More evidence that you can’t really call the so-called Second Gulf War a war. It’s more of a US-led coup d’etat with the accompanying routine wartime propaganda. Iraq represents little more than the very bold, well-planned, and carefully executed takeover of an oil-rich third world country by a first world power to support its own perceived strategic interests.
Society
10
Aug 03
The Iraq Takeover
29
Jul 03
Odds and ends
- Research by George Zieman gives the true reason for falling CD sales: the major labels have slashed production by 25 per cent in the past two years, he argues.
After keeping the figure rather quiet for two years, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says the industry released around 27,000 titles in 2001, down from a peak of 38,900 in 1999. Since year-on-year unit sales have dropped a mere 10.3 per cent, it’s clear that demand has held up extremely well: despite higher prices, consumers retain the CD buying habit.
- Some message boards help users find each other and set up networks. Others turn to chat rooms or recruit friends on college campuses to form a network. And even when a user finally charms his way into getting an encryption key, giving him access to a network such as Waste, other members’ identities are not revealed until they also decide they trust the newcomer, Kalanick explained. “You essentially will have to ‘socialize’ your way into a network,” Kalanick said. Kalanick said the extreme focus on security is meant to keep outsiders — and copyright lawyers — out. “RIAA may be better off penetrating al Qaeda,” he said.
28
Jul 03
The Conceited Empire
Saw this linked over on Metafilter, a good interview with historian Emmanuel Todd:
Assuming you are right: how did this budding empire slide so quickly into decline?
A rift has been developing, slowly at first and then more quickly, between the US and their various geo-political areas of interest. During the early 1970’s a deficit in the balance of trade began to open. The US assumed the role of consumer and the rest of the world took on the role of producer, in this increasingly unbalanced global process. The balance of trade went from a deficit of $100 billion in 1990 to $500 billion annually at present. This deficit has been financed through capital flowing into the US. Eventually the same effect experienced by the Spanish in 16th and 17th centuries will come to bear. As gold from the New World flooded in, the Spanish succumbed to decreasing productivity. They consumed and dissipated, lived high and beyond their means and fell into economic and technological arrears.
But America is still the leading example of economic and technological competence.
When I speak of the economy, then I mean the industrial core and the associated technological cutting edge, not the anemic New Economy. It is in the core industrial sphere that the US is falling dramatically behind. European investors lost billions in the US during the nineties, but the US economy lost an entire decade. As recently as 1990 the US was still exporting $35 billion more in advanced technology than it was importing. Now the balance of trade is negative even in this field. The US is far behind in mobile communications technology. The Finnish Nokia is four times the size of Motorola. More than half the communications satellites are being launched with European Ariane rockets. Airbus is about to surpass Boeing — the most important transportation medium for personnel traffic in the modern global economy is about to be manufactured primarily in Europe. These are the things that are ultimately important. These are by far more vital and decisive factors than a war against Iraq.
28
Jul 03
Some bit from the latest on the US Occupation
From this:
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In Karbala, meanwhile, hundreds of angry demonstrators gathered at the Imam al-Hussein Shrine, Iraq’s second-holiest site for Shi’ite Muslims, protesting the alleged shooting by US forces Saturday night of a 51-year-old restaurant worker.
Witnesses said US soldiers, accompanied by local Iraqi police, tried to enter the shrine but were blocked by Haider Hanoon, the alleged victim, and workers in the shrine. The witnesses said troops and police withdrew after the shooting, in which nine people were wounded.
“We will take revenge for this. … We will make life miserable for the Americans,” the crowd chanted.
The US military in Baghdad said it had no information on the incident.
The bodies of Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay – killed by American forces in a shootout last Tuesday in Mosul – remained unclaimed at the American base at Baghdad International Airport. Iraq’s American-backed Governing Council said it was discussing with US authorities what to do with the corpses. The brothers, according to Islamic tradition, should have been interred the same day they were killed.
“If no one claims the bodies, other measures will be taken. This is what we recommended and I expect that coalition forces will go with this recommendation,” Samir Shakir Mahmoud, a member of the council, told reporters without elaborating. It was believed the brothers might be buried in a secret place to prevent it from becoming a shrine for their supporters.
18
Jul 03
From the “Holy shit, they’re lying to us!” Department
Via WhatReallyHappened.com: Documents from Judicial Watch: CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS:
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(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org.
15
Jul 03
Geopolitical forecast
Yesterday, after swimming and sunning like an iguana at Barton Springs pool my roommate and his girlfriend intercepted me on my walk home. They were on their way to Star of India for buffet and invited me along. There I found a copy of this free magazine, Little India (Apparently, “the largest circulated Indian publication in the USA”). Anyway, in it there were a few interesting things, interviews with assorted Indian Americans and Indian expatriots. There was this particular interview with Dr. Jagdish Sheth who’s evidently a marketing guru of sorts. His rags to riches and reknown story was interesting, but what was more interesting were his predictions as to where the world would be in the next 20-30 years. I took the liberty of scanning it in for you:
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Which one of your predictions have come true and is there one that you wish you had not made?
I had predicted in the late 80s and early 90s that India will have no choice but
to align with America and that has come true though I had expected the two
countries to have an economic alignment first followed by a military alignment, but it happened the other way round.
I had also projected in the early 90s that China will become the biggest
economic and military super power by 2020 and that is coming true. In the short
term, the Europeans will be distancing themselves from America and they will align with Russia and Russia will become a major force in northern Europe, which will exclude Spain and Britain.
Britain any way does not belong in
Europe, since the French and Germans will
align. Britain may feel unwanted so there
will be interesting economic battles.
The one prediction that did not come
true was that in the 1970s I was very
hopeful that there would be a permanent
solution for Palestine, but then first Anwar
Sadat and then Rabin were assassinated.
Now I am saying there will be a permanent
distance between the Middle East and
America, and the Middle East will align
more and more with Europe.
So where are we headed post war?
I have slightly different views on that
than most people. I think we will win the
battle of Baghdad but we will not win the
war. There will be a next phase of peace in
the Middle East, orchestrated by the
creation of the state of Palestine, something
George Bush Sr. had strived for. The real
tension will be between America and the
European nations and Asia simultaneously.
The French-German coalition with
Russians will create more economic and
political problems for America and I had
predicted that NATO will cease and that
Japan has given up on America and will
align with China.
What role will the Indian American
community play in the mainstream?
After independence, India decided to
invest in medicine and engineering. Now
they feel its more lucrative to invest in
management and information technology.
Many Indian multinational firms will
groom top managers of Indian origin, and
many of these multinational firms will
enter the world market.
Because of the military and economic
alignment, American govt. will allow more
Indians to settle in America and vice versa
and free labor mobility will increase the
Indian population much more than the
Chinese population here. Indians will
definitely go into politics since more and
more Indian Americans are going to law
school which is a natural progression for
them to enter politics later. So we will have
very powerful Indian American lobby,
surpassing even the Jewish lobby.
So what is in the works?
A book on repositioning of India in
the new millennium.
12
Jul 03
Corporate Warriors
I found an interesting show on privatized military contractors over at the Fresh Air website:
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“Singer wrote the new book, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. Over the last decade, private companies have provided tactical support, advice, training, security and even intelligence to the military. In the recent war against Iraq, private military employees handled everything from feeding and housing U.S. troops to maintaining sophisticated weapons like the B-2 stealth bomber. The practice raises troubling ethical questions. Singer is an Olin Fellow in the foreign policy studies program at the Brookings Institution and coordinator of the Brookings Project on U.S. Policy towards the Islamic World.”
27
Jun 03
Iraqi Resistance Stiffens
Guerrilla resistance to American occupation forces has been stepped up. Note that the media is very careful to only discuss it in terms of ‘Baathist resistance’. It is very important to the US and to the western media by proxy not to give the idea that this resistance is supported by the Iraqi people.
- The soft-approach headline: Experts Question Depth of Victory:
- Because the war was so narrowly focused on Hussein’s government in Baghdad, a large part of the Iraqi population does not feel as if it was defeated, said retired Army Col. Scott R. Feil. “As I heard one Iraqi say, the Americans defeated Saddam, but not the Iraqi people, so the psychology of the loser is not present,” he said
- U.S. Soldier Shot Shopping in Baghdad-Witnesses
- 4 Dead, 2 Abducted in Iraq Ambushes
- British troops agree to suspend arms searches
- No First Amendment: Iraqi Youth Arrested for Insulting US Soldiers
- Marsh Arabs threaten to resist ‘army of occupation’
22
Jun 03
Little bits
- Obvious implications of the so-called war on terror being felt: Russian general say “war on terror” used as pretext for global dominance:
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“It is one thing when a country is fighting terrorism on its own territory, and some other countries assist them,” the Interfax-AVN military news agency quoted Kvashnin an officers’ graduation ceremony in Moscow.
“But it is quite another thing when, under the guise of fighting international terror, some countries are in fact trying to get involved in the internal affairs of the nation they are meant to be helping,” said Kvashnin.
He urged the graduating officers to keep this in mind as they “carefully analyze what is happening in the world.”
- India might be dangling the issue of Indian troop deployment in Iraq for an advantage at the expense of rival Pakistan: Indian Deputy PM, Advani, says US unlikely to release F-16s for Pakistan
- Space junk renders missions dangerous
18
Jun 03
US makes gesture to appease Pakistani militants?
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?