New World (Dis-)Order =
The Post-Cold War, Post-Soviet Era
A Narrative Extension of SAC
© Alan Kimball, KFiles
Table of Contents =
Central issues
Conclusions
Chronology, sources and texts
Some Central Issues arranged in taxonomic order [ID] =
I. Mentalities =
*--"The Age of Everything" [EG=Zen Buddhism in USA (TXT)]
*--Crisis of "high culture" and the rise of pop-arts [LOOP]
*--Unease with global democracy =
1929:Spanish
Ortega y Gasset
1934:English Toynbee
1993:USA Samuel P. Huntington
*--Unease with the liberal accomplishments of the 19th and 20th centuries =
II. Institutions =
*--Education and the re-appearance of serious church/state issues
[ID]
*--The media, "values politics", "moral
majorities", and the public sphere
*--Reactionary rebirth? |
Germany |
Austria |
Germany again |
Russia
*--Confusing military might for diplomatic prowess
= NATO
*--Internationalism =
*--Pan-Europeanism = An early prophet in a troubled time (1926)
*--1952jy25: LOOP on European Union [EU]
*--Transnational corporations, EG=Halliburton [Official W]
[Independent W]
III. Society =
*--Immigration
IV. Economy =
*--"Globalization"
*--Confusing "free market" with "democracy"
*--Continuing problem of
"military-industrialism"
V. Geography =
*--Environment; Ecology (the study of
eco-systems); the "Green" movement
In phase three of the European revolution [ID], Europe was globalized far beyond the uni-directional limits set in the earlier imperialistic era. Globalization was no longer a one-way street, from "The West" to the rest of the world. Now globalization came from all directions. European civilization was now transformed in the heat of total war. European civilization was picked up around the world, turned to local purposes, and then aimed back against "The West". The rise of the Japanese empire was the first unexpected and powerful expression of this phenomenon [LOOP on Japan in the era of Meiji Restoration]. Much the same could be said about the rise of Islamic militancy [EG = "Taliban" LOOP].
Managerial state-capitalism was the characteristic pattern of powerful nation-states that rose on the periphery of west Europe = The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, to name only two. The revolutionary European concept "equality", stripped of its sister concept "liberty", dominated a form of command democracy which has become the characteristic ideology of global nation-states. In the early 21st century, the world's most populous nation-state, China, was ruled (managed, administered, employed) by a Communist Party that took its initial inspiration from an 1848 German-language manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
The newer forms of globalization emphasized both positive and negative features of the earlier European revolution of "Westernization". This process of enforced and voluntary, natural and unnatural "Westernization" continued through the epoch of Cold War after WW2 [ID] and even in its aftermath, into the "New World Order" of the 21st century. "Westernization" has not been in all regards a positive process wherever it has been experienced, in "The West" as well as around the globe.
We do not need to adopt the pessimism of Max Weber [ID], but we cannot afford to be naive or complacent. We do not need to accept mendacious appeals to "traditional values" uttered by cynical zealots [ID]. We must cease to be children. We must resist the infantilized versions of our shared heritage. When we grow to adulthood and lose contact with the naiveté and complacency of conventional historical lullabies about "The West", we are compensated for the loss. We are empowered via education together to find or create our own grownup tunes (and they are not to be found on those iPods we see advertised, wrapped around dark silhouettes dancing like spiritless dervishes while tin-pan alley pumps sound into ecstatic heads).
Could it be that some sort of revival of the first and second phases of the European Revolution might offer a way out of Weber-style pessimism and contemporary cynicism? For example =
Here is an essay on the contemporary utility of Madisonian political ideas, especially as they relate to the question of the possibility of democracy in post-Soviet Russia, but also in other areas of the world where democracy has not set down roots or where it is languishing
Here is an essay on pre-Soviet Russian concepts of "civil society"
Some Chronology, sources and texts
<>1991:Kuttner,Robert The
End of Laissez-Faire: National Purpose and the Global Economy After the Cold War
((*1991ap07:MGW| Review by Robert Skidelsky
[ID] observed
that Kuttner, like Paul Kennedy [ID], argues
that USA economic decline in the late cold-war
years was caused by imperialistic overstretch. The economic capacity of the USA
has been eroded by its geopolitical commitments. In other words, the USA
"sacrificed its real economic interests to Cold War imperatives". Skidelsky
wraps it up thusly =
It boils down to this: Successful economies follow the
precepts of Friedrich List [LOOP] and not Adam Smith
[ID]. They do not leave their economic
future to the market: They plan it, and protect themselves against external
disruption. [...] With the Cold War supposedly at an end, America must start
preparing itself for life in a plural, neo-mercantilist world.
The thesis is compelling, but the question remains: Can a national ideology and government
institutions fashioned for [global cold-war] hegemony adapt to a non-hegemonic
world? Or must the United State, like Great Britain, inexorably tread the path
of decline -- even if it is to the sound of gunfire?))
<>2003my19:Jim
Lobe[ID], "Leo Strauss'
Philosophy of Deception". Jim Lobe writes on foreign policy for AlterNet.
His work has also appeared on "Foreign Policy In Focus" and TomPaine.com.
Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz [ID] are
disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use
deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant
masses.
What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but
your intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?
A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get the job
done – people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political
commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the
evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect.
The "right" man for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, suggests Seymour
Hersh in his recent New Yorker article entitled 'Selective Intelligence,' was
Abram Shulsky, director of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) – an agency
created specifically to find the evidence of WMDs and/or links with Al Qaeda,
piece it together, and clinch the case for the invasion of Iraq
[ID].
Like Wolfowitz, Shulsky is a student of [...] Leo Strauss
[ID]. Strauss taught at
several major universities, including Wolfowitz and Shulsky's alma mater, the
University of Chicago, before his death in 1973.
Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his ideas
include prominent figures both within and outside the administration. They
include 'Weekly Standard' editor William Kristol; his father and indeed the
godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol
[ID]; the new
Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a number of senior
fellows at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI
[ID]) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle
[ID] and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the
director of the influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC
[ID]), which is chaired by Kristol the Younger.
Strauss' philosophy is hardly incidental to the strategy and mindset adopted by
these men – as is obvious in Shulsky's 1999 essay titled "Leo Strauss and the
World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)" (in Greek philosophy the
term nous denotes the highest form of rationality). As Hersh notes in his
article, Shulsky and his co-author Schmitt "criticize America's intelligence
community for its failure to appreciate the duplicitous nature of the regimes it
deals with, its susceptibility to social-science notions of proof, and its
inability to cope with deliberate concealment." They argued that Strauss's idea
of hidden meaning, "alerts one to the possibility that political life may be
closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the norm in
political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing
a politics that can dispense with it is the exception."
Rule One: Deception
It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an
administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of
foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in
politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American
democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided
between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike
fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of
these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University
of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who
realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the
right of the superior to rule over the inferior."
This dichotomy requires "perpetual deception" between the rulers and the ruled,
according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,"The people are
told what they need to know and no more." While the elite few are capable of
absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not
cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute truth, they would quickly fall into
nihilism or anarchy, according to Drury, author of 'Leo Strauss and the American
Right' (St. Martin's 1999).
Second Principle: Power of Religion
According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular
democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and
liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving
Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public
sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made
a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why?
Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral
law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control.
At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers
need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the
truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald Bailey, science
correspondent for Reason magazine points out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion
even though they themselves may not be believers."
"Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing,'' Drury says,
because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those
traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society's
ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues that it is this firm belief
in the political utility of religion as an "opiate of the masses" that helps
explain why secular Jews like Kristol in 'Commentary' magazine and other
neoconservative journals have allied themselves with the Christian Right and
even taken on Darwin's theory of evolution.
Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism
Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently
aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful
nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be
governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however,
when men are united – and they can only be united against other people."
Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly
Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it
is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following
Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to
be manufactured (emphases added)."
"Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in," says
Drury. The idea easily translates into, in her words, an "aggressive,
belligerent foreign policy," of the kind that has been advocated by neocon
groups like PNAC and AEI scholars – not to mention Wolfowitz and other
administration hawks who have called for a world order dominated by U.S.
military power. Strauss' neoconservative students see foreign policy as a means
to fulfill a "national destiny" – as Irving Kristol defined it already in 1983 –
that goes far beyond the narrow confines of a " myopic national security."
As to what a Straussian world order might look like, the analogy was best
captured by the philosopher himself in one of his – and student Allen Bloom's –
many allusions to Gulliver's Travels. In Drury's words, "When Lilliput was on
fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he
saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and
appalled by such a show of disrespect."
The image encapsulates the neoconservative vision of the United States'
relationship with the rest of the world – as well as the relationship between
their relationship as a ruling elite with the masses. "They really have no use
for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the name of
liberalism and democracy," Drury says.
<>2006my24:Harper's | Ken Silverstein, "The Professor of Repression"
A year ago this month [06my], security forces in Uzbekistan killed hundreds of
protesters in the town of Andijan. Human rights groups and journalists reported
that the crowd was overwhelmingly unarmed and had come out to protest corruption
and poor economic conditions. “The scale of this killing was so extensive, and
its nature was so indiscriminate and disproportionate, that it can best be
described as a massacre,” Human Rights Watch said in a study of the events at
Andijan.
The regime of Islam Karimov sought to justify the carnage by saying that the
demonstration was organized by Islamic militants seeking to overthrow the
government (an argument the Uzbek government knows is music to the ears of the
Bush Administration). Last week the Karimov regime sought to prove its case by
staging the U.S. debut of a short video on the Andijan crackdown. The event was
sponsored by the Hudson Institute and the Central Asia Caucasus Institute (CACI
[ID])
at Johns Hopkins University, and co-hosted by CACI director Professor S.
Frederick Starr. An account at EurasiaNet.org said that Starr “sought to
undermine the credibility of several independent news accounts . . . alleging
journalists deliberately falsified their stories. ‘I think they were lying . . .
of course they had an anti-government agenda,’” he said.
It was all in a day's work for Starr, who is perhaps the Karimov regime's most
outspoken advocate in Washington—a regime that once tortured a political
prisoner to death with methods that included the use of boiling water and then
arrested his elderly mother when she complained. He also speaks fondly of
several other despotic governments in central Asia, a region he views almost
exclusively through the prism of American geopolitical interests and with little
interest in issues like human rights and corruption.
Starr, an advisor on Soviet Affairs to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W.
Bush, is described by those who know him as charming, erudite, and brilliant.
His 1983 book,
Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, is widely
considered to be one of the most intellectually scintillating feats of Cold War
scholarship. Starr is a past director of Sidanko, a Russian energy corporation,
and Rector Pro Tem at the University of Central Asia.
Starr has led CACI since it was founded in 1996, and he has actively sought
friendly relationships with Central Asian governments and leaders. He even wrote
the preface to the 1998 English-language version of Karimov's page-turner,
Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century. Starr wrote that
Uzbekistan had “made impressive strides” since gaining independence in 1991,
including putting “in place the main elements of a more consultative and
responsive government,” and went on to approvingly cite Karimov's assertion that
“social harmony and stability are the essential conditions for reform and not
merely its consequences.” Translation: “Until the population stops complaining
about my leadership, reform is impossible and political repression required.”
CACI has also worked closely with the Bush administration. Starr is especially
tight with vice president Dick Cheney's office and is friendly with ex-Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank; Wolfowitz is also
the former dean of John Hopkins's School of Advanced International Studies,
where CACI is housed. The Pentagon has long sought to justify its ties to
Central Asian regimes and Starr has been happy to deliver the requisite
intellectual underpinnings. At the request of the Joint Chiefs of Staff he
helped author a 2001 study, Strategic Assessment of Central Asia, which was
produced by CACI and the Atlantic Council. “The U.S. government uses his
institute as a bridge to deepening relationships with governments in the
region,” said a person familiar with CACI and who asked to speak off the record.
CACI works closely with the local Uzbek embassy and Starr sometimes appears on
Capitol Hill, where he offers testimony that invariably supports the regime. At
one congressional hearing in 2004 he said that Uzbekistan was making important
strides on democracy and attacked human rights groups, suggesting that they were
exaggerating problems under Karimov.
Starr also is frequently cited in the press, where his close ties to the
government go unnoted and he is identified merely as an independent academic
expert. In a 2004 story in the Washington Times, he decried Congress's refusal
to certify that Uzbekistan was making progress on human rights, which had led to
a partial aid cutoff. "This is a shortsighted, poorly informed and
self-defeating decision that contradicts the view of some of the best experts in
the State Department itself and of independent experts as well," he told the
newspaper. “The decertification is a body blow to many known reformers in the
Uzbek government.”
On May 16, 2005, just days after the Andijan massacre, Starr was already
peddling the Karimov regime's line in an interview on NPR. He generally blamed
problems in the country on Islamic militants, described the country as a
“linchpin of the region,” and said a revolution there "could be a disaster." The
United States, said Starr, has “a very serious interest there, not jut a
security one but a large regional one because it borders all the countries in
the region.”
Starr doesn't just do Uzbekistan. He served as an election observer to
Kazakhstan's 2004 parliamentary vote, a trip sponsored by a group called the
International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC). Starr and an “independent”
observer team that included ITIC's president, Daniel Witt, said that while much
of the Western media “judged the election a failure,” it had concluded that the
balloting marked “a real and even notable step forward.”
Starr and Witt were back to “monitor” the following year's presidential vote in
Kazakhstan and they again disagreed with the majority of observers who denounced
the election as badly flawed. “While there were shortcomings compared to
international standards, it was a genuine competition and represented an
important step forward, not only for Kazakhstan but the entire region,” they
wrote. As with the 2004 ITIC report, the Kazakh embassy in Washington posted the
assessment on its web site.
So what exactly is the ITIC? According to the group's web site, it is a
non-profit organization “that is helping to lower barriers to tax, trade and
investment in transition economies by facilitating the exchange of information
and know-how between Western executives and government officials in these
countries.” Witt emphasized in an email to me that ITIC receives no funding from
the Kazakh government. That's correct—but he does get cash from a host of
companies and organizations with interests in Kazakhstan, including the American
Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan, ChevronTexaco, China National Petroleum
Corporation, ExxonMobil, Halliburton, the Kazakhstan Petroleum Association,
Marathon Oil Corporation, and Occidental Petroleum.
I emailed back to ask Witt if such funding undermined ITIC's claim of
independence. “ITIC does NOT do election related work,” he replied. “These two
election related missions were more my personal desire to further promote
economic reforms and show the positive correlation with political reforms. Thus,
there was NO influence on the above mission reports and related op-ed/articles
from any of our sponsors or board members.”
Right. I'm sure Witt would deem as impartial an election observer team sent to
Cuba by a group that was funded by companies with billions invested on the
island. His assertion that ITIC does no election work seems equally bizarre,
especially as a statement by his team of observers was put out on ITIC
letterhead and both reports are on the group's web site.
Starr has also lent a helping hand to the regime in Azerbaijan. In October of
2002, Ilham Aliyev – who has since succeeded his father as president but was
then First Vice-President of the state oil company, a member of parliament,
Vice-Chairman of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, and head of the national
Olympic Committee—visited Washington for meetings with Bush administration
officials and with “prominent policy thinkers,” according to a statement from
the Azeri government, which listed Starr in the latter category.
During that visit, Aliyev also spoke at Johns Hopkins, an event sponsored by
Starr's CACI and Harvard University's Caspian Studies Program, the latter which
has converted itself into the Azeri government's unofficial press agency. The
Caspian Studies Program was launched in 1999 with a $1 million grant from the
United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce—whose past and present advisors and
directors include Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, and Brent
Scowcroft—and a consortium of companies led by ExxonMobil and Chevron. Its
inaugural program was a panel discussion featuring Ilham Aliyev.
Unlike Harvard, Starr apparently doesn't charge for his services. He told me
that CACI receives no funding from Central Asian governments or oil companies
other than $25,000 annually from Chevron during the Institute's first few years
of existence, which Starr said was cut off because the company disagreed with
certain positions taken by CACI. Given Starr's record, that's true ingratitude.
<>2006de21:ASHGABAT (Reuters report by Marat Gurt) - Turkmenistan
President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov died suddenly on Thursday after 21 years
of iron rule in which he crushed all dissent, raising fears of instability in
the isolated but energy-rich Central Asian state.
He was 66.
Niyazov, who fostered a bizarre personality cult as absolute ruler of a country
with huge natural gas reserves, died overnight of cardiac arrest, state
television said.
His funeral was set for December 24 and the government fixed December 26 for the
desert nation's highest representative body to meet to decide on the succession
and name a date for elections.
Turkmenistan has never held an election judged fair by Western monitors. Until
the new polls, which have to take place within two months, Deputy Prime Minister
Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, 49, will be acting head of state.
Niyazov, who held all top posts, left no designated heir and his death raised
concerns about the transfer of power in the ex-Soviet nation of 5 million, where
foreign oil and gas companies are keen to invest.
Turkmenistan is a vital link in the supply chain between former Soviet gas
fields and European Union consumers since it meets the demands of the huge
Ukrainian market, freeing up Russian gas for Europe.
Once a Soviet apparatchik, Niyazov took the title of "Turkmenbashi (Head of the
Turkmen) the Great" and had thousands of portraits and statues of him set up
throughout the country.
They include a statue in gold leaf that rotates to face the sun in the capital
Ashgabat. He renamed the month of January after himself and his name was also
given to a sea port and even a meteorite.
Niyazov's health had long been the subject of speculation among
Turkmenistan-watchers and foreign investors. After heart surgery in 1997, he
quit smoking and ordered all his ministers to follow suit. He had publicly
admitted to heart problems.
Flags flew at half-mast on Thursday from public buildings in Ashgabat, a Soviet
city grandly reconstructed to showcase Niyazov's power.
Workers removed all New Year decorations from the streets and television ran
still images of a national flag in a black-bordered frame as an orchestra played
solemn tunes.
The public mood appeared calm but, given Niyazov's long, unchallenged rule, some
expressed concerns for the future.
"I'm worried that a power struggle will start now. I just hope there will be no
civil war," Rumina, a school teacher who declined to give her last name, told
Reuters at a local market.
FIGHT FOR POWER?
Under the constitution, Parliament head Ovezgeldy Atayev should have
automatically become acting head of state. But, in a sign of political tensions,
justice officials immediately opened a criminal probe into his activities,
blocking his appointment.
"I expect there will be a massive fight for power now in Turkmenistan and it's
likely to take place between pro-U.S. and pro-Russian forces," said a Russian
gas industry source, who declined to be named. "Gas will become the main coin of
exchange and the key asset to get hold of."
Although others doubted any successor would want to put vital gas contracts at
risk, one EU diplomat in Moscow said: "If there is a change in gas policy, that
would have an impact on Ukraine and then on the European supplies. It's a domino
game."
Niyazov brooked no dissent and was criticized by human rights groups for
flouting basic freedoms and allowing torture.
International rights campaigners urged Turkmenistan to release hundreds of
jailed political prisoners.
"We can only hope that his successors will ... honor the fundamental rights and
freedoms the people have been cynically denied," said the International Helsinki
Federation for Human Rights.
In a statement, the U.S. embassy in Ashgabat said Washington hoped "for a
peaceful, smooth, constitutional succession". The Kremlin urged Ashgabat to
continue good ties with Russia.
Berdymukhamedov, the new acting president, is said by the opposition to be
related to Niyazov. He was earlier named to head a commission handling the
funeral.
But the country's constitution appears to rule out an acting president standing
as candidate for election as head of state.
Exiled Turkmen opposition activists said they intended to immediately try to
return home.
"Our first task is to return to Turkmenistan within hours ... In Turkmenistan
there is no opposition, they all sit in prisons or under home arrest. But
outside the country opposition exists and it is coming back," one activist,
Parakhad Yklymov, told Reuters by telephone from Sweden.
(Additional reporting by Gleb Bryanski, Dmitry Zhdannikov, Tom Miles and Elif
Kaban in Moscow)
<>2006de25:MOGADISHU
(Reuters report by Guled Mohamed) - Ethiopian warplanes
attacked two Islamist-held airfields in Somalia on Monday, including in the
capital Mogadishu, in the most dramatic strikes yet of a war threatening to
engulf the Horn of Africa.
Witnesses said the attacks came hours after neighboring Ethiopia formally
declared war, saying it was protecting its sovereignty against an Islamist
movement.
Fighting raged for a seventh day near Daynunay, close to the town of Baidoa,
seat of Somalia's weak interim government which is backed by Ethiopia.
Witnesses reported truck-loads of Ethiopian wounded being evacuated, and
Islamist soldiers were said to be reciting the Koran as they went into battle.
A MiG fighter struck Mogadishu's international airport with machinegun fire soon
after dawn, airport managing director Abdirahim Adan told Reuters.
Three jets later attacked Somalia's biggest military airfield at Baledogle, 100
km (60 miles) west of Mogadishu.
"They are targeting the runway and I can see it being hit," said an Islamist
fighter who asked not to be named.
The week of intense fighting between Islamists and the Ethiopian- and Western-
backed secular interim government has turned long-running hostilities into open
war.
Analysts say Ethiopia seems to have halted the initial Islamist assault and
saved the government from being overrun.
The Somalia Islamic Courts Council's (SICC) Web site hailed "mujahideen" troops
who, it said, chanted passages from the Koran as they went into battle against
militarily superior Ethiopian "crusaders".
Addis Ababa and Washington say the Islamists, who hold most of southern Somalia
after seizing Mogadishu in June, are backed by al Qaeda and by Ethiopia's enemy,
Eritrea.
Ethiopia has vowed to protect the government, which is virtually encircled by
Islamist fighters in Baidoa, halfway between Mogadishu and the Ethiopian border.
A government spokesman said the administration approved of the Ethiopian use of
air power. The government also said it had closed all borders -- a largely
symbolic measure given that it has little power beyond Baidoa.
THREAT TO ADDIS
Ethiopia said it had attacked the capital's airport to stop "illegal flights"
following the closure of Somalia's borders.
"It was also reported some of the extremists were waiting for an airlift out of
Mogadishu," an Ethiopian spokesman said.
Aid agencies, struggling to get help to more than a million Somalis afflicted by
conflict and weeks of floods in one of the world's poorest countries, said they
had not been told about the closure of borders.
The Islamists accused Ethiopia of targeting civilians, and repeated a threat to
attack its capital. "We shall strike Addis Ababa the way they hit Mogadishu,"
SICC spokesman Abdirahman Ali Mudey said. "These air strikes will not continue
... even if it means getting weapons from outside."
Government Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told Reuters 8,000 foreign fighters
had poured into Somalia to back the SICC. He agreed with a recent U.S.
accusation that the movement's top ranks were controlled by al Qaeda.
Both sides say they have killed hundreds of opponents in days of battles with
mortars, rockets, machineguns and tanks, but there has been no independent
verification.
Residents said Ethiopian troops took control of Baladwayne town on Monday after
a day of bombing to uproot the Islamists.
Ethiopian forces also encircled the towns of Dinsoor and Buur Hakaba, an
Ethiopian military spokesman told Ethiopian television late on Monday. In nearby
Baidoa, locals saw Ethiopian military trucks ferrying wounded troops to the
airport.
"I can see seven big trucks carrying wounded Ethiopian soldiers lying on
blood-stained mattresses," taxi driver Abdullahi Hassan told Reuters by
telephone.
The Islamists claim broad popular support and say their main aim is to restore
order to Somalia under sharia law after years of anarchy since the 1991 ouster
of dictator Siad Barre.
Addis Ababa fears a hardline Muslim state on its doorstep and accuses the SICC
of wanting to annex Ethiopia's ethnically Somali Ogaden region.
(Additional reporting by Sahal Abdulle in Mogadishu, Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis
Ababa and Daniel Wallis in Nairobi)
<>2007ja02:MOGADISHU
(Reuters report by C. Bryson Hull and Sahal Abdulle) -
Ethiopian troops will stay for now in Somalia to help the victorious government
pacify the Horn of Africa nation after a two-week war to oust militant
Islamists, both countries said on Tuesday.
Tightening the net on defeated Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) fighters
fleeing south, neighboring Kenya said it had closed its porous and long
northeastern border and hosted Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf for security
talks.
A triumphant Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi -- who lauded his troops for
turning the war against the Islamists -- said his forces would only stay "for a
few weeks" while the government pacifies the chaotic nation.
His planes, tanks and troops helped the Somali interim government drive out the
Islamists from Mogadishu last week, after breaking free from its provincial
outpost Baidoa to end six months of Islamist rule across much of southern
Somalia.
"It is up to the international community to deploy a peacekeeping force in
Somalia without delay to avoid a vacuum and the resurgence of extremists and
terrorists," Meles said.
In Mogadishu -- where the interim government set up gun collection points at the
start of a drive to disarm one of the world's most dangerous cities -- Somali
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said Ethiopian troops may in fact stay for
months.
"The Ethiopians will leave when they clear terrorists and pacify Somalia. It
will be ... weeks and months, not more."
The Somali government also called for an African peacekeeping mission --
endorsed by the United Nations before the war -- to be deployed as soon as
possible.
Uganda has provisionally offered a battalion but said on Tuesday it was
unwilling to deploy unless its mission and exit strategy were clearly defined.
Nigeria may also help.
The U.S.-backed Contact Group on Somalia is due to meet in Brussels on Wednesday
to discuss the situation.
Despite the Islamists' surprisingly quick flight, analysts and diplomats say the
conflict may be far from over.
The Islamists, joined by some foreign fighters, may launch an Iraqi-style
insurgency against a government they see as propped up by a hated and
Christian-led foreign power.
Gedi said Eritrean, Ethiopian rebel and Arab fighters had been taken prisoner
during the recent fighting in "a clear sign foreign fighters are involved".
The government has offered an amnesty to Somali fighters, -- some of whom the
government says have been in touch -- but insists captured foreigners will face
the courts.
"NO SACRED COWS"
The government has told Mogadishu residents to hand over their weapons by
Thursday or be forcibly disarmed. "There will be no sacred cows," said
Information Minister Ali Jama.
Gedi, who added that Somalia had re-opened its airspace, said many had flocked
to collection points, but at one seen by Reuters, not a single gun had been
handed in. Traders said gun prices had gone up and some were still buying
weapons.
The interim government's legitimacy hinges on installing itself in the capital
and restoring central rule for the first time since the 1991 overthrow of
dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The task is complicated by the return of warlords hoping to restore fiefdoms
they ran before the SICC -- which pacified Mogadishu by enforcing sharia,
Islamic law -- chased them out.
Despite a U.N. arms embargo, the war-scarred capital on the Indian Ocean is one
of the world's most gun-infested cities.
Speaking from a hideout, SICC spokesman Abdirahim Ali Mudey poured scorn on the
government's disarmament drive, saying it would be unable to unite Somalia's
clan-based society.
"Some clans will fight back because trust does not yet exist," Mudey said by
telephone, without revealing his location.
After fleeing their last stronghold in the southern port of Kismayu on Monday in
the face of an Ethiopian bombardment, Islamist fighters and leaders have moved
further south.
"Anyone who hands in his weapon will be forgiven," Somalia's defense minister,
Colonel Abdikadir Adan Shire, also known as Barre Hiraale, told a huge victory
rally in Kismayu on Tuesday.
Kenya said it was trying to keep fleeing fighters out.
"The border with Somalia has been closed and some have been prevented from
entering into our side. In fact about 100 people have been sent back," Ananiah
Mwaboza, Kenya's assistant minister for immigration, told Reuters.
Residents say some Islamist fighters have re-grouped in the hilly Buur Gaabo
region, just on the Somali side of the border.
U.S. warships were patrolling off Somalia to stop SICC leaders or foreign
militant supporters escaping, diplomats said.
(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Mogadishu; Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis
Ababa; George Obulutsa, Nico Gnecchi, David Mageria, Andrew Cawthorne in
Nairobi)
<>2007ja02:TEHRAN
(Reuters report by By Parisa Hafezi) - President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran would not retreat from its right to nuclear
technology and that a U.N. resolution imposing sanctions on Iran was "invalid."
"The Iranian nation is wise and will stick to its nuclear work and is ready to
defend it completely," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to a rally in the
southern city of Ahvaz.
"The U.N. resolution against Iran's atomic work has no validity for Iranians. It
is illegal and politically motivated."
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on December 23 to impose sanctions
on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology in an attempt to
stop uranium enrichment work that could produce material that could be used in
bombs.
Ahmadinejad said some world powers were bullying Iran over its nuclear program.
"If bullying powers ... want to resist (Iranians' will), we will give them a
historic slap in the face," he said, as the crowd chanted "Death to America."
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, insists it wants to produce fuel
for nuclear power plants and dismisses charges it is trying to produce nuclear
weapons.
Government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham, echoing the tough line taken by
Iranian leaders, indicated on Tuesday that Iran might cold-shoulder the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by quitting the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"It is up to the government to decide whether it wants to pull out of the NPT,
if pressured," Elham told a weekly news conference.
Iran's parliament reacted to the U.N. sanctions by passing a bill on Wednesday
obliging the government to "revise" its level of cooperation with the IAEA and
to accelerate its drive to master nuclear technology.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say in nuclear and other
matters and he, like Ahmadinejad, has insisted Iran will not give up its atomic
plans.
Ahmadinejad said Iran's nuclear program was not a threat to Middle East
stability.
"Iran's power is not a threat to any regional country ... Our power is at the
service of the region's peace, stability and development," he said, speaking in
the capital of Khuzestan province, the heartland of Iran's oil industry.
U.S. and British officials have accused Iran of aiding terrorism and armed
groups inside Iraq, undermining the Lebanese government and blocking
Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Ahmadinejad accused the United States and Britain, which led the invasion of
Iraq in 2003, of creating tension in the region. "By imposing insecurity and
ethnic clashes in Iraq, they want to strengthen their presence in the region,"
he said. "But sooner or later the occupiers will have to leave Iraq."
<>2007ja:GOOGLE Larry Korb
and Peter Singer, and also search warnewsradio.org
for info on private contractors in USA mlt, very active in IRQ & AFG, including
gjn cmp~. As many as 60 thousand US soldiers are not USA citizens.
<>2007oc12:RFE/RL|
Robert Coalson, "Russia: Demonstrations,
But No Protests"| -- Early last month, 13 participants in a Moscow
demonstration to mark the third anniversary of the Beslan tragedy were detained
and taken to court. Earlier this month, more than 10,000 pro-Kremlin youth
activists gathered in the center of Moscow to celebrate President Vladimir Putin's 55th birthday.
The two incidents are clear illustrations of the Russian state's two-pronged
policy on demonstrations as the country's election season moves into high
gear.
The clampdown on non-Kremlin-friendly demonstrations has been going on for
over a year now, an important part of the administration's strategy for
marginalizing all opposition. On September 30, the nongovernmental
organization (NGO) Legal Team issued a statement decrying the government's
restriction of the right to demonstrate. Legal Team said that almost all
opposition demonstrations in 2007 were either banned or dispersed and that
the government had succeeded in associating protest in the public mind with
violence and arrests. In late September, state-owned Rossiia television
aired a prime-time "special report" in which it was claimed that opposition
demonstrators routinely provoke the police into attacking them.
Increasingly Isolated Protests
Moreover, Legal Team noted that penalties for participating in
demonstrations have become more severe. While in the past it was normal to
receive an administrative fine, now detainees are often sentenced to 15 days
in jail following summary legal proceedings that do not ensure their rights.
The statement said detainees are rarely given access to counsel or allowed
to call witnesses and that sentencing is often based exclusively on police
reports. Activists with the NGO told "Kommersant" that Moscow had adopted a
policy of granting permission for opposition demonstrations only in areas
far from the center of town and noted that provincial cities have followed
suit.
According to the activists, Moscow authorities have not given permission for
a single opposition-organized march all year, authorizing only rallies in
remote locations. Aleksei Kozlov, an activist with the Groza movement, told
"Gazeta" that Aeroflot, Russian Railways, and other state-controlled
transport companies routinely provide information about the movements of
activists around the country to the police."
At stations and airports, people who are on these lists are detained by
police and questioned," Kozlov said. Legal Team expert Natalia Zvyagina told
"Kommersant" that pro-Kremlin groups routinely ask for and are granted
permission to hold multiple demonstrations at high-visibility locations, and
that the authorities use these permissions as an excuse to deny permission
to opposition groups.
Driving Opposition Underground
As traditional rallies and demonstrations become increasingly problematic,
opposition figures have been forced to adopt guerrilla tactics that, while
often clever, give the impression of frivolousness. "Since demonstrations
and pickets have been banned, the [Union of Rightist Forces, or SPS] has
developed a new technology of civic protest," SPS campaign chief Anton Bakov
told gazeta.ru on October 11. "We are moving to actions in stores and on
public transport."
A few hundred SPS supporters today converged on a Moscow supermarket that is
part of a chain owned by Unified Russia supporter and State Duma Deputy
Vladimir Gruzdev as part of an action intended to draw attention to rising
prices for foodstuffs. Of course, it is even more easily justified for the
authorities to crack down on actions of this sort staged in private
businesses and public-transport locations.
However, in Russia today not all demonstrations are equal. Pro-Kremlin
groups -- especially the youth groups Nashi, Youth Guard, and Mestnye
(Locals) -- carry out demonstrations without hindrance all over the country.
Opposition leader Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Kasyanov routinely face
disruptive pickets and demonstrations when they attempt to make public
appearances.
Last month, Nashi picketers blockaded the entrance to a resort outside
Moscow where Kasyanov was scheduled to give a speech. On October 11, Nashi
activists in Rostov-na-Donu staged a demonstration at a book presentation by
SPS Political Council member Boris Nemtsov, handing out "dollars" from
Nemtsov's "overseas protectors."
The crackdown on public demonstrations is just one of the most visible and
blatantly unconstitutional ways in which the authorities are strictly
controlling the political environment in Russia in order to manufacture a
false consensus in the upcoming elections. Moreover, it shows how thoroughly
the police and courts have been subordinated to the task of achieving the
political ends of the Putin administration.
The latest Levada Center opinion poll shows Unified Russia with some 68
percent support. On October 11, Putin held a closed-door meeting with the
heads of all of Russia's regions. The process of generating a landslide is
under full steam.
<>2010fa:Russian political "philosopher"
and Moscow State University lecturer, Boris Mezhuev, offered
the following views on USA President Obama’s adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski
[source] =
Brzezinski is back on political stage. In his recent book he writes,
America urgently needs to fashion a truly post-Cold War globalist foreign policy. It still can do so if the next president, aware that the strength of a great power is diminished if it ceases to serve an idea, tangibly relates American power to the aspirations of politically awakened humanity.
Thus, the former US Security Council clearly outlines a personality capable to promote US leadership under
global shift of the world policy. Brzezinski sees Obama as a sole “savior” bringing change not only to
the United States country but to the whole world.
The Obama-Brzezinski duo arouses suspicion in many countries. Brzezinski's backing of Stephen Walt
and John Mearsheimer (authors of The Israel Lobby) has been harshly criticized by rightist
Israelis. Meanwhile, Obama counters allegations that he would sacrifice Israel in return for a settlement
with the Muslim world. Though that’s probably what Brzezinski wants him to do.
Brzezinski updates his political vocabulary with a new phrase: “the global political awakening”. Brzezinski
asserts that, "the worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon
of global political awakening." He perceives the global political awakening as fundamental reality and
driving force of history, incapable of being overcome through conservative approach and even suicidal
for those who dare. He writes that only by identifying itself with the idea of universal human dignity
can America overcome the risk that the global political awakening will turn against it that is to say
instead of scrambling to retain existing balance America should lead the revolutionary change.
Being perfectly aware of anti-Western sentiment as a central fact of global political awakening he
writes that
global political awakening is historically anti-imperial, politically anti-Western, and emotionally increasingly anti-American. In the process, it is setting in motion a major shift in the global center of gravity. That in turn is altering the global distribution of power, with major implications for America’s role in the world.
Obviously, the foremost geopolitical effect of global political awakening – let’s name it world
revolution - is the demise of America as a global empire, decline of a “New Pax Americana” and beginning
of post-imperial age.
Brzezinski concludes,
Anti-Westernism is thus more than a populist attitude. It is an integral part of the shifting global demographic, economic and political balance. Not only does the non-Western population already far outnumber the Euro-Atlantic world (by 2020, Europe and North America are likely to account for only 15 percent of the world population), but the non-West’s awakened political aspirations generate significant momentum for the ongoing redistribution of power. The resentments, emotions, and quest for status of billions are a qualitative new factor of power.
Brzezinski’s speculations on US leading a “world revolution” are not really brand new. After the Second
World War the USA was all busy with “interception and rerouting” of revolutionary activities towards
their rivals – British Empire and later Soviet Union.
However, Brzezinski goes beyond. He considers Islamism as a legitimate and most powerful emanation
of global political awakening. This is kind of political protest to counter Western imperial
domination. He assumes that ongoing complex processes depend in many respects on US ability to deal
with Islamic world. Otherwise it will be China’s gain.
Then he comes up with a clear statement that the US has to be in the forefront of Islam’s revival
if it wants to lead world change. He sees US – Islamic link as a key success factor and consequent
China’s joining would eventually turn this alliance to triumphant trio reestablishing America as a global leader.
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