I don't believe it
Drew
his previous inanities?
Jerry
The short answer is, it is sane
- the kid has a gun, replace it with a safer one, and teach him how to
use it
Also - this is a symbolic threat to China
Norman
Iran against Israel....It amounts to moving pawns around in the world
chess game. What they don't seem to realise is the enormities of what
they are creating, it is not like supplying hand guns in a complete kit
of spare parts. America also happens to be China's biggest creditor
so are they planning to level their debt.
Just so you can keep up with a few bagatelles that wingers and whiners
moaning about here are a few.
The government has sold five ports to the UAE.
They have also leased 160 miles of motorway for 75 years to an
Australian / Spanish consortium for $3.85bn. They claim it will create
thousands of jobs, must be planning a toll booth every 100 yards. Local
residents claim heavy transport will divert through their villages
rather than pay the toll.
They want to sell public area land and mineral rights on state land.
Japanese companies are already cutting down American forests,
processing the wood offshore, causing lots of pollution in the process
and then selling the wood back to America.
One guy was moving home and wanted to put some affairs in order so he
paid $6000 off his credit card. He got reported to the Homeland
Security as a possible terrorist money launderer and had his accounts
frozen. Amusing but not very funny.
Brazil has for some time and now other Latin countries are converting
sugar to alcohol as a mix in petrol to fuel road vehicles. Sugar prices
have suddenly doubled in USA and people are seeing this as a deal
between the government and Big Sugar.
The general feeling is that the country is going to the dogs.
Best
Drew
(aka tendentious diatribe). How come the most knowledgeable computator
person has most trouble with computer related stuff? Likewise I
suppose, I get electronic faults which thoroughly disprove the
existence of God.
We all know the Shrub isn't actually in charge, but what is to be
gained by his sooking up to India and further shoving
Iverdinnerjacket's nose in it? What's the endgame? Or are the
motivations purely ephemeral whims? I can't work out if it is all a
plan to circumvent payments to China or destabilise something. There
*must* be a bigger picture of why the US embraces the curios that
Norman mentions which seem to fly in the face of much vaunted
pronouncements. One can discount altruism, one would imagine power /
money, but maybe I unfairly credit the 'power people' with
intelligence. So it is just a case of careering down a slope?
Jerry
- I should really compose them 'off-line'
The India thing goes back a long way, they had an unpleasant run in
with China in the 1950's or early 60's - as a result they became
friendly with Russia.
On the basis that my enemy's enemy is my friend, Pakistan became
friendly with America, which was quite handy for logistics building up
the horror in Afghanistan.
Of course the USA got friendly with China in the 1970's which completed
the patchwork.
India's nuclear technology probably came from Russia, it is hard to see
where Pakistan got its leg up, but a guess would suggest that the USA
was somehow involved.
The technology transfer to Iran is curious, it is possible that it was
down to renegade elements in Pakistan.
Once first India, then Pakistan, had demonstrated that they had 'the
bomb', it established a form of 'parity' which meant that neither could
really invade each other (as last happened in the 1970's, but was and,
sort of still is, simmering on the Kasmir border).
When Sept 11th happened, it re-aligned the Russian/USA stance, and
created problems for Pakistan - a bit tricky being a Moslem State - yet
wanting to remain aligned with the USA.
India is industrializing fast, but it has a major problem with
generating electricity, supposedly it has vast reserves of coal, but
realistically it is probably more practical using nuclear power.
(Personally I find that worrying, but it will happen anyway).
The USA realizes that India will be building nuclear plants all over
the shop, so from their point of view they might as well ensure that
the 'safest' technology is used, plus there is a buck in it.
India will become a vast manufacturing force like China, so the USA is
likely to be keen on getting an inside track there - especially because
at some stage China is going to become 'inward looking' - when China
has got what it wants from the West, I reckon it will concentrate on
snapping up raw materials and become something of a self sufficient
economy.
Despite what people believe, I doubt that China is a good place for
inward investment, for a start their industry used to be run by the
Army, and is now run by the same people - but out of uniform. The mind
set is likely to be 'joined up' - put crudely, the Chinese are too
smart to be exploited.
India, on the other hand, is receptive to inward investment, which
makes it very interesting to the USA - also, while bureaucratic, India
is probably a lot easier for business than China, for a start English
is a common language - always helpful.
The USA used to look at things in terms of 'patterns', for example
around 1976 they wanted to lock the Middle East into a 'triangle' -
Iran supplying the money, Egypt the labour and Israel the technology.
In a way that sort of approach is not a bad idea, as the more affluent
and interdependent countries are, the more stable they become.
It makes a lot of sense getting in with India, buying off Pakistan is
not much of a problem, there are more Moslems in India than Pakistan
which gives an idea of relative costs.
There is another element, if (or rather when) India takes off, it will
have a massive demand for oil, and I can envisage that the USA would be
pretty keen on ensuring that it does not compete for resources.
I would not be at all surprized if we were to hear something about
converting coal to oil ...
As for the USA, they are justifiably very nervous about the DPP getting
hold of those five ports.
The USA also has a history of stitching up inward investors, the Japs
caught a cold and America is a graveyard for British companies.
I can see them selling off the odd asset, but it is bound to be
overpriced, and there is proibably a sting in the tail.
I can understand the Japanese getting wood processing done outside the
USA, the labour costs of doing it locally would be prohibitive.Since
any profits would be likely to be re-invested in the USA, there would
be little downside.
The sugar price hike is probably down to speculation, 'bio fuels' have
been getting a disproportionate amount of publicity, as has the
Canadian oil shale stuff.
Partly I think that this is sending the message to oil producers that
if push comes to shove their resources will be less interesting to the
USA.
On balance, there is a degree of sense in what is going on, my
suspicion is that a 'new team' is slipping into place inside the
American establishment.
Probably, they have realized that 'war' is an expensive waste of time.
Drew
immediate future rather than the humanist long term view. Mmmm.
Yea, why don't you compose off-line? I get mega miffed if I lose even
a line, but that's partly because it takes me so long to transfer
from mind to monitor. Once wrote 3000 (story) words in one sitting and
needed virtually no editing -- never happened again. Peaked briefly.
Best
Jerry
with Shrub or any of his advisors.
However, 'humanism' has been tainted by this extraordinary notion of
'uman Rights
- so maybe that is reluctantly, not a criticism
Did you notice how, in Shrub's honour, they had a little massacre of
tribesmen in Pakistan (well on the Afghan border). Nah, maybe it was
synchronicity.
Also, it was very interesting hearing that Pakistan general fluently
and lucidly reaming out journalists, comparing their own activities
with the US endeavours in Iraq.
Drew
government from the time of 'the Indian problem' and everything in
between to their recent activities abroad, such as the occasional
massacre and arbitrary wars. To what extend might one justifiably term
the style as scorched earth? That physical action being aimed at social
destruction, in the mode of Thatch's shafting miners.
Best
Jerry
In my usual way, I tend to question commonly held beliefs.
I've a strong suspicion that much of the 'Indian' stuff is a
fabrication.
Sure, they got smallpox, measles and probably every other kind of pox,
but that was not deliberate - and it was unavoidable. I remember
something about a British officer handing out smallpox laden blankets,
but that could be an invention.
Settling started on the East Coast, by the time people really started
moving West, the North East was industrialized and the agrarian
original inhabitants were probably absorbed into the population.
The US only really got the bit between its teeth after WWII, when
according to my Uncle they were busily sabotaging the residue of the
British Empire.
Since then, they have shown an alarming lack of understanding of
different cultures.
My impression is that they created their own opposition, turning
Nationalists into Cawmoonists.
My guess is that, being technologically more advanced, they are
incapable of scrapping on equal terms, sling munitions at 'problems',
resulting in ... 'scorched earth'.
Much as I dislike it, this makes a pretty strong argument for the
British presence in Basra.
It keeps the Americans out, which protects the natives.
The normal, successful way of building an Empire, is to take over
established institutions so a lot of the locals have a strong vested
interest in the setup.
To be fair, the USA did do that in Japan and Germany, but in both cases
the 'natives' were industrialized and realized the benefits of getting
out of chaos.
If they had had any sense in Iraq, they would have kept the Ba'athist
structure intact.
The funny thing is that there was already an example from Yugoslavia,
when Tito snuffed it the place fell apart. It was pretty clear that
Saddam was doing a similar job in Iraq.
Peculiar.
Drew
never learned much about detail. Too busy fixing trucks and comms
equipment. However just after Tito died I rode over a hill on my bike
and was confronted on the opposite hillside a huge 'Tito' marked
out in whitewashed rocks on an otherwise bare field. A peasant farmer
had taken the time and trouble to mourn the death. Can't see that
happening for Sadam, even from his supporters.
Did not Tito walk an incredibly careful line between the East and the
West? After all, tanks never rolled into Yugoslavia and of all the iron
curtain countries it was the only one where access from the West was
never obstacled. Sadam controlled ethnic and religious confrontation by
suppression and murder; I'm not aware of similar activity from Tito
though presumably he employed some repression to hold the parties at
bay. The fact that things went arse up in the nineties I would suggest
is not really a reflection of the bad that Tito did but rather the
opposite. Whatdya think?
Best
Jerry
Just as the Shah's SAVAK was a pussy cat compared with the successors.
Sometimes a bit of 'murder' is a good thing
- dead murderers don't re-offend.
I'm not sure about the Yugoslavia mess, typically I take the opposite
point of view of that prevailing at the time, Croatia was swiftly
sorted out by the Germans, we should have co-opted Russian help to
ensure that the Serbians behave, I'm biased against the Albanians -
probably because I reckon they are savages from beyond the edges of
civilization.
We don't know what Tito did, but the chances are that he was pretty
smart and bought off the leaders of all diverse 'sections' with
affluence and rapid elimination of their enemies.
Saddam was doing the same.
Over the past few days, I have been crystalizing an inchoate thought
that one needs to stoop to the level of ones enemy.
The victor writes the history books.
Very likely you have more knowledge of what went on, actually I both
admire your going out there (and think you had a spot of insanity),
however my suspicion is that Yugoslavia was largely 'tarting to the
Middle East Moslems'
Mostly I am a reformed idealist, however my disillusionment does not
extend to seeing things in black and white.
Drew
day. At least though victims of the democratising force can die in the
satisfaction that their deaths are making a difference, so too 'our
brave boys'. And of course the few hundred a week blown up by suicide
dead heads must be relieved in their last throes of agony that they die
in freedom and not under an oppressive yoke.
First glance I read 'inebriate' instead of 'inchoate'. Mmmm. I
would say that one must mentally stoop to the level of ones enemy to
understand them, but one doesn't then have to physically stoop to
that level. Perhaps that is what you meant.
Re Moslem involvement in Bosnia, the only noticeable aspect was
Pakistani and Malaysian UN battalions. Nice people, bleedin hopeless
military. The only call to prayers I heard was from those sources. The
charity spread to Albania, though personally I haven't had
involvement I can't say I've heard voiced dislike of Albanian
society. Maybe it's best I don't know because it's not
inconceivable I could go out sometimes and it's not generally
recognised as good practise to have an aversion to the people one is
supposed to be helping. I could arrange for you to go if you'd like
:-)
Laughed at your last line BTW. Worthy of Ambrose Bierce.
Norm!
Best
Norman
And also yes the suicide nutters are 'free' to blow up as many
others as they can. Long live freedom and long live cynicism.
I am not up on Yugoslavian history so I don't know what Tito did to
hold it all together. I suspect that he had the rare ability to be good
at his job I don't think he did it the same way Kissinger did it but
I may be wrong.
Wrt Albania, you have to remember that in between the sinking of the
Hood and the death of Hoxa, Albania was a closed country with hardly
any diplomatic relations with anybody. Hoxa was once reported as saying
to his people "I have seen the outside world and it is not good so
you lot don't need to bother with it". Growing up in this
incestuous insulation must have had an effect on the populace but
thinking about it in retrospect he might have had a point.
Best
Drew
history which bears much testament to reality. The recent conflict can
be partly attributed to this. But hey, what's new. Albania used to
have sideburn stipulations on foreign visitors. Can't remember if
they were obligatory or forbidden, or if women were excluded.
"I have seen the outside world and it is not good so you lot don't
need to bother with it" It's the American way! Actually Girvan's
a bit like that too. Thankfully our local council has been
disincentivised from manufacturing weapons grade plutonium.
Quite surprised, considering your general knowledge of world affairs
(relative to mine) that the both of you are not particularly genned up
on Yugoslavia. Why is that?
Best
Norman
a road sign at each end of the village declaring "You are now Entering
a Nuclear Free Zone".
Best
Jerry
rather opened my eyes.
I've always been rather interested in the concept of the 'psychopathic
personality' and it pretty soon became clear that the whole lot have
been grown in an environment where that was the norm.
Sometimes it is better to stand back and let people fight it out,
intervening troops tend to become animated sandbags. The problem is
that there is always a minority who see an advantage in a breakdown of
law and order - and it is hard for outsiders to identify them.
My guess is that Tito had a number of factors in his favour, the
prospect of Russians was probably enough to make a lot of people
cooperative, and I expect that he had a pretty effective 'secret
police'. I also rather suspect that memories of WWII contributed to
keeping a lid on things.
Of course, in both Albania and Yugoslavia, a lot of the problems were
simply down to the widespread ownership of arms. In Albania when
things broke down, they raided the armouries.
For some reason, Yugoslavia was 'over armed', and more stuff came in
over the border from Albania. Simply distributing Kalashnikovs in
Girvan would be enough to start a mess.
Generally a recipe for chaos.
Drew
existence. It's a bit like replacing 'No Fires' signs with
'Photon free zone'.
Kalashnikovs in Girvan. If you had ever been to Girvan you might
consider the suggestion as quite reasonable :-)
Best
Norman
Best
Drew
Norman
Have you noticed that our names have become coloured but the background
colour has disappeared. It doesn't stand out so much as before. Any
idea how long it has been like this? Still it keeps the beta tinkerers
in jobs and G can afford it.
Best