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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.

May 2007

John Ng has written a reasonably good article [A warning shot for China's markets, May 31] on Beijing's tripling of the stamp tax on securities transactions on China's overheated stock exchanges. And for that we owe him two cheers. However, the warning shot was already predicted days before in the press. Regional and international markets dipped but not by very much, including those in China. The stamp tax did not put global markets in a tailspin as a replay of the dent in the stock exchange when Shanghai lost 9% in February, even though, as Ng reports, Shanghai slipped 6.5%. As a litmus test, it is instructive to see how a comparable market fared in the light of this slippage. Let's take the [Bombay] exchange, which has just passed [the] trillion-dollar mark, which puts it in the same league as Tokyo and Shanghai. [Bombay] dipped a percent. Structurally speaking, the Indian market suffers not from the same malaise that China's does. Therefore the cooling off of China's markets remains China's problem. Within a day, markets bounced backed. Everyone knows that the small retail investors will suffer from a market meltdown, but the "warning shot" Ng speaks of has not deterred them from trying to bet [on] the stock-market lottery. And for the moment it does not seem as though they will lose big, for as long as institutional investors (read the [Communist] Party, the army, the billionaires and millionaires, foreign investors) do not feel the pinch, Beijing's monetary authorities will continue to apply [adhesive bandages] to a serious wound. The Chinese government has caught a tiger by the tail, which it cannot let go.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 31, '07)

In W Joseph Stroupe's The Cold War: Fears of an unfinished victory [May 31] we are treated to Mr Stroupe's childlike black-and-white view of the world that exists nowhere but in Mr Stroupe's own mind. Mr Stroupe views a world where the East, mostly Russia and China, confronts the West, mostly the US with a little Europe thrown in for fun. Someone should tell Mr Stroupe that the world is not black and white but billions of shades of gray [and] is constantly changing shape. Mr Stroupe makes a series of sweeping statements that have no foundation is reality. He sees the world shaped by proxy fights between the East and the West, writing [that] "the West sponsors proxies such as the Chechen separatists". Perhaps Mr Stroupe will tell us where he learned [that] the CIA [US Central Intelligence Agency] sponsors the Chechens and cite a credible source that can be checked. This is a charge I have never heard before, and I believe it exists only in Mr Stroupe's mind. Since the Chechens have been linked to al-Qaeda, can Mr Stroupe explain how it would be in the West's interest to give them aid? Mr Stroupe in writing about US missile defense in Europe claims [that] Russia "further asserts its right to attack and destroy the [anti-ballistic-missile] sites as they become operational". Pure fantasy - perhaps he again could cite his source. He wants us to believe that Russia will bomb an American base in Poland and start World War III over an ABM system that doesn't work, and even if it did would be no threat to Russia. Also I don't believe the US Congress is going to spend [US$]100 billion on this system. Mr Stroupe views this world struggle as one where one side will win everything and the other will be left to freeze and starve to death in the corner. The world doesn't work like that. He writes, "When the West won the Cold War in 1991, it did take virtually all the spoils." Bullcrap - the West got nothing, a handful of Russian oligarchs got everything, the people Mr Stroupe now defends. Again, Mr Stroupe talks about "authoritarian democracies" - I have no idea what these are, but perhaps Mr Stroupe imagines they are like skinny fat people. He sees the East winning out against the West - Mr Stroupe could use a good encyclopedia: the US economy is not 20% or 30% larger than Russia's but 1,600% larger. Add in Europe, Japan and India and many other more democratic states and how he gets the idea that the "authoritarian East" will win is beyond belief.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (May 31, '07)

I e-mailed to strongly protest the series of articles by some individual who calls himself Spengler, especially those on Iran. He seems to be negatively interested in Iranian [and] Islamic affairs but his biased, superficial and rather hateful attitude toward these make his stuff a shame to your otherwise okay site. His extremely poor-quality scholarship with respect to all aspects from Iranian economics to poetry make him a disgrace to your standing. He involves himself in many things he has interest in but no talent or expertise at all, like poetry. With all his stupid interpretations of Persian poetry, his crude citations from the Koran and his totally inaccurate economic figures, the guy does not deserve to be seriously considered. The motivation for all this is clearly a hateful and contemptuous disposition toward Iranian-Islamic affairs ... He should certainly be free to spew all his misinformation, but your choice of propagating his prejudice and hate via ATimes.com is entirely another matter. At least the loser should have the courage to responsibly publish under a real name and e-mail.
Vikram Laal
Indian diplomat
Tehran, Iran (May 31, '07)

Talk about a lot of hate! - ATol

I fail to see the merits of Spengler's latest article [Why Iran will fight, not compromise, May 30] and your decision to print it. You have said in your reply to another reader's comment [Peace, letter, May 30] that you wish to offer alternative views that provoke the readers to think. You have also said he is the most widely read writer on your site. Perhaps your intention is to offer more controversial points of view to boost your readership. Perhaps, unlike what you have claimed, his articles are read widely because they are controversial and not because they make us think. Why else would you be inclined to print an article that repeats for a third time this year his allusion to trafficking of Persian prostitutes, reiterate a fourth time Iran's need for an imperial adventure because of its demographic makeup and economic plans, and conclude one more time - I've lost count on this one - that war with [the] "pocket empire of Persia" is unavoidable given Herr Spengler's demography, economics and clergy equation? The only thing Spengler did not manage to squeeze in a third time was his previous personal commentary on how "the Persians have been a nuisance for centuries and it would not bother him if someone taught them a lesson". I stopped thinking him thought-provoking a long time ago and began to think him bizarre and twisted when he wrote only last month [actually on March 27, The Most Un-Islamic Republic of Persia - ATol] that the depiction of Persians as sexually ambivalent and repressive in the movie 300 was not so far from the truth because there was a Persian poet who wrote loving poems to his beloved young man and that the Persians did take slaves. Look, it is your paper and, as you say, we don't have to read articles from those we disrespect; but please do not pretend that your desire to offer different points of view equates having to give Spengler an opportunity to repeat again and again why economics and demography compel Persians to wage war. After all, the same thing can be said - at least once - of the US and Israel. The invasion of Iraq and how that war was sold to the American public was a painful demonstration to me of how the paths to wars in our time are paved by complacent media who are not committed to truth and genuine discourse. I read your articles because you for the most part represent that commitment to truth and genuine discourse, but I will not pretend, as you have, that Spengler is an element of that commitment: he does for your paper what anti-immigration and anti-Muslim platforms do for political parties across Europe. Economic realities may compel you at times to dabble in those murkier waters, and I will continue to read you because I understand that, but please do not imply that you are doing us a service when you do so.
Sam Armand
Los Angeles, California (May 31, '07)

You are more than welcome to express your views in Spengler's Forum, but beware! You will find some very thoughtful people there. - ATol

Is it just me, or do the people writing in to complain about Spengler quite miss the irony of their actions? Letters published on May 30 had two people claiming not to read Spengler, but yet writing in to complain about his articles. Either they are guilty of what they accuse him of, ie, cognitive bias, or they do secretly read and perhaps even enjoy Spengler's articles but are just too cowardly to admit to that activity. Ah well, compared to the amount of trouble one can get into on the Asia Times website, clicking on some of the lovely ads for example to join the FBI [US Federal Bureau of Investigation] or some such, reading Spengler is almost entirely an amusing diversion. As your response [under Peace's letter] indicated, he does provoke my thinking on several issues and while I rarely agree with his conclusions, his logic is compelling. On the other end of the scale, I have found Chan Akya to display more of a bias in framing all arguments in purely economic terms, but even this approach merits contemplation from time to time. Just those two commentators make Asia Times [Online] a frequent stop for me, if not necessarily a daily one. Last, may I request that you create a page for storing all articles of Chan Akya as well? This week I had some trouble finding one of his recent pieces on differences in economic development across Asia that I remember reading a while ago.
Salt (May 31, '07)

A Chan Akya page is coming soon. Meanwhile, the search function at the right of the menu bar works pretty well for that sort of thing; punch in any keywords you remember from the story or the headline and the name of the writer. - ATol

To those readers bashing China saying that it is only going to exploit African countries, let's pull up some facts. [The economy of] Africa is growing, finally, at a healthy clip of 5-7%, thanks to China. China along with India is gobbling up what Africans can produce, food crops. Couldn't they have exported that to the US or Europe? Unfortunately both the US and Europe chose to heavily subsidize their own farmers, shutting out the only exports that Africans could muster. Take a look at [the United States of] America and its neighbors; see any rich countries except Canada? Even little nations like Jamaica are poor. The US has done little to help any country pull out of poverty. Sure, they helped Europe, fellow white nations, but if you are not, all the US has done is exploit them. But thanks to China, a lot of countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. From the poorer Asian countries to African nations can thank China for their healthy growth. Take a look at the effect of China on its neighbors and contrast that with America's. All the West has done is to exploit other countries by either colonization or slavery, enriching [itself] in the process. It is time for a new world order, [an] Asian order. China and India will lead the rest of the world out of poverty.
Jayant Patel (May 31, '07)

Maybe, but they both have a lot of work to do at home first. Depending on definitions and statistical methodology, about half of the world's poor live in China and India (this graphic is a bit old but interesting nonetheless). Also, GDP growth can be a misleading measure of progress against poverty, especially in most African nations, where corruption is rife and wealth (and wealth growth) is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, with very little trickling down to the most needy. Much the same is true in so-called "economic powerhouses" China and India. - ATol

Must admit that I did not read Spengler's latest [May 30] for two principal reasons: Spengler's previous commentaries about Iran were reflective of a biased view gained mostly from second-hand biased sources. The second is due to either an optical illusion or failing eyesight or a purposeful photo-montage depicting a sinking Spengler side by side with the title Why Iran will fight, not compromise. While curiosity may have killed the cat, one still lives in expectations that Spengler's photogravure is due to photo-mechanical failure rather than a planned attempt to doctor his facial features. By the by, has Spengler ever written a commentary about Israel's socioeconomic status with the same fervor that he has done in the past about Iran? Or is he primarily an Iran specialist?
Armand De Laurell (May 30, '07)

Spengler knows all. - ATol

I am a religious reader of ATimes Online. You have a very professional approach about covering various topics from around the globe and very well-respected writers. The articles that appear are very well researched and very objective. I have one request, though ... I wonder if [it is] due to any political pressure that you have to have a racist and Muslim/Middle East/Islam basher like Spengler. I rarely read his articles because they always start with Muslim bashing, racism and negative talk of the Muslim world. He is hardly objective and always propagating war and hatred. One thing that turns me off from your website is his name and articles. You will enhance your readership further, I am confident, by pulling out Spengler's articles and replacing him with maybe Hans Blix, who could at least provide some intelligent article and insight into how his part of the world works. I normally do not write letters to the editor. But in this case it is just getting unbearable. Let us read more refreshing and informative articles like other writers from over 6 billion people and please spare [us from] the likes of Spengler. This world badly needs some peace-loving people and they need to be given platform like yours. I would really appreciate your cooperation in this regard. Your site could help promote peace with peaceful solutions to the world's problems.
Peace (May 30, '07)

Spengler is consistently the best-read writer on Asia Times Online, not (judging from feedback) necessarily because many readers agree with him, but because he challenges their thinking. We have plenty of other writers with other perspectives; read them instead if you don't like Spengler. ATol believes people have a right to read alternative views. As for Hans Blix, he has not afforded himself of the opportunity to submit an article to Asia Times Online. - ATol

Commodity markets are at an all-time high. China may not be the workshop of the world, but its mighty double-digit economy has need of precious, rare and other metals to feed its industrial expansion. So although Andrew Symon [Why miners dig Indochina, May 30] does not say so explicitly, the usual suspects in the mining industry have turned the spotlight on the three countries of Indochina - Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos - for the mineral treasures under their national soil, be it gold, copper or tungsten, which will feed the Rabelaisian Chinese appetite. Canadian, Australian and New Zealand companies and a Ghanaian-Canadian consortium have flocked to these three countries to exploit at a bargain-basement rate the riches they have - minerals and metals which are of high value for machine tools and for speeding on rapid industrial development. Of course private enterprise has found a way to negotiate terms favorable first to itself and then to each host government, the more especially since the monies and taxes that they will pay shall fill the not-so-full coffers of an economically challenged Laos, or a Cambodia which has yet to recover from the genocide of the Khmer Rouge years. As for Vietnam, the financial instruments are more sophisticated the more especially since its economy is further developed and it is experiencing rapid growth and its Communist Party and army are more savvy in the ways of the global market. Symon does give us a good thumbnail description of the contractual details as to taxes and payments by the mining companies. Yet we should not lose sight that Vietnam is pumping sweet crude [oil] with a low sulfur content, which is highly prized on the world markets, and Cambodia, according to recent geological surveys, in waters off Sihanoukville has the potential to gush the high-priced oil, which will help speed its recovery and perhaps bring a higher standard of living for its people.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 30, '07)

What a difference a few days makes. The China and the Real World [package] of articles [May 25] was excellent independent analysis of three important issues in which China is involved (China's currency manipulation [Pegged problems], its attempts at soft-power projection [The hard facts on 'soft power'], and natural-resource procurement [Darfur: Forget genocide, there's oil]). So imagine my disappointment at the two articles presented by ATol [on May 26] with regard to the recently concluded US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue. A failure to communicate by Dr Jing-dong Yuan is rife with statistical manipulation. For example, Dr [Yuan] cites a figure of 4.5% unemployment in the US, which leads him to the conclusion that "it is hardly a convincing argument that Chinese trade practices are taking US jobs" ... This figure is often parroted by the Bush administration to generate support for the administration's corporate economic agenda. This statistic is misleading for two reasons. It doesn't take into account the economic consequences [on] workers who have lost their union manufacturing jobs to China and been forced to take lower-paying, non-union jobs with reduced or no benefits. While these people are technically employed, they have suffered massive pay cuts, elimination of insurance and other benefits, and longer working hours, all of which adds up to an overall lowering of their standard of living. The second reason this statistic is misleading is that it doesn't factor in workers who lost their jobs, failed to find employment, and as a result simply stopped looking for a job and dropped out of the workforce. If an unemployed worker stops looking for a job, the US government no longer considers this person to be unemployed, even though [he or she is] not working. The notion that the US manufacturing industry and its workers have not been directly, adversely affected by China's predatory trade and currency policies is a flat-out lie. Here are two statistics for Dr [Yuan] to digest: one in every six manufacturing jobs [has] disappeared from the US since 2001, which is about 1.8 million jobs. Factories in the US are moving to China at a rate of one per day. Needless to say, companies aren't taking the US workers to China with the factory. China's trade policies are destroying the US manufacturing industry ... As for China wants dialogue, US just wants more, Zhou Jiangong's article, I can only wonder what ATol is doing publishing such an obvious CCP [Chinese Communist Party] hack/apologist. This article reads like it was lifted from the front page of the China Daily website. With so many fine, independent contributors [who] write regularly about China (Kent Ewing comes to mind) at ATol's disposal, why allow such an important story as the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue to be handled by such a rank amateur with an obvious agenda? I understand why ATol sometimes publishes propaganda pieces from dictatorial regimes (the pieces from Kim Jong-il's spokesman are a hoot), but the China-US bilateral relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world and the management of that relationship will have a profound global impact for years to come. It deserves top-quality analysis, not simplistic propaganda and arguments based on statistical manipulation. It would be a shame if ATol became yet another outlet for Chinese government propaganda. We've got enough of those in China already.
TaMu
China (May 30, '07)

While we don't agree that Zhou Jiangong's piece was "propaganda", you need to keep in mind that most of our readers are not in China but in North America, where the mainstream media rarely present analyses from the point of view of China, which is ruled by the CCP. - ATol

Re The hard facts on 'soft power' (May 25) by Axel Berkofsky: In Mr Berkofsky's effort to regurgitate the messages emanating from Washington about the "dark side" of China's growing economic engagement with Africa, his argument leaves out a number of key points. One can't make a serious comparison between the underlying principles and objectives found in China's economic-policy approach to Africa to the history of American and European economic engagement with Africa via the neo-liberal-based Washington Consensus without highlighting the "differences" in economic-policy conditionalities associated with the engagement. The most important differences are not just those "feel-good" conditionalities (human rights, governance, rule of law) that the US and Europe gave lip service to when "selectively" providing loans/debt to African democracies and dictatorships alike who served their interests. The neo-liberal-based Washington Consensus model was fundamentally about pushing policies of privatization, trade liberalization, and financial liberalization in African societies, in return for recycling "poverty-sustaining" financial flows to African governments to finance "policy reforms". The fact that African governments had to be "paid" to adopt policy measures that were supposed to be in their development interests and would make them attractive to foreign investors to begin with tells you something about whose interests were truly served by the aid and policies and at whose expense. The observation that China does not even give lip service to the above feel-good conditionalities is correct. However, I would interpret that fact as China being more "honest" in its approach to pursuing its objectives from increasing its engagement with Africa. Mr Berkofsky correct notes that China's approach toward Africa in some ways does look like good old big-power politics like [that] practiced by the US and Europe towards Africa since the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In fact, in many instances African civil-society leaders and some politicians have noted the similarities in their objectives, securing a share of Africa's wealth and resources with the help of a class of African "junior partners". What remains to be seen is if African nations will demand that China live up to the lip service it gives [so] that the Beijing Consensus is not only different from the [Western approach], but will also do a much better job at supporting Africa's own long-term economic interests. In pure economic policy terms at the end of the day, the West has very little moral high ground to stand on when complaining about China's "no strings attached" economic-assistance programs. However, that issue pales in comparison to whether or not African societies (students, labor, and nationalistic elites) will be able to successfully leverage the benefits from a "new global competition" for their resources or simply trade one form of an external sucking sound of their wealth resources being consumed outside of Africa by a new emerging power. If the latter is true, then once again Africa will have helped to finance the economic development of a 21st-century power, just as it did for the West for over 400 years.
Marc (May 30, '07)

Re A 'surge' in the wrong direction [by] Julian Delasantellis (May 25). Most of [World War II], on the Allied side, was fought with American, West Texas, petroleum. Military planners in 1943 estimated that at the then consumption rate of this commodity we [US] had only 12-14 years supply - at best. This is why [US president Franklin] Roosevelt made the devil's deal with Saudi Arabia. By 1956 it was public knowledge that domestic production would peak and then begin to decline in 1970. So what to do? If the path of economic development pursued by a nation demands access to increasing amounts of a resource that is not available domestically, then supplies must be secured - it becomes a national-security issue. [The United States of] America imports two-thirds or more of its petroleum in an increasingly hostile and competitive environment. Somewhere, there is a clearly stated formulation of what the economic, political, and military policies and programs of this country are to achieve the strategic goal of energy independence. It is secret and has not been vetted with our elected representatives - let alone with us [US citizens]. It included the plan to secure the oil resources of the South China Sea - the Vietnam War and the string of depredations in the Middle East including the Iran-Iraq War, the mousetrapping of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait, and the latest invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. This plan includes control of domestic dissent and the media - which were overlooked in the 1960s. The stone-headed officials driving this plan see themselves at war and know only that we need the oil, "they" have got it, and we are going to get it - and they are not going to listen to any wishful thinking about windmills. [US president Jimmy] Carter proposed another path to energy independence and his popularity was driven even lower than the current sock puppet in chief, cf July 15, 1979. The Carter proposals would have been a more interesting and productive challenge to America's capabilities. Instead, [president Ronald] Reagan threw Carter's solar collectors on the White House roof into the dumpster and canceled the Synthetic Fuels Corporation and other measures. In the 1960s the mantra was population, resources, and environment, the idea being that a balance must be achieved for a society to succeed. Until the Democrats propose a workable alternative plan to produce energy independence - other than the current plan of stealing it - they are irrelevant, and Mr Wizard's traveling road show on environment is as incomplete as the [Democratic presidential candidates Hillary] Clinton/[Barack] Obama litany of the warm and fuzzy. That is, one might equally well demonstrate that excess population is wrecking the environment and placing impossible resource demands on the planet within the framework of present-day technology - so, reduce carbon emissions in the two-legged form. If the Democrats produce such a plan, they better put a stake in the heart of the present bunch, or these oil vampires will be back yet again. That is, even if the "surge" fails, the growing need for oil does not go away. When the ruling elite of a society fail to make a creative response to the innumerable continuous challenges it faces, that society withers.
Dan Fritz
Akron, Ohio (May 30, '07)

I feel that, lately, your coverage of India has gone down both qualitatively and spacewise. You are focused more on China. Why don't you change your name to China Times?
Girish Mishra (May 30, '07)

We're waiting for Hans Blix to send us something on India. - ATol

Cha Han-phil pins the tail on the donkey in Sunny Lee's Blogger rubs salt in Korea-China wounds [May 26]: "This is my personal blog." As he readily admits, he writes in a "freewheeling, unrestrained manner". And so he should. [The article's] headline is mocking: if there truly [are] wounds in Korea-Chinese relations, Cha's observations are very diluted in the everyday observations of endless visitors to China from abroad. Let's put faux daintiness of feelings aside: China's transformation into a mighty economic machine hides the reality of the China of a hundred names. Behind the hype we read at breakfast in our morning newspapers, the majority of Chinese have little or no education; are socially backward; practice dubious habits of health and cleanliness; and technologically speaking, lag in economic development compared [with] coastal China of the old port cities of the days when China was chained hand and foot to unequal treaties. For someone like me who grew up in a Third World country, Cha is simply bringing coals to Newcastle. He is right to balk at the ad hominem insults that his observations and experience have led him to comment on.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 29, '07)

This is in regards to an error in Blogger rubs salt in Korea-China wounds by Sunny Lee dated May 26. The misprint can be found in the fourth paragraph of the article: "... while riding a train from Zhengzhou, the capital of Hebei province ...". Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan province. I remember because I was there last month.
Bo (May 29, '07)

The error was an editor's, not the writer's, and has been corrected. - ATol

Re Tehran ignores the bluff and bluster [May 26]: obviously the Bush administration needs to negotiate in good faith. As M K Bhadrakumar suggests, holding Iranian diplomats for almost six months only assures continued hostility from Iran, especially in light of the unconditional release of the British soldiers. On every front, Iran has demonstrated the Bush administration's lack of integrity and revealed the sham of Bush diplomacy. Propaganda techniques and Machiavellian methods have worked on the Democrats and the American public, but good-faith diplomacy is required here with a more attentive, less politically addled audience.
Jim of Southern California
USA (May 29, '07)

Re The hard facts on 'soft power' [May 25] by Axel Berkofsky: "Western (until now mainly US) concerns about China's rapidly rising defense budget, on the other hand, are typically dismissed as 'alarmist'" because they are alarmist. It is perfectly obvious that the sort of messianic nationalists who kept the Cold War with the USSR going, and who have now given us a new "Long War" against Islam, also want war with China. "The US engagement course, [James] Mann argues in a book that will probably not win him many friends among China's policymakers, has not reached its goal of making China less autocratic and more democratic." Would that Mr Mann would work on making the US less autocratic, more democratic! As it is, "unitary executive" (= Byzantine autocracy) is growing like Topsy.
Lester Ness
Kunming, China (May 29, '07)

It is not possible to seek peace by demonizing either the Palestinians or the Israelis. The good-versus-evil model does not work in this case because they are both good and they are both evil. Both have positives and negatives. Both have legitimate claims, both have been wronged, and both have done wrong. Those who take sides look only at the positives of their side and the negatives of the other and get bogged down rehashing the past. Those who want peace should look to the future and find a pragmatic way out that is as fair as possible to both sides. We need a cessation of hostilities and a formula for co-existence, not a judgment of good or evil. The cycle of mutual accusations has no logical end.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (May 29, '07)

China has undergone a huge, rapid industrial expansion, partly driven by massive infusion of foreign capital, especial American, and guided by its own economic and political imperatives. The economy has swelled at a feverish, dizzy speed that has captured the admiration and wonder of the world capital markets, and despite the dire warnings of a meltdown by the ratings agencies, bankers, pundits, and [former US Federal Reserve chairman] Alan Greenspan. And as such, China is forcing the mighty walls of Fortress America and the European Union, as Axel Berkofsky pointedly reports [The hard facts on 'soft power', May 25]. US Secretary of the Treasury Henry "Hank" Paulson has used every trick in his investment banker's bag to suck Beijing into major concessions across the board which would greatly liberalize the China market, particularly the financial sector, for outsiders. Photos him and Vice Premier Wu Yi smiling and shaking hands in the current round of negotiations have made the front pages of major newspapers worldwide. Yet the media blitz and the soft soap Mr Paulson applied notwithstanding, the Chinese have stood firm, throwing him a sop here and there. Mr Paulson has learned at his own peril that the rules of the game have shifted now that he is member of [President George W Bush's] cabinet, and gone are the good old days when he headed Goldman Sachs advising the Chinese on ... capitalism's financial instruments. China is in the catbird seat: it has an extremely large edge on trade with the United States; it holds large [amounts] of America's debt; and it has done Mr Paulson one better, it has learned the lessons of capitalism and is using it sotto voce to beat Washington at its own game. Beijing has read America's leaders right, but Washington has steadily underestimated China. China is playing by its own rules. Beijing is playing for long-term gains and the lion's share in world markets. Let's take a simple example: China's launching a Nigerian satellite into outer space. It practically footed the bill [for] oil-rich Nigeria for access to its oil. Let us not be fooled by this largesse. China is only doing what, for example, British American Tobacco did for China's farmers more than a century ago. BAT persuaded peasants to plant tobacco in lieu of food crops; it extended credit and, voila, in no time it had them heavily in debt, and through debt lowered prices, on one hand, and on the other, constant planting impoverished the soil. So China is following a well-worn capitalist path. Its rulers may be card-carrying Communist Party members, but their heart is on the right. They will exploit foreign and domestic markets according to the iron laws of liberal economics and, in consequence, will do more or less what Europe and America have done for last hundred years of what [German natural scientist] Houston Stewart Chamberlain dubbed "imperialism".
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 25, '07)

I have a few comments on [The hard facts on 'soft power', May 25, by Axel] Berkofsky. First of all, he parrots what the mainstream media are saying: that China is selling arms to Sudan. Assuming that's a fact, that's just peanuts compared [with the total] arms sales of the US, which amounted to [US]$21 billion in 2006. The amount is 20% more than Russia, the next-largest arms supplier. Second, to say that China is challenging the US in East Asia is absurd. He seems to say that the US owns the whole world. Third is to say that diplomats are like parrots in following the lines of the government. Look at the [US Republican Party] legislators, they are truly the parrots because nobody has any objections except to say "yes, sir". Mr Berkofsky, read the article [by F William] Engdahl [Darfur: Forget genocide, there's oil] which came out in the same day as your article and be enlightened.
Wendy Cai
USA (May 25, '07)

Gareth Porter's Sunni resistance warms to Muqtada (May 25) supports Karl Marx's proposition that capitalism digs its own grave. In the Iraqi context, US imperialism has been digging its own grave. Iraq is a country of diversified peoples with different religions, ethnicity, and colors, people who have been living [there] for centuries. US imperialism has destroyed this social cohesion. The imperialist idea of divide and conquer does not work anymore and has become ineffective everywhere. The oppression and misery created in Iraq by US imperialism will create its own demise: the unity of the oppressed against the oppressors. Nothing is new in history. It is true than an imperialist power may create its own cronies such as the imperialist creation of the Iraqi government, the Green Zone government, but it cannot buy all people. Mullah Muqtada [al-Sadr] has been taking his time, and the knell will eventually sound. At that time, the Bush administration and some US elite such as Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and others who support (explicitly or implicitly) the military complex and the American oil corporations will understand why the occupation of Iraq for its oil is a calamity. This understanding may help them realize that Darfur's oil will create the same grave-digging and calamity. William Engdahl's Darfur: Forget genocide, there's oil (May 25) clearly demonstrates the most important reason behind US imperialism's term of genocide in Darfur. It is Darfur's oil that has created the misery in Darfur, and President [Muammar] Gaddafi of Libya has stated this fact several years ago. In any event I am sure all readers of ATol appreciate Mr Engdahl's insightful analysis of the ongoing problem in Darfur.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (May 25, '07)

Your comments [under Saqib Khan's letter, May 24] on the plight of the poor Palestinian people touched my heart and would like to add few comments if you would allow me. The Zionist dream of creating an exclusive state for the Jewish people in Palestine is unsustainable in the long term. Israel's demographics present the central challenge to the Zionist biblical dream. There are more than 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel or 25% of Israel's 5.2 million Jews. The Palestinian Israelis are in addition to the 4.2 million Palestinians living under Israel's barbaric occupation in the Gaza and the West Bank. Outside Palestine, 2.6 million are registered in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, plus 1.5 million scattered worldwide. Unless the Palestinian-Israelis somehow disappear from the face of the Earth, [which] would be much loved by the Zionists, Israel's Jewish population will eventually become the minority and the Palestinian-Israelis the majority as the population growth rate of the Palestinian-Israelis is twice that of Israeli Jews. If Israel would allow the future Palestinian-Israeli majority full citizenship rights, which has become a nightmarish reality for the Jews, they'll control the government. If Israel subjects the majority to an evil, inhuman apartheid regime, the system will eventually perish, as apartheid regimes have short lives as witnessed in Rhodesia and South Africa. The two-state solution currently advocated is an inherently unworkable and unstable hypothesis ... [Iranian President Mahmud] Ahmadinejad is quite right when he says that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is worse than anything Europe experienced under Nazi Germany. The USA and [other] Western governments must change their partial attitude toward Israel and must realize the fact that it has become a liability and scourge for the rest of the world and is responsible for many economic and political ills that confront the world today. Peace must prevail in the Middle East and the Jews must try living in peace with their neighbors. That is the only way forward and best for Israel's survival. I believe that the world community on the whole has failed the poor, deprived, depressed and destitute Palestinians who have been killed, kicked around, humiliated inhumanly and in the most barbaric way by the evil Zionist Israel and its benefactor, the USA, for its political objective and greed. The poor Palestinians have also been used as a non-entity, political football by the boot-licking, toe-sucking and shoe-shining corrupt pro-Western Arab regimes in order to cling to power by diverting attention of their masses from their internal dissension. Those who fight for their just cause or raise their voices are labeled terrorists and targeted for elimination by the USA and its cronies.
Saqib Khan
UK (May 25, '07)

It seems US President [George W] Bush and UK Prime Minister [Tony] Blair sincerely feel that their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have not failed and that they are going on quite satisfactorily as per their plan, maybe a bit slow. This is indeed marvelous, considering that people in the USA and UK have voted against their respective parties in recent elections and the leaders don't consider the poll result has anything to do with their foreign policy. Accordingly, Bush and Blair perhaps think they have the means, confidence and will to win the wars ultimately. The US has not disowned [its] Iran strategy and the warships are kept on alert in the [Persian] Gulf waters. The war machinery of the Pentagon seems to be ready to launch a surprise attack on Iran. That means that the war agenda in Iran is very much [in the] cards and looming large in the Gulf. There can be no doubt that President Bush can take every possible risk now, since his Republican Party might not win the presidential poll next year. On the other hand, the White House strategists think that Iran could serve the US better. If the US wins the wars in some measure, that would benefit the Republicans and improve the image of the USA. It looks [as though] Riyadh could not succeed in dissuading Tehran from its nuclear ambitions. The USA has also reviewed the reaction of Iran to Saudi Arabia's efforts for dissuading Tehran from going nuclear as well as the recent tours of leaders from Russia and Japan in the Middle East. Iran's rhetoric doesn't impress Washington and the USA has not indirectly permitted Tehran to pursue a nuclear program "further threatening" the regional peace. If Iran does not give up its nuclear program, the US attack, therefore, seems imminent. The Democrats can do nothing to stop that from happening in any manner. Nor can Russia, which is delaying the nuclear [progress] of Iran, stop the attack from happening. They all know that the Pentagon-cum-CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] have made all necessary precautions by studying the failures, if any at all, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus the already planned US-led NATO war in Iran would be an improved version, unless the war is averted by Iran by available pragmatic means. That only means that Iran's time seems to be running out pretty fast.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (May 25, '07)

I cannot believe you would reprint an article by Adam Wolfe [Fighting overshadows Iraq's oil law, May 24] regarding the proposed American-written, Iraqi National Oil Law. He's clearly advocating for American interests by neglecting the key component of the proposed law that has rallied Iraqi opposition, namely the handing over of approximately 80% of Iraq's oilfields for the next three decades to the oil majors (mostly American corporations). Iraq's opposition, through its Parliament and oil unions, is nothing short of heroic in the face of the immense pressure applied in the form of a foreign military occupation.
David Klein (May 24, '07)

That aspect of the proposed oil law has been covered in previous articles, including US eyes still on the Iraqi prize (May 9) by Michael Schwartz and several pieces by Pepe Escobar. Adam Wolfe argues that Washington has woken up to the fact that stabilizing Iraq must take priority over its love affair with Big Oil. - ATol

I refer to the article Lebanon battles a new demon [May 23], and would like to point out that Sami Moubayed failed to mention that there are 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in squalor and in destitute conditions in Lebanon in many refugee camps. Even to call those "refugee camps" would be an insult to garbage collectors who shun the dusty, dirty, filthy roads, streets and alleyways infested with all crawling things and diseases. These refugees have been living in these camps for three generations, with 70% of them unemployed, and those who find work do only menial jobs and [are] treated as slaves. One of the reasons that the Lebanese government [turns a] blind eye and fears the most is that, if integrated, Sunni Palestinians with large families and a higher birth rate could easily upset the Lebanese religious, political and power-sharing system. These destitute people expelled from their homeland by the evil Zionist Israel's creation are kicked around wherever they find a little corner to live. The Zionist ventriloquist dummy, President G W Bush, calls them terrorists and gives a green light to Israel to kill them wherever it finds them. The Zionist regime has threatened to assassinate Hamas' democratically elected political leaders, even the prime minister. These Palestinians rely on handouts and aid [and] the Fatah party helps them with basic bread, butter and water. Palestinians living under siege in Palestine suffering daily aerial bombardment of their cities by Israel live in equally horrible conditions with economic sanctions imposed by the Zionist Israel and supported by Bush administration, which has created and caused terrible financial repercussion for Lebanese Palestinians. Charities working in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon have been saying for long time that "when you put people in that kind of conditions and situations for a long period of time, you find inevitably there is more stress, more violence, and more abuse", said Shaheen Chugtai for Save the Children. Israelis who are pounding the Palestinian territory with air strikes would be watching the situation with a hawkish eye and looking for an opportunity to strike at Lebanon's southern borders against Hezbollah to regain its defeated dignity.
Saqib Khan
UK (May 24, '07)

The plight of Palestinian refugees is one of the most shameful stories of the 20th century, and continues into the 21st. While the role of the Israelis in this ongoing horror story and the negligence of the West in tolerating it are beyond dispute, the often-asked question of why the Palestinians' Sunni brethren have not used more of their oil wealth to ease their pain has not been adequately answered. The worsening stability of the Middle East is just one of the costs of the world's common failure on this issue. - ATol

When Sami Moubayed [Lebanon battles a new demon, May 23] says, "[Shaker al-]Abssi is a self-declared disciple of Abu Abdullah Mohammed al-Boukhari, a 9th-century Islamic scholar who, according to the US Defense Department's Combating Terrorism Center, is one of the 20 Islamic figures who are more influential than bin Laden", he is once again quoting a pre-digested so-called "intelligence brief" by someone who clearly knows nothing whatever about the history of Islam. I say "once again" because this is the second time I have written to you to point out that it is more or less impossible to be a Sunni Muslim without being "a follower of al-Boukhari".
Rowan Berkeley (May 24, '07)

[Sami] Moubayed's article [Lebanon battles a new demon, May 23] fails, or decides to fail, to mention the reality of a "proxied" Lebanon: as an outsider, it seems to me that this country is more like a battlefield, and sure enough a strategic one, [where] the real regional players can get themselves represented easily. Besides, the radical Islam in Lebanon is definitely fed and nurtured [by] its mommy al-Qaeda on one hand, as pointed out in the article, and backed by its daddy Iran and Shi'ism on the other. The US and Israel don't dislike the vision of "setting [Lebanon] ablaze again". Who cares?
Amin (May 23, '07)

Re Lebanon battles a new demon [May 23]: [Sami] Moubayad limits Lebanon's present dilemma to a ... new demon in one of the 16 or more Palestinian refugee camps established in Lebanon as a favor to both the US and Israel soon after the passage of UN Resolution 242 et al. Lebanon was carved out of Greater Syria, an old and historic province within the Ottoman Empire in the fashion of how Macau, Hong Kong and Kuwait as well as a number of other assorted and scattered entities and present-day Israel came into existence. Prime Minister [Fouad al-]Siniora under the guidance of a certain Elliott Abrams in the present US administration has done very little except demand that the UN undertake a trial to determine who killed an ex-PM named [Rafik] Hariri. The principal demons in Lebanon are the Lebanese [who] converse in two languages at the same time (French and Arabic); the presence of a million or so Palestinians in scattered refugee camps; that for some unknown reason no Lebanese government has ever demanded from the UN that they be repatriated back to their homeland; and finally, the belief that another nation 6,000-8,000 miles away is looking out for their well-being. The incidents and killings at refugee camp Nahar el-Bared [are] not a "new demon"; it has been dormant for years and is in all probability a precursor of what will occur in the other 15 Palestinian refugee camps. This demon, unless redressed, will in time engulf more than just Lebanon.
Armand De Laurell (May 23, '07)

Donald Kirk's article Iran trumps N Korea in axis of fear [May 23] leaves out a very important question in the poll conducted by yet another website, a certain "American Security Project" that fails to mention its source of funding. If the poll had asked the question, "Is the United States responsible for the rise in world terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons?", the answer probably would have pushed the US to the top of the poll, easily beating out the so-called "axis of evil". That the Bush-Cheney junta, supported by the rabid neo-cons and assorted "Likudniks" have turned [the United States of] America into a pariah nation and helped push the world to the brink of nuclear destruction is a given. What is not yet confirmed is whether or not various political entities with their own agenda will help start another illegal and immoral war in the Middle East, bringing American-style "democracy" at the force of gunpoint. And the beat, or should I say propaganda, goes on. This is another campaign to sell another preemptive war, this time against Iran. But unlike the hard sell in the run-up to the illegal and immoral war against Iraq, this war is being sold in a [stealthy] manner. No glaring headlines or constant drumbeat. No Colin Powell types at the United Nations showing off doctored photos. It's more akin to someone sitting in a darkened theater and hearing someone whisper in your ear, "The building is on fire." Yet you can't see any flames, nor smell any smoke or feel any heat. Yet again, the voice whispers, this time more insistently, "The building is on fire." What are you going to do?
Greg Bacon
Ava, Missouri (May 23, '07)

In the article Iran trumps N Korea in axis of fear [May 23] by Donald Kirk it says Americans see China as a threat. Well and good. The Chinese people see America as a threat to world peace and stability.
Ken Angeles (May 23, '07)

I am always sickened when I read articles like that from Diem H Do [Fight for the right to choose in Vietnam, May 23]. It's the 21st century, and 32 years since the end of the most brutal and atrocious act in human history - the American War in Vietnam. Thirty-two years, and this guy is still talking like people are still dumb and clueless. First, he calls Vietnam a dictatorship. I go to Vietnam every year, and judging by the chaotic nature of daily life, I can't find a single thing that anybody does that gives me the impression that it was dictated from some autocratic authority, except maybe their parents, teachers, and bosses. Then he goes on to talk about elections in Vietnam not being independently monitored. Who's gonna monitor them? The US? Isn't the US busy monitoring the elections in Iraq? What a joke. Then he talks about terror. I guess people aren't scared of communists anymore, so we gotta call them terrorists. Finally, he says that people are ignoring human rights in Vietnam because they're more concerned with business interests. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but when people claim [the United States of] America to be the "greatest country in the world", aren't they talking about money? I don't see any Vietnamese-Americans complaining about America's international torture chambers. They're more interested in forcing members of their own community to live in "fear and intimidation" if we happen to love Ho Chi Minh.
Bao D Nguyen
Garden Grove, California (May 23, '07)

Re China goes to the heart of capitalism [May 23]: Deng Xiaoping's dictum that it's all right to get rich finds its fulfillment in investing US$3 billion in the Blackstone Group. Beijing has taken a leaf out of its younger brother Singapore's book in investing abroad. It has not set up a Tamesek of its own yet, but that is a matter of time. In reading the Asia Pulse/Xinhua article, [one] has the impression that it was Beijing that approached Blackstone with an offer Stephen Schwarzman and company couldn't refuse. Still, it is equally reasonable to posit that Blackstone came hat in hand with a proposal [that] a government entity could profit from Blackstone's wheeling and dealing in the high world of private equity. One is tempted to say that it is a bribe to break into a lucrative China market on one hand, and on the other, a financial instrument for the Communist Party to prolong its rule by enriching the apparatchiks, the military, and the growing thin class of the super-rich. So, here we have a win-win situation, one which will bring a flood of monies into the already deep pockets of the Blackstone Group when it IPOs [makes its initial public offering], and one that makes other private investment banking houses [salivate] for an opportunity to enter the China market. For the Communist Party, Blackstone allows it to prosper mightily from its magic touch in investing, in bringing companies in and out of the public sector while garnering immense profits. Perhaps Stephen Schwarzman is already planning to fete his 65th birthday in the old imperial summer palace where the Jiang Dowager Empress squandered China's wealth on building a ship out of marble instead of using the empire's funds to build and strengthen its navy for the country's defenses. Blackstone is not the Trojan horse entering the guarded fortress of China but is the conduit for China to cast its shadow of wealth abroad as it gains in economic clout to challenge the power and wealth of American and European finance capital.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 23, '07)

I would like to express my deepest regret for the article Hardliners, hard options [May 22]. Massoud Khodabandeh is very well-known agent of the Iranian secret police. If you really want to write about PMOI ([People's Mujahideen of Iran, aka Mujahideen Khalq Organization] the legitimate Iranian resistance) according to journalistic ethics, you should contact them directly. The reality of Iran today is a fascist and brutal regime that rules one of the richest countries of the world with 80% of its population living below the poverty line. Massoud Khodabandeh and his like try to kill hope in the heart of the oppressed people of Iran.
Farouk Naciri (May 23, '07)

We received numerous letters claiming that Massoud Khodabandeh is an agent of the Iranian regime, either by choice or coercion. None of them offered any evidence for this claim nor explained why, regardless of his background, Khodabandeh should not be allowed to state his views. - ATol

Re Maoists push for action on the king [May 17]: Yes, it is the irony that the MPs [members of the Nepali Parliament] belonging to the governing parties/groups are behaving like opposition parties. Once again it shows that the so-called MPs of Nepal need more lessons like [those] King Gyanendra demonstrated in the past. [Being] unable to learn from the past is the major weakness of Nepali politicians. I don't see the idea of making Nepal a republic through eight parties' agreement is as credible as it would be through the constitutional assembly. Honestly, eight parties do not represent the whole of Nepal. I agree with the writer that the present government should concentrate more on making life easy for the people of Nepal through tight law and security order.
Sudesh
London, England (May 23, '07)

After reading [M K] Bhadrakumar's article on recent developments in Afghanistan [Afghan battle lines become blurred, May 19], I could not help reflecting on how wise George Washington's advice to his countrymen not to allow themselves to be come entangled in foreign wars had been. But then again, Mr Washington was not faced with the need to collect hundreds of millions of dollars from corporate sponsors who profit both from wars and the politics of war, in order to be elected US president.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (May 21, '07)

About [Sami] Moubayed's article on the internal political milieu of Iran [The two 'kings' of Iran, May 19], I should add one or two points. The nature of polity in Iran is so shaky and unpredictable that even the actors themselves cannot see clearly what will happen in a few steps forward. [Whether Grand Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei or [President Mahmud] Ahmadinejad can win the battle will be definitely an outcome of numerous factors, intra- and international, that are of a [slippery] character. Moubayed should know that the real politics is absent from the scene. What he and other outsiders are [seeing] is not but a faint shadow of what the real political junta is able to lay hands on.
Amin (May 21, '07)

Is Africa seeking lessons in Shanghai [May 19]? Zhou Jiangong thinks so. African nations [were] in Shanghai to hold out the cup for foreign aid from a new kid on the block who has very deep pockets. China may quote Plato rather than Confucius in a transactional analysis ploy to be kind and to love one another, but that is besides the point. Africa is vastly wealthy in primary resources which China covets, needs, and wants to feed its fast-paced industrial revolution. Beijing is willing to pay the piper to dance at its own tune: thus [Africans] will take on a new mountain of debt, but this time they will be beholden to a new paymaster. The G8 [Group of Eight] meeting in Potsdam [was] troubled by China's economic Drang nach Afrika, the more especially since these very countries have pushed for debt forgiveness for the very [African nations that went to] Shanghai, so that they can escape the vicious cycle of poverty, corruption, AIDS, and the like. And China's full turn on the economic scene may look to the G8 [like] a stab in the back. On the other hand, the G8 nations on the whole have fed hungrily at the African trough and at handsome profits. Now, China is elbowing in on its preserve, offering with a seemingly liberal hand money and loans and expertise in kind and men for Africa's infrastructure and nascent industries in return for a healthy slice of that continent's primary materials. Beijing's maneuvers have raised a red flag for the G8, [which is] now calling for an international charter for responsible lending: translation, don't upset our apple cart. The African nations will accept China's terms willingly. This said, it does not logically follow that they, too, will have to dance to Beijing's music, nor that such monies will make them less corrupt and more fiscally answerable.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 21, '07)

Pepe Escobar's The second coming of Saladin (May 18) is a very fascinating intellectual analysis of the Middle Eastern environment. I agree with him completely on two issues. The first basic issue is that US imperialism is the source of underdevelopment in the Middle East. This is because US imperialism appropriates most of the economic surplus generated by these countries through its cronies, or the reactionary Arab regimes. The second issue is that US imperialism has been searching for a Middle Eastern alliance to contain Iran. This is true because US imperialism has been stocked in Iraq and cannot fight Iran anyway, because the Iranian mullahs have weapons and military might. US imperialism always fights defenseless countries such as Iraq, a country that was on embargo for 12 years before its occupation. Will US imperialism find the needed alliance? I really do not think so, because when the US elite recruited Saddam Hussein through the House of Saud to fight the Iranian mullahs, the first country to go after Mr Hussein's regime was the United States of America. No Arab leader wants to be another Saddam Hussein. US imperialism will not be able to outsource its basic task to other Middle Eastern states. It follows that US imperialism has to have the courage to fight the Iranian mullahs. But this is an extremely difficult task, whether or not Salah al-Din [Saladin] is available, because if US imperialism has initiated a military contact with Iran, the Iraqi mullahs, Hezbollah, and Syria will contain US forces in Iraq, and the US will pay a heavy cost for that contact. (Keep in mind that the Israelis will not be involved because of Hezbollah's effect.) My conclusion is a very simple one: US imperialism tries to liquidate its fetters imposed on it by the establishment of the Fatimi Dynasty (from Iran to Lebanon) by outsourcing the task to the Arabs and at the same time to continue to loot the Middle Eastern oil. The Arabs and the Iranian mullahs know this imperialist plan, and both want US imperialism to start the fight. When it does, it will find itself alone in the region.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (May 21, '07)

While you are well aware that I have been an ardent supporter of your newspaper's efforts to develop more revenue streams, and therefore haven't quibbled about your placed ads, I feel compelled to question something on your site. Reading the commentary by Chan Akya [Lifting the hood on the car industry, May 19], I couldn't help but notice an advertisement for Cadillac floating below. This cannot be any coincidence, so I wonder what came first - the advertisement or the comment? In other words, did the writer's article prompt an advertisement from a car company or was the advertisement from the company contingent on him writing the article? More to the point, I shudder to think about placed advertisements you could generate for other commentators - gun sellers for Spengler, camouflage retailers for Syed Saleem [Shahzad] ...?
Salt (May 21, '07)

The ads that appear under ATol articles are usually placed by Google's automatic network ad service. They use Google's search-engine software to pick up keywords in the article, and place ads the software "thinks" the readers of that article might be interested in. - ATol

Is it not too much to have advertisements for the FBI [US Federal Bureau of Investigation] at ATol? For Chrissake?
John Lee (May 21, '07)

At least the nice lady in the ad has her clothes on, something other readers have indicated they think is important. You can't have everything - unless, of course, you want Asia Times Online to become a paid-subscription publication. - ATol

Pepe Escobar: There are too many "odious" Zionist-Christian Spenglers and [Robert] Spencers with their Muslim equivalents in the world; we really don't want you to join their ranks and their crappy notion of "war of civilizations". You are a great and talented journalist, with immense courage, not only intellectual but also physical, as you demonstrated with your dispatches from Iraq. Your [May 18] piece, The second coming of Saladin, reads like a poem, a cry for justice. It overflows with compassion for the unbearable suffering inflicted on the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine by Western powers and on those of Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and about every other Middle Eastern country by local sheikhs, mullahs, kings, colonels and other small-time dictators. Saladin was certainly an enlightened leader whose deeds inspired and still inspire millions of Muslims around the world but he was the product of his time: he waged a religious war in response to a religious aggression. As you put it so well in your article, the current assault on Arab and Muslim countries has nothing to do with religion, it is just the old-fashioned Western imperialism all over again whose aim is the control of natural resources in the region: oil, gas, water and land. So why are you appealing to Saladin? As a leftist from Latin America, I thought you would rather hope for a Middle Eastern Hugo Chavez who, instead of riding the tired donkey of Arab nationalism or singing the old tune of the Muslim ummah, would rather use the Universal Declaration for Human Rights as his book of reference and speak to the young generations about social justice and a world based not on competition but on cooperation, not on hierarchy but on equality, not on exclusion but on participation, in which science and rationality, not divine truths, would guide human affairs. After all, you have enough knowledge of the Middle East to realize that the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood is closer to market fundamentalism than it is to liberation theology. I suggest you leave Saladin in his tomb and read a few pages by Edward Said and a few poems by Mahmud Darwish or Nezzar Qabbani. Other than that, keep going with the great work.
Daniel Mazir
Perth, Australia (May 18, '07)

As usual, Pepe Escobar provides an excellent analysis of the Western powers' inhuman and barbaric policies in the Middle East. The second coming of Saladin [May 18] is another thought food for all those who think and are not easily deceived by all the trash the mainstream media in the West propagate.
Shiri
Tokyo, Japan (May 18, '07)

Pepe Escobar, in The second coming of Saladin (May 18), meditates on who the much-needed "new Saladin" of the Middle East might be. He basically envisages an angry young man as filling the post, someone who has been subjected to the ravages and humiliation of Western Imperialism's grand strategy of divide and conquer. For starters, it would be essential that this "new Saladin" be exposed to what is perhaps the most gruesome video footage ever to be posted on the Internet. It is that of the "honor" killing of a 17-year-old Kurdish girl called Du'a Khalia Aswad, who fell in love with a young Sunni boy. The 30-minute video footage, taken on April 7, shows Du'a being brought out of a house in a headlock to face hundreds of angry young men (including her brother) waiting for her. Du'a's screams can be heard as she is dragged to the ground, and in a further humiliation, her lower body is stripped. One man kicks her hard between the legs as she screams in agony. She then tries to lift herself up, but someone hurls a concrete block in her face. Another man then stamps on her face, and someone kicks her in the stomach. Police officers stand idly by, some of them enjoying the spectacle as much as anyone else. When Du'a finally and mercifully dies in a pool of blood, her body is eventually taken to the Medico-Legal Institute in Mosul, where it is established that she was still a virgin and innocent of the "crime" of which she had been accused. After watching this footage, let it be hoped that this "new Saladin" is far more resolute than ever in the belief that violence in any form is against the compassionate and merciful will of Allah. A "new Saladin" would enlighten the entire world with the knowledge that the dignity of each and every single human being on the face of this Earth must be respected without compromise - in the sacred name of Allah, in the sacred name of God and in the sacred name of all humanity.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (May 18, '07)

Reports indicate that the victim and her attackers were adherents of Yazidism, a minority religion of the Kurds. - ATol

In response to the article [by Pepe Escobar The second coming of Saladin, May 18]: This is but a myth - a future possibility but nothing more than smoke and tears at this moment in the Middle East. I do not feel Arabs have decided on a future - will they fight, or will they convert? They either fight for Islam and for a future or they fight each other and die as the US wishes. This is a necessary predication for a new Saladin to arise - for without that decision the future does not have the tools to provide to this budding leader of new Mecca, sadly.
Breed
USA (May 18, '07)

Re Opium in Afghanistan: A bad trip [May 18]: What a lot of rot, from a mouthpiece for a set of global oligarchs who view opiate criminalization as both a profit inflator and a means of maintaining confusion among local populations. The problem with heroin is the black market and the price. Take criminality away and the opium problem disappears. Of course too many powerful people have a vested interest in the problem to let that happen.
David George
Washington, USA (May 18, '07)

Re The true heart of darkness [May 17]: Asia Times Online has many fine journalists and analysts among its correspondents and contributors - but no one, I suggest, who can quite match Pepe Escobar for emotional insight. [US President George W] Bush, [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair, [US Vice President Richard] Cheney et al have indeed transformed the great city of Baghdad into a heart of darkness.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (May 18, '07)

Re The true heart of darkness [May 17]: Pepe Escobar rocks! This was by far the most chilling chronicle that I've come across on the utter devastation of Iraq's people and ancient civilization. What a Satanic force the USA has become!
Jose R Pardinas, PhD
San Diego, California (May 18, '07)

Chalmers [Johnson]'s article [The case for imperial liquidation, May 17] apparently failed to mention additional billions of [dollars in] foreign support that might be included as part of the US military cost/expenditure. The omission leaves readers outside the US with a less than full appreciation of the role they may play with their own governments, apart from armed conflict, to help transform the empire. There are added covert billions for the US military/CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] from drug sales, from various forms of payments and sacrifices in support of US military bases such as Okinawa, from outright theft and misappropriation of funds as in Iraq, and from other foreign support for the US military, from R&R [rest and recreation] to renditions, from NATO to UN resolutions. More billions for US arms merchants and contractors come from weapons sales, [from] jets to assault rifles, to foreign governments. There is also foreign funding for US policy "experts" and think-tanks, and hiring outsourced military "advisers" and agents. Promoting arms sales abroad is a major function of the State Department, and goes hand in hand with the US military propping up allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. Finally, there are the loans and subsidies which maintain the petrodollar, and help make possible continued US military expenditures.
R Billings
USA (May 18, '07)

Chalmers Johnson's The case for imperial liquidation (May 17) is an excellent sum-up for the behavior of US imperialism on domestic and world scales. Although most of the essential elements analyzed are well known to the readers of ATol, the piece is intellectually stimulating because it represents an honest and ruthless attack on US imperialism … Our country is in need of more courageous scholars to do what Mr Johnson has done. I would like to argue that US imperialism has had the same behavior since the beginning of [the 19th century] when it started its imperialist aggression against small countries such as Libya. The great Thorstein Veblen and later the great Paul Baran, along with Samir Amin and Gunder Frank, have clearly stated, after rigorous analysis of world history, that imperialism, including US imperialism, have sabotaged, impeded or prevented the development process of the world. Originally, Karl Marx, using the cases of China and India, put it in a simple proposition that capital is the barrier of development. The action of US imperialism has substantiated these scholars' analyses in that US imperialism has indeed generated underdevelopment in many Third World countries by imposing reactionary classes on their peoples, looting their economic surplus, and occupying and destroying some of these countries. Iraq is the best recent example for such behavior, and other countries in the past such as Vietnam provided unambiguous support for the same conclusion that US imperialism intends to destroy, not to build ... The great American people must send a clear message to the dominating leisure class and its governments that the United States of America should support political and economic independence of other countries in the world and should allow these countries to develop independently from the effect of the US reactionary elite. Once that happens, world peace and prosperity will follow, and the American people will be remembered and respected for their historic decision which is consistent with their belief in freedom and democracy.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (May 18, '07)

Can I just say that I thoroughly enjoy reading most of your articles, particularly those of [M K] Bhadrakumar, whose writings are a perfect testament to his long service as a diplomat. I suggest ATimes launch a Bhadrakumar daily column. It is sure to be a success with your readers. At the same time I was wondering if you are looking to launch a printed version of ATimes in Britain. I for one am ready to pay my subscription in advance.
Aryan Arghandewal (May 18, '07)

M K Bhadrakumar's latest article, Hear the distant drums of the Taliban , is now online. - ATol

Prince Harry has been kept back from going to Iraq since royal blood flows in him and others fighting a wrong war of occupation on the lies [about weapons of mass destruction] by Bush-Blair perhaps carry a ordinary blood. What about the blood of 700,000 innocent Iraqis - is that white, black or red? Will Bush-Blair tell me? I think it could be time for Britain to think of sending [Prime Minister Tony] Blair to Iraq to fight his war of engineered lies, a sectarian bloodbath, to keep himself busy [while remaining US President George W] Bush's poodle resting in his lap.
Zeenate Jehan
Karachi, Pakistan (May 18, '07)

Re The case for imperial liquidation [May 17]: Will the residents of the United States be able to dismantle the Empire and restore the Republic, or will they fail in the attempt? Professor [Chalmers] Johnson paints the alternatives in stark but, to my mind, entirely realistic terms. While the fate of the whole world rests upon the answer to the above question, the work will have to be done by the residents of the United States; we in the rest of the world have little say in the matter, as our ability to resist the military power exercised in their name is limited, and attempts to do so risk setting off the very conflagration we all - save for those who intend to be "raptured" up to heaven - wish to avoid. So we shall have to wait and see: whether or not humanity will make it through the first half of the 21st century lies in the balance.
M Henri Day, PhD, MD
Stockholm, Sweden (May 17, '07)

[Re The case for imperial liquidation, May 17] An exceptional and first-class exposition reflective of the best of ATol's daily servings. For what it's worth, it's been passed on to a couple of US senators' offices. Congrats to Professor [Chalmers] Johnson too. More of the same, ATol.
Armand De Laurell (May 17, '07)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: In reviewing your article [Al-Qaeda strikes at anti-Taliban spies, May 17], I was thinking about our US presidential candidates arguing the tactics used to shake down terror suspects - and from your article I would conclude that they are probably prepped to give up phony intelligence that sounds plausible and their real worry is infiltration by spies who can sell their secrets. It would seem they could get both out of any "torture" situation, throw off the authorities when captured and even send out messages to their cronies. It is the giving up of the real deal by spies that must get them, it would seem. You must take some real risks yourself to get these stories and probably have to filter lots of things to get to the nub of what is actually going on - takes guts!
C A Morrison
Williamsburg, Virginia (May 17, '07)

In the article Taiwan's comeback kid by Ting-I Tsai (May 17) on the political career of Frank Hsieh, some vital information is missing that can greatly influence the not-so-informed readers. The current corruption investigation of Frank Hsieh points to his pocketing political contributions as mayor of Kaohsiung city. The investigative arm of the government under President Chen Shui-bian has actually "certified" Hsieh's guilt in a formal document, ready to be sent to the judiciary for action. This document was suddenly and mysteriously leaked to a magazine recently just before the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] membership was to nominate one of the four candidates to run against KMT's [Kuomintang's] Ma Ying-jeou in the 2008 presidential election. To this date, no one knows who engineered this explosive leak. But this "back-stabbing" has aroused sympathy for Frank Hsieh, and the general resentment toward Chen's family scandals probably propelled Hsieh to win the nomination over then-premier Su Tseng-chang, who was favored by Chen. The corruption charge against KMT's Ma Ying-jeou is of a different kind and more interesting. During the past decades and up to now, some 6,000 public officials in Taiwan above a certain rank receive a special monthly allowance to run his/her office. Any unused portion usually goes to the official's pocket, considered a remedial supplement to the inadequate salary. No one seems to question this practice, until now. For political reasons the DPP has launched a lawsuit against Ma Ying-jeou for pocketing the unused allowance as mayor of Taipei city. While Ma has been widely regarded as a "clean" official and has made donations beyond these "supplements", his claim of lax oversight over accounting in his office or a misconception of the design of the "allowance" may or may not acquit him. To return the favor, the KMT has now brought similar lawsuits against President Chen Shui-bian and Frank Hsieh for the same "crime" when they were respectively mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung. How this beautiful drama will play out remains to be seen. If all the few thousand officials who have had the privilege of special allowance were investigated and brought to trial, it would take a few decades to clean up the mess. It will not be too late to groom little children in Taiwan to study law to meet this social urgency.
S P Li (May 17, '07)

A blast from the past: suddenly, the Stilwell Road ... which played a role in supplying Chiang Kai-shek's Free China, which had moved its capital to Chungking [now Chongqing] during Japan's war to subdue and conquer China, has found a new vocation. Sudha Ramachandran [Political obstacles on the road to riches, May 17] misses a point, it seems to me - the strategic role that Burma [now Myanmar] is being called on to play today. Much-shunned Burma is once gaining funneling goods to China, but will in return move Chinese goods to India. Trade will fill the coffers of Burma. The Burmese generals will demand and get tolls, and since they do not completely hold all of Burma within their iron first, trade will be held hostage to the ethnic minorities who have been in open rebellion [against] Yangon's authority for six decades. The Stilwell Road, as Ramachandran says, will cut down on transportation time, and as good businessmen the Chinese know full well that time is money. In consequence, greasing middlemen's hands or paying off a bandit is a small price to pay. On another note, Russia has its eye on Burma. Very recently, Moscow has signed an agreement to help the generals in aiding and abetting them in developing a nuclear industry.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 17, '07)

According to Russia's atomic-energy agency, Rosatom, the deal it signed this week with Myanmar is for a nuclear-research center that will include a 10-megawatt light-water reactor and facilities for processing and storing nuclear waste. Construction of the reactor will be handled by Russia's state-owned Atomstroiexport. A previous Russian attempt to assist Myanmar with a nuclear program ran afoul of the junta's spotty ability (or willingness) to pay its bills; see Rogues of the world unite (Apr 28). - ATol

Analysis of events on the Grand Chessboard in the article Iran courts the US at Russia's expense [May 16] tells more about US wishes and expectations than the facts on the ground ... The author is building the case for Iran-US cooperation. The case is built upon Iran's perceived weaknesses and opportunities should it seize the moment. According to this calculus, Iran should be worried because the [United Nations] Security Council is "plotting tougher sanctions", NAM [Non-Aligned Movement] countries' support may be shaky, and Russia has been a fickle partner, refusing to provide nuclear fuel for the Bushehr power plant. In the light of the new chill in US-Russia relations and US discomforts with Moscow's efforts to make Europe dependent of Russia for its energy, Iran has an opportunity to deal. The author concludes that Tehran should exploit the Washington-Moscow rift to its maximum advantage. It is hard to agree with these assumptions. Iran's current position, considerably strengthened, is a direct result of the policies under President [Mahmud] Ahmadinejad. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has embraced Iran. Russia, with China's help, has neutralized thus far the threat of serious Security Council resolutions against Iran, while still "giving in" enough to provide Europe with some room versus the US. US-inspired Sunni alliances against Iran have not borne fruit, and the much-trumpeted European initiatives to "engage" Iran have fizzled. These developments are not accidental, and the forces shaping them go well beyond Iranian politics. It must be clear to even the most unobservant that most of the heavy lifting on Iranian issue has been done by Russia and China in the background. Russia's dance with its European counterparts has not yet run its course, but it is clear that Europe's standing has been damaged seriously. It is almost painful to watch the humiliation of Europe in the opening rounds of the US-Russia skirmish. Iran continues to be firmly Asia/SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization]-oriented. As such, it is at present engaging the US, and not the other way around. Any opportunity that presents itself for a mutually beneficial relationship with the US will be, and should be, embraced by Iran; it is a fair bet that it will not be at the expense of any SCO member, Russia included ... So who is more afraid of a nuclear Iran, Russia or the US? The answer is neither. Russia is supportive of Iran and the two are involved in a whole range of mutually beneficial programs with multiple Asian partners. The US knows that Iran is no threat, but has targeted Iran as a part of its Caspian and, more broadly, global strategy. By targeting Iran, the US has challenged both Russia and China in their back yard ...
Bianca
USA (May 17, '07)

Re the letter of Cha-am Jamal of May 15, I wish to enlighten him. Science is defined as a branch of knowledge involving systematized observation, experiment and induction, but who and what is the source of science and knowledge? Who has planted this knowledge in our brains to discover? For example, take the law of gravity: whenever we throw a thing from a height, it falls down towards the center of the Earth. In fact, science is the human way of deducing a conclusion of what we observe and a scientific theory is a man-made model of the universe with limitation. Therefore, a discovery of today might become obsolete tomorrow, and only Allah knows the ultimate reality. [Isaac] Newton's laws of motion, once considered universal, are now considered defunct and irrelevant in the cosmos. On the other hand, revelation is defined as direct communication from God to his messenger, which is held to be true by all religious people to the exclusion of scientific or external facts. Islam considers both aspects of revelation and investigation complementary and necessary. Without revelation, we humans would be left with our limited imagination and perception, without which we could never be able to grasp the true realities of life or know about such things as life after death. The Islamic view of science and religion is very different from [the pathological, prejudicial view of] many people who study Islam. Islam says that the two are separate entities and cannot be reconciled and correspond with each other fully and amicably. Science evaluates the claim of religion and concludes where the truth lies, and therefore we Muslims believe that the Koran is indeed the true revelation of God. The Koran revealed to Prophet Mohammed 1,400 years ago is a highly scientific book and makes numerous references (756 times) to natural phenomena including movements of heavenly bodies and creation of the universe, embryology, weather, climates, the big bang, and behavior of different creatures, and it is the touchstone of our Islamic theology ...
Saqib Khan
UK (May 17, '07)

The World Bank is supposed to be international capitalism with a human face. Were it not for the monstrous influence of neo-conservative values, [Paul] Wolfowitz would never have come into this position [as World Bank president]. His track record would have excluded him. If the [World Bank] board doesn't use this opportunity to get rid of Mr Wolfowitz, it will be seen as another example of favoritism. The days of neo-con crooks in international capitalism must be over.
Kaj Krinsmoe
Aarhus, Denmark (May 17, '07)

China has come a long way since little red stars sang of the wonders of the Daiqing oilfield for foreign friends during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Then, Mao [Zedong]'s China had shaken the pillars of the heavens to change the country from top to bottom while raising high the red banner of revolution. Today China has taken the capitalist road; its economy is undergoing an industrial and technological revolution at a harrowing pace. And oil is the lifeline of rapid transformation. Thus, as Wu Zhong reports (China's oilfield of dreams [May 16]), discovery of oil onshore and off does not mean that China's oil reserves revive the Maoist dreams of self-sufficiency. Far from that. In spite of the great promise that Bohai Bay has finally realized for Beijing's strategic petroleum reserves, or the potential of the Nanpu block in the Jidong oilfield near Tangshan, China has to look outside its borders for continual supplies of foreign oil. (It is good to remember that the year and the month of Mao's death in 1976, Tangshan was devastated by a powerful earthquake. Thus the very geography that the Nanpu block lies on is prone to the vagaries of Mother Nature, who unexpectedly could cause much ruin and havoc of this potentially rich field.) China National Petroleum Corp is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and [current US Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson's Goldman Sachs was the midwife of its IPO [initial public offering]. Large finds of oil will do wonders for its stock, listed on Chinese and foreign exchanges, yet they will not quench Beijing's growing thirst for oil from abroad. Thus we see China's move into Africa, a continent with enormous wealth in oil and gas, and particularly its involvement in Sudan and its rigid silence in the United Nations Security Council on the question of Darfur until very recently, owing to threats of boycott of the Summer Olympic Games next year in Beijing, which spells loss of face, to which China is very sensitive. China competes with the United States and Europe for black gold. At present, competition does not spell friction. A modern China will never be self-sufficient in oil. It will do what [the United States of] America does: produce less refined petroleum products at home, [and] buy huge quantities of foreign oil for its strategic reserves for a rainy day should this umbilical cord be momentarily cut owing to unforeseen circumstances.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 16, '07)

Spengler, in The Koranic quotations trap (May 15), believes he has found a major flaw in Robert Spencer's public criticism of Islam, in his claim that "Spencer has missed his adversary's mortal weakness: by insisting that the Koran is clear, consistent and unambiguous in preaching violence, Spencer has conceded the most important weapon in the arsenal of Islam's critics, namely the integrity of the Koran". The argument that Spengler puts forward is that, unlike the comparative flexibility of Judaism and Christianity, Islam is bound by a doctrine of divine revelation whereby what is written in the Koran is hailed as immutable. This, he believes, along with Pope Benedict XVI, puts Muslims in a self-defeating predicament, rendering them unable to defend themselves against the criticism that Muslims are consequently bound to be violent. By contrast, Spengler argues that Christendom has openly responded to the dictates of reason by allowing the Bible to be subjected to modern textual criticism. The inference here is that Christianity is therefore superior to Islam, in that it is doctrinally free to be selective in following those biblical texts that dictate peace - as opposed to those that dictate violence. Hence Spengler can then conclude that self-sacrifice in the form of violent death in warfare is the Muslim equivalent of a Christian sacrament (namely, that of Communion - celebrating the vicarious death and resurrection of Jesus Christ). This may all sound good in theory, but in fact, a 2002 Time magazine poll found that 59% of Americans believe the Middle East is heading for the End Time battle of Armageddon. At this battle, Jesus Christ will return to Jerusalem as a victorious holy warrior, and at his feet Jews, Muslims and everyone else will humbly bow at the knee and universally declare that "Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father". There is absolutely no room here for the acclaimed criticism of those troublesome texts that advocate violence. They are all completely thrown out the window, and what we are all left with are the same old Christians who are no less ardent than their opponents in thirsting for World War III.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (May 16, '07)

Re The Koranic quotations trap [May 15] by Spengler, it not only brought foul taste to my mouth but also many four-letter words, which I should not utter but would write a seven-letter word, "bastard", someone without registry of a birth certificate. Though I do not advocate censorship and support free expression, this time I do reluctantly agree with Kelly [letter, May 15] that ATol should stop publishing his [Spengler's] articles. I would add [that] he represents repugnance, hatred, racism, violence, [and a] treacherously perfidious attitude against non-European races and in particular supports annihilation of Muslims as well as [having] advocated dropping atomic bombs on the Iranians. He appears to have a psychopathic mentality as well as aberration of mind riddled with unbridled Islamic phobia. There are 1.87 billion followers of Islam (Muslims) in the world and increasing in thousands every year, mostly in Europe, [which] is a good enough reason for him to shut his insidious verbosity about Islam. Why does not Spengler search for Dr Zakir Naik's website and find out about Islam and learn a little ...? I will politely ask Spengler to write in a language that is more understandable, less American, less ambiguous, less treacherous and less peripheral around death and destruction, bloodletting and bloodshed of the innocent Muslims. And, finally, please stop copying your missives from other websites and then pasting them on ATol ... The fact of the matter is that Mr Spengler, you have not either the guts or the stomach to digest criticism levied against Western immoral ways but [are] ready to invade those who want to lead a life of piety and righteousness according to the teachings of the Holy Koran and believing in previously revealed holy scriptures.
Saqib Khan
UK (May 16, '07)

In his article Pakistani opposition tastes blood (May 15), Syed Saleem Shahzad referred to the Pashtun jirga, which according to him is "an armed grouping of Pashtuns" recently formed "to counter attacks on Pashtuns". Respecting his views and avoiding challenging his right of freedom of expression, I wanted to bring to your notice some facts [that] were overlooked in his article. The Pashtun jirga is not an armed group and [was] not formed to counter attacks on Pashtuns but it has been formed in reaction to some recent policies of the government of Sindh and city government of Karachi such as demolition of Kachi Abadis (Juma Ghoth etc), putting bans on rickshaws and old buses, and domicile-related issues. The writer has bracketed the loosely structured jirga with MQM [the Muttehida Qaumi Movement]. The impression that the Pashtun jirga is militant like MQM is wrong. Intentionally or unintentionally, he tried to blame both equally for the carnage in Karachi, and absolve the MQM as a prime actor in engineering the events on May 12. Yes, on May 12, in response to armed provocations of MQM, some Pashtun political activists besides other non-Mohajir elements resorted to firing [weapons].
Aimal (May 16, '07)

The World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund] are holdovers from post-World War II global financial restructuring to help change the world from colonialism to trade among sovereign economic equals. They have failed spectacularly, wasting trillions of dollars in the process. In the current form of globalization, they are dinosaurs. Their primary purpose appears to be to employ otherwise unemployable economists and high-priced consultants and apparently they also serve as dumping grounds for people like [World Bank president Paul] Wolfowitz. The World Bank soap opera [regarding Wolfowitz] may be viewed as the death throes of these historical institutions and of American hegemony in international finance. The emerging world of international finance will have major roles for China, [South] Korea, India, Russia, the Middle East, and other large holders of trade credit. These developments have eroded the World Bank's monopoly power in international finance even as the IMF's loan portfolio threatens to shrink into extinction, and this change has thrown these dinosaurs into confusion and chaos. The sex scandal [sic] is the symptom not the disease. Watch for more symptoms as the old world of international finance comes unglued.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (May 16, '07)

In his latest outing [The Koranic quotations trap, May 15], Spengler yet again regurgitates his blatantly Islamophobic message. He insists on being a "critic" of Islam and yet spits venomous hate and racism against the faith and all its practitioners in manners that are way beyond reasonable criticism. It is worth wondering if Asia Times Online would do us the courtesy of also making part of their staff a [defender] of Islam as ardent in his convictions as Spengler is in his hate. Actually, Spengler is the quintessential Western man: writing, speaking, plotting, and moving with unbridled, God-like confidence; passing wholesale judgments on the very existential worthiness of this group of creatures and that; accepting no one but his own pharaonic self, and certainly not God Almighty, as his supreme lord. The Holy Koran crushes exactly such predatory tendencies by firmly establishing God's absolute lordship over creation so that even Prophet Mohammed declares, "I am but a humble servant of God like you." So how can the Western man, or any man drunk with power, be expected to like it? On the other hand, God is a ruler whose mercy envelops and overwhelms everything so that even the worst criminal will not be dealt with unjustly. Most absurdly, the fuel to Spengler's rhetoric [is] Muslim heresies that seek to cut off the Muslim masses from their centuries-old traditions, so that Spengler puts forth the blatant lie that Sufism is not part of "mainstream" Islam, or pretends that the Koran is the only Islamic source material. As for [Syrian poet] Adonis and his tribe [see Are the Arabs already extinct?, May 8], let their lament be for the fact that they have forgotten how the Arab was an animal changed into the crown jewel of creation by the power of this "incoherence" they are now too corrupt to fathom. And as for Spengler's tall claim that there is no room in Islam for skepticism, let all sincere ones be rid of this lie by studying the history of the second (and equally essential) arm of the Islamic source material known as Hadith.
Zaheer Akmal
USA (May 15, '07)

Spengler's The Koranic quotations trap (May 15) is a really informative view but useless. It is informative because it provides information that may be useful for some fanatic individuals who think that the core of the current world problems is religion: Islam. It is indeed useless argument, because other people believe that the main cause of the world problem is US imperialism, rather than religion, in its motive for world domination for more profits and power for the leisure class: the ruling elite. US imperialism made the worst mistake in its existence when it occupied Iraq and destroyed Saddam [Hussein]'s regime. The US leisure class (monopoly capitalists) is wealth maximizers and cost minimizers, thinking that it could hit two birds in one stone. It can annihilate Islam for the brutal attack of September 11 [2001] and occupied Iraq for its oil, an imperialist occupation that can be used to control countries consuming oil such as China [and] India, to mention a few. Both ideas were deadly wrong, because religion and anti-imperialist national and world movements can be united explicitly and implicitly against the imperialist offense. This is exactly what has happened in Iraq, because the country has become the [hub] for all groups of various religious and nationalistic ideologies determined to defeat US imperialism and its cronies such as the Brits and other phony governments, not only in the Middle East but in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Without going into detail, the situation is miserable for US imperialism, and fighting and attacking Islam will not solve the problem, a problem that will cost the United States of America huge financial and physical wealth for no ending reasonable solution. Rather, the anti-Islam rhetoric has put more fuel on the burning condition. Therefore, cost minimization requires US imperialism to make a U-turn: a drastic change in its foreign policy.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (May 15, '07)

In a cursory reading of the latest pathetic and pitiful Spengler diatribe [The Koranic quotations trap , May 15], the word "odious" was used several times by Spengler in adjectivizing a Ms Karen Armstrong. Anyone called "odious" more than once by Spengler merits a Google search. Google references Ms Armstrong according to Salon.com as "arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting author". In addition and according to Kirkus Review, Ms Armstrong is "... brilliant" and is the author of 17 books. The only reason a person like Spengler would overuse the word "odious" may have to do with his not being invited to an evangelical gathering in Beverly Hills, California, where a Likud member of the Israeli government will be promoting the forming of a stronger union of Judeo-Christians to stand firm against Islam, whose founder has been determined not to have even existed according to two distinguished researchers. Since one is hard pressed to Google Spengler, one is left to conclude that he or his promoters must pay a handsome fee for ATol to publish his incorporeal opinions.
Armand De Laurell (May 15, '07)

Spencer - I mean Spengler [The Koranic quotations trap, May 15]: Many books have been written to take you down point for point, and so I will be brief: what is most interesting is that you want to agree with [Robert] Spencer! Are we supposed to be impressed that you want to agree with an idiot (as opposed to the more balanced view of [Karen] Armstrong) but on this particular point you cannot agree? In this case, the fact that you want to agree is actually already agreement, because that desire, that want, colors everything you write. But I know: you think you are being objective. Allow me to indulge in one last point: even if Mohammed did not exist in the past, he exists now ... He exists in the hearts of millions and millions as an ideal to follow, and if you [had] ever spent any real time on the streets and in mosques of a Muslim country, you would understand that that ideal has nothing to do with raiding caravans and having multiple wives or what have you, all things that on one level can be understandable, while on another level [are] obnoxious - just as what appears as a contradiction (in the Koran) on one level is not a contradiction on another level. But people like you can only judge things one one level, thus so much, so precious much, is simply lost to you. It is sort of like a psychologist trying to psychoanalyze a saint: the saint is on levels of consciousness that the silly doctor just has no conception of.
Krischer (May 15, '07)

Please don't turn your respected magazine into another vicious Western, especially American, propaganda machine. Don't publish articles from Spengler, who is an insult to your publication.
Kelly (May 15, '07)

Thailand has shot a warning over the bow of the battleship Pharma. It has issued a stern warning that it won't continue paying high prices for anti-viral drugs. Bangkok, as Marwaan Macan-Markar demonstrates (Thailand turns giant pharma killer [May 15]), has gone so far as to break patent protection for Efavirenz, a Merck Sharp and Dohme AIDS drug, and upped the stakes by doing the same for Kaletra, another anti-viral drug from the Abbott Laboratories stable, and, not stopping there, took on Sanofi-Aventis' blood thinner Plavis. The Thai government is willing to do business on its terms to drive down costs, and has gone a step further in issuing a compulsory license (CL) to assure a steady supply of cheaper drugs. Bangkok's bold step had an echo in Brazil. President Lula da Silva signed a CL for Merck's Efavirenz. Thailand and Brazil are large markets for anti-viral drugs, it goes without saying. They have no Bill Clinton to wrench concessions from big Pharma as he did for Africa. Although Thailand and Brazil have acted within the legal boundaries of the World Trade Organization, they nonetheless have sent a shiver down the spine of the pharmaceutical industry, [which has] fought tooth and nail against generic drug makers [that] offer cheaper and more affordable drugs. Big Pharma argues that price inelasticity allows more time and money for research, newer drug treatments, and further advances in medicine. Yet recent articles in The New York Times belie these claims. The pharma houses pay doctors to prescribe, more [often] than not, higher-priced drugs even when the treatment is not necessarily indicated. More, the drug houses have money to burn for advertising, to [persuade] the untutored to take drugs for the slightest aliment. Still more, these houses look more to please stockholders, lobby governments, and fill candidates' electoral coffers, so that laws will favor their interests, most notably in extending patent life so profitable drugs won't fall into the hands of generic brands. Say what they will, Big Pharma is an industry which is caught [in] a pinch: to improve life or fill corporate and shareholder purses. Thailand and now Brazil have thrown down the gauntlet. Will the pharmaceutical industry take up the challenge by offering huge markets lower drug prices, and still put more black ink at the bottom of corporate accounts, or will they fight a rear-guard action while more governments find generic companies willing to make deals, thereby cutting into Big Pharma's profits and gaining larger market shares?
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 15, '07)

[Re A Q Khan nuclear network alive and kicking, May 15] I don't plan to buy the IISS [International Institute for Strategic Studies] report on [Abdul Qadeer] Khan, but if [David] Isenberg really believes such statements as this, he must be very naive: "Thus Islamabad had no alternative but to fall back on the networks Khan and his associates had created."
Rowan Berkeley (May 15, '07)

Brief comment on Why you pretend to like modern art [May 1]: When it comes to religion, we all have our certain views about it: perception of God and his image according to our beliefs and teachings. This reminded me of the story of a little boy, Jimmy, who was drawing something in his classroom and the teacher asked, "What are you drawing, Jimmy?" "God," he said. "But," the teacher replied, "nobody has ever seen God and knows how he looks like." "But," Jimmy said with a big smile, "They will after I have finished drawing him." The teacher waited and then had a look at Jimmy's drawing. The teacher was amazed to see that Jimmy had drawn someone very much resembling President [George W] Bush holding a Bible in his right hand and nukes in the left. Little Jimmy's masterpiece of modern art and his perception!
Saqib Khan (May 15, '07)

Re All power to Russia [Apr 27]: [W Joseph] Stroupe continues to be one of the best geo-analysts published in ATol on the gigantic power struggle between Russia and the US. His incisive analysis practically foretold the results on Saturday (May 12), when Russia signed an agreement on the Caspian pipeline, virtually giving Russia a lock on Caspian energy transit to Europe and dealing a bitter defeat to US aspirations. As predicted by Stroupe, Russia may be emerging as the victor in the great game in Central Asia.
R Berke
California, USA (May 15, '07)

With regard to human conception (Saqib Khan, letter, May 14), English-language translations of the Koran say that the man produces the seed and that the woman provides the fertilizer; that semen originates in the abdomen; that the embryo starts out as a clot of blood; and that in embryonic development, the bones form first and they are then clothed with flesh. All of these ideas are consistent with the science of the ancient Greeks but inconsistent with modern science. That the Koran foretells modern scientific discoveries is not an unbiased observation because the foretelling becomes apparent only after the discovery is made and not before that. The Koran comes from divine revelation while science comes from man. Divine revelation is unchanging while science changes almost as quickly as it is formed. The science of today will one day be wrong just as the science of yesterday is wrong today. I am not sure what Muslims expect to gain by looking to science to find legitimacy for religion.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (May 15, '07)

Re the May 14 letter by Noureddine from Algeria: I start with your last sentence. If you have been reading ATol for some time, you know that in previous letters I called Spengler all sorts of names (Islamophobe, racist, psychotic) and I requested [that] the editors not post his pieces that preach hatred on this otherwise very progressive website. In hindsight, I think that calling him names was a mistake: I was responding to his hatred with hatred of my own. Even if all the accusations raised against him were correct, that's not a good reason to dismiss everything he has to say. He does get a few things right from time to time. I find it more constructive to provide different perspectives on the issues he writes about, which are, more often than not, worth discussing. Second, concerning my personal background, I graduated from an Algerian university and yes, I am fluent in classical Arabic, Algerian Arabic, French and my native language - Berber. You are right, there are many Berbers who hate Arabic - because it is imposed on them while their own language is not recognized by the constitution of their own country - but I am not one of them, I can assure you. Of course there are a few books that get published in academic Arabic from time to time, but how many? I lived in Taiwan for a couple of years and I felt depressed when I thought of the number of books - by local writers as well as translations of the most recent fiction [and] non-fiction books by any contemporary writer you can think of - that get published in that tiny island as compared [with] what gets printed in the whole Arab world. The main reason for the cultural desert that engulfs the Arab countries is, I repeat again, the clinging of their dictatorship governments to academic Arabic that nobody speaks, as you implicitly recognized (so Algerians can understand Egyptians and Syrians because they watch their TV series in which they speak their own languages rather than academic Arabic - precisely my point - but can Egyptians and Syrians understand Algerians? You can't possibly answer "yes" because you sound very honest). I didn't say that Islam is the source of all problems in the Arab world, but it definitely is one of the reasons.
Daniel Mazir
Perth, Australia (May 15, '07)

When Pepe Escobar, in 'The cultivation of life' (May 12), asks a top Iraqi Shi'ite cleric, Sheikh Mohammad al-Roubaie, why the tens of thousands of Iraqis who are falling victim to the war and sectarian hatred are dying, he gets the reply: "For a reason." To help us know what that special reason is, Roubaie goes on to tell us that "people have to be more spiritual". And if we are still not so sure, he then tells us that "still now there are people among us with Saddam Hussein in their minds". In other words, what we are being told - in no uncertain terms - is that the killing of (Saddam Hussein's) Sunnis by (Roubaie's fellow) Shi'ites is totally justified on the basis that it will make people (presumably the Sunnis) "more spiritual". Sheikh Roubaie, however, is not alone in applying such convoluted religious reasoning in order to spiritually justify the brutal killing of one's enemies. When US marines routinely break down the front doors of homes suspected of housing Iraqi insurgents, they have, on occasions, reportedly thrown live hand grenades that end up killing women and children - all for the "good" reason of securing America from the "evil" threat of global terror. And when al-Qaeda accuses Iraq's Shi'ites of collaborating with the US-led Zionist-Christian alliance, the planned suicide bombings, torture and beheadings of innocent Shi'ites are again all "for a reason". Surely, the problem with all such reasoning is that it will neither make human civilization any "more spiritual", nor will it bring about "the cultivation of life". Instead, it will summarily bring all life to the brink of extinction.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (May 14, '07)

Re God forbid, religion in North Korea? [May 12]: Dig a little deeper, [and] the quick eye will find spurious Adherents.com, the American religious research website, baptizing juche [one of] the world's 10 largest religions. It is an attractive and soothing thought. Sunny Lee gives a good thumbnail rendering of Adherents.com's logic, which finds an echo in the US State Department's assessment that juche is almost a state religion. Juche broadly defined is an ideology which relies on coercion and seduction. If this is so, then President [George W] Bush's evangelical zeal to bring the light of democracy to the dark spots of the world easily assumes the papal tiara of a religion. Which brings us to the chief drawback of Adherents.com's exciting idea: it says very little of religion ... as we know [it]. It may surprise the layman that Pyongyang was a bastion of Presbyterianism and deemed the "second Jerusalem". Kim Jong-il's grandparents were good and practicing Christians. Kim Il-sung's mother had the name of "rock of ages", which bears witness to her Protestant bona fides. It may also surprise the layman that religion thrives in North Korea, albeit strongly overseen by the state as does, say, the patriotic Catholic Church in China. Western sources have rarely documented Pyongyang's brushing up its image, thereby signaling an opening to the world. Take for example, at the time of the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, to counter [North Korea's] isolation from the international competition, Kim Il-sung allowed the building and opening of the Bongsu Church and a sprucing-up of a Catholic church. This is equally true of selected Buddhist temples. The state's slight relaxation on religious belief in North Korea's capital had early success. Delegations of American and Canadian women and some former missionaries to Korea, under the aegis of the World Council of Churches (WCC), have established contacts with Pyongyang churches. And during the years of great famine and drought, the WCC has made token donations in food, clothing, blankets, and other gifts. The American media have always reported on South Korean pastors and churches who ferry North Korean refugees in China and Thailand to South Korea, and who carry high the banner of bringing the North back into the Christian fold. This said, the number of Christians in North Korea is small, but if Japan or China is a guide, under years and for Japan centuries, secret Christians survived. So it is not unreasonable that in North Korea, in spite of juche, such families or groups do exist.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 14, '07)

For an analysis of the modern history of Christianity in North Korea, see North Korea's missionary position, (Mar 16, '05). - ATol

Syed Saleem Shahzad [Pakistan running out of options, May 12]: If [former Pakistani prime minister Benazir] Bhutto is exiled, where is she living? Was she that popular during her premiership that the population of Pakistan will accept her a second time?
Bradley (May 14, '07)

She has been living in London and Dubai. She has already been elected two times as premier and only election results can tell what would happen a third time. - Syed Saleem Shahzad

Syed Saleem Shahzad: I am a dentist by profession but I am always in touch with the political situation in the world. I have been reading your articles for a long time now, especially on the situation of Afghanistan, and I'm really impressed by the analysis you always give regarding Afghanistan. I also read briefs written by you on Mullah Dadullah. [On Saturday], he died. What do you think [about] who killed him? And what do you think [about how it] will affect Pakistan's motive to bring back the Taliban in Afghanistan?
Dr Abdul Moeed (May 14, '07)

See Syed Saleem Shahzad's new article Dadullah's death hits Taliban hard. - ATol

Patrick Cockburn's report A war guaranteed to damage a superpower [May 10] is interesting and informative. But he should have compared the Iraq war to the Vietnam War, not to the First World War. It's very easy for all Vietnamese to see that, finally, the US government will lose the war in Iraq like they did in Vietnam. There are many similarities in the two wars. In both cases, the American army came with a good cause: to defend South Vietnamese against communism or to liberate Iraqis from a dictator. But then later, the protector/liberator became an invader/occupier by effective propaganda from local insurgency/enemy with all the concrete proof: the American soldiers killed innocent civilians, raped local women, destroyed houses/villages (collateral damages) etc and etc. With every innocent civilian killed, with every woman raped, the American army gets some more insurgents or insurgency supporters, so as time goes by, the enemy/insurgency only gets stronger and stronger; meanwhile, morale and patience from the American soldiers and American people get thinner and thinner. The ultimate motive for a soldier to fight is to fight the invader to protect his own country. The American soldier does not have that ultimate motive; the Vietnamese communist/Iraqis insurgent does. Time is not on the American side. The American army could only afford to fight the Vietnam War for 10 years before withdrawal and defeat. For the Iraq war, how long? It looks like the Bush administration is not learning much from the Vietnam War lesson.
Tim Hoang
Vancouver, British Columbia (May 14, '07)

By stating so succinctly, "This oligarchy comprises the serving and retired military elite as well as civilian stakeholders in the system, including politicians, academics, journalists, clerics and even militants. The oligarchy has penetrated all tiers of society and has taken on a strength of its own" (An assault on the way Pakistan is ruled, May 8), the columnist [Syed Saleem Shahzad] has admirably succeeded in exposing the prime actors who have brought Pakistan to the present state of misery. This column should make any good Pakistani feel a deep sense of sadness to realize how the entire society has been brought to such lows in its the brief existence. Is there hope for a turnaround? I think there is. These are the moral acts of courageous persons like dismissed Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) [Iftikhar Mohammad] Chaudhry. The CJP's action looks like a leaf taken from the pages of another great event that occurred some 77 years ago in the Indian subcontinent when Mahatma Gandhi defied and shook the formidable British imperial rule in India. He challenged so-called salt tax laws when the rulers had imposed a tax on anyone - peasant or aristocrat - who made salt out of God-given seawater even [if] it existed in one's own back yard. Gandhi started with just 78 followers and marched to the sea 240 miles away in 23 days. He took his own time teaching and preaching to the people who gathered. That march galvanized the entire nation and brought troops of domestic and foreign press. At the end the march, the crowd had swollen to literally several hundred thousands. This event put a spotlight on the unjust acts of British imperial rule. Later the British removed these laws. Black leader Martin Luther King attempted a march successfully along similar lines in Washington some 44 years ago, to highlight the wretched conditions of blacks and racist laws in the USA. In both cases all these men adopted only means of non-violence, peace and power of persuasion with ultimate victory to its victims. CJP's march might have taken 25 hours instead of four. So what? His little lectures about rule of law, supremacy of the constitution, basic human rights and individual freedom granted by the constitution are essential for the formation of a civilized society, etc are equally relevant in today's Pakistan's life. So, in the end, these acts may turn out to be weapons hurled to achieve the beginning of the end of military rule. I am sure CJP will succeed.
Kamath
Ottawa, Ontario (May 14, '07)

Re Daniel Mazir [letter, May 9] on Spengler's May 8 piece Are the Arabs already extinct? "Academic Arabic is to the Arabs of today what Latin is to modern Europeans. There is no contemporary Arabic literature to speak of simply because Arabic is a dead language." There is plenty of Arabic literature (perhaps not in Australia). I assume you have been to high school in Algeria and therefore can read and write both classic and contemporary Arabic as well as French (an added bonus). Perhaps you choose French as many Algerians do, and even in French you will find plenty of translations from contemporary Arabic literature, or that you are not versed in Arabic but French only, or that you belong to an ethnic group (Berbers) that choose to ignore the Arabic language altogether. There are some Berbers in Algeria who refuse to acknowledge the Arabic language and a minority even hates it. I don't know if you are one of them but "I was born and grew up in a so-called Arab country - Algeria" may very well mean that. "If two peasants, one from Algeria or Morocco and the other from Egypt or Syria, happened to [meet] - a very rare occurrence - they would be totally unable to communicate without an interpreter, despite the fact that they both call themselves 'Arabs' and they both speak 'Arabic'." That is simply not correct. Their Arabic is slightly different but they definitely will be able to communicate with ease (Algerian TV shows plenty of Egyptian and Syrian TV series). Yes, the Arab world has many problems. Lack of democracy, sectarianism, tribalism, low economic output, lack of education etc - and I will agree when it comes to sciences, even though you may look into the US, England and France, [and] you will be amazed at the number of technical papers written by Muslims and Arabs. I do not believe one iota that Islam is fundamentally the cause of all the woes of Arabs and Muslims. It is very difficult to live in a country like Algeria wrecked by a war. It was even worse in the mid-'90s during the civil war fomented by religious extremists trying to bring down the military dictatorship. You opted to go. Feel good Down Under, it is easy to criticize in the relative safety (economic safety, that is) and well-being of a Western country. Agreeing even partially with a bigot like Spengler, a racist, an anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and a warmonger by somebody who has first-hand experience of the average person in an Islamic country is truly dismaying.
Noureddine
Algeria (May 14, '07)

In response to [Daniel] Mazir's letter of May 11, I simply have to say that he is entitled to his opinion, however, misguided and deviated ... The first revelation that came to Prophet was: "Read in the name of your Lord who … created man from clots of congealed blood. Read Your Lord is the most Bountiful One (Rabil Alameen) who by the pen taught man what he did not know. Indeed, man transgresses in thinking himself self-sufficient. For to your Lord all things return" (96:1-8)" It was not a sermon on his commandments how to conduct one's life on the Earth but to obtain knowledge (ilm) and learn about his creation, and it referred to creation of a life in the womb of a mother from the very moment of conception to embryonic stages. The Koran is also scientifically remarkable in another way. It makes statements about natural phenomena that show a foreknowledge of future discoveries and a superior intellect aware of things of which no human in the 7th century could have been. Such verses serve more than one purpose that we can think of. The idea propagated by Western scholars and men of ignorant mind that the god of Islam is only the god of justice but not of mercy, compassion, forgiveness and love is totally false and mendacious. In fact, the god of Islam is the god of all mankind and humanity ... His mercy and compassion precedes his wrath. Mr Mazir, May Allah lead you to the right path.
Saqib Khan
UK (May 14, '07)

Spengler's piece Why you pretend to like modern art [May 1] reminded me of a film sketch I saw some years ago. It goes like this: A modern artist gets a job at police headquarters. His challenge is to draw photofit pictures of the "most wanted". So he does - but of course he does it "modern" style. After a while the chief inspector is looking at the artwork and gets upset: "Hey, guy, do you think this rubbish shows our villain's face?" Artist: "What do you want? Can't you see how brutal he is?"
D Busse (May 14, '07)

Thank you Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin for your profound and stirring lecture on non-violence (letter, May 11). Like you, I believe that "the pursuit of violence is morally wrong", and that non-violent resistance is "far more courageous" and a more moral and more sublime alternative to the "mass murder of innocent civilians". I am forwarding your lecture to the White House in the faint hope that it will have a positive impact on the world's most significant purveyor of violence and of the mass murder of innocent civilians. They might be moved to eliminate collateral casualties in Afghanistan for a start; and then who knows where that might lead? I am giddy with anticipation.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (May 14, '07)

This is in response to May Sage (May 10) responding to my letter [of May 9]. Are you saying two wrongs make a right? Assuming you are a Christian, [is] the brutality that Christians are [at present] suffering in Iraq to be condoned, because it happens? But there is a huge difference between what has happened to Kashmiri Hindus and the others you mentioned in your letter. Have you heard of what happened to Kashmiri Hindus? While the world press continues to mention any atrocities against minorities, especially if they are Christian, they were totally silent in the case of Kashmiri Hindus. Over 300,000 Kashmiri Hindus were forced to flee Kashmir. She mentions Gujarat and makes a horrific statement that Muslims are being killed all over India. Talk about blowing up one incident. Our [India's] president is a Muslim, the richest man in our country is a Muslim, the biggest Indian movie star is a Muslim (married to a Hindu, by the way), and a Muslim filmmaker recently upset a lot of people in Pakistan when he went there and said Muslims were better off in India. What happened [in Gujarat] was horrible but it started with a train carrying Hindus being burned and a number of Hindus being killed. From there things went out of control. India is a poor country with over a billion people. When a train crashes in America, one person may die, but in India that would most probably be over 500. The body count might sound horrific to someone sitting in a foreign country but - this may sound callous - any number is going to be high in India. It is really [annoying] when foreigners sitting in other countries read stuff and make stupid comments. Can I say that the entire US is racist based on one incident I read in the paper? A young black girl was sentenced to jail for pushing a hall monitor at school while a white girl who burned down a house was let go with a "stern" warning. That proves it, America is a racist country! It seems that blacks can be hunted and lynched anywhere by the majority at a whim and it will be allowed.
Jayant Patel (May 14, '07)

Re Asian ports still open to terror [May 11]: Alan Boyd has woven a thin web of this and that based mainly on the Israeli-based Institute for Counter-Terrorism's report on al-Qaeda capability for attacking maritime targets in Asia which it deems that continent's "soft underbelly", the general lines of which are a forceful fit into a tight corset of logic which has al-Qaeda one step ahead of anything security forces may devise to protect Asian ports. Such thinking transforms al-Qaeda into a demon of mythological might and proportions. This said, al-Qaeda or now its many avatars is not something to underestimate. Yet the only Asian example that Boyd cites is in the Philippines: in the waters of the southern island of Palawan, which falls into the "foco" of a long-standing Muslim insurgency by Filipino Muslims otherwise known as Moros. It is precisely in these islands that the American military, alongside its Filipino counterpart, is actively waging war against the Moros. So, little wonder that the American forces become targets of attack. Boyd reminds us of the vulnerability of the Strait of Malacca. Fair enough. However, this example is ill-chosen, the more especially that these waters have a centuries-old tradition of sea-jacking, rape, and rapine. And that tradition obtains still in 2007. The Israeli report belongs more to the world and geography of George Clooney's Syriana. The Philippines is at risk owing to heavy American military involvement - Sri Lanka too, but for reasons specific to it and not to Muslim terrorists. September 11 [2001] has been a wake-up call, and Asian port countries that Boyd lists have taken the necessary precautions. To what degree these countries have let down their guard is a matter of in whose eye the Israel counterintelligence analysts find the mote.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 11, '07)

Re Al-Qaeda message aimed at US living rooms by Michael Scheuer (May 10): In his latest videotaped interview, al-Qaeda's deputy chief Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri applauds the US black civil-rights leader and fellow Islamic "struggler and martyr", Malcolm X. He quotes him as saying: "We are non-violent with people who are non-violent with us, but we are not non-violent with anyone who is violent with us ... Any time you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something you have to do for yourself. The price of freedom is death." Dr Zawahiri would no doubt much prefer Malcolm X to his 1960s contemporary, Martin Luther King, who, as a Christian, was a strong advocate of non-violent resistance in whatever the circumstances. There was absolutely no place in King's thinking for the Islamic equivalent of a violent jihad to break the seemingly impenetrable bonds of racial and religious oppression. However, when Dr King proclaimed that America's involvement in Vietnam had made it "the leading purveyor of violence in the world", he would have been in good company with today's al-Qaeda. The important question now is: Can the Muslim world - including al-Qaeda - take its struggle for justice to "the leading purveyor of violence in the world" by dramatizing the evil of injustice through non-violent resistance? Can it follow in the footsteps of Dr King, who believed that the pursuit of violence at any time is morally wrong; that God (or Allah) and the moral weight of the universe are against it; that violence is self-defeating; and that only the truth can break the endless cycle of revenge? Ultimately, non-violent resistance is something that is far more courageous than the Christian and Muslim soldiers who die on the battlefield of "the war on terror". It is more courageous than those who advocate violence, for they carry weapons of destruction for their own self-defense - or for martyrdom - and for the indiscriminate mass murder of innocent civilians.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia (May 11, '07)

What a delightful article, Zugzwang, or, White to play and lose [May 10] by Allen Quicke. I enjoyed reading it utterly. Did he really mean to say, "White House to play and lose," but inadvertently said, "Zugzwang, or, White House to play and lose"? As a very capable chess player, I know the feeling of utter frustration, dejection and helplessness in facing defeat as well as the inability or courage to see the enemy in the eyes. Sir, may I add few "Zugzwangs" and point out that pain and humiliation in checkmate is worst than experienced in toothache, headache, backache, stomach ache and the last one called "rectum ache" in Hindi. President G W Bush has suffered the most ignominious defeat in Iraq and has fallen flat on his backside with a big thud; unable to get up and see his wounded face in the devil's mirror ...
Saqib Khan
UK (May 11, '07)

Spengler is bashing Arabs again [Are the Arabs already extinct?, May 8]. What else is new? So, for the record, no, Arabs and Islam are not becoming extinct. How absurd! It's funny, in a tragic sort of way, to read this guy Adonis (and sadder still [that] he is taken seriously as a poet) about Islam's incapacity to modernize. The assumption is twofold, that "modern" is good, and that Christian fundamentalists are not equally backward-thinking. That Muslims are somehow not free while Christians are is simply idiotic and pure sophistry. Colonial history will speak to the particulars of the Arabic language and its evolution (and I'm not expert) but the notion of modern pan-Arabism came with [Gamal Abdel] Nasser ... That modern Arabic isn't, as spoken on the street, the same as classical Arabic is well known, but similar examples could be found in India and South Asia. The point is that Spengler, and a host of other Western conservatives, never tire of singling out Islam for hatred. Last year in Europe, so a recent report noted, there was not a single terrorist attack by an Islamic group. But does that stop the fearmongering of the Western governments (especially the UK and USA)? No - nor does it stop the election of [Nicolas] Sarkozy in France, a rabid racist hardliner. Articles like this one from Spengler are just more hate-mongering and pander to the fears of those less informed. The Christian god (per a letter writer) is just as authoritarian as Allah. Fear is part of Christian orthodoxy as well as Islamic. Not to mention Judaic. The Spenglers of the world will be extinct long before Arabs - mercifully.
John Steppling
Lodz, Poland (May 11, '07)

Saqib Khan [re letter, May 10]: My letter [May 9] seems to have hurt your feelings and I regret it. I consider myself a Muslim, albeit an atheist one. As you said, Islam is a way of life as much as it is a religion. I was brought up in and submitted against my will to the former but I have never followed the latter. My reference was to the religious aspect of Islam, that is, the relation between human beings and their Creator as described in the Koran. The content of the book consists of the words spoken by God as reported by the Prophet Mohammed. From start to finish, God tells you what to do and what not to do. He promises to reward you with all kinds of sweets if you follow what he says, but if you don't, he threatens to submit you to the most horrific forms of torture for an eternity to come. If that's not dictatorship, I don't know what is. If there is a single verse in the Koran that asks you to love God, rather than fear him, I would be very grateful if you could point it out to me. As for the relation between science and the Koran, that's a tricky matter. I didn't say that the Koran itself was against scientific inquiry, but it is a fact that it is being used and it has been used in history - Ibn Rushd (Averroes) is an obvious example that comes to mind - by Muslim rulers and the guardians of the faith to silence intellectuals who think outside its frame of reference. The editors of ATol cut out a few lines from my previous letter to keep it short, in which I gave examples about what passes for science in the Arab world of today. On most Arab state televisions - I saw the same thing on a television channel that airs a daily program on Islam, here in Perth - you can watch scientific documentaries produced in Europe ... on [Charles] Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection in which the commentaries are replaced by the voice of a very famous Egyptian actor reciting verses from the Koran and enjoining us to marvel at the creation of God. Weather forecasts on these same channels finish with the words "Only God knows". In Arab capitals, it's a great challenge to find a scientific journal; however, you can buy all kinds of pseudoscientific magazines and books that tell you how the Koran speaks about black holes, the theory of relativity, Alzheimer's disease and whatnot; in sum, science as a twisted interpretation of divine poetry. Philosophy is banned from all Arab universities. Bookstores in Arab countries are full of books with such titles as "Islamic Biology", "Islamic Chemistry", "Islamic Physics", Islamic any other science you can think of, in which formulas are preceded and followed by Koranic verses and other sayings of the Prophet. And I can go on and on. Arabs will never shake up the sorry state in which they have been vegetating for quite a few centuries now until the day they embrace secularism and put back Islam to where it should belong: the religious sphere of the individual ... Mind you, unlike Spengler and Adonis, I don't blame Islam for everything that goes bad in the Arab world but I do think that it is one of the main reasons why there is no Arab equivalent of Hugo Chavez, if you see what I mean.
Daniel Mazir
Perth, Australia (May 11, '07)

As a Malaysian Chinese who, along with so many of my fellow suffering non-Malay compatriots, is being systematically subjected to the unenviable, brutal, institutionalized racist "apartheid" perpetrated by the so-called "moderate" (as trumpeted by most of the "enlightened" Western world) but, in essence, unabashed fascist, feudalistic, corrupt, scandalous, racist-to-the-hilt fundamentalist-Islamist-Malay evil regime, I cannot but agree more with the points raised in Wong Chin Huat's The political revival of Malaysia's Anwar [May 10], especially with his emphasis on Anwar [Ibrahim]'s past extremist endeavors. The [leopard] never loses its spots, so says a famous proverb. Throughout this almost 50 years of pathetic rule of UMNO (United Malays National Organization), the non-Malays have learned, through bitter experiences, that these UMNO dropouts, as if they have suddenly found their consciences by trying to project a more progressive outlook on issues relating to race, are merely politically-expediently maneuvering in a feverish attempt to get back to the pinnacle of power. This is by no means a deliberate smear on a particular isolated personality; the case portrayed by one Tenku Razaleigh Hamzah is one clear example in mind. Mind you, there are countless other past bad experiences deemed too lengthy to mention. The non-Malays are now quickly coming to an infallible conclusion that the Malays are simply not interested in building a genuinely fair and equal Malaysian Malaysia, as opposed to a Malay/Islamist-supremist Malaysia, even though the top Malay leadership will consistently deny it as a routine public relations exercise. It may now come to an unfortunate juncture that the non-Malays may be forced to rise up to demand an autonomous, if not entirely independent, entity (how and by what means we have not pondered over yet) out of reach of the evil claws of UMNO in order to salvage our agonies and misfortunes.
Angry Chinese-Malaysian (May 10, '07)

Is the political revival of Anwar Ibrahim a turning point in the history of Malaysia, which on August 31 will celebrate its half-century of independence? Reading Wong Chin Huat [The political revival of Malaysia's Anwar, May 10], the reader is given to think so. Prison, strange as it may sound, has served Ibrahim well. Internationally he is a star of stars: a sojourn in Germany, and a stint at Oxford. Arab countries consult him, paying him handsomely for his advice. Although he is barred from active political life in Malaysia at present, he has begun breathing new life into his own Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) or People's Justice Party as an adviser. Seizing the opportunity, he has broken with his past during which he vigorously enforced positive discrimination in favor of ethnic Malays to the disadvantage of Chinese- and Indian-Malaysians. He is now calling for a tabula rasa which will grant equity, employment, and education to all, and not simply to the bumiputera or "children of the dust", almost exclusively ethnic Malays. This is proving a drawing card among ethnic Chinese and Indians as well as liberal and progressive Malays open to a new vision of the future. It may even appeal to the captains of a sluggish economy. Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP) extolling affirmative action for ethnic Malays in the late 1960s, resulting in race riots, has become, if we are to believe the Center for Public Policy's recent study, not only a charade but also a huge drain on the public coffers, which is a litmus test for a once vibrant but now sluggish economy. The dominant UMNO [United Malays National Organization] party, which has held on to power for a half-century, nurses the collective illusion that it has a blank check for another 50 years in power. That in itself has an odor of old glory and flummery. UMNO has come to believe that the NEP and an economy which had the trappings of the First World is a right and not a privilege ... Anwar Ibrahim's political revival is a perceptible outward sign that something else is blowing in the wind. His stay in prison has not tainted him; quite the contrary. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who helped send him there, is an example of how easily it is to send a political leader off to dotage. The current prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, has not navigated Malaysia's choppy political waters skillfully. And so the future looks bright indeed for the resurrection of Anwar Ibrahim as political leader, one who calls for racial unity and harmony and new economic prosperity.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 10, '07)

In Allen Quicke's comment Zugzwang, or, White to play and lose [May 10] we are treated to the left's delight at American failure in Iraq. Mr Quicke writes, "White [the US] should go home and attend to his own affairs. If he does, he will not be bothered by Black [al-Qaeda-Iraqis-bad-people] again." Evidently Mr Quicke has been asleep for the last six years. The United States was attacked on September 11 [2001]; we were not at war with [the] Afghanistan of the Taliban; in fact we had spent billions of dollars on weapons to allow the people of Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet invasion, only to be stabbed in the back with a level of treachery that would shame the devil. As for al-Qaeda, they have been attacking the US since the first attack on the World Trade Center [in New York City] in 1993; their latest attack on the USS Cole in October of 2000 had not even been responded to when they attacked again on September 11 [2001]. Mr Quicke should read some of the things the Wahhabi-jihadists say they have planned for the world, he might not be that happy with American failure in Iraq. George Bush's policies have been completely incompetent in Iraq; however, US failure to set up a decent government in Iraq will be a disaster for the people of Iraq and its neighbors and the world. When the US leaves and the Iraqi civil war starts for real, the world will see ethnic cleansing on a level to make the Nazis look like naughty schoolboys. As for the US ability to play geopolitical chess, Mr Quicke claims we have played poorly the last 50 years. Granted the US has made its share of mistakes in the last 50 years; however, it was the US that stopped the Soviet Union, one of the greatest evils in the history of the world, a government that killed more than 30 million of its own citizens. Mr Quicke seems to take great delight in the American failure in Iraqi, pointing and laughing, telling the US, your end of the boat is sinking. However, when Mr Quicke's feet begin to get wet, he will begin to sing a new song, if al-Qaeda have not chopped his head off already.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (May 10, '07)

You are in effect parroting George W Bush's "you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists". I am with neither and take absolutely no delight in any of this farcical and tragic "war on terror" that the world has been dragged into by people - Osama bin Laden, Paul Wolfowitz, Dennis O'Connell, et al - who subscribe to such nonsense. - Allen Quicke

Re China, US in search of a level playing field [May 10] by Benjamin A Shobert: The name of this article is completely misleading. It implies the two countries are working together to resolve an issue when the contents describe, as usual, the US side unilaterally trying to dictate what other countries should do. I have no objection to whatever news analysis or opinions are presented in Asia Times [Online]; this is what makes this website attractive. But the editor should probably review the content of the articles and make sure the author [does] not try to mislead with nice-sounding titles.
HalfBlind (May 10, '07)

All articles that appear on Asia Times Online are carefully scrutinized before they are approved for publication, and then they go through at least two editing processes. Normally it is the editors, not the writers, who come up with the "nice-sounding titles" at the end of this procedure. - ATol

Re Spengler's Are the Arabs already extinct? [May 8]: "To Christians and Jews, God is not a monarch who presents a final and indisputable truth, but a lover whose face is hidden - perhaps the most fruitful subject for poetry in human history." What nonsense! "Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool ..." (Isaiah 66:1). That sounds appreciative of divine majesty to me. You will find much more on divine majesty and transcendence in Jewish and Christian writings (read the Psalms, the Prophets, the apophatic theology of the Catholic mystics, or the classic hellfire-and-damnation Protestant preachers - Jonathan Edwards is perhaps the most famous). Likewise, there is much on divine ... love, especially in the Sufi poets, in Islamic writers. As usual, Spengler has sliced and diced his "evidence" to fit the Procrustean bed of his prejudices. Adonis is only one man, even if he apparently is the Arab equivalent of a self-hating Jew. Arabs are not extinct, in spite of the best efforts of G W Bush and other anti-Semites of the Arab-hating variety. Nonetheless, editors, please keep publishing his [Spengler's] crapola: non-Westerners need to know what "educated" opinion in the West has in mind for them.
Lester Ness
Kunming, China (May 10, '07)

A comment [by Jayant Patel, letter, May 9] noted that Hindus had to flee from Kashmir. What about the Muslims in Tamil-dominated regions in Sri Lanka? Africa is an example of this also - irrespective of the religions or ethnicities of the various groups involved. Northern Ireland violence is also due to the British - masters at this process - use of this process right in their own back yard. This happens in civil wars, when a minority group is attacked by the majority. We are seeing this take place in Iraq, where different groups are attacking minorities - depending on where they are - whether Muslim or not. The commentator also failed to mention Gujarat. it seems that Indian Muslims can be hunted anywhere by the majority at whim and it [will] be allowed ...
May Sage
USA (May 10, '07)

The letter written by Daniel Mazir [May 9] brought a foul taste to my mouth ... Islam is a comprehensive concept of life and not merely a religion describing the relation between man and his creator, not, certainly, based on fear but on his mercy, love, kindness, beneficence, rewards and blessings in this world and in the hereafter depending upon our conduct and deeds in life ... The Koran has repeatedly urged Muslims (at least 756 times) to [meditate] over the creation of the universe and to study how the heavens and earth and all that [is] below the earth has been made subservient to man. Therefore, there has never been a conflict between faith and reason, invention and discovery in Islam. We Muslims firmly believe that Islam is a complete way of life and science is regarded as a subset of the larger set of Islam; the two are inseparable. As a matter of fact the Koran invites us again and again to reflect on his creation and investigate the world Allah has created in order to benefit from the bounties and more fully appreciate his glory and mercy ...
Saqib Khan
UK (May 10, '07)

Re North Korea and the poor man's bombs [May 9]: North Korea is a nuclear power. Now Bertil Lintner tells us it has an arsenal of "poor man's bombs": chemical- and biological-weapons stockpiles, which makes Pyongyang look more like a big bad wolf than a country which is on the qui vive against external aggression. Has Lintner forgotten that North Korea is technically in a state of war? Has Lintner also forgotten that during the brutal war in Korea (1950-53), not only was the northern part of a divided Korea flattened by aerial bombardment but it was equally a laboratory for chemical warfare? Is it inconceivable to Lintner that Pyongyang has a right like any nation to assure its own defense? North Koreans have long memories like the proverbial elephant of those sad and sorry days. Although an armistice has held for the last 54 years, the regime in Pyongyang is on its guard lest the 38,000 United States troops cross the 38th Parallel again as they did in 1950. To us, this may sound far-fetched, but to the leadership in North Korea, the threat is as real as though the clock had been turned back a half-century and some. Such fears [will] only be calmed by a peace treaty signed by Washington, Seoul, Beijing, and [Pyongyang].
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 9, '07)

Spengler's [May 8] piece Are the Arabs already extinct? is interesting and thought-provoking. I don't agree with some of the author's premises and conclusions but there is a lot of truth in what he wrote. To my knowledge, this is the first time he [has quoted] from and discussed the ideas of an Arab intellectual, although the Middle East is one of his favorite topics. I was born and grew up in a so-called Arab country - Algeria - which I left in the mid-1990s. I don't agree with Adonis and Spengler that Arabs are going extinct; the reality is, there are no Arab people and there have never been any, even by Spengler's definition of them, except for a few tribes in Saudi Arabia. The "Arab nation" is a myth created by Gamal Abdel Nasser with his Iraqi and Syrian Ba'athist friends. Nobody speaks academic Arabic - that is, the language of the Koran - outside the elite minority of the Arab world to which Adonis belongs. If two peasants, one from Algeria or Morocco and the other from Egypt or Syria, happened to [meet] - a very rare occurrence - they would be totally unable to communicate without an interpreter, despite the fact that they both call themselves "Arabs" and they both speak "Arabic". Academic Arabic is to the Arabs of today what Latin is to modern Europeans. There is no contemporary Arabic literature to speak of simply because Arabic is a dead language. The dictators [who] keep Arab people under their boots, with the help of their Western masters, use the language of the Koran as a political tool to whip the masses into submission; popular languages or dialects (a language is a dialect with a state and a police) are systematically denied access to schools and other institutions, thus confining cultural production to oral expression, itself battered by relentless censorship. Worse still, these same dictators, with the help of Islamic fundamentalists, cultivate the image of Arabic as a sacred language spoken by God himself and they use the Koran as a means of [sowing] ignorance and shield the population from very dangerous things like science, philosophy and critical thinking. "Everything you need to know is in the Koran," repeat endlessly the religious "doctors" of al-Azhar [in Cairo] and other Arab universities. There is no scientific literature in the Arab world today. But there is a very flourishing publication of pseudo-science ... I totally agree with Spengler that Islam treats God as a dictator rather than an object of love. As a friend of mine (a devout Muslim) put it: "The Koran threatens you at every comma." Western "analysts" who talk endlessly about 72 virgins as the motivation for the actions of jihadists are totally out of the mark. Let's put aside the fact these motivations are above all political and nationalist. From a purely religious point of view, the jihadists' actions have absolutely nothing to do with hope but everything to do with fear, that is, fear of hell. There is next to nothing in the jihadist literature (of which I am familiar) about virgins and paradise. But man, its descriptions of hell make Dante look like a very gentle kindergarten boy. If the Koran said that there was no sex in heaven, these guys would still be willing to sacrifice themselves just to avoid going to hell ...
Daniel Mazir
Perth, Australia (May 9, '07)

In Spengler's Are the Arabs already extinct? (May 8), there is a great deal of sensationalism in the title. It does not surprise me that many so imbued in multiculturalism (as a social objective) do not detect the hyperbole. One can fill in the blank: if the X people do not maintain the X culture or perform a certain task that represents or strengthens the X culture, then the X people are becoming extinct. X can be Cherokee, Tibetan, Jewish, Arab, Han, or German, for examples. If the X people morphed into Z people, would the X people be the same as dead people? Would the new Chinese rail system to the Tibetan region cause the Tibetan people to become extinct? When the offspring of the now extant Tibetan people all morphs into Hans, would such offspring have become extinct? Will the children of Tiger Woods and his blond wife be the same as dead? Has Dwight Eisenhower ever lived? The wolf is far less opportunistic than the coyote, so the former faces extinction while the latter prospers. If some wolves become opportunistic and prosper, start to dominate and to represent their species, would the wolf have become extinct since a canine that is opportunistic cannot be regarded as a wolf? I suppose an ecologist may indulge in the vicarious thrill of marveling at the highly dignified wolf that refuses to be more opportunistic; he then declares that a canine that is opportunistic is not dignified enough to be a wolf and is not a wolf, so the wolf has become extinct after it has become opportunistic; an opportunistic wolf cannot be happy. That the Arabs (or Cherokees or Tibetans) are becoming extinct makes about the same nonsense.
Jeff Church
USA (May 9, '07)

Re Are the Arabs already extinct? [May 8]: The Arabs are alive and become reactive; it is absurd fallacy to say that they are already extinct ... For Islam, entropy has been at work since the 16th century, but it was at the end of 18th century (with [Napoleon] Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt) that the Muslims began to become conscious of the danger that they were being overtaken by the West and the trend became infectious. It was this lateness, this lag that allowed a number of countries belonging to Islamic territories to be colonized. These days a Muslim is no longer an individual of the "yes" but has become a person of "no", the one who accumulates hatred because he is victimized, cornered, terrorized, demonized and massacred in hundreds and thousands by President [George W] Bush and [Prime Minister] Tony Blair in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya. He is the one who refuses to be intimidated and is no longer active but reactive; he has come out of its slumber and born again except for the boot-licking pro-Western leaders. The advent of liberal democracy and secularization has done nothing but help the spread of lewdness, immorality, authoritarianism, corporatism and the re-emergence of American imperialism and colonization. But I do agree that Muslims must also detach themselves from this stereotype notion and a kind of entropy of mind that all is good in my garden and everything bad in my neighbor's garden, and that is only possible if the West leave us alone to live in peace, stop inflicting us with their imperialistic designs, policies and desire to regain re-colonize their lost empires. The Arabs must get industrialized and learn to stand on their own feet rather depend upon Westerners' skills even to run their toilets. The West wants that the Muslim world adopts its values and prevails, but why should we follow Western culture and their way of life that is decadent, immoral, materialistic, selfish, and racist? And why should I vote for a poet with little knowledge and mischief in mind, an opportunist looking to win a prize and plenty of US dollars?
Saqib Khan
UK (May 9, '07)

This is in reference to the article Lessons from Kashmir and Xinjiang by Chan Akya (May 5). There is a terrible difference between the reactions of the two countries that Mr Akya overlooks. While China flooded its problem area with outside Chinese, Hindus were the victims of Kashmiri Muslim militants. Apparently if you target a Jew or a Christian in Israel or elsewhere, you are an evil terrorist, but do the same to a Hindu in Kashmir and it's no big deal. Thousands of Hindus have been forced to flee Kashmir (it's called ethnic cleansing) and live as refugees in their own country, a plight that escapes the attention of the likes of Mr Akya and other Western correspondents. Mr Akya refers to human rights but not in reference to the human rights of Hindus living in their own country. If you are a Hindu, or a person with a heart, dwell on this a bit.
Jayant Patel (May 9, '07)

Consumerism, credit, debit cards, [and] consumer financing have added to the climate problem, affecting [the poor 90%] most miserably. The overspending, highest-consuming, bloating middle classes are target markets to serve neo-cons' evil designs of global economic and political hegemony. [The middle and upper classes] should play a global role to cut their consumerism [and] grandiosities to such limits that neo-cons are decimated and world remains a better world for all and equal.
Zeenate Jehan
Karachi, Pakistan (May 9, '07)

The hottest thing in Thailand these days is a supposedly Buddhist good-luck-charm pendant called Jatukam that comes in at least four models called "Super Rich", "Super Millionaire", "Immediately Rich", and "Money Flowing In". In addition to money, the devotee is promised superman-like invulnerability to traffic accidents. You may line up at the temple at Nakhon Si Thammarat to buy one for 100 baht [about US$3] or so or you may buy them from dealers for thousands of baht but you will need a little bit of luck just to buy luck because demand exceeds supply at the moment by an order of magnitude. There is no better business than religion these days in Thailand and it has gotten the intellectuals to wonder whether the Jatukam is religion, superstition or scam, although one may argue that there is little that separates these three apparently diverse areas of human endeavor.
Cha-am Jamal
Thailand (May 9, '07)

Spengler's Are the Arabs already extinct? (May 8) is informative but significantly problematic, with some elements of ignorance. The core of the article is that the Arabs are extinct because of their religion, Islam, and Adonis should receive a Nobel Prize because Fouad Ajami and Thomas Friedman have introduced him to Western culture. If I take out the previous two names as insignificant, because both individuals are biased and apologists for monopoly capitalism, whose thinking does not lead to revolutionary changes towards better freedom, then the essential task becomes to break down Spengler's analysis. The Nobel Prize should not be given to individuals who attack and offend other people's beliefs and cultures, because this attacking act is a violation of human rights. That is to say, awards should be given to individuals who make the world better off without making others worse off, an idea usually called Pareto optimality. Having stated this fact, the idea that the Arabs are not interested in freedom is not really accurate. The Arabs are Bedouin people and as such they are interested in being free. Arabs reject restrictions from above, particularly from a foreign occupier who is interested in controlling them. This behavior explains the reason why the Arabs have been fighting for centuries for their freedom from imperialist occupiers. It follows that dictatorship is not a part of their cultural system, and it is reasonable to state that the authoritarian system has been imposed on them by foreign occupiers. The Arab intellectual system, even the one that is grounded in Islam, is revolutionary in that it is able to interpret and change the world ... For the Arabs, the upturn will come, particularly when the fetter on their creative capacity, which is imposed by monopoly capitalism and its Arab cronies, will be removed. These internal and external fetters are sabotaging the Arab creativity and development, and Professor Samir Amin's writings are crucially important for the West and other peoples to understand the consequences of imperialism on occupied peoples. Some of these consequences are misery, alienation, death, and complete destruction which in turn creates more killing to inflict harm on others, and Iraq provides an excellent example of such a cause-and-effect logical sequence. Spengler should nominate Professor Amin for the Nobel Prize, because Amin's writings generate positive changes and development for the Arabs and the world.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (May 8, '07)

[Re Are the Arabs already extinct?, May 8] In latching on to the poetry of Adonis, Spengler is thrilled to change the subject from the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who've been sacrificed on the altar of Christian and Jewish religiosity that the US has used as a smokescreen for grabbing Iraq's oil wealth. Spengler thinks he's able to horrify his readers by talking about suicide bombers, but he in effect makes them heroes for standing up to a colossus whose politicians, with few exceptions, are loath to see their own offspring serve in Iraq but are delighted to hoodwink other young Americans into carrying out their grandiose and deluded strategy.
Harald Hardrada
Chapel Hill, North Carolina (May 8, '07)

Spengler [Are the Arabs already extinct? , May 8]: I wonder if you are able get the concept of "desperation" through your ... brain, sir. For the last time, people blow themselves up not because they are Arab, or Middle Eastern, or because they are Muslim. Human beings kill themselves because they are desperate and hopeless in the face of and under oppression, and certainly not because they "hate us and our way of life" or they "hate democracy and freedom". And certainly not because of a lost creative impetus or lack of imagination. It takes a creative mind to live and survive under tyranny. "Our way of life" and the imposition of our [US] version of democracy and "freedom" [have] caused [incalculable] suffering and oppression on a worldwide scale. Truly a lack of imagination on our part and a clear example of how in fact, American Idol notwithstanding, the West is dead culturally and has been on the decline. Spreading McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and Nike is the best we've done in the past 100 years or so: that's our version of democracy and freedom, where everyone is free to wear Nike's latest "Air" and eat a Big Mac while sucking down a Coke. How banal and boring. Beyond that, war all the time (in the name of freedom) and the free market (free subsidies) seem to be the great 20th/21st-century contributions of the West to the rest of the world, and it does not take a lot of imagination to see how one hand washes the other. I wonder: Why do they hate us?
Jubin Ajdari
Los Angeles, California (May 8, '07)

Are the Arabs already extinct? [May 8] is typical [of] Spengler's exercise in escapism, as well as a pointedly Pipesian hallucination. He needs to be reminded that Islam incorporates more non-Arabs than the ones in the Middle East. To state that "nothing less than the transformation of Islam from a state religion to a personal religion is required to enter the modern world" is mendacious at best. Would he apply the same reasoning for the existence of Israel as "a religious state"? ...
Armand De Laurell (May 8, '07)

M K Bhadrakumar's interesting analysis Why Iran spurned a US handshake (May 8) needs further elaboration concerning the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The brutal facts are that the Bush administration has sat on the sidelines for the last six years, and decidedly on the side of Israel, continuing to damage the national-security interests of the United States in the Middle East. Second, Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice's eleventh-hour forays to the area [are] nothing more than the Bush administration tradition of mistaking motion for action. What is desperately needed is a dramatic change of policy by the Bush administration -investing all in the Middle East peace process by making it a top priority. Furthermore, because of its special relationship with Israel, it can afford to become an honest broker between the antagonists. Without that change and real US leadership, the international community and the regional actors can do nothing. The reality on the ground is that Israel can do anything it wants and the Palestinians will continue to bear the brunt of their actions. And the Arab peace initiative is in real danger of being put in the dustbin of history like so many other Middle Eastern peace initiatives.
Fariborz S Fatemi
McLean, Virginia (May 8, '07)

Re Why Iran spurned a US handshake [May 8]: M K Bhadrakumar has a flair for sizing up that moment. Slice it or dice it, up or down, at Sharm al-Sheikh like two ships in the night Washington and Tehran signaled each other. Iran seized the initiative by showing up in the Egyptian resort, for a place at the table with the Arab world, to stake its claim as a player in Iraq. No matter the frustrations surrounding the war in Iraq and Iran's development of its nuclear industry, and despite the puritanical ideology and the nationalisms Iran and the United States promote, the vicissitudes of the moment are preparing the ground for a meeting of the ways between a so-called "axis of evil" and the bewildered and weakened Bush White House. If President [Mahmud] Ahmadinejad can kiss the gloved hand of his schoolteacher, which raised the hackles among Iran's ultra-orthodox Muslims, Tehran will surely show find a way to shake Secretary of State Condi Rice's hand.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 8, '07)

Recently there have been deliberate efforts in China to promote the teaching of Confucius at home and abroad, with special attention in the home front. It does not take much intelligence to see that the country is pursuing the tempering effect of Confucian philosophy, in particular social values and personal morality. There are other benefits too. Students will reach deeper levels of the Chinese language by learning the classical texts. Study of Confucianism also provides an alternative to Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. After all, many a religious war was started by religion. If the study of Confucius means "moving backward" as alleged by Kent Ewing in his article Racing ahead, China resurrects its past (May 8), then many countries in which these religions thrive have been all along living in the past. Kent Ewing suggests "political and social reform" to cure the myriad problems in China. This writer submits that this is necessary but not sufficient. Just look at the prisons filled beyond capacity in the cities of countries around the world which are "politically and socially reformed". Resurrection of Confucianism in China and for the Chinese people is a wise move indeed.
S P Li (May 8, '07)

In US and China tug at ASEAN unity by Michael Vatikiotis (May 8), the content does not substantiate the alleged role of the tug in the title. Vatikiotis advertises to the reader, "But the grouping is also being fragmented by intensifying US-China competition for regional influence, which is putting a premium on bilateralism with the big powers at the expense of ASEAN's ambition toward more regional multilateralism." For such "intensifying US-China competition", the tug, to lead to such fragmentation, two criteria must exist. First, the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] members must be obliged to choose either-or, and they must have the tendency to choose differently. While the author illustrated the many reasons for bilateralism at the expense of multilateralism, he does not demonstrate the alleged role of the tug in the fragmentation of ASEAN. Certainly, China and the USA vie for influence in Southeast Asia, but are the ASEAN members obliged to choose either-or? If so, do they necessarily tend to choose differently? Singapore just explicitly asked [US President George W] Bush to engage both China and Japan equally, as ASEAN members do not want to have to choose either China or Japan. Implicit, I believe, is China or the USA.
Jeff Church
USA (May 8, '07)

Syed Saleem Shahzad [An assault on the way Pakistan is ruled, May 8]: I appreciate your finding this terminology (oligarchy) in your article (if you have not stolen from someone else). I read your articles sometimes at ATimes and most of the time I found you chasing your own tail (repeatedly). Fact-finding is one thing and chasing your tail is different; I hope you appreciate the difference pretty soon.
Rahat (May 8, '07)

Re Henry C K Liu's report China's misguided 'experts' on the US [May 2]: Another outstanding report by Liu and one with serious implications. Wang Jisi is either incredibly naive or he has been compromised by his US "friends". [The United States of] America is not a homogenized nation; it consists of many different types of people of all races, colors, religions, education and income levels, and most of them could not find China on a map of the world. If Americans think about China at all it is usually in terms of ordering their next Chinese fast-food dinner - and even then they do not associate the food with the people who prepared it. If they are asked to actually think about China, most of them fear China, and most of them do not like China or Chinese people. Little or no connection is made with the purchasing of vast amounts of low-cost consumer products from China with the reality of those goods having been made in China. Only at the margin, if American workers believe they have lost jobs, does the fact of "Made in China" sink in. Jisi should be booted out of Peking University and the Central Party School - his views are dangerous to China, and if our leaders are relying on Jisi to understand America, then we are in big trouble. The US government and military have for many years been developing war plans for containing China and then for controlling China. These plans have been increased and many planning groups are now devoting considerable resources to these efforts. The American disdain for China and Chinese people is nothing new - many prominent American families prospered from selling opium to the Chinese in conjunction with their British cousins. These sellers of opium thought nothing of ruining the lives of millions of Chinese through opium addiction because they considered their customers to be sub-human. The heads of American multinationals active in China have put a pretty mask on their newest version of exploiting Chinese workers and exploitation of our raw materials while repatriating their profits back to America. These guys do not like China or Chinese any more than their American countrymen - but they sure like the money they can make here. The big crunch is coming soon over oil sources and oil supply routes. The US Navy fully intends to interdict our oil supplies. We must protect our sea lanes and also develop alternative shipping methods ... America will not easily give up its oil-based society, and this will lead to serious problems for China. The other issues between China and America pale in comparison.
Austin Atwell
Hangzhou, China (May 8, '07)

Re US holds Iranians as bargaining chips [May 5]: As the columnists pointed out, the hypocrisy of not considering aircraft carriers off the coast as threats or acts of war, but claiming an alleged role of Iranians in [improvised explosive devices] as acts of war, is astounding. The media also show no objectivity when [they don't] consider the seizure of Iranians as blatant kidnapping, the same as Iranian seizure of the British sailors. The factual reporting of Gareth Porter makes it clear that diplomacy cannot exist without good-faith compromises and without reciprocity.
Jim of Southern California
USA (May 7, '07)

Re Pyongyang shuffles military, not policies [May 5]: Yoel Sano wants us to imagine a North Korea guided by a military code that is not based on the welfare of its citizens and, by inference, sustained by the metaphysics of juche. Let's deal with reality. Technically, and in a shorthand history fashion, Pyongyang is in a state of war. An armistice agreement is in effect since hostilities ended in 1953. Memories of the Korean War remain fresh and very close to the surface among North Koreans. Books and graphic photos are readily available for anyone to look at of the brutal air campaigns of that war, which wrought much havoc and destruction to North Korea. Pyongyang has long suffered from isolation from the outside world and until recently from the United States' policies of cloaked hostility and regime change. Little wonder that the Kims, father and son, keep a strong standing army, and more than a million men at the 38th Parallel, fearful that the 38,000 United Nations forces under American command might one day again invade the North as [they] did under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur more than a half-century ago. This said, it does not necessarily follow that signs of slight but significant change [are] not taking place in North Korea. Sano, it seems, holds fast to a jaundiced belief that change will not come. He may think that North Korea is "sui generic", but if one has examples of communist countries with large standing armies and an array of top brass which nonetheless have changed to more peaceful pursuits. China comes easily to mind, but so does Vietnam, where the army has easily taken on the tasks of entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, Pyongyang might take this road, but it still lives under the cloud of a declared war and a long-standing armistice, which beg for a peace treaty. And that depends not only on North Korea but on China and the United States and South Korea. So as long as Washington drags its feet on ending the Korean War, Sano's dire thesis will hold. [Pyongyang watchers], like Kremlin watchers, see North Korea from afar and from articles, hearsay, rumor, and leaps of faith, for one thing is certain: intelligence on North Korea is not of the highest quality. Saying this, this is not to impugn Sano, but to take with a grain or two of salt that like the stars in the firmament, when it comes to North Korea, things [are] preternaturally fixed.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 7, '07)

Re Conferencing Iraq's future [May 4]: President [Mahmud] Ahmadinejad has welcomed recent talks with the Americans with a caution, saying, "If they want fair negotiations, Iran welcomes it, but if they think that talks will help them reach their goals which they could not do by pressure, it is another mistake." Ahmadinejad will not budge one quarter-centimeter from his position to go ahead with his country's nuclear ambitions. Iran, once called [part of an] "axis of evil" by G W Bush, meeting with Shitane-Azam, which the Iranians call the USA, and not saying a rude word to each other should have been a hilarious sight to watch. President Bush's policy in Iraq is submerged so deep in the ocean that he is seeking help from his enemy No 1, which always reminds me of a drowning man who would even grab his enemy's penis so tight … hoping that he would save his life and take him ashore. This time, it was [US Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice who met the man opposite, [Iranian Foreign Minister] Manouchehr Mottaki, and even sat next to him [at] the dinner table exchanging pleasantries. I wish they had gone for a swim in Sharm-al-Sheikh and saved each other from entering deep waters. The Bush administration hopes that this conference would also yield billions in aid pledges and agreements to waive Iraq's huge overseas debt without any strings attached, but Arab countries, especially Saudis, will demand that the Shi'a-dominated Iraqi government stop the barbaric slaughter of Sunnis and their expulsion by the butchering Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. The fact of the matter is that President Bush and [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair have lost this war and the sooner they admit it, [it will] be better for all parties and save further bloodshed. The oil-greedy invaders will have to leave Iraq and the insurgents are right to resist, but their methods are often so cruel to free their country from illegal occupation. General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded the international force in Bosnia, has written a book called Washington's War and compared insurgency to that of George Washington's forces in the American War of Independence on the similarities between the two conflicts. He said: "As Lord Chatham said, when he was speaking on the British presence in North America, 'If I was an American, as I am an Englishman, as long as one English man remained on American soil, I would never, never lay down my arms.'" The British used to call American insurgents "the bastards". General Rose has advocated [that] Tony Blair to be impeached for taking Britain to war in Iraq under false pretences. "To go to war on what turns out to be false grounds is something that no one should be allowed to walk away from," he said on BBC Radio 4. I wish that the good American people will never allow President G W Bush to walk away free after committing one of the most atrocious crimes of history; he must be impeached.
Saqib Khan
UK (May 7, '07)

[Re Why you pretend to like modern art, May 1] I tend to agree with Spengler's views on modern art, but I think he tends to confuse "creativity" with "genius". While it's true that "genius" is a rarity in human history, I believe that every human being not only is capable of "creativity", but that he or she exhibits this "creativity" on a daily, or rather nightly, basis. I remember having a dream in which I "fell in love" with a woman, experiencing the strong emotional feelings that one associates with infatuation. But, I asked myself, who was this woman? I didn't recognize her and had never encountered her, but then realized that I had, in fact, "created" her. Upon further reflection, I realized that "she" was probably a "creation" based on my idealized conception of the "perfect woman". After this I began to understand that our dreams are not peopled with only those whom we've encountered, but we are forever "creating" new characters to act in our mini-dramas that we call dreams. So, in effect, although every human being goes to sleep each night with the idea that he or she is now going to rest, just the opposite will occur. We will enter our "creative zone", so to speak, and during those peak episodes during sleep known as REMs (for the rapid eye movements that reflect our visualizing process while we "watch" our dreams unfold), our everyday, humdrum, non-genius brains will be feverishly working to "create" new beings and new situations that have all the attributes of great theater, including all the visceral and symbolic characteristics that we've come to expect from that art form. When they say that art is 5% creation and 95% perspiration, they're probably right on target, though 1% and 99% might be more on the mark. If very few of us have the strength and wherewithal to be "creative artists", in whatever field, due to the lack of appropriate nature or nurture, we should all be encouraged to hold our heads high nonetheless, as we're all doing our "creative thing" each and every night of our lives.
Richard Helfman
New York, New York (May 7, '07)

The decision as well as act of using the veto by US President G W Bush to deny the Democrats the Iraq-pullout-related bill to withdraw US forces from Iraq according to a time frame cannot be viewed as illegal or totally wrong, because Bush only resorted to his "legitimate" right, enshrined in the US constitution, to exhibit his veto power to stay intact where the US troops are now. Accordingly, the troops [will] not be called back as the US people demand. The US president has not decided to decide the matter by a referendum so as to involve the voters as well. The same way, if the Democrats place a resolution to restrain President Bush from embarking upon his next favorite target of Iran, that also would face the same fate in the Congress. Bush thus has indeed won the battle in the USA, but not in Iraq and Afghanistan, where destruction and genocide go unabated. If the Democrats really believe that the troops have to be pulled out of Iraq (as well as Afghanistan) and that the powers of the president deny the people's deputies [the ability] to fulfill the ambitions of the Americans, they should come forward to repeal the same veto law of the USA. Similarly, the Americans would serve the world cause for peace and prosperity better by realizing that veto is a dangerous tool being used even by the [five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council] only to advance the individual interests of member-states and, therefore, the veto by the Security Council members should be withdrawn for the sake of a just, peaceful world. Otherwise, the Democrats are just playing out a drama, enacted in connivance with the Republicans to advance the US interests in energy-rich Middle East. And the US invasion of Iran should be [in the] cards now. The US agenda of the so-called "new Middle East" would continue as long as the [Persian] Gulf energy resources are not brought under the Pentagon's control. "War threat" perceptions would keep the US continuing with its global agenda. That way there would be no place for any ray of hope for world peace and prosperity for human civilization.
Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal
New Delhi, India (May 7, '07)

Probably, [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair's legacy is the darkest chapter of modern history. A putrified, congenital liar and killer of 700,000 innocent Iraqis, he put Britain to shame, a man of lowest scruples who prided [himself on] being [US President George W] Bush's poodle. Britain cannot wash Blair's lies of WMD [weapons of mass destruction], illegal invasion of Iraq, engineering the worst sectarian war which only resulted in installing pro-Iranian Shi'as; the worst failure and quagmire, suiting Iran. [Britons] can now do one thing: try Bush-Blair in [the International Criminal Court] for their crimes to humanity.
Abdullah J Mohammad
Jehlum, Pakistan (May 7, '07)

Re Conferencing Iraq's future [May 4]: "'I didn't lecture him [Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem] and he didn't lecture me,' [US Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice said after the first cabinet-level talks in years between the countries" (Washington Post, May 3). So what positive results to secure peace, or some degree of cooperation, will evolve to avoid more tragic confrontations in the Mideast? I see no grand sea-change evolving, yet I try to view the Egypt conference with a reserved degree of hope as a globally shared morning sun rises over my lake. I note too that the three resident crows outside my window have started their ritual morning call, "Caw, caw." Another cynical commentary on a new day? I look again, for this morning I see only two black-feathered birds outside my window. Could it be that Condi Rice is the culprit - "eating crow" at the conference in Egypt? A small concession indeed, but better to eat crow than carry the albatross of a failed Bush policy wreaking havoc in Iraq? We who wait in the shadows, powerless, with but public protest and dissent representing us - who knows what will be the outcome? So far there's not much to crow about.
Beryl K
Minnesota, USA (May 4, '07)

Kaveh Afrasiabi's Conferencing Iraqi's future (May 4) is a fruitful view about the current summit in Egypt. I would like to stress the point that this summit is another error by the Bush administration. This administration has been occupying Iraq for its oil, [and its] policies and predictions have turned out to be totally wrong. Using this summit, the Bush administration intends to maintain its occupation of Iraq by pushing some Arab cronies to accept and support the imperialist occupation. This is a failed tactic, because it will be rejected by the Arabs and the Iranians. The sentiment in the Middle East is clear in that the US forces have to de-occupy Iraq, because the last four years have shown that the Bush administration cannot manage a colonial strategy in the Arab world. Nor can it achieve any success such as the reduction in sectarian killing by using brutal forces and building new Berlin (or Baghdad) Walls. This summit could have been very productive had the Bush administration decided to leave Iraq. The decision to leave Iraq to the Iraqis will give an opportunity to the competing Iraqi groups to settle their differences, and will give time for the disturbing foreign elements brought by the occupying imperialists to depart Iraq to their destinations such as the US, the UK, Iran and Afghanistan. The Bush administration could have used this conference to solve the Palestinian problem as well. I am stating that because I believe that the Bush administration has been sabotaging the peace process for the benefit of the military complex, a parasitic institution living on wars and blood. If the Bush administration is interested in protecting the Israelis, then this conference could have solved the problem. But these types of summits and conferences will not generate any positive result as long as the Bush administration is pursuing an old colonial policy in a modern period. Once again, [Pepe] Escobar's What Muqtada wants (May 4) is as usual absolutely correct, because Mullah Muqtada al-Sadr is indeed the kingmaker in Iraq. In fact, he has become the Prince of Time. US forces have to deal with him for a long time to come, and he will be hard to kill or to defeat, because he has the backing of the Iranian and the Arab mullahs. In the near future he will have better Iraqi forces in Iraq than Hezbollah; hence the fight for Iraq will be very bloody.
Adil Mouhammed
Illinois, USA (May 4, '07)

Re What Muqtada wants [May 4]: President [George W] Bush's style and limited vocabulary and grammar are still the same of victory, mission accomplished and now finishing the job in Iraq as the American surge into Baghdad gets nastier. He does not believe in leaving Iraq as he prolongs his illegal occupation for the greed of oil even if the country will plunge into the worst genocide in history if the sectarian violence spirals out of control and [gets] more ugly. This is the waiting game of Muqtada al-Sadr. He has become once again politically active and more powerful than [Prime Minister] Nuri al-Maliki and sees usefulness of playing a longer game since President Bush's political life has become difficult to sustain with the Democrats breathing over his neck all the time. Mr Sadr can see his opportunity, hoping that further bloodshed of the Sunnis is essential for the big prize to drop into his lap. He believes that he is a strongman but, I would say further, probably [is more of a] tyrant than Saddam Hussein [was] if unfortunately he succeeds in his ideological ambitions. For Iraq to remain a unified state, it needs a strong leader who has the interests of the whole country at heart, not merely dogmatic, narrow sectarian or regional concerns. Muqtada al-Sadr is a divisive force who would plunge Iraq into full-scale civil war and disintegrate it, as his ideology is anathema to the [Arab] Sunnis and Kurds. He is a man who will never be trusted by the Sunnis. He is no stranger to political violence as his father was murdered by the Saddam's gunmen. He has learned the effectiveness of unleashing stomach-churning brutality through his thuggish militia on his foes and Sunnis to achieve his own goal to rule Iraq. His black-clad Mehdi Army, which is more like butchers and gangsters, is indulging in an orgy of horrific slaughter of Sunnis and terrorizing the population to achieve Sadr's political agenda for establishing a Shi'a state in Iraq. In the last 12 months, the United Nations estimates that 36,000 Iraqis have teen killed in sectarian violence. There is no shortage of background factors: the support of foreign powers such as Iran and Syria for ... the competing groups, the failure of the coalition to plan a proper replacement for Saddam's moribund government infrastructure, and the desperation of the poverty-stricken, brutalized people he left behind. Iraq has become a slaughterhouse where on every street and corner you find blood flowing in the streets, abandoned bodies, smell of death and cries of torture hovering in the sky ... enough reasons to accuse G W Bush of committing the worst crime in history to illegally invade and occupy Iraq.
Saqib Khan
UK (May 4, '07)

[M K] Bhadrakumar's views on the situation in Turkey [The week that transformed Turkey, May 4] seem to be a little off from the facts on the ground. Mr Bhadrakumar is certainly entitled to his own opinions, but supporting them with seemingly incorrect facts is not serving much justice to your readers ... Anatolian Islamic tradition, which produced and still hosts the most liberal, human-based and tolerant versions of Islam ... although conservative, is very far away from the interpretation of the religion in ... the Arab world, which AKP's [ruling Justice and Development Party's] core base very adamantly follows, and very much likes to see much more [of] in Turkish social life. At the end of the day, Mr Bhadrakumar or his kids and grandkids are not the ones [who] will be living in Turkey in future, so I'd be very happy if he allows me and a lot of middle-class people [who share] similar concerns who flooded the streets in past weeks to have such concerns, instead of categorizing these crowds, which by the way consisted mostly of women ... as "elites", "secularists" or "Kemalists" ... These concerns are more than scare tactics of "elites" but have strong popular support. I suggest that if Mr Bhadrakumar is in dire need of making such assertive analysis about what's happening and [would] like to forecast ... developments in Turkey, he should follow the developments a little closer rather than relying on second-party information sources ... Democracy is a way of life, not just the ballot box. [People don't have] the right to call themselves democrats while not recognizing half of the society, women, as first-class, equal-standing citizens of social life, in the name of freedom of belief. In any strong and established democracy, [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and [Foreign Minister Abdullah] Gul would have been wiped out of the political scene based on their not-so-old comments about democracy such as "Democracy is a tool, not an aim for us" - I wonder, a tool for what? In a nutshell, Erdogan and Gul are paying for their irresponsible not-so-old political past, and unfortunately the country and the people have to pay with them.
Kagan Parlak
Adana, Turkey (May 4, '07)

M K Bhadrakumar parses The week that transformed Turkey [May 4] neither fine nor coarse. Questionable is the ascertainment that "public opinion itself disfavors the rude attempt by the military to play a role in the current crisis". Let's face it, the army is playing a role as it wraps itself in the legacy of Kemal Ataturk, to safeguard the separation of state and mosque. Bhadrakumar may see Prime Minister [Recep] Tayyip Erdogan as a stout challenger in the name of democracy to the country's armed forces, the main political parties, and civil society - in other words, the old crust of vested interests. Quite the contrary: Erdogan has openly challenged the gift that Ataturk bequeathed modern Turkey. He may be a crafty politician, but his intentions are there for everyone to see. Let me by way of analogy use Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim. Groomed in his student days in Islamic politics, he and his wife urged the adoption of Islamic dress and pious observance. Although he is thought of [as] liberal in economics [and] democratic in inclination, his movement has spawned adherence among the young towards militancy and a taste for a code of conduct more in tune with sharia law. This, methinks, is what secular Turks and, yes, the Turkish military see in Erdogan's parliamentary maneuvers. They see it in the headscarf that Erdogan's wife wears. Were he not in public life, the hijab would hardly raise a political eyebrow. But he isn't, and there's the rub, and the challenge to the tradition of separation of state and mosque which Ataturk willed [to] his nation. The fear - the justifiable fear - reminds me of the old tale of the camel in a sandstorm. At first he puts his nose in the tent, then a leg here, then another leg - until his hump and his body [are] in the tent, and all its inhabitants are out in the storm without shelter.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 4, '07)

Miriam Pemberton [The plane that won't die ... or fly, May 4] really doesn't get the joke about the Osprey. On the one hand, she demands a greater balance [in the US] between spending on domestic security and military solutions in terms of handling the nub of global terrorism directly. Then she goes on to attack the exact technologies that the US military could use to achieve this aim, namely fast aircraft with multi-terrain capability that have a long operational range. The decision to deploy the Osprey in Iraq is a masterstroke, as it allows the US military to engage terrorist bases that are outside the range of its current operations due to problems in moving ground troops with scarce and limited-range Cobra helicopters. She cites reports on the aircraft's unreliability, without pointing to the exact nature of such problems and the operating conditions of the simulations under which they came about. Last, Miriam also ignores the most important clue to how good the Osprey can be, namely that Dick Cheney tried to kill it. Given the Veep's record of intelligent assessments, his disapproval means something truly positive for the rest of the US.
Salt (May 4, '07)

Re Western media fade, new media rise in Asia (May 3) by Ioannis Gatsiounis: He mentions that there [was] no mention in the state media in Malaysia about the Holocaust on its 60th anniversary two years ago. If Gatsiounis checked the Indian media he would have found a similar disinterest [sic] despite the media being quite vibrant and free from state interference. What Westerners fail to understand [is] that others have had a different history. What may seem very important to the West is sometimes of no significance to others. They have their own narratives rooted in their own experiences. In the Indian subcontinent, for instance, calling someone "Hitler" just denotes a little tyrant, with very little negative meaning. This is borne out in the movies and ordinary conversations of Indians. Western sensibilities may be shocked by this, but that is the way it is. Let's face it, the world is a very large place. What happened 60 years back to a community you never knew or [never] will know is quite unimportant.
Zain (May 4, '07)

Salt's May 3 complaint about no response to his May 2 letter can only point to an "under cover" understanding between Salt and someone at ATol. And it may be time to inquire as to whether (a) Salt is an ATol plant; (b) Salt possesses incriminating photos of some of ATol's editors; (c) is Salt intending to invest several million dollars in ATol provided certain conditions are met? (d) or is Salt the owner of ATol and is using letter writing as a means to force charging ATol's readers' fees? (e) maybe Salt is really Spengler and this is his way of getting ATol to replace his photo montage with one showing him smoking a pipe. Wonder if ATol will change what is and has been part and parcel of its success just to please Salt? Or continue to be letter-peppered by Salt?
Armand De Laurell (May 4, '07)

While those photos of Salt's are a little embarrassing, the fact is that unlike most ATol readers who write in to complain about "sexy" ads or some other gripe, a few such as Salt (and, incidentally, Armand De Laurell) have tried to be helpful by offering suggestions on how we can simultaneously improve our revenue situation and make the website more satisfying and attractive to our most loyal readers. We are working on implementing some of these suggestions. Meanwhile, be assured that ATol will remain feeless and fearless. - ATol

Re Western media fade, new media rise in Asia [May 3]: Even after multiple readings, I am unsure as to whether Ioannis Gatsiounis is arguing that Al-Jazeera, and all other non-Western media, are motivated solely by anti-American sentiment; on balance, I think he probably is. Either way, his article fails to allow for the possibility that there is a middle ground between non-Western and anti-American analysis. It's this alternative perspective that Al-Jazeera, at least, seeks to present.
Teymoor Nabili
Anchor, Al-Jazeera English
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (May 3, '07)

Re Western media fade, new media rise in Asia [May 3] by Ioannis Gatsiounis: He starts with a subtle slant, already pre-characterizing Western media bias as a "myth". The rest of his piece is a labored attempt to justify that non-Western media [were and are] just not up to the task of being as good. Also he completely neglects to mention Indian media, where the print media historically have been free of government fetters, and now TV radio also is the same. Lost in the whole piece is the idea of Western bias being built into the very English language most non-Western intelligentsia use to communicate with each other. If Mr Gatsiounis is worried about the decline of Western media outlets, he can rest assured that it will take Asia a generation or two to mentally de-colonize and free itself of Western(ized) biases, regardless of who owns the paper (ATimes and a few others excepted! Mostly, anyway).
Karigar
USA (May 3, '07)

The evolution of news media everywhere in Asia relies on a combination of outside and local influences, traditions and attitudes, both good (see When 'foreign intervention' is welcome, Mar 21) and ill (see Philippines: Fanning the flames of war, May 2). Here in Thailand, we were sobered by a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists confirming that the Thai media, once among the freest, liveliest and most progressive in Asia, have been relegated by unrelenting censorship, government and corporate intimidation, and persecution of journalists to being among the world's 10 worst media-freedom "backsliders". Two other countries in Asia Times Online's coverage area - Pakistan and Azerbaijan - are also on the CPJ's "dishonor roll". - ATol

I'm a news hound obtaining most of my news here on the 'Net. I've found the finest journalism here on Asia Times [Online]. It's here on my desktop and read first before the other six news sources. Keep up the good work.
Ken Hark
Florence, Oregon (May 3, '07)

Re Rangel over trade policy [May 3]: Laudable as New York Congressman Charles Rangel's efforts as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to firm up labor-rights provisions in the pending FTA [free-trade agreement] with Panama and Peru, it is useful to acknowledge that for better or worse, free trade is a fundamental given for the United States. On this basic condition of capitalist economics, there is bipartisan accord, albeit with slight variations on the theme. Usually Democrats will doff a hat to their union base; Republicans to the demands of big business. On the whole as long as this status quo is unaffected, there is hardly a stir about labor laws that are floated by America's multinationals abroad. At home, it is another matter, and so Washington will tilt towards protectionism of sorts. Yet truth be told, union membership has steadily declined as America's economy has gone from manufacturing to services, and America's corporations had at first left union-strong northern states for non-union southern and southwestern states, and thereafter in quest of cheap labor abroad. And in spite of pro forma protests, unions have acquiesced. Globalization has brought outsourcing and investment of all industries across the board in China and now in India, leaving crumbs for the slowly impoverished working and middle classes in the United States, which has been gaining force especially since the Reagan administration took office a quarter-century ago. So although Rangel's endeavors deserve applause, one cannot help remembering the old French saw, "Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps" ("a single swallow does not announce a spring").
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 3, '07)

Thank God for Pepe Escobar's "unembedded" reporting on the infinite human tragedy that is modern-day Iraq, in Baghdad up close and personal (May 2). The evidence continues to mount to have US President George W Bush indicted at the United Nations' International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity. This is the very same court of justice that President Bush so cynically managed to evade throughout his entire presidency. It is the court where former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein should have been tried for his own crimes against humanity, but instead he was put before a Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi court that conveniently served as a prelude to his automatic execution. If Saddam Hussein [had gone] before the ICC he would have been alive today to testify against President Bush and his cabal of evangelical Christian apparatchiks [who] are diabolically bent on turning the Middle East into an End Time battle of Armageddon. President Bush took no heed of the late pope John Paul II, who repeatedly warned that the impending invasion of Iraq was "illegal and immoral". He took no heed of the greatest anti-war protests ever staged in human history, bearing witness to this post-Holocaust world's firm resolve in opposing the indiscriminate mass murder of innocents. He took no heed of the fact that the Muslim world saw the impending carnage as a sacred violation of its inalienable right to live in freedom from the forces of foreign occupation - especially in lands that are deemed as holy in accordance with Islamic tradition. And he took no heed of the warning given by the late Martin Luther King, who, on April 4, 1967, declared in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech: "If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over." Today, the Bush presidency has become totally poisoned. It has destroyed the deepest hopes of every single decent human being the world over - and the autopsy must read Iraq.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin
Canberra, Australia

The latest in Pepe Escobar's Roving in the Red Zone series, What Muqtada wants, is now online. - ATol

Kudos to Henry C K Liu for his great series China and Appeasement [see Part 3, China's misguided 'experts' on the US, May 2]. The general balance of US politics towards China is certainly one of hostility. The US leadership has little to gain and potentially much to lose from the emergence of any equal power. The best friends China has in the US foreign-policy establishment are probably people like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski (who is very hard on Russia, but relatively accommodating towards China), who, if their academic writings accurately reflect their beliefs, would prefer that the US foreign-policy aim at securing ... a favorable offshore balancing position like that of 18th-century Britain vis-a-vis the European continent, rather than the more unstable model of 19th-century Britain vis-a-vis Asia as is [at present] more the case. Unfortunately for China, such views are in decline in US foreign-policy circles, despite the recent troubles of the most prominent neo-conservatives. Now for the criticisms. First, Professor Liu's point about US minority tokenism seems misdirected. To be accepted by the establishment always means to accept much of its mentality. This is true of almost all regimes, and I don't see much point in criticizing the US government for it. And one should not exclude from scrutiny the claims of self-appointed guardians of American diversity, who often seem more interested in their inflated egos than the welfare of those they claim to represent. Messrs [Jesse] Jackson and [Al] Sharpton can shake down powerful institutions on alleged racism, but they are still also unable (or unwilling) to make the effort where it counts the most, to change the fortunes of the disproportionately black American underclass. The East Asian-American lobbyists may even be worse, slavishly following the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] in supporting affirmative action even as it penalizes East Asians in college admissions. Second, more generally, Professor Liu is always writing about the virtues of ideological cohesiveness. What does he mean? Hasn't much of China's woe been too much ideological cohesiveness? The most intellectually creative period in Chinese history was the Spring and Autumn Period. The unempirical national narcissism that Professor Liu criticized in the Confucian bureaucrats as failing China in the 19th century was the result of the ideological cohesiveness imposed by the civil examination system. And finally, Professor Liu seems to indulge in far too much Occidentalism. Of course Imperial China was much less expansionistic than the Western powers of the last 500 years were. But it was still pretty harsh with some uppity tributary peoples like the Vietnamese. It is a stretch to say that China always fought only defensive wars against foreigners. And besides, as the sacking of Karakorum by the Ming and the slaughter of the Dzungars by the Qing demonstrate, defense and offense are often two sides of the same political coin. Bereft of its past sense of civilizational sufficiency (which had caused a general disinterest in foreign conquest among the Imperial elite), with the humiliations of the past 200 years firmly etched in its memory, with both an aggressive American superpower and fanatic Islamist terror groups operating near its energy lifelines, it is far too early to say how a re-emerging Chinese superpower would behave in the world.
Jonathan X (May 3, '07)

Re Why you pretend to like modern art [May 1] by Spengler: Man has only to think of the nature of his own insignificant being to understand the nature of God. The self, the ego in man and his own individuality and unique personality, which is distinct from others, with a will and power of his own and authority to decide as he wishes. Believing in God is also is a mental process as to be believing in one's own self and existence. So why it should astonish to some that God, who is the Supreme, is also wielding his power controlling the universe? Man owes obeisance only to him as well obedience to his commands. Human reason is incapable of knowing the noumenal world, as it cannot transcend the boundaries of space and time. Space and time are not objective realities and as they are only modes of apprehending phenomenal realities, they are essentially subjective and have no existence apart from the subject. Human reason has the ability to know only the temporal world ...
Saqib Khan
UK (May 3, '07)

The letter of Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association (May 2), attempts to whitewash the function of "hired guns". They are definitely not "peaceful" nor do they portray any form of peaceful purpose in their attitudes or actions. I base this on personal experience with Blackwater security during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I, as well as tens of others, were waiting in line at a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) field office in Marksville, Louisiana, on or about the middle of September 2005. All of us were displaced, in shock, our lives had been severely shattered, and we were seeking assistance. This FEMA office consisted of three laptop computers and three clerks. The process was extremely slow and people were moving through at a rate of two per hour. For the security of these three clerks, Blackwater Security provided 22 (I counted them) armed guards with almost full combat regalia (flak jackets, bullet bandoleers, pistols, knives, and two of them with Uzi machine-guns). They barked orders and scared this civilian group of refugees half to death. After I was processed, I did a little research and found out that Blackwater charges FEMA [US]$960 per day per man. It is probably an arguable point about who received more federal money, the victims of the hurricane, or Blackwater. For Mr Brooks' education, I shall define the popular definition of a mercenary: "A hired macho gun nut and killer who will do anything to anybody for money." And make no mistake about it, these security companies operating in war zones are mercenaries!
Ken Moreau
New Orleans, Louisiana (May 3, '07)

Why no response to my [May 2] e-mail on allowing more flexible access to your website for customers willing to pay? Are you in the midst of announcing a change that you do not wish to preempt through a response, or are you about to be bought by another company so this becomes their problem rather than yours?
Salt (May 3, '07)

The former. Stay tuned. And thanks for your useful comments. - ATol

Re Indonesia seeks lost trillions in Singapore [May 2]: The signing of a bilateral extradition treaty between Indonesia and Singapore lessens recent tensions between the city-state and the republic of some 3,000 islands. It gives Singapore the much-needed space for military training of its citizens' army, while Indonesia has the green light to try to recuperate the trillions of rupiah allegedly in the vaults of Singapore's banks. Bill Guerin gives interesting details of white-collar scams and the flight of capital out of Indonesia into neighboring Singapore's financial institutions and real estate. Yet nary a word is uttered in his article about the embargo on sands to the ever-expanding appetite of Singapore for Indonesian sand and granite for remaking and upgrading the city-state's infrastructure and housing estates and growing private real-estate sector. Indonesia framed the suspension of trade in sand in nationalistic terms as preserving the integrity of its islands close to Singapore's shores. Although Singapore has a stockpile of sand, the land of the Merlion has other cards to play, and play them it did. The Burmese colonels have offered Singapore unlimited supplies of sand and granite, and though Singapore will absorb higher freight costs and plan for longer shipment schedules, it needs no longer rely on a sole supplier. So it is with an ironic wink that Singapore has concluded the extradition treaty with Jakarta. For as Mentor Minister Lee Kwan Yew tersely put it: "Do you think any Indonesian who was likely to be extradited would be here at all?" Probably not, but then again, extradition from Singapore is on the books or will soon be, on one hand; on the other, the joke is on Indonesia, for Singapore's revenge is sweet; it ... will have a free hand in the thankless task of trying to bell the cat of a trillion or more rupiah.
Jakob Cambria (May 2, '07)

The article did speak to the sand issue: "In a tit-for-tat response, Indonesia this year slapped a ban on exports of sand to Singapore - which the island state uses in reclamation and construction projects - for its perceived foot-dragging on the extradition issue." - ATol

Spengler: You have taken the time to write about art and even God [Why you pretend to like modern art, May 1]. This is a creative process. Everything is a creative process, or call it "co-creative". Be that as it may, mincing words - to create simply means to have an action or inaction that produces something seen or unseen. Just because the great arts were made into commodities that could be traded does not necessarily mean those particular artists or other creative geniuses were the measurement of art or God. Indeed, it has been said that the truly greatest creative beings are never known. "Herein lies the rub." Shakespeare - now who was he, really?
Roberta Kelly (May 2, '07)

I am not sure that I understand your point; if everything is creative, then all actions, including the most arbitrary and the meanest, are of equal importance. In that event, how could your communication be of "critical importance" (as your note assured ATol editors in urging that it be forwarded to me)? But I can answer your last question. The plays of Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare, but by another playwright of the same name. - Spengler

Re All power to US's shadow army in Iraq (May 1): As president of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), I'd like to just make a few quick comments about Jeremy Scahill's article, which is largely a rehash of previous pieces he has published. IPOA is a trade association of more than 30 companies - including Blackwater - that provide critical services to stability and peace operations around the world. First, as in his book and in past articles, Mr Scahill omits the fundamentally important fact that the overwhelming majority of contractors doing security and reconstruction in Iraq are Iraqis - the very people who should be doing security in reconstruction in their own country. Second, while the US military is designed to be the most capable organization in the world, it is not designed to be cost-effective. It is estimated that the Pentagon is paying [US]$15,000-$25,000 per month per soldier in Iraq. Contractors, brought in to support the effort from a hundred different countries, bring remarkable cost-effectiveness, capabilities and expertise. And yes, not surprisingly, they cost far less than trained combat soldiers ... Third, despite what Mr Scahill claims, many companies have been held to account or penalized contractually - that has been less of a problem ... More complex under international law is the difficult issue of holding individual foreign contractors accountable - and again it is important to remember here that Iraqi contractors which make up the overwhelming majority of contractors are under Iraqi law (for better or worse). IPOA strongly supports the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) and its expansion and enforcement. We have found the US Department of Justice to be depressingly slow at enforcing the law on the books and we are constantly criticized on the accountability issue. As a result, our association is in the interesting position of being the most proactive NGO [non-governmental organization] working to enhance contractor accountability. Mr Scahill, oddly, prefers to try civilians in military courts under UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice]. That concept has been rejected by human-rights organizations who object not just in the case of contractors, but for the detainees in Guantanamo. Thus I do have a fundamental disagreement with Mr Scahill on this point. Further, IPOA advises our member companies that when there is an allegation of illegal actions in the field they should remove the individual in question from the theatre so that they are no longer a problem, and then to fully cooperate with authorities to do a full investigation. While Mr Scahill apparently has faith that the Iraqi legal system is far ahead of the curve in the reconstruction process, it is not yet widely recognized by the international community as being fair and impartial. Until their [Iraqis'] legal system has improved, foreign and US contractors accused of felonies should be tried in US federal courts under MEJA (or numerous other laws that can be used, including international laws and even the Patriot Act). IPOA has been proactive at improving MEJA, endorsing its expansions and improvements, and holding a public round table with members of Congress to find the best ways to ensure effective accountability (Mr Scahill did not attend). Fourth, while Mr Scahill revels in the use of the term "mercenary", it really has no significant legal definition. It is simply a derogatory word, and I submit the best definition is my own - "a mercenary is a foreigner or business person we don't like". We should get beyond the name-calling on this important issue ...
Doug Brooks
President
International Peace Operations Association (May 2, '07)

I thank Jonathan X (letter, Apr 30) for his thoughtful comments. The description of the US president as "commander-in-chief of foreign policy" was used by Vice President Dick Cheney in a recent speech. I used the same term to illustrate the attitude of the current US administration. The US constitution does not mention "foreign policy", but it does make clear who is in charge of America's official relationship with the rest of the world. Article II of the constitution says the president has the power to:

Make treaties with other countries (with consent of the Senate).

Appoint ambassadors to other countries (with consent of the Senate).

Receive ambassadors from other countries.
Article II also establishes the president as commander-in-chief of the military, which gives him or her control over how the United States interacts with other nations in the Clausewitzian world of "war being the continuation of diplomacy by other means". The president's authority in all things is exercised through activities undertaken by his or her administration. Therefore, the executive branch is the instigator, formulator and implementer of foreign policy. Congress plays a significant oversight role in foreign policy and holds the power to rectify treaties and approve appointments. Congress can also pass legislation that compels the president to act within the context of the law. Any domestic law to strip the president of his/her foreign-policy authority would be deemed unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. With a weak president, Congress can sometimes assert a direct role in changing foreign policy, as it is now trying to do in Iraq. True, only Congress has the power to declare war. Yet all US wars since World War II have been executive wars. On the issue of social justice needing to come from free grassroots expressions against official abuse, it is useful to point out that such doctrine has been the founding modus operandi of the Chinese Communist Party. In Part 2 of my three-part China and Appeasement series (Not much rise, and even less peace, May 1), I wrote: "What China needs is to rediscover the participatory democracy, socialist ideological cohesiveness, and commitment to socio-economic justice of its revolutionary days and in the first decade after the founding of the socialist republic in the context of a Confucian civilization of a society governed by social rites. This is the direction in which China is moving with its harmonious-society policy." For China, social justice can only be enhanced by socialist participatory democracy in the context of a cohesive society. The Western mode of legal justice based on adversarial dispute cannot lead to justice in China. It fact, a legal system operating on adversarial adjudication can easily become an oppressive tool of the rich and powerful, as has happened in the US, where legal battles are frequently won by the party paying the highest legal fees and able to absorb the court costs of long legal proceedings.
Henry C K Liu (May 2, '07)

I've read the article by Andrew Forbes Why Vietnam loves and hates China [Apr 26]. I could not believe Asia Times [Online would] publish this kind of article. Mr Forbes is clearly a biased and uneducated writer. Yes, I think he is a terrible writer. His article showed that he had very poor understanding of Vietnam, its culture, and its people. Shame on Asia Times [Online]. I totally lost my credibility on you. Never return to this horrible website. Shame on Andrew Forbes ... I am completely speechless with his language used in the article. I've read a lot but this is the first time in my life reading someone quoting (without citation) in his article in a totally unprofessional, uneducated, and rude fashion. I've never seen anyone saying about a leader of a nation like Mr Forbes. He quoted (again, no citation) in his article about Ho Chi Minh: "As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life." Can anyone believe a leader of a nation making such a statement? Or is it Mr Forbes' everyday language?
Trung Tran, MD, PhD (May 2, '07)

Ho Chi Minh's "sniff vs eat" remark was quoted in the Pentagon Papers. According to Mike Moyar in Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965, Ho Chi Minh allegedly made the remark in 1946 "while defending his decision to let the French army into northern Vietnam". Moyar emphasizes, however, that China at the time was ruled by the anti-communist Kuomintang. - ATol

Syed Saleem Shahzad: I agree with you [response to JL's letter of May 1] about the sharing of intelligence between agencies and the fact that intelligence agencies of different countries speak through other countries' agencies. However, you did mention: "Who else more competent than Pakistan to give the itinerary of Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, who was the important link between Iraqi al-Qaeda and Waziristan's Taliban/al-Qaeda?" To this I would say, what do you mean by "more competent"? I think this situation of "who" is responsible is much more a political one than merely one about how "competent" one is. Because basically, all the players in South Central Asia/Middle East, namely Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, have quite a high degree of militancy, intelligence and backing, so the question of who is more competent is basically offset by these three countries being equally competent, and it is not the "difference" that I'm looking for in this situation. However, the political reasonings for "who" is responsible is much more interesting due to the rather complicated geopolitical situation in this part of the world, and also in the relationships that each country - Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan - has with the US ... What I would like to know is, why did it take British officials more than six months to realize that [Hadi] had already been captured by the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and US military in Iraq? I would suspect that the CIA and US military didn't tell their British counterparts that they had captured him. That's a much more interesting story to me ... Everyone knows that the purpose of Washington declaring a war of perpetuity has very little to do with capturing terrorists, and more to do with increasing the executive branch's powers at home and abroad ... If Washington announces too early that it has already captured a senior al-Qaeda member, in among all the others that it has announced that it has killed or captured over the past four years, then eventually the question will be asked as to when this "war on terror" will be over. If Washington keeps capturing or killing terrorists, then logically the war would end when all the terrorists have been captured. However, this logic works against the aims of US policy for declaring its perpetual war. This is the reason why Washington has kept sealed lips to its own allies for the past six months or more.
JL(May 2, '07)

Thanks for your selection of recent articles in your publication. I much enjoyed the thought-provoking commentaries on the Middle East as well as those dealing with American politics. Sadly, my earlier complaints with respect to the formatting of articles, viz single versus multiple pages, appears to have been left unaddressed. It makes sense that you provide a "print-friendly" view in a two-column format without the unnecessary and intrusive advertisements on the side. Since you will raise the issue of revenue losses from that feature, may I suggest that you offer this for premium users, ie, people who are willing to subscribe to your publication for this and other reasons such as access to historical archives, forum participation etc.
Salt (May 2, '07)

Spengler's latest contribution (Why you pretend to like modern art, May 1) is in my opinion not an explanation of taste at all. It is a description of observable variations in taste. An explanation requires an analysis of the immense variability in man's perception of his/her environment. There are 6.5 billion humans on this planet. Excepting the genetically identical twins, triplets etc, each individual has his own unique genetic blueprint in every cell of his body. Thousands of individuals experiencing the same event will have thousands of descriptions, personal reactions, different details remembered or forgotten, different emotional reactions. It is sheer arrogance for some self-appointed critic to sneer at one and praise another. To explain artistic creativity in humans as being an attempt to play god is of course not an explanation at all. You can't explain anything in terms of a figment of man's imagination. The notion that God loves his children is outrageous. That is like saying "Gott liebt dich" above the entrances to Auschwitz-Birkenau's five gas chambers. Or like saying to the 36 million Chinese men women and children as they were being slaughtered by Emperor Hirohito's armies, "God loves you." We use the concept of "god" or "supernatural" to accept on faith alone that which we can't explain. Science chips away at this notion. Nothing in the billions of universes around our minuscule planet is supernatural, including life. How to deal with this mystery? Ask a chimpanzee to explain a computer.
AAL
Canada (May 1, '07)

Spengler: I loved Why you pretend to like modern art [May 1]. It was all wonderful, but this part was truly extraordinary: "[Johann Sebastian] Bach inscribed each of his works with the motto, 'Glory belongs only to God,' and insisted (wrongly) that anyone who worked as hard as he did could have achieved results just as good. He was content to be a diligent craftsman in the service of God, and did not seek to be a genius; he simply was one. That is the starting point of the man of faith. One does not set out to be a genius, but rather to be of service; extraordinary gifts are responsibility to be borne with humility. The search for genius began when the service of God no longer interested the artists and scientists." If you run out of friends, I volunteer for a place on the replacement list.
Steve McCaffery (May 1, '07)

Re Spengler's comments on modern art [Why you pretend to like modern art, May 1]: There are many things that may be considered true, but actually are not meaningful to one's life. My sister used to read self-help books and get nearly disabled when she didn't understand "Chapter 8", and would call me for advice. I asked her how well the author knew my sister - didn't - then I told her to write n/a under "Chapter 8". Also, facts sometimes seem to overwhelm the "truth". I will forgive Mr Spengler for wasting my time reading this essay, as I am most often enjoying his writings so much. Thank you for printing his works.
Dr Robert Simmons
Lebanon, Ohio (May 1, '07)

Re Spengler's Why you pretend to like modern art [May 1]: Try as one could and tentative in accepting the premise that the Judeo-Christian God ... Creator loves his creatures, is Spengler's inference then that the non-Judeo-Christian God Creator does not love his - or as a minimum does not care for his - creatures? That as an Italian-speaking individual would say, "E la personificazione della saggezza"? That of course is intended as sarcasm. The most that one can state in American English is to borrow Spengler's own words that his own "self-worship has led him to personal delusions". Still, while flaunting his credo and direct lineage to Adam and Eve and their progeny may serve him well as a proselytizer, he is just a pretendu, as a French-speaking art critic would vehemently state.
Armand De Laurell (May 1, '07)

Please tell Spengler that he has a new friend. His [May 1] column Why you pretend to like modern art is wonderful. Indeed, I am one of those little minds who [have] published in the best journals in his field (economics), and I am deathly afraid of the mediocre scholars who might scoop my own little "contributions".
Eric Fisher (May 1, '07)

Re Why you pretend to like modern art by Spengler (May 1): Bravo Spengler! Your article requires some deep thought but it touched on the Achilles' heel of modern society. That weakness is a pathetic shallowness or loss of purpose which is made up by creating false gods to worship. Unfortunately the society as a whole is deluding itself with a temporary fix which only obscures the problem. The gaping hole remains, although temporarily unseen, but the abyss it covers is still there. Your article articulated the true situation in a manner that would make an academic proud, although many are themselves the proponents of a fallacious ideology.
Jack Meehan
Moultonborough, New Hampshire (May 1, '07)

Jeremy Scahill's article All power to US's shadow army in Iraq [May 1] is disturbing, particularly when he likens Blackwater to the Praetorian Guard, and notes that huge, private military bases are being constructed on US soil: Blackwater North, and Blackwater West, in addition to the sprawling 2,800-hectare Blackwater South. Americans! Do you not realize your republic is in mortal peril? Are you cognizant of the way Caesar Augustus was able to end the Roman Republic to found a military dictatorship? Thus the beginning of the end of 1776. Will you give George Bush, or likely a more ruthless successor, the tool he/she needs to achieve this?
Francis
Quebec, Canada (May 1, '07)

Re All power to US's shadow army in Iraq [May 1]: I thought I was well informed about the deceit, manipulation and corruption of the Bush administration, but again I stand stupefied over the pure Machiavellian machinations of Rovian guile. They must be mocking the outflanked opposition leaders in Congress, knowing that they (the Democrats) will not disrupt the privatized security system that Bush forces have cynically assembled for Iraq. If I know [White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl] Rove, the motivation for privatization was probably more cynical than ideological; for he would have bet that wimpish Democrats would be too fearful of toppling their high-paid mercenaries in Iraq, fearful that uninformed voters would turn on them. And the privatized forces are well hidden from the doubling of manpower they represent. My only question is regarding Jeremy Scahill's silence on the fate of the mercenaries if conventional forces did leave. Mr Scahill suggests that Democrats are only giving a show of pursuing troop reductions. If the Democrats actually are pursuing a reduction of conventional troops in Iraq, the highly paid "Praetorian Guard" certainly would not fight themselves and, lacking conventional support, they would certainly be chased out of Iraq by Iraqi forces who do not want any Americans there.
Jim of Southern California
USA (May 1, '07)

Syed Saleem Shahzad: I'm merely an avid and curious geopolitical observer, and was curious at the fact that you named Pakistan as being the instigator in helping the US capture Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, in your May 1 story [How Pakistan settled an al-Qaeda score], This fact that was reported by yourself (ie, Pakistan was the country which helped the US capture [Hadi]), contradicts the same report from The Observer ... on Sunday, April 29 (two days previously) in which British diplomats were reported to have mentioned that it was Iran who helped the US capture [Hadi]. This fundamental difference on the crucial point in both reports is extremely curious and suspicious at the same time. Why such a difference between so-called "British diplomatic" sources and your own Pakistani sources? Smells like both the British and the Pakistanis have been involved in a bit of press-release activity on this issue, if you ask me.
JL (May 1, '07)

Well, it is very complicated, but all intelligence agencies do speak to each other and share notes through various media. Iranian intelligence sometimes speaks through Pakistan. Nevertheless, who else more competent than Pakistan to give the itinerary of Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, who was the important link between Iraqi al-Qaeda and Waziristan's Taliban/al-Qaeda? - Syed Saleem Shahzad

Re China, Vietnam spar over gas [May 1]: Singapore-based Andrew Symon tells a good story. Yet he leaves the reader hanging. If the "pipeline adjacent to the Lan Tay gas field" came online in 2003, and if China has not had cause to lodge a formal complaint until April 12, 2007, the reader finds no reason to explain the "why". Symon suggests that energy-starved China has a gargantuan appetite as a by-the-way of an explanation. But this is hardly a satisfactory answer. Beijing has been nailing down oil contracts with, say, Venezuela, Nigeria, Angola. It has even gone as far as offering to come to terms with its nemesis Japan in gas fields each claims as it own in the East or Japan Sea. Obviously the explanation lies elsewhere, and that elsewhere Symon leaves unanswered. On the other hand, Vietnam has sweet crude oil which Shell first discovered in the last years of America's Vietnam War. The Russians helped develop the fields, but owing to intra-party squabbles, Hanoi never built refineries. The French Total offered to build one but the Lao Dong party could never make up its [mind], and so Total backed out of the deal. Given the high price of crude oil, you would have thought 30 years down the line Vietnam would cash in on a bull market. It has not. Instead, the communist apparatus has settled for a gas pipeline which has the potential of putting it on a collision course with its big neighbor China. And now a dispute which has lain dormant for two decades has broken out again. But … Symon leaves us clueless as to the cause.
Jakob Cambria
USA (May 1, '07)

There was a series of erroneous conversions in one paragraph of the original version of this article, so that every figure was inadvertently exaggerated by a factor of 10. The offending paragraph has been amended and now reads correctly, "According to projections compiled last year by the Asia Pacific Energy Research Center, Vietnamese energy planners aim to have 23,000MW [megawatts] of power-generation capacity installed by 2010, of which 7,000MW will be fueled by natural gas. By 2020, Hanoi hopes nearly to double that capacity to 44,000MW, with natural gas providing 12,000MW of the total power, according to the same projections." - ATol

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