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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.

January 2007

Re The writing's on the wall for Iran [Jan 31]: Everything the Bush administration accuses Iran of doing in Iraq is exactly what the Bush administration does in Iraq. He [US President George W Bush] unilaterally invaded a country that was not a threat to us [Americans], Iraq had no military, air force or missiles that could reach our shores, [president Saddam] Hussein was contained and had nothing to do with the attacks on September 11 [2001]. Bush created chaos, he allowed old tribal divisions to grow, perhaps even fueling them with his policies. His administration craves the oil, the "prize", as [US Vice President Richard] Cheney once referred to [regarding] Iraq, that gigantic pool of sweet crude lying close to the surface and therefore less costly to extract while commanding more profit per barrel than in many other regions of the world. Bush's people have no understanding of Middle Eastern society or culture, no sense of consequences, nothing that resembles a rational or a productive foreign policy. Now we're in a serious mess. Bush should be impeached immediately: if ever a president and vice president deserved impeachment, it is they. What worse thing could a president do than to cause unnecessary death to 3,000 Americans and 50,000-600,000 non-combatants? Where is the American public and Congress' sense of proportionality and perspective? The people can turn this around only if they see the pathological arrogance, sense of superiority and entitlement driving such unenlightened policies.
Jerry Gerber
San Francisco, California (Jan 31, '07)


Leon Hadar's article The writing's on the wall for Iran [Jan 31] reads like war should be fought in a transparent manner. Every preparation should be announced. There should be no deception used, all strategies have to be straightforwardly announced ahead [of time]. Unfortunately most battles or wars were usually preceded by deception, generally used for cover in the preparation of war. World War II is a classic example. An entire program was set with all the details of a false invasion while the Allies were preparing for the real invasion to take place off the Normandy coast. Of course the US government will have to deny any preparations for war. Any admittance of preparing for war would shake the UN against the US and play right into Tehran's hand. In my opinion war will come, but due to the secrecy of its preparations I don't know when or what would trigger it, and nor does Iran.
Chrysantha Wijeyasingha
Clinton, Louisiana (Jan 31, '07)


The writing's on the wall for Iran [Jan 31] by Leon Hadar simply points out the inevitable: a US attack on Iran. Anyone who doubts this should read Eric Margolis' article written back in 2002 on the subject [Next target: Iran, Nov 8, '02]. The then unknown and now sickening possibility is [that] the US will use nuclear weapons against Iran ... believing, as neo-cons do, they are only losing in Iraq and Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, because they are not using their full strength. This shows real ignorance of the strategic dimension of the current conflict. The possibility of victory is very slim, but more than that Americans should consider the fate of Ulysses after the sack of Troy. The principal theme of The Odyssey is that after the sack of Troy, Ulysses could not easily return home. That is, after committing so many atrocities in Troy, the Greeks simply could not go back to Greece and live as they had before the war. After attacking Iran with nuclear weapons, will the US be able to return home and live as it did before? Or will such a crime irrevocably alter the nature of its soul?
Francis
Quebec, Canada (Jan 31, '07)


The writing's on the wall for Iran [Jan 31] by Leon Hadar is definitely a first for ATol - a first in the context of the reader having to concentrate on Mr Hadar's line of reasoning with attendant pictorial flashing women's faces with sparkling words inviting one to "meet gorgeous girls today". One may laconically wonder whether this potpourri was intended to highlight "the writing's on the wall for Iran" or to "meet gorgeous girls today". If Mr Hadar's premise is to become a reality, then the issue of a surge or surges is a teaser and that come 2048 there will still be remnants of the military that started out as a coalition of the willing. If - and that obviously is a very big if - the suggested scenario is to produce an era of peace in the Middle East by having the next president of the US declare his unconditional commitment to UN Resolution 242 thereby almost guaranteeing that come 2049 the US would still be a major player in the Middle East, then something positive can be said for including the invite to "meet gorgeous girls today" - what seems to [be] another delusional view of the Middle East.
Armand De Laurell (Jan 31, '07)

We assume you are referring to one of the rotating "network" ads that are a necessary evil to keep this website a free service. Another letter writer complained that an ad showed a "half-naked woman with all the buttons of her shirt open", and his boss caught him ogling it. On January 23 on the Letters page, we invited readers to suggest ways we can improve our revenue situation without relying so heavily on these types of ads (the "sexy" ones are the only ones that attract a reasonable number of clicks from our obstinately advertising-resistant readership). We got no response. - ATol


In Wol-san Liem's Why Koreans have a beef with free trade [Jan 31] we are treated to the South Korean xenophobic view of trade. The last shipment that South Korea refused weighted 9 tons and they found a single 3-millimeter piece of bone. South Korea believes it should have complete access to US markets and the US should have no rights in South Korea. It is time for the US [to] end its alliance with South Korea. Recent polls show that 80% of South Koreans under the age of 40 are very anti-American. South Korea gives North Korea [aid] so the Kim regime can enslave the North Korean people. US efforts to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons [will] never work when they get billions in aid from South Korea and China. This mad-cow nonsense has been going on now for over 10 years and it still affects only a handful of people, not the millions we have been warned about. I am sure Liem is eating American beef while she lives in the US, which makes her a hypocrite. The US needs to leave South Korea - perhaps a few years in a North Korean gulag will improve the South Koreans' ability to think.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Jan 31, '07)


Although South Korea is an ally of the United States, the Bush administration is finding out that it is displaying the same quality of intransigence in negotiations but to a lesser nerve wracking degree than North Korea. As Liem Wol-san stresses [Why Koreans have a beef with free trade, Jan 31], [in] the current round of talks to complete the Korea-US trade agreement, Washington is straining at the leash. You would think that after more than a half-century of very close relations, American trade representatives would have a finer appreciation and understanding of the proud Korean character.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 31, '07)


Your article [Admit it - you really hate modern art , Jan 30] has some interesting commentary in it - on the art-music relationship among others. But it really is a mish-mash of vague generalization and the dumping of unlikes together in one mixed-up soup. To throw [Wassily] Kandinsky, [Jackson] Pollock, [Andy] Warhol, [Pablo] Picasso and others together without recognizing their enormous differences in style and intent, is really trite, superficial and ultimately insulting to your readers' knowledge and intelligence ... The stereotyping of people like Kandinsky and Picasso and linking them without second thought to [Damien] Hirst's formaldehyde cows really is sloppiness of the first order. It's like saying that Japanese, Chinese [and] Indonesians for some undisclosed reason are all the same (or the French, Albanians, English and Finns). Or that all Spenglers are writers about the decline of the West. Surely Asia Times [Online] deserves better - as does its readership.
Warwick Armstrong (Jan 31, '07)


Spengler (Admit it - you really hate modern art, Jan 30) in my opinion is correct about Jackson Pollock and his drunken splashings. Damien Hirst - well, the jury is still out in deciding on him. Do his rotting cow heads and bluebottles depict a rotten society, which the UK has become, with its racism, lack of opposition in Parliament its imperial adventures, the regular murder of its young women, widespread child abuse, and the humiliating treatment of the elderly? By saying so verbally or by the printed word could find him dismissed or forever unpublished in the mainstream media. If [Pablo] Picasso's only work was Guernica, he would always be remembered as one who spoke out against fascist brutality when Britain and France were playing the neutral game on the side of [Spanish dictator Francisco] Franco, Germany and Italy. So I can't agree with you there, Spengler. The atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg has never been analyzed properly. But I agree with Spengler when he says it has driven people from the concert hall. Of course the same people would also be driven from the car factory with its scream of machinery, sudden bangs, the shouts of workers, whether jovial or in frustration. Or imagine a large shipyard with its riveters, caulkers, welders and hissing compressed air. How many more people would have been driven from the concert hall if a smell-machine were used to pump out the acrid smoke from welders, the stench of industrial paint and the body odors of sweating workers? Schoenberg and Berg were Austrian but their cousin Germany was in full swing with industrial development during the beginning of the 20th century. Were they reflecting this paving over of rural life? If so then, sadly, both died misunderstood, along with Anton Webern, another Austrian composer living at the beginning of the 20th century. W H Auden, the English poet, said back in 1939 that poetry was still too much rooted in rural life, that poetry must begin to take account of the rhythmic life of the factory, of the industrial age. I think he disappointed many people when he said this couldn't be his task because he would need another lifetime to create the new poetry. Spengler relates the admirer of abstract art to the admirer of communism from a distance when you wouldn't actually want to live in Moscow. I doubt if Lenin and [Josef] Stalin thought about bringing about a palatable version of communism that would attract the Western intellectual. Most likely they were too busy overthrowing a rural-based czarist regime in order to create a modern industrial nation. Finally, I thank you, Spengler, for bringing out such thought-provoking arguments.
Wilson John Haire
London, England (Jan 31, '07)


[Re Admit it - you really hate modern art, Jan 30] Compare Spengler's views on modern art with what [Adolf] Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "Sixty years ago an exhibition of so-called dadaistic 'experiences' would have seemed simply impossible and its organizers would have ended up in the madhouse, while today they even preside over art associations. This plague could not appear at that time, because neither would public opinion have tolerated it nor the state calmly looked on. For it is the business of the state, in other words, of its leaders, to prevent a people from being driven into the arms of spiritual madness. And this is where such a development would some day inevitably end. For on the day when this type of art really corresponded to the general view of things, one of the gravest transformations of humanity would have occurred: the regressive development of the human mind would have begun and the end would be scarcely conceivable." [Wassily] Kandinsky was one of the artists whose works were removed from German museums in the campaign against "degenerate art". It is true, as Spengler says, that modern art and music are ideological. We have here two diametrically opposed ideologies - one found in Partisan Review, the other in Mein Kampf.
Lyle Burkhead
USA (Jan 31, '07)


Cleric Wamid al-Ubaid said, "It is not that easy to dismantle this [Mehdi] Army. It is an ideological force that was born out of the lack of security in some districts of Iraq and the attacks by some Saddamists and takfiris [perceived infidels] on Shi'ite districts" (Another illusion out of the Iraqi hat [Jan 30] by Sami Moubayed): Please tell the sub-editor who inserted the phrase "perceived infidels" that this is not what takfiris means. It means persons given to declaring everybody apart from themselves to be unbelievers (kafirs).
Rowan Berkeley (Jan 31, '07)

The article has been amended. - ATol


[Re letter, M Murata, Jan 30] The "obvious things" mentioned in M Murata's letter [of Jan 26] alone simply don't make the PRC [People's Republic of China] a threat, period. Again, if they did, "China threat" would have surfaced 20 years ago when those "obvious things" were more obvious; and if they did, the US would have been considered a threat by the international community. Today, Cuba is arguably less transparent and more authoritarian than the PRC, yet we don't see "Cuba threat" flying around. It all comes down to the surge and decline of countries' strengths and the change of positions as a result and its impact on their interests. This is international and geopolitical power struggle that we are witnessing, one may say. Of course the fact that the US did a lot of ugly things does not justify the PRC's own ugly acts, but it does point out the sheer hypocrisy found in Murata and many people who are more than eager to point their fingers at the PRC. If the lone superpower [that] conveniently disregards the opinion of the international community whenever it likes is not a threat; if the country [that] invaded a dozen more countries than the PRC did is not a threat, why should the PRC be regarded as one? Hypocrisy at its peak again?
Juchechosunmanse
Beijing, China (Jan 31, '07)


That the Saudi kingdom has resolved to diplomatically mediate between the warring groups in Palestine and support the cause of the Palestinians gives fresh air [to the] Middle East crisis. The positive sign of the development is that both Hamas and Fatah have welcomed the offer by King Abdullah, the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, to arrange a meeting between Hamas and Fatah in Mecca to discuss their problems. The Arab world seems to have done its best to support the Palestinians, not least since the Washington-led rejection of their democratic choice of government. Now Saudi Arabia is determined to offer rival leaders the place as well as the privacy to end the disgraceful shedding of Palestinian blood by Palestinians. The internecine violence is almost certainly being fanned by the enemies of Palestine. If the rank and file on both sides can be filled with bitterness and anger, they may no longer be prepared to listen to their leaders. That is why King Abdullah's offer must be seized without delay. Every hour of delay makes the search for peace that much harder. The parties should not undermine the success of the talks with ever more brutal violence, for the only people who would gain from this terrible confrontation are the enemies of the Palestinians. Any Palestinian who claims that attacking and killing another Palestinian will advance any good and decent cause is either a madman or an agent provocateur. This bloodletting shames the memory of all those Palestinians who have given their lives in the name of their country's freedom, establishment of a sovereign state and future. The climate of fear and suspicion on the streets of Gaza and now also in the West Bank means that the slightest provocation could unleash a chain of murders. The guns must stop and the talking must start. Saudi Arabia, with a view to obtaining the desired result, needs to approach the issue with full patience.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 31, '07)


Sami Moubayed's Another illusion out of the Iraqi hat (Jan 30) suffers from several problems, the most important of which is the reliance on Thomas Friedman's concept of illusion. There is no illusion in Iraq, and the illusion is a frame of mind introduced by the imperialist occupiers and their intellectual supporters (or puppets) such as Mr Friedman. The story of the article is the new strategy introduced by President [George W] Bush, which is supposed to be implemented by the Iraqi prime minister. If he cannot do it, then he will be replaced by the person who appointed him: President Bush. In other words, President Bush has outsourced his task to [Prime Minister Nuri] al-Maliki, who is trying to outsource the same task to President Bush. ATol has correctly explained and predicted over the last four years that the Iranian mullahs have been the winners of the occupation of Iraq. They are still the winners, as several of the leading Iraqi figures are Iranian nationalists, including [Grand Ayatollah Ali] al-Sistani. Al-Jazeera has provided a very informative report, where one knowledgeable and trustworthy Iraqi has listed six important Iraqi figures as Iranian nationalists. (Some of them cannot even speak Arabic.) I really cannot understand how the Bush administration tries to weaken the Iranian involvement in Iraq under the condition that Iranian nationalists and agents are controlling Iraq with the help of the Bush administration's military might. This suggests that all Iraqis (Muslims, Christians, and others) are angry about the situation in Iraq, because they have been massacred and raped under the brutal imperialist and foreign occupation of their country under the slogan of fighting terrorists and outlaws. It is very useful for all writers to analyze the Iraqi problem as an occupation that is implemented by imperialist occupiers who have been searching for insiders and outsiders for help to control Iraq in order to loot the 240-billion-barrel oil reserve. The bad news for imperialism is that all Arabs know the simple fact that the occupiers will be defeated over time, and historical facts do support this prediction.
Adil Mouhammed
Springfield, Illinois (Jan 30, '07)


Special praise goes to [Olivia Chung] for not succumbing to the world's hand-wringing and worried amazement and admiration at China's sustained and ever increasing trade surplus with its major trading partners in Europe and the United States. Ms Chung sticks her eye in the puffery of statistics. She marshals her facts by quoting Li Deshui, "the outspoken former chief of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)". Readers of ATol will profit from her Much of China's trade surplus is 'not real', [Jan 30]. Although no one will deny China's rapid industrialization and its transformation into a capitalist and world economy, the much-touted trade surplus is party-blue smoke and mirrors. Consequently, statistics can be and are misleading and at times deliberately distorted. This resort by Beijing is reminiscent of China's communist past, which put a rosy gloss to its economic and social failures and political turmoil. The trade surplus has an eerie quality of a Potemkin Village to it. Nonetheless, China does have a trade surplus which requires redressing. Will China have the will and the fortitude to [revalue] the renminbi yuan? That is the [nub] of the matter. Alice Chang's article brings to mind Mark Twain's [remark about] "lies, damn lies, and statistics".
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 30, '07)


Kaveh Afrasiabi: I read with interest your article Debunking Iran's nuclear myth makers [Jan 25]. While I agree with the general thrust of the article, I disagree strongly with you when you state: "But can we really exclude the possibility that there is no such program in existence, seeing how the virtually identical certainty about Iraq's intentions caused one of the worst Western policy blunders in the modern era?" It appears you have fallen into the trap of equating the war of aggression on Iraq with a "policy blunder". This was no blunder or mistake but a crime against humanity of enormous proportions. This was a carefully conceived plan to use false information - what is called black propaganda - to "prepare" international and national public opinion to support the war of aggression, the "supreme crime" according to the Nuremburg Charter incorporated into international law ... Regarding black propaganda, David Leigh wrote back in June 2000 in The Guardian that "black propaganda - false material where the source is disguised - has been a tool of British intelligence agencies since the days of the Second World War", and let's not forget US expertise in the same area. Exactly the same modus operandi is being used at the moment with regard to Iran. The plethora of anti-Iranian rhetoric in the press recently is a definite sign.
David Sketchley
Seville, Spain (Jan 30, '07)


Your (presumably) unpaid correspondent S P Li consistently spews words of wisdom in his regular letters. [Jan 29]'s example is precious, wherein he says China observers should be scared of how to control protests in a country as vast as China, with its 1.3 billion people. The easy answer is to look at democracies where the governments of the United States and Europe appear to happily get along with their people in spite of their "not harmonious" habits of disagreeing with politicians time and again. If Mr Li wanted an example closer to home, he could look at Japan with its 120 million people or, better still, India, where over 1 billion people seem to get along just fine even with their noisy protests. As a reason to control the legitimate rights of people to express themselves freely in any society, "harmony" appears quite silly as it serves only to protect the powerful. Mr Li should also note that if the glorious Communist Party of China wasn't so full of corrupt and incompetent officials, there would be no need for people to protest in the first place.
Salt (Jan 30, '07)


If someone who just says obvious things is regarded as "naive", as written by Juchechosunmanse [in his letter of Jan 29], probably we should consider all [of the] international community very, very [foolish]. It seems that Mr Juchechosunmanse limits his idea of "China threat" as a move of envious nations against China's astonishing development, [which] is puerile thinking, surely. Some of his words like the People's Republic of China "refuses to succumb to US/Western interest and their design of the world order" are remarkable, just like a Communist Party mantra. But what really worries us is his idea that if the US committed some terrible mistakes, why does China not have the same rights - to justify Beijing's twisted ways, its militarism, and support to dictatorial regimes like Pyongyang. As human beings we should learn [from] mistakes, and not to repeat [them, is that not so]? China does not have to show the international community that is a powerful nation (we believe it is), but that [it] is a trustful one committed to world peace and development. Unfortunately [when] a government does not allow its people to choose [their] own way (to approve what is right and reject what is wrong), but instead pushes them, authoritarianism, thus lack of transparency, will be inherently a threat to world peace, as history has shown.
M Murata (Jan 30, '07)

We are still receiving letters from readers offended by any observation that although Taiwan is "part of China", it goes about its affairs independently of Beijing, which to most people (including China's leaders in Beijing - see the new article The 'black hole' of Taiwan criminals) is probably obvious, but to some is apparently what Noam Chomsky called "unthinkable thought". That debate has run its course on this page, but as always, The Edge forum is open. - ATol


May I add a simple correction to your otherwise mostly good explanation about Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty belonging to the Bunt community etc [under Abdul Ruff Colachal's letter of Jan 25]? Actually the birthplace of Bunts always has been Dakshina Kannada (in Sanskrit) district of the state of Karnataka and not Tamil Nadu. They speak a dialect known as Tulu - subset of a language - and not Tamil. I know this, for I was born and raised some 70-plus years ago in that place and still have have many friends who trace their origins to centuries earlier. By the way, the Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai is also from the same community.
Prabhu
Ottawa, Canada (Jan 30, '07)

There seems to be disagreement over Shilpa Shetty's birthplace. According to Wikipedia, she was born in Tamil Nadu, though her roots are indeed in Karnataka's Bunt community. However, another letter writer, Rajesh Samarth of China, tells us she "is from Tulu Nadu, which is a coastal region in the south of the state of Karnataka". Yet on January 20 The Guardian newspaper, publishing a correction to an earlier article, wrote, "Although she was born in Tamil Nadu and has starred in Tamil films, her family is from Karnataka's Bunt community. She describes herself as Mangalorean" (Mangalore is the chief port of Karnataka). As we said in the earlier note, Shetty's first language is Tulu, which, like Tamil, is classified as a member of the southern branch of the Dravidian language family. Another gem from the ATol Mine of Unnecessary Information: besides fellow Bunt Aishwarya Rai's Bollywood fame, she was also Miss World 1994. - ATol


Secret torture camps have become the symbol of the US war for "the American way of life", "civilized order" and "human rights". The US-led forces are fighting terrorism with methods that are equally terrorist. That should be the starting point of any debate about what is acceptable in the West's fight with Islamist extremists. More than 750 men have passed through Guantanamo, with nearly half being released with no charges leveled against them. Many of them have testified to serious abuses and ill-treatment. There is also significant evidence from US officials and government documents of widespread abuse at the camp. Detainees have suffered the same torture that the US has been condemning totalitarian states for: being beaten repeatedly, shackled in painful positions for long periods of time, sleep deprivation, strobe lights, loud music, extremes of hot and cold, sexual assaults and death threats. Guantanamo is not the only US torture camp. Bagram in Afghanistan has been dogged by stories of abuse, and there are secret US prisons around the world where it is widely feared new horrors are occurring. The United States, just like the nations it has been accusing of human-rights violations, has no apology for these crimes. As a country whose name is linked in the public mind with the fight for liberal values, democracy and rule of law, it should have been prudent in its anti-terror strategy.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 30, '07)


Clarification
It has come to my attention that the UN secretary general has appointed a new deputy secretary general, Dr Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania, which makes my points in Toward a new UN security role in Iraq (Jan 27) about Mark Malloch Brown moot. The section of the article dealing with Malloch Brown was written earlier and my impression was that his position as the focal point on Iraq was holding when, in fact, it turns out that it was not.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Jan 29, '07)


M K Bhadrakumar's articles in ATol are a mine of information. In US elevates Pakistan to regional kingpin [Jan 27], the elevation of Pakistan's status is but a [blip], for Islamabad has always played an important role in Washington's designs since those long-forgotten days of SEATO [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization]. Pakistan has always served as a foil to America's once nemesis India, which had embraced the Bandung spirit of non-alignment and had cozied up too warmly to Moscow, too warmly for [late US secretary of state] John Foster Dulles' liking. It was the conduit which led to president [Richard] Nixon's trip to China in 1972 ... Fast-forward to today. Pakistan is the keystone of the latest avatar of President [George W] Bush's policy to defend and consolidate the fruits of war against resurgent Taliban, and has ordained President [General Pervez] Musharraf to cast his country's long shadow over the Central Asian plateau as a countervailing weight to the long shadow that Shi'ite Iran has cast on the region. And to make the point, Mr Bhadrakumar brings to light the signal honor that Washington arranged for General Musharraf, who upon his arrival in Saudi Arabia was met on the tarmac by the king himself. On the other hand, Mr Bush & Co are not fooled one whit about the inherent contradiction that the new [policies] of theirs pose. Pakistan looks upon Afghanistan as its preserve and desires nothing better than having Kabul under its wing. Pakistani madrassas are the fertile ground for Islamic fundamentalist for the Taliban and for al-Qaeda. Yet Washington has little room for maneuvering in its Tweedledee-Tweedledum war in Afghanistan and its cold war with Iran. Mr Bush has not forgotten that Mr Musharraf pardoned Abdul Qadeer Kahn, the man who is not only the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, but also the friendly purveyor who sold nuclear know-how to Tehran and Pyongyang. The United States by ennobling Pakistan ... is trying hard to make up for years of wrong-headed diplomacy and foreign-policy mishaps. Mr Bhadrakumar is a precious source of information which, alas, hardly appears in the soggy mainstream American press.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 29, '07)


On the surface of Kent Ewing's lashing out at China regarding its outlook on history, internally and externally ([In China all history is political] Jan 26), his points would be well taken by many, including this writer. A different perspective, however, appears when one examines in that country the state of political, economic, cultural, and educational development. For a huge population in a huge country, real progress in these areas of development has just begun, from the very bottom, some 20-odd years ago. It still will take a few decades to reach some level of maturity. Since it is impossible to improve the lot of all the people equally and at the same rate, some segments of society, such as business, will advance faster helping to propel the rest, simplistically speaking. Hence a "harmonious society" must be striven for, not that it can be fully attained, but that hopefully minimal disruptions may occur. Mr Ewing, a resident of Hong Kong, must be aware of the incessant protests on the streets of Kowloon and Hong Kong, by different interest groups for such things as rent, pay, licensing, traffic rules, compensation for banned food, you name it. They enjoy the freedom of assembly and expression, including Mr Ewing. Hong Kong's population and area are minuscule compared to China's, and one would be scared as to how to handle 1.3 billion people in a vast land. Some Chinese officials must have soul-searched some ways to limit possible agitation and protests due to all kinds of inequities. Hence, rightly or wrongly, the control of media and other peripheral information which may bear on everyday living. Take, for example, content of sex and violence in books and TV programs. People elsewhere consider [it] their inherent right to read or watch, but in China it is thought to be conducive to lax behavior, [which] many parents would not want their children to wade into. As to the historical verdict on Mao Zedong, the Chinese government has admitted that he did both right and wrong. So someone wants China to continue to air more dirty linen? If the reminder of Japanese invasion and atrocities committed on China in recent times can help stir Chinese people to progress and succeed, so be it. Of course Japan can come clean and erase the scar if those whitewashed history textbooks are banned and the war criminals removed from the Yasukuni Shrine to which their prime ministers like to pay homage.
S P Li (Jan 29, '07)


I would appreciate if ATol would extend its generosity to the publishing of my second letter on Antoaneta Bezlova's article Missile test gives new life to 'China threat' (Jan 25). Her statement that "Taiwan has been in essence independent for nearly 60 years" implies, as in every instance when independence for Taiwan Island has been advocated by the separatists, that the island is a country. As far as I know only a bona fide country has an independent government. The author and the separatists have a roundabout way of calling the island a country. The trick is to talk about "essence" and not legality as these people believe that changes to legality can be wrought over time. Let us talk about essence then. Perhaps the better to bring out my point, I will instead talk about the essence of a government that is not independent, a colonial government. The example of Americans who had coined and used the term "satellite country" for countries like Poland and Mongolia in the former USSR camp is a case in point. To them the term "independent government" means more than the issuing of passports and currency by a political entity, to say the least. Panama, which had its president dragged to US for trial, has the same kind of government as the one on the Taiwan Island, a colonial government. Reunification of Taiwan Island with China is only possible if China can somehow force the US to relinquish its colonial hold over the island.
Irene Lim Benson
UK (Jan 29, '07)

Beijing has no governmental jurisdiction over Taiwan, either by way of a colonial relationship, by way of a treaty such as the Warsaw Pact, or by way of hegemonic pressure such as that by the US over much of Central America. That is the whole point of Beijing's grievance with Taipei. - ATol


ATol wrote [under Irene Lim Benson's letter of Jan 25]: "The article [Missile test gives new life to 'China threat', Jan 25] said 'Taiwan has been in essence independent for nearly 60 years'. In other words, the government of the People's Republic of China has not had de facto jurisdiction over the island since the Kuomintang established a government-in-exile continuation of the Republic of China there after losing the civil war in 1949. The Taiwanese government continues independently to issue its own passports, print its own currency, conduct its own trade, and defend itself militarily, regardless of politics, legalities, and lack of official international recognition ..." Many of the above references also apply to or have applied to Hong Kong. Does that mean Hong Kong is not or was not part of China?
Roy
USA (Jan 29, '07)

Obviously not. Hong Kong was handed over by the British to Chinese jurisdiction by treaty, and insofar as it is self-governing, it is under the Basic Law to which Beijing is a signatory. And again, we have never said that Taiwan is not "part of China", only that it functions independently from Beijing in nearly all aspects, which is a simple observation of fact and nothing to do with politics or nationalist wishing-it-were-otherwise. - ATol


Re ATol's [Jan 26] note on the status of Taiwan [under Junming Jiang's letter] ... You claim, "Although ATol policy is to avoid the words 'nation' and 'country' when referring to Taiwan, that does not mean we pretend that Taiwan does not in most ways function in the real world as an independent entity." Your reader would like to ask you to name one and just one real world organization in which Taiwan functions as an "independent entity" then to name one and just one real country which has diplomatic relations with Taiwan as an "independent entity". Once you perform that feat, you do not have to "avoid" or "pretend" anymore.
JM (Jan 29, '07)

(1) The World Trade Organization; (2) Belize, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Gambia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Tuvalu, and the Vatican. More important, Taiwan conducts its own bilateral trade with nearly every country, including the People's Republic of China. - ATol


How naive can one be? M Murata [letter, Jan 26] believes "China threat" originates from the facts (yes, facts) that the PRC [People's Republic of China] is not transparent enough; that its people do not have enough freedom, that it intimidates Taiwan province; that it supports dictatorial practices of certain countries; that it does not respect human rights. Granted that these are all facts, but I'd like to ask Murata why "China threat" did not surface 20 years ago when there were even less freedom and respect for human rights in the PRC, when the PRC was equally, if not more, intimidating toward Taiwan province and supportive of countries like North Korea and Cuba? Why? Murata missed the point (perhaps intentionally?): "China threat" emerged because the PRC, spearheaded by its surging economy, has been on the rise for almost a decade in almost every aspect, to the point that the US and countries like Japan and some other Western countries feel threatened by its emergence as a competitor and a potential challenger to their interests and to the existing world order that was designed to benefit the US and the Western world. Like I said before, as long as the PRC refuses to succumb to US/Western interest and their design of the world order, it will never become a "responsible stakeholder" defined by the West and it will always be considered a threat. And why allow yourself to be a hypocrite? The US, for example, has invaded a bunch of countries (the two recent ones being Afghanistan and Iraq) and supported many ruthless dictators (Idi Amin, Ngo Dihn Diem, Park Chung-hee, Pol Pot and [Augusto] Pinochet, just to name a few), is not a threat somehow?
Juchechosunmanse
Beijing, China (Jan 29, '07)


"If [US] bombs and missiles from above are The Great Decider on who's a terrorist, why not take out everybody down there on the ground? Forty years after Che Guevara's 'one, two, a thousand Vietnams', meet 'one, two, a thousand Fallujahs'" [The state of the (dis)union, Jan 25]. After reading Pepe Escobar's all too plausible analysis of US strategy in the upcoming phase of the present war for control of West and Central Asia, I could only wonder - where is the Nuremberg Tribunal now, when we need it? And why are not Messrs [George W] Bush, [Richard] Cheney and [Tony] Blair and their henchmen there, awaiting judgment?
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Jan 29, '07)


Although I am a fan of Spengler, who usually writes intelligent screeds, his review [Faith and risk in the Cold War, Jan 23] of John O'Sullivan's book The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister is sorely lacking in research and details. O'Sullivan is what is euphemistically called a "senior fellow" at the far-right-wing Hudson Institute. The Hudson is a Fortress of Solitude for various warmongering factions of the US Republican Party, all the way from neo-cons like the currently embattled [Lewis] "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, to the empire-building extremists of PNAC [Project for the New American Century], like Francis Fukuyama. O'Sullivan has also been in the employ - from time to time - of another neo-con darling, Rupert Murdoch. These kinds of "fellows" are anything but subdued when it comes to rewriting history to suit their version, like the myth that has deceased president [Ronald] Reagan standing astride the European continent, like a cowboy John Wayne, ready to draw his six-gun "Peacekeeper" missiles at a moment's notice to put the guys in the black hats, the former USSR, back in their place. What actually felled the USSR was fighting a long, protracted and doomed occupation and war against the peoples of Afghanistan. Economically, they could not support their country's needs and a never-ending war. It was not Reagan, but former president Jimmy Carter who authorized sending weapons and other forms of support to the Afghan "freedom fighters". Reagan benefited from a policy initiated by his predecessor. But, as they have proved time and again in the past six years of the Boy King's reign, the neo-cons and their fellow travelers never let truth get in the way of telling a good story. Partly as a result of those lies and deceptions, the US is now engaged in an illegal and immoral war against Iraq, another doomed occupation that will most likely end in the financial destruction of America - unless the Dark Lord himself, VP Cheney, gets his way and Iran is nuked, then the entire world will get to witness history in one blinding flash of eternity. So, Mr Spengler, unless you are one of those "fellows" at the Hudson or other so-called right-wing think-tanks that are on a mission to deify former president Reagan, you should take off your cheerleader's uniform and retire the pom-poms.
Greg Bacon
Ava, Missouri (Jan 29, '07)

But he looks so cute in that outfit. - ATol


In response to my [letter] of January 26, ATol's editorial comment was: "Are you claiming that racial prejudice is not a form of ignorance?" I would say that I regret that I cannot say that racial prejudice is a form of [ignorance]. People who are well educated also have racial prejudices. Bias is not something that is limited to the ignorant. It is a human condition that many are afflicted with. Hence it becomes even institutionalized. Example: bias against Muslims in India; bias in the British police force; bias against African-Americans in the US (reflected in education and drug sentencing to name a few examples).
May Sage
USA (Jan 29, '07)

This exchange started over a letter writer's claim that a clearly ignorant racial barb - "Paki" - voiced on a British "reality" TV show was an example of systemic prejudice against Muslims. Actress Shilpa Shetty hails from a part of the subcontinent (Tamil Nadu) that is nowhere near Pakistan, that is predominantly Hindu, and whose language is Dravidian. So the Celebrity Big Brother incident was roughly equivalent to calling an Iranian Zoroastrian a "Hebe" because his complexion resembles that of a Yemenite Jew. Yes, of course there is such a thing as systemic prejudice, but there are also such things as simple ignorance, stupidity and meanness. - ATol


Wu Zhong's China's storm in a coffee cup [Jan 25] is much ado about nothing. What is clear from his article is that Rui Chenggang, after his return from a year's study at Yale, found a way to grandstand. He took on Starbucks' branch in the Baohedian ("Preserving Harmony") in Beijing's Forbidden City. The 29-year-old anchor on one of China's English-language [television] programs has attached his star to the re-nascent Chinese nativism which is never very far from the surface. Why, one may ask, did Mr Rui wait a good six years after Starbucks opened a coffee shop in the Forbidden City on September 18, 2000, before tilting [at] the windmills of polluting China's cultural heritage? Mr Rui has made a name for himself, and his dulcet baritone voice has wafted over the airwaves of the BBC and other international news programs. He put his money on a sure thing, and has pulled on the harp strings of Chinese chauvinism. The Chinese have a long tradition of "making harmony". Rui Chenggang has turned the mini-coffee shop in "Preserving Harmony" hall into the eye of a maelstrom of his own making and the foundation of his reputation.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 26, '07)


It is unbelievable that free people, like Irene Lim [who] lives in the UK [letter, Jan 25], refuse to see some obvious things, but instead want to believe that the China threat to world peace is something abstract, as if it were some "counterrevolutionary" movement. In Antoaneta Bezlova's excellent article Missile test gives new life to 'China threat' [Jan 25], when a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman states that "China opposes the weaponization of space, and also opposes any form of arms race", and his country has just fired a satellite killer, [it] only shows that either the spokesman suffers some kind of [schizophrenia], or that we should not consider his words seriously. "China threat" is not a product of reactionary minds, not even a strategy of nations envious about China's astonishing development. This threat is based on a set of real things, not only on a single missile issue. The root of the "China threat" emanates from Beijing's lack of transparency and freedom of Chinese people; on China's support to dictatorial practices [as in] North Korea and Africa that sacrifice their people; on increase in military expenses; on intimidation to Taiwan people; on not respecting human rights. If Beijing wants to show to the international community that China is a trustful nation committed to world peace and development, and as a member of the United Nations, China could start doing a simple thing: applying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
M Murata (Jan 26, '07)


It may be puzzling to some readers why countries seemingly as diverse as Australia, Japan and India should join the chorus in condemning China for its latest test in outer space. I would like to provide further clarification to the concept of "China threat" in Antoaneta Bezlova's article Missile test gives new life to 'China threat' of January 25. In essence the thawing of the Sino-US relationship in the '70s was based on temporarily "cold storing" some of their conflicting interests in order to face the common threat of the USSR. Among others it was the question of China's civil war. Unlike the American Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, Beijing, Washington and Taipei (the Republic of China's government in exile on Taiwan) agreed that the Chinese civil war was not yet over. It was to be carried on "by other means", which included the continuing supply of arms to the Chinese government in exile by the US. Therefore, in order for the Chinese civil war not to revert back to a "shooting war" and for peace in the Far East to continue, the "China threat" from Beijing must be credible enough to convince the government in Taiwan that peaceful reunification on Beijing's terms is their only choice and that if they refuse Beijing's terms for peaceful reunification, military alliance with the US will not prevent the inevitable. This Chinese test in outer space is also to convince the US and Japan that including Taiwan Island in their theater missile defense or national missile defense will not stop China from taking back the island and ending the civil war.
M Azad
UK (Jan 26, '07)


Re the ATol editor's note on the status of Taiwan: You seem to be confused or confusing about a Chinese island called Taiwan. This island is part of a province called Taiwan province according to the constitution of the Republic of China or the People's Republic of China. Strange, isn't it, that the island you call a country has a Chinese constitution which says its territory covers the mainland, that the island you call a country flies a Chinese flag, that the founding father of what you call a country is the first president of modern China, that the government you call Taiwanese government is recognized by no country in the world except by you, dear editor, and a handful China-haters, and that the army on that island hangs a huge banner on Jinmen, Fujian province (strange to you?), saying "Unify China with the New Three Democratic Principles." Even stranger is that you cannot provide your reader with the constitution of Taiwan, the national flag of Taiwan, the national anthem of Taiwan, the flag of the so-called Taiwanese army. Go to the CIA [US Central Intelligence Agency] website and see whether Taiwan is listed as a country. Go to the WTO [World Trade Organization] website and see whether it is listed as a country. The strangest thing is that you failed to mention from whom the PRC took over China's seat at the UN in 1971.
Junming Jiang (Jan 26, '07)

We did not "call Taiwan a country". Still, although ATol policy is to avoid the words "nation" and "country" when referring to Taiwan, that does not mean we pretend that Taiwan does not in most ways function in the real world as an independent entity; the CIA, WTO and even the PRC itself (vis-a-vis cross-strait trade, for example) also recognize this when necessary. The editor's note under Irene Lim Benson's letter of January 25 clearly said, "The PRC took over China's seat at the United Nations from the ROC in 1971", that is, from the Republic of China government-in-exile that the UN had recognized as the de jure government of all China up to that point. - ATol


You seem to have misread what Abdul Ruff Colachal has said in his comment about the Shilpa Shetty incident [letter, Jan 25]. Are you aware that people say what happened in the show reflects a deeper strain of prejudice (and not just something the ignorant say or do)? You apparently [are] unaware that reports of institutions like the police have found that they do have a racial bias. Mr Colachal was pointing to prejudice towards a group; whether it is South Asians in general or Indian Muslims, it is still an issue about the prejudice against a group ... Note the police in India are also biased (not unlike the British, though more so). A clear example is how they treat bomb creation by RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] groups and others. Countercurrents.org has a whole slew of articles on this subject.
May Sage (Jan 26, '07)

Are you claiming that racial prejudice is not a form of ignorance? - ATol


The international press does not appear ready to issue a passing grade to our interim government that they see as an incohesive, clumsy, and bumbling organization too preoccupied with the international travel itinerary of the deposed prime minister to make real progress on the corruption issue or to offer the nation much more than superficial knee-jerk reactions to events that appear to be well beyond their control. The lights are on but no one's home.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jan 26, '07)


[To the people of] Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, China, Thailand and Taiwan: I am writing to you because I am very concerned your countries are ignoring what is going on with the oceans. What I am seeing is a blatant, new-age disregard for the planet, which I think is unlike your traditions. Specifically I am talking about the fact that many people from your counties are furthering "mystic" beliefs in "powers" of some animal parts, and so poaching has become respected. I would think the masses and especially the governments would want to step up and claim the world's animals as priceless, especially considering we are at a peak of population growth and [as] such we are killing off the rest of the world's animals which preceded us, representing millions of years of evolution. We want to see the oceans survive and we are asking that your governments consider restricting fishing significantly and farming fish instead of harvesting the ocean ... I think we have little time left. We need to start here now. Certainly having leaders step up and speak out to stop fishing is a great idea ... Your people seem to not realize that fish are being killed off because the media [are] not talking about it, and I guess this is because you do not want to lose your advertisers. So what you could do is ask people to ration or set a personal limit to how much seafood they will consume each year for so many years. I think it would be better for the governments to set an amount allowable for each person and subsidize the fishing fleets to learn how to farm the fish. I know it didn't go well in the past but we have to keep trying. I myself have stopped eating all fish except for an occasional shrimp, farmed if I can, or sardines. I am doing this for our children and grandchildren and I am giving up nothing, I am just giving life to the seas. Won't you join me and share this with the rest of the Asian countries and let us change the course of action by choice and concern for all our children to come, instead of acting out of greed and thinking that we so deserve to have whatever we want that we should overkill or kill off a species? Please, your people are so organized and work so well together. Please, let's do this.
Ms O (Jan 26, '07)


Pepe Escobar's The state of the (dis)union (Jan 25) is a magnificent analysis [of] the entire Iraqi condition. I would like to add the point that the killing will be at its peak if Muqtada al-Sadr decides to fight. We will find out that the Mehdi Army will be many times larger than the number stated in the article. We will also know whether or not the Mehdi Army has the fighting ability of Hezbollah. Under these two conditions, the bloody fight will be ... such that the Bush administration will have to make the fundamental choice: either to continue fighting with huge loses or start thinking of leaving Iraq to the Iraqis within a framework similar to the one suggested by the Iraqi Study Group. Eventually, the project of monopoly capitalism will be defeated, because the Iraqi people, not the terrorists, do not like to be occupied.
Adil Mouhammed
Springfield, Illinois (Jan 25, '07)


Re The price of hypocrisy [Jan 25]: An excellent article by [Mark] LeVine! I've long wondered just what the Bush regime means by "democracy". Certainly nothing like Solon's or Pericles' definitions!
Lester Ness (Jan 25, '07)


Re Missile test gives new life to 'China threat' [Jan 25] by Antoaneta Bezlova: First I shall point out a mistake of fact in the essay. Taiwan was never a "country" ruled by an independent government for 60 years. It was the independent Republic of China which included the Chinese of Taiwan and the l.3 billion Chinese on the mainland that was recognized by the United Nations for more than half a century. The People's Republic of China was not recognized as the country of the Chinese people only by these so-called defenders of "Taiwanese government" for that length of time. Next, this "China threat" is only felt by those countries individually and collectively planning to violate the independence of China. These countries include the allies of US and Japan who support the plan to intervene in the national-unification efforts of the Chinese people. This new technological advancement by China will go some way in reducing the likelihood of China getting into another MAD [mutually assured destruction] standoff with its adversaries. This was the rationale for [the late US president] Ronald Reagan's original "Star Wars" strategy and his chosen direction for the US's technological "big leap forward", was it not? While China has no illusion of bringing down another evil empire like president Reagan had, China does hope that this demonstration will encourage the US government to sit down with other countries to do some serious talking about keeping outer space free from an arms race, something which President [George W] Bush showed earlier on he has no intention of doing. China has thus given the US a stimulus to think outside of TMD [theater missile defense] and NMD [national missile defense] for the Far East. If the US can consider giving up TMD and NMD for the Far East it would be to the good of everyone.
Irene Lim Benson
UK (Jan 25, '07)

The article said "Taiwan has been in essence independent for nearly 60 years". In other words, the government of the People's Republic of China has not had de facto jurisdiction over the island since the Kuomintang established a government-in-exile continuation of the Republic of China there after losing the civil war in 1949. The Taiwanese government continues independently to issue its own passports, print its own currency, conduct its own trade, and defend itself militarily, regardless of politics, legalities, and lack of official international recognition. The PRC took over China's seat at the United Nations from the ROC in 1971. - ATol


After having read the topical write-up by Dhruba Adhikary that appeared on your online edition on January 24 [Nepal leaps into the unknown], I am prompted to give my reaction, which may look somewhat complementary to the author's vivid illustration of how Nepal is gradually sliding into chaos. Dhruba Adhikary has fearlessly and uninhibitedly pointed out how responsible public figures of this messy country, like Home Minister K P Sitaula, are lost in the fog of political lies. When the home minister himself is acting like a spokesman of the erstwhile terrorist outfit, what else can the country expect to be in store for its political destiny? Adhikary mentioned the oath-taking episode in the interim legislature, which the Maoists refuse to call a parliament. Yes truly, the Maoists are known for their equivocality and double standard. Taking oath in the name of God by the political iconoclast appears to be somewhat oxymoronic. Having realized that they already closer to seizing power, the Maoists have time and again explicitly spoken that their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian communist regime in Nepal on a Bolshevik model. The undemocratic method of administering [the] oath to the chief justice of the country by Prime Minister [Girija Prasad] Koirala, without having gone through the process himself, is the first step towards executive totalitarianism which the Maoists are anxiously waiting to emulate from Koirala. It is true that Nepal's transition to a stable democracy is not only unpredictable, the nation has to traverse through a long and treacherous political landscape before the fantasy is realized. On the contrary, the nation is getting further bogged down in a political quagmire every passing day. As pointed out by Adhikary, the left extremists have already infiltrated the nation's security mechanism. Storing Maoist weapons in containers and keeping their guerrillas within the designated camps [are more examples of] political hogwash. What the US ambassador to Nepal, James Moriarty, [said] to the media is absolutely irrefutable and should be taken as a premonition of what is likely to come about.
Ratna Bahadur Rai
Kathmandu, Nepal (Jan 25, '07)


Kaveh Afrasiabi's article The great games over Iraq (Jan 20) is right on the money. "Game playing" is also a good way to describe the spectacle of [US] Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice visiting the Middle East ostensibly to promote Palestinian/Israeli peace after having ignored this crisis in the last six years. One could be charitable and say, "Better late than never," since without the resolution of this conflict, anything the Bush administration has undertaken in the past years in the Middle East has been suspect. The irony is, look who the secretary is talking with: the heads of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. These are all regimes whose leaders have about as much public support in the Middle East as President [George W] Bush. She refuses to talk with Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, because talking may somehow legitimize them. If the secretary was paying attention during her trip, she would have learned that legitimacy of the aforementioned countries and groups comes from the overwhelming support of the Middle Eastern street. As long as the Bush administration and its envoys are in denial of the reality on the ground and refuse to engage the real players, anything they initiate will continue to be a disaster for the region and for the interests of the United States.
Fariborz S Fatemi
McLean, Virginia (Jan 25, '07)


The unfortunate incident wherein actor Shilpa Shetty was insulted and called a "Paki", an expression used in India for insulting Indian Muslims, should open the eyes of the world, particularly India, on the plight of the insulted and injured Muslims the world over owing to the anti-Islamic wars waged by the US-led forces. These Muslims have no voice of their own and others don't speak for them either. Not even once [has] the government of India warned against those insulting Muslims - let alone initiating corrective punitive measures against the poisonous anti-societal forces using religions for advancing their narrow politico-economic interests. The fact that Muslims in India do not have a standard national mouthpiece in English to express their own views and protect their rights is being exploited by the communal forces against the legitimate interests of Muslims. Those Muslims who can articulate well in English do so only to appease the ruling classes and sabotage the cause of the Muslims by attacking them. When the Muslims demand their due share, at par with any other section of the country, in the fruits of national development in jobs and higher specialized education for those who are conveniently left out by the selection processes existing in the country, the media, instead of supporting the cause of the less fortunate Muslims, hypocritically pick up non-issues and even criticize the madrassas that impart religious education. The situation has gone to the extent that anyone can do anything to the Muslims and the government would just watch the show with full patience so that the rulers don't lose the vote banks of the majority community. When the USA, the chief "crusader" for the cause of human dignity and so concerned about human-rights records in select countries, is searching for new locations for establishing Central Intelligence Agency-run secret torture centers to finish off the so-called suspected terrorists, there is no hope that there will be any justice for the Muslims in the globalized era of "terrorism" perpetuated by the West. One can't just blame the media alone for that, however.
Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 25, '07)

The Shilpa Shetty incident occurred not in India but in Britain, where (among several other nations) "Paki" is commonly used by the ignorant as a slur against anyone apparently of South Asian descent. It seems a bit of a stretch to link this incident, which was only noticed at all because it occurred on the "reality" TV show Celebrity Big Brother, to the alleged crusade against Muslims in India or anywhere else. See The immigration reality show (Jan 20). Shetty is a native of the Dravidian-speaking Bunt community of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. - ATol


Adam Hochschild's article [Why the 'big push' sounds horribly familiar, Jan 24] exemplifies ... salient mechanisms that lead to the fall of empires - hubris and a sense of impunity. [US President George W] Bush and his courtiers are in the process of destroying that US Empire which expanded from the two American continents and large areas of the Pacific to encompass much of the entire globe after World War II. The question is whether or not these people with their, as Mr Hochschild puts it, collective "tin ear for the lessons of history" will draw the rest of us with us in their fall. Unlike Franz Josef's Austro-Hungarian Empire, George Walker Bush's US Empire is armed to the teeth with real WMD [weapons of mass destruction] - thermonuclear weapons, sufficient to destroy us all before that heat death which otherwise seems to be our appointed lot. And there seems no more reason to trust to Mr Bush's wisdom in managing these weapons than there was to trust Franz Josef's wisdom in managing those available to him.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (Jan 24, '07)


Adam Hochschild's book will hopefully include an understanding that the Western allies faced an actual threat, in that Germany wanted to annex Belgium and parts of France [Why the 'big push' sounds horribly familiar, Jan 24]. German war aims remained quite grand well into 1918, leaving the Allies little choice. Germany had a favorable peace within its grasp at the end of 1917, but threw the advantage away in March, striving for complete victory. Let us also hope that the coming book will understand the long process of developing the skills and weapons needed to break those enormous trench systems.
Steve McCaffery
Canada (Jan 24, '07)


Re North Korea bites a golden bullet [Jan 24]: There is nothing in Donald Kirk's article which suggests that North Korea is illegally trading in gold. Pyongyang's dealing in gold has the official sanction of the London Bullion Markets Association (LBMA), as he duly notes. North Korea has reopened mines and increased production of this precious metal as a battering ram to force open doors of President [George W] Bush's draconian policy to deny Pyongyang access to international financial markets. The American president hopes to bring North Korea to its knees, thereby forcing it to return to the six-power talks in Beijing. Yet recent conversations in Berlin between Washington and Pyongyang given reason to hope that Mr Bush is willing to relent on his extreme policy towards North Korea, should it return to the talks. On the other hand, Donald Kirk introduces his readers to the rarely discussed subject of foreign investors who see Pyongyang as a country worthy of committing money and time to develop North Korea's financial and economic opportunities. Infusion of foreign capital from the United States is not a novel idea. Such speculation has been bruited by senior bankers and former foreign officers in public discussions at the New York Korea Society. But such matters in time of a warlike setting which the Bush administration has put into policy when it comes to Pyongyang, is not for open discussion fearing the heavy price that subject would politically demand. Donald Kirk's metaphor of a bullet is ill-placed. Rather the more apposite simile harks back to William Jennings Bryan's allusion to being crucified on a cross of gold.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 24, '07)

Just to be accurate, the "golden bullet" metaphor was a headline writer's, and did not appear in Donald Kirk's article. - ATol


Re Sanctions under the shadow of war (Jan 24): [Martin] Hart-Landsberg and [John] Feffer rightly point out the perils of US-led economic sanctions. The neo-con-led policy is based more on ideological dogma than it is on intelligence and reason. A dogged adherence to an arrogant creed of non-negotiation only makes the egotistical North Korean despot more irate and more unstable. One suspects that America's inflexible policy decisions are formulated by the [Vice President Richard] Cheney-led hawks, since past evidence indicates that the incurious George cedes many such decisions to Cheney, though it is done without credit or fanfare. No doubt this involves a great failing on the part of the America media in not uncovering this fact. Meanwhile the North Korean people suffer from malnutrition and hopelessness and the world remains more unstable from the manic moves of [Kim Jong-il] while neo-cons still fiddle warlike tunes.
Jim of Southern California
USA (Jan 24, '07)


There have been a lot of comments, even accusations, on China's use of a missile to down one of its own outdated satellites [see Satellite killer really aimed at Taiwan; A nasty jolt for Russia, Jan 23]. It is reasonable for the world to consult and inquire on China's long-term plan of such activities. However, there is no justification for hypocrisy. In a society of law when a person commits a "bad" act, this person should apologize and be punished, so as to make an example not to be followed. But the US and Russia have perpetuated such acts, an unknown number of times, without being punished, though they later declared not to repeat the act. Therefore a "friendly" discussion is in order, not any alarmist or provocative announcements which would surely be non-fruitful. There is nothing further from the truth when Jakob Cambria remarked (Jan 23) that socialist China is being turned into China Inc. This of course applies to its financial, not political, management. The US dollars being accumulated by China are just printed paper in exchange for raw material, energy and labor. Therefore it is the job of China Inc to use them for outside investments. Mr Cambria likes to make sweeping statements on the ills of Chinese society without being informed. The taxation on farmers has been steadily reduced and is being eliminated. The livelihood of minority people has been steadily improved. Backward provinces are being developed according to plan through infrastructure building. Maybe Mr Cambria should submit a grand plan to vitalize China using its foreign reserves instead of being just an armchair critic who spews out his "daily editorial".
S P Li (Jan 24, '07)


[Re] Faith and risk in the Cold war [Jan 23] ... Ungrateful Spengler failed to mention or has forgotten the vital role played by Islam, its ghazis and martyrs in dismantling the USSR and winning the Cold War. It was because of al-Qaeda and the jihadis of Islam who risked and gave their lives that the defeat and expulsion of Soviets from Afghanistan [was brought about], leading to the subsequent global [sic] collapse of communism. [US] president Ronald Reagan and his vice president, George Bush Sr, then called all Muslims for jihad by supporting different warlords and jihadi organizations in Afghanistan. I remember news footage of vice president Bush standing in an Afghan refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, telling them it was great to go for jihad and fight communist Soviets. It was not because of the faith of small-witted Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, the famous grocer's daughter with a made-up posh accent, disgracefully ejected from 10 Downing Street by her own party because of her disastrous handling of the UK's economy, which brought the crashing down of Berlin Wall. But in fact, the decline of the Soviet Union began with the undaunted bravery and courage of the Muslim jihadis to liberate Afghanistan from the occupation of the unbelievers, the communists. Ronald Reagan armed and financed the freedom struggle of mujahideen and al-Qaeda for expanding the West's perverse philosophy of materialism, capricious capitalism, greed and belligerent political domination of the weak nations with natural resource in abundance. The [duo's] biblical faith never played any part in this struggle. Both relied [on] and trusted Islamic jihadis who had virulent distrust and hatred of communism to do their dirty work, which suited both participants. The duo was involved to their necks in crushing the USSR, exporting the West's [capricious] capitalism, political and economic domination in the underdeveloped countries by providing arms [to], training and financing the Islamic freedom fighters, as they then called them, first to liberate and expel their Muslim brothers from Afghanistan and then dismantle the evil empire. The jihadis and al-Qaeda were best buddies of [the United States of] America and the West then, but after the collapse of communism, they became the worst of enemies. It was this treachery that made al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden virulently against the US and others it considered the US's cronies. I read a long time ago that president Ronald Reagan was profoundly deaf and did not like to hear anything that he could not understand and most of the time what he heard, he did not understand: could Spengler help me?
Saqib Khan
UK (Jan 24, '07)


Regarding Ismael Hossein-Zadeh's excellent article [Riches keep the US in Iraq] on January 17, it seems to me that there ought to be a universal law forcing the invaders to foot the bills of rebuilding the infrastructures they destroy, and a universal ban on companies from the invading countries to be employed in that same rebuilding.
Dr V L Velupillai
Germany (Jan 24, '07)


Spengler's [Jan 23] essay about the end of the Cold War [Faith and risk in the Cold War] shows that he is an astute man: it's a subtle prodding of the Germans to close ranks in the coming war against Iran.
Joseph Bodenhofer
Austria (Jan 23, '07)


One can only come to one definitive and rational conclusion on reading the review Faith and risk in the Cold War [Jan 23] by the persistently enigmatic Spengler, and that is that the writings titled the Old Testament must have been written after the writings titled the New Testament. For how else can one believe?
Armand De Laurell (Jan 23, '07)


I'd like to congratulate Wu Zhong about Satellite killer really aimed at Taiwan [Jan 23]. Besides [the fact that] Beijing does not help its last Maoist brother North Korea to become a normal nation and integrate it to the international community, this recent act of Beijing's satellite killer shows once again how China is a real threat to peace of the whole world, not only of Asia.
M Murata (Jan 23, '07)


Re China seeks new ways to spend $1 trillion [Jan 23]: Financial thunder is coming out of the People's Republic of China. Beijing has a trillion [US] dollars in financial reserves. Premier Wen Jiabao, at the closure of the Central Council on Foreign Affairs, announced that China will diversify its holdings worldwide. Such an announcement underscores the rapid rise of an economic and financial China. It is an outward sign of optimism and incentive for overseas expansion, and the emergence of a China that has transformed itself into a full-fledged capitalist power. Premier Wen has turned socialist China into China Inc. The mind-boggling surplus of a trillion dollars makes the observer wonder why Beijing is not using it for diminishing pollution, which is choking its cities, or for improving the lives of the rural population, which is becoming hopelessly impoverished, or developing, say, a backward province like Gansu, or meliorating the lives of its minority people. Instead we see that the concentration of power in the hands of a centralized communist leadership is on the threshold of global investment. China Inc's combination of political, financial and economic power will make investments in foreign enterprises, bonds and other instruments of the marketplace a formidable presence in the world economy and will play a hidden but forceful role in the countries to which its trillion-dollar reserve surplus find an outlet ... It is quite clear that China Inc is writing a new chapter for a future Lenin's "imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism".
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 23, '07)


Both [Jan 23] articles about Russia are noteworthy, albeit for different reasons. A nasty jolt for Russia is just a silly attempt to draw Moscow in on the West's behalf, since China is far more attentive to Russian concerns than [hecklers] from across the Pacific. The author's reluctance to attach his or her name to this report is entirely understandable. It's a credentials-killer. Although PINR [Power and Interest News Report] "researchers" - some of whom have prognosticated that Russia would send soldiers to Iraq, among other follies - should be immune to any embarrassment by now. Russia taps Indian opportunities by Zorawar Daulet Singh is an expert analysis, in which facts and numbers are unusually (for articles regarding Russia) precise, conclusions reasonable, and prescriptions sensible. It more than balances out PINR's voodoo dance.
Oleg Beliakovich
Seattle, Washington (Jan 23, '07)


Re Iran being hit in the pocket [Jan 23] by Amandeep Sandhu: Under the blueprint for world domination which the neo-cons, with characteristic geographical arrogance, have termed the Project for the New American Century, a nuclear arsenal is becoming an absolute necessity for any sovereign nation that has any inclination to remain so. Relatively weak but fiercely independent nations like Iran are the natural prey of these would-be masters of the universe, as of all military hegemons throughout history. "Weakness is provocative," [former US defense secretary] Donald Rumsfeld himself recently said - an observation with which all Iraqis would now heartily agree. The looming metastasizing threat of military attack by the USA, or by one of its puffed-up Chihuahua-turned-Rottweiler client estates such as Israel, will inevitably lead to a world in which nuclear deterrence is seen as the sole reliable foundation for secure and lasting national independence. Israel and the USA are now apparently inclined to engage Iran in a game of nuclear chicken. The Israelis, for one, need to disabuse themselves of the very silly notion that they can somehow keep every unfriendly Islamic country from ever developing nuclear weapons. They should concentrate instead on bringing closure to their seemingly interminable occupation, oppression and creeping dispossession of the Palestinians, which is, after all, the very wellspring of Islamic animosity. Game of chicken or not, Iran is now left with but two choices: it can either back down or it can continue to insist, as an IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] member state, on its rights to nuclear technology. If the Persians choose the latter, they ought to make clear what the level of their response to either a conventional or a nuclear attack might be. That alone might prevent Israel and the USA from making a terribly tragic miscalculation. No politician in [either country] should be allowed to labor under the dangerous misapprehension that fissionable devices (tactical or otherwise) are the only means of delivering nuclear Armageddon (see Chernobyl).
Jose R Pardinas, PhD
San Diego, California (Jan 23, '07)


Re Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness [Jan 17]: I disagree that President [George W] Bush is obsessed with imposing democracy in Iraq. Bush has on many occasions talked of individual rights and has claimed that any democracy in that part of the world would likely have a much different look to it. Still, if democracy for all citizens of the world is not something to be desired, what is the purpose of The Hague, and the UN? Why do we have international groups traveling the world looking after what they describe as the inherent rights of individuals etc? Bush is obsessed, but others are just humanitarian. Right.
Linda
Los Angeles, California (Jan 23, '07)


TaMu suggested in his letter [Jan 22] that it's time for the US to evaluate the People's Republic of China's progress towards becoming a "responsible stakeholder". My question is, what is the definition of a "responsible stakeholder"? And who defines it? The US? Then can we trust that the ultimate judge, the US, is being impartial? I guess the PRC will never be a "responsible stakeholder" defined by the US as long as it refuses succumb to US interests and the American design of the world order. And who determines if the US is a responsible stakeholder? The Almighty God? Hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Juchechosunmanse
Beijing, China (Jan 23, '07)


I would like to make you aware of the Google ad "Thai Girls Are Sexy" found on [an article in the Southeast Asia section]. The ad may be for a legitimate service, but the language used may give associations not beneficial for Asia Times Online's reputation.
Henrik Thon Bardum (Jan 23, '07)

We do our best to block inappropriate, misleading or just plain ugly ads from the website, but because of Asia Times Online readers' penchant for not clicking on our legitimate advertisements, let alone buying our sponsors' products, we are forced to rely disproportionately on rotating "network" ads such as Google's for revenue. ATol's "reputation" is based on the quality of its writers, presentation and editing, which does not come cheap. Readers with ideas about how to raise revenue without having to rely on annoying ads are welcome to submit suggestions. In the meantime, please click on an ad once in a while and help us out. - ATol


The [Jan 20] article titled China begins to define the rules [Jan 20] ... states, "Unlike Russia, China is a stakeholder. Oil must flow unimpeded, and the price of oil must not skyrocket" ... Is China a stakeholder? The idea of China becoming a "responsible stakeholder" originated from [then] US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick in a September 2005 speech on US-China relations. The original quote reads as follows: "It is time to take our policy beyond opening doors to China's membership into the international system: we need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder in that system." This has been widely misquoted in the domestic Chinese media as indicating that China is a responsible stakeholder and that the US considers it to be a responsible stakeholder. If one reads the quote carefully, though, the key word is "become". This indicates that at the time of the speech, the US position was that China was not a "responsible stakeholder" but that the US wanted China to become one in the future. Since this quote is almost one and a half years old, perhaps it's time for another quote by the US State Department on China's progress towards becoming a "responsible stakeholder".
TaMu
China (Jan 22, '07)


Re China begins to define the rules [Jan 20]: M K Bhadrakumar has a keen eye. In China's moves on the diplomatic chessboard in West, South, Southeast and Northeast Asia, he finds a conservative but judicious strategy. Beijing may parse complex American designs, yet it has not lost sight of Washington as a strategic enemy. China's recent anti-satellite missile test augurs ill. People's China has brought a military cast to outer space, challenging the long-accepted doctrine of peaceful use of the universe. This should give [US deputy secretary of state nominee John] Negroponte more wool than he would want to spin. Mr Bhadrakumar might see in a new China flexing its muscles a countervailing power to America's unilateralism. And this is welcome. On the other hand, a China with imperial pretensions will follow the tried and true rules of whipping its clients into line according to its own plans. Chairman Mao [Zedong], launching the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 40 years ago, received much delight of the disorder and confusion under the heavens. And today's Beijing does that as well, seeing Washington floundering in its own failed war to bring "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East; which had the effect of pushing these very states into a putative Chinese order. China will not confront the United States, because of the never ceasing flow of investment capital and outsourcing of industries and technology transfers. America has everything to fear, the more especially [as] carrots and sticks have little effect on Beijing.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 22, '07)


Re China begins to define the rules [Jan 20]: While a "massive grey aura lacking in transparency surrounds the multipolar chaos today", [outgoing US Director of National Intelligence John] Negroponte's January 11 statement was definitely not a startling revelation. It was fully expected. The intellectually challenged US policy is turning the clock back to a desired time in the past, and wishes to start all over. So now let's not label China as the enemy, that can always be revised later. The real enemy was and is the only country with a nuclear arsenal on par with the US. But not that long ago, Russia was left for dead, weakened from the inside, economically destroyed by the oligarchs, and ready to be dismembered by corrupt governors. On the basis of that calculation, it made sense to invade the Middle East and elevate China to enemy status. Now the upper hand is with those who advocated dealing with Russia first. However, the fundamentals have not changed since the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. That is where the "outer rings" of the broader new US-China/Russia Cold War started. The US-Iran conflict has become the "inner ring", the one China and Russia can ill afford to leave unprotected. The stories persist on differences in Russian and Chinese interests, but all those focus on issues of lesser importance. The cold truth is that China's "multi-splendored strategy" is based on its established global position as an economic power. It is the backing of such a power that makes Russia "assertive", and it is Russia's nuclear arsenal that allows China to brilliantly execute its global strategy. And when it comes to Iran, Russia has just made shipments of weapons, while China rebuked the US for meddling in its energy partnership with Iran. It does not look like either Russia or China can afford to abandon Iran, notwithstanding all noises to the contrary. These are dangerous times, as nobody can foresee the regional and global fallout of a new cold war. Russia and China are focusing on developing economic mutual dependencies with the West, with Russia primarily focusing on energy partnerships with Europe, and China trade/financial partnerships with the US. There is always hope that the West (and for that matter Russia or China) will not recklessly abandon their self-interests, and over time may find accommodations within [a] multipolar world.
Bianca
USA (Jan 22, '07)


I just wanted to praise M K Bhadrakumar's cogent and dispassionate looks at international affairs [China begins to define the rules, Jan 20]. One gets the feeling that he is surveying a monumental chess game, with no ax to grind. Ain't no agenda there. The American press (and others) should take notice.
Steve (Jan 22, '07)


Spengler's reaction to [former US] president [Jimmy] Carter's book is consistent with his role as apologist for the Zionist cult and its own fantasies [Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness, Jan 17]. His writing, though skillful in special hyper-intellectual pretenses, remains a vacuous polemic rooted in the need to continue to deny the people of Palestine the God-given right to live in their land unmolested by Zionist predations. We are all Palestinians, living on the Earth these fanatics believe is theirs to reclaim from the rest of the human race. President Carter's term in office was in a troubled time, which any fair person would agree, leaving Mr Spengler out. Spenglers are all over the world doing the same thing. Boring.
Pouli Klee (Jan 22, '07)


The Himalayan Kingdom [of] Nepal is limping back to normalcy in a new, democratic mode after a prolonged insurgency against the palace and repressive policies of King Gyanendra to tame the struggle of the political parties to overthrow the king. Maoists and other major political parties that waged the struggle to terminate the kingdom and establish a democratic order in the country have come out with flying colors. With the old House of Representatives being dissolved and a new interim constitution adopted, a new interim government has come into existence with the participation of all political parties, including the Maoists, and now the stage is set for the forthcoming Constituent Assembly election. By all standards the pro-democracy movement in Nepal has succeeded with the overthrow of the palace rule in the kingdom and preparations under way to hold the elections in a "free and fair" manner, as it is practiced the world over, including in the West. The Maoists had launched the armed struggle in 1996 and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, blood as well, since then; most of 2006 was very crucial in this tortuously long exercise by Nepalese politicians to put the country on the road to democracy and reconciliation. The proactive role played by Indian communist leader Sitaram Yechury in Nepal during the crisis period for the changes that have taken place in the kingdom is commendable. From being members of an outlawed outfit to lawmakers, the Maoists have indeed come a long and awfully difficult way. Now the Maoists and others, who play the rulers, have to ensure that the fledging democracy takes roots in the soil of Nepal. Democracy should not mean just passing the wealth and privileges from one set of rulers (royal families, politicians and their associates) to another, ie, politicians, bureaucrats and their associates. Rather, people should be the prime subject as well as object of the new government's endeavors. Political stability is crucial for peaceful existence and prosperity, but when ridden with corrupt practices it loses its importance and legitimacy to be a tool for an effectively democratic government.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 22, '07)


[Dmitry] Shlapentokh's wry humor and knowledge of history make his socio-politic analyses quite interesting reading; this includes his last thoughts on the degenerative couple of forces constituted by the USA's social inefficiency and the innate conviction of its citizens that their society nevertheless is the best in the world (America's Opium War [Jan 19]). From my own experience, I would agree that, on the whole, the Anglo-Saxon societies are comically prone to self-satisfaction and disturbingly jingoistic - on account of this, one can easily add Australia and England to the US lot. On the other hand, it looks like ineptitude and inefficiency in organizations, whether private or public (but the larger the worse), are spreading out to the whole planet - with a US flag wrapping around these modern virtues (of course, they are not called "ineptitude and inefficiency" in the global Newspeak). Truly, Anglo-Saxons go down fastest in this race, but the other peoples are following suit - and if they're not, they are force-fed, it's called "democratization", "globalization", "fight for values", "war on terror", whatever. Will the slowest at tumbling down be the long-term winners? Not necessarily. History is replete of cases where the stupid and dumb but big and well fed win out of their sheer weight. If human societies continue to degenerate as quickly as they have in the last decades, we'll know the answer within our lifetime.
Dr Bittar Gabriel Jivasattha
Switzerland and Australia (Jan 19, '07)


While I agree wholeheartedly with Dmitry Shlapentokh's analysis in his article America's Opium War [Jan 19], there is one very major difference between the current [United States of] America and the dying Qing Dynasty - the leaders of the Qing Dynasty just wanted China to be left alone in their self-perceived perfection, and were entirely passive. The current American administration, however, is hyperactive and wants to impose its view of perfection on everyone else, which is harmful to others as well as itself.
X-Madarin
Belmont, California (Jan 19, '07)


Professor Dmitry Shlapentokh's imagination has taken a flight of fancy and of hyperbole [America's Opium War , Jan 19]. His conceit dwells in the thin atmosphere of metaphysics. A wag might ask which "Opium War" he is speaking of. The First Opium War of 1834? The Second Opium War of 1856? In either case Dr Shlapentokh's example is ill-chosen, and false. At best he has forced the metaphor; at worst he offers a facile understanding of history. The Anglo-American expeditionary adventure in Iraq is not a desperate last gasp of two empires on the verge of collapse. The war in Iraq has similarity to the war in Vietnam 40 years ago.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 19, '07)


Re A blueprint for chaos in Iraq by W Joseph Stroupe [Jan 19]: President [George W] Bush is as much undaunted today as he was when, in late 2005, he told Republican leaders: "I will not withdraw from Iraq if Laura [his wife] and Barney [his dog] are the only ones supporting me." That speaks a volume of his mind, [which] thinks, sleeps and dreams of nothing but illegally invading other countries for greed of their resources and perverse imperialism. His recent television address to the nation to increase his troop level was more of soliloquy than a convincing call to arms ...
Saqib Khan
UK (Jan 19, '07)


It's useless to keep Iranian President [Mahmud] Ahmadinejad on a leash to stop him from further stoking US wrath (Ahmadinejad be damned, Jan 19). The wrath was already unleashed by US President George W Bush in his "axis of evil" speech, before Ahmadinejad came to power. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein didn't use any rhetoric against the US and the neighboring countries did not consider Iraq a threat. The country was nonetheless brutally attacked and he was hanged. Things couldn't be more obvious. It's not only "when in doubt, invade" (Somalia: Afghanistan remixed, Jan 13), but also "when in doubt, invent". Any mediocre high-school student can invent a buzzword like "weapons of mass destruction" and the corporate media are happy to repeat [it]. No evidence is required. If the public is willing to believe that a poor and virtually defenseless country like Iraq devastated by 12 years of United Nations sanctions had weapons of mass destruction, then chances are that it would be inclined to believe that Iran is close to having nuclear weapons, too. Watch out for the UN and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors. They will make sure that there are no nuclear weapons before the US troops arrive. This time around, no UN authorization is necessary either.
Paul Law
Berlin, Germany (Jan 19, '07)


Yet again, a determined demonstration of Spengler's skill as a simple silly shrill shill (Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness [Jan 17]). To say [US President George W] Bush is horrified by the [prospective] fate of Iraq shows up Spengler as a sycophant sucking up the sap of the Bush family shrub and spewing it up like an embedded scribe, and an incredible ignorance of Iraq, Islam and the Middle East. A partial cure as a step towards middle ground would be reading Edwin Black's Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict (Wiley, 2004). Spengler's word war on Carter is way out there with his wild claims that Carter "nearly lost the Cold War", was the worst president because the Electoral College vote clanked like a heavy bar of gold weighing in the scale of justice, ignoring the citizens' votes which are now fixed in a more reliable fashion. As bombs burst in air, Spengler cheers the crusader chant of "kill".
Doug Baker
Alameda, California (Jan 19, '07)


Spengler [Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness, Jan 17] seldom defends Zionism without references to slavery. While many neo-cons take pride in Israel's status as a modern-day Sparta, Spengler seems to feel guilt at the thought of Israel maintaining millions of helots. Could Spengler have a conscience as well as a bloodlust?
Robert Shaluke
USA (Jan 19, '07)


[Re the letter from Manuel de la Torre, Jan 18] I am familiar with the silver-based-currency argument of Hugo Salinas Price. The problem with the Mexican economy is rooted in its victimization by neo-liberal economics, with the peso being only the monetary vehicle. See Tequila trap beckons China [Nov 6, '04]. A silver currency did not protect China. See also Development financing and urbanization [Jul 22, '06].
Henry C K Liu (Jan 19, '07)


Re Anna Arutunyan's All power to Putin - not quite [Jan 18]: Any reader who is sincerely interested in understanding Russia may want to save precious time and look for better sources of information. While not entirely devoid of common sense - such as advice for Western NGOs [non-governmental organizations] to curtail their [anti-Putin] spirits and an observation that [the] Russian ]resident doesn't actually control everything and everyone and is incapable of solving every murder, Arutunyan's effort in the end left me rather underwhelmed. From the author's choice of "experts", such as [Stanislav] Belkovsky, [Viktor] Militarev, [Boris] Kagarlitsky and [Mikhail] Delyagin - all of whom were proved remarkably wrong countless times and appear to live in the world where reality is the enemy - to her desperate pleas for the West's merciful accommodation, this article reveals a curious lack of coherency and competence. It's just an amalgam of contradictory opinions in which the main tread - if there was supposed to be one - is completely lost. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin can't fire his ministers? Nonsense. The West wants a strong, democratic Russia while spewing out "perhaps well-meaning" Russophobia? Absurd notion. Russia losing its influence in the "near abroad"? Nonsense squared. Quite the opposite is true. [Former president Boris] Yeltsin re-established Russia as a world player? Ninety-nine percent of Russians would laugh upon hearing that. Yeltsin possibly wiser than Putin? That would redefine the word "wisdom". "Putin's government made progress, however small"? This one is the real kicker. On Putin's watch Russian GDP [gross domestic product] [has] increased fivefold so far and is projected by the World Bank to reach more than six times its 1999 level by the time Vladimir Putin leaves office. Small progress, indeed. As they say in Russia, "Big is better seen from [a] distance." That may be the only explanation for Anna Arutunyan's woeful lack of perspective.
Oleg Beliakovich
Seattle, Washington (Jan 18, '07)


Re US lacks 'explosive' evidence against Iran (Jan 18): Shouldn't we all, including Gareth Porter, recognize the patterns? Duplicity and subterfuge are Bush administration trademarks. [Former US secretary of state] Colin Powell let his loyalty and allegiance to a feckless George W Bush prompt fabrications about Iraq's WMD [weapons of mass destruction] before the attack on Iraq began. Now Powell's successor is misleading her audiences with unsubstantiated information to redirect the blame for Bush's Iraq disaster, or is it to promote another possible attack, this time on Iran? "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." Or is it, "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't fooled again"? You guessed it. The second quote is George W Bush.
Jim of Southern California
USA (Jan 18, '07)


Bertil Lintner's North Korea's golden path to security [Jan 18] hits a bittersweet note. It shows that Pyongyang has broken no international law through trading in gold. It brings to mind that North Korea is mineral-rich, which is often lost to our view, the more especially since the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is painted in the garish colors of evil motives and nefarious designs. Mr Lintner's article is of interest for the facts and figures that it has on the DPRK's exports of gold. It also gives us an idea of the concerted efforts that the United States has gone to in order to cut off Pyongyang's access to foreign markets and hard currency. Little wonder [that] Pyongyang's normally heightened siege mentality has gone to code bright red. It is worthwhile to point out that, in spite of the US pressure, Washington is meeting Pyongyang outside of the six-power framework that President [George W] Bush has loudly proclaimed as the only instrument for dealing with North Korea's nuclear issue. Berlin has offered a venue for this extraordinary meeting. It is proof positive that Pyongyang plays better diplomatic poker than Washington, and that the Bush administration is on the ropes and is looking for a way to show the American people that the president's policies do bear good results.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 18, '07)


Re A president thoroughly in the dark [Jan 13]: [Tom] Engelhardt did what many in the media are doing. He examined the implications of what President [George W] Bush said about Iran and Syria. Never mind that he is ignoring the advice of the Iraq Study Group. Never mind he is acting contrary to the will of the people he supposedly serves. Never mind that he is acting contrary to the wishes of Congress. What he said about Iraq takes a back seat to his references to Iran and Syria. With moving two aircraft-carrier battle groups into the Persian Gulf and sending Patriot batteries to countries in the region, President Bush has raised the level of rhetoric regarding Iran to more than mere saber-rattling. With the sacking of the Iranian compound in Kurdistan a mere two hours before his speech, he signaled his intention to goad Iran into open action against US forces. This will give the Bush administration all the justification it needs to launch military action against Iran, including air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. This latter option has long been a goal of the Bush administration, but has been thwarted by the international community and the UN. These attempts to provoke a war with Iran would seem to be violations [of] US and international law as well as US treaty obligations. It would then behoove Congress [members] to put aside their petty partisanship and submit a Resolution of Inquiry and, should the findings warrant, articles of impeachment against George W Bush, [Vice President] Richard Cheney, et al for high crimes and misdemeanors for their prosecution of the war against Iraq and the attempts to foment war with Iran. It would do no harm either for similar charges to be laid against these parties before The Hague. Better America suffers a constitutional crisis than the whole world suffers from another global war.
Mark Schrider
Columbus, Ohio (Jan 18, '07)


I want to congratulate you for your very interesting, informative, impartial webpaper. I am specially impressed [by] and fond of reading Henry C K Liu. I would very much like to know his opinion about the damaging effects of the fiat dollar used as world valuta reserve, specially on the economy of developing countries. What is his opinion about the thoughts of Mexican economist Hugo Salinas Price about using silver instead of the Mexican fiat currency, the peso (which he considers merely a dollar derivative, [with] which I agree).
Manuel de la Torre (Jan 18, '07)

Henry C K Liu has written numerous articles on the international effects of US dollar hegemony; you may wish to click on the link provided above to go to his page and browse through the summaries. See also Dollar hegemony against sovereign credit (Jun 24, '05), which mentions Mexico specifically. - ATol


Re Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness [Jan 17]: Spengler gives Jimmy Carter too much credit. Like some other people born in the [US] south (former New York Times editor Howell Raines springs to mind), Carter quickly figured out that the way to advance was to acknowledge being from the south, but to instantly denounce the region and claim a more sophisticated (read liberal) view. From that point it takes little to turn them into petty, petulant, intolerant jerks. Today you'd find few American schoolchildren who wouldn't say that [president Abraham] Lincoln fought the Civil War to free the slaves, which isn't correct. He wanted to keep the Union intact because it suited the industrial north to buy cheap raw materials from the south, much as England did [with] the colonies, then sell the finished products back at a great profit. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the hopes that slaves and free blacks in the south would rise up, and was no doubt quite astonished when they didn't. Most southerners understand this because many of them have family diaries and original records from the period. We also understand that the victors get to write the history books. The worst we do when yet another study comes out showing that conservatives are more generous than liberals is smile and nod. Jimmy Carter has never displayed any traits that any southerner would want to claim. Our ancestors spent many years living with little but good manners to sustain them, and we try to be mindful of that. Mr Carter never has been.
Mary McLemore
Pike Road, Alabama (Jan 17, '07)


Spengler [re Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness, Jan 17]: The great majority of the members of the American Historical Association recently agreed that G W Bush was the worst [US] president ever. Black southern slaves served in the Union army in large numbers. President [Jimmy] Carter was a nuclear engineer and a career naval officer, as well as running a large-scale commodities business later in life. Please, join the reality-based community, before it's too late!
Lester Ness (Jan 17, '07)

Jimmy Carter holds a bachelor of science degree from the US Naval Academy. He was involved in the US Navy's nuclear-submarine program in its early years as an officer, but his postgraduate work in nuclear technology was cut short by the death of his father, which necessitated his resignation from the navy in 1953 to take over the family business. - ATol


Re Spengler's Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness [Jan 17]: I owe you a beer. Well said!
Carlo Mazzurra


Spengler [Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness, Jan 17]: Your neck must be sore from lugging around that huge brain of yours every day. You're truly a legend in your own mind; but I dig that about you. Despite all your failed predictions, ridiculous pontifications and apparent severe bloodlust, I've got your back. You speak truth at least 40% of the time, and that is good enough for me, unlike these other uptight readers who prefer overrated "facts" or "accuracy". Next time you're rolling through Georgia, give me a holler and we can go drink some Miller High Life, shoot rats at the dump, then go roll Jimmy Carter's house with TP. Then we can watch him struggle and fail with the ensuing conflict resolution.
Robby B
Columbus, Georgia (Jan 17, '07)


Michael Klare's article The Pentagon's energy-protection racket [Jan 17] is about the emerging energo-fascist state we are all going to be indentured to in the future - sort of a global plantation in which the large majority of us will be laboring as slaves. However, Mr Klare left out a salient point regarding his statement [that] the "Carter Doctrine on a global scale was first spelled out in a report by a bipartisan task force, 'The Geopolitics of Energy', published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in November 2000". If one goes to the site called ExxonSecrets.org and checks out CSIS, one will find that since 1998 [it has] received [US]$1,112,500 from ExxonMobil. While it may be true that ExxonMobil has more money than God, there's more than meets the eye in regards to their alleged charity. CSIS is being funded by ExxonMobil to help fund climate-change skeptics. Since ExxonMobil is no small player in this emerging energo-fascism scenario, wouldn't it help your readers to better understand the dynamics of this fluid situation if they knew CSIS wasn't some type of quasi-governmental organization, but a private concern with a well-funded goal? One more thought: if the US had a president [who] was forward-thinking and not beholden to the oil lobby, defense contractors and a not-so-hidden neo-con agenda - as in PNAC [Project for the New American Century] - then [President George W] Bush's latest speech could have been an announcement on how the US is going to achieve energy independence in 20 years, something on the order of the Manhattan Project. Overnight, the price of oil would drop. Eventually, money the US spends buying oil from states like Saudi Arabia, some of which the Saudis donate to terrorist groups, would slowly dry up, as would the money that now goes to those groups. Why isn't there any discussion of this in the media? Instead, all we get is war, war and more war. But one shouldn't be surprised. After the bloodless coup d'etat of December 2000, in which two oil-company shills occupied the offices of the president and vice president of America, this country's direction took a turn for the worse. Until these amoral war criminals are booted from office and brought to trial for their war crimes, the US will continue down this destructive path.
Greg Bacon
Ava, Missouri (Jan 17, '07)


[Re Chinese eye Pakistan's real estate, Jan 17] China's eyeing of Pakistan is not of recent date. Pakistan has served China's purpose in those long-forgotten days of the struggle against Soviet socialist imperialism, and as a foil to India's pretensions during the India-China war of 1962, and in New Delhi's close association with the old Soviet Union. And lest we forget, it was the good offices of Islamabad that opened the way for [US secretary of state] Henry Kissinger to prepare the way for [president] Richard Nixon's trip to China. The steady rise and power of industrial China has brought a change in Indian-Chinese relations and a new look at Pakistan for investment in real estate for future commercial expansion and for the upgrading and use of its ports. There may, however, lurk in the background of memoranda of understanding and agreements and generous terms in tax assessments a darker motive. Pakistan harbors in its northern provinces Islamic groups friendly to the Taliban, and who have given aid and comfort and training to the Uighurs in China's autonomous region of Xinjiang. Thus on one hand, Beijing is marking out markets for commercial expansion with generous infusion of capital and skillful diplomatic courting to help a friendly neighbor, and on the other co-opting the very same neighbor to thwart the plans of rebellion of one of its own ethnic minorities seeking the right to self-determination and ultimately independence.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 17, '07)


Iran has defied the UN resolution slapping sanctions on it and gone ahead with its uranium-enrichment program quite earnestly. As it can't be otherwise, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, after delivering a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said he and US President George W Bush agreed in talks on Tuesday that the Iranian nuclear problem is a "serious" issue threatening international security and world peace and that they are of the same position on several regional issues as well. Moon said that Iran's sensitive uranium-enrichment activity has very serious and wide implications for not only the Middle East but also all around the world. He feels that Iran's nuclear advancement is a serious issue to be dealt with equally seriously. Iran's response is encouraging. In order to avoid confrontation with world bodies, Iran has invited envoys from developing nations ... to visit its nuclear sites in a show of openness about its atomic-fuel program. Iran has defiantly vowed to expand into industrial-scale fuel production, but has also pledged continued compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency (the UN nuclear watchdog) inspections while trying to rally diplomatic support in its standoff with Western powers. Tehran has already invited envoys from the Non-Aligned Movement of developing nations attached to the IAEA and heads of the larger Group of 77 states and of the Arab League office in Vienna to visit on February 2-6. Possibly this special team [will] come out with suggestions to support [Iran's legitimate] ambitions. The crucial issue at stake is whether the Iranian nuclear program is more dangerous than similar programs by the nuclear powers, including the USA. [Ban] should address this question quite earnestly.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 17, '07)


Re A president thoroughly in the dark [Jan 13]: Tom Engelhardt is quite right; G W Bush has taken leave of his senses. His demented obsession with "victory" in Iraq puts him in the same class (or I should say padded cell) with General Jack D Ripper, from the movie Dr Strangelove, who started World War III because he was convinced the commies were polluting the vital bodily fluids of the American people. In truth, Bush would be pathetically funny if he weren't so dangerous. It seems likely that having started his presidential career with a constitutional crisis brought on by voting irregularities and the apparent partisan rigging of the election, he may end that career with another constitutional crisis centered on the limits and accountabilities of executive power in America. In recent years the legislative and judiciary branches of government have bestowed, through their acquiescence, near-absolute powers on the American presidency. The president is now free to undermine civil liberties at will, to start wars on a whim, to imprison without due process, to torture, etc. This is de facto one-man rule and its complete institutionalization cannot be more than two or three presidents away for this country. In a sense it is not surprising; this is, after all, what proponents of American military empire have always secretly and ardently yearned for - a bloody fuehrer to call their own. Thanks to the gutless wonders and mediocrities in Congress and the Supreme Court, it now seems all but inevitable.
Jose R Pardinas, PhD
San Diego, California (Jan 16, '07)


M K Bhadrakumar, as well his wont, with skill and ease offers ATol reads a good tour d'horizon in China's Middle East journey via Jerusalem [Jan 13]. Conscious as he is about China's sensitivity to Saudi Arabia's stance on Iran, and Beijing's courting of Iran for oil and gas, former ambassador Bhadrakumar leaves out a detail in China's diplomacy in the Middle East. And Israel is factored adroitly in Beijing's formula not to ruffle Arab feathers. China has long relations with [Israel] which go back even before the stormy days of the Great Cultural Revolution. Israel is a purveyor of military hardware and developer of cutting-edge military technology which are of value to the modernization of China's armed force. It has trained endless armies in fighting insurgencies and revolts and guerrilla warfare. It should then come as no surprise that [in] China's western [autonomous region] of Xinjiang, nationalists have raised the green flag of Islam to fight Chinese internal colonialization and to assert the rights of the Uighurs who are being more and more marginalized. Islam has infused armed revolt against Beijing, and Muslims have found training in Afghanistan and money and arms from al-Qaeda and more likely than not a flow of petrodollars from Saudis committed to spread and implant the Wahhabi law of Muslim practice in [Xinjiang]. Saying this, common sense suggests that on one hand, there is much common ground between Israel and China, and on the other, by visiting Israel, China has put the Arab world's bugbear behind it, and thus can without too much concern practice the art of negotiation for the much desired and needed oil and gas for its rapidly developing industrial revolution.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 16, '07)


I have a comment on your January 9 article Sparks fly as China moves oil up Mekong by Marwaan Macan-Markar. The readers are told that China wants to increase its oil shipments up the Mekong River to 70,000 tons a year. But later it is stated that China currently imports 140 million tons of oil each year - so even the 70,000 tons would only constitute 0.05% of its annual imports. Your article fails to show that these shipments can never be an alternative to the Malacca Strait. I think the trans-Burma pipeline and perhaps the Russian gas deals of the future are much more important than a few ships on the Mekong. Nevertheless, I hope that this beautiful river won't be completely polluted by the rising trade on it.
Till Meinhof (Jan 16, '07)


Dhruba Adhikary's Nepal: Little peace for the peacekeepers [Jan 6] is an interesting article that covers a lot of current issues in Nepal. Nepal has always been a playground for the politicians and every single politician has had a lust for power. None of the parliaments could provide stable government in the 12 years that followed the introduction of parliamentary democracy in 1990. After the royal massacre in 2001, King Gyanendra wanted to play his role, which was another unsuccessful attempt. As a result of the unstable politics at that time, Maoists started their armed insurgency with the aim of fighting for [a] people's republic but ended up claiming lives of innocent Nepalis. Apart from innocent lives, Nepal's politics has cost the nation its economy, culture, monarchy, constitution, democracy, identity and above all peace. And Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's history is very much linked with the price Nepal and Nepalis had to pay. Thus it is interesting to know that he is finally concerned about the unlimited powers given to the post of the prime minister and the successor. If Maoists take over the regime, Nepal will be under communist rule. But will communism bring peace in the country? Although there has been a peace agreement between Maoists and the government, how easily rebels will stop using guns to fulfill their revolutionary goal in something Nepal has to see. The proverb is: proof of pudding is in the eating.
A Baral
Sydney, Australia (Jan 16, '07)


The hanging of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, chief of Iraqi intelligence, along with Awad Ahamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, on January 15, with the previous hanging of Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, now amounts to a lynching. I have not used the prefix "former" to the offices of these men because the legitimate government of Iraq was overthrown and destroyed by the US invasion of that country and not put out of office by its own people. What amazes is the lack of protest throughout the world at this barbaric and unlawful act. The amount of people who died under the Ba'athist government pales in comparison to the numbers killed by the US axis since. It would be utopian to think that no nation on Earth has not at some time taken defensive action against elements out to destroy its nation. Most presidents and prime ministers ultimately end up with blood on their hands. On the question of unnecessary killings, the UK and the US in particular have a grim record for overseas killings. The US dropped Agent Orange, a defoliating chemical, on the people of Vietnam and today uses phosphorus shells and cluster bombs against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The UK killed millions during its colonial period, as did the French, as did the Belgians in the Congo. Tony Blair, prime minister of the UK, said after the hanging of Saddam that he didn't believe in the death penalty. Days later he was saying Saddam Hussein deserved everything he got. Of course the death sentence is dished out in other ways. British troops occupying a section of Iraq and in their Afghanistan role have the power of life and death over citizens there, and they have and are using this power. Tony Blair also revealed recently that Britain was now a warrior nation and give itself the right to intervene anywhere in the world. So here is a man who doesn't believe in the death penalty at home but is willing to hand it out to the people any nation abroad whom he feels deserves his scrutiny. It won't be a First World nation, of course. That could rapidly see the warrior spirit evaporate.
Wilson John Haire
London, England (Jan 16, '07)


Under pressure from the USA, some ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] leaders have begun to talk tough about Burma [Myanmar]. These comments subsume that ASEAN as an organization is able and willing to achieve democratic reforms in Burma. This assumption is grossly inaccurate. ASEAN itself is no bastion of democracy. An organization that includes Singapore, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei and Thailand is not on sufficiently high moral ground to lecture Burma on democracy or human rights. Even if it were, it would still have to contend with a clause in the ASEAN charter that strictly forbids interference by the organization in the internal affairs of member states. The Americans must be made to understand these limitations and to stop pressing ASEAN on the Burma issue.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (Jan 16, '07)


Re Surging toward the holy oil grail [Jan 12]: I wonder if [Pepe] Escobar has an alternative vision as to how those in power should proceed to eliminate anything that threatens that power. I believe that power is a reality. Should the US simply give up that power? Should that power be turned over to someone else? I would like to hear something different than the same old lines about how bad America is. Power is the same everywhere, whether it be in China, Europe, or Africa. It is reality! Sixties thinking is not going to solve any of the world's problems. Stop complaining and please offer an alternative to how power should operate - no utopian fantasies, please. War is simply another form of business and all war is deception. I wonder if Mr Escobar would do any better if power [were] his game, which is the game for most of the world, though not mine.
Joseph Giramma (Jan 12, '07)


Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is, as Hisane Masaki points out [Japanese bigwig on surprise Pyongyang visit, Jan 12], composed of factions. As such, one group or another has over time kept open lines to North Korea. And Taku Yamasaki, former LDP vice president, is not the last nor the least, although his clique does not hold much water in the scheme of things. On the other hand, as Mr Masaki's article suggests, Pyongyang, in weather fair or foul, keeps the door ajar to seize on a change in the diplomatic climate. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is working Europe to tighten the noose of sanctions around North Korea, it is possible that Kim Jong-il's government, pressed as it is by Washington's determined policy to deny Pyongyang access to world financial markets, will send a signal for a thaw in [its] relationship [with Japan] and flexibility on the accounting of kidnapped Japanese and the nuclear issue. And even if there is no breakthrough, Diet member Yamasaki is but a mirror image of what a former US ambassador and sitting legislators do by keeping an open mind on what is happening in Pyongyang, even in the face of President [George W] Bush's fiercest public opposition to Kim Jong-il.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 12, '07)


Regarding Henry C K Liu's The North Korean perspective [Jan 11], it occurs to me that there are now two competing North Korean perspectives available on ATol, though the two can not be reconciled. Mr Liu claims that the very moment US President [George W] Bush uttered the words "axis of evil" in the same breath as "North Korea", the leadership of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] concluded that the only way to secure peace was to develop nuclear weapons. Therefore, it is Bush's fault, if not the fault of all Americans, that the DPRK has gone nuclear. I'll allow my disbelief to be suspended and not ask how long it takes to acquire the means to produce a nuclear bomb in the first place, hence bringing something as problematic as time into Mr Liu's equation. What I cannot ignore is how the "perspective" put forth by Mr Liu conflicts with that of Kim Myong Chol [Kim Jong-il's military-first policy a silver bullet, Jan 4]. Mr Liu's North Korean "perspective" cannot be logically reconciled with the "perspective" put forth by Kim Myong Chol who, like Mr Liu, claims the US is responsible for the DPRK's development of nuclear weapons but also claims the following: "One of the 5,000-year-old aspirations of the Korean people is to acquire powerful national defenses equipped with long-range deep-strike capabilities of hitting the enemy's heartland and turning it into a sea of fire, instead of letting Korea become a war theater. For the first time in Korean history, Kim Jong-il has fulfilled this historic aspiration as he has put the Korean Peninsula under North Korea's own nuclear umbrella, neutralizing the US nuclear umbrella." Therefore, according to Kim Myong Chol, long-range weapons of mass destruction have been the apple of Korean eyes for five millennia, obviously long before the US even existed. So I pose a question to Mr Liu, as he seems the more reasonable of the two: Which is it? Is a nuclear-armed DPRK the result of a "bellicose" policy or simply the inevitable conclusion of the DPRK's incessant militancy? I fear Mr Liu may have already decided, without consulting Occam's razor. I also have an alternative theory for M. Liu's consideration: the coming nuclear arms race in East Asia is China's problem. Anyone with any sense already knows this. By allowing its bellicose satellite to remain unchecked, China is destabilizing its own back yard. The United States shall not be baited into solving China's problem, no matter how many self-righteous prigs clamor to the Dear Leader's defense.
Terence Redux
USA (Jan 12, '07)

Well, there are more than two perspectives, as a look at our Korea Page will show: at least three of our regular writers (Donald Kirk, Andrei Lankov and Francesco Sisci) have presented recent analyses of the North Korea situation that not only differ sharply from those of Kim Myong Chol and Henry C K Liu, but are substantially different from one another. Such diversity is at the heart of Asia Times Online's philosophy that the world is not black and white, but in living color. You make an interesting point about China and the US, and as the title of Liu's current series suggests, his recent articles on the background of the situation in Korea are leading up to an analysis of that very subject. - ATol


The perverse logic of Bush's war (Jan 11) by Gareth Porter mentioned that "Bush has deliberately rejected any compromise such as was offered by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG)" and described President [George W] Bush's "faith-based" approach to policymaking as "stubbornness". In fact, the ISG report recommends that the US engages directly with two of Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria, to enlist their support for ending the insurgency and backs a reduction in the number of US troops in Iraq. What kind of countries are Iran and Syria? Apparently, President Bush does not choose an easy way (to give up) which may betray the key human values - democracy and freedom. Instead, he wants to hold firm in his faith to fight against dictators/terrorists [whose mood, once they think the US is at a disadvantage], becomes violent. I believe that this integrity is the most important quality that a US president should demonstrate. Bush's plan to escalate US military involvement in Iraq has sent a very clear "no" answer to the ISG. There is no doubt that the Bush administration made mistakes by underestimating the problematic situation in Iraq [during the] last several years. They had blind faith in the American advanced weapons and overlooked another important element, human power - it had no efficacy in dealing with the Iraq problem, with too [few] troops deployed in addition to dissolving Iraqi army at first instance. They overthrew Saddam Hussein as easily as lifting a finger and thought that the whole Western constitutional system could be implemented in Iraq overnight; therefore, they forgot about applying curfews everywhere in Iraq and fortifying the border. Today, Bush admits the mistakes and is willing to correct them and draws the means of victory. Unfortunately, some people do not want to cope with the cruel reality but talk with empty words like "peace" without a viable solution. They believe that adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch the American military. Even [if] that is the case, [it] does it mean that Americans should talk to a country which is supporting insurgency to resolve the insurgency problem. What would be the consequence? That does not make any difference by simply letting Iran and Syria take control of Iraq. Would Iraqi people be placed in a situation both measureless and laden with doom then? Withdrawing American troops has the same effect. The article also mentioned the history of the Vietnam War - how [defense secretary Robert] McNamara left the [US] administration - and raised a point regarding "Kissinger-inspired political strategy". Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Prize for ending the Vietnam War peacefully. How peaceful was it? Not only was it the most humiliating American defeat, it was a hairbreadth escape for many boat people. Today, visionary hopes in Iraq depend on one thing - victory. If this war does not end in victory, there will be no brighter and better prospect for Iraq and the Middle East.
Hong-Lok Li (Jan 12, '07)


Re Indians are just Yankee-doodle dandy [Jan 8, '05]: Priyanka Bhardwaj writes many things that are just plain false. Probably the most offensive is the statement, "In 2002, more than 300,000 Asian Indians worked in technology firms in California's Silicon Valley, with their average income estimated at [US]$125,000 a year." The reason US-citizen computer engineers want Indian immigration stopped, beginning with the H1-B visa program, it that Indians work for half-price. I do not believe for one minute that the average Indian in Silicon Valley makes $125,000; $65,000 is closer to the truth, and there are lots of documented cases of Indians with BS [bachelor of science] degrees working in the Valley at wages below $35,000 per year. Indian high-tech workers are cheap slave labor, and are being used to replace American-citizen workers en masse. On the other hand, I had to laugh at this statement: "Indians are also the most fluent English speakers ... Only 23.1% said they did not speak English well."
Dave (Jan 12, '07)


Not only have the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq failed miserably, or at least, as they [Americans] claim now, these wars have been neither won nor lost, the two countries during the last four years under foreign occupation have become notorious nations too. Governments in both the countries set up by the US-led West have become corrupt and inept, making the so-called regime-change slogan of the Bush administration a laughable joke even outside West Asia. Pakistan, entangled in the anti-Talibanization of Afghanistan, is considerably disturbed now. The US always requires Pakistan to balance the power game in South Asia and now to tackle the so-called terrorism in the region. But Pakistan, a reliable US ally, seems to be in rough waters in the process, even when it continues to aid the US agenda in Afghanistan in all possible ways. Islamabad is finding itself in an increasingly tight corner, with tension mounting in its relations with Afghanistan on many issues ... [That the] US makes efforts to bring the neighbors under its total control by pointing to "evidence" of Pakistan's ambivalence towards the Taliban since the days of Soviet occupation is not quite appreciated by President [General Pervez] Musharraf. Mr Bush has reportedly directed the Pakistani president to abandon [his] independent approach to the Afghan issue and follow what is instructed to him by the US-led masters in Afghanistan. Accordingly, Pakistan could not even offer its own peace agreements with the militants and must abandon its separate peace altogether, hurting its own national interest in the region. No section of the Pakistani establishment should support the Taliban or pro-Taliban factions. President Musharraf is worried about the trap in which the "terror" war has placed Pakistan. Added to that, moreover, Pakistan is presumably annoyed with President Bush over the current Indo-US nuclear deal, which in real terms means almost nothing to "victorious" India, and has expressed dissatisfaction over the "US move", ostensibly because of US unwillingness to have a similar pact with Islamabad. However, Pakistan's options - if the limited sovereignty Pakistan seems to "enjoy" (for whatever reasons) is its own choice - are extremely limited and it cannot roll back its pro-US policies even if it really desires. India is keen to reap maximum benefits from any possible breakdown of ties between Washington and Islamabad. Whether or not the US admits the pro-India rhetoric in Musharraf's proposals in recent years is not very clear as yet. Will the general evolve a fresh strategy to resolve the "Pakistani crisis" and make the US ensure Pakistan's legitimate interests in the region?
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 12, '07)


Re The perverse logic of Bush's war (Jan 11): Opinions like [Gareth] Porter's are rather sparse in editorial and op-ed columns in the US media. I am totally mystified how so few seem to express outrage about yet another foolhardy move by George W Bush and a few radical hawks who guide his foreign policy. I remember the passion manifested in the media and on the streets regarding decisions that escalated the Vietnam War. We have a president who is far more duplicitous, less competent, and light-years more partisan than Lyndon B Johnson (our Vietnam-era president) ever was. LBJ and even Richard Nixon were not so willing to reject the will of the people and dared not call themselves the "deciders", let alone suggesting divine guidance. Are there not many who see more defeats for the US with the Bush escalation of the Iraq occupation, not to mention ominous signs of global danger? And don't others see signs of, at the least, mild megalomania, Bush style?
Jim of Southern California
USA (Jan 11, '07)


Gareth Porter's The perverse logic of Bush's war [Jan 11] implies that US President George Bush uses a "faith-based approach" over common sense in prosecuting the illegal and immoral war against Iraq. Readers should not forget that throughout his life, Bush was either a failure in business, ie Arbusto Energy, or became a deserter and cut and run from his comfy National Guard slot. All through his life, little Georgie has made messes - not unlike an unruly family dog - that someone else has always cleaned up. When Arbusto Energy was on the ropes, some of his daddy's friends in the Middle East shoveled enough money and help into Arbusto to help little Georgie escape unscathed and walk away with a pile of money. Those life lessons are now being applied to his failed Middle East policy. When news of his desertion from the Texas/Alabama National Guard started to filter in to the American public, his daddy's friends again helped little Georgie out by letting loose their right-wing media machine on a gullible American public. Now that little Georgie's imperial misadventure in Iraq is threatening to ignite a regional conflict, again Daddy comes to his aid with the Iraq Study Group. But little Georgie thinks he can fight his way out of this bloody quagmire without Daddy's help or advice. [A] speech to the moribund US public that [entailed] how we need to sacrifice more soldiers and shed lots more blood to impose a victory that is satisfactory to both his rabid neo-con clique and the "RepuLikud" Party that controls both houses of Congress; the one in Washington, DC, and the other one in Tel Aviv [sic; the Israeli Knesset is in Jerusalem - ATol]. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Sacrifice is easy as long as it's someone else's blood that's being spilled." And the blood will flow. By this coming spring, the Tigris and Euphrates won't be the only rivers flowing in the Fertile Crescent.
Greg Bacon
Ava, Missouri (Jan 11, '07)


The piece by Pham Binh comparing Iraq and President [George W] Bush to World War II and Adolf Hitler [On fighting losing battles, Jan 11] is stunning in its ignorance, and discredits your otherwise anonymous enterprise as a joke.
Jerry Hurtubise (Jan 11, '07)

Anonymous? We've been called a lot of things - "brilliant", "unique", "sexy", occasionally "communist" and "fascist" - but never "anonymous". If you really don't know who we are, please read this, and this to find out what a "Speaking Freely" is.  - ATol


Jian Junbo's point of view in Time for Japan to rejoin Asia [Jan 11] is very interesting and it is important to enhance some points. Japan became a strong independent power, beginning in the mid-19th century, because there was no way to protect itself from the Western colonization process and because China failed completely as an Asian leader, letting Western powers slice up the region among them. Since end of World War II, Japan has been a feasible model to Asia, based on education, technology, development, democracy, freedom, [and] peace and helped its [neighbors] to achieve the same success. Many Asian brothers like [South] Korea and even China learned [by] following the Japanese paradigm. Fortunately, since the end of the 20th century, China gave up little by little the madness of Maoism that took hundreds of millions of lives and almost ruined all of Asia in that century. And now the only things China lacks to mature as a society like the Japanese are freedom and democracy. Actually, [whether] Japan is East- or West-minded is not the real issue. The important thing is how Japan, a little nation which lacks any natural resources, based on freedom contributed and could contribute even more to Asia's development.
M M (Jan 11, '07)


Jian [Junbo]'s Time for Japan to join Asia [Jan 11] is instructive for what it does not say. Praiseworthy as Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's visit to Tokyo's Meiji Shrine is, Dr Jian has performed a rapid, energetic, improvised reading of history. China suffered its first defeat at the hands of Japan in 1894 during the Sino-Japanese War, and lost Taiwan and influence in its vassal state the kingdom of Korea, which ultimately became a colony of Japan in the early 20th century. Japan under the Meiji Restoration traced the path which leads to the housing of the souls of the Japanese fallen on the battlefield for the "empire of the sun", which we all know as Yasukuni Shire. It may surprise lecturer Jian that Japan has never left Asia geographically, and that it was in Meiji Japan that Dr Sun Yat-sen found refuge in his years of struggle ... Japan for many Chinese then was a model of modernization and entrance to the modern world, until the Japanese claimed the right of spoils of war as an ally of the Allied Powers in World War I: Japan had designs on the German concessions ... and this gave rise to the May 4 Movement and a spark to modern Chinese nationalism. There is no way of getting away from the fact that the influence of Japan as an Asian nation on the modern history of China has made a significant impact.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 11, '07)


[In Henry C K] Liu's article The North Korean perspective [Jan 11] we are again given a menu of half-truths and misinformation. Just for the record, Mr Liu, the last American nuclear weapon was removed [from] South Korea in December of 1991, a fact you seemed not to know or want to share with your readers. We are treated to the communist view of the history regarding North Korea nuclear weapons, where North Korea is a peaceful, noble country set upon by the evil US. We are told the problem is "repeated provocation by the US to derail the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula". North Korea is a brutal totalitarian regime that has starved to death over 3 million of its citizens, or should [I] say slaves, in the last 10 years. It has also murdered several million more in its gulags. North Korean has engaged in thousands of criminal acts over its history, including the murder of several members of the South Korean cabinet in Rangoon in October of 1983, and the bombing that destroyed a South Korean [Boeing] 747 in November 1987 that killed all 115 civilians aboard. Mr Liu also claims that US use of depleted uranium is forbidden by international treaty. That is not true. Perhaps Mr Liu would tell us what treaty that is. We are also told the US mobilized "a total of 16,000 military aircraft in aerial war exercises" in January 1992; since the US Air Force has only 7,500 aircraft, this must have been some form of magic. North Korea is one of the most evil regimes in the history [of the] world; to defend this regime is an act of evil.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Jan 11, '07)

The article is titled "North Korea's perspective". Thus, "We are treated to the communist view of the history regarding North Korea nuclear weapons" is not a criticism, but a keen observation. It is sometimes necessary to know what the other side thinks if one wishes to negotiate toward a solution. No one outside the US military really knows if US nuclear weapons were indeed removed from South Korea. The North said they were not, at least not before 1991. Even after 1991, no one really knows. As for depleted-uranium (DU) bombs, please see Le Monde diplomatique article America's big dirty secret.  Also, Wikipedia notes that a United Nations working paper "argues that the use of DU in weapons, along with the other weapons listed by the Sub-Commission [on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights], may breach one or more of the following treaties: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the United Nations Convention Against Torture; the Geneva Conventions including Protocol I; the Convention on Conventional Weapons of 1980; and the Chemical Weapons Convention". Regarding the number of aircraft used in war exercises, the North Koreans were not wrong, but they might better have used the word "sorties", not "aircraft". It is obvious that the writer of this letter is presenting the conventional US view, which we have all heard too many times. We know that North Korea is an evil regime. President George W Bush told us so. - Henry C K Liu


Pascal Combelles Siegel says that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians cannot be equated to the Holocaust [HOLO argument, CAUSTic reminder, Jan 10]. Actually it is much worse: 60 years of unmitigated cruelty to an entire nation of people. The Germans had never experienced a Holocaust themselves. The Jews did, and therefore they should know better. They have adopted every Nazi ethic, punishing the population at large, demolishing homes, [and established] a double set of laws, one for the Jews and another for the Palestinians. Even Israeli-citizen Arabs do not get the same rights. The Germans made one very terrible mistake and they have been paying for it ever since. It is now more than 60 years since World War II ended and yet the word "German" still conjures up images of demonic Nazis. On the other hand the Israelis hiding behind the image of Holocaust victims have gotten away with their crimes ... The Holocaust itself has become a tool of indoctrination. Just recently Israel had the audacity to leak a report that [it has] plans to drop nuclear bombs on the nation of Iran. There was barely a whimper of objection or protest from Western governments or [Western] media. Because of the Holocaust they [Israelis] can do anything and call it defense. This is already a holocaust for the Palestinian people, and there is the promise of more as the Israelis and their fanatical allies look forward to an Arab Armageddon.
R Lafontaine
Youngstown, Ohio (Jan 11, '07)


Syed Saleem Shahzad [How the Taliban keep their coffers full, Jan 10]: I am a little bit interested in the affairs of Afghanistan because Lithuanian (our country is a member of the EU) troops lead the military base in Ghor province. I think it's an interesting, dangerous, little bit crazy experience to go to the headquarters of the Taliban, but the information you now have and share with the world is really important. It's a pity that your article hasn't appeared in any Northern European press. What do you think about the possibilities of Lithuanian troops ensuring peace and social stability in the province of Ghor?
Edmundas Vilkas (Jan 11, '07)

Ghor province is relatively calm. - Syed Saleem Shahzad


You should allow for reader comments to articles.
Dursun Sakarya (Jan 11, '07)

That's what this page and The Edge forum are for. - ATol


The US-led United Nations Security Council stipulates [that] the non-nuclear states strictly adhere to the rules of IAEA [the International Atomic Energy Agency] and norms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), stating that the world must ensure non-proliferation of nuclear materials, and a big alarm is raised regarding the so-called non-state actors possessing nuclear materials. The fact, however, remains that the [permanent five members of the Security Council] and other nuclear powers transfer and sell nuclear technology and materials - spent, processed or otherwise - and at the same time also attempt to stall other states from pursuing their legitimate nuclear goals for energy and security reasons. The nuclear powers have no intention whatsoever to eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. Further, the [permanent five are] bent upon keeping as well as further developing high-precision nuclear weapons for themselves while coercing others from even attempting legitimate nuclear ambitions. In order to sustain their technological and military supremacy, notorious sanctions are slapped on the nations aspiring for nuclear facility. Definitely it is unethical to try to cripple the economies of North Korea and Iran with this kind of economic terrorism or threaten war. It is a different matter altogether if the UN seriously considers [how] to eliminate all nuclear arsenals followed by universal disarmament. The UN, therefore, must wake up to the danger posed by the nuclear powers for humanity and enact a Nuclear Elimination Treaty in place of the existing NPT that allows the nuclear powers to threaten others with sanctions and preemptive wars.The IAEA should ensure that no country on the globe possesses nuclear weapons.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 11, '07)


The article China braces for rising gas prices [Jan 10] omits some important perspectives regarding Russian gas supplies. True, Gazprom has raised the prices for Belarus from [US]$46.8 per 1,000 cubic meters to $100. But the author, similar to the expected trend in Western media, consistently "forgets" that reliance on Russian gas in fact did come cheap for many former Soviet republics for years and years. Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan received Russian gas at one-quarter to one-third of the export price for many years. Even today, at $100/1,000 cubic meters, Belarus pays 40% of the export price while Ukraine, at $130, pays 50%. If China was counting on subsidized gas, it is only its own problem. Its strategic relations with Russia are not based on subsidized gas prices - especially not with China's huge forex reserves, with Japan and South Korea competing for Russian energy resources in the Far East, and with Russia's growing export-capacity surplus. As for the problem of raising gas prices, what states in the Russian near abroad could have done long ago was to insist on market prices for Russian gas and refuse to buy it at subsidized prices. After 13-14 years and billions US dollars in indirect donations, that time has come to an end. Gazprom needs to develop the huge fields in the Russian tundra, prospect for more gas reserves in Western and Eastern Siberia, replace old and build new pipelines, and bring profits for greedy Western investors. Who in their right mind can also expect it to share in the financial burden for other states? The Soviet Union and Russia had consistently supplied gas to Europe, including key NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] members for years, even with NATO's expansion into Central Europe, Russia has consistently delivered its energy to Europe, and actually has substantially raised its oil and gas exports there under President [Vladimir] Putin. Unlike key European states, Russia and China have no parasitic transit countries between them and can build a lasting and reliable energy cooperation. If China prefers to rely on US-dominated sea lanes and US allies - like Australia - for its energy needs, it ought to consult with Iran or Venezuela, [which] had their technology contracts with allegedly reliable Western partners canceled after US pressure. They then turned to Russia.
Leon Rozmarin
Hopedale, Massachusetts (Jan 10, '07)


Displeasing as it may seem, [United Nations] Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's appointment of Burton Lynn Pascoe, with [US] President George W Bush's consent, as head of the UN's Department of Political Affairs is not as nefarious as Ian Williams may think [An old Asia hand for the UN, Jan 10]. Ambassador Pascoe is a foreign-service [officer], so his elevation to a high post at the UN needs the agreement and consent of the American government, which means the highest American executive, who is Mr Bush. Thus Mr Pascoe joins a world body to which he owes allegiance ... and as such cannot force upon this organization President Bush's will. Judging so far by Secretary General Ban's appointments, he is broadening the scope of the UN Secretariat and reaching out to non-Western members. Mr Ban, lest we forget, plays his cards close to his chest, so that as Ian Williams so wisely suggests, it is too early to tell anything about his performance as chief spokesman [of the UN]. The Bush administration is closing ranks at the UN. The resignation of John Bolton [as US ambassador] is a tale of bad judgment and poor leadership. His replacement, the current US ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, will bring more diplomatic decorum to America's presence at the UN, it goes without saying. Yet he will not turn aside from Mr Bush & Co's foreign-policy objectives. Nonetheless, it is a sign of how much Washington's bravado has weakened in the last year. Ambassador Khalilzad will try to make the members of the UN swallow the bitter pill of assuming responsibility for Washington's and London's fiasco in Iraq, which it won't do. If anything, we are now seeing a replay of the Nixon-Kissinger gambit of "Vietnamization" in Iraq. The new American ambassador will not do much on jump-starting the "roadmap" to peace in Palestine, but will be tied down in the mess of potage which is Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Somalia. The American president's foreign-policy agenda does not look bright. It is very bleak indeed.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 10, '07)


I want to add a reading of Abdellah Derkaoui's cartoon [that] Pascale Combelles Siegel writes about [in HOLO argument, CAUSTic reminder, Jan 10]. Actually, I can't see that "it is designed to draw a moral equivalence between what happened to the Jews in Europe under Nazi domination and what is happening to the Palestinians at the hands of Israel now". To me it looks more like that it is saying that Israel is using Auschwitz (the picture on the wall segment is a well-known photo of this extermination camp where millions of Jews, Roma and resistance fighters were murdered) as a pretext for its politics against the Palestinians. And to make it very clear: there is a big difference between these two readings, because the latter does not draw any equivalence. Drawing moral equivalences with Nazi crimes has been quite popular with politicians all over Europe in the last 60 years and it is just another example of "Western" (as a European I really hate this uniforming term) double standards blaming mainly Arabs for this practice but not talking about European politicians. It was used in Cold War times on both sides, sometimes excessively, it was used to justify the wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is in a way even used against the Muslim world as opposed against Israel, because any possible aggression against Israel gets, [in] the European mainstream (and probably by the [North] American mainstream as well), immediately the label "anti-Semitic", which makes is seemingly part of Europe's history of pogroms which culminated in the Nazi barbarism. No question that all this drawing of equivalences is very questionable and has the effect that the understanding of the uniqueness of the industrialized mass murder of many million people, be it Jews, Roma, Polish priests and intellectuals or prisoners of war from the Soviet Union (about 2 million of them were deliberately starved to death in German camps) is eroded. But this is mainly something we have to deal with in Europe. Palestinians meanwhile have all the right to say that Israel is doing very bad things to them, that it is regularly violating international law severely, that it is denying Palestinians very basic rights, even those who are Israeli citizens.
Wolfgang Pomrehn
Germany (Jan 10, '07)


[In] If you so dumb, how come you ain't poor? [Jan 9, Spengler] wrote, "There has been an inordinate amount of nonsense written about US decline" ... There is no nonsense in saying that the American global political hegemony since September 2001 and economic supremacy [are] in decline ... If he is not accustomed to hearing this nonsense as he called it because of his insolence, he must take off his blinkers and read what the experts say about the USA's slide to recession. The USA needs a trillion dollars a year just to stand on its feet and is borrowing heavily, and China has a lot of dollars to [lend]. Modern financial crises always begin on the peripheries of the global economy and as the dollar buckles down, it is hurting the jugular vein of capitalism, especially the fragile aging economies of Western Europe and Japan. They cannot stand a dollar slide, and yet America needs a weak dollar to cushion its own downturn. Meanwhile China is holding its currency in dollars far below equilibrium and nobody is doing much to break this impasse ...
Saqib Khan
UK (Jan 10, '07)


Spengler has in the past frequently made a fool of himself, predicting wrongly this or that state trend of political gambit. However irritating this may be, its the endless apologia for violence (usually aimed at Muslims) that always gives one pause. The latest rant from Herr Spengler [If you so dumb, how come you ain't poor?, Jan 9] features the usual tropes - demographic statistics, attacks on Muslim culture, and Valentines sent to the imperium. Spengler reminds us of a stunned passenger on the Titanic insisting things are fine - the imperial economy is great, no really, it is; China wants us to be dominant, and nobody cares about Palestinians. The US is not - is not - in decline. Never mind [that] the US produces nothing anymore and the only growth industry is prison construction (oh, and making weapons). Iraq is always an aberration, not a symptom. It was a momentary lapse, and the Empire is correcting it as we speak. So, now it's violence that straightens things out for a society. Well, okay, we sure see that in Rwanda and the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], we see it in Afghanistan and Colombia. Who knew? The secret to a prosperous nation is to cull the dissidents. Spengler wants a world where the workers don't strike and the ruling class doesn't have its afternoon tea interrupted. The time of the Raj would suit him fine. Spengler is the new Rudyard Kipling, but without the graceful use of the King's English.
John Steppling
Lodz, Poland (Jan 10, '07)


The one thing that stands out in Mark Perry's and Alastair Crooke's No-goodniks and the Palestinian shootout (Jan 9) is the utterly destructive and delusive nature of US foreign policy in the Middle East. For US Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams to commit US ammunitions to Palestinian Fatah activists as a back-door policy to remove the democratically elected Hamas government shows just how low the neo-con agenda can go in reducing the Middle East to little more than a deadly strategic game of chess. This is the same Elliott Abrams who shamelessly paraded his Judeo-Christian crusader spirit by insisting that Jews must be loyal to Israel because they "are in a permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people". It is therefore impossible to dismiss the fact that religion is what lies at the core of a man who would rather see Palestine turn into an almighty bloodbath than have Hamas jeopardize his dream of Jesus Christ returning to a Holy Land that is completely occupied by Jews. Surely, this madness will never stop until the entire administration of US President George W Bush abandons its dirty proxy wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Palestine, and starts to hold out the hand of reconciliation to the entire Muslim world. And the sooner people such as Abrams recognize the futility of their twisted version of faith in Jesus Christ, the sooner will they be able to become peacemakers in a region of the world that is so heavily soaked with the blood of religious hatred.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (Jan 10, '07)


The article Who gives a dam? (Jan 6) raises several interesting points, not least about the identity of the author. Beyond that, however, it rests on misrepresenting the importance of hydroelectricity and a flawed economic comparison with China. That India should do it simply because our neighbor is following a certain path is hardly a convincing argument. In making an economic case for hydroelectricity, the article ignores the experience of the developed world, where large dams have fallen out of fashion, partly due to social concerns, but also for economic reasons. It is ironic, then, that what Chan Akya recommends for economic reasons is only viable on the back of government policies that subsidize land acquisition and provide discounted taxpayer capital. Most important, the article confuses economic growth with development. The former is a means, the latter the end, towards which public policy is informed by economics, but also by considerations of equity and justice ...
Dweep Chanana
India (Jan 10, '07)


Your ATol comment on my [letter of Jan 2] refers to a voluntary cessation of poppy cultivation as "suppression". Suppression is something forced, not voluntary. We also believe in demand reduction, but compensating poppy farmers for not growing poppies is much different from the spraying of crops without compensation. Perhaps to reflect an aura of fairness in reporting, such major differences should be pointed out to readers.
Walton Cook (Jan 10, '07)

Whether it's voluntary or not is irrelevant to the addict who drives the narcotics trade, and who must somehow find more money to finance his habit if crop-reduction schemes drive up the price of the product he needs. The most likely result, judging from experience: more crime, not less, and therefore more cost to society. - ATol


Reports indicating [the possibility of an] Israeli attack on the nuclear installations in Iran by using "mini-nukes" look mischievous and threatening to Iran. Such provocative reports at the behest of the Bush administration are meant only to provoke Tehran to go for first-hit tactics, instead of waiting for the Israeli action first only to retaliate. The USA and Israel should be well aware of the preparations being made by the government of President Mahmud Admadinejad to face any eventuality arising out of unexpected attacks either from the USA or from Israel sponsored by the USA. Any misadventure on Iran, therefore, could only be eventually disastrous for both Israel and the USA, initial possible destruction and genocide in Iran notwithstanding. But that would put an end to the current US strategy of catastrophic preemptive wars in the Middle East and lead to real disarmament, including nuclear. Iran today is much better equipped than, say, 10 years ago when it was shattered by a long war with Iraq aided by US weapons.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 10, '07)


Re Spengler's If you so dumb, how come you ain't poor? [Jan 9]: There are rich nations who make grave mistakes, they're smart enough to create a nation, but as time goes on, weaknesses in human nature and culture come up against social evolution. The great capital that Japan amassed and the prospering German industrial sector were used for war, for destruction, plunder, waste, crime. If so called "great nations" are so different from the "romantic vision of nations" why is it that so many great nations take their own sovereignty too seriously and sow the seeds of their own demise? What can be more sentimental, more romantic and starry-eyed than watching crowds of people watching people in uniforms with pretty colored badges worship their own flag and nation? The concept of national sovereignty is so incredibly flawed, I don't know why we don't make the connection between crime and nationalism. In crime, people break the law. In nationalism, we simply prevent laws from holding the most powerful nation's leaders, whoever that is at the time, accountable to law that applies to all nations. Nationalism is a historic inevitability but the "great nation" concept, as an extension of the "chosen people" idea, meets with disaster when taken seriously. I would contend with Spengler that though he may speak the truth that the US presence in the Middle East will prevent little wars from becoming big wars, the evidence on the ground shows that since the March 2003 Iraq invasion, more conflict and increased violence over time [are] the norm. Spengler believes that the presence of a superpower will prevent larger wars, but there are those who argue that it is the superpowers who help nurture and create small wars and then try to contain them, but superpowers cannot prevent the largest wars. Only a world government could do that, which we don't have. Peaceful co-existence [among] Russia, China and the US doesn't have to involve military confrontation, it doesn't have to lead to wider war, but there are many human forces at work now in very complex ways, so to assume that the great nations won't choose war is absurd. Great nations can make grievous errors. When military technology and economic power are far ahead of our ethical and spiritual development, sustainable peace becomes very difficult to achieve. As always, unintended consequences reveal the real limits of national sovereignty, which is that it is incapable of sustaining global peace. For that we need global law.
Jerry Gerber
San Francisco, California (Jan 9, '07)


Re If you so dumb, how come you ain't poor? (Jan 9): Spengler's attitude, one might guess, is purposefully cynical and his perspective like that of a supreme being dispassionately surveying a plot he set in motion. It sounds like a lot of indifference to pain and suffering. But it incites readers and establishes himself as a target of choice. Or am I being equally cynical?
Jim of Southern California
USA (Jan 9, '07)


Is Spengler in a state of mental collapse, needing psychiatric hospitalization, when he writes of "Persian imperialism" [If you so dumb, how come you ain't poor?, Jan 9]? Today's Iran is not Cyrus or Alexander. Have the elected rulers of Iran overthrown elected officials in Haiti, Iraq (attempted - still a work in progress), Venezuela - to mention a few [that] US interests have ridden herd on? In [the United States of] America we still believe in the right to [bear] arms - for a nation-state this means knowing your ABCs - atomic, biological and chemical - for how else would a small state protect itself from the weight of force of a superpower?
Doug Baker
Alameda, California (Jan 9, '07)


Re Sparks fly as China moves oil up Mekong [Jan 9]: Marwaan Macan-Markar deserves praise for directing our attention [to] the double menace that China poses for the Mekong River. Moving oil tankers up the Mekong towards Yunnan province will undoubtedly pollute the waters of the river, which is the livelihood of fisherman in neighboring Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. China's record on clear air and clean water leaves much to be desired. China's plans to construct mini-dams to generate hydroelectric power will also seriously impoverish the fishing industries of Indochina. Moreover, they will make sluggish the mighty surging water of the Mekong as it makes to way to the open sea. Any way you slice these contradictory objectives, it is proof that China will stop at nothing for its own ends, and the devil be damned when it comes to neighboring countries on the Mekong.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 9, '07)


One can read in [Ramzy] Baroud's text: "Bush is yet to learn, however, that the Untied States is not Rome ..." [One last chance for sanity in Iraq, Jan 9]. "Untied", indeed. Whether it's a Freudian typo, or a good pun, in both cases, as we say in French, it's "delicious". A good smile was warranted after the description by [Alastair] Crooke and [Mark] Perry of how some US-Israeli dark forces conspire to destroy whatever is left of Palestine: "sowing the seeds of civil war among a people already under occupation" [No-goodniks and the Palestinian shootout, Jan 9]. Horrifying, but not surprising. Just move your sight a bit more to the north (Lebanon - many tries at civil war), and a bit to the east: Iraq, where the Anglo-US masters have armed the squadrons of death, perfect example of nation-unbuilding; Iran, where the US-Zionist plan has been and still is to sow unrest among the peripheric peoples of the country; and even a bit further to Afghanistan. What will happen when Egyptian and Saudi societies finally wake up? Will they too be next on the list for destruction? Or are they already on the fatal list? The Middle East's curse was really the creation of the State of Israel. Well, in the short term there might be some gain for the Israelis and their allies in systematically sowing destruction in the Zionists' neighborhood, but in the long term ... Resentment and hatred [are] a fire that can burn long, very long - you don't see it, apparently it's now a empty field of quiet ashes, but deep in the ground there are still roots, slowly burning ...
Dr Bittar Gabriel Jivasattha
Switzerland and Australia (Jan 9, '07)

The frequency with which the word "United" gets transposed in copy into "Untied" when it proceeds the word "States", while it rarely does before, say, "Nations" or "Arab Emirates", might suggest that this error is indeed Freudian. However, an error it was, the article has been corrected, and a great nation has been re-United with its chosen name. - ATol


Re Jonathan Adams' Taiwan's 'superstars' to battle it out (Jan 9): Originally from Taiwan, I have been in the US for two decades. Thank you for such a wonderful report, which I found through News.Google.com. I am eager to find out what is going on in Taiwan. The report is neutral, observant [and] thoughtful (full of thoughts) and sees through smoke and mirror.
Friedrich Lu
Boston, Massachusetts (Jan 9, '07)


The US has been involved in the shambles of Somalia/Ethiopia for some time now. Acting on the sidelines by supplying arms and whatever, [it has been trying] to turn the country [Somalia] into some kind of clandestine US puppet state. Recently, the US has become directly involved in the fighting and directing operations of one of the warring factions. Also, US warships are being used to block escaping refugees - all of this without the US public being versed and [with] very little detail in the US press. The Pentagon and the White House are trumpeting the whole scene as a humanitarian exercise. Something tells me that there must be oil or some kind of something that the US covets for this kind of thing to be going on. So, I do a little Internet research and call one of my oil-geologist friends, and lo and behold, I'm right! Four US major oil firms have all but covered the whole of Somalia, and the potential both onshore and offshore is tremendous according to the seismic data so far produced. Conoco has maintained an office in Mogadishu throughout all of the turmoil, and is even letting the US run military operations from some of its offices. Then I also find out that the country has very rich deposits of uranium ore. Not one other person in the whole world could have guessed that the US motives were less than wholesome. I'm psychic - I know it now!
Ken Moreau
New Orleans, Louisiana (Jan 9, '07)


[Re 'The door we never opened ...', Jan 6] by M K Bhadrakumar: It's bracing to read such thought-provoking commentary. Here in the US, we have a hard time getting past the governmental propaganda that drives all talk about Iran or Israel. Even so-called progressive blogs are zealous in censoring comments that call into question American diplomacy as it affects Iran or Israel. Those who think America's elite are turning against starting more wars ought to consider that all 100 senators and 98% of the House [of Representatives] voted to support Israel's recent war against Lebanon, for which the US supplied the 1 million cluster bombs that Israel dropped. Also, it was instructive to watch Democrats run away from [former US president] Jimmy Carter when he said Israel was imposing apartheid on Palestinians.
Harald Hardrada
Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Jan 8, '07)


Re 'The door we never opened ...' [Jan 6: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei's rhetoric about popular support of the Arab street for Hezbollah and Hamas is appealing and makes sense but in my view is tamed by his allusion in the same breath to the Iraqi government popularly installed by American tanks and fresh revelations of extensive cooperation extended by Tehran in the American "conquest" of neighboring Afghanistan. Iranians suffer from a strange type of "split-vision syndrome" and have done so for a very long time. I am in no good position to gauge the response of the Arab street to Mr Khamenei's message, but personally I am not sure what Iranians want. If Mr Khamenei believes he has sufficient clout, then he should advise Najaf Hawza [Iraqi religious center of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani] and the SCIRI [Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq] and Da'wa leadership to vomit out the prize of treachery and to stop harassing Sunni intellectuals, professionals and scientists out of Iraq and hand over the reins of "popularly elected government" to those who already have a (now underground) regime infrastructure to run the country. Does His Holiness intend to do that?
Dr Rashid Hassan (Jan 8, '07)


Re 'The door we never opened ...' [Jan 6]: Former ambassador M K Bhadrakumar's arguments are neither to be taken lightly nor dismissed out of hand ... He makes quite clear that the Iranian leadership has closed ranks for a double reason: United Nations-voted sanctions and the ... war in neighboring Iraq. Tehran sees a double-barreled threat to its Islamic Revolution, and as a result, [US President George W] Bush and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair have infused Iranian rhetoric with more radical rhetoric and intentions. Two, a Shi'ite dominance in Iraq has, on the other hand, drawn Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt into the logic of staunch Israeli opposition to the longer reach of Tehran's fundamental Shi'a influence in war-torn Iraq and has stirred quiescent Shi'a minorities in the [Arab Persian Gulf] states and the Arabian Peninsula. So the decline of Sunni rule in Iraq will fuel active resistance and warfare in Iraq in the foreseeable future should the Americans withdraw. A Shi'a Iraq is unacceptable to the Arab world, simply put. Three, it should be noted that the "new" Bush plan for Iraq is hardly new. The American president is [willing] to put everything on the roll of the dice that with the so-called surge in military, putting into play social and economic policies for reconstruction, employing the vast army of the unemployed, so on and so on, even though in November's mid-term elections the American voters sent a low and clear message to Mr Bush that they had given up the war as a lost cause. Mr Bush has his own agenda. He is not a man who willingly admits that he was or is wrong. He will wend his way come hell and high water until he is out of office in January 2009. Mr Bhadrakumar saw fit to quote the late Anglo-American poet T S Eliot, which speaks of a door opening on a rose garden. It is more than certain that Mr Bush will not welcome emissaries from Tehran in the White House's Rose Garden nor embrace [openly Muqtada] al-Sadr. It is more apposite to remind him of the pulp best-seller I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 8, '07)


I wish to comment on [From capitalism to colonialism, Jan 5]. The Western world is not accustomed to not dominating the rest of the world and considers it insolent [that others are challenging] it now, and that is something [it] cannot stomach. When the Cold War ended, that meant that the [US] had won and its global supremacy, which lasted until September 9, 2001, but it has almost diminished, and that hurts warmongering neo-cons and Christian Zionist fascist like [US President George] W Bush. Even its wealth is diminishing with the rising star of China and Asian developing economies, and that is pinching [it] with a lot of pain. Wealth has left Western borders and [is] reaching China and other parts of the world, and that is insolent as viewed by the West ... China needs America to buy its goods and dollars and America needs China to borrow its money. The USA needs a trillion dollars a year to stand on its feet and [is] borrowing heavily and China has a lot of dollars to invest in America ... China is booming now but it accounts for just 40% of world consumption, and even the Africans love the Chinese. Western companies are not alone in this dirty game but their governments have shown themselves too ready to ingratiate themselves with this regime ... to capture the vast Chinese market. Most of the African countries are notoriously corrupt, abjectly poor, [and] horrendously underdeveloped, and a majority of them do not even have a proper civil administration system ... It is because of this gap that China is prospering in forming friendly relationships with the African countries as it has little morality in its domestic front to export. It has, therefore, chosen to remain neutral: wear blinkers not to see any evil; wear earplugs not to hear any evil and remain oblivious to African regimes' transgressions upon their poor people. As far as human rights, human dignity, civil liberties [and] freedom of speech are concerned in China, they are crushed under a moving tank or by the bullet. The Chinese government is one of the most oppressive regimes on Earth, clinging to power by ruthless suppression of its people and any sort of dissent, occupying Tibet with barbaric force and crushing aspirations of its minorities with ruthless demonstration and use of its power beyond repulsion. But they all need China these days, but not more than the USA with its declining economy ... The ominous signs [are] that if America fails to recover quickly, it will take along to drains the Western world as well as Japan. President G W Bush's warmongering imperialistic foreign policy of invading and occupying Muslim countries, and killing only the Muslims in the world in hundreds of thousands, is one of the causes of [the] black recession coming back to haunt his presidency ... Finally, I can see the day not far away when large numbers of Chinese will be immigrating to America with huge sacks full of Chinese yuan and, who would know, a Chinese-looking president in the not-distant future. I wish I would live to see the day.
Saqib Khan
UK (Jan 8, '07)


Nowadays there is nothing one country can do to another and escape suspicion, criticism, or envy from others on the sidelines. Consider China's recent dealings in Africa [see From capitalism to colonialism, Jan 5]. The former needs energy and certain minerals for its own development, and many African nations need trade, capital, and technological assistance. A number of deals and agreements have recently been concluded between the respective governments, openly and fairly, without threats, let alone invasion and colonization as practiced by many countries in the past. As China has been such a victim before, it has since long ago striven to win friendship in Africa, starting with free labor and technical support in building railways in Ethiopia, at a time when it was still poor. So what tainting label can one bestow on China? The answer is neo-colonialism, according to Jakob Cambria ([letter] Jan 5). However, it is not so bad after all, since every trading nation becomes a potential "neo-colonizer".
S P Li (Jan 8, '07)


The martyrdom of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has obviously evoked mixed reactions, but it is quite clear from what most of the so-called critics of Saddam now say that they have the criticism very quickly hurled at Saddam out of hatred for Islam and not just Saddam specifically. Their chief intention is to paint Islam in dirty colors. The tragic end of Saddam enacted by US President [George W] Bush and his associates has offered the critics a golden opportunity to disgrace even the difficult period of his [Saddam's] rule against the odds of [United Nations Security Council] dirty sanctions. Thus the death of Saddam is perhaps equated with [Islam's] inadequacy. No one can guess what would have been the response of these "critics" if Saddam [had been] given a fair trail by the Bush administration and [had been set] free. Now President Bush, who has committed more [gravely] inhuman crimes than Saddam, is free. But these critics still refuse to question the authority under which the USA arranged for the trial and assassination of Saddam and as to when similar trials would be held for the Bushes and their "willing coalition partners" for killing and torturing the Muslims all around the world in the guise of the so-called anti-terror war which in essence is an anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim war. They should have also the courage to ask the US-led forces to walk out [of] Afghanistan and Iraq and stop further experiments with the so-called "democracy and regime change" in West Asia that [has proved] to be nothing but denoting corruption, genocide and squandering of the Middle Eastern energy resources. As a country following a two-party-limit system, the USA or UK cannot actually talk about the principle of democracy in the Islamic or Third World. Multi-party democracy is functioning in many countries of today's world, including Russia. Invasion on that plank is ridiculous. In the name of democracy the US-led forces, who have monopolized the UN and [its Security Council], have been in fact committing atrocities against humanity, both in lives and in kind. It is, therefore, strange that Saddam's brutality is bad whereas the US brutality is fine.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 8, '07)


[Re Taliban walk right in, sit right down ..., Jan 5] What to me is more remarkable is that these Taliban can so easily traverse and operate in a very primitive cultural structure and then can hop over to a very advanced cultural setting seamlessly. This will be the West's Achilles' heel if we can't do likewise or at least comprehend this phenomenon. Good pieces these last two days - we need in the West to get informed on this.
C A Morrison
Williamsburg, Virginia (Jan 5, '07)


As always Henry C K Liu's commentaries provide the reader with an erudite exposition as well as a sense that the author could (should) have ended with an acknowledgement of a particular conclusion. Bush's bellicose policy on N Korea [Jan 5] allows me as a reader to posit to Dr Liu the question of whether his sense is that US policies (?) with the advent of [President George W Bush] represent a continuity in a policy of belligerency with a definite objective or a succession of bellicose actions in lieu of a well-founded policy. Hopefully he might elucidate further. In the meantime its hard to accept a long-term rationale of continuous bellicosity as a "winning" objective for any nation in an age of nuclear suitcases.
Armand De Laurell (Jan 5, '07)


Professor [Walden] Bello's discourse Globalization in retreat [Jan 5] reads more like "globalization that never was". It is clear from his article and events that have unfolded that so-called "globalization" was nothing more than a neo-imperialist tool devised by US-based "multinational companies" to exploit the rest of the world. There can never [be] a true "globalization" if it is based solely on Wall Street and [US] dollar hegemony. Until there is a spread of financial capitals from North and South America, to Europe, the Mideast, Asia and Africa, there can never be an overlapping and mutually beneficial system.
Roy
USA (Jan 5, '07)


The smooth words of Dr Jian Junbo [From capitalism to colonialism, Jan 5] waft breezily with the perfume of China's exceptionalism when it comes to the continent of Africa. It is a hoary argument which echoes the writings, say, of the late former leftist American sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset on American exceptionalism. No one will seriously challenge Professor Jian when he proudly proclaims that China is "a successful capitalist" in Africa, nor that China has sent aid in kind and Chinese workers for special projects there. However, lecturer Jian has forgotten his Marxist training in the nature of capitalism, as well as the dangers fraught with "great Han chauvinism". China is a rapidly developing world power. Its growing hunger for raw materials has spread to Africa, where it has concluded contracts and governmental accords for, say, copper. It badly stubbed its toe in Zambia, which has rich supplies of this metal and which at the present hour is selling for US$6,000 a tonne. To secure its octopus hold on Lusaka, Beijing's heavy-handed diplomacy tried to influence elections in Zambia. And it might come as a surprise to Dr Jian, that tack aroused a backlash. China may never hold colonies in Africa, but as a successful capitalist country, it followed the well-known paint-by-numbers of neo-colonialism in Africa. A little less crowing would be most welcome.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 5, '07)


Re Russia's grand bargain over Iran [Jan 4]: This fascinating analysis of the latest move on the Grand Chessboard offers a valuable insight into the latest holodeck fantasy of overpaid think-tanks. Ever alert to the latest breeze, but lacking imagination, the holodeck is replete with "made in the West" caricatures: Russians with low self-esteem begging to be accepted by the "West", ready to sell friends and neighbors at the first opportunity, unreliable business partners, killers of democracy-loving smugglers of radioactive isotopes, and the rest. And let's not forget, China cannot wait to ditch such a partner. The reality is far more complex and, in fact, more promising. The debate over the right of nations to possess the capacity to produce energy using nuclear technology has not yet run its course. If only countries with West-approved governments can be allowed to develop technologically and produce alternative energy, the developing world will have fewer options when choosing their own economic models. As the promise of a Western-shaped globalization model has evaporated, the need to explore different models grows exponentially. So does the accountability of national governments that can no longer promise the hungry electorate the future nirvana of Western-shaped globalized economy. SCO [the Shanghai Cooperation Organization] is proving to be by far a more formidable force than its opponents have grasped. All of its members are actively pursuing the opportunities that Eurasian SCO countries can offer, while developing profitable economic ties with Western companies not bent on undermining their national interests. However, the holodeck is interpreting this economic activism through prism of cutthroat competition. Therefore, on the holodeck stage SCO members are watching each other with fear and jealousy, expecting to be cheated by their [unworthy] partners at every turn. Now this is a serious delusion. There is clearly a far greater degree of harmonization of interests and consultation within SCO then meets the eye. The author stands accused [by Oleg Beliakovich, letter, Jan 4] of trumpeting the cause of his Iranian paymasters. Very, very, unlikely story. Iran is grounded in the economic and political realities of Asia, and is a major regional power. Below the surface, SCO and Iranian moves appear to be pretty well coordinated. Grand Chessboard is alive and well. Russians and Iranians are great chess players. The holodeck predictions in the article may indicate that not all players are of the same caliber.
Bianca
USA (Jan 5, '07)

Asian readers stuck with Star Trek-deprived cable services and video stores may be unfamiliar with the term "holodeck", which is a simulated-reality facility on starships and starbases on later versions of the Star Trek science-fiction saga. Holodecks use a combination of computer programs, replicated matter, tractor beams and holograms to create realistic and even tangible moving images that respond directly to human (and Klingon, Vulcan etc) input. Wikipedia has a good explanation here. - ATol


[In] Saddam's life after death (Jan 3), Sami Moubayed provides a somewhat personal assessment of Hussein but fails to mention the real and the cynical truths about Hussein's rise and fall. His brutality, ruthlessness, and savagery are exactly the qualities required to sustain his dictatorial rule. The dogged divisiveness of the Islamic people with their tribal roots and the cynical balance-of-power-based policies of Western powers helped to form the monster that became Hussein. Even Bush administration leaders had their hand in Hussein's ascendency. This can never be a justification for Hussein, but it can provide guidance for the future, a way to foster peace and harmony rather than despotism. Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?
Jim of Southern California
USA (Jan 5, '07)


I wish to comment on the article of January 3, Saddam's life after death, by Sami Moubayed. It was the Bushes' blood feud (the original factor) that made [George] W Bush determined to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his regime before he became the governor of Texas and then [was elected] president of the United States in November 2000. His intense hatred of Saddam Hussein materialized in 1991, two years after the Gulf War when Kuwait invited president [George H W] Bush to honor and thank him as their liberator. Kuwait City was decorated with full glory and the "Operation Love Storm" proved a resounding thing to celebrate. Laura Bush (first lady, George W Bush's wife) was also [at] his side along with Barbara Bush but George W Bush did not go with his daddy to Kuwait. It was a week later, when the Bush dynasty was back in Texas, that the Kuwaiti government discovered that Saddam Hussein's agents with the help of criminals were involved in an unsuccessful plot to blow up the president and his party by detonating a plastic explosive, and that was the beginning of George W Bush's road to take revenge from a man who, he once said, "tried to kill my daddy". President George W Bush eventually had Saddam Hussein hanged, his two sons and a grandson killed in this dynastic score-settling along with hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, destroying their country to ashes. It was a confrontation and an exercise in ancient cowboys' traditions of score-settling, blood-letting; and accusations of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and chemical warfare were conveniently manipulated to punish someone he hated and loathed personally. President Bush succeeded in [bringing about] Saddam's death but, in doing so, he has diminished, perhaps, once [and] for all [the] dynastic ambitions of Bush's family to rule [the United States of] America for many years to come. President G W Bush will always be remembered for his abject failures in Iraq, in Afghanistan, on the domestic front and of course [regarding Hurricane] Katrina; and above all for his megalomania for illegally invading and occupying Muslim countries, destroying them to ashes to loot their wealth … and for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims in pursuit of his imperialistic designs in the traditional manner of a ruthless invader.
Saqib Khan
UK (Jan 5, '07)


In Mahan Abedin's article Iran and the US: An unbreachable divide [Jan 3], Mr Abedin seems to blame the conflict clearly on the US. This I believe is wholly incorrect. He writes, "successive US administrations have nurtured an obsessive hatred toward the Islamic Republic". If one goes to Washington, you will not see weekly gatherings of people shouting "death to Iran", [but] the reverse cannot be said about Tehran. The founding principle of the Islamic Republic is anti-Americanism. The Islamic Republic's opening act upon the world stage was to commit an act of war against the US, taking over our embassy in violation of all international law. They were indeed fortunate to have the treasonous wimp Jimmy Carter as US president at the time or Iran would have been made to pay an extremely high price for [its] act of war. Mr Abedin blames president [Bill] Clinton for "persistent efforts in frustrating Iran's legitimate geopolitical aspirations in Central Asia". Iran declares itself an enemy to the US and takes actions to attack American allies and interests and then expects the US not to take actions against Iran and its interests. Just where did Mr Abedin learn about international relations? One cannot act like an enemy and expect to be treated like a friend. Iraq is clearly headed toward a civil war, and when that day dawns it will not see Iran leading the Islamic world but a Sunni vs Shi'ite war with Iran opposed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia and many other Sunni states. Mr Abedin writes, "Iran's fear of a civil war in Iraq is nowhere near as great as its fear of US success anywhere in the region." Iran is a country with a lot of internal problems, including high unemployment and the emigration of its educated young people. Iran is a country where close to half of the population is not Iranian. Perhaps if your house is made up of gasoline-soaked rags [you] should be more concerned about your neighbor's house catching on fire. America would like nothing better than to get along with a decent Iranian government, [but] opposition to the US is the main organizing principle of the Islamic fascist regime that rules Iran. The Iranian regime only has the backing of between 10% [and] 15% of the Iranian public. It is time for the Iranian people to overthrow this regime, or be prepared to suffer the consequences when the US is forced to act.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Jan 5, '07)


[M K] Bhadrakumar (The Great Game on a razor's edge [Dec 23, '06]) has given a timely update to the SCO-US competition over the last three years. However, he neglected to mention that while China is confronted with US military presence on to its east and south, as well as in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, Central Asia was free from US military-base fetishism. Russia's decline in the 1990s created an opportunity for the US to put two bases (Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) near China's western regions and created yet another region where US forces are deployed near China. This [was] at a time when Russia was reducing its armed forces on China's north and when Mongolia, neatly tucked between Russia and China, presented, and still presents, a case of geopolitical quiescence. It is not in the north - on the Russian and Mongolian borders - that China is faced with a powerful military presence and an alliance of concerned states. In Central Asia, as Mr Bhadrakumar points out, Russia and China had secured key advantages in Uzbekistan - expulsion of the US base - and Kyrgyzstan - prevention of AWACS [Airborne Warning and Control System] deployment. While this is an assumption, I believe the Chinese and Russian leadership can observe and already realize that continuous political cooperation within SCO [the Shanghai Cooperation Organization] bears fruit and can prevent emergence of new issues - US AWACS deployment or US encouragement of India to open its own base in Central Asia, for example. Hence the Chinese leadership probably has already decided if they want the political-military situation on their western borders to resemble the one on their north or, instead, on their east. Regarding the competition for energy exports, Chinese and Russian interests are not diametrically opposed, and the future projects are not as viable as they seem: the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to the West might need the approval of all Caspian states, since the status of the sea and the seabed is not settled. In this case, Russian opposition and military presence in the Caspian, as well as possible Iranian opposition, will likely prove decisive. For some reason, Mr Bhadrakumar does not mention that Russia has been supplying 200,000-[300,000] barrels of oil per day to China via rail and additional amounts through the newly built oil pipeline from Kazakhstan to China. After the Tiiashet-Skovorodino link goes online in 2008-09, Russia will provide another 300,000-[600,000] barrels of oil per day to China. This is not a sign of mutually exclusive energy policies, but of mutually beneficial cooperation. For the Western-backed projects, while certain amounts of Kazakh oil have been contracted through two Russian pipelines (CPC [Caspian Pipeline Consortium] and Samara), Kazakh supplies to the western Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) are not certain. Eastward exports of Kazakh oil and Turkmen gas possibly hurt future Western-backed projects more than they do existing pipelines going through Russia. Any future Chinese or Western-bound projects could be said to be in a zero-sum game. BTC, for example, delivered its first oil in the second half of 2006, a year later than planned, and the project is around [US]$1 billion over its original budget. Azerbaijan's production is not enough to fill the pipeline without major Kazakh contributions, at least 400,000 barrels a day. The latter have been promised several times, but it is not at all clear in what amounts and when these will arrive to make the pipeline profitable. Now BP representatives have spoken in favor of seeing Russian oil deliveries to the pipeline. With the rising Kazakh exports through Russia and towards China, there is that much less oil to go to the BTC. Similar developments can be expected regarding Turkmen, Kazakh, and Uzbek gas: there are existing pipelines to Russia, with a smaller pipeline to Iran, and there are future, mutually competing and possibly mutually excluding projects for exports to China, to the West, and to India via the unstable Afghanistan. On two out of three of the above, Russia can expect joint opposition with Iran, while China bound pipelines make West-bound pipelines less likely, and vice-versa. So when an oil or gas pipeline is built from Central Asia to China, does it make existing or future projects less likely?
Leon Rozmarin
Hopedale, Massachusetts (Jan 5, '07)


Re Al-Qaeda: Ignoring the real enemy [Jan 4], if [US President] Bush's "surge" decision stands, the world will find that the real enemy of peace and harmony is George W Bush. Bush probably doesn't know it. I'm sure he truly believes that his stubborn refusal to withdraw in Iraq is for the good of humankind. Whatever reason he gives for the surge in troops, the end result is predictable: more suffering by Iraqis, more deaths, more Middle East instability, a heightened danger of war with Iran, new recruits for al-Qaeda and a further polarized world. What a price to pay for the vanity of a few men!
Jim of Southern California
USA (Jan 4, '07)


Kaveh L Afrasiabi's Russia's grand bargain over Iran [Jan 4] is childish to the extreme. It's childish by presuming that geopolitics is an honorable business. It is childish by assuming that Iran can cooperate with nobody and then expect cooperation from Russia, the country whose offers of escape it has rejected more than once. And it's childish by repeating bits of Western anti-Russian propaganda about Georgia and Ukraine - cases in which the Russian position is far more reasonable than that of its counterparts - while simultaneously rejecting the same Western propaganda directed against Iran. All in one breath. Good that hypocrisy is easier to master than nuclear technology. The tone of Mr Afrasiabi's "scream for help" varies from remotely hostile to outright threatening, which tells me that the author and his Iranian paymasters might need a reality check. At this point in time and for the foreseeable future, Iran will need Russia far more than Russia will ever need Iran. If a reality check has to be delivered in the form of a relatively mild UN resolution instead of laser-guided munitions, so much the better. But one thing is clear - the time when Iran could continually present Moscow with a series of faits accomplis and then count on Kremlin's bailout is probably over. Cooperation is a two-way street outside of Tehran. Any country as precariously positioned as today's Iran would be well served to remember that.
Oleg Beliakovich
Seattle, Washington (Jan 4, '07)


Kim Jong-il's military-first policy a silver bullet [Jan 4] makes for interesting reading. Kim Myong Chol has not slipped into the wooden language that his other Speaking Freely contributions are peppered with. In fact, Mr Kim has even taken a more measured tone overall in defending his standpoint, it is important to note. Many may quibble at the high tone of his assertions, but the clearer relevance in his article is his references to the days of the Clinton administration's dealing with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Equally of interest is that his words appear in ATol on the eve of the Democrats becoming the majority party in the [US] houses of Congress. Representative Tom Lantos, who will become the chairman of House Foreign Affairs Committee, for example, "has vowed to listen to Asian voices", and what's more, he has already visited Pyongyang as a member of a bipartisan fact-finding duo. He has stated that he intends to hear the DPRK's case with the ears of a seasoned diplomat and lawmaker, and not rush to judgment and hasty condemnation and the haughty tone of the moralist. Thus it is pertinent to ask if Pyongyang through the "unofficial" voice of Kim Myong Chol is saying that it is prepared to pick up with the Democrats where it left off when George Bush assumed the presidency. And what's more, that North Korea is willing to open discussions on outstanding issues which the Bush administration has shown itself unwilling or viscerally incapable to deal with.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 4, '07)


The new UN secretary general's statement on Saddam [Hussein]'s death sentence does not give inspiration on his independent vision and statesmanship qualities. He spoke the same language of the American establishment to signal his obedience to them to stay for 10 years in his job like Kofi Annan. Every despot and dictator of the past, present or remotest past is worthy of every condemnation, and so [are] their tyrannies, but not to be forgotten at the same time are the lies [about weapons of mass destruction], illegal invasion of Iraq, illegal occupation to usurp its oil resources, illegal regime change, 650,000 innocent Iraqis killed, Iraq ruined to ashes, 3,000 American soldiers killed, US$6 trillion lost, by the biggest tyrant and despot ever born, [US President George W] Bush and his poodle [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair, who should also be tried for their illegal acts of crimes against humanity by the international court of criminal justice and meet [their deserved] fate. If the new secretary general is a true representative of world conscience, then he should move in this direction and save the innocent world from [the neo-cons and] the despots they create [and] destroy their vested wishes and interests or immediately leave office ...
Abdullah Jamal Mohammad
Jehlum, Pakistan (Jan 4, '07)


Re Saddam's life after death [Jan 3] by Sami Moubayed: Saddam Hussein was a madman and a fool who squandered Iraq's future on vicious wars against his closest Islamic neighbors. For the Iran-Iraq War alone he deserved to hang a hundred times. From first to last he proved a most convenient tool of the USA and Israel. Even in death he promises to continue serving the sworn enemies of his nation. His unceremonious hanging seems to have been staged to deliver what the American occupation most desperately now needs: an internecine sectarian war that will fatally bleed, and thus render impotent, both Sunnis and Shi'ites. [US President] G W Bush, whose unprovoked war has brought about the deaths of close to a million Iraqi Arabs, and has thereby undoubtedly earned the undying gratitude of the [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], and their hacks at the Project for the New American Century, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal may now get an opportunity to see that number grow to 2 million or more. And, amazingly, he will not have to do a damn thing. The Arabs, of their own accord, will kill each other off in large numbers just for him. How utterly splendid!
Jose R Pardinas, PhD
San Diego, California (Jan 3, '07)


Donald Kirk's The great dictator, alive and well [Jan 3] is cry of despair. It has that echo of what the late [US writer] James Baldwin called "the fire next time". His article quivers with indignation and complete frustration. Mr Kirk's words, his anger, is aroused by Kim Jong-il, whom he sees as an incarnation of evil. He cries out to the heavens as [if he] were a Henry II, who uttered the fateful words, "Won't someone rid me of that priest?" - Thomas a Beckett, who fell under the knives of the king's assassins. Alas, Mr Kirk, wishing won't make it so. As Mr Kirk knows, North Korea has tested a nuclear device, which makes, as he so pointedly writes, [Kim] more dangerous than ... Saddam Hussein. Nonetheless, instead of tilting at windmills, it would behoove Mr Kirk, a veteran of 30-odd years in covering Korea, to ask why, under the stewardship of [Bill] Clinton in the White House, Pyongyang was willing to talk and negotiate with the United States. Admittedly, were it not for the good offices of former [US] president Jimmy Carter (see former ambassador [Marion V] Creekmore's A Moment of Crisis), Mr Clinton [would have edged toward] war with North Korea. Although the negotiations were long and arduous, Washington and Pyongyang were beginning a process which, it was then hoped, would lead to more understanding and a degree of trust, in order to settle larger issues, some going back to the Korean War. Ultimately, secretary of state Madeleine Albright met Kim Jong-il, on the eve of the election of George W Bush as president of the United States. Under Mr Bush's watch, conditions deteriorated to the state of things as we know it today, and what's more his inflexible, hard-nosed policies [have] turned North Korea into a nuclear power. In consequence, today tensions run higher on the divided Korean Peninsula than [they have] since 2000. Now is not the moment of saying as [French poet] Gerard de Nerval did [that] our dreams are a second life. The moment, instead, calls for patience and common sense for finding means to unlock closed positions and open a dialogue on the nuclear and other outstanding issues with North Korea.
Jakob Cambria
USA (Jan 3, '07)


M K Bhadrakumar's December 23, 2006, article The Great Game on a razor's edge is emblematic of the failure of US intelligence in the Middle East, Central Asia, the East and [elsewhere]. Since 1949, the US intelligence establishment has consistently shown itself to be incompetent and in fact negligent. US failures in Tashkent and Bishkek are a tremendous loss to the US. In the aftermath of [September 11, 2001], the US had enough political capital to establish multiple and extensive influence in the Middle [East], Central [Asia] and East Asia regions. However, due to mistakes, that political and strategic capital has been completely exhausted, if not wasted. For the current strategy of the US to have a chance to possibly work, in the great game, the use of US forces and resources must be reversed from the now-lopsided Iraq/Afghanistan ratio, to a massive reversal of Afghanistan/Iraq ratio of expenditures. If the US were to spend $8 billion to $10 billion a month in Afghanistan as opposed to in Iraq, there is a chance that with Kabul stabilized and the outlying provinces under the control of the 150,000 troops now in Iraq, then the other central "stans" would actually come to the side of the US, as opposed to counter-NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] organizations such as CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] and the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization]. Perhaps even Islamabad would become more pliable vis-a-vis the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence]. And in Baghdad, about 50,000-75,000 troops could hold down the fort and maintain [stability] with the support of the Egyptians, the Saudis, and other Sunni regimes. Now you have a true security ring around Tehran. Turkey will be more apt to follow a stronger US hand regardless of EU offerings. Finally, having troops and resources in the "stans" and along the [Xinjiang] region will eventually give the US leverage on China. Beijing is already worried about Islamist influence in its autonomous western [regions]. Were the US to have a solid grip on the eastern Pak-Afghan-stans region, then a tri-containment Russo-Sino-Persian strategy [could] be employed.
Jubin Ajdari (Jan 2, '07)


According to Shawn Crispin (US, China square off, Dec 23, '06), the United States was widely perceived in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in Asia as a moral force for democratic change, and as China's economic and political influence rises the US abandons the democratic high ground and drops its democracy-promotion policy. The image of the US being a champion of human rights and democracy is projected from sinister hypocrisy. Long before China's rise to an economic powerhouse, the US had supported a string of brutal military dictatorships in South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and the infamous General Suharto's Indonesia, where hundreds of thousands were killed in the 1965 military coup. There is a pattern that one can only choose to miss. Human rights and democracy become issues only when no other reason can be found to level against the government that the US does not like. The US never raises the same issues when it comes to its own behavior: torture at Abu Ghraib, indefinite detention at the Guantanamo base, and extraordinary rendition, where people are kidnapped and flown to secret prisons outside the US. While financial liberalism may end along with US economic hegemony, democracy in Southeast Asia is developed by indigenous struggles, and not by promotion by the US.
Paul Law
Berlin, Germany (Jan 2, '07)


Re The ever-threatening nuclear shadow [Dec 23, '06]: Seoul since the end of the deadlocked six power talks on December 18, 2006, has issued a sober white paper on Pyongyang's ability to manufacture nuclear and biological weapons. The report is symptomatic of the ill ease under which North Korea's neighbors live. It is also an indication of the Dr Strangelove-esque gambit that Pyongyang and Washington are playing. President [George W] Bush's administration is engaged in an infinite gambol of mischief. Its latest move is to use Vietnam to twist the knife in North Korea's sore spot: Hanoi has ordered its banks to close all accounts linked to Pyongyang, thereby denying North Korea the ability to transfer funds. When North Korea returned to the six-power talks in Beijing last month, it kept arguing for unfreezing its account of a paltry US$24 million in Macau's Banco Delta Asia, which Washington has labeled a conduit for laundering proceeds for North Korea's drug and counterfeiting operations. The United States counter-argued by saying that first Pyongyang [must] agree to its terms on the nuclear issues. Thus the stalemate and hardening of positions. Vietnam is willing to play Washington's card because it thinks less of incurring Kim Jong-il's wrath and more of Mr Bush's approval of its entrance into the World Trade Organization and the advantage of more trade that will heat up Vietnam's economic development. [Its] sealing off Pyongyang's access to outside financial markets is further proof that the United States is not interested in coming to an agreement with North Korea through the talks in Beijing, but in making its allies' lives more uneasy in Northeast Asia, and to push Pyongyang so that it will make a fatal nuclear faux pas.
Jakob Cambria (Jan 2, '07)


Concerning Chan Akya's It's the money, honey [Dec 22, '06]: Spengler is no longer the only "regular" idiot at Asia Times [Online]. Originally, as i began to read the article I planned to jot down a few comments, but I just lost interest halfway through - hearing the same old crap. Even before he mentioned the likes of an [Abraham] Maslow and a Betrand Russell, I knew the writer was just a nobody trying to be profound and depending on other modern, equally shallow thinkers. Just one question for the "writer": How did economic considerations create the artistic masterpieces of the past, say, for example, during what is today called "the age of Constantine"? I am not saying that money was not involved, nor that the external aspects of a religion [do] not have [their] negative aspects (all things human must), but to say that economics determines everything is so narrow that no further comment is necessary. Incidentally, I wonder if all the decisions in the writer's own life were determined completely by economics.
Krischer (Jan 2, '07)


Apropos India fears US nuclear trap [Dec 20, '06], I must bring to your notice that the so-called "fear" is confined to a few groups: the leftist comrades, the right-extremist opposition BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party], some retired nuke scientists and a few armchair columnists still under [a] Nehruvian-era socialist hangover. The left's opposition [to the US-India nuclear deal] is based on communist ideology, which they [voters] have dumped in West Bengal, a state ruled by them [communists] for more than a decade. In this particular state the comrades have embraced Chinese-model capitalism. So much for their [communists'] double-speak and pseudo-nationalism. The opposition BJP is opposing the deal out of sheer political jealousy. They [BJP politicians] can't stomach the fact that it is they who initiated the dialogue but it happened to be the current government taking credit of finalizing it. The retired nuke scientists had toiled for years to get India's indigenous nuclear-power program ahead and they couldn't get India anywhere near targets set at the outset. These gentlemen squandered taxpayers' money without any accountability in return for nothing really to show. Now these people are up in arms opposing the deal but they don't have any alternatives to suggest. The armchair columnists like Praful Bidwai, Kuldip Nayyar etc are past their heydays and still suffer the socialist hangover thrust on an unwilling nation by [Jawaharlal] Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi. Our professional agitator Ms Arundhati Roy is not yet into this issue. She is busy trying to save a terrorist from the gallows. It would be interesting to know what she would have to say once she is finished with the terrorist.
Ajith Kumar
Sharjah, UAE (Jan 2, '07)


One wonders if any of the arrested 300 "Taliban" mentioned in the article The vultures are circling [Dec 13, '06] by Syed Saleem Shahzad were tortured, suffocated in containers or executed along with 3,000 other Afghan prisoners. That is not to say all those who were rounded up were Taliban in the first place. Like they say: "Kill then all. Let God sort them out." That must be the god in whom America trusts. The Taliban aren't boy scouts by American standards. At the same time, American standards can be two-faced. [The United States of] America didn't have a problem allying with the Northern Alliance, a more rapacious murderous lot than the Taliban. America never has had a problem supporting oppressive dictators [who] torture and disappear political opponents. So Americans should just forget the moral pontificating and the extolling of the virtues of their military.
Ramon M
Canada (Jan 2, '07)


In regard to Behold Indonesia's democratic beacon [Oct 19, '06] by Shawn W Crispin, this is total rubbish. The minute a government censors any type of books, journalism, movies, people's voices, [it ceases] to be a democracy. If I'm not mistaken, the editor of the new Indonesian Playboy magazine, Erwin Arnada, is in jail. How does that fit in with democracy? How does that fit in with freedom of speech? A government cannot pick and choose which parts of democracy it likes and discard the parts it doesn't. What planet does this writer live on or who is actually paying his salary? What a hack writer writing a load of rubbish.
Devin Fleming (Jan 2, '07)

Most if not all democratic countries practice censorship to some extent, particularly against sexual material regarded as "obscene" or offensive to sensibilities predominant in those societies. If you doubt that, try picking up some child pornography at your local 7-Eleven. - ATol


Thank you for the exceedingly interesting articles published [last] year, without which I would have had trouble finding the relevant information for my research on biofuels in China. I wish you and your team ... a happy new year. Your work is very much appreciated.
Malte Beckmann (Jan 2, '07)


I read Asia Times [Online] with great interest but when it comes to describing Wahhabis ... I feel you need to correct the term for the future. It is Wahhabis who are ruthless heretics, in other words, Saudi Arabia's official sect, and not Sunnis. The entire Muslim world wishes Christians, their holy cousins, a warm Xmas. We Muslims in our five prayers a day bless Prophet Jesus for his elevation and well-being of his followers, and so we do for Abraham [and] Moses along with our Prophet Mohammed. That is Islam, which vested groups tarnish as militant for their sinister objectives. Let us all pray for peace in the entire world.
Miss Zeenat-e-Jehan
Karachi, Pakistan (Jan 2, '07)


Strife in West Asia, particularly in Iraq, was very well expected by the USA much before the assassination of Saddam [Hussein] - an action necessary to clear the way for the US-led nations to squander the resources of the region without hindrances - so the global outrage is on the US-expected lines. But the protests by the public in the USA against the Bush cruelty with banners stating "Who gave USA war criminals license to kill Saddam Hussein?" [are] indeed significant, for after all, it is the US electorate that, in the face of the global danger posed by the fact that the UN and [its Security Council] have been reduced to mere departments of the Bush administration, alone can now punish President [George W] Bush, the Republicans and the Pentagon-cum-CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] network responsible for the crimes being committed in West Asia and elsewhere by the US-led agents under the garb of "war on terror".
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (Jan 2, '07)


Commenting on the execution of Saddam Hussein: I did not lament his death; he got what he deserved, but to hang him the day of Eid-ul-Adha was atrocious and the perfidious mannerism of taunting a man by Shi'as just before a man's life was to end was inhuman, uncivilized and barbaric. It was a deliberate attempt to create further division amongst the Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'as and [to cause] sectarian violence to speed up even with more ferocity. It was evident from the video footage that the whole scene was stage-managed by the Iraqi Shi'a government of President [George W] Bush's stooge and boot-licking boy, [Prime Minister] Nuri al-Maliki, to the extent of employing hooded Shi'a burly hangmen who also taunted the deceased on his way to gallows. But if the Shi'as were to wish and expect that the Ba'athist would be coaxed down by the execution, it would seem to be a distant prospect as the Sunnis and Shi'a gunmen, bombers and death squads financed by the White House will from now on shred each other to pieces; write down their grim and sordid political agenda in the blood of more innocent Iraqis until the Shi'as have achieved what they always wanted: Shi'a Iraq under the rule of murderous butchers like Muqtada al-Sadr and other Shi'a conspirators. Iraq will now be a hell even worse than before to live in, with the Shi'as dictating their terms to the Americans and claiming victory, "mission accomplished", as the conflagration of sectarian violence will rage beyond the control of the coalition troops. I believe that Saddam was a stupid dictator intoxicated with ruthless power and its sordid use on all those who opposed or challenged his authority, and [his] regime and was as brutal to the Sunnis as it was to Shi'as, Kurds and even his close relatives, as we know of their fatal ends. As most dictators are ruthless but very few were as stupid and sadistic as Saddam Hussein to die on the gallows or by firing squad. Mao [Zedong] and [Josef] Stalin, who were more bloodthirsty and brutal, died still in power and in their beds; even the idiot Idi Amin, evil Pol Pot, and others cheated execution ... Saddam was wicked and arrogant but stupid in abundance to have unleashed abominable terror on his own people, incurring their resentment, but also in his ignorant optimism of taking on the mightiest armies of the USA as the final showdown "mother of all wars" and paid a heavy price. Finally, he confronted G W Bush of the USA ... Saddam Hussein's end was never in doubt and sealed on the day G W Bush became the president of the United States of America.
Saqib Khan
UK (Jan 2, '07)


Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest nations, with a per capita income of less than [US]$1 per day, poorer than all but two nations of [sub-Saharan Africa]. We know also that [the United States of] America, by choice, has made a commitment to make Afghanistan a demonstration project for democracy in the troubled Middle East [sic]. We know it is now an issue of our [Americans'] national honor. We know that Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opiates, for which Afghan farmers receive $700 million. In stark contrast, rich OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] nations incur a "societal cost" of those same opiates of $217 billion annually. The cost differential is $216.3 billion. Amazingly, opiates are reflected as a full 30% ($2.8 billion) of the total Afghan GDP [gross domestic product]. Afghan poppy farmers, therefore, gain only 25% of the portion of GDP money attributed to poppy cultivation. Afghanistan is an Islamic republic. Islam rejects the use of narcotics. What, then, are Afghanistan's options to reject the cultivation of opium poppies?
Option 1: Cease poppy cultivation. Result: Suffer the loss of $700 million poppy-farmer income and $2.1 billion other GDP income. Result: Vast civil unrest, loss of life, and severe poverty.
Option 2: Eradicate poppy cultivation by armed might, either by hand eradication, ground-level spraying or aerial spraying. Result: Armed civil strife, greater loss of life, a $2.8 billion reduction in GDP, poverty and human suffering. Loss of hope; disdain for democracy in citizens' hearts and minds.
Option 3: Using the OECD cost differential, fully compensate poppy farmers for not cultivating their crops. (And for the next 10 years, allow both crop and/or occupational adjustments.) Pay the Afghan government an additional $2.1 billion to make up for [its] GDP loss. Add $2.8 billion to provide needed development to sustain domestic recovery and democratization. Result: No loss of farmer income. No government loss of income. Adequate money to build democratic institutions. No civil unrest or increased poverty. Stabilization for the geographic region. Conversely: a loss of major funding for insurgency and terror, reducing revenues of al-Qaeda, Taliban, drug lords, mafia and other criminal interests. Pass along results: OECD nations save $217 billion "societal cost of narcotics" annually, now made available for other uses. Apply similar diplomacy to Colombia, reducing US societal cost of narcotics [of] 117 billion additional dollars, again annually. Build democracy. Further diminish terrorist funding sources. Reduce major narcotics availability, consequent deaths, imprisonments, and health costs. What makes this diplomacy unique? It is funded with dollars available only when available diplomacy reduces narcotics-related costs. It is a simple concept, money saved, not money gained from additional taxation. It comes from the cost differentials that already exist between rich and poor nations. It enables the richer nations to lend generous support, not only without cost, but with social and monetary profits. What do we know about Afghanistan now? Afghanistan is our world's best investment opportunity.
Walton Cook (Jan 2, '07)

Your calculus deals only with the supply side of the narcotics problem, and fails to mention the demand side that drives the drug trade. Forcing up the cost of illicit drugs through law enforcement or by restricting supply, such as through the sort of crop suppression you suggest, has in the past had the tendency of increasing crime as addicts need more and more funds to support their habits. - ATol


December Letters