 |
| Blog |
 |
| Archive |
|
|
|
|
| Blog |
| To find an archived article, simply click on Index and scroll the subject titles, or do a Ctrl-F search |
TALLRITE BLOG You can write to blog@tallrite.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MARCH 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ISSUE #34 - 30th March 2003 [107]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Kurds, Turks and Northern Iraq Kurdistan is the name given to the area, divided between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, where mainly Kurds reside. The Kurdish part of Iraq, in the north and bordering on southern Turkey, is in danger of generating its own distinct conflagration because of a complicated confluence of factors.The Iraq crisis and other constituents have thrown Turkey into turmoil, which it can ill afford after four years of dire economic performance and a devastating drop of some 70% in the value of its currency. Let’s start with the Iraqi Turkomen, a nomadic people who form a sizeable minority in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is where Kirkuk lies – one of Iraq’s largest oil provinces. Turkomen are ethnically and linguistically linked to Turkey which feels a protective responsibility for all Turkics. According to some – not least Turkey – the Turkomen are oppressed by the majority Kurds. As I reported a few weeks ago, this part of Kurdistan, protected from Saddam since the Gulf War under the UN’s northern no-fly zone enforced by the US Air Force, enjoys are large degree of autonomy and prosperity, with its own parliament and other institutions. This is a unique experience amongst Kurds. And it is watched jealously by the Kurds of Turkey, Iran and Syria who, since the end of the Ottoman empire, have periodically and violently rebelled against their respective governments, in pursuit of Kurdish rights, autonomy and/or independence. This rebelliousness means that those same governments regard all Kurds, as does Saddam, with extreme suspicion and exert as much persecution as they can get away with. The Turkish twist begins just a few months ago. Fearing missile attack by Saddam in the event of an American invasion, Turkey appeals to its NATO partners for some Patriot anti-missile systems. For their own reasons, the French do their damnedest to stop this, and it is only through some pretty sharp footwork that the Americans outflank the French and get NATO to supply the Patriots. Turkey has a little oil in its southeastern – Kurdish – part, but looks longingly over its border at the oil riches of Kurdish Kirkuk.
But then here come the Americans wanting to use Turkey for their own invasion of Iraq from the North, promising a huge $6 billion aid package and reminding the Turks of how they helped them over the patriot missiles.
Meanwhile, the Turks have also angered both the EU and the UN by failing to strongarm stubborn Rauf Denktash, the president of Turkish Cyprus, into agreeing Kofi Annan’s peace-plan to re-unify the island, a plan supported not only by the Greek Cypriots and Greece but by most of the Turkish Cypriot population. As a result, the rich Greek half of the island will join the lucrative EU leaving the impecunious, ostracised Turkish half to languish outside. Turkey’s own accession to the EU slips further over the horizon as it now has two veto-wielding adversaries – Greece and Greek Cyprus – instead of one. So let’s sum up this mess. In an admirably democratic manner, albeit with unintended consequences, Turkey has managed to make enemies of the USA, EU and UN. It is suspected, probably wrongly, of wanting to invade Iraq and seize the Kirkuk oilfields under the pretext of preventing a humanitarian refugee crisis and protecting Turkomen, and it has de-facto supported Saddam by refusing to facilitate the American forces. In the worst case scenario, one can imagine Turks, Americans, Kurds, Turkomen and Saddam’s Arabs all fighting each other with no clear idea of who is on whose side. However, Turkey’s new-found foes do nevertheless have an abiding interest in an economically dynamic, stable, secular, and increasingly democratic Turkey incorporated into the West, an example to the rest of the Muslim world. This is an interest that matches Turkey’s own, and it badly needs the support of its wealthy and powerful (temporarily ex-)friends. So I believe a more benign outcome is likelier. Turkey, recognizing its own best interests, will stay within its own borders. America will invade Northern Iraq by air (it has already started), eject the Saddamites, bring in humanitarian aid and remove the need for Iraqis to flee. It will install a representative regional administration that protect the Turkomen and other minorities. The area will end up well positioned to form part of a new federal Iraq once the rest of the country is liberated. Meantime, in a quieter moment, Turkey will engineer the agreement of Turkish Cyprus to the UN peace-plan and pave the way for EU entry of a united Cyprus federation. Or is this all just wishful thinking ? We shall see.
How beautiful, stunning are the Churches, inside and out, that pepper Rome, which I had the good fortune to visit again last week. The columns, the arches, the marble, the paintings, the statuary, the gold, and the precision - they just take your breath away. And everything fashioned by human hand. A few examples below.
And such architectural masterpieces are replicated throughout Europe, in glory if not in density. Think of the awesome Saint Bavo cathedral in Ghent, Notre Dame in Paris, St Vitus's in Prague, to mention but a few. Nearly all were built around the middle of the second millenium, some taking several centuries to complete; the Saint Bavo took almost 900 years. But how were they paid for ? It is inconceivable that such opulent structures, lacking a concomitant revenue stream to provide a financial return, would ever be built in a Western country today. Indeed, recently built churches are much more modest, utilitarian affairs, usually paid for out of parish collections. Yet Europe in the Middle Ages was, by today's standards at any rate, dirt poor, and what little money there was was confiscated by rulers and warlords if not squandered on perpetual warfare. The vast majority of the population eked out a subsistence existence of hard labour, malnutrition and death by 40. According to Oxford University's Robert Allen, daily pay during the mediaeval period when church construction boomed was typically 7-10 grams of silver equivalent, which would just about keep a family hovering around the poverty line on 2,000 calories a day. To get a sense of comparison, current GDP per head in the EU is around €21,000 per year and silver sells at around $4.40 per ounce. This roughly translates to an income per head of some 390 grams of silver equivalent per day. So we are 40 times richer than our unfortunate forebears. The issue therefore was -
It could never have happened except in a feudal society where big men run the show and the peasants are kept down and poor. But think how the social welfare of our antecedents might have been wonderfully better, and the course of European history quite different, if the labour that went into church construction were used instead to grow more food, to manufacture, to trade, to learn, to get educated. Or would it have just spelt more official kleptomania and warfare ? I think not. There is today an example of similar church-building money-squandering folly. The oil-rich countries of the Middle East are rife with magnificent mosques, still being built to this day, each costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Each emir vies with the next to show off his piety by the grandeur of his Grand Mosque, and assure himself of paradise in the hereafter. Again, such whimsy is possible only in an autocratic society where big decisions are taken by a big man. But today it is fed by oil wealth rather than by keeping the population in grinding poverty. But it is still frittering away people's birthright without bothering to ask them. And in Middle Ages Europe as in the Middle East of today, those commissioning these buildings think an ever-grateful and obsequious God will forgive them their other earthly vices and grant them eternal bliss. I'm not aware that either Jesus Christ or Mohammed offered such a deal or demanded these edifices.
According to the New York Post, a pro-Saddam Iraqi reporter at a press
conference recently asked Secretary of State Colin Powell, "Isn't
it true that only 13% of young Americans can locate Iraq on a map ?"
While waiting in costume at one convention, he met former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. “I shook his hand, and someone said ‘I have got to get this picture !’” he said. Mr Haleva uses the photo in his firm's marketing brochures with the caption, “If we can make this happen, how hard can your issue be ?” Mr Haleva said his resemblance has been good for business. “It opens doors...and I have a lot of fun with it.” He also relishes the irony of being a pro-Israel Jewish activist earning money by making fun of the Iraqi leader.
The Center for Consumer Freedom in Washington DC has announced
the winners of its 2002 Tarnished Halo Awards to America's most notorious
animal-rights zealots, environmental scaremongers, celebrity busybodies,
self-anointed “public interest” advocates, trial lawyers, and other
food & beverage activists who claim to know what's best for you. Lucky winners include :
Quote : “No-one has killed more Muslims than Saddam Hussein” Lt-General
John Abazaid Quote : “Please bring on the war. We are ready. We have suffered long enough. We may lose our lives but some of us will survive and for our children's sake please, please end our misery.” Ken Joseph Jr, an exiled Assyrian Iraqi, quoting messages
from
Not everyone agrees with me - “You are pretty much full of the crap you have imbibed from the religious fanatics and the right wing political extremists ...”. See Letters. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ISSUE #33 - 23rd March 2003 [104]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A New & Disturbing World Order I recently read a long and fascinating essay by commentator Ed Harris called, “Our World-Historical Gamble”, which set my mind spinning. It proposes that 9/11 has brought the West face-to-face with an entirely new world threat unparalleled in history and requiring a radically different approach. You should read the whole article, but meantime let me try and summarise its main thrust. Since
the dawn of history until the last century, each country or nation or
state -
call them what you will - has been defined by just two characteristics
:
Through history, these two characteristics have not only resulted in the formation of countries. It has also led to empire-building when one nation has proved better at them than another one who has attractive, expropriatable resources, such as gold, land, slaves. It was a rough world but, vitally, it produced a universal sense of what is realistically available, which transcended all cultures and boundaries.
What changed in the 20th century was the Western liberal idea that might is not necessarily right. The fact that I am able to steal from you doesn't make it OK to do so.
The effect of this on the mindsets of the peoples of these new countries is especially stark in the oil-rich Middle East. Countries such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait were created by Westerners drawing lines on the map, which happened to include vast oil reserves. Westerners then helped them to extract the oil and then paid to buy it from them. Suddenly, with no creativity or effort and no ability for self-defence, they became extraordinarily wealthy nations, as if by magic, secure in the knowledge they would not be invaded by the powerful but liberal-minded West. This permitted them to buy whatever they wanted just as a spoilt child might be given everything he demands. The most pernicious result was the creation of a fantasyland mindset -
If I want a dream house, I just write a cheque and I have one. No sweat - literally.
When such a fantasy is then linked to an ideology - such as a perverted belief that Islam demands that the West be destroyed - and is bolstered by possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), you have a truly poisonous brew. Suddenly, in unviable States, there are people able to wreak untold destruction, people for whom there are no limits to reality and who are driven by a fantasy ideology whose only goal is the destruction itself. They are not interested in forcing their victims to do their will. You need only think of the suicide flyers of 9/11, whose ability to kill and destroy was limited only by the two instruments (planes and buildings) they could get their hands on, neither of which they or their sponsor States were capable of creating. The orthodox approach to defeating such perpetrators, by bargaining or conventional war, doesn't work because they are not playing by any known rules or limits; their actions make no sense - indeed that is the essence of the fantasy. It is total fantasy to think that Western civilisations will accept and collapse under such attacks, but that does not deter the fantasists. That is what distinguishes them from adversaries such as the Nazis, the Japanese, the Soviets who all operated to an internal logic bounded by a sense of reality. The only apparent solution therefore seems to be the pre-emptive removal of the WMD. This may well necessitate the removal of the state apparatus that fosters or protects them, and replacing it with something judged more “reasonable”, for example a democracy. Afghanistan and Iraq spring to mind. It also means not shirking from necessary action for purely liberal ideas, such as avoiding airport searches of targeted groups in case people are made to feel unwelcome or it appears racist. Whether a particular course of action, including the use of unrelenting force if necessary, can be judged a success depends on
Teaching them respect for our values is secondary. The tough action envisaged should of course be undertaken by the world community as a whole, ideally via the UN, but by now so many countries exist as unviable creations that they will never allow the UN to start limiting their freedom to act in this way. That means the job must be left, in practice, to America, the only power strong enough to impose its will unilaterally on virtually any country of its choosing. In other words, America becomes the centre of world violence (in effect, the world's policeman) and we all rely on its - yes - double-standards to decide and to enforce which countries may be permitted what level of violence (up to WMD). This conclusion represents a quite extraordinary espousal of a world regime of double-standards and unilateral judgment, policed by an America armed to the teeth and willing to use its military might. This is analogous to the way a country's central authority already has a monopoly of violence and uses it to suppress wayward warlords. But it makes the world terribly dependent on the bona-fides of the USA. For this reason, it is imperative that other well-meaning countries be prepared to join it and thus influence it in particular campaigns. I recommend you read the full essay over a period of a few days.
France - or, more particularly, President Chirac - has provided everyone with a convenient excuse for the diplomatic failure over Iraq. His threatened veto “no matter what” of an 18th Resolution giving conditions and a deadline for war allowed the middle six countries to not have to take a position at all, and hence to avoid direct offence to anyone. It is a paradox that his threatened veto, by closing the one remaining door for avoiding conflict, is what made war a certainty. Looking back, his behaviour is especially bizarre.
The council did meet again and consider, in January and again February. Saddam failed to disarm. But the would-be 18th resolution, which President Chirac refused to endorse under any form, is the very resolution he had insisted on when negotiating the 17th. When the war is over, one can expect America to seek out imaginative ways to punish France economically and politically for its overt support of Saddam. It will not be listened to again in the Security Council for a long long time, which is what will probably hurt President Chirac the most.
Listen to this riveting radio exchange in the US between a peace activist called Andrea and Mohammed, an Iraqi exile. Notice how she is utterly unable to answer the simple question, “How exactly will leaving Saddam in power promote peace and justice in Iraq ?” Wow !
In January, I wrote about the tremendous progress there has been in rebuilding Afghanistan one year after the war that deposed the Taliban. Under Taliban rule, all non-governmental use of e-mail services and websites was punishable by death. But earlier this month, Afghanistan achieved a symbolic milestone of boring normalcy : it inaugurated its first-ever internet country code - “.af”. The UN Development Program was one of the first to publish an Afghan website : www.undp.org.af . Similarly, there is now hope of some dull normality for Iraq, starting in just a few weeks time. This will doubtless include the return of millions of refugees, just as is happening in Afghanistan, the surest sign that things are getting better.
Shield Impressionable Teenagers from Shakespeare I had forgotten how shockingly violent and disturbing is Shakespeare's Macbeth, until recently reminded by Cathy Sweeney, a teacher of English literature. The action opens with Macbeth's defeat of the rebel leader where he “unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps”. Soon after, horrible images unfix Macbeth's hair and Lady Macbeth claims that she would, while feeding an infant child,
The violence is relentless. Duncan is murdered, Banquo is murdered, Lady Macbeth commits suicide, the witches chant about birth-strangled babes, Macbeth cries,
Macduff “was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd” and his wife and child are brutally murdered on stage. For those who think violent movies and TV depicting evil and anarchy encourage violent behaviour on the part of modern teenagers, Macbeth and much else of Shakespeare should be immediately proscribed.
There is no telling what people will spend other people's research money on. Two outfits have recently published their own surveys of what it is that Americans can least do without. They come to the same conclusion. The humble toothbrush ranks well above your car, PC, phone. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology produce something called the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index which measures stuff like that. They asked 1,400 people which of five inventions they could not live without. The results appeared in the March 2003 issue of The Irish Dentist (which is not available online). CNN then conducted is own poll of 156,000 people. Here, to enrich your lives, are
the results of both surveys.
Richard Price of the American Dental Association commented, “It makes a lot of sense. Your teeth are always with you. You can always update your car or a computer, but you just can't update teeth.” But he says the oral health message is still incomplete. “I don't think many people will say dental floss is one of the great inventions of all time, but the toothbrush alone will not do the job”. It's been a long road to the top for the toothbrush. The first was built in 1498 by a Chinese emperor who had hog bristles embedded in a bone handle. The hog bristle toothbrush became popular in Europe, but because it cost so much, poor families would often share the same brush. It wasn't until 1938 that the pharmaceuticals company Du Pont introduced nylon bristles as a much cheaper replacement for pig hair. And a good thing they did, as it finally made personal toothbrushes accessible to all.
Declaration of interest:
Quote : “President Saddam is certain of victory. He is relying on his deep faith in God, the justice of our cause and his deep faith in the Iraqi people. War could be avoided if Mr Bush went into exile”. Iraqi Foreign Minister Mr Naji Al-Sabri
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
ISSUE #32 - 16th March 2003 [51]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Here's a scary thought :
That's what some pundits, utterly unable to comprehend the conduct of President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, are postulating and citing a lot of plausible evidence in support. Personally I find the theory too utterly preposterous and cynical to believe. What about you ? Their bizarre behaviour certainly invites wild theories.
But one has to wonder whether a small coterie is mounting a conspiracy to make the UN Security Council - if not the UN itself - irrelevant.
Yet none of these eminent gentlemen is in the slightest doubt that
Therefore if war goes ahead without the 18th resolution, which now looks likely due to France's threat of a veto, those anti-war countries - and Mr Annan - will have to either
declare the war illegal (despite 1441) and thereby expose the impotence of the UN to to hold sway or authority over world events, so why should anyone bother with it any more. Make no mistake :
I very much fear that the anti-warriors will opt to destroy the UN under Option 2 simply because opting for 1 would entail massive loss of face for a few portentous individuals. The logical follow-on from Option 2 is that a new, non-UN world order will emerge whose agenda will be determined and carried through solely by America, who will see the need to consult only those who happen to support it on particular issues. Meanwhile, as commentator Dave Farber has put it,
and so it would remain for a long time. Peace. On Prozac. Many would consider all this a retrograde step, though doubtless far better than having a world order dominated by, say, a totalitarian state such as North Korea or China. But is it really what France, Russia, Germany, Belgium, the UN Secretariat and other anti-war entities want ? It will probably be what they - and we - get. Oh, and here is a question for those (such as France and Russia) who voted for 1441 but now claim that “serious consequences” is not a UN euphemism for war. For if it doesn't mean war, what can it mean ?
Don't make Saddam laugh ! Containment is Deadlier than War Which would be preferable ? A policy that kills 5,000 civilians in a single event or one that kills 5,000 per month ? That is the point posed by US foreign policy wonk Walter Mead when he compares the civilian casualties of the first Gulf War with those resulting from the policy of “containment” implemented when Saddam refused to comply with his disarmament promises that were a condition of the truce that ended that war in 1991. Containment comprises primarily sanctions, alleviated somewhat by the oil-for-food programme, perhaps backed up by inspections, perhaps backed up by threat of force. The Gulf War killed somewhere between 21,000 and 35,000 Iraqis, of whom between 1,000 and 5,000 were civilians. Based on Iraqi government figures, UNICEF estimates that containment kills an astonishing 5,000 Iraqi under-fives per month. Other estimates are lower, but by any reasonable estimate containment kills about as many people every year as the Gulf War - and almost all the victims of containment are civilian, of whom two-thirds are young children. So every year that Saddam is left in place and “contained” constitutes a new Gulf War. And though these civilians die solely because Saddam chooses to divert oil-for-food money away from food/medicines and towards his armed forces, cronies, palaces and personal accounts, they still die. Surely it is more humane to mount one more, decisive Gulf War, than an endless continuation of the abominable containment advocated by the global Peace lobby. You should read the full article in the Washington Post.
The normal effect of such public disloyalty would be instant sacking. This she would have expected and relished, because she could then pose as a martyr and further shoot her mouth off without the constraint of being in the cabinet. And then after the fall of Blair due to disaster in Iraq, she - vindicated - would rise like a phoenix. But Blair is being much more clever. He hasn't fired her. So her options are either to resign (no martyrdom there) or continue to show up in cabinet meetings, where you can be sure there'll be plenty of snubbing and snide remarks.
A policy of ignoring her is more painful for her than a martyr's sacking. After Blair has triumphed in Iraq, he will doubtless get rid of her. I expect she'll then sink bitterly into well-deserved oblivion. Her options are closed. On the other hand, Blair may himself be ready to go before too long. He is clearly
though he clearly relishes international affairs. So perhaps he is ready for new challenges as some kind of international statesman. He was once tipped as a possible EU President, by EU-wide popular suffrage, under the new constitution currently being drafted, though his testy relationship with Jacques Chirac means that that can no longer be a realistic expectation. You can be sure he won't leave the premiership voluntarily until he has something more interesting lined up.
Lack of Spouses for Chinese Men A recent article from UPI reports, with a hint of mirth, that within America,
The spouse deficit this creates for black women and Asian men is a social problem within the US, with no obvious solution, but it is no more than that. However, a spouse-deficit is fast developing right now in China, which
has the makings of a deadly time bomb that could have momentous consequences. Not everyone does it of course, but enough do to create a marked
imbalance, and these only-children are growing up fast. So what are all
the young men going to do
over the next 10-20 years in a China that is expanding in economic and military strength
and ambitions but short of young women ? For China as a State, the overt objective of these escapades will likely be to challenge and counterbalance American hegemony.
If you doubt this, read this rather sobering account
of China's preparations for a future large-scale conflict with
America. Late Note (16th & 26th January 2010)
“A study [entitled
‘Contemporary Chinese
Social Structure’]
24m? It's a huge number. Pakistan today has
an adult male population of
53 million males aged 15-64. Well, that's China
in just ten years time. It represents
a strategic and acutely dangerous problem for the world which,
Mark Steyn shares and Shanghai-based
Constance Kong of Mercator The Communist
dictators who illegitimately rule China
A lover of Sibelius and Dvorak and a voracious reader, there was always more to him than just pop, as became clear when his idol status was ousted five years later by The Beatles and Cliff Richard. For he embarked on a series of imaginative careers, with both success and failure :
If his business life was a roller-coaster, so was his actual life : he survived a deadly car crash, a lethal helicopter accident and major heart surgery. But not the final heart attack. It's hard to imagine any of the current crop of pop idols, such as Gareth Gates, achieving anything of note once their chart-topping days are over. But Adam Faith would be an excellent rôle model for them.
Dame Edna A Mexican-American, Wendy Maldonado, is infuriated by what she calls this racial stereotyping and is trying to organize some kind of protest. She is at pains to point out that she herself is neither someone's help nor leaf-blower and in fact holds three degrees. (And I thought the “Three Degrees” were black). Vanity Fair has responded by pointing out that Dame Edna is an equal opportunity distributer of insults. No-one can deny that !
Quote : The League of Nations is “a kind of excrescence which must be carefully prevented from having too much influence on our foreign policy. Geneva [its headquarters was] a strange place in which a new-fangled machine existed in order to enable foreigners to influence or even to control our international action” And later, in 1946, “The League is dead; long live the United Nations !” Lord
Robert Cecil (1864-1958), British cabinet minister and
By the way, winner of the CD under last week's item, “Almonds Are Forever” was Mary from the Dominican Republic. The answer was A A Gill's food column in the Style magazine of the Sunday Times of 2nd March. Well done, Mary, your CD is on its way. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
ISSUE #31 - 9th March 2003 [99]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Last week, in a day of quickening international diplomacy, the foreign ministers of Russia, Germany and France - since dubbed the “gang of three” - held an emergency meeting in Paris to present a united front against the US and Britain and their plan to present a second UN Security Resolution that will (re-)confirm that Iraq is in serious breach and thus deserves war. “We will not allow a resolution to pass that authorises resorting to force,” French Foreign Minister Mr Dominique de Villepin told a press conference on behalf of the Gang. A few days later the Chinese Foreign Minister added, “China endorses and supports their joint statement.” And at Friday's UN Security Council debate where Drs Blix and al Baradei again said Saddam is not cooperating fully, actively and immediately (and thus remains in material breach) the four repeated their opposition. But look at them :
These are the countries with the moral authority to decide whether American and British servicemen should again risk their lives ? This time to liberate Iraqis, as well as to help protect America and the West from the potential confluence of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. (By the way, Hans Blix' 173 page report to the UN Security Council contains evidence of both terrorists and WMD within Iraq, though he did not mention them in his verbal presentation). If the Gang were providing their own soldiers to put the pressure on Saddam they might deserve more serious consideration. But they don't; they are free-riding on the Americans and then criticizing them from the sidelines. Stuart Taylor of the National Journal puts it better. He invites us to imagine America heeding its faithless allies' obstructionism and resentment by withdrawing its services as world policeman. All US troops return to protect only the homeland, leaving Europe and the rest to deal with Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria, Indonesia, weapons proliferation and international terrorism, and to provide (and fund) whatever military muscle this requires. This scary scenario underscores how the Europeans, South Koreans and others who have become highly anti-American depend on American power - unthinkingly, ungratefully, and completely - for their well-being and security. By abdicating their own responsibilities to help maintain world order, they are simply free-riding. It is hard to see how the Gang are going to rescue their reputations from the ever deeper hole they are digging for themselves. Even they cannot doubt any longer doubt that America will attack Iraq. Therefore they seem to be shamefully pinning their hopes on just three doubtful scenarios :
In America, NewsMax magazine has launched a boycott France campaign. Though the reasons are understandable and well articulated, the boycott of superb French wines, cheeses and cars is infantile. Why cut your nose to spite your face ? The French will only laugh. Meanwhile, for all the rhetoric in the Islamic world, it is clear from last week's emergency summit in Qatar of the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which was meant to unite the voices of the world's one billion Muslims against war, that they are far from unanimity in condemning the forthcoming attack on Iraq. In a clash caught on live television before transmission was shut down, Saddam's top aide Izzat Ibrahim departed from his text to zero in on the Kuwaitis sitting across the conference chamber. “Shut up you minion, you US agent, you monkey. You are addressing Iraq. You are insolent. You are a traitor to the Islamic nation,” he spat out while Qatar's head of state Sheikh Hamad al-Thani tried to silence him. A Kuwaiti delegate responded that the insults were “the words of an infidel and a charlatan,” as the two sides shouted and gesticulated angrily at each other. The summit only agreed a broad statement on Iraq - not broadcast - which said diplomacy should be given more time, whatever that means.
Last week, I drew some
parallels between Saddam Hussein the tyrant of Iraq and Menghistu the
tyrant of Ethiopia. This week
it’s the turn of Joseph Stalin, the tyrant of the Soviet Empire who died
just 50 years ago on 6th March 1953.
I well remember, as a boy of eight growing up in Hong Kong, the
screaming headlines, “STALIN IS DEAD”.
In 1879, he was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in Georgia, the studious and devout son of a cobbler and a housecleaner. Extraordinarily, it was while studying for the Orthodox Christian priesthood that he discovered Karl Marx’s writings which turned him into an atheistic communist revolutionary at age 20. Before long he met Lenin, changed his name to Stalin (“Man of Steel”), and after the 1917 revolution became Lenin’s right-hand-man. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin over the next three years manoeuvered his way to the
top by ruthlessly
killing
and exiling all his rivals and opponents. Once
in sole power, he
introduced policies of forced collectivization of farmers that produced nation-wide famine
that resulted in the deaths of millions. Millions more were killed
in his purges of the Communist Party and the military. In 1939, he stunned the world by signing a non-aggression pact with Hitler, which divided Eastern Europe. Two years later however, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Yet, despite the rapid advance of German forces, Stalin rallied his people to the defense of Russia, which was ultimately victorious over the Germans, aided by a bitter winter. In 1942, Time Magazine nominated him as Man of the Year, with a sycophantic account of this accomplishment. But it was silent about the cost to Russia : a mind-boggling twenty million lives, three times more than their enemy's losses. After the war, Stalin's militant mistrust of the West (his wartime
allies!) coupled with his policy of hanging on to and oppressing all the
Eastern European countries the Soviets had
“liberated” from the Germans gave rise to the Cold War. Fortunately, America prevailed through its
economic strength, military threat and single-mindedness, but only after
45 years. When eventually he died, you would think that the radio announcement, “The heart of Stalin - comrade and inspired follower of Lenin's will, the wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet people - has ceased to beat” would cause rejoicing. But no. People thronged the streets of Moscow in an almost hysterical outburst of grief; hundreds were crushed to death at the his funeral. His purges of society through violent police terror left a permanent scar on the collective memory of the people under his rule. Although admired by some Russians, most would agree with the assessment in the West that Stalin was one of the cruelest dictators in history, with an overwhelmingly negative historical legacy. To this day, the circumstances of his death are disputed.
There is a lot of plausible evidence to support the latter. And we can only guess at how many additional deaths the murderous thug's own early demise at 74 avoided. Meanwhile, the example of the great man lives on today, through oppression, central control and killing. Stalin would warmly embrace Kim Jong Il of North Korea, Fidel Castro of Cuba and of course Saddam Hussein of Iraq, all rabidly Stalinist dictatorships. How do those “don't attack Iraq” marchers rationalise their attempts to prevent the fall of Saddam ? They would similarly march for Stalin.
Ever wonder why so many domain names end with .com ? Even of websites which are clearly linked to a particular country (eg an Irish construction company such as www.naturaltimberconstruction.com) ? Here's a clue. Cost and ease. I did a little survey.
Why would any sane person not opt for .com ?
The humble almond has been with us a long, long time. Forever. Ur, the ancient name for modern day Iraq, is the oldest state in the world, the first country. It existed before the end of the ice age. The fertile crescent that runs between the Tigris and the Euphrates was where farming was invented, the first place where more than 200 people could live together. It was the beginning of civilisation, because they grew food. And one of the first things cultivated was almonds. The Bible's
“Book of Numbers” tells
the story of Aaron's rod that blossomed and bore almonds, giving the nut divine approval. It is one of the great mysteries of human consumption. The fruit, from the apricot family, is only edible when unripe. The stone is the nut. And here's the miraculous bit. You know when you get a bitter almond, how deeply unpleasant that is ? Well, that's the natural flavour of almonds - they're poisonous with prussic acid. The sweet almond is a mistake, a very occasional genetic cock-up. So, how did they manage to grow them ? You might get one sweet almond in a blue moon on a bitter almond tree, but it would take years of selective breeding to get sweet almond trees. And if, by chance, you did come across a sweet one, you couldn't plant it, because you'd already have eaten it. You work it out. Almonds are a magical ingredient. They've found their way into all European and Asian cooking and cultures. They can be both sweet and savoury. They were hugely important to medieval and Renaissance banquets, and are still the sweet devotion at the heart of festivals around the world :
If you think you can taste a hint of a prussic parable here, you're right. We're all connected by the gossamer web of shy pleasures and shared joy. The triumph of civilisation has always been to find the one sweet nut in the bag of bitter ones. And, boy, are we suffering a lot of bitter nuts at the moment. Most of the world's almonds, by the way, are now grown in California where, curiously, bees are trucked around to pollinate them. Click here for a few almond recipes.
An interesting court case was reported on in Dublin last week. I always thought Barclays was a bank. But apparently it is also a lap dancing club so exclusive that even the self-styled “King of Clubs” Peter Stringfellow is not admitted. It was being prosecuted for running a brothel. This was based on evidence collected by two fearless police officers in luminous yellow jackets who raided the premises one evening last October. They alleged that on entering the private “Clarendon Suite” upstairs, they lingered their torch (the torch of Irish justice ?) on a naked woman leaning over a man on a chair who they said was caressing her intimately while loud beat music played. The club manager put up a robust defence, citing the club's no-touching rule (which, by the way, could otherwise turn clubbers into communists according to this medical report). The beleaguered man said he was “aghast” when the boys in blue made the outrageous suggestion that he might be running a brothel. He simply “could not believe what the police were suggesting”. The customer in question explained that he had paid €100 for a private dance and that he only came into contact with the lady because she stumbled after being startled by the clumsy arrival of Messrs Plod, and he had raised his hand to save her from falling. As to the police evidence of seeing him groping her, the manager replied, “The guy would have to be an octopus”. Lacking any sense of humour, the judge found Barclays guilty and suspended its licence. The club is appealing (like the girls). Nevertheless, the streets of Dublin are safer and criminals now quake, thanks to the gallant efforts of our intrepid law-enforcement officers.
Quote : A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Joseph Stalin Quote : If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves. Also Stalin, but could as well be George W Bush today
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
ISSUE #30 - 2nd March 2003 [134]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
With all the hot air that's being bandied around, particularly by the
anti-war lobby, it's worth repeating the key elements of UN
Resolution 1441.
Thus war is authorised at any time. We should moreover remember that the upcoming war is not a new one. It is merely the continuation of the one begun in 1990 by Saddam when he invaded Kuwait. As commentator Andrew Sullivan points out, when that war was won twelve years ago, no peace treaty was signed. Instead, a truce was arranged on clear and unequivocal conditions : that Saddam completely disarm himself of weapons of mass destruction, which he patently has not done. The issue is therefore not whether to start a war. It is whether to end one by rewarding the aggressor and simply ignoring his infractions of the truce. Such a policy, inasmuch as it clearly rewards unprovoked aggression, would be immoral and imprudent. A second UN resolution
will be nice for public opinion, but it's not necessary. Neither
will it rescue either Bush or Blair from their current unpopularity, because those opposed
to war are implacably so - new resolution or no new resolution.
I am more inclined to believe the confident, informed assertions of America's military brass that speedy victory is likely, rather than the doomsday scenarios painted by angry, uninformed Hollywood types. In another impassioned speech last week, Tony Blair compared himself with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who in 1938 was welcomed as a hero by the British people when he extracted from Hitler a seemingly war-averting promise of no further aggression. However, Mr Blair wanted to show his determination not to repeat a comparable mistake.
Think about it.
Fall of Mengistu, Tyrant of Ethiopia As we contemplate the imminent removal and/or demise of the Tyrant of Iraq, it is interesting to note that there is more than one way for a vicious regime to be terminated. That of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, tyrannical President of Ethiopia, fell in the summer of 1991 after seventeen brutal years in power. He himself escaped at the last minute by plane to Zimbabwe, where to this day he luxuriates under the protection of his soul-brother Robert Mugabe, immune from extradition demands from Ethiopia for (massively-documented) crimes against humanity. The fate of Mengistu's much feared armed forces, responsible for up to
500,000 deaths at his orders, was extraordinary.
And yet, in the summer of 1991, these rebel forces had driven the government troops from the countryside and into Addis Ababa. Europeans began fleeing the city in panic, expecting a bloodbath once the guerrillas entered. But something quite different occurred, something that could have been the subject of a movie entitled, “The End of a Great Army”. At the news that their cowardly commander had fled, this powerful force, armed to the teeth, collapsed in a matter of hours. Empty-bellied, demoralized soldiers transformed all at once, before the stunned eyes of the city's residents, into beggars. Holding a Kalashnikov in one hand more as a support than a threat, they stretched out the other, pleading for food. The guerrillas took the capital essentially without a fight. Mengistu's soldiers, having abandoned their tanks, rocket launchers, airplanes, armoured vehicles, and artillery pieces, set off, each man for himself, on foot, on mules, by bus, for their villages, homes, families. And if by chance in the years that followed you were to find yourself driving through Ethiopia, you would have noticed in many villages and small towns strong, healthy, young men sitting idly on the thresholds of houses, or on the stools of humble roadside bars. They were the soldiers of General Mengistu's great army which was to conquer Africa - yet fell apart in the course of a single day in the summer of 1991. Saddam's forces might last longer than a single day. But they won't last longer than a month, if that.
Pre-Nuptial Agreements Invalidate Marriage Pre-nuptial agreements are gaining in popularity across the Western world. A particularly celebrated one has Michael Douglas paying Catherine Zeta Jones a pre-determined sum every time he is caught philandering, as well as rules for division of spoils in the event of a divorce. Geoffrey Shannon, an expert on family law from the European Commission for Family Law, and author of Children and the Law supports the practice of pre-nuptial agreements. He suggests that “most of us enter marriage with a naïvety that is frightening” and that “the pre-nuptial agreement is merely a type of contract ... whose time has come”. People may not be aware, however, that a pre-nuptial agreement will almost certainly invalidate a marriage in the Catholic Church. Catholic Canon Law states that the essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility. The exclusion of indissolubility by a positive act of the will, as exemplified by a typical pre-nuptial agreement, renders consent invalid. While this may not be an issue for civil lawyers, it will be important to young Catholic couples who believe marriage is a God-sanctioned union. Indeed, under all Christian faiths, marriage is supposed to be indissoluble. “Till death do us part” is supposed to mean what it says.
Take your pick !
You thought George W Bush was a boring old warmonger ? Well, have a look at him disco dancing. Hip or what ? It's meant to be anti-Bush but with dancing skills like this, he goes up (further) in my estimation !
Quote : “Whoever decides to forsake his nation from whoever requests [it] is not true to [his] principles. We will die here ... in this country and we will maintain our honour, the honour that is required, in front of our people. Whoever ... offers Saddam asylum in his own country is ... without morals, because he will be directing an insult to the Iraqi people ... who have chosen Saddam Hussein, unanimously.” - President Saddam Hussein of Iraq
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Return to Tallrite Blog |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Now, for a little [Light Relief]
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Gift Idea |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
Jihad
Religion
Iona Institute
Leisure
Blog Directory
My Columns in the
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
