Many agree with this analysis - visit the link..
[..]
To see how this happened, think back to the 1950s. Electric appliances were the major growth business of that decade, symbolizing the decade's new affluence. Forecasters confidently predicted that by 2000 robot appliances would be in every household, removing the drudgery of housework once and for all. As a youthful reader of Isaac Asimov's Robot stories I shared that confidence - after all, the computerization necessary for robot control systems, which had not existed in 1940 when Asimov wrote the first of his I Robot short stories, was already revolutionizing business management by the late 1950s.
Now it's not just 2000 but 2008. So where the hell are the robots? GE Appliances has no such offering; if you buy a GE vacuum cleaner you will still have do all the work yourself. Can it be that the technological optimism of the 1950s was misplaced, and that home robots will never exist, or will be invented only in the far distant future? You'd certainly think so from looking at GE's catalog of products.
However it turns out that GE is simply behind the curve. The iRobot Corporation of Bedford Massachusetts, founded by keen Asimov readers from MIT in 1990, manufactures fully robotized vacuum cleaners as well as some pretty neat robotized mine-clearing equipment for the military. iRobot's standard model runs around $300, less in real terms than an ordinary vacuum cleaner would have cost you in 1980. iRobot's total sales are only $250 million, which GE would no doubt class as a rounding error, but dammit, the company doesn't have GE's brand name or distribution network.
Had GE had the sense and innovative skill to develop robot vacuum cleaners, can anybody doubt that that product group's sales would today be several billion dollars, with appropriately high margins? It is thus clear that by starving GE Appliances of investment and, more important, of research dollars, and devoting the company's efforts to financial services, "Neutron Jack" and his cohorts have deprived the United States of a major new business and deprived us overworked consumers of a major labor-saving technology (unless we are lucky enough to find out about iRobot or its few small-company competitors).
GE has commoditized its appliance business, forcing down prices by manufacturing in ever cheaper-labor parts of the world. Instead it should have been enriching that business, opening up new opportunities for products that could be sold at higher prices and higher margins and provide more value to the consumer.
The sad story of GE Appliances is a paradigm of what has gone wrong in the US economy since 1980. No, manufacturing did not need to leave the United States; US manufacturing was killed by a multitude of foolish short-term-profit motivated decisions by inept and overpaid US management.
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#1
I'm confused. iRobot is an American company, and the profits stay here. Even if the machines are currently made in China -- which I don't know, one way or the other -- that is easily changed. After all, even Chinese companies are now moving their manufacturing elsewhere as labour costs go up.
New research
compiled by Australian scientist Dr Tom Chalko shows that global
seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it
was just 20 years ago.
The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth
increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue,
unless the problem of "global warming" is comprehensively and
urgently addressed.
The analysis of more than 386,000 earthquakes between 1973 and 2007
recorded on the US Geological Survey database proved that the global
annual energy of earthquakes on Earth began increasing very fast
since 1990.
Dr Chalko said that global seismic activity was increasing faster
than any other global warming indicator on Earth and that this
increase is extremely alarming.
"The most serious environmental danger we face on Earth may not be
climate change, but rapidly and systematically increasing seismic,
tectonic and volcanic activity," said Dr Chalko.
"Increase in the annual energy of earthquakes is the strongest
symptom yet of planetary overheating.
"NASA measurements from space confirm that Earth as a whole absorbs
at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun
than it is able to radiate back to space. This 'thermal imbalance'
means that heat generated in the planetary interior cannot escape and
that the planetary interior must overheat. Increase in seismic,
tectonic and volcanic activities is an unavoidable consequence of the
observed thermal imbalance of the planet," said Dr Chalko.
Dr Chalko has urged other scientists to maximize international
awareness of the rapid increase in seismic activity, pointing out
that this increase is not theoretical but that it is an Observable
Fact.
"Unless the problem of global warming (the problem of persistent
thermal imbalance of Earth) is addressed urgently and comprehensively
-- the rapid increase in global seismic, volcanic and tectonic
activity is certain. Consequences of inaction can only be
catastrophic. There is no time for half-measures."
The broad, sneering European-elite response to the plucky Irish vote to oppose the further centralization of governmental power in the European Union and the emerging opinion in China suggest that from Brussels to Shanghai, democracy may be losing its appeal. Democracy, broadly understood as government by the people being governed, has been the upward aspiration of Western civilization for about 1,000 years -- and of the rest of the world for about 100 years. Certainly since the Magna Carta in 1215; arguably going back another millennium to when the Germanic tribes selected their chiefs through a more-or-less popular rather than hereditary method. The pace quickened in our Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, advanced further with Woodrow Wilson's call for the self-determination of nations after World War I. The democratic urge gained further rhetorical support in the post-World War II United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 21:
"(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
"(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
"(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."
Arguably, the aspiration for and expectation of democracy reached its zenith with the fall of the Soviet Union and the prediction that the end of history had been reached in the form of liberal democratic capitalism as practiced in the last decade of the 20th century. But events and experiences I have had in the past week reinforce a growing sense I have had for a few years that the ideal and practice of robust democracy may be seen in history as a quirk of the 18th-20th centuries. I can imagine students 500 years from now studying democracy the way we study medieval history: its rise, its high period, causes of its decline.
Admittedly, the rise and aspiration for democracy has not been a line steadily upward. In the 1930s, many in the West thought that both Mussolini's and Hitler's fascisms seemed to work better than Depression-era democracy. For others at the time, the Russian effort at communism seemed the better alternative. But for those of us born in the middle of last century, in the afterglow of democracy's WWII triumph (with, admittedly, a huge assist from Soviet Russia's overwhelming military sacrifices and triumphs on the eastern front), democracy seemed the objective of the entire world. Even the Soviet-controlled nations put the phrase "democratic republic" in their names. And post-colonial governments in Africa all at least talked in terms of democracy.
It first hit me with force that democracy may not be a universal goal when I was in Russia in 2005 to discuss my book on radical Islam. Almost everyone I met -- from leading academics, to my driver, to radio talk show hosts, to all sorts of people I met in bars -- loved Putin and were contemptuous of democracy and capitalism. Every Russian I met wanted a strong government, thought democracy is inherently corrupt and useless, and that capitalism is another word for theft. Last week, I was in China and had an opportunity to talk with several Chinese businesspeople -- some top executives, some shopkeepers and, once again, several middle-class people in bars (a small sample out of 1.3 billion Chinese). Each was perfectly content to let the unelected Communist Party run the government, as long as economic growth continued. A point made by several of them (admittedly, all the people I talked with are doing well economically) and also made by a local academic expert is that the rest of Asia is noticing that the Chinese Communist Party-managed economic method is working better than the American democratic capitalism method.
I find it melancholy to consider that perhaps people aspire to self-government not because it is the natural and dignified condition of man to be free and self-governing, but merely only if it is likely to turn a quick economic profit. Which brings me to the Irish vote. After a similar vote was lost in 2005 in France and in the Netherlands, the decision of the European elite was to redecide the matter by going around the people and deciding through parliaments (where the fix was in) rather than by plebiscite. Only the Irish insisted on a vote of the people before turning over sovereign power to Brussels bureaucrats. And they voted it down 53-47 percent -- against the loud voices of all the political parties and national leaders. God bless the Irish people.
Almost the entire business, political and cultural elite of Europe argue for centralizing EU power in Brussels because it will be good for business (and give Europe a more coherent voice and action in the world). The price for that is to reduce the role of democratically elected government officials and to give more power to unelected governing forces. Is that why partisans risked their lives sniping at Nazi soldiers and throwing homemade bombs at German panzer tanks a mere half-century ago? Is the world getting ready to give up its birthright to self-govern for a mess of pottage?
#1
....democracy may be losing its appeal.
I was in China and had an opportunity to talk with several Chinese businesspeople -- some top executives, some shopkeepers and, once again, several middle-class people in bars (a small sample out of 1.3 billion Chinese). Each was perfectly content to let the unelected Communist Party run the government, as long as economic growth continued.
Further evidence of the decline not mentioned by Mr. Blankley, would be our own democratic presidential candidate and his delerious, following hordes.
#2
> argue for centralizing EU power in Brussels because it will be good for business
It won't be good for Business, it will be good for their big businesses because it will remove competitors from THEIR businesses. It's corporate socialism.
#4
I wouldn't put 1789 (or at least 1793) as a stepping stone in the improvement of Humanity. Anyway, to put it bluntly, I'm only a mild fan od democracy, or more precisely, representative democracy. I'd be very happy and pleased with a republican system that runs smoothly, ensure stability (not unlike the very well-balanced US sytem), order and prosperity without sacrificing natural rights (property, freedom of movement, speech, thought and religion), but would be based say on the votes of only a restricted part of the general population... excluding those who derive their income from the State (welfare or civil servants) would be for example a great step in curing some of the french political ailments. I'm not a believer in universal suffrage.
#5
And I'd be very ok in not belonging to the voting demographics, too, as long as the system is just (not fair), efficient, and again, enforces freedom-based rights. I don't vote, because I don't care about the so-called "democracy" we live in in France, I simply have no stake and no interest in what goes on in that scam, and, deep down, I really see no valid reason why my vote should count as much as an engineer's, a businessman's, or a family father with five kids'... Senseless.
#6
I don't vote, because I don't care about the so-called "democracy" we live in in France, I simply have no stake and no interest in what goes on in that scam, ... Senseless.
Posted by: anonymous5089
Give me a cottage in Hippolyte, plenty of Pessac-Leognant and I won't care either Anonymous.
#8
I wouldn't put 1789 (or at least 1793) as a stepping stone in the improvement of Humanity.
We can make a parallel with ancient Athenes. Given that slaves and metecs (foreigners or peole with foreigna ancestors) were 90% of the population and had no right to vote (not to mentrion woimen) you can say that Athens was an aritocracy not a democracy. But Athens still invented the idea and andvanced towards it.
I'm only a mild fan od democracy, or more precisely, representative democracy<:i>
I am. For a simple reason: it is best to piss the gfew thanthe many. Provided of course that the amount of displeasure caused to the minority is limited. That uis why contrry to what leftist says democarcy is not the dictatorship of the minority: governmen's action is limited by tseparation of powers, the law, and teh Constitution who puts limits to what governemnt can do to change the law.
Also, elections are not enough to have democracy.
In European countries electoral systems have been designed to keep the peole as far away as having his say than possible. For instance in proportional regimes like preferrd in most of europe it is the Party (sometimes through internal process who are everythig but democratoic) who presnts candidtes and decides who will be in forts positions in the list (ie will ever get elected) and who will not.
And the people have nothin,g to say. The Party could prefectly get a known pedophile elected by placciong him high enough on the list and the people could do little about it. After the elctions Parties negotiate a governement coalition completely behind the backs of the voters. Finally it is a couple of small parties who have the real power because it is them who are the king makers by allying with one of the big parties.
In fact ythe lections are only a varnnish upon a system as antidemocratic than the feodal system of yore.
#9
Sure, they're perfectly happy to let the people in charge run things, so long as it works. Unfortunately, oligarchies deteriorate, corrupt oligarchies even quicker. The one thing that can be said about the American system is that, terrible as it is, it's better than anything else that's been tried, in an experiment that has run successfully for over two centuries thus far. The EU is the French system writ large, which swings from pole to pole every generation or so -- it's the Fifth Republic still, correct? China goes directly from chaos to emperor, and in their historic experience the emperor, no matter how corrupt, is still better than chaos... they know nothing else, and dare not be interested.
On the other hand, look at the enthusiasm for democracy in Iraq, which has the rest of the region's rulers quietly quaking. Granted, there is a big contingent there that look at it as a new version of inter-tribal jostling, and another that see it as Shia vs. Sunni vs. Kurds, but more and more understand its power to get things done at the local level, where things never have gotten done before. So I don't accept that Democracy is in decline, hypocrisy being the compliment that vice pays to virtue and all.
#10
A very important concept of democracy is *why* it is so popular. It is *not* popular because it promulgates liberty and freedom, those are just both requirements, and side effects of democracy.
It is popular because it is more *efficient* than any other system.
From peasant to prince, democracy points out the obvious, that just about anyone can be better at *something*, so they should have a right to put in their two cents.
This is why that once the idea of voting became known (via TV game shows) in China, even the most ignorant peasant said "Hey, that's a good idea!"
This is why when the local communist party guy shows up and tells them to do something that they know won't work, somebody pipes up and says "Hey, let's vote on it!", instead of everybody just humbly doing what they are told.
Typically, the communist party guy is perplexed and upset. They have no easy answer as to why everybody should just shut up and do what they're told.
The end result is that a lot of low level communist bosses have realized that they get better *results*, when they work with consensus instead of forcing their ideas on others.
And boom!, you have one less communist. Because even though he doesn't know it, he has advanced the cause of democracy.
Democracy wins because it is just plain *better*, a fact that angers those whose philosophies go head to head with democracy and lose.
#11
The other thing to keep in mind is that China and Russia are police states. The bad thing about police states is that they work--if by "work," you mean "succeed at controlling the behavior of their citizens so that they do not network together to challenge the established order."
Imagine you're a middle-class Chinese guy sitting in the bar with Tony Blankley. Secret policemen and their informers could be anywhere, even sitting next to you and Tony. (Hell, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility, from your perspective, that this gweilo Tony Blankley is in cahoots with the secret police. You vividly remember what happened the last time Chinese people got enthusiastic about democracy. The foreigner asks you what you think of democracy, and whether China should adopt it. How do you answer?
Unless you are unusually brave and idealistic, you give an answer that is some acceptable variant of the Communist party line--because that is the answer that is least likely to get you dragged from your home in the middle of the night and summarily executed.
Do people really feel this way in their heart of hearts? No way to tell.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/18/2008 11:17 Comments ||
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#12
...the rest of Asia is noticing that the Chinese Communist Party-managed economic method is working better than the American democratic capitalism method.
Provided one fully believes the statistics put out by the Chinese government, ignores the massive bad bank debt and averts their gaze from recent fuel rationaing efforts among things.
The PRC is an economic dynamo, but their "feedback loop" is suboptimal, and this will have its bad effects.
A lot of people thought the Japanese "MITI model" would eventually supercede us as well. How'd that work out?
#13
Nah, the police state thing isn't all that. People can speak their minds without informers informing on them. You have to really make a nuisance of yourself before the cops will come out and talk to you. I've known people who have taken pictures of illegal street protests, and all that happened was they got a visit from the cops asking to come down to the station for a chat.
I second the efficiency thing. China is *hugely* inefficient, which is mostly masked by their huge growth. One thing that you have to remember is that the Chinese economy has *never* gone down in living memory. It's all up, up, up since Mao died. This results in things like people opening businesses with no idea what they're doing, and the business succeeds anyway due to runaway demand. I see small shops open and close all the time, and it's the same story - no plan, no strategy, no marketing. It's just "I'll open the doors and people will flood in." The Chinese are geniunely shocked when they don't, and can't figure out what they did wrong. Really.
#15
FOX NEWS AM > CAVUTO > NEW OIL DRILLING PLAN > US DEMS desire MORE BIG GOVT in return for little to no improvement in the US domestic oil situation = lower oil prices???
#17
In the sixth and final volume of his history of WW II Churchill sets forth a theme for the volume which is something along the lines of, "In which the great democracies achieve victory so that they may promptly resume the follies which so nearly cost them their lives." I think that in that phrase Churchill really captured the experience of a democracy which tends to stumble along from crisis to crisis with wild disagreement and seeming stagnation only to finally see public opinion coalesce strongly enough and for a long enough time at the very last moment available to stave off the impending doom du jour.
The link takes you to a posting by blogger Chuck Simmins at "America's North Shore Journal," which collects and compares some stories about Afghanistan.
Articles in Time magazine, and from AFP, describe miltants "swarming" over the Argandab district near Kandahar. The Canadian troops with responsibility for the Argandab district report conducting patrols which marched around the area without getting shot at, encountering only local residents doing whatever people in the Argandab district do when there's no combat being conducted in the neighborhood.
Apparently, the Taliban don't need to actually capture territory any more. All they have to do is send out a press release announcing that they've captured territory, and the mainstream media will just take them at their word.
We may jeer him and tell him to go home, but America's allies continue to benefit from some of George Bush's decisions
Jimmy Carter was cheered when he visited Newcastle with Jim Callaghan. Bill Clinton was lauded in Northern Ireland. But it is more usual, at least with more consequential holders of the office, for American presidents to be told by European demonstrators to go home.
The postwar history of our continent would be different and less benign if the United States had heeded that message. His office, and the system of collective security from which we benefit, would be justification enough to welcome President Bush's visit to London this week. But there is an additional reason peculiar to the Bush presidency. For all Bush's verbal infelicity, diplomatic brusqueness, negligence in planning for post-Saddam Iraq, and insouciance regarding standards of due process when prosecuting the war on terror, the world is a safer place for the influence he has exercised.
When Bush ran for president in 2000 he was an isolationist advocate of scaling back America's overseas commitments. But after 9/11, he was right in not interpreting the attack as confirmation that America was stirring up trouble for itself. The theocratic barbarism responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers was driven not by what America and its allies had done, but by what we represented. In the words of Osama bin Laden, illegitimately appropriating for himself the mantel of Islam, "every Muslim, the minute he can start differentiating, carries hate toward Americans, Jew, and Christians".
The most fundamental decision in western security policy in the past seven years has not been the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It has been the recognition that the most voluble adversaries of western society are not merely a criminal subculture, and still less an incipient liberation movement. Rather, they are a reactionary, millenarian and atavistic force with whom accommodation is impossible as well as intensely undesirable.
The grand strategy pursued by the US under Bush has overestimated the plasticity of the international order, but it has got one big thing right. There is an integral connection between the terrorism that targets western societies and the autocratic states in which Islamist fanaticism is incubated. Bush is culpable for much that went wrong after the overthrow of Saddam, but the outlook for Iraq has changed fundamentally owing to his decision to appoint General David Petraeus and pursue a confrontational strategy with al-Qaida in Iraq.
Bush was wrong, in his 2002 state of the union speech, to speak of an "axis of evil" connecting Saddam, Iran and North Korea not because he overstated these actors' malevolence but because they were not a homogeneous threat. Two of them remain potent and unresolved problems. But little can be accomplished in restraining North Korea's bellicosity without the active support of China, and at least the Iranian regime has faced a united international front in constraining its nuclear ambitions. Whoever succeeds Bush as president will benefit from some decisions well conceived if often badly executed. So will America's allies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
There is an integral connection between the terrorism that targets western societies and the autocratic states in which Islamist fanaticism is incubated.
Meaning Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc. More should be made and done about this reality and very present danger. On "W", considering what little he's had to work with in the US Congress and it's absolute refusal to accomplish anything productive, I think he's done pretty well indeed.
A new international relations orthodoxy is coalescing, to the effect that America is slouching towards mediocrity. In newspaper columns articles and on TV talk shows you will hear journalists charting the "relentless relative decline" of the United States. The military is overstretched; the economy is exposed; the political system is broken; the punters are suffering from an Iraq-induced hangover; and when it comes to international legitimacy, the White House has maxed out America's credit card. And all the time, potential competitors such as China, the European Union, Russia, India and Iran are closing in.
The best works in this area, by Richard Haass and Fareed Zakaria, are full of insight. Yet as a non-American living in the United States, I'm struck by the gulf that still remains between America and the rest - in terms of hard power, soft power and what we could call "smart power."
#1
Leftists, as usual, are letting their feelings dictate their coverage. They desperately want America to fall, and they are well aware that the press can sometimes make something happen just by agreeing that it's happening.
It is hard to imagine future Fareed Zakarias - or, for that matter, future Barack Obamas - emigrating to China or Russia or Iran instead of the United States.
Indeed. The classic liberal fallacy - they criticize the country while they would live nowhere else.
#3
I always laugh when a doomsay article claiming that the economic sky is falling comes off with a line like The dollar reached it's lowest point since 2001. Ok, I think we'll survive, since we survived 2001.
#4
Compare wid TOPIX > AMERICA:STILL THE [World]COLOSSUS; + AMERICA: THE RELUCTANT HYPERPOWER.
HMMMMM, lessirree, SUPERMAN > "I try to be careful becuase I don't want anyone or the innocent to get hurt ...Every now and then something happens where I get to show how powerful I truly am, and I'm glad";
versus
THE INCREDIBLE HULK > "HULK MAD/SMASH....It taint easy being Green"???
#5
"It's worth noting that the declinist canon has emerged at the nadir of the Bush years"
Actually, the "declinist canon" has waxed and waned for at least 35 years from my experience. Indeed, it was much worse in the 1930's when all the intellectuals of the world just knew that the Soviet Union was the way of the future and the capitalist USA was doomed.
While I agree with much of what Fullilove says, his grasp of recent history seems a bit weak.
Michael Ramirez has the exactly-correct response to the USSC Gitmo decision at the link. Go see.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2008 11:15 ||
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#1
Compare wid FREEREPUBLIC > OBAMA ADVISERS ARGUE OSAMA BIN LADEN CAN APPEAL TO US COURTS; + ANN COULTER > JUSTICE KENNEDY: AMERICAN IDLE.
As a reminder, WOT > among other premises, is WAR FOR PRO-US, VERSUS ANTI-US, OWG-NWO, INCLUD COMMIE-SOCIALIST WORLD ORDER = US-LED/CENTRIC GLOBAL EMPIRE = "USA vs. USSA/USR", .....etc. Generally, the new USSC decision FORMALLY extends US SOVEREIGNTY + LEGAL VENUE/JURISDICTA OUTSIDE OF THE USA = CONUS-NORAM PROPER AND TO NON-US CITIZENS.
IICC/IIUC the SC Ruling, the Islamist Burqua Boyz being held down at GITMO have now qualified for status of US NATIONAL [US Protectoree], as ostensibly due to being duratively by the USDOD at GITMO and as per US-CUBA treatises applicable to GITMO. GITMO > BY TREATY AUTHORITY,TECHNICALLY
ITS THE USA THAT HAS ABSOLUT FINAL SAY IN WHEN TO PULL OUT/WITHDRAW FROM GITMO, NOT HAVANA. IOW, GITMO BASE PER SE can be interpreted as DE FACTO US TERRITORY-PROTECTORATE UNTIL WASHINGTON = BILATERAL US-CUBAN, ETC. DIPLOMACY SAYS OTHERWISE.
The above being said, the REAL LITMUS TEST for the new SC Ruling will be those Islamist Prisoners detained or held OVERSEAS IN EURO + ME, i.e. THE NEW POST-9-11 TREATISES AS CONSEQUENCE OF THE WOT.
*PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION + WEAPNZ > IRAN + MILITANTS-TERRS > SAVING THE JIHAD = "THERE CAN ONLY BE TWO" [US, Islamism] in this man's WOT = WAR FOR OWG-NWO[GBO = GOD-BASED ORDER/WORLD ORDER].
HMMMMM, HMMMMM, "THERE CAN ONLY BE TWO" > USSA versus UNITED ISLAMIST SOCIALIST STATES [UISS/ISS; UMMAH?]???
What have we been reduced to as a result of our successive leaderships' kowtowing to the US post-9/11? What many of us had feared and written about at the time seems to have come true -- be it the growing US intrusions into our territory or the periodic diatribes from the US against Dr A.Q. Khan whenever they feel Pakistan needs to be put under pressure. However, nothing reflects our state's sovereign bankruptcy as much as the audacious threats issued by Afghanistan's Karzai of sending in his Afghan Army into Pakistan to take out 'militants' and 'terrorists.' Here is a man who barely has power in his own capital, Kabul, and has hundreds of occupation forces from the US and NATO -- not to mention some Arab contingents from the Gulf states -- and he is actually threatening Pakistan, a country with a massive conventional military, and nuclear capability to boot.
Herein lies the irony of Pakistan's predicament post-9/11. Our military seems to have no stomach for fighting the violations of our sovereignty by the US and its allies. That has emboldened the US and they now feel they can target the Pakistani security forces directly -- as they did in March 2008 in Bajaur, and more recently last week in the Mohmand Agency which left 11 FC men dead, apart from the civilians that are a constant target of US and NATO forces -- especially as their frustration has grown over their lack of success in Afghanistan.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
It is time we re-examined whether the US is really an 'ally' or a dangerous enemy.
Could be either one, depending on what you do. It's your call.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/18/2008 6:14 Comments ||
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#2
Shireen has serious ISI links.
Looks like some people are spoiling for a fight...
Posted by: john frum ||
06/18/2008 7:01 Comments ||
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#3
Maybe it's time the US recognized that Pakistan is not an ally but an enemy. You want an enemy Paks? Be careful what you wish for...
#4
ISI propaganda form and ISI mouthpiece. Somone ought to put a bullet in Mazari's direction to send a bit of a message.
The ISI is funding training and supporting the Talib, and is starting to scream now that they have been caught and killed in the border regions along with their mooks.
President Bush should authorize direct action against the ISI by any and all clandestine services, whether in Pakistan or elsewhere.
Start killing them now. Rapidly. And in large numbrs but one at a time. The ISI has become the largest destabilizing threat in the region.
#7
It is hard to accept that your country and culture are fatally flawed. Pakistan is such a country. Its defense budget is less than 10% of what India or the US/Nato team spend in Afghanistan every year. They are weak now and growing weaker every year like every other Muslim country. That their neighbors put up with their insults is only because they are not troublesome enough to bother with, nor are they worthy enough to conquer.
Sari Nusseibeh has been president of Al Quds University in Jerusalem, Israel, since 1995 and also teaches philosophy there. Nusseibeh has long been committed to peace in the Middle East. His book Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life has recently been published in paperback by Picador.
[..]
What mistakes have the Palestinian and Arab leaders made during the last 60 years? Has the Palestinian leadership really let chances for peace slip by, as is always claimed?
Certainly it has. For example, when the British Foreign Minister Lord Balfour promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine in 1917, our grandfathers demonstrated and protested. The community leaders should rather have hired a plane and flown to London to speak to the foreign minister. They should have discussed things and created a Palestinian diplomacy. If they'd done that, they would have been in a position to control things much better.
In the thirties there was a blueprint for the establishment of a state on the whole of Palestine in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews would each control a third. The Arabs would have had two-thirds. The Arabs rejected this too. If they'd accepted it, they would now be in a better position. And so on. Every time, their situation has got even worse as a result of the innumerable mistakes of their leadership. It's true that half the problem stems from the occupation, but the other half is historically the responsibility of our leadership.
#1
Lord Balfour promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine in 1917, our grandfathers demonstrated and protested. The community leaders should rather have hired a plane and flown to London
A firm grasp of history thar. Have SPAD will travel.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
