In the Washington Post on August 13, 2008, Harold Meyerson writes, ... "The United States even has a name for its right to intervene in its neighbors' affairs: the Monroe Doctrine. And just as Russia moved to undermine a militantly pro-American government on its borders, so the United States moved to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs and depose the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and green-lighted an attempted coup against Venezuela's Hugo Chávez in 2002. None of these interventions brought any credit to either the United States or Russia, but neither were they something new under the sun."

 

I know that I like a tick on a flea but the Seattle Times has put together an interesting series of articles in one spot on oil speculators:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/index.html

Action that Obama supports should not wait for his presidency.

Karl Shepard
Hillsboro, OR

I realize that the TPM has already called attention to this topic.  But the Miami Herald has a longer version than Reuters:  http://www.miamiherald.com/campaign08/story/579411.html

In addition, the insanity of Florida's governor Crist backing McCain's call for off-shore drilling was debunked on the same day in the Miami Herald by Ana Menendez:  http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/ana_menendez/story/579031.html  

She contrasts sharply the differences between Schwarzenegger and Crist responses to off-shore drilling.

Karl Shepard
Hillsboro, OR

The Saudi's argue that the oil price hikes of recent days are not justified (one of many reports) by supply or demand. That squares with the facts.

There is no way that over a million new buses, cars or trucks could have been fueled in China and India in the past few weeks.

Business Week has reported several times on the commodity market speculation that has driven up the price of oil and other commodities beyond what should be normal levels. According to Business Week article cited above, this can be traced to the Clinton administration deregulation of commodity trading in 2000.

The Democrats in the Senate forced a vote on windfall taxes on the major oil companies plus re-regulation of the commodities market. The effort would have been better spent on re-regulation of commodities markets and the subsequent reductions of speculative capital in oil - something that Obama needs to call for immediately.

One stone thrown and two birds killed: Obama will this show his savvy on the economy and the befuddled McCain will respond poorly at best.

Karl Shepard
Hillsboro,Oregon

Ken and John,
Two weeks ago you had a discussion of Karl Popper's philosophy of science. I still do not see the ability to comment.  Why?  That might be a philosophical question.  I wanted to hear a discussion of the realist theory of science - a point of view that neither of you wanted to discuss or apparently were not aware of; why not?  Roy N. Bhasker is a leading proponent; there are others.  Not a very wide-ranging discussion of the philosophy of science - was it?
 
Second, today, as I listen to the "encore performance" in Portland, Oregon, you discussed Security vs. Liberty.  It was absolutely amazing that Ken nor John were able to head off Stephen Holmes, a blowhard from NYU.  Have neither of you heard of Jonathan Turley? How about Colonel Morris Davis - the dissident at the Guantanamo trials - the tials now rushed before the election for US president in November? 
 
Guantanamo Bay torture and imprisonment, the sham trials, the rendition, and the abuse of human dignity were given short shrift. Your listeners asked about the blowback from US foreign policy and Mr. Holmes skated sideways.  Could you not ask him - finally sir have you no decency? Your philosophical positions are not made in mid-air - that they have real consequences for real people on the ground - whether or not they are guilty or innocent?  And - how would you feel as a captive in a prison that accepts what the civilized world agrees is torture, many in foreign prisons populated by the United States?  Stage managed of course to a "US democratic public" to condone the suffering?
 
Many callers called in to point out that the security over liberty argument has been played out ON THE GROUND in the US foreign policy arena; many democratic governments have been overthrown by the US - Chile, Guatemala, Iran, Nicaragua, and so on.  The response of Stephen Holmes did not meet the philosophical or even scientific grounds for argument.
 
I personally wanted to throw-up over Stephen Holmes' response.  I assume that the educated are able to hold most variables constant.  Ah, what a surprise to listen to Holmes deny the democratic impulse, the very part of his so-called informed narrative, the part that can keep governments honest.  His sideways escape route, crap in my opinion, argued that the US people do not discover these ill-informed totalitarian actions until years later.  So much for a universal philosophical argument.  Had it ever occurred to this not very good apologist for US action, that people in other countries might actually have a stake in this discussion? That people under hard fought democratic rule in countries outside of the United States might also like to enjoy liberty?  That their liberty and security might be at stake?  But no - neither one of you - Ken nor John - could hold democracy and personal liberty a constant.
 
Third, the management by US administrations of the media has long been well known.  The manipulation of TV, radio, and every other media is well known.  Despite that fact, the US public has in the past few days have been privy yet again (McClellan - there are so many others before this tome) to the inner workings of the current administration.  I guess neither John nor Ken read much.  Do you know or are you aware of the latest work on the inter-play of media and government?  Perhaps another philosophical question?
 
I am really disappointed in the past two weeks level of discussion, the lack of hard questions, and the lack of challenge.  It is just too easy to shoot fish in a barrel.
 
Karl Shepard
Hillsboro, Oregon
5/29/08

Good News -how rare is that?

From the NY Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/europe/29cluster.html

A snippet from the article:

Among the presidential contenders, only Senator Barack Obama has supported a ban on cluster munitions. In a Senate vote in 2006, both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John McCain voted against it, while Senator Obama was one of only four senators to support the motion.

Hot damn!!!

Karl Shepard
Hillsboro, OR

Landmines, Criminals, and Terrorists: The Weapons of Personal Destruction -
Miss Land Mine 2008

A link to Miss Landmine Candidates in Angola 2008

On May 18, 2008, in Dublin, Ireland, the US, China, and Russia refused to relinquish cluster bombs.

Most believe that buried roadside bombs are mostly improvised explosive devices (IEDs'), a by-product of asymmetric warfare used by occupied populations. The belief is fueled by the casualties and wounded US troops have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many are due to IED's. However, before we blame occupied populations for something new, we need to look at empire policy.

Before we conclude that crude roadside bombs are the work of occupied populations, planted by weak, cold-blooded killers in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, without precedent in the oxymoron of civilized warfare, please take a walk with me down imperial lane. The road is littered with untold dead and innocent stumps - the story of weapons of personal destruction.

The US empire under Bush, as well as China and Russia, refuse to relinquish cluster bombs. The three make up a very small group of countries.

Cluster bombs and land mines are the equivalent of the "bouncing Betty's" perhaps more familiar to US citizens as they were made infamous in Viet Nam. Bouncing "Betty's" popped up 5 to 6 feet and sent shrapnel in all directions in order to maim, kill, and destroy all in the vicinity. More than 40 years after these "bouncing Betty's" were deployed these bombs, cluster bombs, and landmines continue to maim and kill.

"Since World War II the proliferation, production, sale and trade in landmines has run out of control. The face of the earth has been scarred with more than 400 million mines since 1939, with 65 million of these laid in the last 20years." Many were laid, according to Tim Grant's 1998 Australian account, perhaps most, in the years of Southeast Asian and African decolonization.

US presidents from Truman to Bush II, 1945 to 2002, have argued that these weapons of personal destruction are too important to not manufacture and sell on the world markets. Dropped, dug in, and deployed in third world countries, they kill and maim the darker complected.

Last summer, the Israeli army dropped US maufactured cluster bombs in Lebanon. The Bush administration cried crocodile tears over the abrogation of its agreement with Israel to not drop cluster bombs and in areas in areas likely to be inhabited by civilian populations.

Since WWII, weapons of personal destruction have been deployed against "terrorists" and "criminals" opposed to empire, no matter the vote, the desires, the best interests, or the goals of the people; resistors of empire "deserve" the bombs they get.

The US has yet to sign the 1997 Ottawa Agreement banning land mines. The US is one of 39. 144 other countries signed the 1997 agreement ending landmines by 2004. President Bush in 2004 announced his intention to deploy landmines until 2010.

Imperial powers, the US, Russia, China, plus a small number of their allies, insist they will have their way with dominated populations.

So the US, along with China and Russia push backward against history. Is it terrorism, criminals, or indigenous resistance that makes Bush, China, and Russia argue for torture, personal degradation, and weapons of personal destruction?

The "bouncing Betty's" dug in, cluster bombs dropped, and land mines deployed, will kill well beyond their expiration date. It's not as if you can smell the spoiled milk and throw it out, these weapons shred unwary limbs.

It is not an accident that empires declare everyone opposed to their imperial goals as criminals and terrorists. Every popular fighter opposed to invasion and occupation has had his name-calling day in the sun: Hawaiians, Phillipinos, Viet Namese, Cambodians, Laotians in Asia, Afghanis from two cold-war empires - the US and Soviets, all of Africa, all of South America and the Caribbean isles. Popular liberation groups were and are, in official imperial history, still criminals or terrorists.

The name-calling of the imperial power however does not and will not justify the "bouncing Betty's, cluster bombs, and landmines - weapons of personal destruction.

The Case of Angola

 

Portugal was the first country to extend formal imperial power to Africa and was among the last to be kicked out. Angolan anti-colonial fighters against brutal colonial rule were claimed to be terrorists. Weakened by its wars in Africa by 1975, Portugal, once prominent in the slave trade from Africa to Brazil, wanted desperately to hold on to some semblance of its former glory and empire in Africa: Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, Mozambique in the southeast of the continent, and Angola in the southwest.

Angola would have been an unremarkable African civil war were it not for the blood and human stumps. The Portuguese gave up in 1975; the US did not.

The Angolan civil war was the legacy of a proxy war between the US and USSR. An African civil war against "communists, criminals, and terrorists" was prolonged in Angola, a war the US knew was lost.

In Angola, two ethnic groups vied for power, the Kimbundu and mixed-race people based in the Angola's capital city of Luanda, and the Ovimbundu in the rural areas. The US provided land mines to the Ovimbundu rural fighters led by Jonas Savimbi until his death in 2002. Angolan's in Luanda, the capital city led by Agostinho Neto, were armed by the Soviet Union. Angolans drew themselves and were drawn into a cold war proxy war that lasted 27 years.

Angola is instructive on this imperial walk down this empire lane; the path is a fork in the road where terrorism, land mines, and indigenous aspirations meet. When imperial powers can feed the wars and supply the mines, they are the ones to blame.

Prior to US involvement, Portuguese colonialists used horrendous tactics to intimidate the Angolan population. The photo of African heads on Portuguese pikes below displays but one tactic; torture and murder were routine.

By 1974, the Portuguese were defeated, not all surprising given their brutal tactics. US policy makers under US Presidents - Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II knew the outcome: the USSR was closer to the Luandan elites and the US-backed rural faction was outgunned. Still, the US poured landmines to the rural-based Savimbi, landmine numbers without parallel - over 10 million in all.

It was one of the bloodiest civil wars the continent of Africa had witnessed since the Biafran struggle for independence from Nigeria in the 1960's.

The US shipped 10 million land mines in 27 years to support Savimbi. US policy under the Bush administration turns a blind eye to the amputees - more than 70,000 in Angola. The Bush administration apparently did not see the pictures or must be blind to abrogate the 1997 Ottawa Agreement banning landmines or the latest effort in Dublin, Ireland to eliminate cluster bombs.

Those seeking a more civilized world stare in disbelief as Bush II and Condeleezza Rice turn their backs on US land mine policy the US agreed to in 1997. The US, China, and Russia refute the ban and refuse to this day to give up on weapons of personal destruction.

But of course, the Luandan based capital city forces were "communists" supported by the former Soviet Union and now in the officially revised Bush old-new narrative, "terrorists", or some other "criminal" element perhaps now "allied with al-Queida". 

According to the US imperial story, Savimbi was justified in laying these hideous weapons despite the stumps, the killing, the razing of the rural economy, the death of innocents and children.

The bitter irony is all the greater when you look at a map of Angola. You see that little enclave to the north of Angola in the map above? It's called Cabinda. The USSR-backed Kimbundu regime in Luanda protected US-Chevron oil facilities there, a US supplier of gasoline.

The dark future of non-white populations maimed and killed wait on baited breath for the newest, greatest, and latest US, Chinese, or Russian excuse, the name-calling that justifies the "smart weapons of personal destruction".

Landmines laid in Southeast Asia, Viet Nam, and Cambodia, laid twice by two super powers in Afghanistan, Central American and African civil wars, the cluster bombs dropped last summer by Israel in Lebanon, - these are the weapons of personal destruction Bush would like the world and US citizens to forget. Chinese and Russian imperial ambition tag along - no empire leadership yet. But children killed and stumps that live inhabit peripheral non-empire worlds, they deserve the bombs they get.

It is the gift of the imperial power to the other, those who dare resist. The imperial path across the world is filled with bodies so horribly blown up and children so badly maimed - potholes on the empire road - filled with landmine hits.

Karl Shepard
Hillsboro, Oregon
May 23, 2008

The recent strike on Somalia and the apparent murder of Aden Hashi Ayro http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/world/africa/02somalia.html raises major questions that any world leader of an empire in a world of instant information needs to cover.

 

I have three points and a conclusion I want to make: diplomacy in Somalia should have been pursued but was not, the killing of Aden Hashi Ayro was illegal, and the current Somali government propped up by an Ethiopian invasion backed by the US is illegitimate and will not last.

 

The conclusion is that the blow-back from this US action will be up to the next president to deal with more intelligently. 

 

The United States had a chance to diplomatically engage with the Union of Islamic Courts when they consolidated the country in 2006.  In a country with more than 18 years of civil war, designated by many as the greatest human rights tragedy in the entire world, the United Sates could have isolated the more radical elements of the Union of Islamic courts by dangling aid as a carrot and conversely the lack of it as a stick.  This would have been easy.

 

Second, the killing of this man, Aden Hashi Ayro, with up to 30 other innocents also killed amounts to extra-judicial murder.  No judge, trial, or jury - just a Tomahawk missile launched with permission from Central Command in Tampa Bay, Florida.  This is what - the fourth time the US has done this?  In each of the other attacks on Somalia, no one except innocents and goats have died. In the latest attack, Somali's claim that 30 have died.  A ratio of 1 to 30 is not even close to success. 

 

The counter intelligence and intelligence of the Bush administration is not very good -  unless nomads and goats are targets.  The Bush administration blithely accepts the loss of these innocent lives and their livestock as it pursues extra-judicial murder.

 

Perhaps this should come as no surprise given the US-backed torture and death in its prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo; in each case, - well beyond the bounds of the Geneva Convention. 

Just what we need as we try to inspire the world with a democratic vision - the US with no judge except Bush, a stacked jury, and an executioner.  Any fair-minded person would argue that the actions that the US has pursued in Somalia are illegal.

 

Third, the Bush administration bankrolled an invasion of one African country by another; in this case of Somalia by Ethiopia.  The Ethiopian Ogaden has always been disputed territory and has long been a source of friction between Ethiopia and Somalia.  Ethiopia eyes the rich oil wealth of the region (so does China – how quickly we forget the kidnapping of Chinese oil engineers in the Ogaden last year!).  Ethiopia apparently has its own imperial ambitions given its US-backed occupation of Somalia.  

 

Still, no country will accept invasion and occupation, Iraq by the US or Somalia by Ethiopia.  To the extent that either nation continues its occupation, resistance will continue.  For Ethiopia, it will be its African Viet Nam.

 

The most damning part of all this is the hypocritical component of the US-backed Ethiopian invasion.  The weapons used by Ethiopia were supplied by North Korea. The Bush administration officially designated Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an "axis of evil".

 

The Bush administration knew that the weapons needed by Ethiopia to carry out its invasion were of an older Soviet type and North Korea was a supplier.  On Bush's watch, the ships with the weapons Ethiopia needed to invade were tracked from the Asian "axis of evil" and arrived safely just in time to exacerbate the carnage in Somalia.

 

Mr. Ayro's death will do little to mend the horn of Africa and we have done more damage than good with our cap guns and cowboy hats.  More worrisome are the larger issues, lack of diplomacy, extra-judicial murder (based on unknown domestic or international surveillance), and the support of an "axis of evil" country for the invasion of one African country by another.

 

Karl Shepard

Hillsboro, OR