Bush has denounced North Korea as being part of an "Axis of Evil'' along with Iran and Iraq. And it is here that his double standards come to the fore. Before US attacked Iraq, Saddam Hussein always maintained that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. He even allowed UN inspectors to search and they couldn't find any. Ignoring the pleas of the international community and the UN, Bush destroyed Iraq and killed [large numbers] of innocent civilians in the name of eliminating terrorism. The US has finally agreed that there were no WMDs in Iraq. But Bush said that eliminating dictator Saddam Hussein was also one of the reasons for going to war. Now juxtapose this case with that of North Korea. President Kim Jong II had openly declared in the past that North Korea possesses WMDs and nuclear weapons and, defying the US, it has [apparently] conducted a successful nuclear test. But Bush has ruled out any military action against North Korea and talks about the US being committed to diplomacy. The same Bush who ignored the international community and the UN while attacking Iraq now says: "North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond ... Pyongyang's unacceptable action deserves a response from the UN Security Council." The same Bush who spoke about Saddam's dictatorship being one of the reasons for going to war now does not think it is right to eliminate Kim Il-Jong, who has been [identified] as one of the top 10 dictators in the world and, like Saddam, has killed innocent people. This is what Bush said a few months back: "I loathe Kim Jong Il. I've got a visceral reaction to this guy because he is starving his people. And I have seen the intelligence on these prison camps - they're huge - that he uses to break up families and to torture people. It appalls me.'' Oil was the main reason for US action on Iraq, and North Korea does not have oil and therefore there is no action against Kim Jong II. Another reason why the US does not want to go to war against North Korea could be that attacking a country that has nuclear weapons could mean great losses to America and also to South Korea and Japan, two of Washington's allies. Bush calls Iraq, Iran and North Korea rogue nations who would misuse nuclear weapons for mass destruction. But the US is the only country in the world which has used a nuclear weapon in a war and Bush is the only leader in recent times to have invaded a country, [killing numbers] of innocent [people] in Iraq. Doesn't this make the US the biggest rogue nation and George W Bush the biggest terrorist in the world? Is it surprising[ that] Bush and America are hated by so many people worldwide? Finally, what happens when Iran conducts a nuclear test? Will Bush implore the UN and the international community to take the necessary action or will he invade and destroy Iran? Your guess is as good as mine.
Amjad K Maruf
Mumbai, India (Oct 13, '06)

Re Neo-cons come out guns blazing [Oct 12]: Pyongyang's nuclear test has blown to smithereens the Bush doctrine of "axis of evil". Now the finger-pointing has begun. [US President George W] Bush and Co have no one but themselves to blame. Exaggerated pride and arrogance have a price to pay, but President Bush is a poor loser, refusing to cry "uncle". The right wing is in disarray, scrambling to snatch victory from the jaws of a failed policy. Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice's soothing words that Washington has no intention of going to war with North Korea [are] but the latest example of the Bush administration's backpedaling. Is it any coincidence that former secretary of state [Henry] Kissinger suddenly turns up in Beijing? Is he there to save President Bush's face? The neo-conservatives are trying to scapegoat former president [Bill] Clinton and the Democrats for the current administration's calamitous foreign policy. We, however, are at a time in America's history where the replay of the old red herring of the who-lost-China syndrome won't wash when it comes to the inept, bumbling Bush team's Korea policy. Mr Bush, try as he might, will one way or the other have to bite the bullet. Can we expect anything less from a man to whom, he claims, God speaks?
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 12, '06)

I believe I read some years ago on ATimes that the key to power and influence in Asia was "face." The United States' impotence in bringing North Korea to heel on the nuclear issue represents a tremendous loss of "face". Pathetically, the watchers most aghast are its biggest Asian allies: Japan and South Korea. History will surely mark October 9, 2006, as the day Asia fell from America's enfeebled hands.
Francis
Quebec, Canada (Oct 12, '06)

Allow me to weigh in on the North Korean nuclear imbroglio. It is quite common among right-wing Washington "realists" to describe the North Korean government as a bunch of madmen led by a buffoon, when every informed and objective analyst sees them as perfectly rational actors trying hard against grave odds to ensure their state's security and survival. Consider that it was [the United States of] America that used nuclear weapons twice in World War II and also seriously contemplated using them - until saner counsels prevailed - in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Consider further that both through threatening rhetoric and lethal action, Washington has frequently overthrown regimes around the world unilaterally defined as "evil" or " hostile" to American interests. Should it be surprising therefore that North Korea has sought to bolster its chances for survival, by however slight the margin and by however rash the calculation, through the development of nuclear weapons? They seem to have become the only meaningful bargaining chips for some beleaguered states in our cynical international politics, under which the existing nuclear powers "club" hypocritically denounces any new gate-crasher without working toward universal nuclear disarmament. The fact is that though developing its nuclear potential, for more than a decade North Korea has actively pursued avenues toward diplomatic recognition and economic and energy assistance from, and a non-aggression pact with, the US. In addition, as Peter Hayes, a distinguished expert on security and sustained development in Northeast Asia, points out in an article posted on October 4 in Japan Focus, Pyongyang also has its anxieties about being surrounded by Russia, China and Japan as well as some fear of its larger and infinitely more affluent "brother", South Korea. To create some balance against them, North Koreans have even shown a desire in the past to cultivate "distant great-power" ties, only to be rebuffed with disdain. In a play on the theme "from swords to plowshares", Kim Yong-sun, a high-level nuclear strategist of North Korea, mentioned to Hayes in 1993 the Korean saying "sword to sword, rice cake to rice cake". "It was time", Kim added, "to throw away the swords and hold up the rice cakes." The challenge before the Bush administration is to grasp the wisdom of that statement, alter Washington's own menacing statements and actions, and through treaties and conventions, assure North Korea that, despite radical ideological differences with it, America means no harm to the country but wishes to work toward a cordial co-existence with it. It is quite likely that to these "rice cakes" from Washington, North Korea will reciprocate with its own variety. In Korea's Confucian heritage, reciprocity has long been held as a prime virtue in human relationships. Let's not contemptuously brush aside such ideas as a pipe dream.
Vipan Chandra
Norton, Massachusetts(Oct 12, '06)

First it was enriching uranium. Then it was the provocative missile tests. Now, North Korea has crossed yet another line and detonated an atomic weapon. And the new threat from North Korea is that if [it doesn't] receive security guarantees, aid, and direct talks with the US, [it] will test a nuclear-tipped missile? And the US is still refusing all of North Korea's demands? And China is still sending North Korea aid, urging more dialogue and preventing sanctions that aren't too punitive? And South Korea is still sending humanitarian aid to North Korea? And Japan is still getting more agitated and nationalistic? And Russia is still doing nothing? The Alcoholics Anonymous definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result". Forget the six-party talks; the players involved in this mess need a 12-step program.
TaMu
China (Oct 12, '06)

There are obvious steps to take if a political system doesn't work the way it is designed to. Simply write up rules and regulations and call for a vote by the directly elected representatives. It is sickening to use labels like "stability" or "security" as a way to keep power. There is only one notion of democracy, and that is government by consent (Henry Bool). To distinguish an Asian-style from a Western-style democracy (Understanding Asian-style democracy, Oct 11), with the former being more limited than the latter, is simply fraudulent.
Paul Law
Berlin, Germany (Oct 12, '06)

Re China yearns for Hu's 'harmonious society' [Oct 11]: I enjoyed most of the article regarding economic inequities in China, but I question the use of the Gini coefficient (GC) to predict potential social unrest in China. The author claims that the GC "rose to nearly 0.5 in 2003 ... A value of 0.4 is generally considered as a red alert and 0.5 means likely social unrest." This clearly overstates the GC as a predictor. The GC for the United States has consistently risen from 0.428 in 1990 to 0.462 in 2000 and 0.469 in 2005. Social unrest in the United States is not imminent, at least on an economic basis. [President George W] Bush and the neo-cons' social division of the country might be a more likely reason; but the point is [that] using the GC as a prediction of future social unrest is flawed.
Michael Croy
USA/China (Oct 12, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: I try to follow your stories and those of Asian Times [Online] to understand the general situation in Afghanistan. However, I do not understand how the Taliban can continue to escalate military activities without outside supplies of weapons and money. Where do these come from?
Wynn Kimble
Powder Springs, Georgia (Oct 12, '06)

One of the Taliban's commanders, Haq Yar, gave an answer to that query in a recent interview to ATol. See Taliban lay plans for Islamic intifada (Oct 6). - Syed Saleem Shahzad

Jephraim Gundzik's article Beijing holds whip hand over slowing US [Oct 4] makes a lot of improbable but arguable claims, but there are two claims, often repeated in the press, that just don't make sense. First, the idea that a renminbi [yuan] revaluation will cause losses in central-bank reserves is based on a form of money illusion. Since reserves can only be used to pay for imports, make investments abroad or pay external debt, all of whose renminbi values decline in step with an appreciation of the renminbi, [so] there is no economic loss caused by a revaluation. At any rate, the fear of this potential loss cannot be a reason for continuing to accumulate an overvalued asset. Second, Beijing cannot sell off its dollar holdings while still maintaining a dollar peg, unless we believe that Europe or Japan would be happy to see their currencies surge against the dollar and would do nothing to retaliate. Even if they [Chinese] do sell, the impact would be smaller than the sudden and short-lived collapse of US assets when European belligerents, who then owned a much larger share of the US market than China does today, [and] sold off their assets in a hurry at the beginning of World War I. The market disruption was brief, and when the dust had cleared a year later the net result was a massive transfer of European wealth to US investors. It's hard to see how this would hurt the US and help China.
Michael Pettis
Peking University
Beijing, China (Oct 12, '06)

Mea culpa [re letter of Oct 11]. To compare [Britney] Spears to a trollish Irving Kristol (father, let us not forget, of the White House's favorite warmonger, Bill Kristol) is not just insulting to Ms Spears but trivializes the gargantuan stupidity of Spengler's remark [Not what it was, but what it does, Oct 3]. Let me add that the earlier letters of Mohsin Ehsan [Oct 6] and Moin Ansari [Oct 10] are directly on target. I think at this point it's easy enough to point to Spengler's racism and bigotry, but it's also becoming rather embarrassingly clear that he lacks even a trade-school graduate's grasp of philosophy and history, not to mention theology. The history of colonial domination and of the West's Great Game is conspicuous by its absence in Spengler, and the pirouettes of logic he attempts, to turn Islam into a warrior religion, may be resonant with the likes of Melanie Phillips and Charlie Krauthammer, but are factually and fundamentally incorrect. Another writer chimes in about Arab flags (go figure) and froths on about the inherent violence of Muslims. It is just such blinded and reactive emotions that are fed by the Spenglers of the world. The need to demonize an "other" is the foundation of all fascism and all propaganda. The demonizing of Islam is functioning at warp speed, and the patchwork thinking of Spengler is simply more fodder for the imperialist West and its war machine. It's also quite useful to demonize a powerless other - Jews once held this position, and later gypsies and for as long as one can remember homosexuals and other "deviants". Now it's Muslims - and lest one start hurling spittle about terror attacks, it's important to note that one has a greater chance to die from being struck by a meteorite than killed by a terrorist. Does one really need to point out that the Bible advocates stoning women to death for adultery (just as … an example - and trust me, there are others)? One can pick quotations from all great religious books and find strange metaphoric pronouncements that, taken out of context, can be digested as literal admonitions to violence or hatred. It's a sophomoric pastime. The editors mention [under Moin Ansari's letter] that a hijacked religion is fair game, which I take to mean that only Islam has been hijacked? Perhaps I am wrong in this assumption, but perhaps a glance at the religious right in the US or the Hindu fanatics in India is worthwhile. I don't hear much about Christianity being hijacked because of abortion clinic bombers. Spengler, as I've suggested before, needs a long vacation - maybe at the South Pole - where he can sit with this iPod and listen to Ms Spears, 24/7, and soak up the rays unfiltered by ozone.
John Steppling
Lodz, Poland (Oct 12, '06)

We have had numerous articles on the influence of the US religious right on the neo-conservative movement and the Bush administration. - ATol

Regarding Talk to Pyongyang, not at it [Oct 11]: Americans love nothing like a psychotic communist dictator of a country where torture, execution, secret trials, nukes, fixed elections and spying on its own citizens are rituals - wait a minute, this sounds like - oh my God - Kim Jong-il, is that a mirror you are holding up?
Alexander E Treutler
Sleepy Hollow, New York (Oct 11, '06)

In reference to Talk to Pyongyang, not at it [Oct 11]: This is the first sensible article of many which have graced my computer screen concerning the North Korean nuclear test. The US media [are in their] normal frenzy with headlines of John Bolton-like tough talk which only adds to the problem rather than being objective about a resolution of the situation. Each morning when I want to reassure myself of my analysis of the world news, I turn to ATol for confirmation. Usually, with at least one or two articles, I am not disappointed. My second sounding board is my morning coffee shop, where about 10 or 12 retired acquaintances meet to tell lies and argue trivia and politics. Needless to say, living here in this "Red" [predominantly Republican] state, I am a minority of one most mornings. The rest of this group are now convinced we should "nuke" North Korea and Iran post haste. So much for the effectiveness of propaganda and a real lesson in the perils of too much power.
Ken Moreau
New Orleans, Louisiana (Oct 11, '06)

Ian Williams' commentary [Talk to Pyongyang, not at it, Oct 11], despite a whiff of whimsy and a note or two of frivolity, ends on a commonsensical note: offering a face-saving exit to North Korea in the current crisis. Former US ambassador to China James Lilly's tried and not absolutely true suggestion of sending an envoy to Pyongyang to soothe hurt feelings has some merit, on one hand, and on the other, misses the point, for Kim Jong-il has little interest in rejoining the six-power talks, but in engaging a dialogue with the United States. As long as [US President George W] Bush & Co remain frozen to current efforts to force Pyongyang back to the talks through black propaganda and cutting off the money tap, there remain few prospects for ending the stalemate as we know it today.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 11, '06)

Just when I thought I had nailed Chan [Akya]'s identity following the article Death of city-states [Oct 7], which appeared to confirm his government job in Singapore, comes his new article on [North] Korea's nuclear tests, Not a major planet [Oct 11]. I am writing to let you know that I have fully accepted the mystery of his identity now. Pondering any more on the subject is only likely to give me a splitting headache, to go with Chan's split personality. Leaving that to one side, his latest article makes two apparently contradictory points - first that the world is doomed, and second that US hegemony has ended. Surely, if the first were true, the second wouldn't matter?
Salt (Oct 11, '06)

Well ... NASA isn't spending all that money scouting out Mars just for the fun of it, you know. - ATol

In the article World War III - what, me worry? [Jul 25] Chan Akya provides a very simplistic analysis of Indian mindset vis-a-vis a West vs Islam confrontation. Even though such simplistic analysis was perhaps needed to keep the word count down, it has many flaws. For example, he says that India will sit on the sidelines in the West vs Islam confrontation solely because of its Muslim population. It's poppycock! How does he explain the several wars India has had with Pakistan - which he selectively ignores to mention? India may sit on the sidelines in such a confrontation, but it may do so only if it helps its own cause, and that cause is not just its Muslim population. Also, if the West - either on [its] own or through China by proxy - attacks Pakistan, there is a good chance that India will be drawn into it because Pakistan, in rage, will not leave its traditional enemy alone.
Sukumar Roy

I refer to the letter of Warron Conroy [Oct 10] and would like to tell him that the reason why President [George W] Bush is feeling jumpy and itchy since Pyongyang exploded the A-bomb is because the bully boy becomes very upset if someone else plays with the atomic device. He is probably having nightmares [in which North Korean leader] Kim Jong-il drops one [on] the White House while he is fast asleep with all escape routes shut behind him. The USA considers [it has the] right to drop atomic bombs on other peoples and nations to intimidate and bully them ...
Saqib Khan (Oct 11, '06)

The British once ruled the world, and they appear to have a "been there, done that" wisdom about it that is harder to find on the other side of the Atlantic. Just a few weeks before September 19 [coup d'etat in Thailand], a political observer of Southeast Asia at the University of Leeds penned these incredibly insightful and prophetic words. Referring to the [members of the] Thaksin administration, he wrote that they "tend to assume that their status is inherently legitimate, not understanding that such legitimacy must derive from active popular consent on the part of the citizens. In Bangkok, they are in office but not in power. In the south, they are officially in control but unable to function." He concludes that the government in Thailand lacks legitimacy. So we find that the same regime in Thailand was seen as a failed and illegitimate government on one side of the Atlantic and as the light of freedom and democracy on the other. Regime change in this case was a welcome relief in Thailand and well understood in Leeds, but grossly misinterpreted in Washington, DC.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Oct 11, '06)

Seems a bit of an "apples and oranges" comparison, and in fact the quote you cite appeared in Time magazine, a US publication. As you suggest, its writer, Dr Duncan McCargo, is no ordinary Brit pundit - he has broad expertise in Southeast Asian affairs, has studied the Thai language, has done doctoral research at one of Thailand's premier universities, etc etc. There are plenty of Americans with similar experience who have clearly understood and articulated the political situation in Thailand; cf ATol's own Southeast Asia editor, Shawn Crispin (see In Thailand, a return to 'sufficiency', Oct 5). - ATol

ATol being an important source of information and analyses for me, I would appreciate if the editor could clarify the following point. What exactly is the freedom of contributors who are published by ATol? More precisely, is there a policy at ATol that some terms and words must be used when mentioning some events or people or institutions? My question might be considered as too general in scope, so I will mention just one example. In his contribution of October 3 (Bush and Barney's path to Waterloo), Ehsan Ahrari mentions "the continued terrorist attacks" on the Iraqi security force. Is the use of the adjective "terrorist" an original choice of terms by Mr Ahrari, accepted at face value by ATol, or is it a correction by the editor that was more or less accepted by Mr Ahrari? ... What matters to me is to have a better understanding of the dynamics between contributors and the editor. In other words, though I believe myself to be open-minded regarding opinions, and genuinely interested in their variety inasmuch as they are expressed in a reasonable and intelligent manner, I am demanding on the matter of clarity of purpose. And because I do care about ATol, which despite some shortcomings does present an interesting variety of opinions and sources of information, I hope you will find time to answer me properly.
Dr Bittar Gabriel Jivasattha (Oct 11, '06)

Any "slant" to an Asia Times Online article is the writer's only, and is not "edited in" (or out) after the story is filed. If we feel that a writer has crossed the line from news analysis to opinion, we generally flag the article with a "Comment" tag. We do have some editorial policies that we expect our writers to follow, such as the normal precepts against libel, plagiarism or unsourced rumor-mongering, and we may on occasion edit such things out of a story if this does not change substantially the tone or content of what the writer was trying to say. If we judge a story unsalvageable through minor editing, we simply do not run it at all. - ATol

Re How North Korea bungled its nuclear timing [Oct 10]: Pyongyang has put a theatrical touch to its entrance as nation No 8 [excluding Israel] to the world's nuclear club. It always looks for the grand eclat when it wants to make a point. Donald Kirk is partly right in saying "Kim Jong-il deliberately timed" the underground testing of a nuclear device [to take place during] Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Beijing. Mr Kirk may, however, have lost sight of the fact that the date of the test falls on the eight anniversary of Mr Kim's ascension to full powers as the all-powerful leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. So Pyongyang has not bungled its timing. North Korea's beef is with the United States. It is extremely sensitive to hurt national feelings and, what is more, to any maneuver to challenge its sovereignty. This high sense of nationhood has to be kept in mind. President [George W] Bush has gone out of his way to mock and insult and conceive a muscular diplomacy towards North Korea, which Pyongyang finds unacceptable. Thus to reinforce its image of self, North Korea has raised the stakes to batter down Washington's refusal to deal directly with it. In consequence, the world is prisoner to a dialogue [of the deaf]; Pyongyang won't give in, and Washington won't take no for an answer to its proposals. The situation may appear hopeless, yet a glimmer of hope still exists. That is the reconvening of the Geneva Conference of 1954 which brought forth the armistice putting an end to the hot war which we know as the Korean War. Such a conference would deal on a two-power, four-power, and six-power level, with all outstanding problems lying fallow for a half-century as well as the nuclear issues and today's urgent issues affecting Washington and Pyongyang, China and Seoul, and the other regional players, Japan and Russia. Mr Bush proposed reconvening in Geneva in June, but immediately grew tired of the idea. It is still a worthy idea, and one which has good chance to succeed.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 10, '06)

Thanks to the article Pyongyang's 60-year obsession [Oct 10] by Bertil Lintner I now have a more overall view of what is happening in North Korea viz nuclear weapons. But Donald Kirk's How North Korea bungled its nuclear timing [Oct 10] I can read in any paper here in London, with some of the articles even more tinged with hysteria. It should be remembered that it was the [Americans] who dropped the nuclear bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and have never shown any remorse since that day in August 1945. Now the US and its cronies are devising plans that could bring starvation to the people of North Korea which might result in a tragedy worse than what happened to the people of those Japanese cities. In the case of Iraq, the US and Britain brought about sanctions on that country with the idea that if you kill enough of its children you will bring down the Iraqi government. Up to a million children under the age of five died. That didn't work, so they invaded. Try [to] understand the fears of the North Korean government. Have a little more respect for Kim Jong-il. His father Kim Il-wung was Korea. When he died there was genuine sorrow throughout the country. His son is revered. That we have to accept. Are there any similar political figures in the West? No, we are wary of all of them. In a more reasonable world some of them would be put on trial for war crimes.
Wilson John Haire
London, England (Oct 10, '06)

Would someone explain to me why the world is jumping up and down about North Korea's [nuclear] test? Okay, so they aren't "nice" there. But where was the "nice" world and all its noise when France, the United States and Great Britain were exploding their bombs in the Pacific ... causing cancer and death? The world was happy to allow those powers to displace thousands of people from their island homes so they could perfect their ... weapons of mass destruction. Did "the world" care? Was "the world community" more than merely amused that France committed an act of war against New Zealand by sending its agents to bomb the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor rather than allow a protest against its nuclear program to go ahead? We all want the North Koreans to come in out of the cold, but it has to be into an honest environment, and as far as I can see, all the world community holds out to the North Koreans is the branch of hypocrisy.
Warron Conroy (Oct 10, '06)

Let South Korea, Japan, Iran [and] others make WMD [weapons of mass destruction] for global nuclear balance. South Korea [and] Japan should [seize] the moment to free themselves from the defense-bondage of the unreliable American leaders ... Iraq's case should never be forgotten. If North Korea, [a poor] country, can face the USA, why should you remain [like] 18th-century slaves from Africa whose one foot American traders chopped off to perpetuate their bondage? Be free now or never.
Abdullah J Mohammad
Jehlum, Pakistan (Oct 10, '06)

I was intrigued by the article Iran, Beijing's key to the Middle East [Oct 7] by Dario Cristiani, all the more so because it leaves the reader wondering aloud if China (or Russia, for that matter) is invested enough in Iran to actually commit to its defense, were the US, Israel or both to attack Iran for the eventual twin purposes of regime change and seizure of energy assets.
R Davoodi
Tehran, Iran (Oct 10, '06)

Re Iran, Beijing's key to the Middle East [Oct 7]: Pointing to the recent and, with regard to scale, unprecedented decision on the part of the Chinese leadership to send a contingent as large as 1,000 soldiers to participate in the UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon] mission in south Lebanon as further evidence of China's increasing involvement in Southwest and Central Asia, Dario Cristiani provides us with, as far as I can judge, a reasoned and accurate analysis of the relations now developing between Beijing and Tehran. A further plus is the dispassionate and unbiased nature of his analysis, which distinctly distinguishes it from counterparts sometimes to be seen in the pages of journals like the New York Times and the Washington Post, which, even at their best, are vitiated by direct allusions to the alleged "moral superiority" of the foreign-policy maneuvers of US administrations. Given events these last few years in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is difficult to believe that journalists and/or editors really believe in these protestations of US innocence and goodwill, but they do seem to be necessary to establish credibility in the mainstream media, and besides, the human capacity for self-delusion when the latter ensures both prestige and income is not to be underestimated. It's good to see that Asia Times [Online] respects its readers sufficiently to republish (under another title) this PINR [Power and Interest News Report] article, despite its lack of the requisite self-serving spin which prevails in the mainstream media not merely in the United States but, still more indefensibly, here in Europe as well.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Oct 10, '06)

I would like to thank all of the Asia Times [Online] writers and staff around the globe for producing one of the world's most useful news coverages, without which, here in the UK watching mainstream TV news, we would be in an information desert.
C Hargreaves
UK (Oct 10, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: I have read your article ... about the situation in the Afghan-Pakistani region [Taliban put Pakistan on notice, Oct 7] and have one question: "President General Pervez Musharraf then went to Washington, where he announced that foreign forces in Afghanistan would be given the right of hot pursuit into the tribal areas." Does this mean that US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are given the green light to enter Pakistan's tribal areas in NWFP [North-West Frontier Province] and pursue Taliban and al-Qaeda militants?
Sanger Sunjer Nasrat
University of Technology
Sydney, Australia (Oct 10, '06)

This is actually the essence of the joint patrolling plan along the border areas. - Syed Saleem Shahzad

I would like to make a brief comment on [Taliban put Pakistan on notice, Oct 7] by Syed Saleem Shahzad. Taliban are capturing more land than they lost after the war and it is being acknowledged by a lot of military experts. [Afghan President] Hamid Karzai is in a state of limbo and walking a tightrope without knowing the balancing act and bound to fall with a hefty thud. His situation reminds me of the plight of a drowning man who will hold on to [anything] to save him [from] going down. Karzai will be soon [be] embarking on a tour of the Pasthun tribal areas along the borders with Pakistan wanting to hold a massive jirga on both sides of the border ... hoping that the elders will save his drowning ship in ending violence, the spread of extremism as he calls it and also to persuade President [General Pervez] Musharraf to stop supporting the Taliban, which he so blatantly accuses Pakistan of doing without any evidence. But his ship is already half-sunk and it would not be beyond him to abandon it before the mice find their holes. It is his last hope and attempt to save his neck from the gallows as the Afghans have seen nothing but horrific death and destruction of their country and realized too late that Karzai is a handy tool, a sycophant and a crony of the Bush administration who has brought nothing but violence and subjugation of their country ...
Saqib Khan
UK (Oct 10, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad's article Taliban put Pakistan on notice [Oct 7] is a well-written, insightful article whose meaning sends chills down one's spine. The only correction is that Pakistan is not "basking in Washington's charm" as much. Unfortunately even the much-cherished relationship between the US and [Pakistani President General Pervez] Musharraf has dimmed recently. Articles on Asia Times [Online] have pointed to Washington's disappointment with Mr Musharraf more than once. Now [with] this deadly warning from the rising power of the Taliban, Mr Musharraf is caught in a web that is slowly suffocating him. Even the Chinese with their strip-mining project in Balochistan will only increase the strain between the Balochs and Islamabad [see China digs Pakistan into a hole, Oct 5]. Unless Mr Musharraf can pull a magic trick out of his hat, his future certainly looks dim ...
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, Louisiana (Oct 10, '06)

Re The two faces of Iraq [Oct 7]: This interesting article, which follows the career of Iraqi cleric Muqtada el-Sadr, misses a fundamental point. Sadr, whose family was massacred by Saddam Hussein's regime, already wielded enormous influence in Baghdad and large tracts of the country. He would have been a natural ally for the US invasion and later occupation. But he was ignored by the occupation forces for a year because he did not meet a fundamental criterion for the role: he was not, and never would be, "our son of a bitch", in the mold of Latin American tyrants subservient to US commands. Then came worse: part of the fantasy deployed in invading Iraq was that this would transform the country to a "shining beacon of democracy and an example to other Arab countries ... that would make peace with Israel" (emphasis mine). I think even with massive bribes it is unlikely to find an Iraqi [who] will subscribe to this stupidity, and it has long been swept under the rug along with "they will greet us with flowers". In April 2004, Sadr delivered a fiery speech before an enormous Baghdad crowd, attacking the US occupation and Israel. At the time the second intifada was winding down in the West Bank and Gaza. The very next day a long-forgotten warrant for his arrest was aired, and from ignored slum agitator he was suddenly on the "most wanted" list - because he popped the bubble of one stupid fantasy and because he was not going to be the servant of a foreign occupying force, and he brought to world attention what US media routinely conceal: the role of Israel behind the Iraq war. As I mentioned in an earlier letter that you were good enough to host (Sep 10), he is one of the "niggers" with guns.
Kali Kadzaraki
USA (Oct 10, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: Thank you for informing us about the situation in Afghanistan on the basis of the interview published on Asia Times Online [Taliban lay plans for Islamic intifada, Oct 6].
Hussein
Boksburg, South Africa (Oct 10, '06)

Spengler again goes off on a faux intellectual rant about Islam - disguised as a discussion of theology [Not what it was, but what it does, Oct 3]. Let's be simple, since it's pointless to argue with this ... reactionary, and say that his racism and bigotry are now so open and appalling that one does shudder in wonder that anyone publishes this crap. For the record, Spengler's depiction of Islamic thought and belief is wrong, and jihad is not a basic tenet of Muslim religious practice. Beyond that, Allah cannot be conceived as irrational if one supposes the Judeo-Christian god as rational. There is no logic in this, only Spengler's usual laundry list of ersatz research. Anyone with even a decent high-school education can spot his errors regards Socrates and Greek thinking, not to mention his apologetics for the Panzer Pope ... A footnote here: as another red flag, listing Irving Kristol as a keen mind is a bit like listing Britney Spears as a keen song stylist. Perhaps one should simply let Spengler hang himself with such nonsense, except for the fact that Muslim-bashing is in such full swing just now that one feels one's stomach churn at the scapegoating, and feels some response needs be expressed. So here it is ...
John Steppling
Lodz, Poland (Oct 10, '06)

You are one of our most faithful critics of Spengler, and you are usually entertaining and thought-provoking, but you've gone too far this time: dissing Britney Spears! - ATol

To those letter writers attacking Spengler's Not what it was, but what it does [Oct 3] by denying the ruling Koranic exhortations to jihad, ie, to slaughter infidels for Allah's sake, note Sura 9:5 (the notorious "Verse of the Sword", which all mainstream Islamic scholars agree "abrogates" all peaceful, and chronologically inferior, Koranic suras): "And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush: but if they shall convert, and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for God is gracious, merciful." My questions: What part of the word "kill" do you Islamic apologists not understand? Maybe scary-looking swords on some Arab countries' flags are really just caricatures of Arabic cutlery? What about the Iraqi Shi'ites and Sunnis sadistically and relentlessly torturing, murdering and maiming en masse noncombatants in Allah's name - including deliberately targeting little children and worshippers in mosques - are they ipso facto morally superior to American Crusaders and Israeli Zionists because at least they're Muslims, not kaffirs?
Richard Greene
USA (Oct 10, '06)

Why are rants by your authors against Islam permitted? Why does ATol prohibit anti-Semitism (as it should), anti-Christianism (as is should), anti-Buddhism (as it should), anti-Hindusims (as it should) but allow many of its authors to denigrate Islam? You should either allow all religions to be criticized, or none. Islam should not be the only exception to the rule. Why is the Islamophobia of Spengler, [Chan] Akya and others acceptable? I am not talking about condemning violence or criticizing Muslims who have done wrong. That is perfectly acceptable. Why is that only the religion of Islam is allowed to be criticized in your columns? When will the open hunting season on Islam end? ATol is a political magazine; why does it allow Islamophobic discussions on its columns?
Moin Ansari (Oct 10, '06)

Asia Times Online does not permit criticism of any religion as a personal faith. But when religion is hijacked for political ends, open season is declared on the politicized "religion", whether the hijackers be Muslim or Christian fundamentalists. - ATol

The single most abused, misunderstood, taken-out-of-context quote from the Koran is the one that Saqib Khan (letter, Oct 2) himself abuses: "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256). Many well-meaning, and some deceitful, folks offer this as proof of Islam's respect for religious freedom. This myth is finally being exposed as the West slowly awakens to the reality of Islam. To this day, most Islamic scholars interpret the quote narrowly to mean "no forcible conversion is allowed". True religious freedom covers an infinitely vaster realm than merely the freedom from forcible conversion. The next time a Muslim is charged with apostasy under the current sharia laws in Pakistan, or a Muslim woman in Saudi Arabia wishes to marry a non-Muslim, or a Coptic Christian community in Egypt wishes to build a new church, ask them all about their so-called "religious freedom" under "tolerant Islam". And I dare you to tell them that since Christian crusader-terrorists and Mongol invaders were not paragons of tolerance hundreds of years ago, that somehow justifies present-day Islamic restrictions of their religious freedom.
Jahiliyya (Oct 10, '06)

ATol suggests the possibility of "regaining" the original meaning of "service provider" if tipping were abolished and employers paid a decent wage (ATol response [under Enzo Titolo's letter of Oct 5]). Great idea. But it will never happen. Anything that exists between a greater power and a lesser power base, employer and employee, long enough to become a ceremony of sorts is a hard one to abolish. Call it ritualistic determinism, and how do you break the reverence achieved in that ceremony? What comes to mind here is the ritual of tipping/bribing done on a grander scale, not by the lowly service providers in the tourist industry. Nations do it and activate wars and world conflicts, documented and undocumented; devious, nefarious exploitation based on the bribe, the tip. Think US. Think Pakistan. Think Iran. Think of all the power grabbers, superpowers and smaller nations; service providers on a global scale who bribe or tip to achieve their goals. How do we reduce all that traffic in bribing and tipping? Think too of the fine piece of writing done by Pepe Escobar (The other September 11 [Sep 12]), which received little response in the Letters section. And it may be hard to to define between "service providers" and "employees" in Pepe's timely expose and reminder of things past. From [Henry] Kissinger to [Augusto] Pinochet - who bribes, who tips is almost irrelevant to the greater atrocities done then and ritualistically now in the Mideast.
Beryl
Minnesota, USA (Oct 10, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: I was fascinated by your article Taliban lay plans for Islamic intifada [Oct 6] ... You report that "there has been agreement between a number of top warlords in northern Afghanistan and the Taliban to make the intifada a success next year". How reliable is this information? Did it come from Haq Yar only, or was it confirmed by other sources? And do you have any sense of what the "agreement" entails?
Roland Paris
Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs
University of Ottawa, Ontario (Oct 6, '06)

This information has been coming out for quite some time, and recently I got a chance to get Haq Yar's version. In addition, this sort of alliance is the typical Afghan way of fighting any war. - Syed Saleem Shahzad

Syed Saleem Shahzad: Thank you for all your dispatches to Asia Times [Online]. They are an enlightening look inside the Taliban and, as such, are terribly important for us "out here" who have such a difficult time separating the wheat from the chaff of the news out of Afghanistan [see Taliban lay plans for Islamic intifada, Oct 6]. Saleem Shahzad, there is one very, very urgent matter which I (we) would like to see you address. That is, the real current position of the Taliban about women. The status of women under the Taliban (and in Islam in general) is a very touchy subject in most of the non-Islamic world. Could you please do an article on the "New Taliban" and perhaps their "New Policy" toward women? A "softer" approach to women would be very well received. I personally cannot believe most of the reports about women under the Taliban that I have read over the past eight years. Also, if you have any influence at all, try to make your comrades in Afghanistan a little more sympathetic to women in general, and to raise the level of information on the situation of women in the "coming administration" of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Please, please - a softer and gentler approach would go a long way in reaching more and more people in the West who are sympathetic to the anti-imperialist fighters - but who turn off on the issue of the Taliban and their (past) treatment of women. Please, please - build special schools for them - let them sing, and let them dance. That would mean a lot to many, many liberal people in the world.
Loren Clarke
Beijing, China (Oct 6, '06)

If you take an educated approach about the Taliban you will find that among them there was neither any serious Muslim jurist nor qualified scholar. They were just rustic lads from Pashtun areas who were little groomed in basic Islamic schools. To me their Islam is more Pashtun wali (centuries-old Pashtun tribal codes) than a result of any research into Islamic traditions. I think they would remain the same. - Syed Saleem Shahzad

Kim Myong Chol writes in a style which is sui [generis] North Korean. Many [may] smirk or guffaw at [this] wooden, stilted style. Yet caution should be our guide in distilling the content of his Kim's message: War is coming to US soil [Oct 6]. Almost five years ago, Dr Kim was the guest of the Korea Society. At a dinner in New York's Koreatown, he exposed many of the arguments that he puts forth in his article. Nuclear weaponry was, however, absent from his remarks, but not Pyongyang's advances in rocketry. He further put out an appeal for dialogue which remains unanswered by Washington. His words vary little from those that Presidents Hugo Chavez and Mahmud Ahmadinejad spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in September. [North Korea's] stone-cold thrust is addressed to the United States, and ... it is the red thread of Pyongyang's knocking at President [George W] Bush's door in order to lance the boil of discord between North Korea and the United States. If the American president persists in his hard-nosed policy towards North Korea ... Pyongyang will help gather a whirlwind of non-nuclear states, encouraging them to arm themselves, to checkmate Washington, through a united front of endeavor and nuclear armaments, to oppose the sole superpower which is the United States.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 6, '06)

Kim Myong Chol's article Kim's message: War is coming to the US [Oct 6] is at best superficial. He gives five reasons for this [premise]. The first speaks of Kim Jong-il as "the greatest peerless national hero" [who] will unite North and South Korea "under the umbrella of a confederated state" ... The article does not mention [whether] force will be used to achieve this objective. Will South Korea willingly join with the North? In the second message, [Dr Kim] states, "Unlike all the previous wars Korea fought ... the main theater will be the continental US." I [differ from Dr Kim] on this issue. The US has had plenty of practice in reducing cities into "towering infernos" such as Dresden, Berlin, Nagasaki and Hiroshima to name a few, while poverty-ridden North Korea has not reduced any ... city except its own, through gross mismanagement. The third message can equally be done by the US coalition and it would be at the very doorstep of China. Would China really entertain a nuclear war across its border? The fourth message is only based on North Korea's capabilities, not actual field action, and cannot be substantiated. The final message of US troop withdrawal in South Korea is contradicted by the strong US presence in the region. Even if [Dr Kim]'s "wish list" were to come true and US cities [were] reduced to flaming infernos, so [would] US economic power be knocked out. The US is the biggest consumer of Chinese goods and plays a large role in many of the economies of that region. How will China feel when its biggest consumer is no longer buying its products? Will China, Japan or Taiwan see their pockets empty as the US coalition is destroyed by this so-called "peerless national North Korean hero"?
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, Louisiana (Oct 6, '06)

Jim Lobe's Washington's Sunni outlook (Oct 6) is a fruitful explanation of the most important Arab problem of the last 58 years, which is Palestine. Still, Mr Lobe's analysis has overlooked other important issues for all Arabs. The first one is that the United States of America under the last three administrations has killed ... more Arabs than I can find in the history of the Arab people. This massacre will not be forgotten because the secretary of state has been visiting some Arab countries. The Bush administration's practices have substantiated the fact that both the US and Israel aim at the elimination of the Arab people. These goals, which will not be accomplished, will make it extremely difficult for the United States to convince friendly Arab governments of other rosy intentions. Second, these Arab governments such as Jordan and Egypt have no legitimacy anyway. They rule their own people by [sword] and stick, and yet the US supports these regimes for being friendly. What has made the condition worse is the deceptive goal that the US has been trying to establish democracy in the Middle East in order to create a new region. The basic problem with the Bush administration is the consideration of the Middle East as a new market for an American product, where make-believe advertising can be effective to create loyalty in that market. This advertising mission does not work in that region. In fact, what has worked is the campaign [whereby] American monopoly capitalism has been trying to purge the Arabs. This is because when people compare the stated ideal goals against the objective facts, they can easily find the inconsistency between the two. Logically, they tend to believe what they see on the ground, not what they hear from President George W Bush or his secretary of state. Third, Palestine has become one important problem for the Arabs. The second problem, created by the Bush administration, is the brutal imperialist occupation of Iraq. Bringing the Palestinian problem again for a possible solution does not help the United States change its image as a colonial occupying power. If some people think this is not the case, they are ignorant of the Arab culture. Many Arabs think that all those Arab countries have been occupied except Palestine and Iraq: people who are being killed because they are not submitting to the will and power of American monopoly capitalism. Now we can add Afghanistan, which makes the US position harder and more troubling in the region, because the problem that has materialized is not US against Arabs but US against Islam. Stated differently, it has become extremely difficult even for the US-friendly Arab regimes to counter the proposition that US is not against Islam ... Simply, the Arab standard, which has been overlooked by the Bush administration, is that Iran has not occupied Arab countries, nor has it killed Arabs; the US has. (Parenthetically, this reason also explains the phenomenon why the US will not be able to outsource its conflict with Iran to the Arabs. Simply, there is no alternative to Saddam Hussein [who] can be found to attack Iran.) Thus the US alternatives, which will be ignored by the Bush administration, are very clear: stop the mass killing of innocent Arab people and end the occupation of Iraq and Palestine. This course of action is the only effective way for destroying terrorism and establishing a new historical period in the Middle East.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Oct 6, '06)

Re Washington's Sunni outlook [Oct 6]: Another interesting article by Jim Lobe. However, I disagree with him about Washington's chances of forging a coalition of autocratic Arab (but I repeat myself) states to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel against Iran. Sunni Arab governments seem to have a possibly cultural proclivity for screwing even one another. Consider how readily they acceded to the bombardment and invasion of Iraq - and by a Western infidel army ... Can there be any doubt that they were consulted, and assented as well, [on] the recent massacre of Arab civilians in Lebanon? Can anybody really believe that a passel of fat sheikhs in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states might, busy as they are minding their harems of East European whores, actually give a damn about the plight of the Palestinians? If they truly cared, that particular injustice would have long been over.
Jose R Pardinas, PhD
San Diego, California (Oct 6, '06)

Re Chinese travelers' uncivil liberties [Oct 5]: Regarding Candy Zeng's article on this matter, it's great to hear that the Chinese government is doing something about it. As a tourist, I visited Yunnan twice in the last three years. I found that Chinese had no manners. In banking transactions, customers would just jump ahead of me even when I was first in line. Likewise at bus stations, restaurants, and other places. I was greatly disappointed when the staff at these respective places did nothing. I also found Chinese passengers were being rude during the flight. Air stewards asked them to sit and buckle up, but they still acted like children.
Jerry Lee
Sacramento, California (Oct 6, '06)

I keep reading articles by this "Spengler" on your website. What is wrong with you people? How can you allow this guy who pretends to be some great intellectual to write such unsubstantiated and ignorant crap? Maybe you can ask him to provide any citations from the Koran to support the following spiel of his [in Not what it was, but what it does, Oct 3]: "Muslims through the ages have mocked the Judeo-Christian idea that the Creator of the Universe has a special love for the weak, the oppressed, the crippled, powerless: Allah rewards those who do great deeds in his name. He may have mercy on the miserable, but his favorites are those who fight in his name. You will find all of this in [Franz] Rosenzweig. In this respect the Muslims are quite right: the Christian idea in a fundamental respect is not a reasonable one at all. In fact, the Muslim concept of Allah is very close to the Greek notion of divinity. The Greeks loved the beautiful and the strong, and despised the weak and ugly." How dare he say that the god of the Koran despises the weak, when the entire spirit of the Koran is devoted to making man aware of his weakness and to make man submit to his will in perfect humility? Humility is stressed above all as the crucial characteristic of good Muslims. And helping the poor and needy is a one of the basic tenets of Islam in the form of obligatory poor-rate (zakat) which is an annual 2.5% that all Muslims are required to pay in charity from their annual income. It is about time that you people start acting responsibly and call this pseudo-intellectual to account for his stupid remarks.
Mohsin Ehsan (Oct 6, '06)

The letter by Richard Green of October 5 and his ignorant attempt to sully Islam and mingle political ambitions of rulers and kings of the past and present with Islamic theology as well as blame it for the bad deeds of few Muslims brought a foul taste to my mouth. I wish to say to him is that terrorism is not compatible with orthodox Muslim theology, which cautions soldiers to fight their enemies face to face without harming non-combatants, women or children and also forbids them to destroy their homes, farms, orchards or livestock. And if they willingly surrender, [they are to be escorted] to a place of safety ... This is unlike the Israelis and the Americans who deliberately and systematically bomb to kill any walking Muslim [and] his entire family and destroy the building he lives in and [is] presumed a threat to their imperial designs and imperialistic policies. These ghazis, freedom fighters or terrorists are modern-day, Westernized, highly sophisticated technocrats who relish every challenge (jihad) to outwit their oppressors the USA, Britain and the Zionist State of Israel or their cronies. Jihad is considered a holy war when Islamic precepts and Muslim society are in danger or when there is oppression and injustice as found in Palestine and Iraq. Principally, it is launched in self-defense, to demoralize and defeat the oppressor and also expose the oppressor's evil and malicious designs. Jihad stands for self-sacrifice and to confront and defy the oppressor against all odds ... A jihad can be proclaimed only by a properly constituted state: anything else is vigilantism. In essence, "jihad" means "struggle" or "strive", against evil, injustice, corruption, illiteracy, inequality, racism, crime, immorality etc, but the struggle must be peaceful and never violent, and militancy is totally forbidden. The greater jihad as preached by the Prophet Mohammed is first inward-seeking: it involves the effort of each Muslim to become a better human being, to struggle to improve him or herself so that jihad can benefit their communities. Jihad is also a test of each Muslim's obedience to God and willingness to implant his commands on the Earth ...
Saqib Khan
UK (Oct 6, '06)

With regard to Chinese travelers' uncivil liberties [Oct 5] by Candy Zeng, it is encouraging that the Chinese government is trying to do something about the boorish behavior of some of the country's tourists. As a foreigner living in China, it pains me to see people from my adopted second country behaving boorishly, both in China and abroad. I might add two points to this informative article. The first would be that while some Chinese travelers (like my girlfriend) take great pains to brush up on local customs and manners before embarking on an international excursion, the availability of low-cost tour package trips allows some of the less well-mannered Chinese (read: "new money" peasants) to travel abroad. My experience has been that it is these tour groups that are causing some of the problems which have the Chinese government concerned, and this applies to domestic Chinese tourism as well. These tour groups are easily identifiable by their identically colored shirts or hats. The second point I would make is regarding the fact that many Chinese are surprised and shocked that people in other countries feel they are rude, since the Chinese pride themselves on you li mao, having good manners. These Chinese are confusing manners, which many Chinese lack (eg not queuing up, pushing, spitting, screaming into mobile phones, littering, pointing, smoking anywhere and everywhere) with hospitality (eg being good hosts, offering more food than can possibly be eaten to guests, giving the most delicious pieces of food to the guests, sleeping on the floor while giving the guest the only bed in the home, escorting guests to the restroom, elevator, across the street, or to their destination). It is in the area of hospitality, not manners, that the Chinese excel. The Chinese definitely don't need any lessons or public-service campaigns on the finer points of hospitality. If they can become as excellent guests as they are hosts, the Chinese tourists and their increasingly well-padded wallets will be warmly welcomed any time, anywhere.
Ta Mu
China (Oct 5, '06)

I am writing to congratulate Candy Zeng on her excellent article Chinese travelers' uncivil liberties [Oct 5]. It has long distressed me how mainland Chinese, heirs to a civilization where proper behavior and protocol were once seen as essential elements of the ideal person, have degenerated so much in their manners. Far too many middle-aged mainlanders, when either asking or being asked for directions, exhibit absolutely no sense of courtesy. This is often true even in China's largest and most cosmopolitan city. Spitting in public, usually preluded by loud gurgling of mucus, is another atrocious yet common habit, and is especially disgusting when directed to the sides of the swimming pool. Yet there is reason for optimism. Young people in China (at least in Shanghai), for all the criticism leveled at their materialism, can be very well-mannered, sometimes more so than their peers in North America. The problem is certainly related to the conduct of Chinese travel companies, [which] are infamous for gouging their customers with endless stops at undesired souvenir shops. We would all [be] better off if the vices of old China that have re-emerged with such speed were accompanied by more of the virtues. On a final point, while I can certainly sympathize with the French hotel staff who don't want to put up with messy Chinese tourists, it should be pointed out that France's stellar reputation as a tourist destination could be improved even further if the French, while walking their dogs, would get into the habit of picking up after them.
Jonathan X (Oct 5, '06)

Regarding the article Chinese travelers' uncivil liberties [Oct 5], as an American tour guide I would like to remind Asian visitors to the United States that tipping at least 15% of the bill is normal for adequate service, since service employers assume gratuities into working-class service wages. If you demand or require extra service, then your service providers expect 20-33%. Either stay with the group and act like everyone else does, or pay more. Otherwise, service providers are going to expect the worst customers and the worst tips after serving foreign Asian visitors, which is going to lead to some unhappy voyagers. The US disposes of service workers quite easily, so workers' interests are not aligned with the boss and the owners. It is up to the customers' tips to make the workers motivated for them as their temporary bosses. Indian travelers, who are most often the most service-intensive tourists due to lateness, neediness, personal space issues, belching in your face, and wanting personalized and customized services at the exception of the group's welfare, among other issues, are often the worst tippers, when they should be the best tippers considering the amount of attention and challenges they cause to tourist groups and their guides. The result [is] that leaders of tours are avoiding these tourists, leaving them behind when they tarry, or are now ignoring their constant streams of specialized requests for extra services and exceptions to the rules. See, for example, the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory movies [on] what happens to naughty travelers, even rich or colorful ones. I've long pondered why Asians tend not to tip much. [As] in Europe, tipping might not be part of the [Asian] economy, but tour guides often explain this to foreign customers who often "get it" and give it up, especially after seeing that their guide has been offering exceptional service. My hypothesis about Asian visitors is that bribery (tipping) in Asia occurs before the transactions. Bribing (what we in the US call tipping) after the transaction occurs means that the customer would be a fool. Those visitors who look at it that way may get away with it once, but unfortunately for their subsequent visits and compatriots, service providers will see them coming and know that these folks are likely to be the latest to return to the bus and might just take off without them since they paid the company already, and the tour guide has nothing to lose but a difficult customer who is likely to hurt the experience for the rest of the tipping and pleasant tourists. French, Italians, and backpackers have long been known to be stingy tippers. But they are all more prompt and easier to deal with than Indian families tend to be. If Indians don't tend to be more prompt or much better tippers (25% for the extraordinary services they routinely demand), then they are likely to find themselves stranded, lost and avoided more often.
Enzo Titolo
New York, New York (Oct 5, '06)

Perhaps if profit-obsessed Western tourism-industry employers paid their employees decently in the first place and then transferred those costs to the customers up front, and adopted (and explained clearly to their customers and employees) a no-tipping policy, the myriad different tipping habits of the myriad different cultures from which their Asian guests come could be dealt with more efficiently, and the word "service" in the term "service provider" could regain its original meaning. - ATol

China digs Pakistan into a hole [Oct 5] is an understatement. Islamabad has now given the Balochi rebels the very psychological weapons by which they could use to support their cause. The main part of the Balochi people's grievance with Islamabad was that they were not getting their due share of profits from the natural resources of the region. At that time the area of irritation was gas. Now after reading this article the cause of the Balochis has just got a shot in the arm. Reading this article one may conclude that China does not give a hoot about Pakistan's internal problem and is only looking out for its own. The unfortunate part is that Islamabad seems to share a part of this belief, as the profits from that mine are going to Islamabad, and the article did not point out whether the Balochi economy is really getting anything substantial from this project.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, Louisiana (Oct 5, '06)

[Ehsan] Ahrari's commentary [Rice off to exploit the Arab-Iran divide, Oct 5] reflects his doubts about the outcome of [US Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice's exploitative efforts, and one must agree in general with his not so optimistic views. This is another instance in the paradigm of the answer given by a young Arab boy when questioned in a classroom as to the what is the total of the addition of 2+2. And his response was to the effect of "it depends on whether one is buying or selling". The acceptance by most that Israel's long-term objective is to continually delay (with possible assistance by the US) any peaceful resolutions that will not in effect end with a one-state solution and the expulsion of all non-Jews is an insurmountable scenario. So the chances of promoting Iran as the bogeyman to the Arabs is not a card to be played. It seems that the one state that may have bought into this thinking is Saudi Arabia. And that's where Ms Rice is getting her support. It seems that Saudi Arabia is more able to influence the re-election of [US] Republicans by lowering the price of a barrel of oil 10 weeks before election day than it is to influence other Arab states. In either case, it's either "the cat is out of the bag" time or the other jingle about "Humpty Dumpty and all the king's men". As Mr Ahrari seems to conclude.
Armand DeLaurell (Oct 5, '06)

Re 'War on terror' returning to its cradle [Oct 5] by Jim Lobe: [The United States of] America should well understand that the epicenter of terrorism and religious extremism is Pakistan itself and its rulers, who claim to be a [big] supporter of the US war against terror. It is nothing but hogwash of [Pakistani President General] Pervez Musharraf. He is a very clever man, who is indulging in double dealing. This man is not trustworthy at all. The Taliban are the creation of Pakistan. Pakistan was one of the countries that supported the Taliban regime. The border provinces of Pakistan nurture terrorists and have offered a safe haven [for] running their activities. Peace in Afghanistan and in the world is not possible until the US forces Pakistan to act against such elements honestly.
Cherag M Kelawala
Ahmedabad, India (Oct 5, '06)

In his article North Korea calls the shots [Oct 5], Donald Kirk repeats the oft-said statement [that] "China's influence with Pyongyang" is "highly limited". This simply is not true. China's aid is an essential lifeline that North Korea would find hard to live without. [The Chinese have] the influence but they don't want to use it for many reasons. They do not want the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] to collapse. Also North Korea is a very useful distraction for China, as [it goes] about trying to become the sole superpower of the 21st century. The US will do nothing to force China to disarm North Korea such as threatening China's [US]$120 billion ... trade surplus with the US, because we [Americans] need the money they [lend] to finance US debt. This will not come to an end until our parasitic death spiral with China impacts the ground at 500mph. Those who believe in a soft landing also believe in Santa Claus. I believe North Korea is bluffing, and the odds of [it] testing before the end of the year [to be] 70%-30% against a test. Anyone with half a brain can see that South Korea's Sunshine Policy is a joke and has gotten [South Koreans] nothing for all the billions that they have given the North. With the rising tide of anti-Americanism in South Korea, it may be time for the US to consider removing [its] forces from South Korea. South Korea is likely to have an outflow of $17 billion of investment this year; if the US pulls out of South Korea, investors will get a lot more frightened and pull a whole lot more money out. South Korea should think about that when they think about their relationship with North Korea. The leftist elite wants the US to engage North Korea in direct talks. Does anyone think, why does North Korea want direct talks and not the six-party process? It is because North Korea has no problem lying to the USA but it does not want to make agreements in the six-party talks and break them, and then pay a price with China, which would lose face in the event of North Korean lies. Frankly, I hope North Korea does test, because it will help bring about the day when the world is rid of the DPRK for good, and the suffering of the North Korean people comes to an end.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Oct 5, '06)

Ralph Cossa thinks in terms of regime change in North Korea [Pyongyang's bluster and bluff, Oct 5]. He is not alone. He offers bromides in his analysis of the current crisis on the divided Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang has announced its intentions of conducting a nuclear-weapons test, at an unspecified date. Mr Cossa hopes that Kim Jong-il's government is bluffing. It very well may be, and then it may not. It is an open secret that North Korea has nuclear capabilities and, in a loose sense, is already a nuclear power. Pyongyang takes very seriously President [George W] Bush's hard-nosed policy towards North Korea, and it certainly gives much credence to his stated desire to see regime change there. It takes no stretch of the imagination [to see] that the American president's bellicose words have given Pyongyang much wool of worry to thread. North Korea has but to look at the steps that Washington has taken to topple the duly elected Hamas government. Stringent economic sanctions have caused catastrophic disruption in the daily life of Palestinians in Gaza, which is resulting in fratricidal killings and thus putting another nail in the coffin of the fledging Palestinian authority. Pyongyang of course has little to fear from an internal uprising, but it is beset by a crumbling infrastructure and sees the Bush administration's moves to turn off the financial taps as a challenge to its authority as a sovereign state, and a means to destroying North Korea as we know it. Mr Kim has resorted to the use of the weapons of the "weak" in trying to mate Washington's move and, as strange as it may seem to America's military and diplomats, it is trying to foster an opportunity to talk to Washington. As recent events show, President Bush [is] tone-deaf and blind to any initiative coming out of Pyongyang, and Pyongyang has raised the stakes in the hope that he will finally listen to it. He hasn't and probably won't. And so Washington has set a course to destabilize the Korean Peninsula while calling for the reconvening of the six-power talks with equally harsh demands. Pyongyang may keep to its threat by detonating a nuclear device. What will Washington's response [be] short of a war which it is not prepared to fight unless it responds by launching thermonuclear weapons, something North Korea's neighbors will not abide, tied as they are to Washington's apron strings? Nonetheless the voices in the United States for a change in the Bush policy towards North Korea remain supine. And in this sense, Mr Cossa has much to worry about.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 5, '06)

Jakob Cambria [letter, Oct 4] took pleasure in reading Beijing holds whip hand over slowing US (Oct 4). I am a little amused by his remarks. I wish someone [could] name a country on this planet which does not want "its interests [to] come first". As China develops, it needs energy badly. Someone ought to give advice to Beijing on which countries to turn to [that] are willing to sell and whose oil [and] gas are not already "marked" for sale to particular client states. The term "neo-colonial expansion" is a clever one for insinuation, while real expansion requires invasion and occupation. The huge foreign reserves held by Beijing also need a financial adviser. Perhaps someone can help so that the investor and the other business-dealing countries may all benefit evenly.
S P Li (Oct 5, '06)

A number of comments in the Letters section on Spengler's latest essay [Not what it was, but what it does, Oct 3] posit something to the effect that Islam spread from Europe to the East Indies pacifically as a benevolent teaching chatted up by a bunch of spiritual nice guys. Nothing can be further from the truth, as Andrew Bostum painstakingly proves - no pun intended - using original sources (mostly Islamic) in his groundbreaking recent work The Legacy of Jihad. The desert Arabs who spread Islam were far and away the greatest colonizers and imperialists of all time, imposing via jihad - one of the Hadiths famously says "Paradise lies under the shade of swords" - their language, culture and 24/7 life-primer on scores of far-flung peoples and civilizations. The 900-year Arabo-Muslim genocide against the Hindus is particularly noteworthy. According to the highly respected historian Will Durant (1885-1981), The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage, at page 459: "The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within." Spengler is correct that understanding the centrality of the sacrament of jihad to the average Muslim's mindset is the key to understanding the unbridgeable theological chasm between Judaism and Christianity on the one hand and normative Islam on the other. Spengler's "meta-analysis" is inexorably accurate and most insightful. In classic Jewish/Christian usage, a martyr dies at the hands of non-believers for his beliefs; in Muslim usage, a martyr (shaheed) dies while fighting, marauding and killing to impose his beliefs on the infidels ... In the final analysis, jihad - in the sense of holy warfare - is and always was the great engine of Islam, its be-all and end-all, pure and simple.
Richard Greene
USA (Oct 5, '06)

"On the other hand, Islam was a sigh of relief for the vanquished and they considered it a change for better, protection of their civil rights, freedom to worship their religions as they wished without any compulsion." - Saqib Khan, UK ([letter] Oct 4). Isn't it about time Islamists stop quoting scriptures and ancient history eulogizing the "tolerant" nature of Islam? In today's world, Islamic majorities from obscurantist regimes like Saudi Arabia to supposedly modernized Malaysia have a consistent record of abusing their respective minorities, drawing arguments from medieval Europe. Somebody please remind Mr Saqib [Khan] and his ilk what century this is and he may come clean [on the] behavior of Islamic states.
Vinny
Mumbai, India (Oct 5, '06)

Regarding Iran: Khomeini's 'killer poison' returns [Oct 4] by Kaveh L Afrasiabi: You need to consider the circumstances that were prevalent (in 1988) when this letter [by the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] was written. Iran had endured a terrible eight-year war imposed upon it by an invading Iraqi army. An alliance of sorts was formed against Iran, which included the nations of Iraq, the USA, the USSR, France, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iran had suffered a million casualties. In 1988, the United States Navy had just demolished the Iranian merchant convoy escort fleet, rendering [its] tanker fleet defenseless. The French had finally succeeded in shooting down two Iranian F-14A Tomcat fighter planes using prototypes of their new Majic missile systems. The USSR had succeeded in assisting Saddam [Hussein]'s forces, forcing a costly withdrawal of Iranian forces from the Faw Peninsula and Majnoon Island. Iran's economy (like Iraq's) was in complete tatters. Certainly it was the responsible act of an Iranian military commander to consider all possibilities. I believe that the mentioning of atomic bombs was actually a verbal demonstration of how (at the time) Iranian war aims were found totally out of reach, and their mentioning was not a serious suggestion of intent to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. It should be pointed out that given the situation in 2006, it is not entirely outrageous to suggest that Iraq may actually become an Islamic republic (especially if the US and Britain suddenly withdraw). With Saddam removed from power, this would represent a full realization of Khomeini's old war aim during the Iran-Iraq [War] of the 1980s.
Mark Merat
San Francisco, California (Oct 4, '06)

Finally a rather comprehensive article, India pushes alternative fuels [Oct 4]. The article focuses on on the jatropha plant and wind energy. I consider that an excellent start, since India also has vast potential in solar energy, bio-gas from waste materials, and of course ethanol production from beets and sugarcane. But Siddharth Srivastava has made the point that India is taking the issue of alternative energy seriously enough for coverage.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, Louisiana (Oct 4, '06)

It is all the more a pleasure reading Jephraim Gundik's observations on China, and the way that it plays diplomatic poker with the United States [Beijing holds whip hand over slowing US, Oct 4]. It has more than one ace up its sleeve. Beijing is playing a bold game with Washington. Its interests come first. Look at its energy policy; it courts Iran and Venezuela, two countries that thumb their noses at President [George W] Bush & Co. It sidles up to Syria to turn the knife in Washington's wound and, of course, it will go against the high winds and turbulent tides of America's discontent, by protecting North Korea. Bush pere [former US president George H W Bush] has a long relationship with China, beginning with his stint as head of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], then as ambassador to the heirs of the Forbidden City. These ... waxed strong during his one-term presidency. Bush fils has continued his father's legacy, but the stakes are higher, the more especially since China has become the workshop of America's industry and consumer-driven economy, and a favorite dumping ground of jobs and billions [of US dollars] in capital for investment and for high profits. And, ironically, the huge foreign reserves that China has subsequently built up with the United States come back in sizable holdings in America's ballooning debt, and the snapping up of American companies at bargain-basement prices. President Bush has proved soft on China, and has relied on Beijing to do its work in Northeast Asia as his surrogate. He has sent his emissaries there but they have come back with a bagful of empty and meaningless promises, as China pursues its own strategic and tactical interests internally and externally. Washington should take note, if it hasn't yet, of China's neo-colonial expansion, for example, in Africa, It has put its veto on a candidate for the presidency of Zambia, a country rich in copper which Beijing covets. Yet Mr Bush, like other American presidents before him, when it comes to China proves time and time again that Winston Churchill was right: Americans are rank sentimentalists on the question of China ... This observation simply highlights the self-satisfaction of the current administration whose record in foreign affairs has shown blind spots and willful neglect and complaisance ...
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 4, '06)

Ehsan Ahrari's Bush and Barney's path to Waterloo (Oct 3) is a progressive analysis of the new discussion [occurring] after Bob Woodward's new book State of Denial. I feel unease with several critical issues in this article that I would like to evaluate critically. First, Mr Woodward's book is indeed a manifestation of a personal state of denial. Those imperialist intellectuals try to jump out of the ship when the latter is tending to sink. Mr Woodward, an insider with high reporting and analytical skill and loaded with information, now tries to isolate himself from the war in Iraq. He should have known the outcome even before the invasion of Iraq that this war would be lost, not because the rationales were clear lies but because the Iraqi people would not accept imperialist occupation designed to loot their oil and cultural heritage. Second, dissolution of the Ba'ath Party and the army were mistakes, but these mistakes would not affect the outcome. Even if these two institutions were not dissolved, the resistance to the imperialist occupation would not have been different, because those institutions are interested in keeping power to direct Iraq rather than being puppets to imperialists who sacrifice their own lovely people and wealth for more profits for the oil and military corporations. In addition, the situation could have been actually worse if those institutions were kept, because the Ba'ath Party and the army could have incorporated wider popular support against the occupiers. Thus in either way the outcome is the current lethal resistance. Third, the author contends that the Vietnam War was lost when the support for the war disappeared from domestic arena. [Henry] Kissinger called this the will to fight, a concept that was stolen from the writings of the great economist Joseph Schumpeter in his analysis of imperialism. I think this is absolutely false, because the war was lost [because of] the resiliency of the Vietnamese people who did not want to submit to the imperialist occupation. This fact is independent from the issue of the American will to fight. It is amazing how those pundits such as Mr Ahrari give no credit to people who resist and fight foreign imperialist occupiers. American people earned their independence from the British occupiers because they fought and whipped the British hard. A similar argument can be made for the war in Iraq, a war that will be lost whether domestic support or will to fight is there or not ... Fourth, resignation of Donald Rumsfeld will not change the situation in Iraq either. Whoever the secretary of defense may be, the Iraqi resistance against foreign occupiers will continue ... Fifth, history has demonstrated that in the United States of America a vote for military spending will pass by Democrats or Republicans. This has become a habit or an institution that will be very difficult to change. Sixth, President George W Bush has provided many reasons to justify the invasion of Iraq, and I give him the credit to state that the invasion was motivated by the oil factor: if we do not control the Iraqi oil, terrorists will control it. And the oil factor was indeed the essential cause for this war.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (Oct 4, '06)

In reference to the article Bush and Barney's path to Waterloo [Oct 3]: Quoting Ehsan Ahrari, "It seems that the United States is heading toward its own version of 'sectarian' conflict: the Republican versus the Democrats, and the conservatives versus the liberals." The recent actions of the US Congress effectively gut most of the Bill of Rights. President [George W] Bush now has the authority to act as he wishes on matters of torture, prisoners, trials and just about anything pertaining to the protections of an individual's freedom. Many laws have been passed where there was an understanding that police and authorities were only targeting (for example) drug dealers. In every case, the supposed restraint was tossed aside and ordinary citizens were then subjected to the new law. Prosecutors in the US are promoted and recognized by their ratio of convictions, not by their adherence to the law or their ethics. This new situation in the US has triggered the first inklings of armed revolt or civil insurrection. Let's hope President Bush has the sense not to use his new powers and let the tried and relied-upon justice system work. His administration's track record so far is not encouraging. That new Mexican fence might get overrun by Yanks before this is over.
Ken Moreau
New Orleans, Louisiana (Oct 4, '06)

Regarding H E Meyer's commentary The big secret of that leaked NIE of October 3, while I appreciate Mr Meyer's analysis and think his points are valid and emblematic of the cynicism of the last two Bush administrations, the NIE as a broken "radar" is irrelevant. Readers of Asia Times [Online] have known for years that in the new post-Cold War tripolar version of the "The Great Game", the US has been consistently outplayed and outmaneuvered by Russia and China ([as well as] smaller players like Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela [and] North Korea). The "radar" has been busted for a long time, starting with the shock of the Soviet collapse (perhaps even the Cuban missile crisis). Pax Americana lasted not 100 years but about 10 years, from 1992 to shortly after September 11, 2001. Substituting brute force for shrewdness speaks for itself and failed as a strategy for the Third Reich as well.
Jubin Ajdari
Los Angeles, California (Oct 4, '06)

Syed Saleem Shahzad does it again in his fantastic article Pakistan reaches into Afghanistan [Oct 3]. Absolutely brilliant. The US State Department should fire the bunch of bozos that came up with their "on to the Oxus" policy. Like Lord Curzon's defeat, today NATO faces a similar fate. [US Senate Majority Leader] Bill Frist said [on Oct 2] that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" and their allies into the government. Truth has descended upon Mr First like a bolt of lightning. As they say in Pakistan, "Dair ayeh, durust ayey (better late than never)." Mr First is simply mimicking President [General Pervez] Musharraf's policy and is asking the Mayor of Kabul, [Hamid] Karzai, to emulate Pakistan's agreement with the leaders in North Waziristan. [President] Karzai with approval from President [George W] Bush may be listening. The loya jirga held under President Musharraf on both sides of the border clearly recognizes Pakistan's role in Afghan affairs. The loya jirga on the Pakistani side of the border is a local event in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Area] and [consists] of some agencies. It has no legal standing. President Musharraf's involvement in the "national loya jirga" (the parliament) of Afghanistan is a major event, and acknowledges Pakistan's role in the region. This coming on the heels of a meeting in Washington clearly shows that the Pakistani point of view of events in Afghanistan has apparently prevailed. There is no military solution in Afghanistan. The Pashtuns will have to form a new government in Kabul. Kabul cannot survive with an anti-Pakistan government.
Moin Ansari (Oct 4, '06)

According to President [General Pervez] Musharraf's memoirs, as reported in the media, Pakistan was told that in pursuing its war on terror, [the United States of] America was willing and able to shower Pakistan with either bombs or money and that there were no other choices. Pakistan's role in the war on terror is probably best understood in terms of this dilemma.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Oct 4, '06)

I wish to comment on the article Not what it was, but what it does [Oct 3] by Spengler. In the beginning, it would be wrong to attribute the rapid expansion of Islam to any single cause, especially "the sword". It was the weakness of the Byzantines and Sassanids as a result of their mutual territorial and political conflicts leading to collapse of their empires. It is worth asking a question: How could the Bedouins of Arabia with a few horses and equipment in such a short period of 25 years conquer these mighty empires and [advanced] civilizations under the flag of Islam? I can tell Spengler that it was the dynamism and magnanimity of Islam, which began spreading rapidly to all corners of the globe, and was accepted by the locals with open arms and hearts. The simplicity and reasonableness of Muslims' religious doctrines together with their practical example of a life of piety and righteousness attracted proselytes to Islam ... Plunder and economic gain are baseless accusations levied against Islam's spreading so rapidly to all corners of the Earth. It is an absurd and prejudiced attempt to put Islamic civilization on the same pedestal as Christendom with its barbaric record of crusades; its ruthless imperialism and colonial expansionism purely for greed in the disguise of the Holy Bible. The Muslims could never spread en masse from Medina to China to Spain, as there were not many Arabs to be distributed over all the immense territory. In the beginning, these wars were rather political and there was absolute no desire on the part of the Muslims to impose religion by force, which also is totally prohibited in Islam. If we read history not written by European historians, at no time in Islamic civilization was compulsion employed to convert the subjugated peoples. Islamic law recognizes liberty for the non-Muslims to preserve their beliefs and forbids all recourse to compulsion for converting others to Islam. We have just to open pages of history and find out that hundreds of millions of non-Christians were massacred by the European Christians with a Bible in one hand and gunpowder in the other purely for looting the wealth of alien lands of North and South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the Australian continent. On the other hand, Islam was a sigh of relief for the vanquished and they considered it a change for better, protection of their civil rights, freedom to worship their religions as they wished without any compulsion ...
Saqib Khan
UK (Oct 4, '06)

Re pseudo-Spengler's latest, Not what it was, but what it does [Oct 3]. "Western policy toward the Muslim world appears stupid and clumsy because ..." it is stupid and clumsy. "Three years ago I reviewed in this space the only recent book on Islam that explained jihad within the religious life of the Muslim faith community, a collection of writings by the Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig, who died in 1929." Perhaps you should learn Arabic, read what Muslims say? Ad fontes! as they said in the Renaissance, "back to the original sources!" Rosenzweig's works tell us only what a German thought.
Lester Ness
Kunming, China (Oct 4, '06)

In his article China's pension fund mayhem (Sep 28), Scott Zhou has confused aspects of China's pension system. The Chinese pension system comprises three pillars, as follows: (1) basic pension, which is [composed] of funds from a "social pool" and individual accounts; (2) enterprise annuities; and (3) individual savings. Enterprise annuities were introduced in 2004 following the promulgation of the Trial Measures on Enterprise Annuities, and none of these are held by local social-security bureaus. The only pension funds available for investment and held by local social-security bureaus are the individual accounts. It is these funds that are notional and often raided to pay for the pensions of current retirees. Also, his comments regarding the centralization of the management of pension funds is optimistic. Although the Shanghai situation has exposed flaws in pension-funds investment in China, I do not believe that other wealthy provinces, such as Guangdong, which has also experienced large-scale illegal investment of its pension funds, will be keen for this, and that they will fight it to the bitter end. Mr Zhou also mentions that enterprise-annuity funds in Shanghai made their way into the capital market, property market and other investments that are prohibited under the central government's regulations. This is a different matter. Enterprise-annuity funds can be invested in these markets and this is encouraged under the Trial Measures. It is individual accounts that cannot be invested in this way. Having said that, while investment of individual-account funds in capital and property markets is illegal, it is a sound idea and I would encourage the Chinese government to expand its investment channels to include this. Done properly, it can add significant returns to pension-fund investment in that country and assist in local development and economic growth. Finally, he says that the significance of Chen [Liangyu]'s removal [as Shanghai Communist Party chief] lies more in the new effort to build a well-administered and well-regulated pension system than in the victory of one gang over another gang. Yes, pension reform is critical to ensuring social stability in China. However, given China's demographics, it may already be too late to do anything substantial about it. Only time will tell. In short, Scott Zhou should [have checked] his facts and ensured that his article was not confusing before he published it.
Tim Murton (Oct 4, '06)

Lots of Westerners are touching some raw nerves of our pseudonymous Spengler, whose musings, whether intentionally or due to sheer rage, are reaching absurdist levels [Not what it is, but what it does, Oct 3]. Spengler cannot wish away traditional Catholicism, and remains flabbergasted that modernist Evangelism fails to decisively capture front-and-center position in the Christian world. The slings and arrows of misrepresentation directed (quite churlishly) toward Islamic doctrine close no chasms within Christian dogma but, of course, there's great entertainment value in dispensing them anyway. In the meanwhile, it is a matter of warm comfort that for the most part the West stubbornly ignores Spengler's apocalyptic song.
Zaheer Akmal
USA (Oct 3, '06)

Re Not what it was, but what it does (Oct 3): Clearly Spengler is no logician. The Almohad rulers in Muslim Spain did initially engage in forced conversions, but before long they became more tolerant, eventually turning their state into a refuge for European Jews fleeing persecution by Christians. It is of the essence of essences, however, that such variation is precluded. What faith Spengler has in his pet [Franz] Rosenzweig, apparently thinking a reference to his authority settles all issues! And by the way, as the learned Spengler must know - but a reader would be hard pressed to discern in his latest foray - voluntarism is hardly a stranger in Christian theology ...
Kent
Connecticut, USA (Oct 3, '06)

Re The big secret of that leaked NIE [Oct 3]: Herbert E Meyer's memories of days long gone makes me think of a [Jean de] La Fontaine fable. His conclusions are like the mountain that gave birth to a mouse. The NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] on Iraq was already yesterday's news when it was written. It comes as no surprise to a reader of a daily newspaper. He could have written the NIE cold. Yet Mr Meyer does put his fingers in an open sore: the demoralization of the intelligence community, which has become a football for partisan ends. That, too, has long been known. What might have surprised the ATol reader would have been suggestions for setting the intelligence train back on the right track.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Oct 3, '06)

M K Bhadrakumar's (Sep 30) Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win is, of course, an excellent article, though the proposed Turkmenistan-Pakistan-India oil pipeline (Pipelineistan) isn't mentioned. So maybe he doesn't agree that this is really what the occupation of Afghanistan by the Western powers is about. So what is it all about? The Pakistani government doesn't obviously want an occupied Afghanistan on its border when this injustice can cause more upheavals for [it]. The office of Condoleezza Rice recently put out the notion that the USA was in Afghanistan for the rights of Afghan women. As we now know from as far back as the Vietnam War, most civilian casualties there were marked down as Vietcong. How many civilians in Afghanistan are now being labeled Taliban whenever a village or town is bombed or shelled by NATO forces? A lot of these casualties are women. Do they become honorary men when dead and therefore Taliban? The US authorities are aware that anti-war demonstrations in the West very rarely carry banners against the occupation of Afghanistan because many of the demonstrators are worried about the Taliban suppression of females. Unfortunately this gives the impression that the US-led NATO forces are in a just war despite the fact that [Hamid] Karzai, the puppet president, cannot even trust his own people to guard him. An Afghan female human-rights worker was recently gunned down. The Western media were very quick to put this killing down to the Taliban. In the end it seems that Afghanistan must be allowed to make its own way in this world. Yes, it is a country of tribalism and warlordism, but the former Taliban government seemed to be the only force capable of uniting the country and dealing with corruption. Now they appear to be the only force capable of taking on NATO and its surrogates. A second Taliban struggle may evolve enough to get those anti-war banners on behalf of Afghanistan going in the Western world.
Wilson John Haire
London, England (Oct 3, '06)

The article Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win [Sep 30] by [M K] Bhadrakumar points to factors that seem to contradict each other. The article compares the defeat of the Soviet Union to the same predicament now being faced by the NATO troops. The Soviet Union's war against the Taliban-led [resistance in] Afghanistan ended in defeat not because of the "invincibility" of the Afghans but the fact that the Soviet Union was fighting the mujahideen, who were fully supported by the US, which trained and equipped them. Without the US help the chances of the Soviet Union winning the war could have been a reality. The current war with the rebel Afghan forces has no backing from a superpower. Then Mr Bhadrakumar quotes General [Boris] Gromov: "We saw over a period of many years how the country was torn apart by civil war." This time the NATO alliance is not fighting "an Afghan army of equal strength ... with all the advantages of a functioning ... government in Kabul". The Hamid Karzai-led government is an ally of the US and the Afghan warlords do not have a superpower to train and equip them. One must not underestimate the Afghan resistance but the current ground realities are that the Afghan government is fully behind NATO. Then Mr Bhadrakumar lists all the frailties of the Afghan resistance: "opium is eating away the vitals of the Afghan state", a situation that was not present to this degree when the Afghans were fighting the Soviet Union. Mr Bhadrakumar also points out [that it is a matter of time] "if the ... Taliban resurgence goes unchecked, before the non-Pashtun groups in the eastern, northern and western regions will also begin to organize themselves". In other words, the seeds of an unending civil war [are being sown] in Afghanistan. If the US coalition troops pull out, Afghanistan will return to infighting between its various warlords, thereby further destabilizing the nation. The headline of this article ... will sound hollow if Afghan blood is spilled whether NATO is present or not. No general, let alone a writer, can fully predict who will ultimately win or lose a war until the war is over. At this stage the Afghans will put up a valiant fight against NATO and if they succeed in ousting the US coalition then they will revert to infighting between the various warlords. In either case Afghanistan will be fighting a war that could destabilize that nation into chaos. Would this be considered a "victory" for the Afghans?
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, Louisiana (Oct 2, '06)

Re Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win (Sep 30): as [M K] Bhadrakumar states, NATO can't win, especially with the deck of cards provided by US leaders. The deck was always marked for play in Iraq. Conquering the Taliban in Afghanistan was expected and required after the [September 11, 2001] attack, but the war on terror was only an excuse for the Iraqi war effort, which was in the Bush administration plans since the beginning of the [George W] Bush regime. It has been well documented that administration discussions always centered [on] the invasion and conquest of Iraq. The Taliban and [Osama] bin Laden were always secondary. Your priorities and concerns are always revealed by your actions. The resurgence of the Taliban and the fierceness of the insurgency are just a repeat of what transpired in the Soviet Union's occupation. Like the Soviet Union, our [US] priorities were not to provide means for the Afghan people to develop and thrive throughout their country. We did not win the hearts and minds of the people but in fact have begun to alienate the people with our tactics of fighting, just as we are doing in Iraq, where our motives are not as pure as the Bush administration pronouncements. In either country, you cannot ignore the needs [and] the safety of the people and expect their help and support. In Afghanistan most of our spending has centered [on] Kabul and has largely ignored areas outside of Kabul, where the opium crop is thriving and financing the Taliban. Conquest brings a heavy responsibility to the conquering army. It requires a long-term plan that brings humane solutions promulgating unity and cooperation, not division. If you are a world power, it is easy to conquer tyrants, but if your motives are not pure it is difficult not to become one yourself.
Jim of Southern California
USA (Oct 2, '06)

Congratulations to M K Bhadrakumar [for his] superbly written keepsake article Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win [Sep 30]. Mr B correctly enumerates the now-forgotten [blunder] of the US government, namely allowing the Northern Alliance to take over Kabul. This blunder was even worse than walking away from Afghanistan in the '80s. The non-Pashtun takeover of Kabul sowed the seeds of today's quagmire facing NATO. The allies were repeatedly warned that a Northern Alliance-led government would not be acceptable to at least 12 of the Pashtun (and pro-Taliban) Afghan provinces and a minority takeover would exacerbate the problems in Afghanistan. This sound advice was ignored. The majority Pashtun should have created a new government in Afghanistan. However, coalition naivety combined with hubris could not resist "manufacturing consent" (Noam Chomsky's explanation in his book) by orchestrating elections (where the number of voters exceeded the population) and imposing a minority, non-Pashtun, anti-Pakistan government in Kabul. It is common sense that an anti-Pakistan government and Kabul's hostile strategy towards Pakistan can never garnish total support from Musharraf or the Pakistani establishment. Millions of Afghan refugees still live in Pakistan. They cross the Duran Line at will. If Afghanistan is concerned about these elements, then it should accept all the refugees back or make conditions conducive to their return. Pakistan has a host of these refugees forced on it and also held responsible for the activities of Afghan citizens when they go home. The war in Afghanistan cannot be won by military means. Sanity has been saying this to deaf ears. Pakistan's peace deal with North Waziristan has been widely criticized by ATol writers and others; however, this pact is the real blueprint for peace on the Afghan side also. This blueprint for peace was recently eulogized by the British Foreign Office establishment. This pact will enable Pakistan to build factories in FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Area] export zones which will export goods tariff-free to the USA and the world. Employment and prosperity will bring peace in the long run. President [General Pervez] Musharraf told the Brits last week, "Without the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] and Pakistani help, you will lose in Pakistan." This warning is heeded, and Pakistan's help is appreciated by the White House and 10 Downing Street, but not in the British/US media or American talk radio. ATol has been publishing all my opinions for years. However, my recent letters defending Islam and critical of ATol articles have been censored/deleted. It is amazing that anti-Islam articles are published with impunity, but rebuttals to [Chan] Akya's incorrect comparison of Buddhism with Islam, was not published. Regardless, of this … censorship policy, ATol remains a bastion of creative and unique and well researched articles, and is my favorite website for international news and views.
Moin Ansari (Oct 2, '06)

Restricting "my religion is better than yours" sermons has long been a policy of the Letters page; limited, reasoned commentary based on articles that discuss religion-related news events such as the recent Catholic-Islam controversy is permitted, but not rants whose only purpose is to denigrate faiths other than one's own. - ATol

In the late '70s, I spent some time in the oil/gas industry, working in Iran and the UAE. As a consequence, I have watched developments in the Middle East and Central Asia very closely over the past 10 years. I am quite aware that the reasons for the two current US wars in that region are, very simply, control over hydrocarbon resources. So I am always frustrated by the fact that articles such as Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win by M K Bhadrakumar and Military policy in Afghanistan 'barking mad' by Sanjay Suri in ATol ([both] Sep 30) fail to mention the historical connection between Bridas Oil of Argentina, Union Oil of California (Unocal) - and Afghanistan's President [Hamid] Karzai - along with the contentious pipeline corridor from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. Your readers should be informed that Karzai was once - and probably still is - on Unocal's payroll (along with Zalmay Khalilzad, the US