It is not only the middle

It is not only the middle East, but the whole world in the biggest mess in human history.

Thanks to our "globally competitive" market economy, destroying civilizations, cultures, enslaving peoples and setting them against each other.

Wars, conquests, colonizations have always been for the purpose of "wealth creation", now perfected with the perceived power and the free movement of imaginary capital, always enforced with religions and arms.

If the world and its leaders could ever figure out that the energy and resources wasted on arms and wars were to be used for cooperation everybody would be better off!

But that would curtail the powers of business, religious and military leaders, and this is something that they can't afford to allow.

Ed Deak.

So what else is new?

Good artice, Rafe, but what you have written is hardly new. The middle east (if that includes Pakistan)has always been a mess. It is a maze of competing and warring tribes and factions, usually led by fascistic thugs. Remember that Mike Pearson who his Nobel "Peace" (now there is a laugh) Prize over the Suez Crisis.

Westerners have been meddling in the region for a lot longer than since 1911 and before that the Ottomans. The major difference recently is Bush and his religious fanatics have decided that they, being white and iherently culturally superior, can somehow enter the area and impose their will on the place with military force. They then proceeded to botch the operation from the first day.

Will anything change? I am not very grumpy and I don't see much of a possibility of a nuclear exchange in the region. The despots in the area will all eventually be overthrown and new despots put in their place. If the west really wants their oil so badly, all it has to do is pull out and write cheques for it and let 'em at it. They are going to do it anyway.

Besides,the USA could cut their oil consumption in half if it really wanted to. It reduced said use 30% in the Carter administration and had those policies been kept, the USA would be using half the oil it does now.

But the political will for that does not yet exist, in Canada, either, for that matter.

losses to what?

Rafe,

At first glance at your title I had thought you were speaking of deaths coming in Afghanistan, for nothing more tangible than 'good works' done in their name...our (collective) name...that somehow Canadians value the crumbling well and soon to fall down empty school outside Kandehar airfield.

While these are real tangible losses, I cannot figure out what 'losses' you are writing about?

Benazir Bhutto was in a grab for power in the "Monty Python" Nation of Pakistan -> she and her supporters must have known that this result was more than likely as her father faced it (but then memory is so terrible sometimes).

Teddy Bears and Bush's Gulag are problems of other places, ones that we - of Canada - cannot solve by force of arms. Moral suation, perhaps, possibly by non-co-operation on other important issues, but then when you get into a pissing contest with an elephant - be prepared to get wet.

Bad to Worse and Bush's legacy are not things that we, the voters of Canada, had ANY SAY IN TAKING ACTIONS! There was no consultation (nor is it required) with the Canadian electorate before we sent off our young men and women to a place where they cannot get out from without outside (of Canada's) help. Other than that foolish action by the PMO of Cretien to send troops to aid the US we, of Canada, are not responsible for any of these items.

Now What? you ask.

Leave the stupid Afghanistan conflict. Do it by any means neccessary, as fast as possible. While I understand this may mean breaking an agreement with NATO, that is nothing new as there are other major NATO nations that have 'revised' their 'Rules of Engagement' so as to preclude their troops being anywhere that they may actually face someone with a weapon aimed at them. After changing the RoE's then backing off then th troop numbers can be rapidly reduced, so that zero gets reached in 2009. This way the NATO alliance requirement is met (about the same as the other allies) and the effusion of blood lost to the central Afghan plain is reduced.

Long term, Canada will have less and less need for Mid-East oil. We likely will become a net exporter of Oil (from the sands), especially as Nuclear power comes on-line to operate the sands projects.

Ultimately the 'nanny-states' are going to start failing...short term Grumpy may be right about an increase in violence -> possibly with the nuclear actions noted, such a time may end all thinking further as all bets are off if the 'buckets of sunshine' start flying.

Unless we destroy ourselves there will be a kind of 'second renaissance' that will come once the boomers have all passed away.

Ed, lighten up.

The mess is directly proportional to the number of people available to create it. Always has been and always will.

problem solution?

I wonder if the U.S. government has any control whatever over its own foreign policy. Huge amounts of foreign aid are extended to Israel on a yearly basis for reasons unknown - at least to me - except as for the funding of an American middle-east guard-dog.
Has the U.S. any chance of peaceful initiatives when a situation like that exists?
Unfortunately the damage has been done and seems irreparable. Maybe we should be calling in Russia and China for help - since they may now be part of the problem.

The problem of nuclear war is.........

...........we have trivialized it to such an extent, that the public is no longer horrified by it.

A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would be one of a religious nature. The Islamists, who think ding in a jihad, think nothing of nuclear holocaust and the Indians, realizing this, will bomb to the maximum extent.

This is dangerous stuff. Even Russia and the USA are thinking in the terms of a limited nuclear exchange.

A true story. A good friend of mine who is a computer scientist and worked at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California, penned a book about a limited nuclear war between the USA and Russia. It was supposed to be a factual account of a nuclear exchange. A large part of the book was about EMP (Electro magnetic Pulse)bursts over the USA (and Canada) and Russia.

There were no state secrets involved but the book illustrated the effects of just 10 EMP bursts over the USA. It was devastation, because all electronic goods were destroyed. No cars, no telecommunications, no food. The result, the population in the USA was cut by half, with deaths by malnutrition, etc.

To make a long story, he sent the book to various publishers and received a substantial sum of money, yet the book was never published and the publisher, well never heard of him.

Nuclear war is more certain than ever, with too many lunatics able to get a nuclear device. Pakistan, has many and a collapse of the country would see all the nut bars out there getting a bomb!

impending doom?

And what about the economics of selling our souls to China for the sake of cheap junk?
I am currently settling into a new dwelling and am amazed and appalled at how difficult it is to find basic household items that are NOT made in China.
Like the denizens of the middle east I believe China is not a bastion of free choice and liberty but...hey..."Look at all this low price crap we can buy from them!"
The fact that we are surrendering virtually all our manufacturing capabilities and their attendant employment benefits...???

Perhaps the sooner a good old fashioned pandemic sweeps through and cleans out a significant percentage of the human race...the better.

Population control ..the ultimate solution to global warming....[Now if we could only do that selectively....hmmmm!]

Happy New Year to all

Martin

Re: "disputed lands"

Rafe

Generally a good and much needed column. I must, however, correct your use of the phrase "disputed lands" when referring to those Arab lands Israel still occupies as a consequence of the war it launched against Egypt (and thereby, Jordan and Syria who shared mutual defence pacts with Egypt) on 5 June 1967, i.e., the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem/the Old City, and the Gaza Strip (still occupied under international law) as well as Syria's Golan Heights and Lebanon's Shebba Farms. The status of these lands is not under "dispute." As the UN Security Council, the US State Dept., the International Court of Justice, signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the International Court of Justice et al. (in accordance with the UN Charter and the International Declaration of Human Rights, etc.) have repeatedly declared, they are "illegally" and "belligerently" occupied by Israel

Correction

In my posting above I incorrectly referred to "the International Declaration of Human Rights." Of course, I meant to write "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights," (1949)

In flames...

Back at the beginning of this latest US Empire adventure in Iraq, I well recall participating in many a discussion on Daily KOS, the pro-Democratic Party US blog, to which many a US military expert even, predicted along with many other European analysts, that the entire Middle East was destined to be in flames before this latest expansionist imperialist push was over. Which as Grumpy well notes, is coming true before our very eyes. ( And my own view of the likely trend line of global developments here is that, old Grumpy's pessimistic view of the emerging US Empire grab world launched by the US is likely, at the very least, not too goddamn far off the bloody mark.)

I would even add one more dire note, the indicators for which, while they have been there from the beginning (in the US Empire, along with its bootlick allies such as Canada, for example, interferences in such as Kosovo as well as other Balkan States developments), are more and more becoming apparent; a raised likelihood of WW3, involving the US beholden NATO states against Russia, China and Iran, and Middle East insurrectionist forces. (Russia and China have already held one major joint exercise, predicated upon the scenario of a major war in the Middle East against an un-named "Empire invader", to which Iran was invited and did send military "observers."

The core problem, of course, is the Western attempt to set up, sanction and militarily support the (largely) Euro-US-Zionist theft of the land of Palestine, but now in our time much more greatly compounded by the "soft-fascist" (Quoting Ron Paul/ Republican presidential candidate.) Neoconazi attempt of the US Empire, to itself conquer and "long term" occupy the other oil rich states of the Middle East. (Behind the smokescreen shiboleth of "democratic regime change" agenda, to which this country has as well been loyal lap-dog complicit. Surprise! Surprise!)

For our part, temporarily ignoring other players in the US Empire gambit, we, as a country and a people, have yet to wake up and realize that our best interests as well, in our North, which the US also covets and in terms of our own truly independent self-reliant and sustainable national development, will best be served by a US-Zionist defeat in the Middle East and elsewhere. A US chastened by military defeat, and compelled to retreat back to within its own borders, suffering economically and from its own consequent internal "social" problems, would be far less likely to be a major problem for ourselves in the yet to be entirely clarified future.

A US brought down to a more "manageable" size, for ourselves and all the world, would at least provide us as well with some breathing room, and hopefully time to at least finally come to grips with and carry through our own "national transformation", economically, politically, and yes, militarily.

Get Out

As long as there is money to be made from war and violence, and money is one of the primary
movers in our western democracies, how can we expect a logical (and relatively simple) solution to nearly a century of disastrous money motivated military manipulations of "democracy" to be implemented. I agree... get out, but how? During the Vietnam fiasco, I got out of the US and my life has been good, but never motivated primarily by money. If we could apply better principals to our own democracies without "enforcing" democracy in "other" countries, we might make democracy appear more desirable in the less fortunate
parts of the world. One way for Canada to "get out" is to stop exporting armaments, just stop. There are innumerable ways to make money these days without being part or the destruction team...

the Levant

What about Lebanon?
Stephen Harper and Condi Rice were both opposed to a ceasefire, allowing the slaughter and mayhem to continue.
End result? Hezbollah wins by not losing.

Rafe

We can't "cut our losses and get the hell out".

Population growth, environmental degradation, poverty and the lack of hope are not issues that apply only to the Middle East, the region just happens to be a little less stable than other parts of the globe.

But what happens in the Middle East will eventually happen elsewhere. There is no running away from it.

As for Afghanistan murdock, every single day they go without a return of the Taleban is a reason for optimism.

Middle East

Rafe -- the whole mess in the mid-east has two roots, the major one being oil and its easy access there. The secondary root cause is not just the fact of the various religions there but their incompatibility with each other and with our Western sensibilities.

Without oil they would be only another backwater which we could ignore. The Bush regime fuels the fires of intolerance in its quest for cheap oil, preferring that the profits go to its friends rather than the legitimate owners of the subterranean wealth, the people of the sub-continent.

Twisting the arms of the NATO alliance, Bush punished Canada for not going to Iraq with him and forced us to pick up the slack in Afghanistan, not as warriors, but as an extension of our peacekeeping reputation, under Chretien. Harper gave Bush his undying allegiance upon his election and has led us up the garden path since then.

Benazir Bhutto was just another pawn in the Bush administration's game plan. Her son will no doubt suffer the same end.

It's education, and it's our fault.

(Note to Grumpy: The book you describe sounds very much like "Warday" by Strieber and Kunetka.)

The radical fundamentalism that's at the root of most of the Middle East's trouble (and by extension, our trouble) is taught in the Madrass (sp?) religious schools. These have come to be the only option for education for the poor, dispossessed and isolated populations of the region. It's the Scrooge-like stinginess of the western nations that have brought this about.

Cut-backs to foreign aid, political agendas, parochial populations (the result of our own education downturn), general bloody mindedness and a raging "Throw the weaklings out of the lifeboat!" attitude... That's what's brought this about.

Ignorance is going to be our doom. And it's not all on the other side of the fence.

The loonies aren't all "over there"

Pat Robertson talked to God and apparently God says there's going to be violence in the world in 2008, no really, God said so.

And God predicts oil will hit $150 a barrel while the US dollar falls. I for one am truly awe-struck that God follows the fortunes of oil and the US dollar while out there in the cosmos creating planets and causing floods.

Also, God is apparently taking short positions all over the place because get this, a stock market crash will happen in 2010.

"All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us," Robertson said.

Pat says he talks to God every year. All I can say is thank you Lord for making Pat a Rightee.

Let us Pray

Just in case you missed it, here's a clip from last Sunday's sermon at the church Barack Obama says, on his web site, that he attends.

Now there were four leprous men outside the city gate, who said to one another, “Why should we sit here until we die? If we say, “Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; but if we sit here, we shall also die. Therefore, let us desert to the Aramean camp; if they spare our lives, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.”

So they arose at twilight to go to the Aramean camp; but when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp, there was no one there at all. For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the sound of chariots, and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to fight against us.” So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys leaving the camp just as it was, and fled for their lives. When these leprous men had come to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank, carried off silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them. Then they came back, entered another tent, carried off things from it, and went and hid them.

Then they said to one another, “What we are doing is wrong. This is a day of good news; if we are silent and wait until the morning light, we will be found guilty; therefore let us go and tell the king’s household.”

As the French say; nothing's changed.

the good, bad and ugly...

If we could apply better principals to our own democracies without "enforcing" democracy in "other" countries, we might make democracy appear more desirable in the less fortunate
parts of the world.

A perspective with which I fundamentally agree.

Though it is, I find, kind of sad that an otherwise very progressive guy like Frank still thinks that Afghanistan/Iraq, the entire Middle East imperial adventure, in which we are as well complicit, is still all about spreading democratic and progressive values. He buys the imperial schtick of the Empire.

No one has to really agree with the Taliban to understand that the major problems with this part of the world is that it has not had long enough periods free of foreign (Western and old Soviet) invasions for long enough to properly come to grips with its own development. Nor does one have to agree with the Taliban to understand that at least, this Devil is their own, and their own to deal with in good time, left in a long enough period of peace-, without the interferences of The Devil of liberal good intentions that effectively justify imperialist conquest and oil pipelines etc.

The road to hell is paved with these "liberalist" good intentions-, as we are now seeing throughout the Middle East.

Coyote

I don't support the venture in Iraq and didn't at the beginning either. Nor do I support US ships sitting in the Straits of Hormuz and complaining about "provocations" as if they would let an Iranian fleet sail up the Potomac.

Its just the intervention in Afghan land that has my support.

I do not believe the Taleban has a lower ratio of foreigners fighting on their side than does the Afghan gov't.

Nor did the Taleban have the consent of the people to rule. If they had stood for election every few years in a fair process and still won I wouldn't support our involvement, but they didn't.