The Economist believes that If America can learn from its problems, instead of blaming others, it will come back stronger. “Nations, like people, occasionally get the blues…Eight out of ten Americans think their country is heading in the wrong direction. The hapless George Bush is partly to blame for this: his approval ratings are now sub-Nixonian. But many are concerned not so much about a failed president as about a flailing nation.

“Everybody goes through bad times. Some learn from the problems they have caused themselves, and come back stronger. Some blame others, lash out and damage themselves further. America has had the wisdom to take the first course many times before. Let’s hope it does so again.”

More here…

In an earlier post I had written about European Union’s plans to reduce dependence on oil and to tap the potential of Sahara sun for solar power. Now comes T. Boone Pickens, the 80-year-old founder of one of the largest US oil exploration and production companies, offering alternative energy solutions. ‘The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone,’ reads a line from his new Pickens Plan.

With surging global demand pushing crude oil prices to record highs and the US presidential candidates from left and right slamming the country’s dangerous reliance on foreign energy sources, Pickens has added his bit by saying that we can’t drill our way to lower gas prices. “By implication, anybody who tells you otherwise — including the fellow Texan he helped put in the White House — is a fraud,” says The New York Times.

” ‘Totally misleading’ is the way Pickens describes Republican attempts to convince the public that if we just opened up all these forbidden areas to oil drilling then gas prices would fall. He’s not against new drilling, but he is honest enough to say it wouldn’t do anything.

“Republicans are furious at their longtime benefactor. Senator John McCain is currently running an ad in which he directly blames Barack Obama for $4-a-gallon gas at the pump — as bogus a claim as anything yet made in 2008.

“Then along comes Pickens, Texas oilman and billionaire corporate raider, overwhelming the McCain attack with a saturation message that has the added value of being true, as Henry Kissinger once said about another matter.

“But, more importantly, Pickens is betting $10 billion in constructing what he says will be the world’s largest wind farm in the gusts of West Texas. If the mighty winds of the American midsection were harnessed, it could free up plentiful natural gas for vehicles — a relatively quick step away from foreign oil.” More here…

And here…

In a spirited defence of his stand in the Indian parliament regarding his support to the India-US nuclear deal on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: “Our critics falsely accuse us, that in signing these agreements, we have surrendered the independence of foreign policy and made it subservient to US interests. In this context, I wish to point out that the cooperation in civil nuclear matters that we seek is not confined to the USA.

“Change in the NSG guidelines would be a passport to trade with 45 members of the Nuclear Supplier Group which includes Russia, France, and many other countries. We appreciate the fact that the US has taken the lead in promoting cooperation with India for nuclear energy for civilian use. Without US initiative, India’s case for approval by the IAEA or the Nuclear Suppliers Group would not have moved forward.

“But this does not mean that there is any explicit or implicit constraint on India to pursue an independent foreign policy determined by our own perceptions of our enlightened national interest. Some people are spreading the rumours that there are some secret or hidden agreements over and above the documents made public. I wish to state categorically that there are no secret or hidden documents other than the 123 agreement, the Separation Plan and the draft of the safeguard agreement with the IAEA.

“I state categorically that our foreign policy, will at all times be determined by our own assessment of our national interest. This has been true in the past and will be true in future regarding our relations with big powers as well as with our neighbours in West Asia, notably Iran, Iraq, Palestine and the Gulf countries…” More here…

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush have a reason to celebrate. In a way the triumphant nail-biting passage on Tuesday of the India-US Nuclear Deal in the Indian Parliament is their personal victory.

“The U.S. will urge other board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency to support an inspection plan tied to the accord during a meeting on Aug. 1,” State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said in Washington.

“The 2005 accord signed between Singh and Bush gives India access to fuel and nuclear reactors without joining the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would lift restrictions imposed on suppliers to provide India with atomic technologies since it tested a nuclear weapon in 1974 without being listed as an atomic weapons state.

“India can now seek the nuclear deal’s approval from the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a mandatory requirement before the U.S. Congress can ratify it. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino predicted approval in Congress should the plans succeed with the IAEA and the 45-nation suppliers group.” More here…

It was a tough battle for the Indian prime minister who staked his government’s survival on the parliamentary vote. And it was a close call. The Congress party-led government won with 275 lawmakers voting for it and 256 against. The number of abstentions was not immediately clear, although not all 543 members of Parliament’s lower house took part in the vote.

“The vote capped a week of intense politicking that saw the government rename an airport for a lawmaker’s father, promise a high-level job to another, and — rival politicians allege — hand out millions of dollars to many others in an effort to survive.” More here…

Although this landmark development is a major milestone in India-US economic and strategic relationship, nearly half the Indian lawmakers have opposed the deal in its present form. Meanwhile the ‘Marketing Guru of the World’ Dr. Jagdish Sheth, Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, USA, today asked India to look at issues in a “multi-centric” way instead of the present US-centric prism.

Sheth predicted that India and China, along with the United States, would form the “emerging geoeconomic triad” replacing the US-Canada, European Union and Japan triad. He said the 21st century would certainly belong to ‘Large Emerging Nations (LEN)’ as the 19th century belonged to America and 18th century to Europe. He said LEN would consist of India, China, Russia, Brazil and other emerging countries.

Author of the famous book ‘Chindia Rising: How China and India will benefit your business’, Dr Sheth predicted redefining of capitalism and democracy with compassionate capitalism, disciplined democracy and worldwide rise of spiritualism. More here…

On Tuesday the crucial vote in the Indian Parliament over the India-US civil nuclear deal would decide the fate of the present coalition government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “The Washington establishment is keeping its fingers crossed and lips sealed before Tuesday’s trust vote,” says The Economic Times.

“The White House and the State Department have refrained from offering a comment lest it be taken as interference in another country’s domestic affairs, but officials sure are hoping the Manmohan Singh government would survive. For, the government’s survival alone would give the embattled President George W Bush one last chance to score a major foreign policy success…

“On July 22, Manmohan Singh will find out whether his gamble has paid off - or if it has cost him his four-year-old administration. ‘If they are to keep their jobs, Singh and other Congress party members have to convince voters, as well as lawmakers who are sitting on the fence, that the leadership hasn’t sold out and turned India into a US pawn,’ The Time magazine said.

“Businessweek noted that eyeing more than $100 billion in new reactor construction contracts in just the next 10 years, US companies had been lobbying for the last three years in both New Delhi and the US for the passage of the nuclear deal. In the event of the nuclear deal falling through, the prospect of losing more lucrative contracts to the French and Russians has them worried.” More here…

According to Asia Times: “The latest New Delhi grapevine is that the government has been bribing members of parliament to come on board the deal and that the going rate of purchase of loyalty is US$6.25 million per member. Surely, that is corruption on an epic scale for even a notoriously corrupt country like India, which Transparency International places at somewhere near the bottom of the pit in the world community.

“The Congress party-led UPA faces a no confidence debate in parliament on Tuesday. This follows the withdrawal of support to the government by its left-wing allies in protest against the deal with the US. If the government loses the vote, early elections are likely - they are currently scheduled for May next year - and the deal could be abandoned.

“There is a pronounced non-proliferation agenda in the deal in so far as Delhi virtually surrenders its right to have nuclear tests and agrees to monitoring of its nuclear program, including fissile material production in perpetuity; the deal envisages that Indian foreign policy will be congruent to US global strategies.” More here…
And here…

If the arrival of The Beatles in the 1960s helped boost the backpacker traffic to India, it is now the turn of Americans to help in increasing, what is described as, ‘executive tourism’ to India. “India is now nearly as popular a destination for Americans as Spain,” reports The Canadian Press.

“Travel to India from the United States increased 10 per cent between 2006 and 2007, on top of an eight per cent rise the year before,according to the most recent data from U.S. Department of Commerce.

“The upsurge in Americans visiting India is part of broader boom in India’s tourism industry. In 2007, some five million travellers headed to India, nearly double from 2000, according to the Tourism Ministry. Visitors from the U.S. accounted for 15.7 per cent of the total.

“And while there are still plenty of Westerners seeking low-budget Eastern spirituality, India has recently started attracting a different class of visitors…These include a large number of business travellers, wealthy retirees out to explore India from the comfortable confines of an air-conditioned luxury bus or train…”

“More Americans visited India last year than went to Ireland or Thailand, according to the most recent data from U.S. Department of Commerce.” More here…

And here…

Why has the United States decided to resurrect the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet, which has been in mothballs since the 1950s? And why has it chosen to do so now?

People in South America have been debating these questions for months now. Here WORLDMEETS.US presents an analysis that has been quoted widely by Latin American newspapers and politicians like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro since it was published June 30th by Argentine newspaper Clarin.

For Clarin, Telma Luzzani poses the question this way to an Argentine analyst, who gives his response:

“What reason could the United States have to send such a powerful naval force to a region at peace, without nuclear weapons, without conflict or any real military threats? “They’re never going to admit that it’s because of our natural resources, but it’s no coincidence that this decision comes just as a structural change is underway in the global economy, in which reserves of fresh water, food and energy resources (which our region has in abundance) have assumed such vital strategic value,” said Clarín Khatchik Der Ghougassian, specialist on security issues at the University of San Andrés [Argentina].”

Luzzani continues:

“The commander of the Navy of Brazil, Julio Moura Neto, made it clear that his country will not under any circumstances accept any American naval intervention in Brazilian waters. There is a leader, Hugo Chávez, who is making life complicated for them. And there is a country - Brazil - with plans for leadership that isn’t necessarily opposed to the U.S., but rather takes power away from it.”

And how does this fit into Washington’s overall plans? Luzzani quotes Mexican researcher Ana Esther Cecena:

“The first was economic: with neo-liberalism, the U.S. rearranged the use of natural resources to benefit large multinationals and other political and economic groups. Due to the failure of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, it was not entirely successful. The second was legislative. It had Latin American constitutions - which were very nationalist - changed to allow the entry of foreign private capital and the shrinking of state interference. The third was military: the U.S. pushed for the approval of security laws that in some cases allow the free movement of the FBI or the CIA on our territory.”

Read the rest of this entry »

When Barack Obama pointed out recently that Americans should - in their own interest - teach their children Spanish or some other second language, many were quick to pounce.

But, not surprisingly, people in South America wholeheartedly agree with him.

Andres Oppenheimmer writes for El Periodico of Guatemala:

“The percentage of people in the United States who master a foreign-language is pathetic compared to other wealthy countries. … Obama is right, although it would’ve been nice if he himself spoke Spanish or some other language. … a recent survey taken in 27 countries of the European Union revealed that 56 percent of Europeans speak at least one language apart from their native tongue, which is an increase of 53 percent over five years ago.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Cohabiting among older people increased 50 percent from 2000 to 2006, the McClatchy Newspapers report today:

“The total–1.8 million–counts only couples who live together full time and were willing to admit it to census interviewers. Part-time cohabiting–traveling together, sharing a summer house, spending weekends together–is up at least as sharply, according to seniors and people who work with them.”

This news about the growth of “love expectancy” may come as a shock to younger generations, whose sophistication does not extend to the notion that parents and grandparents, despite all the evidence of Viagra commercials, may not be immune to a culture of supersex on TV and in the movies.

Read the rest of this entry.

One of the hallmarks of a civilized society is how they treat their less fortunate members. From the earliest days of American society we have tried to meet that noble goal. There has always been an unspoken understanding that ‘Society should provide the less fortunate with their basic needs’. This goal is correct and proper and I strongly support the basic premise.

However over the years the meaning of those words have gone through many changes, usually much needed ones but also often controversial ones.

For example the term ’society’ has changed dramatically in the past couple of centuries. At one point it meant mostly the private sector. Families, religious groups, private charities and the like were expected to help those in need. Sometimes local government might become involved but that was about it.

Then we saw the growth of the welfare state and the increasing role of the federal government and the decline of the religious and private charity groups. Today they exist in a balance, with most people agreeing that they should share responsibility (though still debating to what degree each side should be involved).

The term provide has also changed, at one point it was assumed that you would provide the needy with the means to obtain their needs (IE work) while today it has evolved to something of a mix,  with some people advocating that everyone should work for their needs while others suggesting that to require any work is wrong.

The term ‘the less fortunate’ has perhaps taken the broadest path of change over the years. At one point racial, religious and ethnic prejudices led to limitations on who was helped. Often moderately needy people would get aid while truly needy ones would be ignored.

Even the term ‘their basic needs’ has gone through a number of changes. If you were to visit a welfare agency at the start of the 20th century they would consider a bed, some clothes and some food to be pretty much all anyone needed to survive.

Today most people look to items like telephone service, television, etc as fairly basic needs. Again, there is considerable debate over how far the change should go but the basic idea that more than food/clothing/shelter is needed is a pretty common assumption.

However in all of the years of evolution there is one thing that has never happened before. People have never sought to remove words from the statement…… but that may be changing. For the first time I am seeing signs that people would like to remove the term ‘the less fortunate’ and require society to provide everyone with their needs.

I first saw signs of this when I began to talk with younger people who came in to my office to discuss their financial needs. Time and time again they talked about how ‘government should provide’ them with the money needed for everything they wanted in life.

I am not talking about just a basic place to live but rather a home as luxurious as they wanted. My parents worked hard to provide my sister and I with a house of about 1500 square feet, which was considered fairly nice by the standards of the day.

Today people expect homes of twice that size and don’t care if they cannot afford it. I have seriously had bankruptcy clients expect that they could erase their mortgages and car loans completely but still keep the property.

I have also seen this is some of my younger friends who expect to be able to buy any car, take any trip and get anything they want right now. Their logic is that someone else has it so they should get it too.

I consider these things to be signs of the Barney effect. These people I mention have been raised with the idea that everybody should be equal, everything should be fair. If you play a game there should not be a score kept because somebody might lose. If you have a competition at school then everybody ought to get a prize.

It is thus hardly surprising that these people now expect that they should be given everything they want or need as an adult. Of course there are many very hard working members of the Barney generation and hopefully they will overcome this trend.

If they do, then there can be much to gain from a generation whose desire to achieve is tempered with a sense of fair play.

If they do not, then we will continue on our trend towards a society where the many depend on the few, and that can never last.

Pakistan has come under a blistering attack from Afghanistan and India. Afghanistan alleges that Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) and army are behind the bloody Taliban-led insurgency, calling the security forces the “world’s biggest producers of terrorism and extremism.” While India has blamed Pakistan’s ISI for the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, and said: “ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed.” (What is ISI?…Click here…)

Could it be that Pakistan’s ISI believes that Taliban would be the ultimate winner in Afghanistan?

Last year the newly released US official documents stated that the Pakistani government gave substantial military support to the Taliban in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks, sending arms and soldiers to fight alongside the militant Afghan movement. The suspicion has lingered that some elements of Pakistani intelligence are still protecting the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies in the autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Islamabad has acknowledged diplomatic and economic links with the Taliban but has denied direct military support, The Guardian reported. The US intelligence and state department documents, released under the country’s freedom of information act, show that Washington believed otherwise.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of involvement in a number of recent attacks in the country — an attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April, the July 7 suicide bomb attack outside Indian Embassy in Kabul that left over 60 people killed and a spate of suicide bombings and roadside bombs blamed on Taliban militants. More here…

The New York Times says: “Afghanistan is in some ways the test case of the extent to which India is willing to use its hard power to advance its strategic and commercial interests.” The NYT quotes Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, a research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies: “As India’s influence grows it will become increasingly involved in the local politics of a foreign country. It cannot afford to see itself as an innocent bystander anymore.”

The NYT adds: “C. Raja Mohan, an Indian foreign policy analyst, said the time had come for India and Pakistan to look beyond their traditional rivalries and fuse a joint strategy to confront extremists operating on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Such an initiative, he argued, would be to both countries’ advantage.” More here…

Another Indian expert has this to say: “Neither the Afghans nor the Pakistanis, as distinct from their governments, concede that they and the US-led forces have a common enemy. The ‘war on terror’ is perceived widely as a war on the people, and not only because of allegedly accidental strikes on Pashtun homes and hamlets in the border areas. The fact is that the antiterrorist credentials of ‘the Americans and the agencies’ lack credibility because of a pro-Taliban past.

“Nor do the governments of the triangle see a common enemy in terrorism as such. On paper, New Delhi, Islamabad and Kabul may be allies in a US-headed antiterror front. But, in practice, they have only been busy trying to turn the alliance and its leader against each other. There would seem to be no sound reason to hope for early arrival of a time when the region won’t reverberate with terrorist blasts.” More here…

Meanwhile here is how Taliban recenly breached NATO base in a deadly clash…Please click here.. And here…

Even Pakistan’s capital city Islamabad is under serious militant threat with foreign diplomats making preparations to flee at short notice. Read the full story here…

Trot out the clichés about closing the barn door for news today that the Federal Reserve is cracking down on shady lending practices to home buyers and President Bush is fighting high gas prices by lifting a ban on offshore drilling for oil.

As Americans drown in bad economic news, these daring rescue moves are the equivalent of throwing them concrete life preservers.

The Fed’s new rules to protect the public against predatory lenders of subprime mortgages are too little for future home buyers and too late for the millions who are losing their homes at the highest rate in history.

Read the rest of this entry.

Everything, it is said, is fair in love and war. Let’s admit it, we all are in love with “oil”. In the present long-drawn “war” we have allowed anything and everything to happen. In fact our “love” has turned into a naked “lust” for oil. And when “lust” takes hold of leaders and the public, they lose their sense of proportion and become virtually myopic (or blind) to the consequences of their actions.

So what can a Mc Cain or an Obama do under the circumstances? (Have a look here…) These thoughts occured to me when I recently went through a must-read book “Half Gone” by Jeremy Leggett. A powerful book that provides fascinating insight into the geology and politics of oil…and hope(?).

He writes: “Despite the defectors from the Empire of Oil, the growing dissent within it, little (has) changed. The Great Addiction remained…Barons of the Empire of Oil rode the planet in executive jets, more powerful than any president except perhaps the president of the Number One Nation State. But then he was one of them anyway.

“The most basic foundations of our assumptions of future economic wellbeing are rotten. Our society is in a state of collective denial that has no precendent in history, in terms of its scale and implications.

“Most US presidents since the Second World War have ordered military action of some sort in the Middle East. American leaders may dress their military entanglements east of Suez in the rhetroic of democracy building, but the long-running strategic theme is obvious. It was stated most clearly, paradoxically, by the most liberal of them.

“In 1980 Jimmy Carter declared access to the Persian Gulf a vital national interest to be proteced by ‘any means necessary, including military force.’ This the US has been doing ever since, clocking up a bill measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and counting. With such a strategy comes an increasingly disquieting descent into moral ambiguity, at least in the minds of something approaching half the country.

“The deeper the dependency on oil and oil money becomes, the worse the effects of the unforseen energy crisis will be when it hits, so the more America’s security is undermined, even as its government advances enhanced security as the rationale for the latest actions of the Pentagon’s global oil potection service.

“America is not alone in her addiction and her dilemmas. Read the rest of this entry »

It has often been said that you should be careful of what you wish for because often there will be very unexpected consequences. Looking at the current situation of international politics I have been thinking of this a lot lately.

To offer a more local example, I live near the community of Lodi, California. For many years Lodi was known by police across the country as being one of the safest places to live, virtually crime free. While the local police did a good job that was not the main reason for the lack of crime.

The safety of Lodi was due to the fact that it was where the leaders of the west coast branch of organized crime sent their families to live.  

As you might imagine once this became well known few criminals wanted to operate in the area. The chance that the little old lady you mugged might be the grandmother of a mob boss tended to convince you to avoid being within 20 miles of the community. At the same time the mob considered Lodi neutral ground and did nothing to harm anyone there.

Then the law did just what it was supposed to do, it brought down the mob and sent many of the leaders to prison. As a result the protection that Lodi had was no longer in place. Now I am obviously glad that they got rid of the mob but the fact is that it had unintended consequences.

Although on a different level, the same thing happened to crime in a lot of areas of the country. I am no fan of crime but at least the mob did keep it ‘organized’. Activities were restricted to certain parts of town and things like drug dealing were generally frowned upon.

Today the gangs run the crime world and it is pretty much anything goes. Obviously I’d love to have a world without crime, but since that is unlikely, I sometimes find myself nostalgic for the ‘good old days’.

The point of the story is that the same thing has been happening in the international community and in some ways we may be similarly nostalgic for something we never really liked.

Growing up as a child of the 1980’s I shared something with my parents and my grandparents, the fear of the Soviet Union. They were the bad guys and we worried about what they might do. It wasn’t just something from a James Bond movie, there was a real concern about them. Living in a primary target city I knew that if the worse thing came to pass then I was doomed.

But at the same time there was a certain level of security. While there were still terrorists out there they were frequently kept in check by the US and the USSR. In short we had ‘our bad guys’ and ‘their bad guys’ and neither side let them go too far.

Even the fear of war was more of a theory than anything else. Deep down we knew it could happen but wa also knew that both sides were reasonably rational. As Dr. Falken pointed out in the classic 80’s film War Games ‘It just doesn’t make sense’.

Today we no longer have to fear the Soviets but we do have to worry about dozens of other threats, often from people who are far less rational than the most unstable Soviet or American leader from the Cold War.

It kind of makes you wonder what will happen if we manage to win the war on terror.

Having failed to privatize Social Security, the Bush Administration is trying to wreck Medicare on its way out the door, but MDs are mad as hell, and they’re taking it out on Congressional Republicans.

The focus this week is on trying to undo a 10.6 percent cut in payment to care providers for millions of older Americans. Before the Fourth of July recess, the House passed a bill to prevent the Medicare pay cut by a vote of 355 to 59. In the Senate, Republicans blocked efforts to take up the bill, so the cut took effect on July 1st.

Now the AMA and its incensed members are targeting such former friends as Sens. John Sununu, Roger Wicker and Arlen Specter, who all voted against cloture.

As with the SCHIP legislation to expand children’s health care coverage, Bush and his allies are favoring the insurance industry over a government program that is working well for those who need it most.

If the new reimbursement rates were to stand, more doctors would be joining the legions of those who refuse to take on Medicare patients as economically unsound for their practices.

Perhaps the next step would be the “Ice Floe HMO” solution favored by one in three British doctors who would deny treatment to the old “if it were unlikely to do them good for long.”

Unless Republicans relent, as they almost surely will, members of the AARP are certain to send them a don’t-get-well message in November.

Cross-posted from my blog.

Reuters explores the glee of coffee drinkers who are glad to learn that Starbucks will be closing 600 ‘underperforming’ locations nationwide.  I cannot condone this. Before Starbucks came to town, where were all these plucky, innovative independent coffee shops that allegedly was keeping out?  Even in my coffee-drinking town, where people will park their laptops for hours, there was a dearth of competition before — and any competitors that Starbucks subsequently put out of business went down because people preferred Starbucks. They were successful because they offered a superior product.

Read the rest of this entry »

An air strike by Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities will shatter both Washington’s credibility in world affairs and its own long term security.

The intensified chatter that Israel may act before the November election or soon afterwards should be cause for consternation to all its supporters.

Whatever Teheran’s rhetoric of peace, we should work on the premise that it is covertly developing nuclear warheads capable of reaching as far as Western Europe within 5-15 years. Undoubtedly, that threatens Israel’s existence.

But an Israeli solution patterned on the 1980s strike against Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactors would be folly. This is not because Israel may fail to cripple the facilities but because the level of fear under which it lives currently will increase manifold.

It is hubris to expect that nearly 30 years after that strike, Israel’s enemies remain so intimidated by its military that they will not seek revenge repeatedly.

Were Israel at peace with all its neighbors, Iran would be too isolated diplomatically to retaliate. Instead, Israel’s neighbors are bitter enemies encouraged by its military’s confused performance against the Hezbollah militia which had no air power. They also see its inability to halt suicide bombers and artisanal rockets fired from Gaza and the West Bank.
They have seen the failures of Israel’s allies in Washington and NATO to suppress insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, who confront those ultra sophisticated armies with light weapons and improvised explosive devices.

The debilitating effects of lengthy wars of attrition should not be discounted. They have repeatedly turned the strong into footnotes of history.

At this time, many governments around the world are Israel’s friends and it is a rich and respected country. However, it is well to remember that the American people are Israel’s only real protectors.

Almost all of Israel’s other friends will stand on the sidelines, whatever their sympathy with its arguments about the justice of its preemptive attack on Iran.
Lumbered by national debt and interminable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even the American people may be incapable of giving sustained support in the aftermath when Muslim terrorist vengeance rains upon Israelis week after week for years.

In the short term, nobody has the stomach for another major war if Iran retaliates as promised by blocking the Hormuz Straits through which 40% of Western oil arrives. It may also widen attacks through proxies on US assets in the Gulf kingdoms, Iraq and elsewhere, including Pakistan, Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia.

In international affairs, it is normal for countries, including allies, to take advantage when the powerful start to weaken. Both Israel and America have many rivals waiting for signs of weakness to make economic, diplomatic and, when possible, territorial gains.

Turkey, which is veering towards Islam, may refuse use of its territory despite NATO membership as it did for the invasion of Iraq. It may also cause trouble in Iraq’s Kurdish region to disarm rebels and in oil-rich Kirkuk to prevent Kurds from dominating Turkmen.

Syria will certainly take advantage of Israel’s predicament to retake the Golan Heights and perhaps more. Hezbollah’s Shia militants could grab the superb prize of Beirut, which they almost did a few weeks ago. They may also probe into Israeli territory in the south.

Hamas could break out of Gaza to depose American and Israeli-backed Fatah in the West Bank. Arms smuggling by sea and overland from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon may become uncontrollable.

On how many fronts could Israelis fight on their own, regardless of their wealth and leading-edge military technologies? In the end, wars are about people and Israel does not have too many of those. In any case, it is populated by human beings not warrior supermen.

Voters in European NATO countries are hardly likely to approve support for an Israeli request for military protection, if it launches an undeclared war of choice by attacking Iran.
Russia, China and India would certainly not enter such a venture. The Sunni Gulf states may quietly withdraw from any secret agreements they have currently with the US to contain Iran.

In the best case scenario, a strike may give Israel some breathing space and may not trigger a wider regional war. But it certainly will not strengthen Israeli security or stop the birth of vengeful enemies.

Judging from the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, even a crushing defeat may fail to install a new system in Iran. So, Israeli hawks should think through a more candid lens about the legacy they wish to leave to their children.

In any case, politics is an unpredictable process. Perhaps the current Israel-hating Mullahs will have changed by the time Iran develops its nuclear bomb. Then its weapon may become as acceptable as that of Pakistan, India or Israel itself.

I was just reading one of many glowing proclomations on this, our Nation’s birthday, exhorting readers to remember the greatness of our nation, the ineffable wisdom of the founding fathers and the sacrosanct nature of the documents they left to guide through the centuries. And, of course, there is much to love about America today. But it is also worth remembering as we celebrate this holiday that most of us who grew up in middle of the last century received a somewhat sanitized version of events in our history lessons.

It is ofttimes tempting to think that the Founders sat down at a nicely finished, maple writing desk, dashed off a few immortal documents and voila - America sprang forth as if from whole cloth, a beacon for the hopeful, yearning masses, the guarantor of liberty and equality for mankind around the world. We very well might picture America as having immediately become that shining beacon on the hill, bursting forth into incandescence the moment the Declaration was signed. But truth, as they say, is the daughter of time, and we should try to bear in mind that it’s been a long road to get where we are today. Our ancestors had far more moles and blemishes than we might care to depict in their portraits, and in the practical lens of current enlightened thinking and practices, they would likely be shunned by the greater part of our society.

Several of the founders were in the business of trafficking in human flesh. Many were known in private to be enthusiastic embracers of the “rule of thumb” in its original meaning. (When beating one’s wife, it was proper manners to ensure you did not use a switch with a circumference greater than that of your thumb.) In their society, minorities, women, children, gays… none were considered the full measure of a “person” to the extent which landed white men were. The travesty of what we did to the indiginous natives during our divinely inspired march westward is a shame which we shall never overcome.

The country envisioned by the founders was also quite different than the one we enjoy today. They pictured a true republic of near autonomous states, each with its own ad hoc military and, if needed, border control. These states would glare warily at the Federal government, reminding it at all times that they would be ready, willing and able to take matters in their own hands if it got out of control.

I think many of those founding fathers would be as horrified to see what our country has evolved into today as we would be to meet them in person. We live in a wonderful America today and many of the fine qualities I listed above are present and strong - still with room for improvement, no doubt, but a superior place to live by any measure. But we didn’t start out that way. It’s been a long journey to achieve what we today take for granted. So as we celebrate this holiday, let us keep in mind the hard battles required to reach this point and renew our pledge to ensure we don’t slip backward toward darkness.

It used to be that Latin Americans viewed Europe as far more humane than the United States because of the way undocumented workers there were treated. No more …

According to this editorial from Diario Co Latino of El Salvador:

“According to news coming from the Old Continent, a law passed by the European Parliament on the 18th of this month not only permits the expulsion of undocumented immigrants, but also provides for prison terms of up to 18 months and five-year prohibition on returning to Europe. … Many believed that today’s Europe, because its past was so appallingly bloody, was more democratic and humane than the U.S. But with this newly-adopted law, it has demonstrated that it’s the equal of the United States.”

Read the rest of this entry »

In India many boys of my generation in school grew up on a staple diet of American/British comic books (to the great annoyance of our parents who felt we were neglecting our textbooks). I was delighted to read The Independent report that comic/graphic books are emerging stronger and gaining popularity in view of the failure of the media to satisfy public thirst for information regarding the raging conflicts, including the Iraq war.

Here is what The Independent writes: “They’re a far cry from Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk. A daring new generation of graphic novelists is using the conflict in Iraq to explore America’s relationship with the rest of the world – and itself.”

But what is this ‘graphic novel’? The term ‘graphic novel’, in the Comic Books genre, was first coined by Richard Kyle in 1964, mainly as an attempt to distinguish the newly translated works from Europe which were then being published from what Kyle perceived as the more juvenile subject matter that was so common in the United States. More here…

The Independent continues:“Today’s broad countercultural coalition in the US is often motivated by frustration at the news coverage of the Iraq conflict and its aftermath from traditional media outlets. In such a climate, comic books thrive by reflecting the public bad mood, and they remain streets ahead of many of their rivals in the creative industries.

“While authors and filmmakers have taken their time preparing fictional responses to the war, comics are a relatively immediate form. In theory…’you can write and draw a comic and see it on the stands three months later. A movie can take years’.”
More here…