Regional development

shifting culture

2012-01-22T14:37:00.000-05:00

Editorial comments on recent Florida news

011212 Chalk

Chalk one up for totalitarian government. Totalitarianism survives on creative interpretations of laws to circumvent constitutional protections. The Government is making much that the “chalker” made no resistance to going to jail for his non-crime. Smart kid, to question would have been termed resistance and probably have led to his severe beating and possibly death which the government would have called justified defense of freedoms. The City need to pass a new law to ban all chalk sales, imprison chalk smugglers along with children, teachers and artists who have ever polluted the environment with chalk dust. How’s that for an ‘ex post facto’ creative interpretation of environmental law. (Ref Orlando mayor’s counter to occupy movement actions. The “crime” was to chalk ‘justice for all’ on the sidewalk. After keeping the young man in jail for several days (18?) he was released without ever seeing a courtroom. Similar actions across the country by authorities seem to indicate a conspiracy by government leaders to silence increasing popular dissent.)

011712 FAMU

In the less than growing debate over hazing one point seem to escaped debate. Hazing has always been around and probably always will be but there has been a cultural change that accepts abuse. In the FAMU case a man died and not a case of child play that got out of hand. His death followed a long period of well-known serious injuries to other adults. The subsequent media focused is on band hazing but it is probable that there are other examples of hazing at the school. The administration signaled that hazing was acceptable by ignoring and covering up hazing. It continues to do so by hiring a PR firm to “improve its image” read that as diverting attention from and covering up administration complicity in murder. Instead of proactive classes in ethics, reforms or even psychological assessments the administration chose to spend its money on PR dis-information. The Band doesn’t need to be suspended instead the Administration should be permanently suspended. Otherwise the problem continues to grow as soon as public focus shifts. A fitting tribute to the victim would be real cultural reform by a Robert Champion moral code of conduct for the school. (Ref the hazing beating death of a young man.)

011912 Tax the internet

Florida merchants term Internet sales as unfair because most do not charge Florida sales tax. The merchants are correct; Internet sources are unfair but not because of no sales tax. Most people would much rather pay sixty-five cents in sales tax on a ten-dollar item rather than a ten-dollar shipping and handling charge and three day wait. The unfairness is that outsiders provide products and services scorned by local merchants. Customers are forced to spend half a day and gallons of gas going from mall to mall before giving up local searches for the simplest product. Customers discovered sales personnel are only marginally qualified to take payments, can provide no product information and are surly if not outright abusive. Customers who turn to the Internet, in a matter of minutes, can find the item they are looking for, information on use and comparison of products. They can order online even talk to a real person who for the most part is civil if not outright nice and knowledgeable of the product line. Legislation instead of imposing taxes on Internet sales should force local merchants and sales personnel to provide products and services customers need. In the era of the customer is always wrong the Internet is our only savior. (Ref a major legislative push by merchants and business oriented governor to suppress Internet sales.)

112012 Internet cafes

To state it clearly, I am opposed to eliminating Internet cafes. I don’t use them but multitudes do staying informed and in touch with friends. The shutdown justifications given by officials are bogus and not supported by any data. Ever since the so-called “Arab Spring” politicians have been petrified that electronic media may focus on them and expose their failures to govern in the democratic interest of the people. Totalitarian states have repeatedly attempted to shut down the Internet and failed. Now politicians are using spurious justifications in attempts to legislate a piecemeal Internet shutdown. Yes Internet commerce does cut into profits of friendly political contributors but more importantly it provides a voice to the powerless, who have no paid access to legislators. The governor’s latest thrust will only benefit his business friends and suppress dissent for only so long before it boils over into an American Spring.” The people need a voice even if the powerful don’t listen. Fight to protect the one few remaining freedoms (wide access to information in order to become the informed public that democratic freedoms require.)

Never learn 120411

2012-01-04T17:54:00.000-05:00

At the end of the Vietnam conflict a senior American officer taunted a senior NVA officer that the North had never won a battle during the war. The NVA officer responded that it was irrelevant because they won the war.

An American General recently berated the Afghans for not appreciating all the Americans were doing for the country. It was clear from his interview that despite ten years in Afghanistan the General still did not understand the culture or blunders his Army had made during its occupation. He pointed to the country’s army once it completed American training as a future success.

Wait a minute General haven’t you been training that Army for over ten year? Considering that the training program began with history’s greatest and most experienced warriors your training program seems to have a few problems. Afghans stood off the Persians, fought Alexander to a standstill, absorbed the Great Khan’s forces, captured much of India, and defeated the British three times. The British claim their third occupation attempt is really a victory, but they left despite their use of chemical weapons, aerial annihilation and concentration camps. The country became a Cold War battlefield when the Soviets attempted to prop up a friendly government and Afghan fighters forced a withdrawal. American supplied weapons brought local warlords to power and a bloody civil war ensued until the Taliban brought a degree of peace to the country.

Afghans have long memories and astute judgement of realities over propaganda. Comparing the Soviet and American occupations the Afghans see Soviet built roads, hospitals, schools and housing. Despite American crowing the Afghans see military roads leading to permanent American occupation forts, corruption and blatant attempts at destruction of their culture. America has dumped a great deal of money into the country attempting to establish a little America that the Afghans don’t want and can’t afford once foreign aid ends.

When the Americans invaded, fragile victory could have resulted in good government and lasting peace. Instead under U.S. Army’s flawed assumptions the country was burdened with puppets prohibited from negotiating a settlement. For the Army all “Rag Heads” were the enemy and with a beard they were evil. Now over ten years later the Army wants negotiations with the insurgents but have a missed opportunity that is remembered. Afghans remember indiscriminate bombing, imprisonments and cover-ups.

General, Americans are easy to deceive because they want to believe their own propaganda. Building your new propaganda radio station on Kandahar air base to preach American gospel is counter productive. The Afghans remember that Kandahar base was American built in the fifties as a cold war base, and became an invasion base fifty years later. The American administration wants its army out by 2012 but the military is already pushing the withdrawal years down the road. There are all those new American bases to use and besides it’s the only war it has left. General, keep wondering why the Afghans don’t love you.

Overload`103011

2011-12-06T10:23:00.002-05:00

If it has escaped anyone’s attention the 21st century is known as the information age. The last vestiges of blue collar production is rapidly disappearing, replaced by a horde of no collars and grubby sneakers who expound at great lengths on why they as information workers are more important than producers.

Just as the wheel advanced civilization by trade and communication rolling on to gears of the industrial revolution. The information age is an evolutionary revolution of technology advancing from carrier pigeons through telegraph, radio and TV to a wireless instantaneous globe.

The difficulty is that while information may flow far, wide and fast the world becomes less informed. Anyone can now tap into a stream of data and watch pages and screens of numbers, letters and images. With a few finger taps on a tiny keypad they can even add to the torrent. Information brokers have emerged seeking to profit from the free flow by sampling the data in support of any agenda requested.

It is the old academic principle of “Save the hypothesis,” that is only report data that supports your point of view and bury any data that contradicts it. Governments and so called journalist now use sophisticated programs that swim down stream collecting favored bits and bytes while ignoring facts and realities they had rather not exist.

Real people have to work hard just to live having no time, nor programs to capture the gems of truth needed to be considered an informed public.   Newspapers are dying and TV news has become entertainment where jovial anchors tease a story of the sky really is falling, but first a word from our sponsor, selling falling sky shelters.   TV journalists now use social media blurbs as factual news reports. Politicians not only use positive social media blurbs as proof of popularity but also use social media for their own dis-information programs. Dissidents use social media to leverage fragmented agendas into power positions that mislead and guarantee dysfunction. With no filter the multitude of voices overload democratic processes and fracture coalitions of similar interest into ever smaller groupings that destroy nation states. An overload that collapses into another dark age of xenophobic tribal warfare.

The real threat is that charismatic fanatic will learn to use the information flow to rise to power and then dam the river.   Only a biased trickle of information will remain.

Is there hope for democracy? Maybe, it is not government control and censorship but rather a public educated in how to swim in swirling rapids of information flow. Once taught in schools, the art of critical thinking must become a rudder that can navigate the rocky shoals of social media’s self interest.   Social media can rally a mob that paddles around in backwaters, but to sail of a rising tide of information overload requires disciplined sailors and ethical merchants of information.

On reflection there may indeed be no hope!

Manifest Spring 102611

2011-10-30T10:00:00.002-04:00

In the late 19th century America focused on “Manifest Destiny” as justification of coast to coast imperialism. By the turn of the century manifest destiny morphed into American global imperialism that continued throughout most of the 20th century, under many political correct names.

While Americans deny they were ever an imperial power the rest of the world recognizes the United States as a global exploiter of under classes. During the late 20th century the United States encouraged the overthrow of governments even providing overt support to break nations. Having sown the seeds of foreign political unrest in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia the United States hasn’t reaped its expected harvest or resources and respect. Instead it has lost its ethical standing among States and engendered animosity among friends and foes.

The United States became an active combatant during the Arab Spring resulting in the collapse of several governments and continued civil conflict in other States. The U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign States impedes their ability to deal effectively with civil unrest. Having firmly established the principles of foreign interventions the United States may soon become the target foreign economic and political interventions in its own internal affairs.

The world now gleefully watches as the Arab Spring takes root on Wall Street and quickly spreads to other cities. A popular uprising of young and old expressing discontent. There is little focus of the popular discontent as long suppressed angers boil over into streets and public spaces. The reaction may have been triggered by economic missteps by financial institutions and governments but the popular movement expresses the frustration, helplessness and sense that the establishment is betraying the peoples’ continued trust.

The people are right to be fearful of losing their rights, benefits and future security already eroded by bad legislation and worse business practices. Arrogant politicians and business leaders have long dismissed the needs of the people in favor of the interests of wealth and power, forming an elite of self-interest. There is a term,” Rational Maximization,” which for the Elite has come to mean it rationalized that their maximum benefit is in the interest of the people. They further rationalize that high school dropouts and those than can only afford a community college education are two dumb to ever notice that they are on a downward spiral while the elite soars higher and higher.

The hard fought battles for labor reforms, higher standards of living, equality and equity before the courts is in danger and the people are noticing. When the cracks begin to form they quickly spread and great edifices tumble. The Elite answer, control the message suppress movements. It is interesting to note that a simultaneous crackdown on the popular movement occurred in several distant cities at the same time. An indication of central government or business control? The Elite should look to Roman, British and Soviet greatness, that was to last forever, their people also spoke.

Laboring 102011

2011-10-30T09:59:00.000-04:00

The industrial revolution of the 19th century was hardly a bloodless revolution. Similarly to the 21st century technological revolution the industrial revolution generated great wealth to the few, robber barons and their political supporters. The revolution also modernized serfdom for the many, cheap labor from poor whites, freed blacks Irish, Eastern Europeans and Chinese immigrants.

The western world’s industrial great leap forward came at a steep price of starving families, maimed and dead workers. Workers had no protections, no safety standards and no security. Children received no education often entering the coal mines and factories at six years old, their few pennies the margin of life for the family. Workers who questioned conditions were beaten, fired and replaced by even cheaper labor. By the turn of the 19th century labor movements emerged around the globe.

Management met labors calls for reforms with evictions, lockouts and guns. Management demonized workers as anarchists, communist and played to xenophobic fears. Management played power politics using thugs and official force to gun down labor leaders, even entire work forces. A few industrial giants, like Henry Ford, came to realize it cost money to train skilled workers and well paid workers bought the products they produced and slowly reforms came to be accepted.

Child labor laws were enacted, safety standards established but mostly it was the draw on a limited pool of skilled labor that advanced labor’s cause. Labor movements still had to fight many bloody battles throughout the first half of the 20th century. Workers were on the verge of victory but poorly chose their labor leaders. The open battles between labor and management conditioned labor leaders to warfare. Management however shifted its strategy to leverage its wealth to political power.

Legislation gave reforms and at the same time limited labor’s ability to organize. In 1938 the American Supreme Court upheld labor’s right to strike but added that employers had the right to permanently replace strikers. Labor was slow to realize that its back was broken but the latter half of the century saw its hard earned bargaining power slowly erode.

Labor is again under assault of money and power. Corporations leveraged its wealth into favorable legislation and court decisions that limits unions ability to support candidates but allows business to use its wealth to support business friendly candidates.

This is not lost on politicians and want-a-be who by dictate or anti-labor legislation are moving to bury the last vestiges of a century’s labor benefits. Pensions, health insurance, job security and collective bargaining are rapidly disappearing. Emboldened by prospects of cheap labor from an army of unemployed, deep pocket Corporations are funding renew labor demonization and elected officials who will repeal worker protections. “Look for the union label,” is museum nostalgia filed alongside the buggy whip industry.

Taxes and death 101811

2011-10-20T14:14:00.000-04:00

The old cliche is, “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” As more and more nations face bankruptcy taxes focus on certain. In one corner is redistribution of wealth and in the other corner taxation prevents growth.

These two positions probably date from the cave man era and in the millenniums since both positions have been tested. The American income tax debates of 1913 stated that the, “Power to tax is the power to destroy.” This slogan is well proven by feudal Europe, Lords taxed freemen and merchants into serfdom and the Dark Age. Post war England taxed its industry and landowners into receivership and ended up owning much of private industry and holdings. The bureaucracy and incompetence ran them into the ground ending British positions in world markets and draining public coffers. The British even attempted to squeeze the last shilling from the once rich by taxing the dead. In the United States the top tax bracket reached 94% (some sources state 96%) followed by disappearance of some great names, the rise of tax lawyers and masses of exemption legislation.

There are some lessons to be learned from redistribution school of finance. The poor doesn’t profit, national deficits continue to rise, the middleclass become downward mobile and tax lawyers become more creative. Expropriative taxation does destroy. Ultimately it destroys productivity; the financial structure and governments fall.

There is an axiom that governments will always miss-spend more than its income. Here lies a problem governments have no income. Every dime it spends is acquired directly or indirectly from its populace. During periods of growth governments are lavish in their spending, inflating expectations. During periods of readjustment high expectations are that central governments’ great wealth will fund continued lavishness. Frightened politicians appease the mob by borrowing money against the future and spend more not less. It is a great Ponzi scheme that eventually destroys governments.

Expropriation does not work. Modern cultures need transportation, water systems, sewers etc. These must be paid for out of tax revenues, the crumbling infrastructure must also be maintained by tax revenue. New needs must be met; can revenues also support popular nice to have agendas? Every citizen should support needs by fair share taxation, but what is a fair share? Tax none of the income of one and all the income of another is it fair? Confiscation of all the billionaires’ income may make a short-term interest payment on national debt but won’t reduce that debt. Then what about the the next payment?

Governments must determine what expenditures are necessities and cut the fat. What are realistic fair share taxes? Politicians must remove the public’s and their own rose colored glasses. They must create a realistic budget and live within it, as does most households. Leaders must become responsible, governments are not bottomless money buckets to be dipped into for electioneering. The risk is revolution and national collapse. The model is Eastern Europe, Africa and the Mid-East.

Corrupt world 101611

2011-10-18T14:19:00.000-04:00

There is a new popular movement garnering media attention. Originally it was tagged as the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement but as it quickly spread around the world by many names. Movements have a couple common threads: people are unhappy with their condition; and they blame the corruption of the rich, powerful, banks, politicians, etc.

With little organization and so many targets there is a real danger that the movements will fail to score hits on the central cause of their fury. The causation is not banks, politician or the wealthy it is systemic global corruption. Ethics, integrity and honor have been eroded to the point that corruption has become the societal norm.

It is easy to understand corruption as a bribe for an immediate act that benefits the individual, like a small “gift” to the official that stamps passports. Modern corruption however is much more subtle and pervasive.

An otherwise honest policeman becomes corrupt when he fails to report criminal police acts. Other honest cops become corrupt when they punish one that breaks the protective blue wall of silence. A national leader openly lies to the electorate and publicly brags about getting away with it, sends a clear message that un-ethical behavior is not only condoned but rewarded. Scholars that exploit and plagiarize the work of students teach more than their subject. Dealers that sell hurricane immersed cars as new. Auto and oil industry giants who destroy public transport. MBAs that sell personal their gain as good for the consumer and company. The entire marketing industry that sells dreams instead of reality. Corporations that dump failed pharmaceuticals in foreign lands or toxic waste near playgrounds. Brokers and businesses that manipulate numbers to deceive. Extreme cover-ups to prevent exposing embarrassing conduct or incompetence. Adult’s that teach kids to beg and encourages bad behavior trains the next corrupt generation.

Ethical behavior is the victim of personal and corporate greed. Bureaucrats seek larger staff and bigger budgets for promotion and fail to oversea public good. Corporations, brokerage houses and banks freed of oversight focus on bottom line profits for larger bonuses. When financial corruption topple houses of paper profits, bankers scream for public money to save them while not exposing their fiscal irresponsibility. Corrupt legislation rewards self-serving incompetence with public money. Banks are saved; bankers pocket profits and the streets acquire more homeless.

The worst corruption of all is when movements become captive of corrupt leadership. Fragmentation and self-interest are already corrupting the much-heralded Arab spring revolutions of a couple months ago. Unions become victims of the same dynamic when collectives to protect the workers are corrupted to serving only leadership interests not the membership.

It is probable that OWS will fall victim to its success as power potential is seen as a gateway to corporate and personal profit. Shake hands but count your fingers.

Watched 101111

2011-10-16T10:51:00.000-04:00

Over sixty years ago George Orwell wrote 1984 about an oligarchical dictatorship with total surveillance and public mind control. The book is now considered a classic great book of the 20th century. Publics' concern as the year 1984 approached was quickly “spun” of similarities to Orwellian predictions by governments’ bureaucrats.

Orwell wrote his masterpiece in 1947 possibly drawing inspiration from exposed NAZI’s near total control of German thought. Governments loudly denounced German methodology but enviously studied their successes. Before the title year Americans were victims of government attempts at thought control. In the 50s there was McCarthyism persecution in the name of national defense. In the 60s and 70s police and military spied on citizens who voiced contrary opinions. Politicians kept hate list of journalist, scholars and citizens that rejected political correct thought. Criminal activities exposed the agencies’ excesses but left a massive archive of personal information in the dark bowels of government, to be leaked over the years for political leverage.

(2011) Despite the investigations of the 70s American governments are now in personal data collection and targeting of citizens. The State Department is seeking data on your mother address before your birth, name of her natal doctor and nursing staff at your birth before honoring your right to travel.

The New York Police are running covert information collection on citizens including those outside New York, with no crime alleged. Other law enforcement agencies copy down license numbers of every car parked on streets. Police surveil the population with access to cameras affixed to buildings and street corners. Data filed in massive computers saved for future police leverage. Some PDs have co-opted neighborhood watch into neighbor spy groups. Some jurisdictions have passed laws against recording police brutality and corruption. Why doesn’t federal government do something about these constitutional violations?

Federal agents are collection personal information in friendly foreign nations on their innocent citizens. A U.S. Representative is running his own voter watch list, complete with surveillance photos, and advises other congressmen to establish their own list of those who question “correct’ thought. The U.S. Air Force is experimenting with methods to overwhelm humans’ ability to think, fry our brains and make us a little dumber.

Can we get any dumber? We load social media with random thoughts while government auto-tags emails, Facebook, Twitter and phone conversation for buzz word. Key words are linked to surveillance tapes and individuals are GPS tracked. Governments now know where you go, what you buy and whom you meet. Business and medical DBs add to government covert collections. Big brother’s eye is on you, be frightened.

You have democratic freedom, the dictators tell you so. The Orwellian oligarchical dictatorships are here and tightening grip on your thoughts. This is real terror, State terror.

Extra Extra 100811

2011-10-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

The excited cries of paperboys on street corners are rapidly fading American oldsters’ memories. Late night movies occasionally refresh memories of a time when newspapers were breakfast staples as important as coffee.

Cities and towns across the country had several competing papers that published multiple editions. Hot news rated extra editions that were hawked to readers on the street. Newspapers were devoured on streets, busses and subways as well as the breakfast table. The movers and shakers of the period read several daily papers.

Newspapers had many lives; they were passed from reader to reader. At the end of the day street people gave discarded papers a last read then used them as blankets for the night, merchants wrapped fish in them and housewives cleaned windows with them.

Avid readers could be identified by the fresh ink stains on their fingers from hot off the press newspapers. News was not carved in stone; it was cast in lead, hot type. News hounds captured the facts on the backs of envelopes with stubby pencils. Walking into newsrooms on deadline was like entering a cacophonous tornado. It appeared as pandemonium, the constant crackle of teletypes added world news to reporters’ scribbled notes. Bells rang, typewriters rattled, editors shouted and processed information from backs of envelopes to hot type composing rooms. Presses roared in the basement and the buildings shook, this was news. From first editions to five star finals, with the sometimes extras, this was news.

Newspapers were the catalysis that made America. Reporters reported facts, ideas and words of the great. The people read, pondered, discussed and acted. Politicians studied voices of competing newspapers and crafted policies and leadership rolls.

In the post war era of television readers began to slip away to TV news as entertainment. Americans forgot how to read. Sound bites replaced incisive articles. Reporters no longer reported news they became journalists who were the news. Today without video there is no story. For great TV news no truth is required, keep talking, let there be no dead air. Speculate on speculation, but keep talking whether the words make sense or not. Social media with even less reliability is replacing TV news as the public’s source of information. Social media is great for inciting mobs but serves poorly as a reliable source of information.

Assaulted by electronic media, bad management and increasingly illiterate publics, American NEWSPAPERS are shrinking in size as well as readership until they will forever disappear. Future America will step back from its downward slippery slope and reach for a newspaper for explanations and reassurance. It will find a need for more than 25 words sound bites and its newspapers will be gone. Before it is to late Americans must slow down, relearn to read and think. The current social media trend as a purveyor of news is another flawed American model the world must not follow.

Coffee tea or aspirin 080311

2011-08-12T13:13:00.000-04:00

In 1773 Boston hosted a tea party that has taken on mythological importance in American history. Boston was not the first American city to refuse delivery of British tea just the most radical. It was over sixty years before American spin-doctors created the Tea Party out of an economic protest, forging a campaign slogan for the history books. The controversy over the so-called Tea Party did contribute to the eventual fall of British governments in America.

Now over 200 years later a Tea Party has been institutionalized as a political movement. The Boston tea party generated the slogan “No taxation without representation.” The new Tea Party slogan may come to be “Radical representation without legislation.”

The Tea Party gained a following on an anarchist agenda of all government is evil. With a little power it becomes a disruptive political force. Tea Party governors attempted to become despots ruling by dictate, destroying democracy within their fiefdoms. In Congress the Tea Party presented no solutions to national challenges but followed their agenda of disruption. With their agenda of ruination more important than solutions the Tea Party has done more to destroy America than al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida's target is perceived corrupted Islam and those that supported that corruption. The Tea Party's target is its perceived corrupted American mythical ideal. The difference is al-Qaida has limited influence even in the Muslim world but America was the lynch pin of World order. The legislative confrontation brought on by Partiers broke the lynch pin of an already fragile system. The eleventh hour deal came too late to save the United States' reputation of economic stability that the world could depend on. Linked markets spiraled down, America lost its solid gold reputation and the international order embraces a multi-polar economic order that may or may not include the United States. It is unlikely the present economic mess will equal the “Crash of 29” because the United States is no longer the sole economic center of the world and other markets mitigate catastrophic collapse.

The measures of international power have shifted; armies and industry no longer insure greatness. Power is now technology and will, a product of brain power which has no borders. Technology is diffused across artificial borders, information flows with little restraint. Political and economic power has many aspirants who have smarts and the will to advance. The question is does America have the necessary will to remain in the front rank of states?

Al-Qaida and Tea Partiers have a common goal, the return to a mythical past. The past was never as good as nostalgia imagines and can't be recaptured. Re-enactors visit moments of the past while ignoring the lessons of the past. The past is for romance and learning. Survival is for visions and drive to the future.

If the United States is to regain world respect it will require hard choices and sound visions for a future world system. Remaining focused of past greatness insures that greatness will never return. To opt-out of international participation in cooperative economic system is equally destructive. To recapture what has been lost through intransigent political posturing may require a generation to over-come. It will require cooperation of politicians a consensus of national will.

The party is over and the Partiers must learn that if they are not part of the solution they are part of the problem.

Mob rule 080211

2011-08-10T16:29:00.000-04:00

The links between crime and politics are ancient and well documented. The caveman hunter would bribe his chieftain with a choice cut of mastodon for a choice mate or soft rock for his head. When Nero fiddled, contractors lined up with bribes for large urban renewal contracts. During the age of discovery politicians stole from the natives and lost their piles of loot to pirates who bought their way into the political power elite.

Americans claim exceptionalism from the evils of the Old World, but it was settled by refugees and schemers from that world. The American exception was its fresh opportunities for criminal and political inventiveness. There was money to be made in America. Laws were written for maximum profit. Criminals installed their own politicians creating machine politics, which governed for the benefit of criminal mobs. Mobs came to own many local governments. Old World get rich quick gangs flocked to the New World. Violent turf battles raged across the country. Crime bosses sent their children to the best schools and they return to the family business.

This new generation knew how to leverage their power and laundry their loot. They invested in their criminal enterprise with Wall Street moves, campaign donations along with support for arts and charities. A cloak of legitimacy wrapped the same old violent activities of extortion, drugs, robbery and murder and the profits grew larger.

No longer strong arm “hoods” it is now respected public figures that exerts criminal influence on national and international governments. Dirty money is laundered through municipal and national triple “A” bonds. The mobs' interests are now tied to the safety, surety and profitability of these financial instruments. The mobs maybe fronted by “respectable” bosses but they have a host of “knee breakers” to deploy when their fortunes are threatened.

Congress is playing political “chicken” with the nation. The rhetoric is hot, loud and dis-information. The budget problem is a congressional problem brought on by both parties over a number of years. The Constitution clearly gives that responsibility to Congress but it has failed in its duties. The beginning of the fiscal year was moved from July to October because Congress couldn’t pass a budget by July first. Congress couldn’t even draft a budget so the Executive branch began to submit a draft based on legislative appropriations, which obligated more than expected income. Planning to spend more than comes in is called deficit spending, which becomes national debt when actually spent. National debt grows because Congress repeats it failures year after year, which is compounding not only the problem but also interest on the debt.

The political circus in Washington for the past few weeks threatens the economy, the national standing among states but also the fortunes of linked criminal enterprises. It is probable that mob’s polite influence on Congressmen and Senators will not be enough to prevent an economic slide. If mob “soft power” is not adequate then it maybe time to send in the knee breakers to the halls of power to protect national economic interest.

It’s like leading an American Mule; first you have to get its attention with a sharp crack between the ears.

News 071411

2011-07-15T08:46:00.000-04:00

America is in danger of spiraling down into the molasses that binds the undeveloped nations to the bottom of the barrel.   That molasses is comprised of debtor states unable to pay their bills or govern in the interest of the people.

Molasses is thick brown sugary syrup that in America is poured on the country by modern day journalism. Despite a legal verdict being rendered, the media is still attempting to incite a mob against Casey Anthony. Journalism has become the entertainment industry. Journalists no longer report the news they have become “talent” who entertains by making news.   Stories are drawn from the “Social Media” that is a self generating, amplified voice of a mob. Important stories are ignored in favor of mob hysteria creating higher ratings.

This trend is not lost on politicians who gleefully bandwagon on social media, spinning and spinning to deceive, placate or incite the mob. What is lost is that magical ingredient of democracy, “an informed public.” An informed public requires facts not entertainment. Back in olden days of paper and ink the news media was known as the “Fourth Estate” of government. Even then the media was not always responsible, but columns of print separated facts and opinions. Today facts are few, failing to fit the one liners embraced by public malaise.

A malaise that brings the country to the point of decline. In Washington the country is gripped by another crisis of politicians’ ideological interest over public interest. In its simplest form the issue is that the Right want to free the haves from tax and the Left wants spend more tax money. A hundred years ago when income tax became law it was stated that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Twenty years later during the great depression the government embraced spending as an investment in the country. Then politicians went wild spending and destructively taxing for votes. Responsible budgets became history; deficit spending became the norm. Unlike most third world countries America was able to rock along for years on lack of international competition. The bill is now due, economic competition is surrounding a declining economic base. The debtor nation must pay up or step aside.

The fact is that neither tax cuts nor increased spending will serve the nation. The fact is that political ideologues are holding the country hostage to their election self-interest.     The fact is that the media is failing to clearly inform the public. The fact is that this is self-destruction of a great power. The fact is even with an eleventh hour resolution of the present crisis, the damage has been done, and the international bond of economic trust is broken.

The three-year Anthony media circus should pass into historical darkness and the same intense light should be focused on Washington. What little remains of journalistic responsibility should publish broadsides and banner headlines on the impending fall of a great power.   Washington power politics must be made to quiver before the mob of public opinion.

Road to dictatorship 030311

2011-03-28T11:22:00.000-04:00

The Internet shutdown in Libya, condemned by the American government, involved a new way to turn off web access for an entire country, lesson learned. Earlier this year, the total Internet blockade in Egypt backfired, emboldened protesters. China is known for blocking Internet services, but it’s not just China. Last June Senators Lieberman, Collins and Carper introduced the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010″. One vague provision in the bill gave the president the power to “authorize emergency measures.” Devil in the details, it became known as the Internet “kill switch” bill even though the words ‘kill’ and ‘switch’ are not found in the bill.

We couldn’t condemn the action in other countries while at the same time plan it here. No one would even suggest such a thing, right? Right?

Failing to pass in 2010 the legislation was re-branded the “Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011.” Note the buzz of Freedom in a bill that gives the government power suppress freedom. Ironically, it was re-introduced on the same day as the Egyptian shutdown when President Obama called on the Egyptian government to reverse its interference with Internet access.

The new bill however, doesn’t give the president control of a “Big Switch” rather little switches are given to bureaucrats at Homeland Security. Everyone knows how responsible Homeland Security bureaucrats are; they took the fun out of flying and created a rainbow of alerts. Envision a vast warehouse of ten’s of thousands of bureaucrats with one hand hovering over their kill switches as they surf the Internet looking for something that offends. The rainbow becomes a blinding White light kill alert when government missteps are publicly exposed.

Building a nation on the free exchange of ideas, the founding fathers institutionalized freedom of the press. However even Thomas Jefferson, an outspoken advocate of a free press, as President attempted to suppress that free press. Every administration since has attempted to control, suppress or distort the free flow of information. The last administration attempted to institutionalize a misinformation bureau with in government, which may have gone underground to a secret government when caught in spotlight for free information.

Jefferson failed to halt critical voices because he controlled no switches to shut down the voices of the people. Government control of information is the fast lane to dictatorships. Giving such control to faceless bureaucrats is building a dictatorship of collective irresponsibility where all are the ultimate losers.

Whistle blowing 032411

2011-03-26T11:02:00.000-04:00

It happens but some times a backlog of information accumulates which demands comment. Unfortunately the backlog is so great that there isn’t sufficient time to give adequate perspective to commentary, so readers are given only tidbits of stories, sorry about that, but I’m old. These tidbits will have little impact on me whatever the stories’ eventual outcomes. Current generations will have to deal with these issues and their actions or lack of action will impact their children.
Although Congress passed a Whistle Blower protection act, it seems that no one likes a whistle blower less than government bureaucrats and policy makers. Late in 2010 the electronic release of masses of U.S. government documents set off a bureaucratic firestorm that made the bombing of Dresden, Germany seem like a campfire.

Homeland Security immediately declared the Internet editor of WikiLeaks a traitor and started to build a rhetorical gallows on the Washington Mall. Department of Defense declared the papers nation security secrets and piled brush around the gallows to incinerate his dangling body. Isn’t there something about cruel and unusable punishment in the Bill of Rights? The intelligence community set a “honey trap” for him in a foreign country. The State department declared irreparable harm to American Foreign policy.

As the firestorm ragged some officials, probably fearful that they might be thrown in the fire, reviewed the documents and discovered lots of embarrassment from ancient to modern, but no real secrets. However, the bureaucracy was on a downhill roll and there was no stopping. Intelligence twisted foreign arms for an arrest and rendition of the editor. The military grabbed an Army private charged him with releasing the government’s “secrets”, branded him a traitor and threw him into a military dungeon.   Always seeking the lime light the Air Force declared "If a family member of an Air Force employee accesses WikiLeaks on a home computer, the family member may be subject to prosecution for espionage under U.S. Code Title 18 Section 793." U.S. officials issued secret subpoenas for Wikileaks’ electronic accounts and credit card receipts apparently seeking names of readers. The government went after foreign officials on suspicion that they may have approved the release of documents.

The Pentagon and other government agencies have taken the position that even though the open source documents are freely available on the Internet, the government must treat them as classified.   After all it is American Citizens who are the real enemy for Government abuse.

As the affair grinds along, now out of the public’s spotlight the Army private still sits degraded in naked isolation in a military dungeon, probably expecting eventual rendition to some foreign torture chamber out of view of justice and restraint.

Remember we are trying to sell the American rule of law globally, in a world more aware of American abuse and hypocrisy than its own citizens.

Learning 020711

2011-02-09T09:44:00.002-05:00

A Florida legislator has proposed a law to give teacher the authority to grade parents. Granted there are good parents, bad parents and those in between but what are the standards to be met?

There is however a more important question. What qualifies a teacher to grade parents when they are not trusted to fairly grade students in their classrooms? In the last half century the nation has generated distrust of teachers and at the same time institutionalized their failure at a very high cost. If teachers could be trusted for honest grades there would be no need to subject students to a barrage of external testing. Test developed by "professional educators," to get more of the public education pie, extorted from those failing parents.

There is no question that parents need to pay attention to their children’s development and education while they work two and three jobs to pay for non-teaching professional educators. The flunking parents are really those that don't take an interest by ensuring that those professionals are providing effective and efficient basic learning opportunities.

It may be interesting to note that the rise of “Johnny can't read” and America's declining education standing is in direct correlation to the rise of professional educators’ theories.

Forget bigger budgets and blaming each other, the real issue is the future of kids. They are the nation’s future give them a chance. The cost of education continues to rise as the knowledge of students fall, cost benefit analysis would seen to indicate that education has diverted most to a dead end track. Parents, teachers and educators are guilty of past failures and serve as a declining cultural model for the next generations, institutionalizing substandard education, greater failure and ultimately the “decline and fall” of another great power. Great nations aren’t defeated they commit suicide, a first step is ignoring the real education requirements of a nation’s future generations.

Politics American style 010911

2011-01-09T11:16:00.000-05:00

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A gunman nearly unloaded a semiautomatic weapon at a busy supermarket Saturday during a public gathering for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, wounding the Democrat and killing Arizona's chief federal judge and five others in an attempted assassination that left Americans questioning whether divisive politics had pushed the suspect over the edge.
Twelve others were wounded and all the electronic medias are running LOUD with condemnation, blame, justification or calls for more.

I am sorry for the dead and wounded but I worry about the future victims of radical rhetoric calling for violence. Left and right radicals are both guilty of letting their mouths run away with ever increasing claims of justification and moral correctness. The USA has its electoral processes, which have never been totally clean, but today’s processes are more open to manipulation through electronic medias. There are always those individuals, unable to distinguish between corrupt electioneering and reality that may answer the calls for violence. Yes there is corruption in government, which begins with corrupt candidates, corrupt self-interests and even corrupt voters. Clear losers of elections now delay government with calls for recounts, losing all appeals they attempt recall elections on ideological justifications, all of which spend precious tax dollars for limited self interest.

Democracy depends on the votes of an informed public, not voters whose only information comes from a witless twitter pundit. If you don’t like your government remember your civic lessons, study, learn the facts, participate, write legislators, petition for change, dampen down electioneering rhetoric and use your vote to demand good government. A citizen must take the time to obtain the good government the USA must have to survive another century. The USA was born on a cry for representation; today it suffers from over representation and lack of services. Today’s American Revolution should be an informed vote not the guns and bombs of 1776.

Armistice 110610

2010-11-07T17:11:00.000-05:00

It's a little early to commemorate the eleventh month, eleventh day, eleventh hour but any silence after a final furious cannonade is no less welcome. Unlike the bombardment that signaled the end of World War One, today's random shots and the floating wisp of gun smoke signal maneuvers for the coming 2012 battle.

No sooner had the polls closed on this year's viscous election campaign than the victors fired their first shots in search of glorious greater victories. The minority party victors claim they now have a mandate to rewrite history taking the country back to a fundamentalist ideal, continue the war to victory, cut taxes, drive out immigrants and abandon the Bill of Rights.

What the victors chose to ignore is that neither the minority nor the majority party have enough votes to elect their candidates. Even within the parties is there no consensus for radical platforms. While their extremists are the loudest and have capture the parties' agendas much of their membership is more reasoned. The real power however, lies with the largest body of the electorate, independents that are quite and still free of partisan demands of party loyalty.

It was the independents that carried the bi-election. They didn't vote radical change rather they voted for a hoped for better and more secure future. When campaign cannons fire salvos of hate and fear the independents drag their feet at blind trust. Their vote was for change, but changes that improved their conditions. Improvements that have been to long in arriving, “lets give the other guys a shot.”

A shot is not a mandate, it is an opportunity. If the victors become hung up on the barbwire of radical ideology they will face disenchanted and hostile independents in another two years.

The two party system has been institutionalized in American elections, but it is not written in stone or the constitution. What has happen is that the two parties cooperated on one issue, legislation and procedures that make it virtually impossible for any third party to succeed at the polls.

What the silent independent majority must do is fire shots across the bow of both parties. The independents have the power to demand good candidates that will serve the people not radical party platforms. Candidates committed to oppose corruption and vested interests and serve the people. The independents must exercise their power before the parties lock in on candidates and platforms not in the interest of the whole country.

The independent must find spokesmen of reason and compromise in the interest of the country. Care must taken in choice of leadership for charismatic leaders are often borderline dictators in search of power.

The independents fired a broadside in this election. It is a step forward but not enough to just vote incumbents out of office. Independents must also insure that the applicant pool contains the very best candidates for future election. The founding fathers never envisioned career politicians; rather wider participation by qualified citizens. They knew that government was too important to trust to politicians.
Independent must bombard candidates and elected officials with the third way of reasoned government.

If the parties continue to fail, then independents must fire a their big gun barrage each election voting the incumbents out of office until they recognize the peoples interests.

Scorched earth politics 102520

2010-10-29T16:17:00.000-04:00

October is a frightening month for most Americans. Not only is it the month of pagan Halloween rituals, but the streets run red with the more horrifying political blitz leading up to November elections.

Mythology holds that The United States was established as a democracy and continues to serve as the leading democratic model to the world. In the era of instant communications however, the world is watching the horrific spectacle of democratic scorched earth politics in a land of hypocrisy.

Contrary to popular opinion dirty politics are not an American invention. Probably the first cavemen resorted to a club to the back of the head in pursuit tribal leadership. Americans have however, institutionalized “whatever it takes” politics with university courses in campaigning and as a leading export that follows the American sword. Even the founding fathers resorted to “spin” and dirty politics with pamphleteers. The pamphlets of the 18th century had limited circulation but great influence, being directed to an oligarchy since most people couldn’t vote.

Democracy is the true expression of the people, all the people the key being an informed public. The key to current political campaigning, however, is to prevent that same public from ever becoming informed.

The 18th century pamphleteers would envy today's campaigners' access to TV, Internet, face book, twitter, etc. Information overload without accountability, images and words fly absence of context, truth or reason. Negative campaigning has become the norm. Outrageous charge and counter charge alienate the increasingly disinformed public who votes against candidates rather than for a better choice. Campaigns are so viscous that there is no post election healing.   Radical right and left seize the agenda, victimizing the public and its will to choose between bad, badder and baddest candidates.

In one respect democracy does live through the available electronic media. Anyone can jump into a ring from his or her living rooms with ever-wilder rhetoric. Everyone now gets into the act with debates between candidates for dogcatcher campaign in kinder gardens, the cutest puppy wins.   Ridiculous, maybe but the democratic process is fracture and increasingly fragmented by rhetorical demonization. Demonized is every idea and moral that differs from that of the power seekers. A political corruption that legitimizes book burnings, racism, criminal activity and disenfranchises the electorate. An alienation that legitimizes radicals who point to a one-vote victory as a mandate to continue the erosion of freedoms.

Increasingly the electorate sees the process as corrupt, feel frustrated and deceived. The democratic process is no longer government of the majority but government of competing minorities responding only to increasing extremism. The moderate majority is left without voice but must pay the bill. “Taxation without representation,” familiar?

A government of the minority is a government of elected evil with corruption becoming endemic. Secrecy, deception and cover-up are to tools of the corrupt.   Devoid of ethics and integrity, abuse of power becomes the political norm and the rights of man become a historical footnote. Elected evil is no less evil, more terrifying than the wicked witch of the west, who may even be a candidate.

It maybe time for the overdue Jeffersonian reforms, another horrifying thought.

Frightening 041610

2010-05-04T14:42:00.002-04:00

A new Dark Age is dawning, not in the old European world but rather in the United States. It is ironic that a country spawned by the age of enlightenment should lead the way to darkness. Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Adams and others read the works of the ancient thinkers and those of (then) more modern writers. From their readings they penned some of most liberal philosophical ideas of history.

Some of the works they studied had been lost to the Christian book burnings of the Dark Age. In another irony, copies of ancient text had been saved by Muslim scholars and secretly by a few independently minded monks. The monks faced church torture, death and excommunication if their private libraries were discovered.

For hundreds of years the western world lived in befuddle darkness without vision or ideas. When the Crusaders returned from the holy wars they brought with them Islamic seeds that became great western universities. A renaissance of ideas began to shine. It was not an even flowering of ideas as church leader resisted change but book burnings began to decline.

Over the centuries there have been outbreaks of book burnings as oligarchs attempted to stem the flow of ideas. During the 1930s, in NAZI Germany, bonfires of literature became ritual. Many works met the flames only because some oligarch listed a title. Rituals became happenings of excited destruction without reason.

In the 40s and 50s there were isolated book burnings in America as local oligarchy attempted to hold back progressive ideas. American book burnings never became an inferno, as freedom of ideas was deeply ingrained in the culture.

That was then this is now, recently a Florida woman has begun a campaign to place warning labels on book she considers offensive. She is supported by a Liberty movement and Christian groups. Labels will lead to censorship and as this becomes accepted these groups will begin to burn a few books and then whole libraries. Next will be the courts and constitution, which guarantee freedom of expression. Independent thoughts will be outlawed, and oligarch dictated correct thought will becomes law as in NAZI Germany.

It is interesting how all such movements assume names like “Liberty and Freedom” and don a cloak of religious faith. There is a real danger that this slow erosion of freedoms will ultimately tip control to a fascist oligarchy. There are currently political attempts to censor newspapers, television and the internet. The political ability to censor is the ability to control a nations’ agenda. The first principle in staging a coup d'etat is to seize the media, the only message must be that of the conspirators.

Read and consider small ideas, while you can, for there are those seeking to curtail the peoples’ right to think. The light is dimming, it is time to be frightened of the coming darkness.

Pushing pills 040110

2010-04-05T11:27:00.000-04:00

In the 18-century you were old at 30, dead by 40 and the state of medical science was leeches. Broken bones were crudely splinted but, wounds were often an agonizing end. Medical science from the east had been condemned by the church and forgotten.

Global warfare during the 19th century greatly advanced medical science and treatment. Experiments on the casualties built a curriculum for new generation of Doctors. By the beginning of the 20th century these doctors understood how little they really knew about medicine. Even more brutal wars in foreign lands led these doctors to new insights on saving lives.

By the 21st century technological advances in medicine make it possible to keep even the dead, alive. Medicine has become big business and everyone must pay for all the pumps, ventilators, medication, bedpans and around the clock monitoring that keep the body technically alive. Insurance companies are all to ready to pull the plug, while hospitals vote to keep the body alive as long as paitents’ money holds out. Medical personnel stand ready to recycle poor soul’s parts and drug companies invent a more expensive cocktails that promises to raise the dead. Med-business tabulates the profits, forecasting population growth as greater prospects for share holders. The bottom line, the rich get taken, the poor are left in the dust while the middle class goes broke paying Band-Aid freight.

Medical care is on the political agenda this year. Debate centers on the cost and who gets the most Band-Aids. The lines are drawn, insurance companies (vested interest), drug companies (vested interest), Med-businesses (vested interest), medical personnel (vested interest). Who represents the injured and ill, not the legislature (vested interest) looking for votes in the fall?

In an affluent and civilized society necessary medical care should be available to all without social bankruptcy. Debate should really consider what is really necessary care for quality of life. A broken leg, fix them all. Civilizations destroying contagious plague, cure them all. How about a butt lift, or social overhaul while you are unconcious, two operations for one anesthesia, with three you get egg rolls.

There is clearly a need for health care reform but who is best able to draft those reforms, the imperial health care industry or an imperial government? Neither vested interest is capable of objective resolution of conflicting patient interests. All proposals raise the cost of treatment and fail to cure the malady. We are back to the age of leeches now sucking bucks from patients’ wallets.

The medical buzz around a hospital is to have a living will for your treatment. Who do you trust as executor, a government bureaucrat or a Med-business bureaucrat or a prospective heir, maybe even a disinterested stranger walking down the hall? It’s time for serious debate on quality of life care rather than technical possible care.

Ownership 0031510

2010-04-05T11:26:00.000-04:00

The financial bull is in the china shop. Both the bull and the shop are now owned by China (PRC). The United States is not the greatest debtor in the world when consider against its GDP but according to government economist it is the greatest debtor in real dollars.

The problem of economics can be linked to the development of computers, now every theorist can crunch their own favored numbers for favored outcomes. That said, comparing debt/GDP of the United States’ 54% against China’s 18% indicates a disparity between the two. America is carrying three times the debt of China. China is also one of the fastest growing economies at 8.7% GDP while America dropped into negative returns in 2009. The U.S. projections are that in the next five years its the Debt/GDP ratio will grow between 15 and 45 % depending on who’s numbers are used, but the trend is to greater debt.

There is little wonder then that the Bush administration went to China to borrow operating funds (selling bonds). China already held massive amounts of American debt and in self-interest had to prop up the dollar. Still faced with a shaky economy the Obama administration has approached the Chinese about devaluing those bonds by financial manipulation. China strongly opposes the figurative ten cents on the dollar deal, which makes their good faith investment a bad debt. Did the U.S. government hire two many Lehman Brothers’ bankers?

Already on a fast track it appears that China will pursue its own economic model. China is building an economic market that may eventually be closed to U.S. participation. China’s Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledges that China economy is in transition and fragile. A massive American default could rip the fabric of growth for a period but the cost to America would be greater.

For most of this century China has been out making friends, providing aid and inking resource agreements around the world. China has oil agreements with Iraq, Sudan, Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile and is building a pipeline across Afghanistan linking to CAS and Iranian oil fields. America on the other hand finds an increasing number of oil producers are not friendly either on geo-politics and ideology. The Bush missteps in attempting to take over friendly oilfields further alienated producers. America’s history of supporting dissent and encouraging ethnic insurrection in foreign lands while suppressing it at home does not encourage world trust.

In two years seven of the nine seats at the center of Chinese power are up for election. It is the campaign season in Beijing and reversing the American playbook, nothing looks better for a politician than to be tough on the West. Expect China to assert itself, it will not step lightly on the world stage. Chinese memories are long and western exploitation is still fresh in living memories.

GOD Gap 030110

2010-03-16T09:33:00.000-04:00

Its official there is a “God Gap” in American foreign policy. According to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, American foreign policy is handicapped by narrow, ill-informed and "uncompromising Western secularism" that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights.

The Council is not alone in its findings a number of previous government studies support their findings. Senior scholars have long noted that the government has failed to understand the roll of religion in many parts of the world. In 1998 Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act making religious freedom a U.S. foreign policy priority. Of course Congress' focus was only on freedom for Christians.

Richard Cizik notes that some parts of the world are particularly sensitive to the U.S. government's emphasis on religious freedom and sees it as a form of imperialism. The current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan began as religious wars of Saintly Christians against Demonic Muslims. Senior American officers preached that Islam was next to devil worship and invading soldiers desecrated Islamic relics, holy places and insulted religious leaders. The United States has been slow to adjust to the global role of religion not only in the Middle East but also Latin America, Africa the Far East even to domestic religious turmoil.

Religious warfare is not new. In 1096ce, 200 years of Catholic Crusading began against Muslims. Today it is ignored that the Crusaders killed probably more Christians than Muslims. It is also forgotten that the crusades began because a Roman pope wanted to bring all Christendom under his power and his soldiers wanted only loot. The eight crusades in the “Holy Land” were followed by brutal crusades across Europe. Martin Luther put a match to the fuse in 1517 with his (Protestant) thesis leading to French religious wars, and 400 years of Irish warfare that is still on and off. America was founded with a principle of religious freedom but has been less than free with a history of religious persecution of Indians, Catholics, Jews and any other group not of an accepted Protestant faith.

In the mid 1940s when the issue of Israel and Palestine was being hotly debated at the United Nations, the American ambassador stated he could not understand why the two parties could not sit down as Christian gentlemen and settle their differences. The Jews and Muslims looked at each other asking how Christians settled disputes and have been killing each other ever since.

The Council’s report was intended as a call to accept religious differences in foreign affairs. It is probable however that the religious right will seize on the report as justification of their particular brand of fundamentalism. The 21st century is in danger of being the century of religious warfare. A century where all sects invent their own Joan of Arc rallying the fateful to kill for a GOD.

Overloaded 022310

2010-03-01T09:55:00.000-05:00

Pundits, executives and politicians have lauded the advent of an information age as the golden advancement of civilization. Ancient agrarian societies gave way to industrial societies. During the latter half of the 20th century however, advanced industrial societies began to collapse when faced with free market world competition.   Rather than adjust to new dynamics, leaders of developed States heralded the information society where no one worked but all talked, as the savior of their exalted status.

During the Dark Age information was tightly controlled by an oligarchy of clerics and lords. Information was disseminated from pulpits or shouted out as royal edicts. This limited information of course supported only the interest of the oligarchy.    There was an information explosion around 1439CE when Gutenberg invented his printing process.   People learned to read priests lost their lock on religion and kings lost their monopoly of governance. Information advanced ideas; leaders like Martin Luther and Oliver Cromwell led increasingly enlightened populations from the oligarchy’s oppression.

For nearly 500 years the printed word served to free people, the most notable was the 18th-19th century revolutions that freed the west from Old World oppressions. Small towns had morning and afternoon papers. Cities had dozens of each with multiple editions and extras that informed. The printed word advanced science where ideas were shared and built upon. This information sharing led to inventions of telephones and radio.   Telephones equally served business and gossips and radio provided news and entertainment. Reality became confused as when Orson Wells broadcast the War of the World and America panicked. Radio was powerful because it linked the listener’s own imagination to reports. Radio became the ideal instrument for propaganda for people believed what they thought they heard and couldn’t reread its reports. There was still the books and papers for the discussion.

Television sold soap and flipped burgers along with its news and entertainment, blending all into a competing societal misinformation mire. Now nothing is news unless there are pictures but the pictures don’t go along with the stories and the screen is cluttered with simultaneous advertisements and unrelated notes, charts and crawls. People who get their news only from TV are less informed than those who received no news. TV is the toy of politicians, sound bites, photo ops and spin-doctors, dis-information rules.

Scientific exchange became the Internet now carrying e-chats, twit notes (twitter), personal videos and phones link into a molasses of ignorance. The hallowed newspapers are closing their doors because increasing numbers of non-readers prefer light shows and entertainment to facts, explanations and reason. Reason is lost in a stormy sea of contradictions.

After 600 years the oligarchy of political media masters are again gaining control of the message. The information age heralds an Orwellian world of an oppressive technological Dark Age. Obey their message!

Political memory 021810

2010-02-19T16:51:00.000-05:00

(from a conversation with old curmudgeon friends)

One of the advantages of age is that we are expected to, and now can afford to, voice our contrarian views. Age also allows us the advantage of learning to live with ourselves, viewing our actions objectively even while we may continue to act subjectively. We may not have seen it all, but we’ve seen enough to recognize the past when it comes around again. Maybe memory loss is not such a bad thing.

The natural enemies of governments are the people governed. This is true whether we consider State governments, political parties, trade unions or corporate management. Eventually organizations come to view those governed sole purpose is blind support the governors. My (country, party, union, company), right or wrong, is still mine, is the march to oblivion.

America was an experiment of change and innovation. This questioning of the status quo led to advancements for mankind. Rejection of the past allowed two bicycle mechanics to fly but even they fell victim to the disease of governors when they attempted to obscure the contributions of others to age of flight. Finally their small kingdom was steam rolled by greater innovations when they failed to adjust.

Economic adjustment is the challenge that governors are failing to face. One fact is ignored by parties and people. Governments have no money, make no money, or advance civilization. States’ wealth picks the pockets and minds of their populations. States’ populations are their sole resource. When the cry is to throw public money at a perceived crisis or quite the masses with infusions of government largess, it drains that resource. Debt, public or private, is not a bad thing when it is incurred as and investment in the future to be paid for in timely manner. Debt incurred by deficit spending (planning to spend more than foreseeable income) for non-essential programs without planning for future payment, burdens future generation with declining standards and negative growth. Someone must pay and the only ones to pay are the people. When grandchildren are left to address their ancestors’ follies they are forced into a systemic Dark Age that precedes the rise of new orders.

Great powers are not destroyed but rather rot from the inside till they are no longer able to support their own weight. Governments, parties and corporations could stop their rot but will not as long as their focus is organizational self-interest rather than the real requirements of the people that foot the bills.

Those that govern must face the fact that they exist to serve their publics rather than the other way around. The bills are now due. Exploitation of the bill payers has carried the world to a crisis of economic warning that can only get worse without responsible governance. It is sad that irresponsibility continues to rule politics and business.

I may not remember how it came to pass or I may pass before the final melt down but darkness is on the horizon. Before the question of “can we afford it” must be asked “do we really need it, is there a better way?” Who will light a lamp?

Nuremberg’s shadow O12810

2010-01-29T14:13:00.002-05:00

An ongoing investigation of the United Kingdom’s role in the invasion of Iraq has opened a window into the backstage maneuvers of the governments leading up to the war. A great many documents are now available for inspection and testimony of leading UK politicians are exposing flawed justifications for the attack on a sovereign nation.

International legal scholars have long held that the invasion was not justified under international law and was in fact contrary to international law and the UN charter. The Bush administration rejected this position and repeatedly attempted to force the UN to sanction its strike on Iraq. Seeking allies for its intended course of action the administration resorted to a massive dis-information program to cloak illegality in a fog of known false claims.

The British inquiry has discovered that legal opinions in the UK also concluded that such action was illegal and based on false claims. Political pressure was brought to bear on both the intelligence and legal establishment to support Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to side with the Bush administration. Bush and Blair attempted to coerce a justifying resolution from the UN Security Council but failed.

During the Cold War both America and the Soviet Union generated proxy coups to overthrow sovereign governments. Direct foreign invasions to effect regime changes however have been acknowledge as illegal since WW II. No matter how odious and onerous a Saddam Hussein may be no state has the unilateral authority to dispose him. This appears an objective of invasion as Gordon Brown (current Prime Minister) states the attacked lacked plans for reconstruction that would allow Iraq to recover.

Whatever the outcome of the inquiry its ramifications will resonate through international affairs. While America is a founding member of the UN and its world court, America has repeatedly opted out of their jurisdiction. Using Nuremberg findings over half a century ago member states have generated a body of laws governing interactions between states. Although a number of cases have appeared before the world court on these laws, there is now precedent for abrogation of those laws. Eventually the international community will decide on matters of law and justice.

It is unlikely that the UK inquiry or any future American investigation will produce any immediate clarity or implement international reforms. Ultimately however shredded documents and “lost” computer drives documentation will become available. The proliferation of copy machines and electronic mail has resulted in most records surviving political efforts to rewrite a politically acceptable history. A future change in the international power structure may decide that compliance to international law is important to all states and punish past transgressions.

When it was in its interest America established the precedent that there is no statue of limitations on crimes committed during modern warfare.

NOTE: During his testimony Blair admitted that Saddam’s WMD program and links to al-Qaida were non-existent. However, he continues to argue that the war was justified because Saddam could not be trusted. Blair, now serves as peace envoy to the Middle East, stated that Iran now poses a similar danger of WMD and terrorism. The question is whether Blair has the credibility to drive the UK into another invasion?

Not to smart 011910

2010-01-25T15:03:00.002-05:00

With the collapse of the Soviet Union came the end of the cold war. American neo-conservatives saw this as a great military victory and developed a new international strategy. This strategy concluded that the United States was so powerful that it could dictate to the world, which had no option but to obey.

The truth however was that the Soviet collapse was not the result of an American military victory but rather the collapse of Soviet central planning economic model. One that failed to adapt to a new generation of Russians demanding their piece of the pie.

In 2003 political scientist Joseph Nye coined the term “Smart Power” as a counter to advocates of Soft Power and Hard Power. A country’s soft power includes its culture; values and policies, however it depends on the perceptions of other states that the culture and values are attractive and policies are consistently and legitimate. Hard power is more easily understood as overwhelming force applied freely. Smart power requires intuitive analysis of issues and alternative courses, which assist policy makers to align tactics with objectives for more effective strategies.

Bush, ‘the younger’, and his entourage counted regiments concluding that the American strategy should only be applications of hard power. In the wake of 911 the United States had the opportunity to achieve most of its international objectives through smart power. Instead the Bush administration unilaterally deployed hard power while demanding other states get on board or become targets. Oil producers and religions were already on the target list. European and Asian states were insulted, cooperation and support dried up and the administration discovered that it did not have enough regiments for its multiple taskings. The military became politicized and American foreign policy became a military prisoner, not to smart when seeking international legitimacy and allies.

When an earthquake struck Haiti (011210) America was presented with another opportunity to regain some of the eroded standing. Here was a purely humanitarian crisis just off the American shore and the United States had experienced crisis teams but instead its military staged an invasion. The military took over Haiti’s air space and refused landings of other countries’ assistance. Among them were, international evacuations flights, a complete field hospital “but it was French”, Brazil’s support for it own forces stationed in Haiti. and denied support for third country nationals. The American Navy had a fleet off shore with medical capabilities but its helicopters were not allowed to pickup casualties. The Air Force did make a token bomb run on survivors with water and rations in the same manner that failed in Afghanistan. Not very smart applications of power for a nation facing increasing power competition.

Immense international pressure was brought on military arrogance and the international community finally wrestled control of humanitarian efforts. The administration is faced with the embarrassment of apologizing to Haitians and insults to others. It is time to purge the Bush hard-liners from the military and employ some foreign policy smarts.

New kid on the block 011610

2010-01-19T14:56:00.000-05:00

The measures of great power have always evolved. The Romans gained power status by the Roman sword but became a great power by its engineering and legal innovations. England became a power by naval architecture, becoming great on mercantilism and industrialization. America rode industrial innovations to power becoming great on its economic stability. There is a common thread of great powers leveraging past examples to become dominant powers within a single generation.

Great powers aren’t defeated they merely decline in importance to eventual irrelevance. They decline because they point to their glory and fail to adapt to changing measures of power. There is a power queue of young and energetic nations on the doorstep of greatness.

China is a leading new kid on the block. When the American economy melted down China stepped in to take up some of the slack buying more American paper. This was not altruism; China already held too much American debt to allow that country to free-fall. When the economy improves expectations are that China will slowly dump American bonds. China will continue to use its surplus wealth to acquire interest in North American resource suppliers. In recent years China has been buying interest in resource rich countries either directly or by making national loans in developing countries, with resources serving as collateral. It now has extensive energy commitments from its western boarder through central Asian the Middle East and across Africa and even drilling right into the Gulf of Mexico. Oil is not the only resource China is acquiring; Peruvian copper, Congolese cobalt and Canadian aluminum, which now contributes to Chinese industrial growth.

In addition to products, China is exporting engineering expertise and its own formula for economic development. Leveraging its growing economic strength China is forming partnership deals in developing countries that advances native technology while cementing friendships and markets for Chinese products. China is also expanding its market research in Asia and producing products surrounding countries want. Countering American “Buy America” clauses in stimulus packages, China now has 56 free trade agreements with Asian countries making a powerful trading bloc. In the past Asian market was the West, increasingly intertwined Asian industry is now producing for Asian markets. Companies in countries left out of these trade pacts (the west) could face competitive disadvantages when trying to tap into fast-growing Asian markets.

China, once a victim great power exploitation has learned its lessons well. Instead of colonial extortion from developing countries China seeks cooperative agreements that mutually aid development as its economy expands, producing another stable world currency. The western concept of “win, win” situation is we can’t lose; for Asians “win, win” means everyone wins. The United States can’t fight this trend but it can adapt to new players and cooperative agreements. The failure to change with the times is the trapdoor to darkness and time is short.

All volunteers 011410

2010-01-16T09:16:00.000-05:00

There is an ancient military axiom so old that its origins are lost in pre-history. The axiom was reinforced during the conscriptions of the military built ups of World War Two when millions of veterans carved the axiom in stone for future generations, “NEVER VOLUNTEER.”

Despite this, back in the good old days of conscripted soldiers there were always plenty of volunteers for cushy jobs, who found themselves peeling potatoes or moving earth with a shovel. Draftees also volunteered in the thousands for the most dangerous assignments, serving with great distinction and often sacrificing themselves for their flags.

The American military has now been an all-volunteer service for almost 40 years. The administration had every reason to expect a rush of officer volunteers to become regional experts on Afghanistan when it began to revise the war strategy. The idea was to establish a corps of 912 from the four armed services to bolster the war effort with specialist who would consider the environment and cultures of Afghanistan and Pakistan for a prolonged conflict. In almost six months the call for volunteers has only persuaded 172 to sign up. Of these the Joint Chiefs complained that the services are not providing their “best and brightest.” The militaries’ spin doctors have produced a number of excuses for the low turnout. But General McChrystal is quoted as saying that the military must be willing to break traditional career models, meaning breaking the system that has evolved in recent years.

Following the Vietnam debacle the militaries’ “upward mobile” began to transition from “do or die” assignments to those with career political advantages. During the Rumsfeld era, politically correct team players received preferential promotions for supporting loud fictions. Soldiers learned the value of spin and equivocation as well as the danger of assignments to losing or dead-end programs. Their idea of self-interest is to get their ticket punched without sticking around long enough to be linked to negative outcomes.

It appears that after nine years the upward mobile have identified Afghanistan as a career negative. For nine years the Rumsfeld socialized military stated that it does not need to consult Afghans because they will do as they are told. The new strategy of asking the Afghans about Afghanistan appears to be military rocket science. The career minded may well be right Afghanistan is a career killer because it is to little to late. The administration wants to end the war in the shortest possible time while the polmil wants to keep it going as long as possible. After all it is the only war they have going.

While the Afghans have long memories of military missteps, the military have an even longer memory of the perils of volunteering. In the end the military will again volunteer soldiers without influence to fill the positions while the polmil’s “best and brightest” finagle plum assignments out of the line of responsibility and fire.

###

Thus far, the Army has provided 69 volunteers of the 363 positions it has been assigned to fill; the Navy 30 of 183 jobs; the Air Force 45 of 225 positions; the Marines 19 of 63 slots, according to a Pentagon tally.

Evolutions 010610

2010-01-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

Ignoring the religious controversies over Darwin’s evolution theories, historical evolution exists. Historical evolution is alive in the minds of a few remaining centenarians who saw the birth of the 20th century but the full evolution of the 20th century has millions of living witnesses.

One major engine of 20th century evolution was war. The century suffered from three world wars (one, two and cold) and innumerable border conflicts, ethnic battles and very uncivil wars. World Wars One and Two unleashed technical innovations that changed how people interact. They also unleashed the aspirations of the world’s ignored and oppressed people. The peoples’ evolution was movements to nationalism and freedom from colonial masters. At the end of World War One all the great nationalist leaders of the century were alive and campaigning for justice.

There were liberal movements emerging around the world seeking a promised “Self Determination.” To win allies the great powers promised much liberalization but on victory their interests quickly embraced conservatism. The liberals wanted change; the conservative wanted the status quo. Each movement was ripped by internal struggles with their “Ultras.” Ultra liberals demanded ever more and more radical change, while the ultra conservatives sought a return to the glory of supposed idealize pasts that never really existed. Liberals and conservatives can negotiate, the ultra movements will never agree. The seeds were sown for the century’s conflicts as old ultra conservatives sought to return the world to 19th century colonial empires.

Afghanistan again ejected the British and Iraq rejected them in 27 gaining independence in 32. From the Pacific to the Atlantic the liberal have-nots struggled with the conservative haves. Into this mix World War Two was rocket science, linking the darkest reaches of the planet with a network of ideas, while leaving piles of technology and weapons. The conservatives were bankrupt both in money and ideas while the liberals marched to new drums. The 19th century was dead and the 20th had evolved. Long suppressed nationalist wars erupted, and the conservative Cold War antagonists chose up sides fighting very hot proxy campaigns. Evolution of ideas is not pretty nor do all accept change. Faith also evolved but is resented by the conservative faithful.

The ultra liberal ideas of the 20th century, which brought nationalism and freedom, have proven too much to fast for faithful ultra conservatives. They seek to reverse evolution returning to a simpler era where ideas can’t challenge their values. Religious fundamentalists romanticize a view of centuries’ pasts but the genie is out of the bottle. The past was not as idealized as imagined and a trip back is one of certain disappointment.

Rather than engage in ideological warfare, liberals and conservatives must engage in meaningful evolutionary dialogue of cooperation leading to peace. Failure to do so in today’s already integrated world will lead to brutal sectarian warfare spawning a global Dark Age.

New Year 010110

2010-01-11T15:31:00.000-05:00

Another decade has passed into history with pundits promising a bright future for the New Year. The reality however is that the past’s unexploded time bombs are one year closer to detonation.

The polar caps are melting, the seas are rising and the earth is becoming hotter. Politicians called a conference, posed for pictures and declared “satisfactory” results. While the seas are deeper they are being fished to barren extinction, farmlands are becoming deserts and forests are turning into urban developments. Energy demands as well as costs are rising as fossil fuel reserves decline. Waste and pollution blankets the globe as people migrate from the land to urban mega centers that demand more resources and produce more pollution. Resources are being depleted at an alarming rate and clean water in those urban centers is in danger of rationing.

Politicians return home, reassuring their publics that a solution is in hand and action will be taken. They then turn problems over to technocrats and return to electioneering. The technocrats have heard it all before, so it is business as usual. They begin to update an action plan for the next administration. Some honestly don’t believe a crisis, any crisis, is a crisis. Others think the situation is unavoidable so why exhaust themselves pursuing placebo proclamations. They believe in their exceptionalism and any crisis will only impact those of lessor worth. The reality is they lack the capacity to adapt and are paralyzed by self-doubts, falling back on collective irresponsibility of anonymous no action.

Most of tomorrow’s explosions are the result of bombs planted by innovations and development of the 19th and 20th century. During that era developed states made many wasteful environmental missteps in their rush to greatness. People fueled the need to grow and grow quickly. Today the populations of great states are aging out of power competition as young populations begin to reach for their own golden power ring.

Conservative estimates are that by mid-century the world population will be over nine billion people. That number hides a growing imbalance of declining population in developed nations and explosive growth in developing states. Across Africa, Asia and Latin America the under 20 year olds form 25 to 45 percent of present populations. These young people are just entering their child bearing and creative years. The old decaying powers serve as a model for their needs and desires as they “want it now” not considering that this attitude planted the seeds of their own future destruction.

Developing states would do well to study the models of the past as a precaution against unplanned development. The great powers of the 21st century will be those that devise innovative ways to do more with less while satisfying the desires of accelerating demands. Innovation must not only solve development challenges but also defuse the environmental bombs left by the great powers of the past.

Time Flies 122709

2009-12-28T09:41:00.000-05:00

The 19th century was the age of the train. Steel rails circled globe. Produce arrived in the cities farm fresh. Romance and adventure rode the rails.

The 20th century was the age of the plane. Adventure took to the air. Air travel was a class act of fine dinning and service. Passengers arrived groomed and rested at modern terminals around the globe. Flying west they could even arrive before they departed.

Technology and bad management doomed rail travel. Railroads went bankrupt and greed raised fares as rails and service deteriorated. The grand stations became dark, dirty places outside urban growth. Management milked every cent for owners while choking maintenance and employees. Ultimately steel rails were torn out and beaten into horse-less carriages.

Airlines followed the rail model. Art-deco air terminals rivaling the 19th century grand stations were built and air routes linked the world’s major cities. Grass runways of feeder lines fed the need for more air travelers. Competition and larger planes drove many small airlines into bankruptcy. Bottom line greed stripped the glamour from flying as more and more passengers are stuffed into sardine can accommodations. The quest for greater profit saw aging air fleets, pay reductions and reduced services. Once free baggage, food and drinks could bring in more revenue. Management innovators began adding fees: booking fees, fuel fees, holiday fees, ticket fees, airport fees, landing fees. What goes up must come down except for the fees steadily rising.

Then came hijackings and need for sky marshals who proved ineffectual to prevent the world trade disaster. Politicians seeking to appear concerned added placebo security of unreasonable searches and seizures along with security taxes and fees to air travel. Hungry, thirsty passengers are now forced to remain in their seats with their hands folded. Air travel built on speed and glamour has come to a sudden halt. Passengers may now have to travel two or more hours to reach a terminal three hours before a scheduled departure that may be hours late in taking off on its 30-minute flight. At the destination delays in landing, deplaning, retrieving costly checked bags and another long trip away from the terminal. A 30-minute trip has become a degrading all day affair. The forecast is for even more closely packed passengers in even larger planes that fly faster but take longer to board, service and secure. These passengers will be dressed in surgical gowns, open in back, locked to their rough seats and allowed nothing to bring nothing on board. “Come fly with me,” has become distinctly unattractive. Fear and bad management is condemning air travel to a faith lower than rail travel, airplanes will be recycled into soda cans.

The 21st century may save future travelers in a virtual world that can tele-port people and cargoes even to distance planets. Bad management however is sure to disrupt the process, while searching for greater profits making, ‘Lost in space a real probability.” At least you may find your bag.

Slippery Slope 122009

2009-12-22T09:43:00.000-05:00

Spin-doctors are on a oil slick slope as they attempt to distance politicians from the Iraqi invasion, occupation and impending disaster. According to after the fact sugar coating spin, there is now proof that the Iraq invasion was not about oil.

The Texas oilmen running the Bush administration may well be trying to placate American Oil INC. The Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal was quite vocal in assuring Congress and Big Oil that the Iraq occupation would be paid for with Iraqi oil and secure American energy for the future. There was even a plan to “secure” other foreign oil fields for America’s future requirements. This was an open admission that there was no intention to leave Iraqi oil fields once secured.

The difficulty emerged when nothing in Iraq worked as Rumsfeld envisioned. The invasion fractured the infrastructure of the country so the oil ceased to flow. Years after America was supposed to recoup the cost of war from Iraqi oil the flow remains a trickle that barely supports the broken nation.

Spin now cites as proof that oil was never an objective in the Iraq decision point to the fact that Americans companies were locked out of a new oil boom. It’s true, not because it wasn’t the objective but rather because a sovereign Iraq refused to award a single oil contract to an American company. Countries that opposed the invasion of Iraq will now shape the Iraqi oil industry for the next couple of decades. Rather than giving foreign oil companies control over Iraqi reserves, as the U.S. attempted to do with its Oil Law which it failed to push through Iraq’s parliament, foreign oil companies were awarded service contracts lasting 20 years. The oil will remain the property of the Iraqi State, and the foreign companies will pump it for a fixed price per barrel. Exxon Mobil did achieve an 80 percent share in one field prior to the public auction process, but Iraq plans to exploit its technology to expand output for the country.

While it appears that the victor exercised no special claim on the spoils of war there is a more probable explanation. Iraqi officials say they are not awarding contracts based on political considerations, but it is sending a message, there is no reward for destroying a nation and killing its citizens.

Rumsfeld promised rich rewards following a short mission. He later admitted, “It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.” He also said, “There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact.” Sorry Don, you didn’t get away with it!

Sword for rent 121809

2009-12-22T09:40:00.001-05:00

Long before there were swords there were warriors for hire. Highly skilled warriors were courted with promises of the best cuts of mastodon and most attractive ladies. The warriors’ job was to defend a group from man and beast. If it failed to deliver on its promises, or was outbid by a rival group, the warrior walked.

When groups became tribes and tribes, empires free warriors’ pay improved and they were called mercenaries, soldier for hire. Skilled mercenary armies were hired by rulers for defense, but more often offence. Professional mercenaries were so effective that opposing rulers often resorted to a strategy that if you can’t beat them, hire them away. Sometimes mercenaries never fought they just kept switching sides for higher and higher pay. During the feudal era epics were penned on the heroic exploits of wandering free warriors. England built an empire with colonial mercenary armies and lost it to the same soldiers.

Americans have also sold their swords. Following the revolution John Paul Jones marketed his battle skills to the highest bidder (Russia). After the civil war many veterans served various nations. During the Spanish civil war Americans were prohibited from serving on the politically incorrect side. During the nationalist era of the 1950-70s a number did support politically correct causes. There are common threads in these examples: mercenaries do change sides; mercenary armies often become stronger than national armies and overthrow their masters. When nations become dependent on mercenaries to fight their battles it is the beginning of the end for their culture.

Recently the Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimated that slightly over half of DOD’s war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan is being preformed by modern mercenaries, contractors. Contractors perform such mundane task as washing dishes to combat operations. The national Army can no longer function without contract support. In the past soldier drivers, cooks and bakers mobilized to hold the line in times of emergency. Civilian contractors can’t perform this task because they lack the skills or it is not in their contracts. Expanding the contract requires prolonged negotiations and compensation.

There is a problem with the CRS report, it measures DOD’s reliance on contractors but other government agencies in the combat zone also rely on contractors for services once preformed by the national army. The report may also underestimate contractor numbers, prime contractors often subcontract tasks to cheaper labor from many nations. The use of contract soldiers provides political cover for administrations since contractor strength and casualties are not imprinted in public view.

The human cost of this war is hidden but the danger is that the real capacity of the nation to defend and protect itself is now dependent on its ability to pay mercenary armies. In the world of cash and carry warfare, economic downturns can lead to defeat. The bottom line is profit not ethics. There is a point where mercenaries begin to fight for their own interest rather than those of the state.

Terror rides 121509

2009-12-17T10:37:00.000-05:00

History remembers the German GESTAPO and Soviet KGB as terrorist organizations. They were in fact police organization that evolved into political police, which freely used terror against their respective populations. Both services resorted to torture, domestic spying and citizen networks of informants to for some perceived greater good to the State. Just who defined the greater good became obscured by organizational self-interest. Ultimately the objective became protection of governing by total subjugation of the governed.

Today both organizations are condemned for their activities. Their methods however continue to be widely studied and adapted by other governments intent on retaining power. In the post war years many countries attempted to gain independence and freedom from the past. A democratic government in Iran exiled the autocratic Shah and attempted to gain a fair share of Iran’s oil wealth for social reforms. At the urging of the British, America staged a coup and returned the Shah to power. To retain the Shah as an anti-Soviet ally the Americans established and trained an Iranian secret police, SAVAK. The brutality of SAVAK contributed to his second overthrow and the establishment of a theocratic order. The new rulers discovered value in SAVAK and retained its agents under the names of SAVAMA>MOIS>VEVAK. Even religion needs to keep its flock in line.

America did not see that far down the line however, and established the School of the Americas (SOA) out of view in Panama. The SOA trained Latin American dictatorships in the methodologies of population control in the name a greater good of anti-communism. Latin secret police “disappeared” people and death squads freely roamed the streets. There were no trials and few official records of secret police activities. Ultimately the countries revolted over the oppression and today are still trying to determine the full scope of the abuse of powers.

The lessons of establishing secret police societies are that eventually they will resort to terrorism to support private agendas. The purpose of terror is not acquisition of information, but rather to terrorize, create fear and suppress popular dissent. The greater good becomes sustaining the powerful rather than protection of the peoples. Lessons ignored or embraced by the polmil?

The polmil is sending an intelligence battalion to train Iraqi security forces in the black arts of spying on Iraqi people. The polmil has also announced that it intends to take over internal investigations in Afghanistan while establishing and training another police force that will track domestic activities. Both of these efforts are not only violations of respective sovereignty of independent states, but also are aimed at suppression of democratic political dissent.

The final lesson is that secret police tactics inevitably leads to resistance movements, revolts and lingering animosity toward the foreign sponsors of corrupted regimes.

Converging history 121409

2009-12-15T12:32:00.002-05:00

The decision is made and the polmil got most of what it ask for in Afghanistan. Importantly the polmil got a guarantee of their next promotions for at least two more years.

The President’s speechwriters were a little in error when he stated Afghanistan is not another Vietnam. Actually Afghanistan is becoming the second longest American engagement, the Philippines being the longest, on and off since 1898.

America built its Kandahar airbase in the 50s for support of its cold war strategy against the Soviets. It abandoned the base due to harsh conditions and isolation in favor of cold war bases in Iran. When Iran overthrew the Shah and ejected American interest in the 70s, the Kandahar base resurfaced as an outpost against Iran but the Afghans were not as friendly as they once were to the idea. In the late 70s and 80s Afghanistan became the battleground for a proxy war against the Soviets. When the Soviets withdrew in the late 80s the Americans abandoned its Afghan allies again leaving them in a well-armed power vacuum leading to protracted civil war. When Afghanistan became a preferred route for an oil pipeline from the former Soviet republics American again attempted to get its foot in the door, but the new Taliban government wanted a fair share of the action.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 Kandahar became the American staging area for Afghan invasion and occupation. This was a fulfillment of 50s fears of Afghan isolationists’. Now after almost nine years of occupation America is ramping up its spear-carriers (soldier power), while attempting to drag in more international support. Afghans see a corrupt American puppet government in Kabul, bleeding the country of foreign aid. The new American administration sees the same picture despite the polmil’s promises of victory with more time, more troops, more medals and more promotions.

The Administration finds itself in the same position as the LBJ’s administration during the Vietnam War. They are both in a war they did not want, trying to solve domestic issues while not appearing to lose a war. Both administrations faced a strident polmil seeking more power and destruction. Obama seeks a strategy, while Johnson sought tactics for victory.

Johnson left a major lesson for Obama. Attempting two costly programs (war and domestic reform) at the same time dooms America to runaway inflation, record deficits and declining power. Obama took office with record deficits, and a collapsed economy with inflation just around the corner even without a war.

Today’s spear-carriers have fancier weapons, miracle medicine and are better equipped than their Vietnam era fathers. Like their fathers, however, they still must pay the price in blood for bad policy, leaving a legacy of debt to their children and grandchildren. Despite all the spear-carriers’ blood, Afghan’s know America will soon desert them again. The Afghan’s have long memories of the cost of war from cultural invasions.

Friendship 102809

2009-10-30T16:45:00.000-04:00

If you have friends you don’t need enemies. In international affairs this translates to conflicting agendas among friendly states where the powerful deserts its friends when they are no longer useful. Promises of enduring friendship are made, treaties are signed, aid and trade promised, then a new dynamic is courted.

This is called the Realist paradigm, which sees the suspension of all ethical rules and norms, is just in the pursuit of maximum benefit to the state’s greater good. Of course the greater good is a subjective concept defined by the state’s bureaucracy with the maximum benefit falling to its own self-interest. Businesses, governments and individuals express this as, “What is good for me is good for everyone.”

The greater the power the greater the betrayal is a foreign policy norm. Modern history is full of examples. Start with Hitler at Munich again with the Soviet Union, the Soviets and Finland, Britain and the French Fleet. The latter could be termed kicking a friend while he is down, which was followed by the French abandonment of post war NATO. Twice the United States put self interest ahead of the NATO alliance it created, with the unilateral diversion of committed forces to support its war in Vietnam and again to support its interest in the Middle East. NATO allies were livid and now the U.S. is forced to beg NATO to pull its chestnuts from the fires of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States has a long history of treaty abrogation, just ask the American Indians or CENTO (aka METO) and SEATO states. (The U.S. is again trying to get the once abandoned southeast Asian states to sign on to new treaty promises.) Torn between two treaty obligation, the U.S. abandoned one friend to side with another in the Falkland war. Taiwan has strong views on the value of American friendship, as does Pakistan. Early in this century at the height of another Pakistan/India border dispute the U.S. deserted its traditional Pakistani friend for India. Then the events of post 911 forced America, hat in hand, to seek Pakistan’s help, who now demanded up front support over broken American promises.

That’s policy level, at the human level Americans are also distrusted. From the African proxy wars of the 50s and 60s people who sided with the U.S. were left to the mercies of their enemies. Philippine soldiers, who marched with Americans at Bataan, were ignored for decades. Fighters of Hungary, Central America, Vietnam and Afghanistan, who rallied to America’s call, silently watched American withdrawals. Tribesmen and villagers of Iraq and Afghanistan who welcomed American promises now watch more American withdraws. Tarred with the stigma of collaboration, they now wait alone for the mercy of the merciless.

It is little wonder that America has lost the trust and respect of the peoples as they come to realize they are only pawns for a great power Realist game.

Strategic energy 101809

2009-10-21T10:15:00.001-04:00

Energy was a strategic resource long before there were states to fight over energy sources. Troglodytes (TROG-LO-DITES) had their fire keepers whose job it was to gather the fuel to keep the cave fire burning. Fire keepers were innovative energy managers when twigs around the cave became scarce they experimented with dinosaur chips. As men ahead of their time they saw the coming oil boom left by the dinosaur age.

Jumping a head a few thousand years America became center of energy supply, not yet the black gold but whale oil. New Englanders in the process of getting rich in whale oil almost extinguished the species, but whaling ships led to Yankee Clippers and American mercantilism. Control of energy sources leads to growth as demonstrated by American discovery of that black gold. Cheap oil fueled industrial growth, automobiles, planes and energy addiction. Over indulgence led to global warming, a dimming future and a search for another Trog ahead of his time who can see new sources of energy.

After 9-11 the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld (all Texas oilmen) administration quietly established an “energy security initiative.” Little was heard about this in America, but in essence the initiative stated that the U.S. had the right to seize oil production anywhere in the world to insure a steady flow of oil. This was a bombshell in oil producing regions most of which were friendly to America. The reaction was such that the administration backed away for the document but not the idea. (NOTE: energy security initiative has taken on new meanings today, not to be confused with the previous interpretation.)

The administration attempted to land a combat force to “secure” Nigerian oil field, only to meet with threats military resistance. To gain control of oil in the Gulf of Nigeria a coup/counter coup was supported in the Sao Tome Island group. A U.S. naval base was promised to Sao Tome for the protection of their claim to off shore oil. Morocco had illegally occupied its neighbor, Western Sahara. Morocco’s move was condemned by the entire international community, which refused to recognize the legitimacy of Morocco’s claim to the country. Under the initiative the Bush administration made a deal with Morocco to exploit Western Sahara’s oil resources. This in effect legitimized Morocco’s control of the country. Then there is Sudan with more proven oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. Unable to establish forces in that warring country American contingents are now established in surrounding countries.

Energy continues to be the center of national security strategy. However that focus is almost exclusively on oil, from the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan to the aborted attempts to control of Iran’s oil fields and those of the Central Asian States.

While the world waits for a new Trog with the perfect energy source, nations must coordinate advancements of existing technologies. At the same time seeking cleaner energy they must exercise a strategic vision that reverses global warming and prevent the excesses of the past. Is there hope for the individual, of course, just invest in the energy giants of today for they will corral the energy of tomorrow.

From a lecture

Oil 101809

2009-10-21T10:13:00.001-04:00

The study of International affairs should be a study of interactive confluent, dynamic causations effecting international relations. Oil is a single causation but it is dynamic, and does interact with other factors effecting both domestic and foreign policies.

Oil (energy) most immediately interacts with business and government. The business dynamic is easily understood, let nothing get in the way of the bottom line. Whether it is the local gas station that jumps the price a buck a gallon at the threat of foul weather or Big Oil jumping its price 50 dollar a barrel on questionable justifications, it’s all about greater profit. The government’s motives are a great deal more complex. Governments must publicly face the hysteria and demands of their polity while negotiating behind closed doors with Big Oil. Somewhere lost in the dark bowels of government there is a pale, forgotten bureaucrat trying to craft a strategic vision for national energy policies.

Government policy is expediency and compromises until some disaster strikes then it become, scream and shout, run about. When the price of gas hits five dollars a gallon then the government grabs a scribbled note from the bureaucrat’s desk and claims it has the plan for energy security, and cheaper gas.

To understand the government and business complexity in energy policy a little history is necessary. In the public acclaimed trust busting days of the early 20th century the government broke up Standard Oil of New Jersey (1911). Ultimately the resulting three American companies formed a cartel with international oil companies that became known as the seven sisters. The cartel set prices and divided up oil production around the world. The world went into an economic nosedive in the 1930s that lasted until a world war demand for production and energy pulled the nose up. The end of the war however brought a new confluence of dynamics. Much of the world industrial capacity was destroyed, energy demands were down, while returning soldiers were demanding their own new deal.

Government, industry, Big Oil and public expectations became a confluent of dynamics. There was no grand conspiracy as there was no grand plan but there was conspiracy. Automobile giants could no longer profit from planes and tanks, the military market for petroleum was down, the government needed to prevent a new depression and the public wanted a freedom it felt it had earned. It was a mutual interest of government, industry and energy producers to not only pander to public demand but also drove its expectations. Oil and industry lobbied government for favorable legislation; governments built roads and suburbia as mass transit systems declined in an environment of personal auto transportation that allowed families to go when and where it wanted.

Today America fights pollution and competes over finite energy resources while trying to revive its mass transit systems. Emerging states look to the American experience as an ideal where everyone has a car and the freedom of the road. America however is a poor model in a world of increasing demand, global warming and antiquated energy production and utilization processes.

From a lecture

Books 100809

2009-10-09T11:13:00.000-04:00

According to media reports the White House and Pentagon are trying to learn how to fight the war in Afghanistan after eight years of frailling away. Two books are at the center of debate. Vietnam, an American military and political disaster over 30 years ago is the subject of both.

One book’s thesis is that the military viewed the conflict as a quick victory and dragged the White House into all out war. The other book concludes that by 1972, after 16 years of fighting, the military had finally figured out how to fight insurgents, but the White House politicians ended the fight before the military could be victorious. This is similar to the German Army claims at the end of WW1, “The politicians betrayed our army.” The latter book is a current favorite of the American polmil.

The Bush administration also had favorite books choose to read orientalist tomes of an imperialist perspective. There is also Mao’s thesis “On War” detailing how a people’s war should be fought. Mao’s book was translated by a U.S. Marine officer in 1939 and ignored by the polmil until faced with another defeat to peoples’ wars. There are also books on the Persian, Greek, Mongol, British, and Soviet experiences in Afghanistan. The polmil probably ignores these books because they lost and can teach nothing of value. After eight years of war has an arrogant government just begun to do its homework, all these works were available before the invasion.

The polmil’s basic problem is that it still does not know who it is fighting. There are a great number of similarities between Vietnam and the Afghan War, but there are more differences. The Afghans are not Viet Cong, Chinese, Arabs nor Iraqis. The military is now attempting to impose its failed Iraqi strategy in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not Iraq, Pakistan nor Saudi Arabia. The Taliban is not al Qaida nor are all Afghan insurgents Taliban.

America does not have one war in Afghanistan but many different conflicts requiring differing strategies. The coalition has over 100,000 troops in country and the Afghan Security force numbers over 200,000 against a U.S. military estimate of 20,000 insurgents. That is a 15 to one superiority and the military wants to double its force? The polmil may well need increased troop strength just to guard its supply routes through increasingly hostile countries to its landlocked battlefield.

The polmil’s arrogant behavior in the surrounding countries is turning potential friends into opponents. The military may not recognize it yet but it is the Br’er Rabbit to an Afghan Tar Baby.

It is the guys with pointed sticks the Doughboys, Dogfaces, Grunts, Joe-tent pegs, that always pay the price on an arrogant polmil intent on medals and glory. The government must consider these soldiers who do the fighting and dying for undefined objectives. They deserve better from their leadership.

"G" who? 100409

2009-10-05T15:13:00.001-04:00

Trying to decode world economic relations is more than a little confusing. For much of the latter half of the 20th century the G7 has ruled economic policies for the world.

Now here is the scorecard:
G6, A meeting of finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States, when Canada was added in 1976 it became the G7. Not to be confused with the more recent G6 of the United States, European Union, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia).

G8, The annual meeting of the heads of government of the above nations, plus Russia.

G8 +5, The above plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa (known as the outreach five.

G20, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States of America. The European Union gets the 20th seat. The participating countries represent 85% of global GNP, 80% of world trade and two-thirds of the world’s people. The G20 was established in 1999 to discuss key issues of the global economy to “reduce the world economy’s susceptibility to crises.” The G20 has become increasingly important as the leader in the economic decision process.

G33, Industrialized nations of: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States. The G33 preceded the G20 but followed the G22

N-11, How did an “N” get in there? These are countries that Goldman Sachs considers to have a high potential of becoming the world’s largest economies this century: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam. Interestingly most are not included in the “G” negoiations.

D8, Eight developing Muslim nations: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

G11, Back to the “Gs”. Jordan, Croatia, Ecuador, Georgia, El Salvador, Honduras, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay and Sri Lanka a forum for developing countries who are desperate to get out of debt and lift their millions out of poverty.

G20, (Another one) A group of developing countries which currently it has 23 members: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Its core leadership (the G4 bloc) comprises Brazil, China, India and South Africa.
G33, (Also another one) Developing countries: of Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Botswana, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Laos, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Senegal, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, that coordinate on trade and economic issues.

G4, (Starting over?) India, Germany, Japan and Brazil for the purpose of supporting each other's bid for permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. Not economics just a plea for power sharing.

G4, (Another one not to be confused with the above or the G4 bloc of the G20.) An American proposal to replace the G7 with an organization of only the largest global economies: America, China, Eurozone and Japan. Long time American supporter the United Kingdom strongly opposes losing its seat at the foot of the table. Germany is also reluctant to give up its seat and proposed that the G7 serve to guide the G20. Canada would also lose its seat but strongly support G20 policy dominance.

G2, The latest American proposal that places the United States and China at the helm of world economic affairs. This proposal has been strongly rejected by China who also supports a larger policy body such as the G20.

Gee, it’s no wonder the world’s economic system had a nervous breakdown. The recent breakdown began with the United States excessive domestic debt, which brought down foreign debt holders. It is probable that American policy makers were so busy rushing around the meeting and arguing contradicting policies at each “G” they failed to watch the home front. The last two proposal appear to be an American effort to institutionalize its roll as world economic arbiter before it to is forced to the foot of the table by growing 21st century economies.

It's The Law 100309

2009-10-04T10:18:00.001-04:00

In the last several years a great deal of American ink has been spilled over the virtue of the “Rule of Law” for emerging nations and the international order.

International law as we know it originated when the Old World powers began attempting to bring some order in the anarchical system of states. However there are traces of an international legal order even before there were nation states. The Code of Hammurabi from around 1790 BCE served as a model for many nations’ legal development. The Persians, Greeks and Romans contributed as did the Quran’s laws on warfare that were not matched for another 1200 years by the western world. In the west the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia is recognized as the foundation of today’s international law.

For the next 300 year there was a slow evolution of rules between states. In the last 60 years however, there have been more new laws propagated than in the previous four millennium. It is more than coincident that this period coincides with the rise of the American Century. As the last great power standing at the end of World War Two America returned to pushing its Wilsonian vision of world order. The basics of Wilsonianism are:
* Advocacy of self-determination by ethnic groups
* Advocacy of the spread of democracy
* Advocacy of the spread of Capitalism
* Anti-Imperialism, in favor of intervention to help create peace and spread freedom.

Through a great deal of economic and military arm twisting America churned out reams of international laws applying to everyone but America itself. Some of these laws were good and served to maintain peace and spread equality; many of these laws however served only American interest. America embraces an even more ancient law, “Might makes Right.” As the world recovered for WW2’s destruction states began to rebel against American unilateralism. When America passed laws that it could arrest foreign nationals anywhere in the world the Iranian government passed a similar law that it could arrest American citizens anywhere. Following another American lead once powerful Spain passed its own version of the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which holds that heinous crimes such as torture or terrorism can be tried in Spain even if they have no link to Spain.

America quietly applauded Spain’s move as long the focus was on its own enemies. Recently Spain has used its law to pursue current or former officials in Israel over its bombings in the Gaza Strip, in the United States over treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and China over alleged abuses in Tibet. Spanish jurist ran into trouble when they began to look back at the abuses of their Civil war. Like Spain America cries foul when international laws are applied to itself.

Law is an interesting concept, if it is to be considered just it must apply equally to all. It is even more important that the originator of laws must subject itself to their provisions. The whole world is waiting its turn at enforcement and looks for America’s stumble.

Questions 092209

2009-09-25T10:18:00.001-04:00

The U.S. polmil in Afghanistan is lobbying hard for massive reinforcement to its deteriorating campaign. Resorting to fear mongering the military warns that without an immediate troop “surge” the war in Afghanistan will be lost within a year and al Qaida will have a safe base to launch new attacks against the United States. The military declares that the Taliban now controls much of Afghanistan, are rearmed and fighting with new skills. This brings up a number of questions.

Just what constitutes an American victory in Afghanistan? What are the U.S. strategic goals? Are more American troops to open new fronts or are they to replace withdrawing coalition forces? What is the probability that the central administration will now be able to form an effective government? Will sovereign Afghanistan finally be allowed independent freedom to steer its own course? What is fueling the strength of the Taliban? After torpedoing all Afghan attempts to negotiate in the last eight years will America now allow the Taliban to be included in a national solution? How is the friendless Taliban obtaining new weapons and learning new war fighting skills?

In eight years of American warfare in Afghanistan strategy has been redefine so often that all involved have become confused. The new American commander states "Time matters; we must act now to reverse the negative trends and demonstrate progress," According to the “new” or at least the latest plan all foreign troops will be pulled from the countryside to stabilize cities. Apparently a strategy to claim some quick gains.

This tactic surrenders the countryside to the Taliban. A force of 100,000 troops or even 500,000 is insufficient to secure cities from insurgent recruitment and attacks. It concentrates coalition forces into lucrative targets for insurgent attacks. Coalition reactions, in urban areas will result the disproportionate civilian casualties facilitating even more effective insurgent recruitment. Placing foreign troops in the city also reinforces the appearance that Afghan government officials are little more than American puppets. Such a move publicly tars the America with the responsibility for the rampant government corruption.

Insurgents have two primary sources of weapons, a deep pocket sponsor that ships in weapons or they seize weapons from their opponents. The Taliban has no friends among the surround countries. Iran provides limited support for the insurgency as an American distraction but most of Iran’s weapons go to non-Taliban insurgents. No data is so far published on the number of weapons lost by Afghan security forces (ANSF) or coalition. The Taliban’s improved battlefield performance is probably homegrown by skilled commanders but also may result from eight years of coalition ANSF training.

American troop buildup and increased training of the ANSF will likely be counter productive. More foreign troops will increase public friction and a probable fifth column will be trained within the ANSF. The legitimacy of the Afghan administration is already in question and more American troops will be seen as a continued prop to a failing administration. Wasn’t that the Soviet problem?

Plugged nickel 091009

2009-09-11T10:47:00.000-04:00

When the Soviet Union collapsed scholarly debate considered the survival of great powers. As the surviving great power the United States became the focus of debate. Purely academic thesis gave way to two emotional hypotheses; the pending and inevitable collapse of the United States as a power, or the surety that it would continue to dominate as the sole world power.

Doom and gloom v. Sound of music in America’s survival and power. Doomers point to history and recent American missteps as proof of decline. Musicians romanticize Americanization and claim overwhelming military and economic power that can never be matched by any other nation. Various musicians claim victory over the Soviets was the result of: Christianity defeating Atheism, democracy over socialism, technology over antiquity, or our stick is bigger than your stick. The truth is that the Soviet economic central planning model failed.

America’s capitalist economic model just cracked loudly enough to be heard around the world. Musicians gleefully sing that the economy is rebounding showing it strength. It’s not strength or government intervention that insured its survival. The fact is that for the moment the world cannot afford to allow an American economic collapse on the scale of the Soviet’s.

Paraphrasing economist John Maynard Keynes a small debtor is at the mercy of the banker while he is at the mercy of large debtors. America has gone from being the banker to being a very large debtor. The international community owns to many dollars and too much American debt. If the American economy collapses so do the linked economies of the community. For sometime the community has been considering its economic options. The Euro is emerging as an economic reality of Europe along with its trading partners and the renminbi is becoming powerful in the Asian trading block. Russian trade is linked to both currencies by location.

Other trading blocks will probably emerge but it will take time for Euro, renminbi and others to mature into international reserve currencies. For the near future the dollar will retain its position as the reserve currency of the world economy but its days of dominance are limited. It will take considerable time for nations to divest themselves of American debt without damaging their own economies.

America will probably attempt to impede the rise of other competitive currencies. It is in the interest of America however to support a multilateral system of reserve currencies. With the world tied to one national currency it is held hostage to that nation’s economic hiccups. Every investor knows the value of diversification. A return to a multilateral system in merely diversification that moderates risk and reduces the possibility of a foreign bank foreclosing America. A multilateral reserve of currencies dampens wide swings in the reserve value. It also forces policy makers to act more responsibly to maintain reserve value than America has demonstrated. For the moment the leaky nickel has been plugged.

Sliding on ice 090809

2009-09-09T14:21:00.000-04:00

Afghanistan, arguably a slippery slope, is rapidly becoming an ice-covered precipice for American foreign policy. This summer a new U.S. general arrived to straighten out the mess. August was supposed to prove the American success through a democratic Afghan presidential election.

Eight years ago the Bush administration installed Karzai as interim leader of Afghanistan. Propped up by American military Karzai was returned to office through two Jirgas and a less than pristine election. With this history Karzai had expectations that the Americans would again insure his return to office in August elections.

To Afghans however Karzai is perceived as a corrupt American puppet. Government corruption is wide spread and for the most part home grown. For most of Karzai’s administration he followed American dictates but in the last couple of years Karzai appears to have read Afghan history. Foreign puppet rulers have not faired well, with the probability of prejudicial termination the norm. Possibly fearful Afghan justice Karzai publicly began to distance himself from American actions.

Possible because the Bush administration’s continued support of Karzai, he decided to run again for president. With eight years to build his election machine and expecting continued U.S. support he turned on his machine. He failed to understand that the new administration in Washington was not tied to past policies. His machine may have modeled its tactics on 19th century American machine politics but Karzai’s were less than skilful in election fraud. Afghans not only see the corruption of the regime but also links America’s sponsorship of Karzai to the nation’s growing difficulties.

The new American general decreed an end to indiscriminate bombing but bombs continue to fall. Independent reports vary from 70 to 90 civilians killed in the latest incident with the America reluctantly admitting that some civilians might have been injured. The Afghans are use to American denials and cover-ups, which adds recruits to the growing insurgency. Not satisfied with bombs the Americans stormed a Swedish run hospital abusing the staff while reportedly searching for “militants”. Three major mis-steps in an election month underline policy failures for the Americans.

The military blames all insurgent activity on the Taliban to keep the American public focused on one demon while hiding the insurgency’s spread. Taliban activity was used to justify the latest bombing but the location was in American allied Northern Alliance territory, it is possible that other local insurgents captured the targeted tankers. The American military is becoming a victim of its activities and own propaganda as once friendly Afghans join the resistance to corrupt government and foreign occupation. Given the degree of corruption and election fraud Karzai’s ability to govern is questionable. America is faced with two bad choices, continue to prop up a corrupt regime, becoming the focus of growing Afghan resistance or let the government fall and face the ensuing chaos. Eight wasted years down the slippery slope with no hope.

Captain America 090609

2009-09-08T10:08:00.002-04:00

Before there were countries or nations, there were warriors. These early warriors fought each other for survival but over time polities emerged and brought individual warriors into armies whose leadership applied force to their self-interest.

Over time leaders began to dream of armies of super warriors that could, without questions conquer all, to gain their political goals. These small armies battled each other with the victor consolidating vanquished spoils into countries. Early leaders of China, Japan, Persia, Greece, and Rome still dreamed of creating a supreme warrior race obedient only to them. In search of this goal children were drafted into a lifetime of training and warfare. Accomplished warriors were breed like cattle to achieve a super race.

In modern history the NAZI movement carried those dreams forward for a pure warrior race. They established breeding farms for their Nordic ideals and children were raised by the state. The Nazis failed, beaten by amateur citizen soldiers from around the world. America, established by citizen soldiers, provided most of the citizen muscle that defeated the evil Axis alliance but America had help from its own super warriors.

America’s super warriors however were comic book heroes who entered the war against the Axis even before its citizen soldiers. When WW2 began in Europe and Asia comic book super heroes were ready. In 1940 Captain America emerged to lead the fight against the Axis. Employing a weakling in chemical experiments for creation of an army of supermen the government created the ultimate super warrior, Captain America. Unfortunately the scientist who developed the magic formula died with its secret.

The Captain is fiction but in the 1950s the American military began secret drug experiments on real live American soldiers seeking to create super warriors possibly in the Captain America mold. These experiments eventually were exposed and the government dropped its program. Now over 50 years later the polmil is still dreaming of super warriors. This time possibly in the image of Ninjas who focused their minds and bodies to the accomplishment of impossible missions regardless of cost.

The Army intends to train over a million soldiers in the art of metal toughness through Warrior Mind Training (WMT). The highest levels of the military support mind-body programs to channel the soldiers’ energy to goals. The difficulty arises over who defines the channels and goals? It is possible that in the future mind controlled black clad soldiers will slink down dark American streets to accomplish mission in the interest of the polmil. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds for the military leadership has already sent soldiers into the streets on illegal missions. Congressional investigations in the 50s, 60s, and 70s uncovered some of these activities. The post 911 domestic, military operations have yet to be seen in the public light.

It is imperative that another public investigation begin before the polmil is able to field super warriors outside the control of a democratic society to terrorize that society.

Blinding the eye 090309

2009-09-04T12:29:00.000-04:00

One of the revolutionary changes of the 20th Century was the emergence of electronic news media. For the first half of the 20th Century electronic media meant radio. Today the radio is overlooked in favor of television by those shaping opinions, but radio is far more powerful as it harnesses the listener’s imagination to the message.

Radio news came of age during World War Two and quickly passed its baton to television with victory. However during its short heyday it influenced world events more than Jefferson, Hearst and Pulitzer could ever dream. The NAZI regime used a fake radio report to justify the invasion of Poland. Churchill used radio to stiffen British backs while FDR’s sophisticated media manipulation sold his agenda.

The lessons of both Axis and Allies’ use of media were not lost in the post war years. It became doctrine of coups and countercoups to first seize the media. Seizing the media message also entered the clandestine world of democracies. At the height of the Vietnam turmoil the Department of Defense (DOD) engaged in an extensive plot to control the message. Exposed by the betrayed media in a 1971 TV special “Selling the Pentagon” message control slipped back into the darkness. Subsequent Congressional investigations led to laws to limit DOD’s ability to control the media.

Despite laws DOD continued its attempts to control the message through a series of small conflicts until something larger came along. After the 911 attack DOD established a dis-information bureau. Exposed again DOD claimed to have closed the office and media control again slipped into the darkness. The primary target of Axis, Allies and DOD’s media control is their own domestic populations.

Hoping to side step the law forbidding maintaining records on civilians, DOD hired contractors to create profiles of journalist and rate their positive/negative war coverage. Exposed again U.S. military official claim the program has been terminated. According to the report, the contractor was also attempting to “spin” positive coverage. It is fair to speculate that favored journalists were caught in the spun web, while less favored journalist had restricted access to news events.

Caught with its hand in the cookie jar again a DOD spokesman denying responsibility said,” That while the Pentagon makes the media policy for the military, commands around the world are able to make decisions on their own on how to approach media planning.”

Despite DOD denials the U.S. military controls the media in the best traditions of a third rate dictatorship. Over a year ago the military stormed the Iraqi home of a Reuters’ correspondent, seized his computers, cameras and disappeared the reporter. Reuters and international journalism organizations have been unable to secure the reporter’s freedom. An Iraqi court has ordered his release, but he remains in U.S. military hands without charges, rights or hope. That’s the first amendment military style.

Metrics Smetrics 083109

2009-09-01T08:31:00.000-04:00

A new battlefront has opened in the Afghan War this one down Washington’s Pennsylvania Ave. At one end is the White House and the other the Capital. Congress, as it has every right to do, is asking questions of how do we know how we are doing in Afghanistan. Congress is about eight years late in exercising its prerogative but the White House is on the defensive.

Lawmakers set a deadline in the spring for measurable progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a condition for additional war funding. The White House is now in a race to come up with metrics to measure progress before Congress develops its own measurements. The high ground is not progress but rather who controls the message to the public.

The war in Afghanistan has repeatedly been compared to that in Vietnam and there are many parallels. Another benchmark in that comparison has just been reached. Before the United States became decisively engaged in what would become known as the Vietnam War then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara developed his own metrics. McNamara was a numbers and charts wonk; under his direction the entire military establishment developed new things to count and charted the uncharitable. His system analyst produced massive tomes stating that America had won in Vietnam before it had even begun to fight. The proliferation of metrics led to a piecemeal buildup of forces and a fighting withdrawal. In later years even McNamara admitted it was an unwinnable war, despite his great metrics.

Every graduate student, studying statistics learns how to lie with metrics; they also get a large dose of ethics on why not to lie. Unfortunately politicians and bureaucrats understand the numbers but not the ethics. It is easy to chart how many bullets are delivered and expended, not so easy to determine with what effect. It easy to count the number of soldiers receiving training, but not so easy to determine if they learned of even if they are loyal. Miles of road laid can be measured but do the miles serve the people or the foreign military. Dollars appropriated for civil infrastructure can be tabulated but not the waste and corruption. A decline in the numbers of civilian casualties can be charted, but past dead can’t be resurrected or forgotten.

The Afghans and Pakistanis have incredibly long memories and they have their own metrics. The White House is proposing 50 metrics and Congress will probably add a few more to the count. The question should be what are the local citizens counting as progress?

Progress will be decided in Shari courts, markets, local councils, coffee shops, bus stops and on pilgrimages. This is where progress will accurately be measured. America likes to shout down those that disagree with them, they will have to learn to do what is particularly hard for them, listen. They will have to moderate their belief in those that profit from the American presence. They will also have to objectively consider native opinions and ethically report those metrics to policy makers.

Quagmire 083009

2009-08-31T10:37:00.001-04:00

The Obama administration inherited its Afghan Quagmire from its predecessor and now recognizes the war for what it is a muddy hole. President Obama also inherited a bureaucracy vested in failed policies and corrupted Afghan data, which skews his search for solutions.

Harvard Prof. Stephen Walt argues that the President’s justification for expansion of the Afghan war should be viewed with skepticism. The skepticism is not due to the President’s lack of desire for a solution but to the military’s recommended course of action of even greater buildup next year on top of this year’s total of 68,000 U.S. Troops. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has stated the situation in Afghanistan is “serious and deteriorating.” The President stated that, “The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight.”

They are both right but the difficulty is that it was military policies that turned a victory into a growing insurgency. It is the rhetoric used to justify continued buildup that should be of concern. Its American State terror targeting American people with calls for arms against new al-Qaeda, attacks if the United States doesn’t defeat the Taliban. The Taliban began as a fundamentalist anti-corruption movement that brought a degree of peace and stability to a war torn country. The Taliban was never al-Qaeda nor did they have similar objectives but after eight years of occupation now share a common enemy. Many Afghan dissents and political interest are now sheltered under the Taliban unbrella. An umbrella that is an honest to God homegrown insurgency of many colors becoming more capable as a resistance movement against Americanization.

Insurgencies are hard defeat and America has wide experience and a great deal of frustration in its attempts. It took over 200 years to defeat the Indian and that by total war on a peoples. America continues its over 100 year, on again off again, struggle against Philippine insurgents. It took over 20 years for America to finally declare victory in Indo-China deserting its indigenous friends to an enemy it could not defeat. In each of these insurgencies as well as the present one the objective was to social engineer little American governments without regard to local customs or the desires of the people that democracy is suppose to represent.

Many Afghans look nostalgically at the Soviet occupation as more benign than the current American one. The Afghan people will determine the fate of Afghanistan. It is probable that Russia and China will continue their rolls of Afghan friends and the American post war roll will be limited.

Is it possible to turn things around? Of course but not by a military solution. The military destroys things well, roads, bridges, villages and friendships. The sooner the administration realizes this the more chance there is of an Afghan acceptable lasting solution to insurgency. Successful counter-insurgency doctrine is equitable negotiation rather than force. Voices of the all Afghans must be heard not just the voices of those that profit from the occupation.

Political terror 082109

2009-08-30T10:55:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration’s immediate reaction after the 911 attacks was SCREAM & SHOUT, RUN ABOUT. Wild pronouncements confused and terrorized the American public. The Administration speculated on speculation in the absence of facts and went to emergency powers that elevated fears even further as even shopping center rent-a-cops began to arrest terrorist. The ensuing panic resulted in a Constitutional crisis that continues today.

The administration proposed and Congress approved outrageous legislation that violated not only citizen civil rights but also many international laws that the United States had originated. The administration’s Attorney General John Ashcroft and his staff wrote politically correct opinions, legalizing the illegal for the administration.

Following the example of previous floundering political administration Bush appointed a Czar to take the heat. Elevated to Cabinet level the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) captured all agencies that might have some capacity for emergency services. Throughout the country upward mobile bureaucrats flocked to the new department to benefit from its money and power. Not satisfied with their piece of pie these bureaucrats ravaged the budgets of its incorporated agencies while safe from oversight.

Hiding behind executive orders, secret courts, and permissive legislation DHS began a campaign of terror. Terror, targeting the public at large. DHS announced terrorist warnings almost daily. The color-coded warnings seemed to ebb and flow on the rise and fall of political polls. Eventually the public began to lose interest in the colors of the day. DHS became a bloated black hole for public money and its TSA the beltway joke.

In a new book former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge says administration pressure to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election convince him it was time to quit working for President George W. Bush. Former administration officials of course deny this allegation. If true the Tom Ridge should be commended for a demonstration of ethics in an administration known for a lack of ethics.

This is not the first case of an administration attempting to terrorize the public for political gain. The Lincoln administration considered declaring war on Mexico to prevent succession. Teddy Roosevelt escalated an African colonial dispute to justify his “Big Stick” intervention. JFK coined a non-existent missile gap to win the 1960 election and LBJ used the bomb to terrorize the electorate.

Being the big bully for almost a century America has made numerous enemies around the globe. Out of powerless frustration some of those enemies are resorting to terror tactics. Administrations however have focused on only one enemy, the American people. The people are the target of state terror through creative dis-information and rationalization that a terrorized population can be controlled for political advantage.

Capitalist engine 082409

2009-08-25T11:39:00.001-04:00

Most of America’s airlines now charge exorbitant fees for every checked bag. According to industry analysts these fees add over $600 million to airlines’ bottom line. Airlines also limit the number and size of carry on bags to the point that a change of underwear requires at least one checked bag. This is highflying capitalism’s engine for economic recover.

Airlines are sharing their economic innovations. By losing up to 50 percent of checked bags passengers are forced to buy new clothing for important meetings or strolls on vacation beaches. Because they are strangers in town without transportation they buy at inflated prices in airport and hotel shops. Searching for discount clothing entails a cab, a fuel surcharge and a tip while trusting the cabby to find the nearest “bargain.”

All these new purchases drive economic growth as merchants, truck drivers and manufactures get a piece of passenger pie, or is that hide? Taking the new duds home requires a new bag (luggage industry must get its share). When checking out of the hotel the airline delivers the lost bag so the passenger now has two bags to check and the second at a higher cost.

If 20th century passenger rail had been as creatively capitalistic it might not have failed. Airlines continue to innovate exploring the possibly of no seats allowing passengers the freedom to stand during flight. Possible future innovations could be all nude passengers with no bags for expedited boarding and no lost bags.

Truing the record 081909

2009-08-20T16:05:00.000-04:00

It appears that the Cheney/Rumsfeld School for polmil (political militarist) has again been caught manufacturing information. A recent investigation by intelligence agencies and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee finds that estimates of the Taliban’s profit from the drug trade are wildly inflated.

The report concluded that the estimated amount of drug money flowing to the Taliban is only about $70 million a year. The report went even further by stating that “there is no evidence that any significant amount of the drug proceeds go to al-Qaida.” Even this figure may prove to be inflated as the polmil continues to report great disruption of al-Qaida/Taliban financing every time the U.S. military captures a kilo of drugs.

While this information may be disconcerting to those who bought into DOD’s disinformation it begins to vindicate those long vilified regional professionals.

Ideological Taliban leaders, as fundamentalist Muslims, never supported Afghanistan’s drug trade. When Taliban finally gained control of government they officially banded opium production. This could be expected of a fundamentalist movement aware of over 1300 years of Islamic doctrine. Opium production fell to almost zero in part due to their draconian punishments and to trafficker stockpiles from previous over production. Opium production continued in the region controlled by the Northern Alliance.

Since the United States over threw the Taliban government opium production has grown even larger providing over 90 percent of the worlds opium supply. Opium poppy cultivation has also spread across the country outside of the traditional growing areas. The explanation of this resurgence is that while Taliban fundamentalists still oppose opium, there are many opportunists who joined the movement for its protection and power that are profiting from that protection. As in Christianity, in Islam there are those that choose greed over faith. It is problematic as to how much of the estimated $70 will actually end up supporting Taliban fundamentalist objectives.

The Senate report states that the United States contributed to the resurgent drug trade by backing warlords and drug traffickers in its drive to oust the Taliban. "These warlords later traded on their stature as U.S. allies to take senior positions in the new Afghan government, laying the groundwork for the corrupt nexus between drugs and authority that pervades the power structure today."

The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai has continuously been linked to corruption and connections to drug trafficking. Despite these links the U.S. polmil has supported the Karzai presidency through four “democratic” processes and appears to be supporting his current run for reelection.

This begs the question, is Afghan Taliban or the United States military more responsible for the worlds opiate addiction?

Fuzzy Vision 081209

2009-08-16T13:16:00.002-04:00

What’s wrong with this picture, Afghanistan version? U.S. generals are pushing to reinforce defeat in Afghanistan. In eight years of combat they have managed to resurrect the moribund Taliban and send al-Qaida to the power of ten. Now the general most responsible for the Afghan/Pakistan hole in which we are to dump more troops has been appointed Ambassador.

Another general has been appointed to investigate waste, fraud and corruption. He can’t find any, in an American program that may ultimately prove to be more corrupt than the civil war and subsequent Tammany Hall scandals.

The Ambassador is demanding 2.5 billion dollars for support of civil activities. As U.S. commander in Afghanistan he oversaw the diversion of State Department foreign aid funds to military priorities.

It is estimated that the war in Afghanistan so far has cost over 200 billion dollars with money flowing out of the country so fast that Bernie Madoff appears an amateur. Labor and supplies are incredibly cheap allowing local construction for a few thousands of dollars. Comparable American construction projects cost several million dollars.

The U.S. is now proposing an expansion of the Afghan security forces to the level the Afghan government called for in 2002, which the coalition vetoed from fear of local force. The U.S. military needs thousands more American trainers for these security forces. The U.S. has been training Afghan security forces of highly qualified and combat experienced officers and NCOs for eight years, and they are still unable to train their own personnel? The Afghans repeatedly complain that the coalition allows them only token participation in stability operations. They also complain that of coalition’s failure to consult with them on combat operations or take advantage of both their culture awareness and on the ground battle experience.

As the American buildup continues and permanent bases are built it appears that the U.S. military is intent on keeping at least one war going long enough for the increasing supply of colonels to become generals. The cost of American continued support for corruption is greater resistance. The expanded training program in all probability will be training resistance fighters. A change in American tactics is to little to late, for the Afghans are astute with long memories of broken promises, betrayal, abuse and occupations.

We can’t reverse eight years of military blundering but the path out is to return assistance to civilian control, neither condone nor contribute to corruption, allow the Afghans to manage their own affairs and treat the people with honor and respect. It should be remembered that the Taliban (students) banded together as an anti-corruption force with the support of the people. While the U.S. blames the Taliban for all resistance it has really become the umbrella for diverse resistance movements. A mobilization that opposes foreign occupation, corruption and frustration over independent, proud peoples’ sense of powerlessness is the road to great power decline.

Exit Strategy? 080709

2009-08-08T10:55:00.000-04:00

While the American civil administration is seeking a strategy to get out from under the previous administration’s ill-advised wars; the American military is planning a long occupation of Afghanistan.

The U.S. operational force buildup is now more than ten times its strength a little over a year ago. Part of this build up is to replace coalition forces that are quitting the flimsy fiction of success. The rest of the buildup is U.S. military self-delusion that although its tactics failed in Iraq they will succeed in Afghanistan. Despite more lucid military minds’ arguments that Afghanistan is not Iraq, military bureaucrats are winning the argument that greater troop strengths will win the battle. Vietnam however proved that you can win all the battles and still lose the war.

Bureaucratic project managers are promising that their new techno-remote weapons will end insurgency with minimal collateral damage. Collateral damage is mil-speak for dead and wounded non-combatants, women, children and friendly forces. Survivors of collateral damage however provide even more recruits to the growing insurgency.

The buildup of operational troops will live the Spartan life common to combat soldiers for thousands of years. The military bureaucrats however will have all the comforts of home in new 220 million-dollar permanent U.S. bases. These new bases are in addition to the permanent U.S. bases already built in Afghanistan.

The new U.S. bases exceed the needs of the Afghan military, that already has permanent bases of its own, and it is doubtful that the Afghans requested the construction or was even consulted on the construction. It is interesting to note however that from these bases the U.S. will be able to project its power into the Central Asian States, China, India, Pakistan and Iran. This fact has not escaped the attention of Russia, China and India the regional powerhouses. It should not be ignored by administration planners that the surrounding countries are all nuclear equipped. U.S. occupation bases could become the ground zero for a series of nuclear constructed lakes in central Asia.

The U.S. military’s attitude seems to be: “We don’t need no stinking exit strategy, cause we ain’t leaving.” The DOD should remember however that these new bases are also land locked and access dependent on the targeted nations. While America seeks an exit strategy DOD continues to implement the Cheney/Rumsfeld strategy, already proven a failure.

AF Again 080409

2009-08-07T15:07:00.000-04:00

A Time Magazine article asks, “Does the U.S. Have an Exit Strategy in Afghanistan?”
(By Tony Karon Monday, Aug. 03, 2009). Despite politically correct rhetoric it is unlikely that the Western powers have even grasped the nature of the conflict in Afghanistan. The U.S. and those nations it could coerce into and appearance of an international coalition entered Afghanistan without a strategy of victory and no understanding of the country or its people.

Eight years later the U.S. Military still lacks understanding of Afghanistan’s people, culture or history. The military ignored promising diplomatic initiatives when it invaded and began sweeping up everyone with a beard as terrorists. American prisons were soon filled with bearded farmers, street vendors and a few so-called “terrorist.” After a prolonged period of intense foreign interrogation the newly terrorized captives were quietly released back to their country. At home they told their stories of horror becoming local heroes and recruits in growing resistance movements.

To the military resistance was proof of terrorist activity to be destroyed by remote aircraft and massive bombing. Thousand pound bombs were dropped on public telephones suspected of being used by the resistance. Weddings were bombed, villages destroyed and populations became refugees, wintering in the open. The military publicly announced that the civilians deserved what they got for harboring terrorist and the resistance won more recruits. The military can destroy well but is ill equipped for the processes of “nation building” and civil government.

The U.S. military points back to World War Two as proof of its ability to govern civil populations. The truth however is that the GIs who established military governments were in fact draftees and volunteers with civil experience, not professional soldiers. The military governments did provide some civil services but the missions were to secure the military’s rear areas from civil disturbances. These military governments ceded control to local authorities as soon as civil governments could be reestablished.

The present Afghan government, established in the wake of a foreign invasion that overthrew the Taliban’s theocratic government, finds itself in predicament. It must defend its constitution against the foreign invaders it needs for support. In 2002 the newly established government advocated bringing moderate Taliban leaders into the new administration. The foreign military supressed all attempts to negotiate with the shattered Taliban. The Afghan government and its military now must ward off attempts by coalition forces to establish military government in the country. Faced with internal corruption, foreign military dictates and growing resistance the administration has been unable to establish central authority across the country. According to coalition figures, resistance movements now control over half of Afghanistan.

A suggested exit strategy is for the foreign military to back off and allow inclusion of dissent elements, including the Taliban, in governing the country. National police and military must be allowed to secure the nation rather than foreign militaries blundering operations that drive more recruits into resistance.

The only other exit strategy is to follow the British model of three previous failed Afghan invasions, fight on for a while then declare victory and flee Afghan justice.

Human traffic 073009

2009-08-03T09:27:00.001-04:00

Legal slave trade was eliminated for most of the western world in the 18th century. In mid 19th century slavery was banned in the United States. Most of the world slowly banned slavery so by the 20th century slavery was no longer an issue, right? WRONG.

Slavery never ended it merely adapted to new dynamics and governments turned a blind eye to the problem. Now in the 21st century trafficking in humans is the number one international crime. In some cases governments themselves are party to continuing slavery. During World War Two the United States officially imported unskilled workers who were exploited and often held in appalling conditions by Agri-businesses and factories owners. At the end of the war most of these workers were rounded up and ejected from the country without any recourse to justice. Post war Germany sanctioned importation of Turkish “guest workers” who, without rights were exploited by businesses. This practice continues today in many parts of the world as governments seek “cheap labor” to support domestic industry and public works.

The tentacles of human trafficking now reach into virtually every country either in exploitation or supply of cheap labor. Traffickers recruit among the poor, with grand promises, for stoop laborers and the sex workers. These traffickers often add a twist by extorting payments from the victims for the privilege of being of trafficked. Attractive young men, women and children are recruited only to end up as sex workers once in a strange land. As in the 17th century others are captured and sold to traffickers by human dealers in poorer regions of the world.

Once in a foreign land without friend, papers or language trafficking victims are easy prey. Even if they are rescued from traffickers along their odyssey victims may fall into the hands of corrupt officials who trade on fear. Victims have to fear retaliation, attacks on families, criminal charges, deportation and official abuse back in their home countries.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) an estimated 8.1 million victims of forced labor in the world today are denied more than $20 billion due to the perpetrators of human trafficking. These opportunity costs, or "stolen" wages, are incurred largely in the developing world and most significantly in Asia and the Pacific, which accounts for $8.9 billion, or almost half of forced labor's costs in the world. As wages denied and not remitted to workers’ home countries, these costs can be viewed as an impediment to economic development.

Unlike immigrants who eventually work themselves up and take their place in new societies victims of human trafficking are lost in a quagmire that sucks their soul into oblivion. The black market cost of human trafficking is measured (above) but there is another cost that must be considered. Both the supplying and exploiting countries are ignoring the probable potential and future contributions those who are traded as a labor commodity may make in open societies. As nations once learned global societies must learn again that the cost of slavery can not be supported.

Global warfare 072109

2009-07-27T09:08:00.001-04:00

Recent media reports are that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is deteriorating with more refugees, deaths and greater intensity in the conflict. This is received with some surprise by the current American administration operating on previous administration’s plan for success. The previous administration should have been able to warn of the deterioration based on its failures in Iraq, but it never learned any lessons.

Administrations change, but the military continues to subscribe to the Cheney-Rumsfeld model for world conquest. To mid-level military bureaucrats continued conflict is the road to promotion and bodies are only promotion points. Destroyed villages are like monopoly houses, chips on the road to winning the game. The military axiom is that although its strategy of more troops and firepower didn’t work in Iraq it will work in Afghanistan.

The Cheney-Rumsfeld model was a failure before its first shot was fired. World conquest is an idea two centuries out of date. It has taken that long for proof of failure to be easily to found. World wars for territory and resources can be dated from the American Revolution where modern great power conflict crossed oceans. The Napoleonic era carried warfare to around the world reaching full global conflict for the first time. The sun finally set on the British Empire in the 20th century. An Empire built through a series of global colonial wars that served as the basis of the Cheney-Rumsfeld model for resource exploitation. That model however was built on a failure to learn, a series of false assumptions and one glaring error in fact, despite two hundred years of death and destruction world conquest has not been achieved.

The Bush administration’s group of Texas oilmen saw an opportunity to cheaply seize vast Mid-east oil reserves. Unsatisfied with only the prospects of oil from Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan the model included Africa, South America and world oceans. A techno-war was to be funded by the sale of capture oil creating a great power win-win situation of forcing the vanquished to pay cost of defeat. A page out of the Versailles Treaty, which not only forced the losers to pay for WWI but also created and subjugated the states of the Middle East. In the decades following Versailles the new states were able to eject their colonial masters creating western resentment and eastern suspicion.

Under the cover of falsified information the former colonial masters’ Christian west again invaded the Muslim east expecting easy victories. The western techno-warfare appeared victorious as it quickly annihilated regional forces. The apparent victory soon turned sour, as victors became occupiers intent on new colonialism. Domestic power struggles hide the emergence of resistance movements and the colonials blamed everything on Islamic radicals.

Using western military data it is interesting that there are now thousands more “foreign” radicals than when the conflict began. While the bureaucrats see this as opportunity, it fails to correlate foreign military buildup and their excesses with increasing regional resistance. The Afghans long view has resisted the world’s best militaries for centuries.

Lessons learned 070209

2009-07-09T14:38:00.000-04:00

Lessons learned 070209

It has been said that governments always fight the last war. There is some truth to this but in America’s current wars the generals are reaching even further into history. They attempt to lay a technological veneer over old wars, but looking at their words and deeds quickly demonstrates that they learned the wrong lessons from the past.

The ringing rhetoric of “War on Terrorism” disguised the fact that the (then) administration embarked on an old fashion 19th Century colonial war. Colonial wars are wars of conquest and exploitation of foreign resources. Under the cover of fighting terrorism the national strategy was to secure energy resources for Texas oilmen. The plan was to occupy oil producers everywhere in the world. It appeared that the United States’ plan was to occupy Afghanistan with a mercenary force while invading Iraq with the majority of American troops then turn and attack oil producer Iran from both sides. This would leave America in control of Iraq, Iran and Afghan oil and gas fields but also pipelines from the CAS while threatening other oil producers with displayed force. The plan began to unravel when friendly oil producers refused American occupation of their oil fields and promised resistance to American attempts at occupation.

Fighting on the same British colonial battlefields of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan the Americans borrowed heavily from British policy and tactics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Their grasp of history however failed to note that all three countries established resistance movements that were ultimately successful in ejecting British control. But like America the British are slow learners and the Afghans had to eject three British invasions. With little understanding of regional issues and culture the Americans listened to the British and attempted to establish colonial rule across the occupied territory. It surprised the Americans that resistance movements began to emerge and ally with diverse terrorist movements. Terrorists are fractured ideological competitors unlikely to cooperate among themselves or other ideologues except against a common enemy.

With inflated expectations and little understanding of the regional dynamics the military soon came to recognized that they would be unable to stage a successful invasion of Iran and worse, they had failed in Iraq. The American generals did learn one successful tactic from the British, loudly declare victory and just go home, a tactic that is now being attempted in Iraq with little success. Faced with failure in Iraq the Americans refused to recognize failures of policies and are now attempting to apply their same tactics to Afghanistan, with assurances that failed tactics will work in that country. Unable to see beyond misinformed preconceptions to face the reality of a vast region of diverse cultures loosely aligned by a common religion the war is now expanding into Pakistan, China, CAS and Africa. While it is unlikely that China will ever allow an American occupation forces on its territory the other areas are unable to resist American coercion and local dissent groups are now scattering the seeds of resistance.

There are two types of military, there are the troops who fight and die and then there is the military bureaucracy claiming credit for the sacrifices of the troops. The bureaucracy learned one lesson from Vietnam. During the Vietnam War the public blamed individual soldiers for the government’s flawed policies that carried the country into war. In the present war the bureaucracy used the public’s guilt over the treatment of Vietnam veterans as a tactic of deception. The government mounted major campaigns for public support of the troops as a cover up of even more flawed policies. According to the bureaucrats to question policy is denigration of the troops’ sacrifices, which silences political debate in a cloak of Vietnam shame.

Vietnam makes an interesting school for lessons learned. There is the lesson of body counts, “Every dead body is an enemy body and a battle success.” While history identified flaws of body count policy, it has again been adopted as policy. Vietnam also provides the lesson that big bombs make impressive holes. Thousand pound bombs dropped on Afghan mud huts creates a fine dust that covers lots of bodies for the count. Repeated investigations proved that many of these bodies are in fact non-combatants becoming collateral damage in military speak. In 2007 the military announced with great fanfare that it would no longer drop 1000-pound bombs on villages as a humanitarian gesture. It the future they would only drop increased numbers of 500 pound bombs. Villagers soon saw that smaller but more bombs destroyed more of the village and increased the civilian body count.

Vietnam also restated many lessons on resistance and insurgency right out of Mao’s thesis on war. It is interesting that Mao drew on American Indian resistance and the American battles in the Philippines along with classic resistance to the Romans, Napoleon and the British in developing his thesis. In modern history the American have faced insurgencies and resistance movements more than any other country with the exception of Britain. One of the lessons is that a foreign nation can support an internal insurgency but can not create a successful insurgency that supports its own policies. Occupation of territory by a foreign power, no matter how benign, will generate a popular resistance. Eventually frustration will drive resistance to prolonged insurgency, a lesson that the Afghans have been teaching centuries of occupiers.

While the lessons of the past are there for all to see powerful governments attempt to reinvent the wheel in their favor. The American military, born by resistance, with all of its experience in counter-insurgency express surprise when faced with resistance. In the present wars American General Petraeus re-published counter-insurgency lessons but they appear to fall on deaf ears as more troops and bombs continue to fracture Afghanistan. Again the American policies are spreading resistance where the past will haunt the future of the powerful. A major unlearned lesson is that the military is ill equipped for nation building.

Government policies can not ignore that in true education, lessons must be honestly applied rather than recited for a grade. For international policy today the grade is cooperation rather than 19th/20th Century conquest. The greatest lesson is that self image is never the world’s image of self.

Generation of greatness

2009-06-25T09:11:00.001-04:00

Passing 061509

My father died yesterday, he was over 100. It was an expected death and he went fairly quickly and easily so it wasn’t such a shock. Looking at his death with some perspective this morning it brought home the passing of the 20th century, the American Century.

My father lived through most of the century and saw change in land, the people and the world as a whole. I wish I had listen more closely to his conversations with his contemporaries when there were some who understood his time. There were a few stories that stand out, as a teenager he drove the family across country before there were highways or maps to show the way. He learned to fly in an old WWI Jenny and hopped freights during the depression he was not unique for his time there are many such stories of his generation.

His was a generation of giants that built a new culture they grew up when a man’s word was a bond, honest work was the norm and invention and discovery carried the nation from conquering forest to conquering space. These old men fought two world wars and numerous minor wars where not only they served again but their sons also. They survived the great depression, dust storms and industrial migrations that changed the nation. They invented and manufactured cars, planes and communications networks that bind the world today. It was their honor and hard work that carried America to respected great power status. They had vision and overcame obstacles, solved problems and created new solutions to achieve their visions.

Theirs was a hard scrabble life that shaped their character. They passed their values to a new generation but it became diluted for they wanted their children to have a better life without the challenges and struggles they had experienced. As generations multiplied the culture and values began to erode. It lasted for most of the 20th century as the Giants built a New World and controlled the development of the American Century for almost all of the century. They began to die off, from the wars, from their hard work and finally from old age.

The Giants left a legacy for the 21st century, their R&D and inventions continue to be exploited well into this century. Their greatest contributions to society however are being lost. Their values and their culture that made them Giants of the American Century are rapidly disappearing. These Giants who survived the challenges to old age may not have been happy with the direction of those changes but they were to old and tired to lead the nation to greater innovations and back to a respected place in the world.

My father was not a great statesman or a captain of industry but like most his generation a man of vision, invention, backbreaking labor and honor. I’m grateful to have known not only my father but also so many other 20th Century Giants, I wish I had paid more attention to their teachings.

My father outlived most of his generation, in the end missing the companionship of his generation of Giants. The passing of my father signals the passing of our greatest era.

great game 052209

2009-06-15T13:32:00.002-04:00

052209 Great Game

In democratic societies as administrations near the end of their tenure they begin to worry about how history will view their legacy. Administration “spin” and dis-information bombards the public, public records disappear, and open source files become classified in the “national interest.” Their interpretation of national interest being prevention of political embarrassment.

History, unlike the administrations, takes a long view of success and failure. History also looks beyond era public pronouncements of politicians and self-serving officials. In the past historians could call on period journals, not meant for publication, as keys to truth. Today the truth is a little more difficult to find in the vast information ocean electronically manufactured by spin-doctors. Administrations’ egos ignore that the information age cuts both ways, allowing publication of both their official politically correct pronouncements as well as contradicting documentation. In recent years administrations have shredded files and erase computer memories in vain attempts to leave history only favorable views of their regime. Linked computer workstations and the Internet however have insured that obscure accurate records remain as flotsam and jetsam on the information ocean to be salvaged by future historical researchers.

US administrations count on the public’s short attention span to enhance their image, disseminated PC sound bites in place of factual dialog. Sound bites are catchy buzzwords that hang on in a disinterested public’s mind. Honest explanations of events are papered over by Sunday morning talk show sound bite spin, which set the agendas for the coming week’s amplification. More substantive analysis and discussions of current events however condition the international community’s views and it like historians have long memories of both words and actions.

Public long memories also consider more than an administration’s waning months in evaluating legacies. Actions and rhetoric undertaken early in the first few months in power defeat slanted legacies requiring redefinition. As embarrassing documents bob to the surface of the information ocean member of the former administration attempt to cover up, deny and spin but without a forum and following to legitimize their ossification of responsibility.

This year’s change of American administration keyed on two lost wars, failed policies, declining power and an economic melt down. These are historical indicators of great power decline. Instead of contributing to reversal of this trend, members of the previous administration are attempting to justify their failed policies, which have carried to country to crisis. Lost wars and failed polices will eventually reside in dusty archives but the economic melt down and fall from power will impact a generational culture change long remembered by the international community and those that have lived through dynamic change.

terror 2

2009-04-29T14:32:00.002-04:00

042609 terror

Government officials who are the practitioners of State terror come to believe their own propaganda that it is legitimate to use any means to achieve their goals. They fail to recognize that terror generates terrorism.

When legitimate political dissent is characterized as terrorist activity dissidents are forced into the roll of resistance and even insurgencies. Dissidents begin to mirror the State by grasping the tools of terror out of frustration in their sense of powerlessness. The State seizes on this resistance to justify imposing greater State terrorism. The State uses its power to legitimize detaining people with out charges: torture to terrorize detainees becomes a norm. Innocents and dissident are both swept into a broad state network of terror.

Dissidents develop a political agenda that embraces terror as a tactic to achieve their goals. Their acts of terror fall into two categories first direct attacks on the government and second attacks on the population. Attacks on the government generate an even more oppressive State reaction. Attacks on the population generate fear and distrust in a government unable to protect its citizens. These attacks also bring recruits to the dissent movement; they may also generate additional dissents that immediately embrace terror as the way to advance their own agendas.

Both the dissent groups and the State develop splinter groups that are more radical extremist in the use of terror. Terror generates ever more brutal terror until the objective is no longer political change but rather terror for the sake of terror. Nearly a hundred years ago the Soviet Leon Trotsky said that the purpose of terror was to terrorize. Trotsky was speaking of State terror and as practiced by the Soviets was successful at the cost of millions of citizens. Ultimately Soviet terror failed as dissents rejected the Soviet system. The collapse of the Soviet Union generated competing criminal terrorist groups as well as regional dissents employing terror for a share of political power.

Foreign terrorists attack in other countries in today’s linked international community because the community supports oppressive home countries. International terror hopes to generate pressure for change and cut off support for oppressive regimes. International terror however generates terrorist activities as the international community embraces terror in the name of counter terrorism.

Whatever the type, terrorists are difficult to defeat and counter terror generates reactive terror. Terrorism however can be prevented or defeated by understanding the dynamics that generate political dissatisfaction with the current government and giving dissent a voice. This requires enlighten leadership in states and the community of states.

Terrorism 1

2009-04-25T11:34:00.000-04:00

042309 terror

For all most a decade the political buzzword is terrorism and claims that terrorist are everywhere poised to destroy civilization. Radical right politicians justified bad legislation as defense against terrorism, while prosecutors capitalized on the new anti-terrorism laws to avoid due process by charging local crime as terrorist activity.

It is apparent that there is still a lack of understand of terrorism. The fact that an individual is terrified does not make a conspiracy of international terrorism. Terrorism falls into three broad categories there is “State terrorism”, political minority tactical terrorism, and organized crime terrorism.

Criminal terrorism is easy to understand criminal elements terrorize local populations into acceptance of criminals as de-facto rulers of a neighborhood or city. Terrified citizens are afraid to walk the streets or speak out against criminal elements. Examples abound of gang control of “turf”; drug dealers using terror to control markets, in some cases organized crime uses its power to terrorize in order to gain control of elected offices and become the government. Criminals terrorizes for power over the population and profit by that power.

State terrorism is more difficult to identify or understand for States have immense power over its domestic population and in the international community. The goals of State terror are to leverage existing power into total power and control. States target their own population through disinformation that frighten citizens into acceptance of loss of freedoms and insure the governing party’s stability. Political dissent is quickly labeled a threat to stability and dissidents as terrorist intent on overthrow of the existing social order. Governments utilize their legitimacy to establish disinformation bureaus, which reinforce the party line to establish public acceptance of abuse of powers.

Once the domestic population is sufficiently terrorized by its government, that government is free to use terrorism on the international community. Force and threats of force are used on smaller states to gain political control of their decision processes and control populations. States ultimately come to believe it their right to use the tools of terror against other states in order to gain more power. A State may justify invasions, concentration camps and even torture in the name of security and counter terrorism. Domestic opposition is muted in the fury of official disinformation that conceals the illegal nature of State terror. That same disinformation is also directed at international and human rights organizations, naming them as supporters of terrorism even as terrorist.

When State terrorism has been legitimized in the minds of the governing it becomes a dynamic. Members of the government begin to follow their own agendas of rational maximization. They push state terror activities to extremes for the maximum benefit to their careers. These activities begin to become crimes against humanity protected only by the power of the State. Once that power is compromised then the State will face the fury and accountability of the international community.

note 020109

2009-02-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

Most of my life has been spent in federal service in one form or the other. The young and talented gravitate to federal service from idealism of making a difference, or prospects of quickly becoming powers behind the throne.

The federal government gives every appearance of moving and shaking but the movement is circular and the shaking is bureaucratic fear of new, innovative ideas. All governments ultimately fall victim to their own propaganda of greatness. Governments are where the clueless many plagiarize the creative solutions of the few. Governments, foreign and domestic, employ “spin”, create foreign threats and generate domestic enemies to deceive their respective polities on the governments’ inept efforts to govern. Governments’ ethical standards fall victim to rationalization that maximum benefit to self is non-compliance in the best interest of the state. Whether a theocracy, democracy or autocracy the ultimate enemies of governments are the people they govern.

After a long and frustrating career in government I looked forward to a time when I could publish my thoughts under my own name. In the last few months I’ve discovered my mortality, of no great interest to most, and realized that I’ve waited to long to accomplish all that I’d planed to say and do.

The point to this is that these polemics are about to become much broader in scope reflecting my experiences and observations of macrocutures. It is probable that I will wander from subject to subject as current news trigger my interest. In short this is about to become more of a journal than academic dialectic.

Corruption

2008-11-23T15:35:00.002-05:00

The rise and fall of just about everything continues to fascinate both the public and scholars. The ancients probably took as much joy out of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire as the modern western states did from the decline and fall of the Soviet Union.

The rise and fall of great powers are not the only decline of interest. The public seems to have an insatiable appetite for stories of the rise and fall of athletes and movie stars. Corporate giants and financial institutions report great products and earnings only to suddenly crash to the horror of trusting investors.

Public officials hold hasty hearings, which ignore underlying causes but quickly assign blame to pacify a now poorer public. The media seeks out obscure “experts” who pontificate that either it is the end of an era or that it is a situation that can never happen again. Academics conduct exhaustive research on the causes for declines and publish great tomes of their conclusions that are seldom read and often in error.

Public officials, the media and even academics seek to explain declines as simple single theoretical causations on which to build their reputations while fatten their own pocketbooks. The truth is of course much more complex as the various theories are often in conflict with each other. Just about every factor has been used to explain the declines of the star power of states, businesses, athletes and actors.

One area of research has escaped diligent study, that of the roll of corruption in an ultimate decline. In part this omission is the result of corruption itself. “We are not corrupt it is those other people that are taking bribes.” “We have a sterling society, it is those foreign societies that are corrupt.” “It is those politicians who are corrupting our system.” Reality is that corruption is as universal as are honorable people in every society. Corrupt CEOs and politicians are also universal and the honorable people keep them in power as long as their corruption doesn’t cost “me” too much. Isn’t that also a form of corruption?

Spin doctors, marketers, advertising agencies and self-deception are practitioners of corruption. Corruption however is much broader than taking a bribe or telling a lie, it is also failure of society to insure the integrity of their social order. Once the combined weight of corruption exceeds the honest strength of a social system then the decayed social structure collapses. The ultimate corruption is looking the other way and pretending that it does not exist.

Pundits

2008-11-09T12:44:00.000-05:00

After two agonizing years and a billion dollars the American election campaigns are finally over. The Blue team won, while the Red team crashed and burned.

The smoke is still rising from the Red team’s disastrous defeat and the pundits are dissecting every move and counter move of the campaign. In the joyous Blue Camp they are trying to figure out how to best capitalize on the “big MO” (momentum). The dejected Red camp is busy point fingers, calling names and denying responsibility for any part in the disaster.

From the back woods the view is that the Blues ran an incredibly good campaign that focused on the peoples’ interest and needs. The Blue campaign reached out to where the votes are the center. They looked past their loquacious leftist base to moderate conservatives, reassured moderate leftist while courting the independent centrist.

A good deal of credit for the Blue victory must go to the Red’s incredibly bad campaigning. If a campaign mistake could be made, they made it. Their first mistake was to embrace its rabid right instead of creating a coalition of policies. If any other running mate had been chosen the results could have been different. Instead of a campaign of voter reassurance it was a campaign of hate and fear. Most of all it was a campaign that sacrificed its presidential candidate’s greatest asset, his integrity. Red campaigners looked at the 2004 electoral map and decided it just had to hold on to the past.

Times had changed and conservatives have difficulty with change. The Reds failed to understand the dissatisfaction with the current administration policies and how deep are the economic fears of the country. There was an absence of hope from the Reds while the Blues bubbled over with hope.

It is now up to the Blue team to roll hope into policies that will united a divided nation into one that the world will again respect. Not an easy task, but one that is possible by reaching out to all the people.

The good news is that campaign 2008 is over, the bad news is that campaign 2012 has already begun. Is there no hope of peace for the voters?
.

Looking Past Defeat: How Can McCain Recover? - TIME

2008-11-08T11:17:00.001-05:00

Looking Past Defeat: How Can McCain Recover? - TIME

Strategy

2008-10-28T11:53:00.002-04:00

America is mired in it quadrennial pagan ritual claimed to be the shining example of the democratic process, a presidential election campaign.

The red team seems to be on a search and destroy mission of attacking everyone and everything including itself, a strategy of alienation and division. It seems to be an attempt at divide and conquer through a smokescreen, which hides real issues. The blue team quickly capitalizes of Red’s alienation an draws in the disenchanted with platitudes of inclusion and change, another smokescreen hiding challenges that will play out long after the election.

The country is in an expanding two front shooting war along with its economic melt down. Both the Red and Blue teams blame the current administration for the problems. It can be argued that the present administration contributed to the current tales of woe. The truth is, however, that the administration inherited years of bad Purple (Red plus Blue) policies and did little address the root causes. In the race for free lodging at the White House, neither team is adequately dealing with the real need of this campaign.

The country is ten trillion dollars in debt and expects to spend a trillion dollars above its income next year. While decrying Wall Street’s embrace of debt as the cause of the current economic crisis the government is in the same hole and still digging. Red’s traditional allies of financial institutions and corporate giants are drowning in a sea of “red” ink. That red ink is now beginning to wash over Blue’s working man allies with increasing numbers being laid off, Merry Christmas. The administration is dumping 800 billion down the hold without hitting bottom. According to financial reporting about ten percent of 800 billion bailout will be used to pay bonuses to those responsible for the debacle, Merry Christmas.

Voters are angry and frightened and neither team has so far provided what is needed most at the moment, Hope. During the Great Depression candidate FDR campaigned on hope. When elected he implemented the policies of his predecessor but continued to sell hope. The policies were to little to late and it was a long haul before the crisis ended but hopes of better times move the people forward.

What this campaign needs is to walk away from divisive electioneering for the electorate needs a large does of Purple hope, a Merry Christmas for all.

October Surprise

2008-10-26T16:41:00.002-04:00

In America electioneering has become a never-ending ritual. The smoke from campaign fireworks still floats in the air when the future candidates begin to position themselves for the next election. A campaign industry has grown up around American elections. The collective cost of one campaign season could be in the billions. College students can now get a degree in campaign management. Consultants of every discipline analyze and manipulate every thought, sign and utterance calling the resulting deceptions “spin.”

Whether incumbent or challenger, underdogs hope for an “October Surprise” to save their floundering campaign fortunes. October surprises come in three basic versions. The front runner makes an incredible blunder that melts down the campaign. The underdog stages a brilliant last moment coup that creates a campaign bounce as the voters go to the polls. The third version is when some external factor seizes the voters’ attention. The winning candidate will be the one with the best “Spin Doctors” who claim credit for the candidate or tag the most blame on the opponent.

To be effective the October surprise must occur in the last few days of the election so the voters have little time to think of issues and vote on an emotional response to spin rather than facts. The real October surprise is that the country has survived its electioneering for so many years.

It is said that the voters get the elected officials they deserve. This is not a positive statement for an electorate, which does not attempt to understand the issues and personalities or even vote is left with officials who have mastered spin. The victors are often incompetent and corrupt but win elections because of lack of interest in the electorate.

Such is American election history. The current election is marred by campaign strategies reminiscent of 19th century machine politics and 20th century civil rights battles.

The United States claims a democratic moral high ground but the world now watches real time television broadcast of American campaigns. America is exporting electioneering spin to Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Latin America to name but a few places. Their voters are proving more skeptical of election integrity.

The American democratic moral high ground is eroding, along with American legitimacy as the international leader. Voters need to provide an October Surprise of their own. They should demand to be treated as adults and by candidates demonstrating real honesty and integrity.

History

2008-10-24T16:18:00.001-04:00

The past is past, where is the future? There may be more political lies about history than any other political issue. “History proves my policy is the only one that will solve our problems.”

The question is whose history are we talking about. Every event has several sides and a great deal of emotional involvement. In general what passes for history is political correctness carried to extremes. History texts are compromises that glorify and excuse vested interest. During World War II the Allies were shouting loudly about Axis war crimes when there were few definitions of an international war crime. Winston Churchill was asked if he were not afraid that he and the Allies would also be tried for committing the same crimes. Churchill replied that the history of victory would determine who the criminals were and that he (Churchill) would write that history. Churchill did write that history and Allied crimes were buried in dusty archives.

Serious historians do not like to begin researching history in those archives until all the participants have died and emotions cooled. They look past period public utterances to masses of obscure documents that support or refute popular period histories. The vast majority of the public and journalist never search for historical truth in dusty archives but parrot political correct versions of past events.

It is true that there is much to be learned from history, what worked and what didn’t and it requires critical thinkers to assess the pluses and minus of true history and reach the equals of future strategies.

It has been said that Generals always fight the last war, often to true. Politicians campaign on the last election and journalist measure past results against that current election. Both of these are examples of historical mis-direction of public perspective from policy failures.

In the current election both American parties, who are equally at fault, seek to obscure the fact that failed public policies have led into an American economic melt down. A Black Hole that is dragging the world into recession. Both parties are reaching back almost 80 years for historically politically correct solutions. Certainly there are some parallels between the causes of the Great Depression and the current situation, but this is a different world than that of the 1930s. Learn from history, it took ten years and a World War to recover from the Great Depression, that is to costly in today’s interactive world.

Campaign strategist should have searched for some politically incorrect critical thinkers who could have crafted a future public policy strategy. It is imperative that the election victor, not only addresses the current challenges, but also mobilized the politically incorrect to produce a visionary public policy for the future survival of the State.

Center of the world

2008-10-20T15:34:00.001-04:00

Proof of the United States’ position as the center of the world requires only a look at a world map in any American bookstore. Don’t, however, check the world maps in European or Chinese bookstores where they take center stage.

Despite American pretension of supremacy the world is a matter of viewpoint. To the world the United States is just another developing region. The United States is unique in many ways and it may be the world’s most heterogeneous society. It was not always so leading up to the Civil War the country was primarily Anglo-Saxon living in either a northern or southern cultures.

In the post war years a flood of immigrants began to fill the vastness claimed by manifest destiny politicians. Joining the immigrants were migrations of those displace by the conflict and a new culture emerged that of the westerner. The three cultures remained distinct well into the 20th century. The newly arrived immigrants tried hard integrate into the cultures of the American dream. Moving up in society meant moving out of ethnic ghettos. It was the three cataclysmic events of the 20th century that insured cultural assimilation. The two world wars and the great depression brought the cultures together in common cause. Soldiers returned with broader perspectives and joined a now mobile workforce. Telephones and most of all television moderated regional differences, the future looked grand.

Minorities began to notice that they did not have “FDR’s chicken in every pot,” and began to campaign for a seat at the table. Ethnic awareness not became a goal. No longer did the minorities want to be just Americans, the cry now was to become hyphenated Americans. The minorities won seats at the table but created hyphenated social regionalism. This regionalism does not have common interest and form frangible points in the nation.

In the euphoric glee of Cold War victory the United States encouraged ethnic minorities of the former Soviet Union to break away into independent balkanized States. Precedents have been established for ethnic states’ right to secede with foreign support.

The ethnic riots of the late 20th century in the United States demonstrate that the American Dream is fragile. Local and national politicians now exploit the frangible point in order to establish their own power base.

It is way past the time for enlightened leadership to emerge with visions of inclusion and grand strategic goals for the nations. Failure to do so may well result in the nation fracturing along hyphenated lines with a gleeful world providing aid to a now balkanized America.

New Power

2008-10-16T13:06:00.003-04:00

The western world continues to be torn by self-inflicted wounds of bad management both in the private and public sectors. In the private sector it is short sighted, debt laden get rich quick, schemes, which are driving economies into whirlpools of failure. The public sector has also focused on the short term rather than strategic futures. Since the end of the so-called “Cold War” American leadership has floundered between conflicting policies that encouraged both debt and alienation of friends and foes alike.

Through its alliances the United States’ ego has dragged its friends into unpopular conflicts and confrontations over resources, power and flawed perceptions. While its leadership continues for flounder in search of policies the eastern world is moving strategically into the 21st century.

Both China and India are modernizing their infrastructures and building world relationships. At the moment it appears that India is focused on regional development while China is reaching out for global relationships. Both are relatively new comers to independent power both emerged from the shadow of internal strife and colonialism only about sixty years ago. Both emerged into a world constrained by “For or against us” great power cold war struggles.

China tried to move on to the national stage by supporting nationalist movements of the 50s and 60s but its own political, social and economic development difficulties forced a retrenchment. The predictions at end of the cold war was that China would collapse but China open its economy, liberalized its structure, developed its infrastructure and again reached out to the world.

The vastness of China contains two major resources, natural and human. The human resource provides both skilled and unskilled resources as well as a highly educated pool of scientist, economist and strategist visionaries. It is probable that it is this latter group that is leading China’s growth as a world power.

While the western powers continue to follow policies of exploitation, constraint and alienation China is investing in growth of developing countries. Through foreign aid, direct investment and engineering assistance China is making friends in resource rich regions which will assist its own strategic economic and power growth.

Great Powers

2008-10-13T16:29:00.001-04:00

Since the turn of the 21st century global intellectual debate has focused on the historical Great Power paradigm. In general, the theory goes that a state rises to Great Power status remains there for a number of years and then begins to decline in status until it is replaced by emerging great power states, a cycle of approximately one hundred years.

The current debate is that the United States has had its one hundred-year and who will be the next great power to emerge. To understand the debate one must understand the nature of great power. Far to often people look at shiny armies as the measure of great power. Military power is only one element of great power. The Soviet Union had great military power but lasted less than 50 years on the international stage. The Soviets never balanced all the measures of power to be considered a truly great power. A state must not only possess military power but also economic power, mastering technology, natural resources, human capital and remain flexible enough to grow with the changing measures of power. Most of all a Great Power must have the respect of other states. Great Power may be shared among states, known as the balance of power. Great Powers are not defeated: they erode, unwilling to commit themselves to power responsibilities; or they commit suicide, focusing on past greatness rather than adjust to changing power dynamics.

The Americans are arguing that the United States is an exception as its manifest destiny is to be the global power doling out favors and punishment to the rest of the world. The Americans also argue that no other state is capable of great power. This argument fails to remember that the United States emerged as a Great Power in one generation.

Moving toward great power status are, Brazil, China, EU India, Russia. All have educated populations, resources and growing economies. The United States could be dropped into the jungles of Brazil with enough space left over for several smaller states. The EU alone has twice the population of the United States, China and India comprise over half the worlds population. It is true that Brazil and Russia have development and internal political issues. It is also true that the EU has limited natural resources and is still dealing with internal nationalistic issues. India must deal with religious issues as well as population divided by education and wealth. It is China that is most immediately prepared for Great Power status but it to has internal issues to settle. The American argument that none are capable of exercising world leadership rolls ignores that it may only take one generation of dynamic leadership to move a state to a Great Power.

The two most enduring measures of power are economics and international leadership. The United States is faced with unprecedented financial melt down from its “have it now” debt ridden life style. As U.S. financial institution began to drag down the global economies foreign banks and corporations stepped in to shore up the United States while picking up cut rate plums for themselves. It is unlikely that foreign governments will link themselves closely to the United States that it can again threaten the global economy.

At the end of World War Two the United States was the most respected nation on the planet. Momentum carried it to the top of the hill but “for us, or against us” leadership has lead to a steady decline in world respect.

In the 20th century the United States was instrumental in linking the world. In the 21st century that linked world now questions the value of following U.S. leadership. The coming American elections are far more important than the American public realizes. At stake is America as a Great Power or a struggling state clinging to past glories.

The new administration must lead the public away debt laden policies and toward shared power among equals. Only by enlightened leadership can the United States escape the historical long cycle decline as a great power.

Oil-igarchies

2008-10-01T08:58:00.000-04:00

In “Blood Barrels”, a recent Foreign Affairs article, Michael L. Ross notes the links of oil production and regional conflicts. Ross correctly identifies some of the causations for petro-wars; there are ample case studies to support his thesis. He also makes a number of suggestions for reforms that could reduce oil-igarchies embrace of conflict.

Most commodities react to purely supply and demand dynamics; oil prices on the other hand are complicated by emotions. Most notable is the emotion of fear which oil-igarchies manipulate for corporate and individual greed. When the well-head cost of a barrel of oil goes up there is an immediate consumer price surge although products of that barrel of oil may not reach the consumer for two or more months. When the well head cost go down however the consumer price takes months to lower and never returns to the previous level.

This is neither a unique or a recent trend. Oil has been the center of greed economics and politics for thousands of years. Consider olive oil as fueling the Greek and Roman wars, Competing whale oil fleets of 19th century led into the Great oil wars of the 20th century.

Scholars have noted that the Middle East was ignored by the world until oil was discovered in 1901 in what is now Iran. These discoveries coincided with oil fired technological advances. Britain locked up the oil fields of Iran, which they held on to until mid-century. Germany, twisting Ottoman arms and possibly using bribes as grease, pushed a rail line to the prospective oil fields of (now) Iraq. It was international oil-igarchies that led to the Middle-East campaigns of World War I. In the post war era the British and French divided the Ottoman region and locked out the Germans. A late comer to the great oil grab America had to pay a premium to play in the international oil puddle but it to soon converted from an oil exporter to an importer of cheaper foreign oil for greater profits. In World War 2 Germany reached for Soviet (Russian) oil fields while locked out Japan headed to Southeast Asia. Allied powers “protected” oil producers from the axis but not from their own exploitation.

In ruins of World War 2 protectors exploited producers but the times were changing as nationalist movements swept Africa and Asia. The overt explanation was to throw off colonial exploitation but the elites of the oil producers had learned their lessons well, oil produced great wealth. Great wealth enabled high ideals and low. There was much promised to the people of the newly independent nations but little delivered as income was diverted and negotiated away by new oli-igarchies.

The flaw in free market economies is that greed is insatiable and the greedy are experts in rationalizing self-interest as the greater good, manufacturing fear as a means to their end. The present conflict is justified by an obscure “Energy Security Initiate” which held that the powerful are entitled to “protect oil” anywhere in the world. The problem is that the measures of power are shifting and while oil remains supreme for the foreseeable future it will be alternative energy sources that will ultimately reduce petro-wars.

Challenges and models

2008-09-21T10:43:00.000-04:00

Modern regional developers are faced with a multitude of challenges and often have limited human and economic resources to craft solutions.

Historic development progressed at a much slower pace. At the beginning of the 19th century ideas were shared at a walking pace, by the start of 20th century knowledge was traveling by steam and along copper wires. Now at the beginning of the 21st century distance has become virtually immaterial and information circles the globe in milliseconds. Today no point on earth remains immune from information overload. During the “DarkAges” elites were able to restrict the flow of information and ration it out for their own benefit. Today’s elities continue to try to restrict the free exchange of information in a vain attempt to hold their positions. Fortunately for the people information can now flow around, over and through their fragile nets of self-interest.

For regional developers this is both a boon and a curse because the information overflow is simultaneously valuable and worthless. Development requires one element that is often is short supply, critical thinkers who will apply objective analysis and recommend ethical solutions. It is a natural and valid course of action to look to the past for developmental models, however the past may also be a trap.

There can be little argument that during the 20th century the United States was leading development through a series of revolutionary changes. America converted its natural resources to great wealth and power. It has become evident in the 21st century that America achieved much of its innovative reputation based on flawed assumptions, individual greed, self-promotion and creative deception. In the process America squandered its resources and polluted its environment. The nation corrupted its culture from one of honest work and business integrity to one of shortsighted self-interest and duplicity.

In post World War II an American oil-igarchy destroyed urban mass transit systems to generate markets for the auto industries gas-guzzlers. Marketers sold the excitement of urban living to millions who became urban prisoners of taxi drivers. The same marketers then sold the excitement of suburban living to the now prisoners of the commute. The process sold cars, real estate, and commodities, which generated great wealth for the marketers. The end result was grid locked highways, increased pollution and wasted hours commuting. Shortsighted development moved production off shore and marketers sold a concept of an information society but soon information also began to be processed off shore. The American Culture began to erode as marketing sold a “ME” society of have it all and have it now. This led to recent financial collapses resulting from over extension and poor developmental practices.

The point to all this is that Regional Development must consider cause and effects when reviewing existing models. Development must be based on strategic planning, where does the region want to be in 50 to 100 years, where does this plan fit into global developments. Learn from the mistakes as well as the achievements of others.

Cultural revolution

2008-04-02T11:35:00.000-04:00

Cultural revolutions

The idea that a civilization has a culture is difficult to quantify but understanding that culture is important in international affairs. The difficulty, in part, stems from a lack of understanding of exactly what constitutes a culture. There are those who argue the one who uses the correct fork is cultured while others point to the production of fine art constitute cultured societies. Confusion reigns on the relative weight of customs, values, history, environments, etc. on cultural identification.

Cultural measures lack of stability and precision of its variables further complicate research. One variable may change without cultural impact while a different change in the same variable may indicate a cultural drift. During the late 18th century American Revolution rebels signaled their independence by changing the way they held their forks from the European style of loyalist. This change encompassed only a small segment of the population in the 1770s. It had little impact on cultural measures then but a century later the practice was widely accepted and reflected an independent American culture that embraced symbolism over substance.

All babies are born without a cultural identity. Traditionally culture is learned from first the family, then peers and education and ultimately societal environments. In the traditional model by the age of 12 an individual’s basic values and culture are well defined. Subsequent life experiences may refine or modify one’s cultural perspective but the basic values remain as the deep bedrock of the individual’s social development.

The traditional models were generally reliable in the slow evolution of thousands of years. The increasingly rapid technological advances of the late 20th century are influencing wide spread cultural revolutions in the 21st century. Across cultures the modern generation is not following the traditional model but rather embracing different values and building new cultural norms.

There is no single 21st century culture but rather multiple competing cultural directions emerging from new generations’ perspectives and aspirations. To paraphrase an old automobile advertisement, “This is not your father’s culture.” There is a real generation gap emerging as the developed states age out and developing states with under 20 populations approaching 50 percent. This causes internal stress within cultures. In neither case is the respective cultures stable. The aging take a conservative view of status quo while youth embraces a liberal perspective of change as having it all, now no matter the cost.

Across the globe societies are fracturing along fault lines established a century ago. States are under stress as never before some are breaking up while others are attempting to apply Band-Aids to gaping wounds. From an international perspective failure to view cultural changes will contribute to conflict between emerging cultural changes. Conflict in the 21st century will be far more violent and less focused as cultural splinters begin to employ the principles of terror as a weapon of choice.

frank

Far East

2008-03-11T17:18:00.002-04:00

Old player returns to the field

Twenty years ago western pundits and politicians were gleefully expounding on the imminent collapse of China (PRC). Today many of those same pundits and politicians are decrying that the Chinese are the ultimate threat to the western way of life out to conquer the world.

China was never at risk of collapse but was going through a period of liberalization. Not in the sense of becoming a so called liberal society but rather a society assessing its future and adapting to new dynamics, a transition of methodology not strategy. Many commentators have noted that China takes a long view of development. The west on the other hand takes an imperialist, conservative view of looking to its past and perceived greatness. In North America strategic planning extends only to the next poll.

Unlike the former Soviet Union, which was considered a great power, based only on a measure of its military power, China’s growing power is more balance with the potential of real great power status. China is not only rich in human capital but also natural resources. Chinese leadership is leveraging its riches through education and investment in industrial and economic growth. Historic Chinese innovation may well pale beside it innovative potential for the future.

The ultimate Chinese great power strategy from a western perspective is speculative but there are indicators of its direction. China is reaching outside its traditional region of influence. Both through diplomatic initiatives, direct investments and foreign aid China is expanding its influence through Asia, Africa and South America. There is no question that this is in the long-term interest of China, but also supports regional development in areas ignored by former great powers’ competition.

Some western leaders are in the process, reminiscent of the east-west cold war conflict, of demonizing China’s intentions. The world can not afford another period of great power conflict, which wasted great human and material wealth in nonproductive endeavors. The forgotten regions of the world stand to gain from China’s development initiatives. These long ignored areas are rich in resources and can with effort be transformed into contributing members of 21st century world order.

It is not in the interest of that world order to attempt to prevent China’s outreach. Scholars of international power have long hypothesized on world power shifts. The measures of power evolve with emerging technologies and power is finite. It is in the interest of all that power be shared, or else it may be lost to those looking forward rather than backward.

China at the moment is at a juncture. China has the resources to become a competitor for power in this century but it also can become an international partner for innovation, growth and solutions to the inherent stresses of the world.

frank

development

2008-03-07T08:14:00.001-05:00

The time is now
Centers of Regional Development
Dr. Frank ©2008

Global influence

The international community (IC) is faced with political failures in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as deteriorating regional stability around the globe. The rationalizations for declining stability are many. There is the blame game, “someone else is at fault”, and the solutions game, “do it our way--or else.” Both models fail to consider regional solutions for regional challenges. The IC’s power elite refuses to acknowledge that it is long past the time that they should be concerned with the aspirations and expectations of local cultures.

Western packaged solutions do not necessarily fit all western challenges, so why does the west demand that these theoretical solutions be accepted by foreign cultures?

As western populations age the majority of the developing world’s population is under 20 with the aspirations and expectations of youth. Young populations present local leadership with a myriad of challenges but also provides basic resources for future solutions. There are no western monopolies on brainpower, there are bright peoples in every culture. Many, however, are hampered by their past, poor educational system, colonialism followed by misguided local leadership. It is time to apply regional human resources to regional challenges for regional solutions.

Centers of regional development can bring together local social and physical scientist with public administrators to collect regional data, study real challenges and produce needed practical solutions. Such centers would not only be regional think tanks providing innovative leadership but also educational institutions for critically thinking new generations of regional problem solvers.
Baggage from the past influences future

The 19th century was the age of colonialism; powerful early nation state competition led to occupation and subjugation of vast territories and populations. The 20th century brought neo-colonial competition for resources into conflict with the emerging nationalism of colonized populations. Despite professed lofty idealism by the great powers during the 20th century their struggles for power forced nationalist to chose sides between foreign cultures. During the 19th and 20th centuries the powerful had little inclination to prepare the subjugated for sharing of the world’s wealth or power.

The turn of the 21st century found a world in transition. Ragged victory was claimed in the two centuries of great power struggles on the basis of last man standing. Human aspirations continue to fracture the old order while searching for alliances and new power blocks. The decaying old order offers the only model it knows, marketing a repackaged neo-colonialism of, ‘Become like us but still provide us your resources, it is best for you.” The old order provides lessons of value for aspirating populations. Many of those lessons however, are negative, what not to do. Any proposed western solutions require local cultural evaluation, modification, blending and filtration to fulfil the expectations and requirements of regional populations.
Genie out of the bottle

New measures of power are entering a technology world along an information highway that any can travel. That highway provides vast quantities of data but there are glaring cultural gaps in the existing research. Much of what passes for data in developing regions are little better than speculations based on western modeling, not real research. Assumptions are made on the basis of what is valid data for New York, London, or Paris must be valid for the world. Any broad conclusion based on these flawed assumptions fail to solve today’s challenges. New York, London, and Paris are distinct separate cultures. They display some metropolitan commonalties, the need to move, house, feed and protect great masses of people. Cities of smaller sizes exhibit some of the same commonalties on a lesser scale but they react with different priorities and resolve issues with great variety. Large and small metropolitan solutions however do not consider the needs of those that grow the food, drive the trucks or fight the fires.

Societal order requires strategic macro planning which in turn requires not only accurate data collection but also a high degree ethical evaluations. Attempting to turn macro research into operationalistic public management has limits. The collapse of the Soviet system of governance was due in part attempts to apply its central planning model to all state requirements. Central planning begins to feed upon itself producing biased data that supports the plan rather than honest research that identifies regional issues for regional solutions.

Western powers, international organizations and NGOs provides assistance to states under stress. Often however, the assistance provided reflects the biases of the providers. High tech solutions are pressed on low-tech cultures that are in need of simple and culturally sensitive solutions. Sophisticated equipment is donated when the requirements can often be better served with a bicycle response.

The problem is??

The first principle of scientific methodology to problem solving is to identify the problem. Scientists often must develop hypotheses based on limited data. Such hypotheses are neither the problem nor a solution but rather a starting point for further research and testing to discover the true problem and workable solutions.

Centers for regional development must have both legitimacy and political independence to earn respect as ethical sources of information. Such centers are strategic tools for good governance and regional stability. Regional leadership must plan for the future while studying the past and present data. Issues of human need, geographical opportunities and constraints as well as regional cooperation and interactions provide the input but it is the critical thinking skills of the human resources that provides solutions for today and basis of future growth.

Centers should be established with political independence but with a voice in the political processes. Funding may come from the international community but the organization should be regional in leadership with demonstrated integrity. Possibly linked to the regional higher education system where the best students may not only learn future skills but also apply themselves to solving real regional issues. Global stability depends of regional stability, regional stability can only come from application of regional solutions based on the culture aspirations and need of regional populations.

Introduction

2008-03-04T16:52:00.002-05:00

Social Scientists spend a great deal of their time researching minute details within their respective disciplines. They then extrapolate the resulting data into some broad hypotheses that project potential facts for global concern. Ignoring that hypotheses are theories to be tested, biased international leaders attempt to apply the theoretical as global reality.

Social engineering, game theories, and to a large degree political absolutism are based on the flawed assumptions that it is a world of one. There are some global natural laws that apply; everyone needs air to breath, water to drink and food to eat, beyond that it is a world of six billion plus individuals with differing interest, needs and reactions.

Globalism is limited by human nature, which embraces or rejects collectivism, individualism and foreign cultural intrusions.