Antiwar.com
July 21, 2009 by Kelley B. Vlahos Listen closely and you can hear the slow release of hot air. There’s a leak somewhere, and it appears to be coming from the giant red, white, and blue balloon set aloft some months ago by the counterinsurgency experts who convinced everyone in Washington that Afghanistan was one “graveyard of empires” that could be resurrected for the good of the world.
In fact, anxiety over the latest major U.S. offensive in Afghanistan is increasing among military officials and policymakers every day, sources tell us. News reports coming in from Helmand province and repeated public complaints from American and British leaders bear that out.
And the story is this: in order for so-called “population centric” counterinsurgency to work in a place as vast and geographically unrelenting as Afghanistan, there must be a lot of counterinsurgents (more than 600,000, according to the current Army counterinsurgency manual). Right now, there is a lid on the number of coalition forces approved for the mission, and worse, there are pathetically few Afghan troops and police available to do the most important work, which is to collaborate with the foreign forces to fight the Taliban and successfully hold areas on behalf of the Afghan government over the long term.
Even as 10,000 Marines pushed into the Hindu Kush bearing the talisman of David Petraeus and his patented COIN doctrine this month, it was clear to top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal that something was amiss.
“The key to this is Afghan responsibility to the fight,” he told the New York Times on July 15. “As a team we are better.”
His anonymous lieutenants were much blunter. “There are not enough Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police for our forces to partner with in operations … and that gap will exist into the coming years even with the planned growth already budgeted for,” an unnamed U.S. military official told the Washington Post four days earlier.
Click on photo above for complete story. See also our reviews of:
Dick Morris is part of the circus–Wall Street owns it and him,
July 14, 2009
Dick Morris
Neophytes argue about facts, journeymen argue about models, and masters discuss the assumptions underlying the models.
This book assumes the President has power, which most of us who are students of America, from Buckminster Fuller on, have recognized is not the case. We've gone from a village idiot to a major domo, and the only constants are three:
1) Wall Street and Goldman Sachs specifically continues to run and manipulate the US Treasury against the public interest.
2) Congress continues to abdicate its responsibility to its constituencies and the Constitution
3) The bulk of the American people remain uninformed sheep.
The ten books below are intended for those of you that want to move beyond Dick Morris as the classic comic book version of the truth, and into the deeper truth that should inspire Constitutionally-valid actions to restore the sovereignty of We the People of the United STATES of America. You cannot fix what you do not understand. Obama is a tool, not the problem. If Obama were willing to break free of Wall Street and embrace the 70% of America that did not vote for him, he could actually become the George Washington of this century if not this millenium.
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by restoring the Constitution and the sovereignty of We the People. The Electoral Reform Act of 2009, blowing open the crooked two-party system to Independents, Greens, Reforms, and Libertarians, and all others, is the ONLY thing we need to understand and demand. Below I offer five books on each side of the future:
The latter book makes it crystal clear–and the same is true in Canada for Quebec and others–that secession is a legal, non-violent, absolute right of each of the United STATES of America. Wall Street is literally creating a “fire sale” in the USA while moving all of its assets into foreign currencies. Just how stupid do We the People have to be?
Dick Morris is a good man, but he is a clown in this circus, and if all do not focus right now on the misbehavior of the government at large, violating the Constitution every day, not acting in the public interest as We the People would define it, then the USA will break up as the Soviet Union did, within the decade.
Superb Re-Discovery of Core Knowledge, Presents New Insights,
July 4, 2009
David N. Gibbs
At the age of 56, having been educated in the 1970's when political science created “comparative studies” as a ruse for avoiding field world and foreign language mastery in favor of statistical comparisons from afar, I am now quite accustomed to seeing each generation rediscover core knowledge.
Even more distressing for one who loves books as artifacts of human wisdom, is to see each generation re-discover knowledge known to earlier generations, without citation. Scholarship seems to be on a wheel making little forward progress, at least in the humanities.
This is a fine book. It is exceptional for both its clear-eyed understanding of the combination of evil and banal ignorance that characterizes those in power, whether of one party or another. In the 1970's, for the US Institute of Peace, I wrote that the greatest threat to peace was the cataclysmic separation of those with power from those with knowledge. This book manifests all of that brilliantly.
It is also exceptional in this era for being a clear-eyes appraisal of the evil of military intervention. This again is not new knowledge, but it is helpful to have this generation be reminded.
Great evil has been done “in our name,” for the basest of reasons. I pray that our rising generation of digital literati will not be as ignorant in power as those who now surround world leaders–sychophants, dilitants, and craven opportunists.
Brilliantly Conceived and Executed, Totally Absorbing, July 5, 2008
Helmut K. Anheier
Half the book is text and half superb illustrations and charts.
The publisher has failed to provide a table of contents, the easiest way to make it instantly clear to any prospective purchaser that this book is quite unusual in its scope and weight.
This is the first book in a series, the next two will focus on culture and economy, and then on culture and politics.
Close to 50 contributors, and a process of conferences in advance of the book's preparation, assure the quality and diversity of this offering.
Chapters 1-6 are introductory, each by different authors or pairs of authors, focusing on approaches and developments in the cultural dimension of conflicts and tensions.
Chapters 7-13 discuss different regional realities, including China and how the US cultural wars went global (no focus on the global class war in this book).
Chapters 14-17 discuss tensions; chapters 18 & 19 values, and chapters 20-22 migration into respectively, the USA, Argentina, and Malaysia.
Chapters 23-27 introduce the concept of culture as a tool for preventing and resolving conflict and are followed by a massive resource section, the cultural indicators suite.
My fly-leaf notes from the text half of the book:
+ Globalization can weaken social agencies and impose suffering on minorities
+ PERCEPTION of fairness or unfairness a major factor
+ Cultural entrepreneurs (e.g. Islamic clerics or American ministers) can hijack culture for their own ends (e.g. influence or wealth)
+ State fragmentation or shrinking reduces social safety nets
+ Globalization seen differently by varied groups
+ Lack of solid data on culture and conflict
+ Culture now transnational and subnational
+ Globalization equals competing world views in contact and collision
+ Culture moves globally as knowledge, artifacts or goods, and people in migration
+ Four general cultural protagonist groups:
– Davos Culture
– Faculty Club
– McWorld
– Religious revival
+ Globalization and global threats not being adequately addressed at global scale (e.g. the UN and Red Cross are not cutting it)
+ Identity politics can become conflictual–religion amplifies social differences
+ Huntington is anti-thesis to this book, a cliché
+ Worldview more useful term than civilization
+ Cultural conflicts are manufactured
+ Cultural heritage is a collective memory
+ When ethnic immigrant unemployment if 3 to 4 times that of natives, this invites conflict
+ Civil wars on rise and ethno-nationalist up to 90% from 25% in 1935
+ “Cultural practice” is a new set of competencies for dealing with the reality of conflict among groups
+ Theater can be used to role play and articulate repressed anger
+ Memory wars waiting to erupt
+ Cultural imperialism furthers immoral capitalism
+ Culture can help reconcile differences but cannot compensate for lack of water, food, shelter, security
+ Resistance strategies of Canada, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan reviewed
+ Fascinating chapter on Singapore fails to mention four official national languages: English, Mandarin, Malay, and Hindi
+ European model emphasizes somewhat imperfectly:
– Jobs and growth
– Economic policies
– Flexible labor
– Knowledge economies
– Investment in education
– Human rights
– Ecological issues
– Immigration
– Aging population
– Public reform
+ Fourth world: immigrants with no rights or recognition
+ China has seen rise of nationalism, anti-Americanism, cultural conservatives
+ On balance China's leadership has successfully managed Chinese capitalism and cultural shifts
+ USA in confusion, experiencing a 4th great awakening since 1975
+ Fault lines are North versus South, Arabs versus West, Religion versus Identity Politics, Europe versus USA
+ Mediating or cross-cultural “concord” organizations are needed:
– Logic of collective investment
– Promote overarching values
– Balance bridging and bonding
– Establish rules of engagement
– Recognize and reward investment
– Prevent proselytizing
– Acknowledge and receive legitimacy
– Avoid “gotcha”
– Accept incomplete understanding or less than full acceptance
– Support single-community endeavors
– Develop leaders
+ Citizen radio in Colombia helped (I think of multi-media Internet and cell phone broad and narrowcasting
My word limit prevents me from doing this book full justice. I hope someone else will provide a good overview and review of the second half of the book where the indicators are developed. While similar to Banks & Textor in the 1970's, and to many of the “State of ….” Graphical and Visual Atlases, I found this book to be completely engrossing and extremely worthwhile. Worth every penny. A signal contribution.
Superb Re-Discovery of Core Knowledge, Presents New Insights, July 4, 2009
David N. Gibbs
At the age of 56, having been educated in the 1970's when political science created “comparative studies” as a ruse for avoiding field world and foreign language mastery in favor of statistical comparisons from afar, I am now quite accustomed to seeing each generation rediscover core knowledge.
Even more distressing for one who loves books as artifacts of human wisdom, is to see each generation re-discover knowledge known to earlier generations, without citation. Scholarship seems to be on a wheel making little forward progress, at least in the humanities.
This is a fine book. It is exceptional for both its clear-eyed understanding of the combination of evil and banal ignorance that characterizes those in power, whether of one party or another. In the 1970's, for the US Institute of Peace, I wrote that the greatest threat to peace was the cataclysmic separation of those with power from those with knowledge. This book manifests all of that brilliantly.
Remarkable Gift, Bargain Price, Provokes Reflection, October 30, 2008
Remi Kanazi (Editor)
This is one of those rare books that I agreed to read and review after hearing from the publisher. At first I said no, then I realized Palestine was very much within my range of interests even if poetry was not, and I am glad to have said yes.
The book brings together 37 poets offering 48 poems interwoven with 30 artist renditions each on their own page. The book is made possible in part by a New York based organization, Al Jisser or “the bridge.”
The introduction connects the Palestinians to the much broader concerns of indigenous peoples everywhere, social justice being the shared issue.
Turns of phrase that stayed with me:
– hybrid ideology
– our city is a cell
– memory holding history too harsh to taste
– feel the future dissolve in a moment
– clean water
Five of the poems that resontated with me in a more special way (all are worthy of reading):
– Fathers in Exile
– Moot
– The Coffin Maker Speaks
– Those Policemen are Sleeping: A Call to the Children of Israel and Palestine
– This Is Not a Massacre
As I was preparing to write the review, I noticed the other books that Amazon brings up, using reader choice to connect to other readings of interest, and it hit me: this books is a perfect beginning for anyone who wishes to explore the literature on Palestine's history, current condition, and dubious (or inevitably triumphant) future.
In my notes I wrote “cornerstone for the resurgence of Paletinian identity and self-determination. I am certainly among those who stands with Gandhi, who said “Palestine belongs to the Palestinians the way France belongs to the French.”
I was struck by the book's extension to include Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Lebanon, the latter a country I have come to care about after a teaching mission there in 2007. In that light, below are some links to books I recommend along with this one:
You can buy this book with confidence that it will satisfy and provoke. Still, as a service to the publisher, who did not use the Amazon “look inside this book” features, here are the titles of all the poems; I type them as a gesture of respect for all that they represent:
Who Am I, Without Exile?
Enemy of Civilization
Portrait of Mona Lisa in Palestine
The Camp Prostitute
Fathers in Exile
Palestinian Identity
Ar-Rahman Road
And So It Goes…
Curfew
Installation/Occupation
The Seven Honeysuckle-sprigs of Wisdom (extract)
Untitled
a moonlit visit
Black Horses
Moot
The Promised Land
Hate
Wall Against Our Breath
Lights Across the Dead Sea
The Coffin Maker Speaks
Morning After the US Invasion of Iraq
The Price of Tomatoes
Regret
Calm
Palestine in Athens
Saudi Israelia
Hamza Aweiwi, a Shoemaker in Hebron
Humming When We Find Her
Wire Layers
Making Arabic Coffee
My Father and the Figtree
The Tea and Sage Poem
Letter to My Sister
In Memoriam: Edward Said 1935-2003
At the Dome of the Rock
Those Policemen Are Sleeping: A Call to the Children of Israel and Palestine
This is Not a Massacre
23 isolation (Infirad)
Free the P
Another Day Will Come
Morning News
break (bas)
Baby Carriages
Kindness
An Idea of Return
changing names
Abu Jamal's Olive Trees
A Tree in Ratah
One last observation: here in the United States of America, the Republic has been destroyed–the people are no longer sovereign. Instead, two criminal parties conduct electoral fraud as theater to they can retain their monopoly of political power which they prostitute to Wall Street and the inbred very small financial class that considers both the American people and the Palestinian people to be virtual slaves of no consequence. At some point soon, the American system will “break” and new possibilities will emerge–it remains lunacy as well as criminal for the USA to spend $1.3 trillion a year on war when a third of that amount could assure a prosperous world at peace, including an international Holy City, a Palestine with access to the sea, and an Israel that is not stealing all the water from the Arab aquifers but instead trading high technology for food grown by Arabs.
Poetry–and indigenous peoples reasserting the sovereignty of people over organizations–may yet save us all.
Brilliantly Translated, Poetry of Pathos, Compelling, June 5, 2009
Eduardo Galeano
Kudos to Hugo Chavez for putting this book in the eye of the emerging consciousness of the US public–Obama will not read this book because he already knows the story, he is the front end of the Borg–the system, and so similar in policies to Bush as to possibly wake up the naive.
The book begins with one of the finest Forewords I have ever read, by Isabel Allende, and I offer just one quote from her spectacular introduction of the book:
“His work is a mixture of meticulous detail, political conviction, poetic flair, and good storytelling.”
The translation by Bobbye Ortiz merits special note. This book sings in English, and the translator has done justice to the original.
A major recurring theme throughout the book is that of capital squandered by the few while the many actually producing the capital dies of hunger or disease.
I list ten other recommended books at the end of this review. Early on the author makes these points:
1. The indigenous bourgeoisie are the ones who have sold out their countries to the multinational corporations. Toward the end of the book re repeats this with a chapter on the guards that opened the gates.
2. “The human murder by poverty in Latin America is secret–every year, [the equivalent of] three Hiroshima bombs.”
3. Quoting Lyndon Johnson: $5 invested in population control is equal to $100 in economic growth. This in the context of the author making the case that Latin America is under-populated in relation to Europe.
4. Imperialism and what I call predatory capitalism depends on, imposed, inequality and growing disparity on the countries rich in raw materials.
His early account of the European invasion by steel and horse and disease was unique in its time; see 1491 below for a broader more recent treatment. The indigenous population by this account dropped from 70 million to 3.5 million.
Among my notes:
1. The historical record is lie–laws were indeed passed protecting the indigenous natives, but never enforced, something history does not document as well.
2. “Ideological justifications were never in short supply.”
3. Spanish dressed up the natives in Andalucian costumes, some of the clothing we think of today as traditional was actually imposed on the natives.
4. Spanish and others moved drugs (coca) from strictly ceremonial use to the general population and then into massive export.
The history of Latin America is a history of sequential pillaging. First gold, then sugar, then rubber followed by chocolate, cotton, and coffee, then the banana–the tree of hell under United Fruit. And then Chilean nitrates, Bolivian tin, and finally the “black curse” of petroleum.
Sugar in particularly devoured both the soil and humanity, first in Brazil then in the Caribbean.
The ready use of slavery, both of indigenous natives and of imported Africans, created the economic bottleneck that survives to this day, where those actually extracting the raw materials are virtual slaves and do not derive the fruits of their labor.
The author contrasts the manner in which the US used the Homestead Act to grant land to individuals who were incentivized to develop the West, and the latifundo oligarchy that imposes perpetual poverty on generations of indigenous individual families.
Myself being a survivor of the Central American wars, and the duty officer the night land reformer Mark Pearlman was executed in El Salvador by an extreme right death squad, I read with interest about the recurring attempts to achieve agrarian reform, only to have push-back from the 14-500 families that “own” the land.
I am fascinated by the corporate war between Shell (Paraguay) and Standard Oil (Bolivia) in which the armies of those countries, and the poor of those countries, were the pawns in the “great game” of wealth confiscation.
The book is a catalog of all the dictators supported by the USA and enriched by US and European multinational corporations.
The second half of the book yields the following notes:
1. Industrial infanticide has been imposed on Latin America by protectionism and free trade (as opposed to fair trade)
2. Loans and railroads (with attendant land rights and obligations) deformed Latin America.
3. The International Monetary Fund (IMB) is the knife that slits the belly of each country to let in the maggots of immoral capitalism.
4. The Ministries of Labor in each Latin American country are the new slave traders.
5. “International charity does not exist.” The role of US aid is to help the US domestically. As of the book being written, only 38% of aid was actually targeted aid, all the rest existed to bring greater benefits back to the “giving” country.
6. What Latin America has been lacking all this time is a sense of economic community within its own continent.
7. The book was banned in Chile and Uruguay.
I end this summative review with two quotes–cliff notes for the President, if he has anyone active on Amazon:
Page 261. The task lies in the hands of the dispossessed, the humiliated, the accursed. The Latin Ameerican cause is above all a social cause: the rebirth of Latin America must start with the overthrow of its masters, country by country. We are entering times of rebellion and change.
Page 285. “The system would like to be confused with the country.” and “In these lands we are not experiencing the primitive infancy of capitalism buts its vicious senility.”
Notes and index complete the work. A solid four hour read without interruptions. A great book for anyone desiring to know why the USA is being pushed back while China and Iran are displacing the West in the southern hemisphere.
