Europes involvement in the CIA rendition flights.
Link to the European Parliament's report
Ursus
MEPs condemn Britain's role in 'torture flights'
· EU states knew about rendition, says report
· Suspected detention centre in Poland named
By Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicholas Watt in Brussels
11/29/06 "The Guardian" -- -- Britain's role in CIA "torture flights" was roundly condemned yesterday by the European parliament in a scathing report which for the first time named the site of a suspected secret US detention centre in the EU - at Stare Kiejkuty in Poland.
It says EU governments, including the British, knew about the practice known as extraordinary rendition - secret CIA flights transferring detainees to locations where they risked being tortured - but made a concerted attempt to obstruct investigations into it.
The MEPs singled out Geoff Hoon, the minister for Europe, saying they deplored his attitude to their special committee's inquiry into the CIA flights. They expressed outrage at what they said was the view of the chief legal adviser to the Foreign Office, Sir Michael Wood, that "receiving or possessing" information extracted under torture, if there was no direct participation in the torture, was not per se banned under international law. They said Sir Michael declined to give evidence to the committee.
The report condemned the extraordinary rendition of two UK residents, Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi citizen , and Jamil el-Banna, a Jordanian citizen, seized in the Gambia in 2002. They were "turned over to US agents and flown to Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo, where they remain detained without trial or any form of judicial assistance", it said. The men's abduction was helped "by partly erroneous information" supplied by MI5. It also condemned the treatment of Binyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian citizen and UK resident arrested in Pakistan and at one point held in Morocco where questions "appear to have been inspired by information supplied by the UK". His lawyer has described what the report called "horrific torture".
It referred to the rendition of Martin Mubanga, a UK citizen arrested in Zambia in 2002 and flown to Guantánamo Bay. It said he was interrogated by British officials at the US detention centre in Cuba where he was held and tortured for four years and then released without trial.
It expressed "serious concern" about 170 stopovers at British airports by CIA-operated aircraft which on many occasions came from, or were bound for, countries linked with "extraordinary rendition circuits". The Guardian gave evidence to the committee on the CIA flights. The MEPs also praised help they were given by the all-party parliamentary group on rendition chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie. "Parliamentary concern about extraordinary rendition is not going to go away," Mr Tyrie said. Next week he will meet John Rockefeller, new chairman of the US Senate intelligence committee.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty, said: "Our government wept hot tears for torture victims in Saddam Hussein's Iraq but adamantly refuses to investigate CIA torture flights despite growing international pressure. The silence in Whitehall is damning."
Yesterday's report described in detail how CIA Gulfstream jets landed in secret at Szymany airport in Poland. There was circumstantial evidence, it said, that there may have been a secret detention centre at the nearby intelligence training centre at Stare Kiejkuty. It disclosed that records, from a confidential source, of an EU and Nato meeting with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, last December confirmed "member states had knowledge of the [US] programme of extraordinary renditions and secret prisons".
It criticised EU officials such as foreign policy chief Javier Solana and counter-terrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries for a lack of cooperation with the inquiry, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato's secretary general, for declining to give evidence.
Sarah Ludford, a Liberal Democrat MEP and vice-chair of the European parliament's committee, said last night: "If the EU's aspirations to be a 'human rights community' have any meaning whatsoever, there must now be a forceful EU response to this strong evidence that the CIA abducted, illegally imprisoned and transported alleged terrorists in Europe while European governments, including the UK, turned a blind eye or actively colluded with the United States."
At least 1,245 CIA rendition flights used European airspace or landed at European airports, the report said. It accused the former head of Italy's Sismi intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, of "concealing the truth" when he told the committee Italian agents played no part in the CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in 2003. It says Sismi officials had an active role in the abduction of Abu Omar, who had been "held incommunicado and tortured ever since".
The Foreign Office said last night that Mr Hoon had answered all the questions put to him. He said the government did not approve of any transfer of individuals through the UK where there were substantial grounds to believe they would face the real risk of torture.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
Donnerstag, November 30, 2006
Folter / Torture
If one reads about coerced information one - generally and in the case of Ursus gratefully - lacks a clear understanding of what torture means. This article is no exception but to illustrate the point the link given in the article is rather clear. It does show "coercion". So be prepared when you decide to click on the link given in the article.
The Torture Society
The long slog of rebuilding American democracy
By Ted Rall
11/29/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- NEW YORK--The military tribunal lasted a week. At the end the 17 defendants were permitted to make a closing statement. Alexei Shestov, 41 years of age, stood up and admitted to being a terrorist and traitor.
"In that struggle," he confessed, "I employed every loathsome, every filthy and every destructive method." Coercive interrogation techniques--what effete and weak-stomached liberals would call torture--loosened the terrorist's tongue. "For five weeks I denied everything," he said. "For five weeks they kept confronting me with one fact after another, with the photographs of my dastardly work and when I looked back, I myself was appalled by what I had done."
Unlike his cowardly co-conspirators, Shestov proclaimed himself ready to face the ultimate sanction. "Now I have only one desire, to stand with calmness on the place of my execution and with my blood to wash away the stain of a traitor to my country." He got his wish. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court ordered him to be shot.
The great Moscow "show trials" of 1937, officially bringing to justice the nefarious agents of the "Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre," were the centerpiece of Stalin's campaign to terrorize Soviet citizens from their previous state of basic subjugation to absolute submission. In truth, there was no such thing as the Anti-Soviet Trostskyite Centre. Shestov wasn't even an opponent of the regime. On the contrary, he was an NKVD (predecessor to the KGB) employee, his bosses ordered to pose as a suspect in order to inculpate the other men. Stalin, as thorough as he was diabolical, had him executed anyway.
A trial without due process isn't justice. It's farce.
Newly leaked audiotapes of military tribunals held at the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp shared the eerie quality of the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Once again, the men are accused of membership in a shadowy terrorist conspiracy. The evidence against them consists of hearsay--the testimony of other miserables giving them up in order to save themselves. They have been beaten, abused and probably tortured.
Murat Kurnaz, 24, a German cititzen held for four years without being charged with so much as a traffic violation, described life at Gitmo to CNN after being sent back to Germany. Among the "many types of torture" he endured were "electric shocks to having one's head submerged in water, (subjection to) hunger and thirst, or being shackled and suspended [hung from the ceiling]."
"They tell you 'you are from al-Qaeda', and when you say 'no' they give the (electric) current to your feet ... As you keep saying 'no' this goes on for two or three hours."
In testimony consistent with that of other Gitmo survivors, Kurnaz said he was suspended from the ceiling for at least four days. "They take you down in the mornings when a doctor comes to see whether you can endure more. They let you sit when the interrogator comes ... They take you down about three times a day so you do not die."
Such precautions weren't 100 percent effective. "I saw several people die," he said.
Now the United States is trying to burnish its nasty image as one of the world's leading torture states--not by eliminating torture, but by silencing its victims. In a remarkable bit of legal sang-froid, the Bush Administration has filed a brief in its case against Majid Khan asking a federal court to seal its torture of him as "top secret."
Khan is one of 14 alleged al-Qaeda suspects transferred earlier this year from secret CIA torture chambers in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Pakistan to Gitmo. CIA official Marilyn Dorn said in a Bush Administration affidavit that Khan should be silenced lest he reveal "the conditions of detention and specific alternative interrogation procedures."
"If this argument carries the day," The Washington Post wrote in an editorial, "it will make virtually impossible any accountability for the administration's treatment of top al-Qaeda detainees."
"Sausage making," a right-wing blogger calls it. We abandon American values to protect the American way of life. But we don't want to hear about it, much less watch it. A YouTube video of a volunteer undergoing waterboarding--an illegal but frequently used CIA torture technique that Dick Cheney agreed was a harmless "dunk of water," a "no-brainer"--vanished hours after being posted.
When political leaders justify torture, it isn't long before it goes mainstream. Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a 21-year-old college student at UCLA, was typing away in the back of a campus library computer lab when security guards demanded that he produce ID for a "random check."
What happened after he refused was caught on eight agonizing minutes of video shot by another student's cellphone. As he screamed and convulsed on the floor, rent-a-cops repeatedly shot Tabatabainejad with a Taser stun gun.
"Any student who witnessed it was left with an image you don't want to remember," a witness told the UCLA student newspaper. Asked whether Tabatabainejad resisted, the witness said, "In the beginning, no. But when they were holding onto him and they were on the ground, he was trying to just break free. He was saying, 'I'm leaving, I'm leaving.' It was so disturbing to watch that I cannot be concise on that. I can just say that he was willing to leave. He had his backpack on his shoulder and he was walking out when the cops approached him. It was unnecessary."
The video captures the security men ordering Tabatabainejad to "get up or you'll get Tased," shooting him when he complies and laughing as they repeat their demand. "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your f---- abuse of power," he shouted at bystanders who were visibly upset but too cowed to intervene.
The Democratic takeover of Congress has seen high hopes of national moral redemption downgraded to more modest goals: raising the minimum wage, allowing the Medicare program to negotiate lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. No leading Democrat has called for impeaching Bush, closing Guantanamo and other torture camps or outlawing spying on American citizens without a warrant. There is, however, a sign that something remains of American morality.
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has introduced a bill to defang the neofascist Military Commissions Act, signed into law by Bush shortly before the elections. Under the MCA, the president or secretary of defense can declare anyone, including a U.S. citizen, an "enemy combatant" and toss them into a secret prison for the rest of their life, where they can legally be tortured. The MCA eliminates habeas corpus, a legal right enjoyed by Westerners since the 13th century that forces police to file charges against an arrestee or let him go.
"People have no idea how significant this is," said Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University. "What the Congress did and what the president signed ... essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values."
Dodd's Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act (S. 4060) would eliminate the most heinous aspects of the MCA and begin the restoration of American democracy before 9/11, when it was supplanted by our current police state.
"I strongly believe that terrorists who seek to destroy America must be punished for any wrongs they commit against this country," said Dodd.
"But in my view, in order to sustain America's moral authority and win a lasting victory against our enemies, such punishment must be meted out only in accordance with the rule of law."
As we've seen in Iraq, it's easier to destroy a society than to rebuild one. Seven decades after Stalin's Great Terror, Russia is still struggling to establish democratic institutions. Unraveling the oppressive legacy of Bush's post-9/11 security apparatus won't be easy either. Even if it passes, Dodd's Bill faces an almost certain presidential veto--yet another reason impeachment should be Democrats' top priority in January.
The Torture Society
The long slog of rebuilding American democracy
By Ted Rall
11/29/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- NEW YORK--The military tribunal lasted a week. At the end the 17 defendants were permitted to make a closing statement. Alexei Shestov, 41 years of age, stood up and admitted to being a terrorist and traitor.
"In that struggle," he confessed, "I employed every loathsome, every filthy and every destructive method." Coercive interrogation techniques--what effete and weak-stomached liberals would call torture--loosened the terrorist's tongue. "For five weeks I denied everything," he said. "For five weeks they kept confronting me with one fact after another, with the photographs of my dastardly work and when I looked back, I myself was appalled by what I had done."
Unlike his cowardly co-conspirators, Shestov proclaimed himself ready to face the ultimate sanction. "Now I have only one desire, to stand with calmness on the place of my execution and with my blood to wash away the stain of a traitor to my country." He got his wish. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court ordered him to be shot.
The great Moscow "show trials" of 1937, officially bringing to justice the nefarious agents of the "Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre," were the centerpiece of Stalin's campaign to terrorize Soviet citizens from their previous state of basic subjugation to absolute submission. In truth, there was no such thing as the Anti-Soviet Trostskyite Centre. Shestov wasn't even an opponent of the regime. On the contrary, he was an NKVD (predecessor to the KGB) employee, his bosses ordered to pose as a suspect in order to inculpate the other men. Stalin, as thorough as he was diabolical, had him executed anyway.
A trial without due process isn't justice. It's farce.
Newly leaked audiotapes of military tribunals held at the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp shared the eerie quality of the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Once again, the men are accused of membership in a shadowy terrorist conspiracy. The evidence against them consists of hearsay--the testimony of other miserables giving them up in order to save themselves. They have been beaten, abused and probably tortured.
Murat Kurnaz, 24, a German cititzen held for four years without being charged with so much as a traffic violation, described life at Gitmo to CNN after being sent back to Germany. Among the "many types of torture" he endured were "electric shocks to having one's head submerged in water, (subjection to) hunger and thirst, or being shackled and suspended [hung from the ceiling]."
"They tell you 'you are from al-Qaeda', and when you say 'no' they give the (electric) current to your feet ... As you keep saying 'no' this goes on for two or three hours."
In testimony consistent with that of other Gitmo survivors, Kurnaz said he was suspended from the ceiling for at least four days. "They take you down in the mornings when a doctor comes to see whether you can endure more. They let you sit when the interrogator comes ... They take you down about three times a day so you do not die."
Such precautions weren't 100 percent effective. "I saw several people die," he said.
Now the United States is trying to burnish its nasty image as one of the world's leading torture states--not by eliminating torture, but by silencing its victims. In a remarkable bit of legal sang-froid, the Bush Administration has filed a brief in its case against Majid Khan asking a federal court to seal its torture of him as "top secret."
Khan is one of 14 alleged al-Qaeda suspects transferred earlier this year from secret CIA torture chambers in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Pakistan to Gitmo. CIA official Marilyn Dorn said in a Bush Administration affidavit that Khan should be silenced lest he reveal "the conditions of detention and specific alternative interrogation procedures."
"If this argument carries the day," The Washington Post wrote in an editorial, "it will make virtually impossible any accountability for the administration's treatment of top al-Qaeda detainees."
"Sausage making," a right-wing blogger calls it. We abandon American values to protect the American way of life. But we don't want to hear about it, much less watch it. A YouTube video of a volunteer undergoing waterboarding--an illegal but frequently used CIA torture technique that Dick Cheney agreed was a harmless "dunk of water," a "no-brainer"--vanished hours after being posted.
When political leaders justify torture, it isn't long before it goes mainstream. Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a 21-year-old college student at UCLA, was typing away in the back of a campus library computer lab when security guards demanded that he produce ID for a "random check."
What happened after he refused was caught on eight agonizing minutes of video shot by another student's cellphone. As he screamed and convulsed on the floor, rent-a-cops repeatedly shot Tabatabainejad with a Taser stun gun.
"Any student who witnessed it was left with an image you don't want to remember," a witness told the UCLA student newspaper. Asked whether Tabatabainejad resisted, the witness said, "In the beginning, no. But when they were holding onto him and they were on the ground, he was trying to just break free. He was saying, 'I'm leaving, I'm leaving.' It was so disturbing to watch that I cannot be concise on that. I can just say that he was willing to leave. He had his backpack on his shoulder and he was walking out when the cops approached him. It was unnecessary."
The video captures the security men ordering Tabatabainejad to "get up or you'll get Tased," shooting him when he complies and laughing as they repeat their demand. "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your f---- abuse of power," he shouted at bystanders who were visibly upset but too cowed to intervene.
The Democratic takeover of Congress has seen high hopes of national moral redemption downgraded to more modest goals: raising the minimum wage, allowing the Medicare program to negotiate lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. No leading Democrat has called for impeaching Bush, closing Guantanamo and other torture camps or outlawing spying on American citizens without a warrant. There is, however, a sign that something remains of American morality.
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has introduced a bill to defang the neofascist Military Commissions Act, signed into law by Bush shortly before the elections. Under the MCA, the president or secretary of defense can declare anyone, including a U.S. citizen, an "enemy combatant" and toss them into a secret prison for the rest of their life, where they can legally be tortured. The MCA eliminates habeas corpus, a legal right enjoyed by Westerners since the 13th century that forces police to file charges against an arrestee or let him go.
"People have no idea how significant this is," said Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University. "What the Congress did and what the president signed ... essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values."
Dodd's Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act (S. 4060) would eliminate the most heinous aspects of the MCA and begin the restoration of American democracy before 9/11, when it was supplanted by our current police state.
"I strongly believe that terrorists who seek to destroy America must be punished for any wrongs they commit against this country," said Dodd.
"But in my view, in order to sustain America's moral authority and win a lasting victory against our enemies, such punishment must be meted out only in accordance with the rule of law."
As we've seen in Iraq, it's easier to destroy a society than to rebuild one. Seven decades after Stalin's Great Terror, Russia is still struggling to establish democratic institutions. Unraveling the oppressive legacy of Bush's post-9/11 security apparatus won't be easy either. Even if it passes, Dodd's Bill faces an almost certain presidential veto--yet another reason impeachment should be Democrats' top priority in January.
Mittwoch, November 29, 2006
Energy Return on Energy Invested
Energy Return on Energy Invested (another ROI) explained in an op-ed article in the New York Times. Finally the concept gets some mainstream media exposure.
The New York Times
November 29, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The End of Ingenuity
By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON
Toronto
MAYBE Malthus was on to something, after all.
First, some background: Twenty-six years ago, in one of the most famous wagers in the history of science, Paul Ehrlich, John Harte and John P. Holdren bet Julian Simon that the prices of five key metals would rise in the next decade. Mr. Ehrlich and his colleagues, all environmental scientists, believed that humankind’s growing population and appetite for natural resources would eventually drive the metals’ costs up. Simon, a professor of business administration, thought that human innovation would drive costs down.
Ten years later, Mr. Ehrlich and his colleagues sent Simon a check for $576.07 — an amount representing the decline in the metals’ prices after accounting for inflation. To many, the bet’s outcome refuted Malthusian arguments that human population growth and resource consumption — and economic growth more generally — would run headlong into the limits of a finite planet. Human inventiveness, stimulated by modern markets, would always trump scarcity.
Indeed, the 1990s seemed to confirm this wisdom. Energy and commodity prices collapsed; ideas (not physical capital or material resources) were the new source of wealth, and local air and water got cleaner — at least in rich countries.
But today, it seems, Mr. Ehrlich and his colleagues may have the last (grim) laugh. The debate about limits to growth is coming back with a vengeance. The world’s supply of cheap energy is tightening, and humankind’s enormous output of greenhouse gases is disrupting the earth’s climate. Together, these two constraints could eventually hobble global economic growth and cap the size of the global economy.
The most important resource to consider in this situation is energy, because it is our economy’s “master resource” — the one ingredient essential for every economic activity. Sure, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped sharply from its peak of $78 last summer, but that’s probably just a fluctuation in a longer upward trend in the cost of oil — and of energy more generally. In any case, the day-to-day price of oil isn’t a particularly good indicator of changes in energy’s underlying cost, because it’s influenced by everything from Middle East politics to fears of hurricanes.
A better measure of the cost of oil, or any energy source, is the amount of energy required to produce it. Just as we evaluate a financial investment by comparing the size of the return with the size of the original expenditure, we can evaluate any project that generates energy by dividing the amount of energy the project produces by the amount it consumes.
Economists and physicists call this quantity the “energy return on investment” or E.R.O.I. For a modern coal mine, for instance, we divide the useful energy in the coal that the mine produces by the total of all the energy needed to dig the coal from the ground and prepare it for burning — including the energy in the diesel fuel that powers the jackhammers, shovels and off-road dump trucks, the energy in the electricity that runs the machines that crush and sort the coal, as well as all the energy needed to build and maintain these machines.
As the average E.R.O.I. of an economy’s energy sources drops toward 1 to 1, an ever-larger fraction of the economy’s wealth must go to finding and producing energy. This means less wealth is left over for everything else that needs to be done, from building houses to moving around information to educating children. The energy return on investment for conventional oil, which provides about 40 percent of the world’s commercial energy and more than 95 percent of America’s transportation energy, has been falling for decades. The trend is most advanced in United States production, where petroleum resources have been exploited the longest and drillers have been forced to look for ever-smaller and ever-deeper pools of oil.
Cutler Cleveland, an energy scientist at Boston University who helped developed the concept of E.R.O.I. two decades ago, calculates that from the early 1970s to today the return on investment of oil and natural gas extraction in the United States fell from about 25 to 1 to about 15 to 1.
This basic trend can be seen around the globe with many energy sources. We’ve most likely already found and tapped the biggest, most accessible and highest-E.R.O.I. oil and gas fields, just as we’ve already exploited the best rivers for hydropower. Now, as we’re extracting new oil and gas in more extreme environments — in deep water far offshore, for example — and as we’re turning to energy alternatives like nuclear power and converting tar sands to gasoline, we’re spending steadily more energy to get energy.
For example, the tar sands of Alberta, likely to be a prime energy source for the United States in the future, have an E.R.O.I. of around 4 to 1, because a huge amount of energy (mainly from natural gas) is needed to convert the sands’ raw bitumen into useable oil.
Having to search farther and longer for our resources isn’t the only new hurdle we face. Climate change could also constrain growth. A steady stream of evidence now indicates that the planet is warming quickly and that the economic impact on agriculture, our built environment, ecosystems and human health could, in time, be very large. For instance, a report prepared for the British government by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, calculated that without restraints on greenhouse gas emissions, by 2100 the annual worldwide costs of damage from climate change could reach 20 percent of global economic output.
Humankind’s energy and climate problems are intimately connected. Petroleum’s falling energy return on investment will encourage many economies to burn more coal (which in many parts of the world still has a relatively good E.R.O.I.), but coal emits far more greenhouse-inducing carbon dioxide for every unit of useful energy obtained than other energy sources. Also, many potential solutions to climate change — like moving water to newly arid regions or building dikes and relocating communities along vulnerable coastlines — will require huge amounts of energy.
Without a doubt, mankind can find ways to push back these constraints on global growth with market-driven innovation on energy supply, efficient use of energy and pollution cleanup. But we probably can’t push them back indefinitely, because our species’ capacity to innovate, and to deliver the fruits of that innovation when and where they’re needed, isn’t infinite.
Sometimes even the best scientific minds can’t crack a technical problem quickly (take, for instance, the painfully slow evolution of battery technology in recent decades), sometimes market prices give entrepreneurs poor price signals (gasoline today is still far too cheap to encourage quick innovation in fuel-efficient vehicles) and, most important, sometimes there just isn’t the political will to back the institutional and technological changes needed.
We can see glaring examples of such failures of innovation even in the United States — home to the world’s most dynamic economy. Despite decades of increasingly dire warnings about the risks of dependence on foreign energy, the country now imports two-thirds of its oil; and during the last 20 years, despite increasingly clear scientific evidence regarding the dangers of climate change, the country’s output of carbon dioxide has increased by a fifth.
As the price of energy rises and as the planet gets hotter, we need significantly higher investment in innovation throughout society, from governments and corporations to universities. Perhaps the most urgent step, if humankind is going to return to coal as its major energy source, is to figure out ways of safely disposing of coal’s harmful carbon dioxide — probably underground.
But in the larger sense, we really need to start thinking hard about how our societies — especially those that are already very rich — can maintain their social and political stability, and satisfy the aspirations of their citizens, when we can no longer count on endless economic growth.
Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the Trudeau Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, is the author of “The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
November 29, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The End of Ingenuity
By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON
Toronto
MAYBE Malthus was on to something, after all.
First, some background: Twenty-six years ago, in one of the most famous wagers in the history of science, Paul Ehrlich, John Harte and John P. Holdren bet Julian Simon that the prices of five key metals would rise in the next decade. Mr. Ehrlich and his colleagues, all environmental scientists, believed that humankind’s growing population and appetite for natural resources would eventually drive the metals’ costs up. Simon, a professor of business administration, thought that human innovation would drive costs down.
Ten years later, Mr. Ehrlich and his colleagues sent Simon a check for $576.07 — an amount representing the decline in the metals’ prices after accounting for inflation. To many, the bet’s outcome refuted Malthusian arguments that human population growth and resource consumption — and economic growth more generally — would run headlong into the limits of a finite planet. Human inventiveness, stimulated by modern markets, would always trump scarcity.
Indeed, the 1990s seemed to confirm this wisdom. Energy and commodity prices collapsed; ideas (not physical capital or material resources) were the new source of wealth, and local air and water got cleaner — at least in rich countries.
But today, it seems, Mr. Ehrlich and his colleagues may have the last (grim) laugh. The debate about limits to growth is coming back with a vengeance. The world’s supply of cheap energy is tightening, and humankind’s enormous output of greenhouse gases is disrupting the earth’s climate. Together, these two constraints could eventually hobble global economic growth and cap the size of the global economy.
The most important resource to consider in this situation is energy, because it is our economy’s “master resource” — the one ingredient essential for every economic activity. Sure, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped sharply from its peak of $78 last summer, but that’s probably just a fluctuation in a longer upward trend in the cost of oil — and of energy more generally. In any case, the day-to-day price of oil isn’t a particularly good indicator of changes in energy’s underlying cost, because it’s influenced by everything from Middle East politics to fears of hurricanes.
A better measure of the cost of oil, or any energy source, is the amount of energy required to produce it. Just as we evaluate a financial investment by comparing the size of the return with the size of the original expenditure, we can evaluate any project that generates energy by dividing the amount of energy the project produces by the amount it consumes.
Economists and physicists call this quantity the “energy return on investment” or E.R.O.I. For a modern coal mine, for instance, we divide the useful energy in the coal that the mine produces by the total of all the energy needed to dig the coal from the ground and prepare it for burning — including the energy in the diesel fuel that powers the jackhammers, shovels and off-road dump trucks, the energy in the electricity that runs the machines that crush and sort the coal, as well as all the energy needed to build and maintain these machines.
As the average E.R.O.I. of an economy’s energy sources drops toward 1 to 1, an ever-larger fraction of the economy’s wealth must go to finding and producing energy. This means less wealth is left over for everything else that needs to be done, from building houses to moving around information to educating children. The energy return on investment for conventional oil, which provides about 40 percent of the world’s commercial energy and more than 95 percent of America’s transportation energy, has been falling for decades. The trend is most advanced in United States production, where petroleum resources have been exploited the longest and drillers have been forced to look for ever-smaller and ever-deeper pools of oil.
Cutler Cleveland, an energy scientist at Boston University who helped developed the concept of E.R.O.I. two decades ago, calculates that from the early 1970s to today the return on investment of oil and natural gas extraction in the United States fell from about 25 to 1 to about 15 to 1.
This basic trend can be seen around the globe with many energy sources. We’ve most likely already found and tapped the biggest, most accessible and highest-E.R.O.I. oil and gas fields, just as we’ve already exploited the best rivers for hydropower. Now, as we’re extracting new oil and gas in more extreme environments — in deep water far offshore, for example — and as we’re turning to energy alternatives like nuclear power and converting tar sands to gasoline, we’re spending steadily more energy to get energy.
For example, the tar sands of Alberta, likely to be a prime energy source for the United States in the future, have an E.R.O.I. of around 4 to 1, because a huge amount of energy (mainly from natural gas) is needed to convert the sands’ raw bitumen into useable oil.
Having to search farther and longer for our resources isn’t the only new hurdle we face. Climate change could also constrain growth. A steady stream of evidence now indicates that the planet is warming quickly and that the economic impact on agriculture, our built environment, ecosystems and human health could, in time, be very large. For instance, a report prepared for the British government by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, calculated that without restraints on greenhouse gas emissions, by 2100 the annual worldwide costs of damage from climate change could reach 20 percent of global economic output.
Humankind’s energy and climate problems are intimately connected. Petroleum’s falling energy return on investment will encourage many economies to burn more coal (which in many parts of the world still has a relatively good E.R.O.I.), but coal emits far more greenhouse-inducing carbon dioxide for every unit of useful energy obtained than other energy sources. Also, many potential solutions to climate change — like moving water to newly arid regions or building dikes and relocating communities along vulnerable coastlines — will require huge amounts of energy.
Without a doubt, mankind can find ways to push back these constraints on global growth with market-driven innovation on energy supply, efficient use of energy and pollution cleanup. But we probably can’t push them back indefinitely, because our species’ capacity to innovate, and to deliver the fruits of that innovation when and where they’re needed, isn’t infinite.
Sometimes even the best scientific minds can’t crack a technical problem quickly (take, for instance, the painfully slow evolution of battery technology in recent decades), sometimes market prices give entrepreneurs poor price signals (gasoline today is still far too cheap to encourage quick innovation in fuel-efficient vehicles) and, most important, sometimes there just isn’t the political will to back the institutional and technological changes needed.
We can see glaring examples of such failures of innovation even in the United States — home to the world’s most dynamic economy. Despite decades of increasingly dire warnings about the risks of dependence on foreign energy, the country now imports two-thirds of its oil; and during the last 20 years, despite increasingly clear scientific evidence regarding the dangers of climate change, the country’s output of carbon dioxide has increased by a fifth.
As the price of energy rises and as the planet gets hotter, we need significantly higher investment in innovation throughout society, from governments and corporations to universities. Perhaps the most urgent step, if humankind is going to return to coal as its major energy source, is to figure out ways of safely disposing of coal’s harmful carbon dioxide — probably underground.
But in the larger sense, we really need to start thinking hard about how our societies — especially those that are already very rich — can maintain their social and political stability, and satisfy the aspirations of their citizens, when we can no longer count on endless economic growth.
Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the Trudeau Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, is the author of “The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Bringing democracy to the middle east...... and so on...
Bringing democracy to the middle east. Or so was the reason for the invasion of Iraq given. Not the first time the US and Britain brought democracy to a country in that area. Look at Iran in 1953.
Effects of ill-advised CIA plot in Iran still haunts U.S.
By John M. Crisp
11/27/06 -- - - (SH) - Now that Iran looms on our horizon, here's a story that every American should know. Journalist Sandra Mackey tells it in "The Iranians," as does Daniel Yergin in "The Prize," his monumental history of oil. But the best extended version of the story that I've read is in "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer. Although other historians have told this story as well, I suspect that the average American has never heard of Mohammad Mossadegh and Operation Ajax. To make a long story short:
Kinzer says that democracy dawned in Iran in 1891 when the shah's wives - he had a harem of around 1,600 - gave up smoking in protest of the shah's sale of the tobacco concession to the British. In fact, the shah, Nasir al-Din, sold concessions of all sorts - mineral rights, railroads, banks - to foreigners in order to support his extravagant tastes. But the shah's son committed an even greater treachery on his own country by selling the oil concession to William Knox D'Arcy in 1901, granting exclusive rights to Iranian petroleum to the British for a period of 60 years.
The unfavorable terms of this concession, as well as many other abuses of monarchial power, led to the Iranian Revolution of 1905, the diminishment of the shah's power, the establishment of a parliament and the beginnings of a democratic tradition in Iran. In the meantime, D'Arcy discovered oil, a resource that suddenly became enormously valuable when Britain converted its coal-burning warships to oil just before World War I.
Naturally, the British favored a friendly, compliant monarchy to balance the power of the parliament, which might have other ideas about the extremely unfavorable terms of the petroleum concession. They found their man in Reza Khan and staged a coup in 1921. Reza soon became the shah, a dictatorial leader who suppressed the parliament and fathered Mohammad Reza, who Americans know as the shah of Iran.
The succession of Mohammad Reza, a weak leader with the personality of a playboy, provided an opportunity for the parliament to reassert power in Iran, which it did, under the leadership of Mohammad Mossadegh, a well-educated eccentric who had opposed the shah for many years. By 1951, Mossadegh was the prime minister, and he had emerged as an international spokesman for a global wave of anti-colonial nationalism. He addressed the United Nations and appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine. When Britain refused to renegotiate the exploitative terms of its oil concession, Iran nationalized the petroleum industry, to Britain's great consternation.
The British hinted at an armed invasion and planned a coup, but were unable to acquire the cooperation of President Truman, who had more sympathy for the emerging nationalism of the former colonies than for the old colonial powers. Things changed, however, when Eisenhower became president in 1952. The Dulles brothers, John Foster as secretary of State and Allen as CIA director, both devoted anti-Communists, convinced Eisenhower to support a coup that would depose Mossadegh and restore the power of the shah to stand as a bulwark against the U.S.S.R.
Operation Ajax, planned and financed by the CIA and orchestrated by Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, was pulled off in August 1953. Hundreds died. Mossadegh was sent to prison for three years and spent the last 11 years of his life under house arrest. Supported by the U.S., the shah became a dictator who controlled Iran with secret police and terror until he was deposed in 1979, when, some historians believe, the U.S. hostages were taken in order to prevent another restoration of the Shah, like the one that occurred in 1953.
Although most Americans never knew or have forgotten this story, many Iranians have not, and the effects of Operation Ajax persist. But the point of the story isn't to berate ourselves over an unseemly intervention into Iran more than 50 years ago. We should note, however, that the story implies that the current radical regime in Iran isn't inevitable, nor does it enjoy the support of all Iranians. Our diplomacy should be careful not to weaken moderates by overly demonizing the leadership. As bad as its leadership is at present, the country itself isn't inherently evil and it retains echoes of a short-lived democratic tradition in its past.
John M. Crisp teaches in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Email: jcrisp@delmar.edu.
Copyright Scripps Howard News Service
But do watch that history lesson as well, definitely worth your time, beats tv anytime!
Effects of ill-advised CIA plot in Iran still haunts U.S.
By John M. Crisp
11/27/06 -- - - (SH) - Now that Iran looms on our horizon, here's a story that every American should know. Journalist Sandra Mackey tells it in "The Iranians," as does Daniel Yergin in "The Prize," his monumental history of oil. But the best extended version of the story that I've read is in "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer. Although other historians have told this story as well, I suspect that the average American has never heard of Mohammad Mossadegh and Operation Ajax. To make a long story short:
Kinzer says that democracy dawned in Iran in 1891 when the shah's wives - he had a harem of around 1,600 - gave up smoking in protest of the shah's sale of the tobacco concession to the British. In fact, the shah, Nasir al-Din, sold concessions of all sorts - mineral rights, railroads, banks - to foreigners in order to support his extravagant tastes. But the shah's son committed an even greater treachery on his own country by selling the oil concession to William Knox D'Arcy in 1901, granting exclusive rights to Iranian petroleum to the British for a period of 60 years.
The unfavorable terms of this concession, as well as many other abuses of monarchial power, led to the Iranian Revolution of 1905, the diminishment of the shah's power, the establishment of a parliament and the beginnings of a democratic tradition in Iran. In the meantime, D'Arcy discovered oil, a resource that suddenly became enormously valuable when Britain converted its coal-burning warships to oil just before World War I.
Naturally, the British favored a friendly, compliant monarchy to balance the power of the parliament, which might have other ideas about the extremely unfavorable terms of the petroleum concession. They found their man in Reza Khan and staged a coup in 1921. Reza soon became the shah, a dictatorial leader who suppressed the parliament and fathered Mohammad Reza, who Americans know as the shah of Iran.
The succession of Mohammad Reza, a weak leader with the personality of a playboy, provided an opportunity for the parliament to reassert power in Iran, which it did, under the leadership of Mohammad Mossadegh, a well-educated eccentric who had opposed the shah for many years. By 1951, Mossadegh was the prime minister, and he had emerged as an international spokesman for a global wave of anti-colonial nationalism. He addressed the United Nations and appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine. When Britain refused to renegotiate the exploitative terms of its oil concession, Iran nationalized the petroleum industry, to Britain's great consternation.
The British hinted at an armed invasion and planned a coup, but were unable to acquire the cooperation of President Truman, who had more sympathy for the emerging nationalism of the former colonies than for the old colonial powers. Things changed, however, when Eisenhower became president in 1952. The Dulles brothers, John Foster as secretary of State and Allen as CIA director, both devoted anti-Communists, convinced Eisenhower to support a coup that would depose Mossadegh and restore the power of the shah to stand as a bulwark against the U.S.S.R.
Operation Ajax, planned and financed by the CIA and orchestrated by Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, was pulled off in August 1953. Hundreds died. Mossadegh was sent to prison for three years and spent the last 11 years of his life under house arrest. Supported by the U.S., the shah became a dictator who controlled Iran with secret police and terror until he was deposed in 1979, when, some historians believe, the U.S. hostages were taken in order to prevent another restoration of the Shah, like the one that occurred in 1953.
Although most Americans never knew or have forgotten this story, many Iranians have not, and the effects of Operation Ajax persist. But the point of the story isn't to berate ourselves over an unseemly intervention into Iran more than 50 years ago. We should note, however, that the story implies that the current radical regime in Iran isn't inevitable, nor does it enjoy the support of all Iranians. Our diplomacy should be careful not to weaken moderates by overly demonizing the leadership. As bad as its leadership is at present, the country itself isn't inherently evil and it retains echoes of a short-lived democratic tradition in its past.
John M. Crisp teaches in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Email: jcrisp@delmar.edu.
Copyright Scripps Howard News Service
But do watch that history lesson as well, definitely worth your time, beats tv anytime!
Anatomy of a Civil War
In his latest article, "Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq's descent into chaos", Rosen writes, "Shia religious parties such as the Iran-supported Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (its name a sufficient statement of its intentions), or SCIRI, controlled the country, and Shia militias had become the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army, running their own secret prisons, arresting, torturing, and executing Sunnis in what was clearly a civil war. And the Americans were merely one more militia among the many, watching, occasionally intervening, and in the end only making things worse. Iraqis' hopes for a better future after Saddam had been betrayed."
Anatomy of a Civil War
Iraq’s descent into chaos
Nir Rosen
8 On April 7, 2006, the third anniversary of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, I drove south with Shia pilgrims from Baghdad to the shrine city of Najaf. The day before, on the same route, a minibus like ours had taken machine-gun fire in the Sunni town of Iskandariyah. Five pilgrims were killed.
My companions—a young man named Ahmed, his mother, and their friend Iskander, a driver—came from Sadr City, the Shia bastion in Baghdad named for Muhammad Sadiq al Sadr, a popular and politically ambitious Shia cleric slain in 1999. They wanted to hear a sermon by Sadr’s son, Muqtada, who after the war had become the single most important person in Iraq and the only one capable of sustaining the fragile alliance between Shias and Sunnis. His power had only grown, although hopes for that alliance were now gone.
Read the complete Artikel either on the website of the Boston Review or - easier to read - print the article as .pdf here (English, 36 interesting pages 231kb)
Anatomy of a Civil War
Iraq’s descent into chaos
Nir Rosen
8 On April 7, 2006, the third anniversary of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, I drove south with Shia pilgrims from Baghdad to the shrine city of Najaf. The day before, on the same route, a minibus like ours had taken machine-gun fire in the Sunni town of Iskandariyah. Five pilgrims were killed.
My companions—a young man named Ahmed, his mother, and their friend Iskander, a driver—came from Sadr City, the Shia bastion in Baghdad named for Muhammad Sadiq al Sadr, a popular and politically ambitious Shia cleric slain in 1999. They wanted to hear a sermon by Sadr’s son, Muqtada, who after the war had become the single most important person in Iraq and the only one capable of sustaining the fragile alliance between Shias and Sunnis. His power had only grown, although hopes for that alliance were now gone.
Read the complete Artikel either on the website of the Boston Review or - easier to read - print the article as .pdf here (English, 36 interesting pages 231kb)
Dienstag, November 28, 2006
Palestine and Israel, strong comment in the Guardian
A powerful comment on Palestine/Israel; read as well the interview with Arnold Hottinger
Justice demands it
Ted Honderich
Wikipedia on Ted Hondrich
November 27, 2006 08:00 AM
The comment in the Guardian
We cannot settle such fundamental questions of right and wrong as that of Palestine and so on by the common recourses to international law, UN resolutions, doctrines of human rights or our hierarchic democracy. Rather, for consistency and other reasons, we need a fundamental principle of right and wrong. This is the principle of humanity. It is, in short, that we must take actually rational steps, as distinct from political pretences and the like, to get and keep people out of bad lives, the latter being defined in terms of lacks and denials of the great human goods.
This morality of humanity includes certain propositions. It justifies Zionism, not vaguely understood but taken as the founding and maintaining of Israel in roughly its original 1948 borders. The morality of humanity also condemns neo-Zionism, understood as the taking from the Palestinians at least their freedom in the last fifth of their homeland. It gives to them a moral right to their liberation-terrorism against neo-Zionism in historic Palestine, including Israel.
The morality of humanity judges 9/11 to have been monstrously wrong, an irrational means to ends that included resistance to neo-Zionism. It condemns our Iraq war as moral barbarism for our intentional killing of many thousands of innocents. It as entirely condemns the terrorism of 7/7 in London. It maintains that Blair is not effectively an enemy of such horrors as 7/7, since he is not tough on both terrorism and the causes of terrorism.
All this involves the judgement that neo-Zionism and American and British policies and actions in support of it have been a part, one part, of the explanation of 9/11 and of a good deal else. They have, of course, not been the whole explanation. They have been necessary conditions rather than a sufficient condition. Certainly, they have been necessary conditions of particular significance.
But if you state this common belief, you may find other propositions assigned to you: "Al-Qaida isn't the fault of poverty, it turns out. It's the fault of the Jews."
Thus the journalist Nick Cohen in a recent piece on me in the New Statesman. This is more than the raising of the question of whether the common belief is anti-semitic. It is more than the raising of the question of whether I am an anti-semite. Yet more is done by what follows, the report that I blame all of a lot of violence on "the Jew".
What this comes to, then, is an unveiled, if safeguarded imputation of anti-semitism based on a ludicrous falsehood about my common beliefs as to the explanation of 9/11, the weighting of necessary conditions, shares of responsibility, and so on.
In a television programme, another journalist, David Aaronovitch, was first concerned to argue that judgment on neo-Zionism is inconsistent with a lack of judgment on other crimes against humanity.
Well, there is a uniqueness about neo-Zionism. There have been 39 years of the violation of the only indigenous people of a place by another people, violation by a people of knowledge and experience, in two centuries of history when the violation could be seen for what it is. A violation of the weak by the strong. A violation unhidden by impertinent pretences about the course of ancient history. A violation whose attempted justifications lack numbers for populations at relevant times and also for deaths. A violation not made weakly defensible, even, by the proposition that it has been required for the good or security of a larger society of the same people, as in the case of the Russian crime against Chechnya. A violation almost without precedent for wider consequences in the world. A violation supported by religious affirmations of the sacredness of Jewish lives against others.
To come round to Iraq, not much consideration is needed of the piece of moral stupidity that to do a thing in the knowledge that it will kill innocents is not intentionally to kill innocents - and so we are not killing innocents in Iraq. An introductory word will do.
Think for a start of the husband whose wife leaves him and who cannot handle the fact. He goes to the house she is in, with glue for the door locks and petrol to start the fire. He sees a cleaning woman go into the house. He goes ahead anyway. Think a little of the judge's verdict on his claim that he only intended to kill his wife, and so is guilty of only one murder, and is sorry about the cleaning woman. Think a little about the family of the cleaning woman and their view about his prate of his intention, and his note of condolence.
It needs asserting and repeating that it is Jews first of all who must, without equivocation, condemn that necessary condition of Iraq that is neo-Zionism. They can have a little more effect on it than others. They have the special obligation that comes with that fact. They have a special obligation that must overcome the plain fact of kinship, loyalty and other connection that understandably unites Jews, owed in one part of the history of anti-semitism. They have more obligation than anyone else to resist change away from decent Jewish moral attitudes, to maintain their membership in the high tradition of Jewish realism and compassion - to resist change in those attitudes owed to the pressure of being Jewish.
They need to look to their proper and great leaders, including leaders of us all, Noam Chomsky at their head. Those who are of a reflective turn of mind need to get onto their bookshelves The Case Against Israel by Professor Michael Neumann. It offers the clarity, perhaps the Jewish clarity, that the Palestinian problem is not complex, not difficult, not a problem. The decent solution is simple, without need for bargaining or hesitation or qualification.
It is, of course, that Israel withdraws without negotiation or any other delay from the last fifth of the historic homeland of its indigenous people, the Palestinians. To declare that, without caveat, is the part of Jews actually against neo-Zionism.
Justice demands it
Ted Honderich
Wikipedia on Ted Hondrich
November 27, 2006 08:00 AM
The comment in the Guardian
We cannot settle such fundamental questions of right and wrong as that of Palestine and so on by the common recourses to international law, UN resolutions, doctrines of human rights or our hierarchic democracy. Rather, for consistency and other reasons, we need a fundamental principle of right and wrong. This is the principle of humanity. It is, in short, that we must take actually rational steps, as distinct from political pretences and the like, to get and keep people out of bad lives, the latter being defined in terms of lacks and denials of the great human goods.
This morality of humanity includes certain propositions. It justifies Zionism, not vaguely understood but taken as the founding and maintaining of Israel in roughly its original 1948 borders. The morality of humanity also condemns neo-Zionism, understood as the taking from the Palestinians at least their freedom in the last fifth of their homeland. It gives to them a moral right to their liberation-terrorism against neo-Zionism in historic Palestine, including Israel.
The morality of humanity judges 9/11 to have been monstrously wrong, an irrational means to ends that included resistance to neo-Zionism. It condemns our Iraq war as moral barbarism for our intentional killing of many thousands of innocents. It as entirely condemns the terrorism of 7/7 in London. It maintains that Blair is not effectively an enemy of such horrors as 7/7, since he is not tough on both terrorism and the causes of terrorism.
All this involves the judgement that neo-Zionism and American and British policies and actions in support of it have been a part, one part, of the explanation of 9/11 and of a good deal else. They have, of course, not been the whole explanation. They have been necessary conditions rather than a sufficient condition. Certainly, they have been necessary conditions of particular significance.
But if you state this common belief, you may find other propositions assigned to you: "Al-Qaida isn't the fault of poverty, it turns out. It's the fault of the Jews."
Thus the journalist Nick Cohen in a recent piece on me in the New Statesman. This is more than the raising of the question of whether the common belief is anti-semitic. It is more than the raising of the question of whether I am an anti-semite. Yet more is done by what follows, the report that I blame all of a lot of violence on "the Jew".
What this comes to, then, is an unveiled, if safeguarded imputation of anti-semitism based on a ludicrous falsehood about my common beliefs as to the explanation of 9/11, the weighting of necessary conditions, shares of responsibility, and so on.
In a television programme, another journalist, David Aaronovitch, was first concerned to argue that judgment on neo-Zionism is inconsistent with a lack of judgment on other crimes against humanity.
Well, there is a uniqueness about neo-Zionism. There have been 39 years of the violation of the only indigenous people of a place by another people, violation by a people of knowledge and experience, in two centuries of history when the violation could be seen for what it is. A violation of the weak by the strong. A violation unhidden by impertinent pretences about the course of ancient history. A violation whose attempted justifications lack numbers for populations at relevant times and also for deaths. A violation not made weakly defensible, even, by the proposition that it has been required for the good or security of a larger society of the same people, as in the case of the Russian crime against Chechnya. A violation almost without precedent for wider consequences in the world. A violation supported by religious affirmations of the sacredness of Jewish lives against others.
To come round to Iraq, not much consideration is needed of the piece of moral stupidity that to do a thing in the knowledge that it will kill innocents is not intentionally to kill innocents - and so we are not killing innocents in Iraq. An introductory word will do.
Think for a start of the husband whose wife leaves him and who cannot handle the fact. He goes to the house she is in, with glue for the door locks and petrol to start the fire. He sees a cleaning woman go into the house. He goes ahead anyway. Think a little of the judge's verdict on his claim that he only intended to kill his wife, and so is guilty of only one murder, and is sorry about the cleaning woman. Think a little about the family of the cleaning woman and their view about his prate of his intention, and his note of condolence.
It needs asserting and repeating that it is Jews first of all who must, without equivocation, condemn that necessary condition of Iraq that is neo-Zionism. They can have a little more effect on it than others. They have the special obligation that comes with that fact. They have a special obligation that must overcome the plain fact of kinship, loyalty and other connection that understandably unites Jews, owed in one part of the history of anti-semitism. They have more obligation than anyone else to resist change away from decent Jewish moral attitudes, to maintain their membership in the high tradition of Jewish realism and compassion - to resist change in those attitudes owed to the pressure of being Jewish.
They need to look to their proper and great leaders, including leaders of us all, Noam Chomsky at their head. Those who are of a reflective turn of mind need to get onto their bookshelves The Case Against Israel by Professor Michael Neumann. It offers the clarity, perhaps the Jewish clarity, that the Palestinian problem is not complex, not difficult, not a problem. The decent solution is simple, without need for bargaining or hesitation or qualification.
It is, of course, that Israel withdraws without negotiation or any other delay from the last fifth of the historic homeland of its indigenous people, the Palestinians. To declare that, without caveat, is the part of Jews actually against neo-Zionism.
The lied their way into Iraq, now they are lying their way out of it - GB Guardian on responsible leadership
A clear demand for taking responsibility, well, how do the leaders who launched the invasion of Iraq take responsibility for the death, destruction and geo-political destabiliasation? Probably by accepting an honorary degree somewhere....
They lied their way into Iraq. Now they are trying to lie their way out
Bush and Blair will blame anyone but themselves for the consequences of their disastrous war - even its victims
By Gary Younge
11/27/06 "The Guardian" -- -- 'In the endgame," said one of the world's best-ever chess players, José Raúl Capablanca, "don't think in terms of moves but in terms of plans." The situation in Iraq is now unravelling into the bloodiest endgame imaginable. Both popular and official support for the war in those countries that ordered the invasion is already at a low and will only get lower. Whatever mandate the occupiers may have once had from their own electorates - in Britain it was none, in the US it was precarious - has now eroded. They can no longer conduct this war as they have been doing.
Simultaneously, the Iraqis are no longer able to live under occupation as they have been doing. According to a UN report released last week, 3,709 Iraqi civilians died in October - the highest number since the invasion began. And the cycle of religious and ethnic violence has escalated over the past week.
The living flee. Every day up to 2,000 Iraqis go to Syria and another 1,000 to Jordan, according to the UN's high commissioner for refugees. Since the bombing of Samarra's Shia shrine in February more than 1,000 Iraqis a day have been internally displaced, a recent report by the UN-affiliated International Organisation for Migration found last month.
Those in the west who fear that withdrawal will lead to civil war are too late - it is already here. Those who fear that pulling out will make matters worse have to ask themselves: how much worse can it get? Since yesterday American troops have been in Iraq longer than they were in the second world war. When the people you have "liberated" by force are no longer keen on the "freedom" you have in store for them, it is time to go.
Any individual moves announced from now on - summits, reports, benchmarks, speeches - will be ignored unless they help to provide the basis for the plan towards withdrawal. Occupation got us here; it cannot get us out. Neither Tony Blair nor George Bush is in control of events any longer. Both domestically and internationally, events are controlling them. So long as they remain in office they can determine the moves; but they have neither the power nor the credibility to shape what happens next.
So the crucial issue is no longer whether the troops leave in defeat and leave the country in disarray - they will - but the timing of their departure and the political rationale that underpins it.
For those who lied their way into this war are now trying to lie their way out of it. Franco-German diplomatic obstruction, Arab indifference, media bias, UN weakness, Syrian and Iranian meddling, women in niqabs and old men with placards - all have been or surely will be blamed for the coalition's defeat. As one American columnist pointed out last week, we wait for Bush and Blair to conduct an interview with Fox News entitled If We Did It, in which they spell out how they would have bungled this war if, indeed, they had done so.
So, just as Britain allegedly invaded for the good of the Iraqis, the timing of their departure will be conducted with them in mind. The fact that - according to the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett - it will coincide with Blair leaving office in spring is entirely fortuitous.
More insidious is the manner in which the Democrats, who are about to take over the US Congress, have framed their arguments for withdrawal. Last Saturday the newly elected House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, suggested that the Americans would pull out because the Iraqis were too disorganised and self-obsessed. "In the days ahead, the Iraqis must make the tough decisions and accept responsibility for their future," he said. "And the Iraqis must know: our commitment, while great, is not unending."
It is absurd to suggest that the Iraqis - who have been invaded, whose country is currently occupied, who have had their police and army disbanded and their entire civil service fired - could possibly be in a position to take responsibility for their future and are simply not doing so.
For a start, it implies that the occupation is a potential solution when it is in fact the problem. This seems to be one of the few things on which Sunni and Shia leaders agree. "The roots of our problems lie in the mistakes the Americans committed right from the beginning of their occupation," Sheik Ali Merza, a Shia cleric in Najaf and a leader of the Islamic Dawa party, told the Los Angeles Times last week.
"Since the beginning, the US occupation drove Iraq from bad to worse," said Harith al-Dhari, the nation's most prominent Sunni cleric, after he fled to Egypt this month facing charges of supporting terrorism.
Also, it leaves intact the bogus premise that the invasion was an attempt at liberation that has failed because some squabbling ingrates, incapable of working in their own interests, could not grasp the basic tenets of western democracy. In short, it makes the victims responsible for the crime.
Withdrawal, when it happens, will be welcome. But its nature and the rationale given for it are not simply issues of political point-scoring. They will lay the groundwork for what comes next for two main reasons.
First, because, while withdrawal is a prerequisite for any lasting improvement in Iraq, it will not by itself solve the nation's considerable problems.
Iraq has suffered decades of colonial rule, 30 years of dictatorship and three years of military occupation. Most recently, it has been trashed by a foreign invader. The troops must go. But the west has to leave enough resources behind to pay for what it broke. For that to happen, the anti-war movement in the west must shift the focus of our arguments to the terms of withdrawal while explaining why this invasion failed and our responsibilities to the Iraqi people that arise as a result of that failure.
If we don't, we risk seeing Bono striding across airport tarmac 10 years hence with political leaders who demand good governance and democratic norms in the Gulf, as though Iraq got here by its own reckless psychosis. Eviscerated of history, context and responsibility, it will stand somewhere between basket case and charity case: like Africa, it will be misunderstood as a sign not of our culpability but of our superiority.
Second, because unless we understand what happened in Iraq we are doomed to continue repeating these mistakes elsewhere. Ten days ago, during a visit to Hanoi, Bush was asked whether Vietnam offered any lessons. He said: "We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while ... We'll succeed unless we quit."
In other words, the problem with Vietnam was not that the US invaded a sovereign country, bombed it to shreds, committed innumerable atrocities, murdered more than 500,000 Vietnamese - more than half of whom were civilians - and lost about 58,000 American servicemen. The problem with Vietnam was that they lost. And the reason they lost was not because they could neither sustain domestic support nor muster sufficient local support for their invasion, nor that their military was ill equipped for guerrilla warfare. They lost because it takes a while to complete such a tricky job, and the American public got bored.
"You learn more from a game you lose than a game you win," argued the chess great Capablanca. True, but only if you heed the lessons and then act on them.
g.younge@guardian.co.uk
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
They lied their way into Iraq. Now they are trying to lie their way out
Bush and Blair will blame anyone but themselves for the consequences of their disastrous war - even its victims
By Gary Younge
11/27/06 "The Guardian" -- -- 'In the endgame," said one of the world's best-ever chess players, José Raúl Capablanca, "don't think in terms of moves but in terms of plans." The situation in Iraq is now unravelling into the bloodiest endgame imaginable. Both popular and official support for the war in those countries that ordered the invasion is already at a low and will only get lower. Whatever mandate the occupiers may have once had from their own electorates - in Britain it was none, in the US it was precarious - has now eroded. They can no longer conduct this war as they have been doing.
Simultaneously, the Iraqis are no longer able to live under occupation as they have been doing. According to a UN report released last week, 3,709 Iraqi civilians died in October - the highest number since the invasion began. And the cycle of religious and ethnic violence has escalated over the past week.
The living flee. Every day up to 2,000 Iraqis go to Syria and another 1,000 to Jordan, according to the UN's high commissioner for refugees. Since the bombing of Samarra's Shia shrine in February more than 1,000 Iraqis a day have been internally displaced, a recent report by the UN-affiliated International Organisation for Migration found last month.
Those in the west who fear that withdrawal will lead to civil war are too late - it is already here. Those who fear that pulling out will make matters worse have to ask themselves: how much worse can it get? Since yesterday American troops have been in Iraq longer than they were in the second world war. When the people you have "liberated" by force are no longer keen on the "freedom" you have in store for them, it is time to go.
Any individual moves announced from now on - summits, reports, benchmarks, speeches - will be ignored unless they help to provide the basis for the plan towards withdrawal. Occupation got us here; it cannot get us out. Neither Tony Blair nor George Bush is in control of events any longer. Both domestically and internationally, events are controlling them. So long as they remain in office they can determine the moves; but they have neither the power nor the credibility to shape what happens next.
So the crucial issue is no longer whether the troops leave in defeat and leave the country in disarray - they will - but the timing of their departure and the political rationale that underpins it.
For those who lied their way into this war are now trying to lie their way out of it. Franco-German diplomatic obstruction, Arab indifference, media bias, UN weakness, Syrian and Iranian meddling, women in niqabs and old men with placards - all have been or surely will be blamed for the coalition's defeat. As one American columnist pointed out last week, we wait for Bush and Blair to conduct an interview with Fox News entitled If We Did It, in which they spell out how they would have bungled this war if, indeed, they had done so.
So, just as Britain allegedly invaded for the good of the Iraqis, the timing of their departure will be conducted with them in mind. The fact that - according to the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett - it will coincide with Blair leaving office in spring is entirely fortuitous.
More insidious is the manner in which the Democrats, who are about to take over the US Congress, have framed their arguments for withdrawal. Last Saturday the newly elected House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, suggested that the Americans would pull out because the Iraqis were too disorganised and self-obsessed. "In the days ahead, the Iraqis must make the tough decisions and accept responsibility for their future," he said. "And the Iraqis must know: our commitment, while great, is not unending."
It is absurd to suggest that the Iraqis - who have been invaded, whose country is currently occupied, who have had their police and army disbanded and their entire civil service fired - could possibly be in a position to take responsibility for their future and are simply not doing so.
For a start, it implies that the occupation is a potential solution when it is in fact the problem. This seems to be one of the few things on which Sunni and Shia leaders agree. "The roots of our problems lie in the mistakes the Americans committed right from the beginning of their occupation," Sheik Ali Merza, a Shia cleric in Najaf and a leader of the Islamic Dawa party, told the Los Angeles Times last week.
"Since the beginning, the US occupation drove Iraq from bad to worse," said Harith al-Dhari, the nation's most prominent Sunni cleric, after he fled to Egypt this month facing charges of supporting terrorism.
Also, it leaves intact the bogus premise that the invasion was an attempt at liberation that has failed because some squabbling ingrates, incapable of working in their own interests, could not grasp the basic tenets of western democracy. In short, it makes the victims responsible for the crime.
Withdrawal, when it happens, will be welcome. But its nature and the rationale given for it are not simply issues of political point-scoring. They will lay the groundwork for what comes next for two main reasons.
First, because, while withdrawal is a prerequisite for any lasting improvement in Iraq, it will not by itself solve the nation's considerable problems.
Iraq has suffered decades of colonial rule, 30 years of dictatorship and three years of military occupation. Most recently, it has been trashed by a foreign invader. The troops must go. But the west has to leave enough resources behind to pay for what it broke. For that to happen, the anti-war movement in the west must shift the focus of our arguments to the terms of withdrawal while explaining why this invasion failed and our responsibilities to the Iraqi people that arise as a result of that failure.
If we don't, we risk seeing Bono striding across airport tarmac 10 years hence with political leaders who demand good governance and democratic norms in the Gulf, as though Iraq got here by its own reckless psychosis. Eviscerated of history, context and responsibility, it will stand somewhere between basket case and charity case: like Africa, it will be misunderstood as a sign not of our culpability but of our superiority.
Second, because unless we understand what happened in Iraq we are doomed to continue repeating these mistakes elsewhere. Ten days ago, during a visit to Hanoi, Bush was asked whether Vietnam offered any lessons. He said: "We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while ... We'll succeed unless we quit."
In other words, the problem with Vietnam was not that the US invaded a sovereign country, bombed it to shreds, committed innumerable atrocities, murdered more than 500,000 Vietnamese - more than half of whom were civilians - and lost about 58,000 American servicemen. The problem with Vietnam was that they lost. And the reason they lost was not because they could neither sustain domestic support nor muster sufficient local support for their invasion, nor that their military was ill equipped for guerrilla warfare. They lost because it takes a while to complete such a tricky job, and the American public got bored.
"You learn more from a game you lose than a game you win," argued the chess great Capablanca. True, but only if you heed the lessons and then act on them.
g.younge@guardian.co.uk
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
Energy requirements as aliance builder
The Iranian and the Russian trump cards: Oil and Gas. Even the fact that a pipeline country like Georgia had a US supported regime change doesn't mean it can ignore the basic facts of energy demand. So who will feed the Georgians hunger for energy?
Read below!
Kyiv Post. Independence. Community. Trust.
http://www.kyivpost.com/bn/25582/print/
News Briefs
U.S. ambassador warns Georgia against long-term term gas contracts with Iran
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - A U.S. diplomat warned Georgia against signing a long-term contract for natural gas supplies with Iran, but the Georgian premier reaffirmed Monday that his nation remained determined to import the Iranian gas.
U.S. Ambassador to Georgia John Tefft said in an interview published Monday in Kviris Palitra newspaper that Washington saw it with "understanding" when the energy-hungry ex-Soviet nation imported the Iranian gas earlier this year, but that a "long-term strategic partnership between Iran and Georgia in that sphere is unacceptable for us."
The U.S. diplomat cited as reasons the recent U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iran's nuclear programs and Washington's support of a gas pipeline from an Azerbaijani oil field, which would allow new supplies to Georgia beginning next year.
Russia's state gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, has said it plans to charge Tbilisi $230 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, compared with the US$110 that it pays now, and warned that it would cut off supplies by Jan. 1 if a contract was not signed _ a demand that Georgia rejected as a "political blackmail."
Moscow and Tbilisi have been locked in a bruising dispute following the detention of four purported Russian spies in September. Despite their quick release, Russia slapped Georgia with economic sanctions and other sanctions, which Georgian leaders have criticized as Moscow's retaliation for the Caucasus nation's pro-Western course.
Russia is currently Georgia's sole supplier of natural gas, but Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli said Monday that Georgia was planning to buy gas from Iran next year.
"As for our relations with Iran in the energy sphere, we will have such relations," Nogaideli said in televised remarks. "We will likely buy the Iranian gas."
Nogaideli said that U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J. Bryza had told Georgian officials during his visit to Tbilisi earlier this month "that no matter what relations the United States has with Iran, they naturally can't ask us to freeze in the winter but not to buy gas from Iran."
Since Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's election in 2004, the poor mountainous country located in the strategic Caucasus region has turned Westward, seeking closer ties with the United States and the European Union.
Read below!
Kyiv Post. Independence. Community. Trust.
http://www.kyivpost.com/bn/25582/print/
News Briefs
U.S. ambassador warns Georgia against long-term term gas contracts with Iran
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - A U.S. diplomat warned Georgia against signing a long-term contract for natural gas supplies with Iran, but the Georgian premier reaffirmed Monday that his nation remained determined to import the Iranian gas.
U.S. Ambassador to Georgia John Tefft said in an interview published Monday in Kviris Palitra newspaper that Washington saw it with "understanding" when the energy-hungry ex-Soviet nation imported the Iranian gas earlier this year, but that a "long-term strategic partnership between Iran and Georgia in that sphere is unacceptable for us."
The U.S. diplomat cited as reasons the recent U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iran's nuclear programs and Washington's support of a gas pipeline from an Azerbaijani oil field, which would allow new supplies to Georgia beginning next year.
Russia's state gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, has said it plans to charge Tbilisi $230 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, compared with the US$110 that it pays now, and warned that it would cut off supplies by Jan. 1 if a contract was not signed _ a demand that Georgia rejected as a "political blackmail."
Moscow and Tbilisi have been locked in a bruising dispute following the detention of four purported Russian spies in September. Despite their quick release, Russia slapped Georgia with economic sanctions and other sanctions, which Georgian leaders have criticized as Moscow's retaliation for the Caucasus nation's pro-Western course.
Russia is currently Georgia's sole supplier of natural gas, but Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli said Monday that Georgia was planning to buy gas from Iran next year.
"As for our relations with Iran in the energy sphere, we will have such relations," Nogaideli said in televised remarks. "We will likely buy the Iranian gas."
Nogaideli said that U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J. Bryza had told Georgian officials during his visit to Tbilisi earlier this month "that no matter what relations the United States has with Iran, they naturally can't ask us to freeze in the winter but not to buy gas from Iran."
Since Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's election in 2004, the poor mountainous country located in the strategic Caucasus region has turned Westward, seeking closer ties with the United States and the European Union.
Montag, November 27, 2006
An inconvenient truth for "An Inconvenient Truth"
Washington Post
At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
Science a la Joe Camel
Washington Post
By Laurie David
Sunday, November 26, 2006; B01
At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free DVDs.
Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film's theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.
Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.
That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits.
It's bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.
And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil has a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 2003, NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science education.
So much for special interests and implicit endorsements.
In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate from high school.
And Exxon Mobil isn't the only one getting in on the action. Through textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars, the oil industry, the coal industry and other corporate interests are exploiting shortfalls in education funding by using a small slice of their record profits to buy themselves a classroom soapbox.
NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called "Running on Oil" and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track record -- citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way -- but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel," a shameless pitch for oil dependence.
The education organization also hosts an annual convention -- which is described on Exxon Mobil's Web site as featuring "more than 450 companies and organizations displaying the most current textbooks, lab equipment, computer hardware and software, and teaching enhancements." The company "regularly displays" its "many . . . education materials" at the exhibition. John Borowski, a science teacher at North Salem High School in Salem, Ore., was dismayed by NSTA's partnerships with industrial polluters when he attended the association's annual convention this year and witnessed hundreds of teachers and school administrators walk away with armloads of free corporate lesson plans.
Along with propaganda challenging global warming from Exxon Mobil, the curricular offerings included lessons on forestry provided by Weyerhaeuser and International Paper, Borowski says, and the benefits of genetic engineering courtesy of biotech giant Monsanto.
"The materials from the American Petroleum Institute and the other corporate interests are the worst form of a lie: omission," Borowski says. "The oil and coal guys won't address global warming, and the timber industry papers over clear-cuts."
An API memo leaked to the media as long ago as 1998 succinctly explains why the association is angling to infiltrate the classroom: "Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future."
So, how is any of this different from showing Gore's movie in the classroom? The answer is that neither Gore nor Participant Productions, which made the movie, stands to profit a nickel from giving away DVDs, and we aren't facing millions of dollars in lost business from limits on global-warming pollution and a shift to cleaner, renewable energy.
It's hard to say whether NSTA is a bad guy here or just a sorry victim of tight education budgets. And we don't pretend that a two-hour movie is a substitute for a rigorous science curriculum. Students should expect, and parents should demand, that educators present an honest and unbiased look at the true state of knowledge about the challenges of the day.
As for Exxon Mobil -- which just began a fuzzy advertising campaign that trumpets clean energy and low emissions -- this story shows that slapping green stripes on a corporate tiger doesn't change the beast within. The company is still playing the same cynical game it has for years.
While NSTA and Exxon Mobil ponder the moral lesson they're teaching with all this, there are 50,000 DVDs sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse, waiting to be distributed. In the meantime, Mom and Dad may want to keep a sharp eye on their kids' science homework.
laurie@lauriedavid.com
Laurie David, a producer of "An Inconvenient Truth," is a Natural Resources Defense Council trustee and founder of StopGlobalWarming.org.
At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
Science a la Joe Camel
Washington Post
By Laurie David
Sunday, November 26, 2006; B01
At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free DVDs.
Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film's theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.
Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.
That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits.
It's bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.
And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil has a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 2003, NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science education.
So much for special interests and implicit endorsements.
In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate from high school.
And Exxon Mobil isn't the only one getting in on the action. Through textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars, the oil industry, the coal industry and other corporate interests are exploiting shortfalls in education funding by using a small slice of their record profits to buy themselves a classroom soapbox.
NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called "Running on Oil" and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track record -- citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way -- but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel," a shameless pitch for oil dependence.
The education organization also hosts an annual convention -- which is described on Exxon Mobil's Web site as featuring "more than 450 companies and organizations displaying the most current textbooks, lab equipment, computer hardware and software, and teaching enhancements." The company "regularly displays" its "many . . . education materials" at the exhibition. John Borowski, a science teacher at North Salem High School in Salem, Ore., was dismayed by NSTA's partnerships with industrial polluters when he attended the association's annual convention this year and witnessed hundreds of teachers and school administrators walk away with armloads of free corporate lesson plans.
Along with propaganda challenging global warming from Exxon Mobil, the curricular offerings included lessons on forestry provided by Weyerhaeuser and International Paper, Borowski says, and the benefits of genetic engineering courtesy of biotech giant Monsanto.
"The materials from the American Petroleum Institute and the other corporate interests are the worst form of a lie: omission," Borowski says. "The oil and coal guys won't address global warming, and the timber industry papers over clear-cuts."
An API memo leaked to the media as long ago as 1998 succinctly explains why the association is angling to infiltrate the classroom: "Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future."
So, how is any of this different from showing Gore's movie in the classroom? The answer is that neither Gore nor Participant Productions, which made the movie, stands to profit a nickel from giving away DVDs, and we aren't facing millions of dollars in lost business from limits on global-warming pollution and a shift to cleaner, renewable energy.
It's hard to say whether NSTA is a bad guy here or just a sorry victim of tight education budgets. And we don't pretend that a two-hour movie is a substitute for a rigorous science curriculum. Students should expect, and parents should demand, that educators present an honest and unbiased look at the true state of knowledge about the challenges of the day.
As for Exxon Mobil -- which just began a fuzzy advertising campaign that trumpets clean energy and low emissions -- this story shows that slapping green stripes on a corporate tiger doesn't change the beast within. The company is still playing the same cynical game it has for years.
While NSTA and Exxon Mobil ponder the moral lesson they're teaching with all this, there are 50,000 DVDs sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse, waiting to be distributed. In the meantime, Mom and Dad may want to keep a sharp eye on their kids' science homework.
laurie@lauriedavid.com
Laurie David, a producer of "An Inconvenient Truth," is a Natural Resources Defense Council trustee and founder of StopGlobalWarming.org.
Sonntag, November 26, 2006
Arnold Hottinger über die arabische Welt, Irak, Israel
© SonntagsZeitung; 26.11.2006; Seite 29
Fokus
«Israel will fressen und frisst immer weiter»
Arnold Hottinger, Experte für die arabische Welt, über den Konflikt im Nahen Osten, den drohenden Bürgerkrieg im Irak - und warum er den Raum verlässt, wenn seine Freundin den Fernseher startet
Von Esther Girsberger, Ursula Zenger (Text) und Bruno Schlatter (Fotos)
Zu Ihrem 80. Geburtstag ist Ihnen an der Universität Zürich ein zweitägiges Kolloquium gewidmet worden. Eine eher unübliche Art des Feierns?
Ach, wissen Sie, bei den Akademikern gäbe es eine Festschrift, das ist jetzt eine Art Minifestschrift.
Sie bestritten einen grossen Teil dieser wissenschaftlichen Tagung; das Geschenk war also mit viel Arbeit verbunden.
Das Vortragen und Moderieren mache ich gerne. Es war zwar nicht ganz einfach, weil am Seminar viele Zeitungswissenschaftler auftraten, da es um das Thema der Kommunikation zwischen der westlich-säkularen und der islamisch geprägten Welt ging. Ich habe ein paar Artikel dieser Wissenschaftler gelesen. Na ja. Wenn man sich fragt, welche praktische Bedeutung diese Forschung hat, ist man manchmal etwas ratlos. Aber ich konnte mich ja mitteilen.
Sie sind 80 und kein bisschen müde?
Absolut. Ich möchte heute sogar mehr mitteilen als vor meiner Pensionierung. Aber ich komme zu wenig dazu.
Warum denn? Sie reisen doch sicherlich weniger als früher?
Ich reise mehr! Ich begleite für zwei Agenturen Studienreisen für Laien. Diese Touristen sind aufmerksamer als das normale Publikum. Wenn sie im Nahen Osten rumlaufen, wollen sie wirklich wissen, was los ist. Wenn Sie hier in der Schweiz einen Vortrag halten, geht das beim einen Ohr der Zuhörer rein und beim anderen wieder raus.
Beim «Geburtstagskolloquium» war die Aufmerksamkeit sicher gross.
Natürlich, weil das Thema hochaktuell ist. Es herrscht eine absolute Fehlkommunikation in Europa über den Nahen Osten und im Nahen Osten über Europa. Wobei Europa und die USA weiter weg von der Realität sind.
Worauf führen Sie diese Kommunikationsmängel zurück?
Ein wichtiges Element sind die Bilder. Wenn man meint, mit Bildern zu informieren über eine Welt, die die Leute nicht kennen, kommt das schlecht raus. Wenn in Beirut ein Haus brennt, zeigt man ein Bild davon und setzt die Bildlegende «Beirut brennt» darunter. In dieser Absolutheit ist das aber total falsch.
Den ganzen etwas längeren Artikel finden Sie hier als .pdf (8 Seiten Deutsch)
Fokus
«Israel will fressen und frisst immer weiter»
Arnold Hottinger, Experte für die arabische Welt, über den Konflikt im Nahen Osten, den drohenden Bürgerkrieg im Irak - und warum er den Raum verlässt, wenn seine Freundin den Fernseher startet
Von Esther Girsberger, Ursula Zenger (Text) und Bruno Schlatter (Fotos)
Zu Ihrem 80. Geburtstag ist Ihnen an der Universität Zürich ein zweitägiges Kolloquium gewidmet worden. Eine eher unübliche Art des Feierns?
Ach, wissen Sie, bei den Akademikern gäbe es eine Festschrift, das ist jetzt eine Art Minifestschrift.
Sie bestritten einen grossen Teil dieser wissenschaftlichen Tagung; das Geschenk war also mit viel Arbeit verbunden.
Das Vortragen und Moderieren mache ich gerne. Es war zwar nicht ganz einfach, weil am Seminar viele Zeitungswissenschaftler auftraten, da es um das Thema der Kommunikation zwischen der westlich-säkularen und der islamisch geprägten Welt ging. Ich habe ein paar Artikel dieser Wissenschaftler gelesen. Na ja. Wenn man sich fragt, welche praktische Bedeutung diese Forschung hat, ist man manchmal etwas ratlos. Aber ich konnte mich ja mitteilen.
Sie sind 80 und kein bisschen müde?
Absolut. Ich möchte heute sogar mehr mitteilen als vor meiner Pensionierung. Aber ich komme zu wenig dazu.
Warum denn? Sie reisen doch sicherlich weniger als früher?
Ich reise mehr! Ich begleite für zwei Agenturen Studienreisen für Laien. Diese Touristen sind aufmerksamer als das normale Publikum. Wenn sie im Nahen Osten rumlaufen, wollen sie wirklich wissen, was los ist. Wenn Sie hier in der Schweiz einen Vortrag halten, geht das beim einen Ohr der Zuhörer rein und beim anderen wieder raus.
Beim «Geburtstagskolloquium» war die Aufmerksamkeit sicher gross.
Natürlich, weil das Thema hochaktuell ist. Es herrscht eine absolute Fehlkommunikation in Europa über den Nahen Osten und im Nahen Osten über Europa. Wobei Europa und die USA weiter weg von der Realität sind.
Worauf führen Sie diese Kommunikationsmängel zurück?
Ein wichtiges Element sind die Bilder. Wenn man meint, mit Bildern zu informieren über eine Welt, die die Leute nicht kennen, kommt das schlecht raus. Wenn in Beirut ein Haus brennt, zeigt man ein Bild davon und setzt die Bildlegende «Beirut brennt» darunter. In dieser Absolutheit ist das aber total falsch.
Den ganzen etwas längeren Artikel finden Sie hier als .pdf (8 Seiten Deutsch)
Russia's Energy Weapon
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/
Putin's new secret weapon
Tom McGhie, Mail on Sunday
23 November 2006
President Vladimir Putin came to the conclusion three years ago that Russia was sitting on a secret weapon more powerful than all its military might.
Ownership of 30% of the world's gas supply and being the second-biggest oil producer has given him a new and powerful economic bargaining counter.
And the former KGB officer has shown that he intends to use these resources to restore pride in Russia, which suffered in the years after the downfall of communism.
The bad news for Britain is that two of our largest oil companies, BP and Shell, which between them have invested more than £10 billion in Russia, are in the firing line as Putin attempts to get Russia a larger slice of the action. But the treatment meted out to Shell and BP pales into insignificance compared with the brutal way it treated Ukraine last year.
In the midst of negotiations on raising gas prices, the Russians suddenly cut supplies to Ukraine. This was devastating for Ukraine, but also for the rest of Europe, which relies on Russian gas coming through Ukraine's pipelines.
There has been similar pressure using gas as a political and economic weapon on other countries on its borders. What countries such as Lithuania and Georgia have in common is that they are mainly pro-West and have opted out of the Russian sphere of influence.
Earlier this month, Russia was accused by the Georgians of using its gas resources as a political weapon. The complaint came after Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas company, announced that prices would double. This decision came in the middle of a political row between both countries sparking accusations that gas was a tool of Russian foreign policy.
Gela Bezhuashvili, Georgia's foreign minister, says: 'They present it as a commercial deal, but there is a portion of politics in it.'
Russia has a good argument for raising prices. Existing prices are heavily subsidised and half the market rate. And the Kremlin is reluctant to sell cheap gas to countries that have decided to shift their loyalties to the West.
But energy analysts have noted that there is a pattern to demands for price rises. Countries loyal to Russia get a better deal.
Strangely, Russia's crude use of gas has had a beneficial effect on UK energy policy. Suddenly, security of supply has become a key issue with the Prime Minister arguing that Britain must boost its own supplies of energy by restarting a nuclear rebuilding programme and developing our own renewable energy sources such as wind and wave power.
Most Western political leaders recognise that Russia wants to dominate gas supplies to the West, but there is a growing suspicion in the UK that Gazprom wants to dominate the British market.
Gazprom has made no secret that it has been eyeing up Centrica, owner of British Gas, with its 16 million customers.
The advantages to Gazprom are obvious. It would have instant access to a huge new market and it would have an outlet for the gas coming through its pipelines. The UK would, in effect, be at the mercy of the Russians.
But because the British energy market is open and it already has a number of foreign big players, such as EDF of France and Germany's Eon, there are no good obvious reasons for refusing Gazprom entry.
Gordon Brown has made it clear he is not keen on such a move. While it is unlikely that the Government would halt a takeover, to be successful, Gazprom would have to satisfy regulators that it would stick to strict corporate governance-rules. At present, Gazprom is unlikely to pass that test because of the close connections to the Kremlin and its refusal to give up total control of its pipelines.
For Shell and TNK-BP - the joint Russian and British gas company --the dangers of the Kremlin's new aggressive pro-nationalisation policies are more obvious.
In late September, Russia turned up the pressure on massive foreign-led energy projects by ordering an environmental investigation of Shell's Sakhalin venture off the far east coast of Russia and warning TNK-BP over violations at its Kovykta gas field in Siberia.
Russian moves to put the brakes on Shell and Exxon Mobil developments on Sakhalin Island have raised suspicions that the Kremlin is seeking a bigger stake for Gazprom in the multi-billion pound projects, signed when oil prices were lower and power lay with foreign investors.
Russian officials say they are motivated by concerns over the environment - Sakhalin is close to feeding grounds for the endangered gray whale and there are problems with pipes laid on the ground near earthquake areas.
Russia is furious that the fields are running well over budget, cutting into Moscow's future earnings under production-sharing agreements that mean the oil companies will recoup their costs before having to pay any royalties.
Shell has warned that there will be further delays in the project, one of the largest in the world, because of a decision earlier in the month to revoke environmental permits.
The company has infuriated the Kremlin by doubling its estimate of the project's cost to £10.5bn. Exxon's nearby Sakhalin-1 project could cost £8.9bn, a Russian official said last week, a £2.2bn overshoot that Moscow says it will oppose. Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev says there is no question of removing Shell's licence.
Until recently, TNK-BP had escaped Moscow's attentions. But on September 28, prosecutors warned TNK-BP, which holds the licence to the huge Kovykta gas field in Russia's Far East, over violations of environmental law.
TNK-BP says there was no sign of any threat to its licence for Kovykta. Chief executive Robert Dudley says: 'We haven't received anything on this. We've got all the permits in place, we've had all the environmental reviews, so I'm not sure what to make of this.'
Kovykta has reserves of more than two trillion cubic metres of gas, which TNK-BP wants to export to China. But Gazprom has so far allowed it a licence to supply gas only to the local Irkutsk region.
In another blow for foreign operators and energy-hungry Asia refiners, Russia's technical standards watchdog last month said more checks were needed on Exxon's Pacific terminal, meaning regular shipments could not start before mid-November.
Energy industry observers see a pattern in Russia's sudden desire to make things more difficult for foreign firms.
Putin is determined to take control of what he regards as Russia's vital strategic assets. And he believes the agreements struck by Shell and BP were made at a time when the country was weak.
Shell and BP are well aware of the tough new Russian attitude, but are determined to stick it out. They know things are not easy, but they also know that Russia needs the West's skills if it is to exploit its energy reserves.
In the understatement of the year, Peter Henshawa, BP executive at TNK-BP's office in Moscow, says: 'Things are sometimes difficult in Russia.'
Putin's new secret weapon
Tom McGhie, Mail on Sunday
23 November 2006
President Vladimir Putin came to the conclusion three years ago that Russia was sitting on a secret weapon more powerful than all its military might.
Ownership of 30% of the world's gas supply and being the second-biggest oil producer has given him a new and powerful economic bargaining counter.
And the former KGB officer has shown that he intends to use these resources to restore pride in Russia, which suffered in the years after the downfall of communism.
The bad news for Britain is that two of our largest oil companies, BP and Shell, which between them have invested more than £10 billion in Russia, are in the firing line as Putin attempts to get Russia a larger slice of the action. But the treatment meted out to Shell and BP pales into insignificance compared with the brutal way it treated Ukraine last year.
In the midst of negotiations on raising gas prices, the Russians suddenly cut supplies to Ukraine. This was devastating for Ukraine, but also for the rest of Europe, which relies on Russian gas coming through Ukraine's pipelines.
There has been similar pressure using gas as a political and economic weapon on other countries on its borders. What countries such as Lithuania and Georgia have in common is that they are mainly pro-West and have opted out of the Russian sphere of influence.
Earlier this month, Russia was accused by the Georgians of using its gas resources as a political weapon. The complaint came after Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas company, announced that prices would double. This decision came in the middle of a political row between both countries sparking accusations that gas was a tool of Russian foreign policy.
Gela Bezhuashvili, Georgia's foreign minister, says: 'They present it as a commercial deal, but there is a portion of politics in it.'
Russia has a good argument for raising prices. Existing prices are heavily subsidised and half the market rate. And the Kremlin is reluctant to sell cheap gas to countries that have decided to shift their loyalties to the West.
But energy analysts have noted that there is a pattern to demands for price rises. Countries loyal to Russia get a better deal.
Strangely, Russia's crude use of gas has had a beneficial effect on UK energy policy. Suddenly, security of supply has become a key issue with the Prime Minister arguing that Britain must boost its own supplies of energy by restarting a nuclear rebuilding programme and developing our own renewable energy sources such as wind and wave power.
Most Western political leaders recognise that Russia wants to dominate gas supplies to the West, but there is a growing suspicion in the UK that Gazprom wants to dominate the British market.
Gazprom has made no secret that it has been eyeing up Centrica, owner of British Gas, with its 16 million customers.
The advantages to Gazprom are obvious. It would have instant access to a huge new market and it would have an outlet for the gas coming through its pipelines. The UK would, in effect, be at the mercy of the Russians.
But because the British energy market is open and it already has a number of foreign big players, such as EDF of France and Germany's Eon, there are no good obvious reasons for refusing Gazprom entry.
Gordon Brown has made it clear he is not keen on such a move. While it is unlikely that the Government would halt a takeover, to be successful, Gazprom would have to satisfy regulators that it would stick to strict corporate governance-rules. At present, Gazprom is unlikely to pass that test because of the close connections to the Kremlin and its refusal to give up total control of its pipelines.
For Shell and TNK-BP - the joint Russian and British gas company --the dangers of the Kremlin's new aggressive pro-nationalisation policies are more obvious.
In late September, Russia turned up the pressure on massive foreign-led energy projects by ordering an environmental investigation of Shell's Sakhalin venture off the far east coast of Russia and warning TNK-BP over violations at its Kovykta gas field in Siberia.
Russian moves to put the brakes on Shell and Exxon Mobil developments on Sakhalin Island have raised suspicions that the Kremlin is seeking a bigger stake for Gazprom in the multi-billion pound projects, signed when oil prices were lower and power lay with foreign investors.
Russian officials say they are motivated by concerns over the environment - Sakhalin is close to feeding grounds for the endangered gray whale and there are problems with pipes laid on the ground near earthquake areas.
Russia is furious that the fields are running well over budget, cutting into Moscow's future earnings under production-sharing agreements that mean the oil companies will recoup their costs before having to pay any royalties.
Shell has warned that there will be further delays in the project, one of the largest in the world, because of a decision earlier in the month to revoke environmental permits.
The company has infuriated the Kremlin by doubling its estimate of the project's cost to £10.5bn. Exxon's nearby Sakhalin-1 project could cost £8.9bn, a Russian official said last week, a £2.2bn overshoot that Moscow says it will oppose. Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev says there is no question of removing Shell's licence.
Until recently, TNK-BP had escaped Moscow's attentions. But on September 28, prosecutors warned TNK-BP, which holds the licence to the huge Kovykta gas field in Russia's Far East, over violations of environmental law.
TNK-BP says there was no sign of any threat to its licence for Kovykta. Chief executive Robert Dudley says: 'We haven't received anything on this. We've got all the permits in place, we've had all the environmental reviews, so I'm not sure what to make of this.'
Kovykta has reserves of more than two trillion cubic metres of gas, which TNK-BP wants to export to China. But Gazprom has so far allowed it a licence to supply gas only to the local Irkutsk region.
In another blow for foreign operators and energy-hungry Asia refiners, Russia's technical standards watchdog last month said more checks were needed on Exxon's Pacific terminal, meaning regular shipments could not start before mid-November.
Energy industry observers see a pattern in Russia's sudden desire to make things more difficult for foreign firms.
Putin is determined to take control of what he regards as Russia's vital strategic assets. And he believes the agreements struck by Shell and BP were made at a time when the country was weak.
Shell and BP are well aware of the tough new Russian attitude, but are determined to stick it out. They know things are not easy, but they also know that Russia needs the West's skills if it is to exploit its energy reserves.
In the understatement of the year, Peter Henshawa, BP executive at TNK-BP's office in Moscow, says: 'Things are sometimes difficult in Russia.'
Iraq: Saddam Hussein on trial
Iraq
Judging Saddam Hussein
Justice may have been done, but it is a mistake to hang him
Judging Saddam Hussein
Nov 9th 2006
From The Economist print edition
From The Economist print edition
Justice may have been done, but it is a mistake to hang him
| |
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AS WITH every aspect of the war in Iraq, the world's reaction to the death penalty handed down last weekend on Saddam Hussein has been utterly polarised. One view holds that this was “victors' justice” imposed by an illegitimate tribunal after a show trial. Another holds that it was an uplifting example of a mass murderer being held to account. George Bush called it a landmark in Iraq's transition to democracy. Sadly for those who prefer blacks and whites, the truth in this case hovers somewhere between the two extremes. Although the trial had serious defects, it was not a show trial—at least not in the sense its critics say it was. But nor is it likely to help Iraq bind its wounds (see article).
Finding the right way to put dictators and war criminals on trial is never easy. In one sense, these are always show trials—and rightly so. The aim is not only to make an individual pay for his crimes but also to demonstrate something bigger. America hoped that the Nuremberg trials would demonstrate the abhorrence in which the world held the Nazi system, and bring home to the German people America's determination to extirpate that system forever. When Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial for war crimes at a special tribunal at The Hague, one motive was to show that heads of state could not shelter behind claims of impunity. The purpose of the special tribunal investigating the Rwanda genocide is not only to bring the guilty to justice but also to bring reconciliation to a society that was split asunder.
In the case of Mr Hussein it would have been a mistake to follow the Nuremberg model: putting the occupiers in charge would simply have made more Iraqis feel that they had been conquered by foreigners, not liberated from a tyranny. The International Criminal Court established in The Hague in July 2002 was not an option, since it cannot try crimes committed before its inception. There was, besides, a good argument for holding the trial inside Iraq itself, where the crimes took place and where victims and their relatives could more easily follow its progress in a language they understood. But did Iraqi judges have the experience to deliver a fair and impartial process? Doubting that they would, this newspaper advocated a hybrid tribunal, like the one set up in Sierra Leone, that would include foreign judges and operate under international law.
The Americans decided otherwise. The Iraqi Special Tribunal had only Iraqi judges, though they had access to international advisers and the court's rules were modelled on those used in UN tribunals. Its performance has been mixed. Defence lawyers have been killed, and one judge resigned complaining of political pressure. But in spite of this, and in between the harangues, walkouts and moments of farce, a careful legal case, including documentary evidence and the testimony of witnesses, has laid out Mr Hussein's responsibility for the torture and murder of 148 people from the town of Dujail more than two decades ago. In short, it has been neither a perfect trial nor a show trial of the sort in which charges are trumped up, evidence fabricated, the verdict pre-ordained or the defendant denied a chance to answer his accusers.
Many legal and human-rights lobbyists in the West say that the imperfections of the Dujail trial have been so serious that the verdict should be set aside and Mr Hussein should be tried again in an independent international tribunal whose proceedings would be beyond reproach. This newspaper thinks the verdict should stand, but the punishment should not. That is chiefly because capital punishment is wrong in itself, even for monsters like Mr Hussein. Showing greater respect for human life than he ever did would have represented a rare moral victory for Iraq's occupiers. Keeping Mr Hussein alive would also allow other trials detailing far greater evils than Dujail to be completed—such as the one, already begun, in which he stands accused of instigating the so-called Anfal campaign against Iraq's Kurds, in which more than 100,000 people may have been killed and millions uprooted.
Several European governments have also argued against hanging Mr Hussein. Given the violent realities of Iraq, however, outsiders are deluding themselves if they expect scruples such as these to have much impact in Baghdad. Nor would a retrial in a more perfect tribunal do much to alter the way most Iraqis see this business. Most Shias and many Kurds seem to welcome the verdict: they do not care a jot about the technical defects of the trial. As for the Sunnis who were loyal to the previous regime, it is the legitimacy of the present government, not the probity of the court, that is fundamentally in question. When a country in a civil war tries a man who is regarded by one side as a symbol of its cause this will not bring reconciliation, even if it meets the demands of justice.
Lebanon: Gemayel’s death
Syria is a convenient fallguy for Gemayel’s death
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
11/24/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Commentators and columnists are agreed. Pierre Gemayel’s assassination must have been the handiwork of Syria because his Christian Phalangists have been long-time allies of Israel and because, as industry minister, he was one of the leading figures in the Lebanese government’s anti-Syria faction. President Bush thinks so too. Case, apparently, settled.
Unlike my colleagues, I do not claim to know who killed Gemayel. Maybe Syria was behind the shooting. Maybe, in Lebanon’s notoriously intrigue-ridden and fractious political system, someone with a grudge against Gemayel -- even from within his own party -- pulled the trigger. Or maybe, Israel once again flexed the muscles of its long arm in Lebanon.
It seems, however, as if the last possibility cannot be entertained in polite society. So let me offer a few impolite thoughts.
As anyone who watches TV crimes series knows, when there is insufficient physical evidence in a murder investigation for a conviction, detectives examine the motives of the parties who stood to benefit from the crime. Better detectives also consider whether the prime suspect -- the person who looks at first sight to be the guilt party -- is not, in fact, being turned into a fallguy by one of the other parties. The murderer may be the person who benefits most clearly from the crime, or the murderer may be the person who benefits from the prime suspect being fingered for the murder.
As most of our politicians and the media’s commentators have deduced, suspicion falls automatically on Syria because the Christian Phalangists are one of Syria’s main enemies in Lebanon. Partly as a result, they have opposed recent attempts by Syria’s main ally in Lebanon, the Shiite group Hizbullah, to win a greater share of political power.
They are also -- and this seems to clinch it for most observers -- part of the majority in the pro-American government of Fuad Siniora that supports a United Nations tribunal to try the killers of Rafik Hariri, an anti-Syria politician and leader of the Sunni Muslim community, who was blown up by a car bomb more than a year and a half ago.
After all six Shiite ministers walked out of the Siniora cabinet two weeks ago, and now with Gemayel’s assassination, the government is close to collapse, and with it the tribunal that everyone expects to implicate Syria in Hariri’s murder. If Syria can “bump off” another two cabinet ministers and the government loses its quorum, Syria will be off the hook -- or so runs the logic of Western observers.
But does this “evidence” make Syria the prime suspect or the fallguy? How will Syria’s wider interests be affected by the killing, and what about Israel’s interests in Gemayel’s death -- or rather, its interests in Hizbullah or Syria being blamed for Gemayel’s death?
In truth, Israel will benefit in numerous ways from the tensions provoked by the assassination, as the popular and angry rallies in Beirut against Syria and Hizbullah are proving.
First, and most obviously, Hizbullah -- as Syria’s main political and military friend in Lebanon -- has been forced suddenly on to the back foot. Hizbullah had been riding high after its triumph over the summer of withstanding the Israeli assault on Lebanon and routing an invasion force that tried to occupy the country’s south.
Hizbullah’s popularity and credibility rose so sharply that the leaders of the Shiite community had been hoping to cash in on that success domestically by demanding more power. That is one of the reasons why the six Shiite ministers walked out of Siniora’s cabinet.
Despite the way the Shiite parties’ political position has been presented in the West, there is considerable justification for their demands. The system of political representation in Lebanon was rigged decades ago by the former colonial power, France, to ensure that power is shared between the Christian and Sunni Muslim communities. The Shiite Muslims, the country’s largest religious sect, have been kept on the margins of the system ever since, effectively disenfranchised.
With their recent military victory, this was the moment Hizbullah hoped to make a breakthrough and force political concessions from the Sunnis and Christians, concessions that indirectly would have benefited Syria. With Gemayel’s death, the chances of that now look slim indeed. Hizbullah, and by extension Syria, are the losers; Israel, which wants Hizbullah weakened, is the winner.
Second, the assassination has pushed Lebanon to the brink of another civil war. With a political system barely able to contain sectarian differences, and with the various factions in no mood to compromise after the spate of recent assassinations, there is a real danger that fighting will return to Lebanon’s streets.
This will most certainly not be to the benefit of Lebanon or any of its religious communities, who will be dragged into another round of bloodletting. Hizbullah’s underground cadres who took on the Israeli war machine will doubtless have to come out of hiding and will pay a price against other well-armed militias.
The benefits for Syria are at best mixed. A possible benefit is that a bloody civil war may increase the pressure on the United States to talk to Syria, and possibly to invite it to take a leading role again in stabilising Lebanon, as it did during the last civil war.
But, given the continuing ascendancy of the hawks in Washington, it may have the opposite effect, encouraging the US to isolate Syria further.
Conversely, civil war may pose serious threats to Syrian interests -- and offer significant benefits to Israel. If Hizbullah’s energies are seriously depleted in a civil war, Israel may be in a much better position to attack Lebanon again. Almost everyone in Israel is agreed that the Israeli army is itching to settle the score with Hizbullah in another round of fighting. This way it may get the next war it wants on much better terms; or Israel may be able to fight a proxy war against Hizbullah by aiding the Shiite group’s opponents.
Certainly one of the main goals of Israel’s bombing campaign over the summer, when much of Lebanon’s infrastructure was destroyed, appeared to be to provoke such a civil war. It was widely reported at the time that Israel’s generals hoped that the devastation would provoke the Christian, Sunni and Druze communities to rise up against Hizbullah.
Third, Syria is already the prime suspect in Hariri’s murder and in the assasination of three other Lebanese politicians and journalists, all seen as anti-Syrian, over the past 21 months.
The US exploited Hariri’s death, and the widespread protests that followed, to evict Syria from Lebanon. Syria’s removal from the scene also paved the way, whether intentionally or not, for Israel’s assault this summer, which would have been far more dangerous to the region had Syria still been in Lebanon.
Despite the looming threat of the UN tribunal into Hariri’s death, from Syria’s point of view the accusations have grown stale with time and threatened to prove only what everyone in the West already believed. With the walk-out by the Shiite ministers from the Lebanese government, the investigations were looking all but redundant in any case.
Gemayel’s assassination, however, has dramatically revived interest in the question of who killed Hariri and brings Syria firmly back into the spotlight. None of this benefits Syria, but no doubt Israel will be able to take some considerable pleasure in Damascus’s discomfort.
Fourth, the Israeli government has been under international and domestic pressure to engage with Syria and negotiate a return of the Golan Heights, an area of Syrian territory it has been occupying since 1967.
With it would be resolved the fraught question of the Shebaa Farms, still occupied by Israel but which Hizbullah and Syria claim as Lebanese territory that should have been returned in Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. The status of the Shebaa Farms has been one of the main outstanding areas of dispute between Israel and Hizbullah.
President Assad of Syria has been hinting openly that he is ready to discuss Israel’s return of the Golan Heights on better terms for Israel than it has ever before been offered.
According to reports in the Israeli media, Assad is prepared to demilitarise the Golan and turn it into a national park that would be open to Israelis. He would probably also not insist on a precise return to the 1967 border, which includes the northern shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Traditionally Israel’s leaders balked at this idea, and provoked popular fears by conjuring up the vision of Assad’s father, Hafez, dipping his feet in the lake.
But if negotations on the Golan are desperately sought by the young Assad, Israel shows no interest in exploring the option. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has repeatedly ruled out talking to Damascus. That is for several reasons:
* Israel, as might be expected on past form, is not in the mood for making territorial concessions;
* it does not want to end Syria’s pariah’s status and isolation by making a peace deal with it;
* and it fears that such a deal might suggest that negotiations with the Palestinians are feasible too.
Peace with Syria, in Israeli eyes, would inexorably lead to pressure to make peace with the Palestinians. That is most certainly not part of Israel’s agenda.
Gemayel’s death, and Syria being blamed for it, forces Damascus back into the fold of the “Axis of Evil”, and forestalls any threat of talks on the Golan.
Fifth, pressure has been growing in the US Administration to start talking to Syria, if only to try to recruit it to Washington’s “war on terror”. The US could desperately do with local local help in managing its occupation of Iraq. It is unclear whether Bush is ready to make such an about-turn, but it remains a possibility.
Key allies such as Britain’s Tony Blair are pushing strongly for engagement with Syria, both to further isolate Iran -- the possible target of either a US or Israeli strike against its presumed ambitions for nuclear weapons -- and to clear the path to negotiations with the Palestinians.
Gemayel’s death, and Syria’s blame for it, strengthens the case of the neoconservatives in Washington -- Israel’s allies in the Administration -- whose star had begun to wane. They can now argue convincingly that Syria is unreformed and unreformable. Such an outcome helps to avert the danger, from Israel’s point of view, that White House doves might win the argument for befriending Syria.
For all these reasons, we should be wary of assuming that Syria is the party behind Gemayel’s death -- or the only regional actor meddling in Lebanon.
Jonathan Cook is a journalist and writer based in Nazareth, Israel. His book “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State ” is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
Samstag, November 25, 2006
Lebanon Crisis
The Lebanese crisis explained
| By Roger Hardy Middle East analyst, BBC News |
Lebanon is the most politically complex and religiously divided country in the Middle East, which is what makes it such a potentially explosive factor in an unstable region.
Tiny Lebanon baffles outsiders. Even people in the Middle East find its politics confusing.
Set up by France after World War I as a predominantly Christian state, Lebanon is now about 60% Muslim, 40% Christian.
It has 18 officially recognised religious sects and sharing power between them has always been a complicated game.
Lebanese Muslims have tended to look east for support from the other Arab states and from Iran. The Christians have tended to look west to Europe and the United States.
The country's proximity to Israel - and the presence of a large number of Palestinian refugees on its soil - mean it is also intimately tied to the Arab-Israeli dispute.
While Lebanon has plenty of problems of its own, it has also become the arena where many of the region's conflicts and rivalries are played out.
Syrian influence
The long conflict which ravaged the country from 1975 until 1990 was both a civil war and a regional war.
It left Lebanon firmly under Syria's thumb, and with a southern strip of territory occupied by Israel as a buffer zone.
Israel has repeatedly intervened in Lebanon to protect its northern border.
The civil war also drew in Iran to fight Israel and support the Lebanese Shia.
In 1982 Iran created Hezbollah, the Party of God, which has evolved into a major player in Lebanese politics and an important ally of Iran and Syria.
Israeli forces eventually withdrew in 2000 and Syrian forces in 2005.
But while Syria no longer has a military presence, it has retained political influence through its relationship with Hezbollah.
Israeli onslaught
It is against this backdrop of conflict and polarisation that the war on the Lebanese-Israeli border unfolded during the summer.
The capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah provoked a month-long Israeli onslaught.
The areas where the Shia movement enjoys support - south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut - bore the brunt of the Israeli offensive.
This caused large-scale death and destruction but failed to secure the soldiers' release or Hezbollah's defeat.
Hezbollah claimed it had won a "divine victory".
In the aftermath of the war, the country began the task of physical reconstruction - but still plagued by its old divisions.
Polarisation
The government is badly split between anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian factions.
The first is a loose alliance of Sunnis, Christians and Druze (a heterodox offshoot of Islam) and enjoys the support of the United States.
The second is an essentially Shia grouping dominated by Hezbollah, with the backing of Syria and Iran.
Symbolising the polarisation is the fact that the president is pro-Syrian and the prime minister anti-Syrian.
Two things have served to raise the temperature to boiling point.
One is Hezbollah's threat to bring its supporters onto the streets unless there is a cabinet shake-up which would give it veto power over government decisions.
The other is the string of assassinations of anti-Syrian politicians, the latest of whom is Pierre Gemayel.
Seldom has Lebanon looked more fragile.
The outcome of the crisis will influence not just the fate of a small country but the balance of power in the Middle East.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6173322.stm
Published: 2006/11/22 15:51:59 GMT
© BBC MMVI
Freitag, November 24, 2006
Hohe Erdgaspreise als Problem für Grossbritannien
BBC online
Soaring gas prices in Britain are a symptom of the country's failure to spend its historic North Sea windfall wisely, experts have told Panorama.
The high price of gas
| By Steve Bradshaw Reporter, Panorama |
Soaring gas prices in Britain are a symptom of the country's failure to spend its historic North Sea windfall wisely, experts have told Panorama.
Long-term this could mean higher prices for consumers, loss of jobs and even a threat to national energy security, senior industry figures have said.
Some experts believe the industry failed to plan for the current steep fall-off in domestic supplies.
They warn the UK will have to learn how to play power politics with energy.
"When North Sea gas was discovered there were a number of people in Britain who argued that at least a portion of the North Sea gas should be saved, as a national strategic reserve for the future in case Britain had a serious gas supply problem like it did last winter" said Paul Domjan who is a former energy security adviser to the US defence department.
"Sadly none of those people were listened to."
New Reality
For decades Britain has relied on a free market framework for energy policy but analysts in Panorama's film The High Price of Gas are concerned it has gone too far. "A very big fault of the UK market model is it doesn't give the right signals for building storage, and it doesn't value security of supply in the way that it should" said Jonathan Stern of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Britain is also implicitly criticised by one of its own leading gas suppliers, EON Ruhrgas, which owns Powergen.
Dr Jochen Weise, director of gas supply and trading at EON Ruhrgas, said: "I think the issue is how do you tackle the challenges of a market which has been self-reliant for a long time, and becomes import dependent like we are in Germany? "For me the key is to adapt your system to a new reality."
The challenge for Britain now, Panorama reports, is to be honest about the future. Mr Domjan said: ""Reliance on gas means that we're going to have to understand what's going on down the pipeline, that we're going to have to have an accommodation with the Russians, that we're going to have to learn how to play power politics with energy."
A potential lesson for Britain comes from Kazakhstan which has been mocked for its supposedly backward ways in the Borat film.
Nazym Sutbayeva, a young advertising executive, says Kazakhstan should save its newly discovered natural gas reserves "for our kids and the kids of our kids".
Some may wonder if Kazakhstan may not have the last laugh after all.
Video to be found on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6113218.stm
Published: 2006/11/06 12:06:06 GMT
© BBC MMVI
Donnerstag, November 23, 2006
Robert Newman History of oil
| Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman's stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world's oil supplies are finally exhausted. | |
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