Remember that one of the main demands of the Pakistani militants who took credit for the execution of Israeli-American journalist, Daniel Pearl, was the sale of the promised F-16’s to Pakistan. Is this a move by the US to coax the cooperation of the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), Pakistan’s equivalent of the FBI, into diminishing support for Islamic militants who have been successfully disrupting the fledgling, pro-US puppet government of Afghanistan?
General
15
Jun 03
Oil and geopolitics
- U.S. troops may be headed for Africa:
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Under discussion: everything from positioning a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group off Africa’s vast west coast to establishing one or more forward operating bases in Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Equatorial Guinea or the tiny island nation of Sao Tome and Principe.
The spurs for what may prove an unprecedented U.S. military beachhead in sub-Saharan Africa are the region’s instability, potential attractiveness to terrorists and, most pivotal, its rich oil resources, Pentagon officials and Africa experts say.
As much as 15 percent of America’s oil now comes from West Africa – about the amount imported from Saudi Arabia. By next year, the West African portion is expected to jump to 20 percent.
Citing what he described as “large, ungoverned areas … that are clearly new routes of narco-trafficking, terrorism and a hotbed of instability,” U.S. Gen. James Jones recently signaled the Pentagon’s new focus on West Africa.
“I think Africa is a continent that is going to be of very, very significant interest in the 21st century,” Jones, who is head of the U.S. European Command, told a Senate panel in May.
- Israel wants to reopen a 50 year old pipeline for a piece of the spoils: Israel eyes Iraqi oil
15
Jun 03
Humor and it’s power
- Humor and it’s power to restore perspective, promote cultural understanding, and emotional balance: Did You Hear the One About the Suicide Bomber?
- Show Highlights ‘Outlaw Comic’ Bill Hicks
- The banality of the good:
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In the Cafe Orange on the Oranienburgerstrasse, in the now trendy heart of what used to be East Berlin, I talk to a guy dressed in T-shirt, sandals and designer sunglasses. An old ’68er, he is sharply critical of the current policies of the Bush administration. At one point he leans forward and says, teasingly: “Don’t you think we need a new Boston tea party?” Surely, he jokes, the Boston tea party was good for relations between Britain and America – in the long term. When he gets up to leave, I notice that he puts on a black baseball cap advertising “American Eagle”. “Ja,” he says, “das habe ich in Boston gekauft.” (“I bought it in Boston.”)
Yes, there is some serious power politics, too. It is dangerous for the world to have only one hyperpower. It is dangerous for America itself to be that only hyperpower. As the guy in the Cafe Orange in Berlin argued, one reason European-American relations are so bad is that Europe is weak. The US needs a stronger partner, and Europe badly needs Britain in order to become that stronger partner. Dead right. And that’s what the real Europe can help us do.
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention the name of the guy in the Cafe Orange. It was Joschka Fischer. Yes, that Joschka Fischer: the one who’s Germany’s Green foreign minister, and may soon be Europe’s first foreign minister.
14
Jun 03
Some news
Here are some good news stories I came across today:
- Resistance to occupation is growing:
- “America’s generals, happy to boast about the rapid defeat of Saddam’s regime, now admit the war is far from over. In Baghdad yesterday Lieutenant General David McKiernan, commander of US ground forces in Iraq, said his troops would be needed for a long time to come, that Baghdad and a large swathe of northern and western Iraq is only a “semi-permissive” environment, and that “subversive forces” are still active. Should all this be so surprising?
The US and Britain said they came to liberate Iraq and protect its people. The failure to understand how Iraqis would respond may be rooted in arrogance. It is also a colossal failure in intelligence which may prove to be at least as important as the inability to find any of Iraq’s banned weapons. The commander of British forces in the war, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, admitted as much in remarkably frank evidence to MPs this week. Asked about the problems of “policing” Iraq, and the number of forces needed to do the job, he replied: “I’m not sure we understand yet.”
- Mounting opposition or wary citizens trying to protect themselves? Iraqis Buying and Hoarding Guns, Grenades
- US purge aims to eliminate resistance
- US loses helicopter, fighter jet in Iraq:
- The campaign came as the top American civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer, issued a notice banning all gatherings, pronouncements or publications that incite to disorder, riot, violence against the US-led occupation forces, or espouse the return of the Baath Party. The decree said violators would be arrested and held.
- US turns to the Taliban
07
Jun 03
News-related
- Reshaping empire: US redeploys its troops to cover ‘arc of instability’
- Iraqi Shi’ites and Kurds challenge Americans in Iraq: Shiite, Kurdish Leaders Decide to ‘Play Hardball’
- More Than 13,000 May Face Deportation
- Constitutional protections rescinded to fight ‘terror’: For enemy combatant, speaking with lawyer is impossible
- Political Oppression, Not Poverty, Inspires Terrorism: Seeking the Roots of Terrorism
- Prohibiting vocal opposition to US occupation in Iraq: U.S. To Ban “Incitement” Against Occupation In Iraq
06
Jun 03
From Authority:
I’ve been reading this book, Authority by Richard Sennett. It has some pretty meaty ideas in it, even if a lot of them come from citing other sources. I liked this one:
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The young Hegel thought that the burden of establishing conditions of liberty in society lay with the oppressed; no benevolent Platonic guardian, no necessary angel, would come to the rescue. The Hegel of the Phenomenology has clarified this idea. Hegel does so by defining the birth of liberty — in the bondsman’s consciousness of his work. He then describes the stages of liberty through which the bondsman passes. There are four of these stages, and the movement from each to the next occurs when the oppressed negates what he or she had formerly believed.
These four stages are stoicism, scepticism, the unhappy consciousness, and rational consciousness. They begin with the stoic’s withdrawal from the world into his or her own thought, a primitive, inward freedom. The scepticism of the next stage turns toward the world: the bondsman, still an obedient servant, nonetheless disbelieves in the role he acts and in the lord’s moral superiority. The unhappy consciousness takes this sceptical knowledge about a social relationship inside; there is a lord and bondsman in every human being. Hegel calls unhappy consciousness “consciousness of self as a dual-natured, merely contradictory being.” In a rational consciousness this knowledge again becomes social; the unhappy schism each person feels in himself he also sees in others. Hegel calls this final stage of freedom “rational” because now the person can perceive and act with others according to common purposes; there is no longer the need to fight others for recognition, since one’s own consciousness is so developed that one knows the divisions within oneself are divisions that exist in all humanity. Hegel also calls this rational, purposive consciousness an “absolute” state of freedom, and the use of the word “absolute” is key to his overall intentions: “Of the absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is.”
06
Jun 03
Have I got the thing for you
For all you web-browsing Windows users I have the perfect thing for you: Slimbrowser. It’s a tabbed browser (so, you can view multiple pages in the same window) with a pop-up blocker. Since it uses the Internet Explorer renderer webpages look the same as in Internet Explorer. I’m a big fan.
03
Jun 03
Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews to Demonstrate at so-called Israel Day Parade
Via LibertyForum: Neturei Karta: Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews to Demonstrate at so-called Israel Day Parade:
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On Sunday, June 1, 2003 beginning at 11:15 am at 5th Ave. and 59th St. in Manhattan there will be a group of anti-Zionist Jews demonstrating against Zionism and the Zionist State that will be celebrated by marchers in their so-called Israel Day Parade.
The Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews will proclaim their loyalty to pure Judaism and their opposition to Zionist heresy, which violates every principle of the Jewish religion. These people shall proclaim that the idolatrous Zionist ideology has no role in the life of an Orthodox Jew, and that Jews are obligated by Judaism to live in peace and harmony with every other people throughout the world, including of course, the native Palestinian People.
Pure Judaism proclaims that we are to accept the decree of Exile of G-d and live among the nations in every corner of the Earth, and are not to establish a State and attempt to end the divinely ordained Exile.
Pure Judaism forbids the uprooting of the indigenous people of the Holy Land, it proclaims its principles of humanity and justice that demands the total restoration of all human, civil, economic and political rights of the Palestinians, including the right of return of all Palestinians to their homes in historic Palestine, thereby enabling Palestine to be governed by its original native inhabitants.
These principles are essential ingredients of Judaism, and no amount of Zionism brainwashing of many Jews throughout the world and Zionist media propaganda can ever do away with these eternal principles. We declare to all non-Jews who believe that support for Zionist idolatry and ethnic cleansing demonstrates sympathy for the Jewish People that this is a grave error!!
We beseech all well-meaning non-Jews to understand the truth of what Judaism teaches, and we encourage our fellow Jews to resist the incessant hysterical and paranoia-filled propaganda of the Zionists, their heresy and their xenophobia, and learn the truth of what Judaism is and what Zionism is.
Those of us who oppose Zionism express true compassion for the Jewish People because we address the ROOT CAUSE of the suffering in the Holy Land inasmuch as Zionism is the cause of bloodshed in the Middle East and hatred of Jews throughout the world.
03
Jun 03
New Issue of Parameters
There is a new issue of Parameters, the quarterly journal of the US army war college, out now. It’s full of good reading.