Friday, June 27, 2008
Saturday, June 07, 2008
An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of India
Dr Manmohan Singh
Hon' Prime Minister
Government of India
New Delhi
Shri P Chidambaram
Hon' Finance Minister
Government of India
(email address not in the address field)
Shri Ratan Tata
Chairman Emeritus
Tata Sons Limited
Shri R Seshasayee
President
Confederation of Indian Industry
Dr. Charat Ram
Chairman
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
Mr Arvind Mayaram
Joint Secretary
Department of Economic Affairs
Government of India
Ms Shyamala Shukla
Director Infrastructure
Department of Economic Affairs
Government of India
Ms Anna Roy
Joint Director
Department of Economic Affairs
Government of India.
Mr Jayant Bhuyan
India Brand Equity Foundation
Hon' Prime Minister,
During the last 20 years India has emerged to be more prosperous, there is visible affluence, enormous business activity and India has gained considerable respectability among the nations of the world.
But, all the progress that we have made so far manifest more as "5 Star Progress" than as improvement in the common man's quality of life, which has also happened, but relatively to a lesser extent. Today we have hotels and restaurants equally or more luxurious than the ones in the West, cars as luxurious, planes as big, shops as various and upper-class as those in the fashion districts of the world. But the quality of treatment in a government hospital or the hygiene there has not improved. Train travel and terminal facilities remain the same. Buses stop en route at wrong, cheap food stalls with no facilities. Middle and lower class "restaurants" and dhaba like outfits remain the same in terms of quality of food preparation. food service and hygiene. Potable water is not only not potable, but also disease prone and Public toilets anywhere in India are a nightmare, and even in an unhygienic form they don't exist in most places where they are needed.
This note is written, largely in admiration of our government that took on a wise, cautious reform path that produced results without repeating the disastrous effects of the Latin American / East Asian nations that followed the reform path. India's reform path is a sustained, wise path. As a result of this necessary caution, the effect of reforms are slow to permeate all levels of society.
To carry the reform to the next level, GOVERNMENT NEEDS HELP, AND IT CAN COME FROM PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, if government is willing to partner with the Private Sector in an imaginative way.
I, as an individual entrepreneur, willing to elaborate further, or to actually initiate the model, am proposing a neo-investment model that would BRING BACK THE PUBLIC SECTOR in a form far more efficient than that of the international private sector. The following is an outline of the concept with some micro examples. Please go through this write up and examine the concept. This is a way of business-thinking that would cause the reforms to percolate down to the level of common man.
Concept: A Government - private partnership, Government of India's share being monetary or non-monetary, Private partnership being enterprise / monetary, with the Government's benefits defined as uncompromising Quality of Life enhancement standards apart from due returns for its monetary / non-monetary share of investment
Example Projects: US $ 1 to 5 billion committed by a consortium of private corporations, as a consortium or as several independent corporations, to modernize Railway station / Bus Terminal infrastructure in exchange for the right to commercially "own" a long time-share of part of the built up space, built up as commercially prime properties, built and developed to a pre-agreed design of futuristic world class standards. The model is not confined to transportation infrastructure but can stretch to several other areas such as housing, health care and sanitation.
Micro Example 1: An area of about 500 hectares that presently houses the Chennai Central Railway Station, Chennai Central Jail, Government Hospital and the Chennai Suburban Train Station together with a 40 foot wide, 500-700 meter long road is to be leased out to a consortium of private companies. The consortium will re-topograph the entire area and rebuild world class facilities - a more modern, more humanitarian and more secure prison at the same location or elsewhere, a more hygienic and healthier hospital building of twice the capacity combined with even more modern equipment, a world class passenger terminal integrated with a suburban terminal, a bus terminal, a taxiway and a Skywalk.
On all this the private partner would spend, FREE of cost to the Ministry of Railways, Prison Authority and the Department of Health, a sum of between $ 300 million - $ 600 million on very rough estimates, within a time span of 2-4 years. The consortium would require the Government of India's partnership in the form of causing the necessary harmony between the various ministries and departments happen. Government of India's participation would also be in enabling the Project Execution at International speed, free of ALL governmental bottlenecks in this project that might not have had a precedent ( for e.g taking a strip of highway underground, or constructing a Sky Walk over the highway with commercial pathway structures.
The re-topography exercise would integrate properties on both sides of the road into a single complex, with a wider road in the same place, a better traffic design for smoother vehicular traffic and safer and convenient pedestrian traffic. The private partner would design and build a world class high-traffic infrastructure as an integrated colossal passenger terminal to International Airport standards as a confluence of a train station, a bus terminal, a suburban station, a taxi station and a world class freight terminal. The private partner would undertake to build such a facility with a clause not to disrupt or dislocate existing operation of any of these facilities during the Reconstruction process.
The private partner would build and operate the public facilities in the Railway Station, Suburban Station and the Hospital to world class standards as free and nominally charged facilities, MAINTAIN the facilities as a five star hotel would, all in exchange for the right to "own" the commercial zone inlaid and built around the entire mega infrastructure complex, The total area leased out by the Ministry of Railways would be an area of about five hundred hectares of prime property (in very broad estimates, not assessed), out of which 300 hectares would be the Train Station Terminal, the Hospital, Suburban Train Station, Long Travel and City Bus Station, a Taxi Port and zones like Lobbies, Public Facilities, Retiring Rooms, Waiting Rooms, Waiting Areas, Toilets, Bath rooms, Emergency Medical Rooms, Reservation counters, Ticket Counters, Water Fountains, Baggage Cart ports, Baggage conveyors, Escalators, Lifts, Automatic People moving lines or level "escalators". The private partner would manage as a 5 star hotel would, the security of the environment, discipline in porter assistance, courtesy in passenger assistance, cleanliness in facilities, quality and hygiene in food courts / food counters / food trolleys, availability of FREE drinking water, standards in bottled water as also make available Vandal-proof, well engineered baggage carts and related passenger comforts. The private partner will pay attention to the quality of food and beverages on an ongoing basis while ensuring mandatory availability of good food at Indian Low Income group prices while not excluding access to high-priced food stalls / restaurants.
Micro Example 2. Purified Water over a stainless steel pipeline : This is a concept for a utility company providing CLEAN water over two pipelines, one potable and other for other uses, to every home in Chennai and other major cities replacing Corporation Water Supply. The pre requisite is an arrangement with the City Corporation to outsource this essential services to the Utility company. The private company may commit to offer a certain quantity of water, free of charge to those below poverty line, provide water to middle and higher income groups at an affordable price while simultaneously engaging in value added products and services such as bottled water, premium bottled water, institutional water supply etc.. without prejudice to the mandatory free and clean water to the poor & at public places objective.
The project would have one central and several satellite water purification / pumping stations and possibly also desalination plants. The pipelines would be stainless steel pipelines, the community water tanks in public places would be stainless steel tanks and so on.
Investment not estimated, but could be US $ 100 - 500 million with a right to "own" the Water Supply service granted to the Utility company for 19 or 29 years. .
3. Engineering Project Concepts : The integral coach factory builds archaic coaches that are neither safety engineered nor ergonomically interiored. A sense of design, a sense of value engineering and a sense of ergonomics is so totally absent that the Coach Factory found it difficult to comprehend why a a state government rejected its coaches. The coaches built today have very bad plumbing, dangerously protruding objects in the interiors such as bolts and other sharp objects ( which are the reasons why mortality and injury rates are so high in case of accidents ) and the overall design is unclean and uncomfortable.
We have built up adequate design expertise in India - the cars that we manufacture in India are world class, but the coaches are not.
The idea is to start a coach building company that would engage as Consultants designers like Dilip Chaabria (name mentioned without any personal knowledge of the person, merely with the object of picturizing the idea) as also the Designers from Indian and International automobile / coach building companies, employ researchers from Design studios and schools who would identify modern, alternate materials for various interior components, come up with a coach design that is ergonomic and safe. The coaches are to built by the proposed private enterprise on the present Coach chassis to start with. Later, the company could progress to assemble the chassis also, with an improved design. The demand can not only be from Indian Railways, but also for Export. A division of this company can use its design expertise to build BUSES as well.
Other Micro examples that can be elaborated: 3. Wayside motels for bus passengers owned and operated by companies such as Hilton and Indian Hotels. 4. Large corporate hospitals in cities and Class A & B towns with a "Government Hospital" in the basement. 5. A luxury omnibus company combined with a safe school bus company....
Sir, Please look into this.
Thank you.
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
CEO
Isolated Networks
Whitefiled, 389/1 Perundurai Road
Erode 638 011
Tamilnadu
India
www.isolatednetworks.com
network (at] isolatednetworks.com
0424 4030334
(0) 93641 00639
Hon' Prime Minister
Government of India
New Delhi
Shri P Chidambaram
Hon' Finance Minister
Government of India
(email address not in the address field)
Shri Ratan Tata
Chairman Emeritus
Tata Sons Limited
Shri R Seshasayee
President
Confederation of Indian Industry
Dr. Charat Ram
Chairman
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
Mr Arvind Mayaram
Joint Secretary
Department of Economic Affairs
Government of India
Ms Shyamala Shukla
Director Infrastructure
Department of Economic Affairs
Government of India
Ms Anna Roy
Joint Director
Department of Economic Affairs
Government of India.
Mr Jayant Bhuyan
India Brand Equity Foundation
Hon' Prime Minister,
During the last 20 years India has emerged to be more prosperous, there is visible affluence, enormous business activity and India has gained considerable respectability among the nations of the world.
But, all the progress that we have made so far manifest more as "5 Star Progress" than as improvement in the common man's quality of life, which has also happened, but relatively to a lesser extent. Today we have hotels and restaurants equally or more luxurious than the ones in the West, cars as luxurious, planes as big, shops as various and upper-class as those in the fashion districts of the world. But the quality of treatment in a government hospital or the hygiene there has not improved. Train travel and terminal facilities remain the same. Buses stop en route at wrong, cheap food stalls with no facilities. Middle and lower class "restaurants" and dhaba like outfits remain the same in terms of quality of food preparation. food service and hygiene. Potable water is not only not potable, but also disease prone and Public toilets anywhere in India are a nightmare, and even in an unhygienic form they don't exist in most places where they are needed.
This note is written, largely in admiration of our government that took on a wise, cautious reform path that produced results without repeating the disastrous effects of the Latin American / East Asian nations that followed the reform path. India's reform path is a sustained, wise path. As a result of this necessary caution, the effect of reforms are slow to permeate all levels of society.
To carry the reform to the next level, GOVERNMENT NEEDS HELP, AND IT CAN COME FROM PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, if government is willing to partner with the Private Sector in an imaginative way.
I, as an individual entrepreneur, willing to elaborate further, or to actually initiate the model, am proposing a neo-investment model that would BRING BACK THE PUBLIC SECTOR in a form far more efficient than that of the international private sector. The following is an outline of the concept with some micro examples. Please go through this write up and examine the concept. This is a way of business-thinking that would cause the reforms to percolate down to the level of common man.
Concept: A Government - private partnership, Government of India's share being monetary or non-monetary, Private partnership being enterprise / monetary, with the Government's benefits defined as uncompromising Quality of Life enhancement standards apart from due returns for its monetary / non-monetary share of investment
Example Projects: US $ 1 to 5 billion committed by a consortium of private corporations, as a consortium or as several independent corporations, to modernize Railway station / Bus Terminal infrastructure in exchange for the right to commercially "own" a long time-share of part of the built up space, built up as commercially prime properties, built and developed to a pre-agreed design of futuristic world class standards. The model is not confined to transportation infrastructure but can stretch to several other areas such as housing, health care and sanitation.
Micro Example 1: An area of about 500 hectares that presently houses the Chennai Central Railway Station, Chennai Central Jail, Government Hospital and the Chennai Suburban Train Station together with a 40 foot wide, 500-700 meter long road is to be leased out to a consortium of private companies. The consortium will re-topograph the entire area and rebuild world class facilities - a more modern, more humanitarian and more secure prison at the same location or elsewhere, a more hygienic and healthier hospital building of twice the capacity combined with even more modern equipment, a world class passenger terminal integrated with a suburban terminal, a bus terminal, a taxiway and a Skywalk.
On all this the private partner would spend, FREE of cost to the Ministry of Railways, Prison Authority and the Department of Health, a sum of between $ 300 million - $ 600 million on very rough estimates, within a time span of 2-4 years. The consortium would require the Government of India's partnership in the form of causing the necessary harmony between the various ministries and departments happen. Government of India's participation would also be in enabling the Project Execution at International speed, free of ALL governmental bottlenecks in this project that might not have had a precedent ( for e.g taking a strip of highway underground, or constructing a Sky Walk over the highway with commercial pathway structures.
The re-topography exercise would integrate properties on both sides of the road into a single complex, with a wider road in the same place, a better traffic design for smoother vehicular traffic and safer and convenient pedestrian traffic. The private partner would design and build a world class high-traffic infrastructure as an integrated colossal passenger terminal to International Airport standards as a confluence of a train station, a bus terminal, a suburban station, a taxi station and a world class freight terminal. The private partner would undertake to build such a facility with a clause not to disrupt or dislocate existing operation of any of these facilities during the Reconstruction process.
The private partner would build and operate the public facilities in the Railway Station, Suburban Station and the Hospital to world class standards as free and nominally charged facilities, MAINTAIN the facilities as a five star hotel would, all in exchange for the right to "own" the commercial zone inlaid and built around the entire mega infrastructure complex, The total area leased out by the Ministry of Railways would be an area of about five hundred hectares of prime property (in very broad estimates, not assessed), out of which 300 hectares would be the Train Station Terminal, the Hospital, Suburban Train Station, Long Travel and City Bus Station, a Taxi Port and zones like Lobbies, Public Facilities, Retiring Rooms, Waiting Rooms, Waiting Areas, Toilets, Bath rooms, Emergency Medical Rooms, Reservation counters, Ticket Counters, Water Fountains, Baggage Cart ports, Baggage conveyors, Escalators, Lifts, Automatic People moving lines or level "escalators". The private partner would manage as a 5 star hotel would, the security of the environment, discipline in porter assistance, courtesy in passenger assistance, cleanliness in facilities, quality and hygiene in food courts / food counters / food trolleys, availability of FREE drinking water, standards in bottled water as also make available Vandal-proof, well engineered baggage carts and related passenger comforts. The private partner will pay attention to the quality of food and beverages on an ongoing basis while ensuring mandatory availability of good food at Indian Low Income group prices while not excluding access to high-priced food stalls / restaurants.
Micro Example 2. Purified Water over a stainless steel pipeline : This is a concept for a utility company providing CLEAN water over two pipelines, one potable and other for other uses, to every home in Chennai and other major cities replacing Corporation Water Supply. The pre requisite is an arrangement with the City Corporation to outsource this essential services to the Utility company. The private company may commit to offer a certain quantity of water, free of charge to those below poverty line, provide water to middle and higher income groups at an affordable price while simultaneously engaging in value added products and services such as bottled water, premium bottled water, institutional water supply etc.. without prejudice to the mandatory free and clean water to the poor & at public places objective.
The project would have one central and several satellite water purification / pumping stations and possibly also desalination plants. The pipelines would be stainless steel pipelines, the community water tanks in public places would be stainless steel tanks and so on.
Investment not estimated, but could be US $ 100 - 500 million with a right to "own" the Water Supply service granted to the Utility company for 19 or 29 years. .
3. Engineering Project Concepts : The integral coach factory builds archaic coaches that are neither safety engineered nor ergonomically interiored. A sense of design, a sense of value engineering and a sense of ergonomics is so totally absent that the Coach Factory found it difficult to comprehend why a a state government rejected its coaches. The coaches built today have very bad plumbing, dangerously protruding objects in the interiors such as bolts and other sharp objects ( which are the reasons why mortality and injury rates are so high in case of accidents ) and the overall design is unclean and uncomfortable.
We have built up adequate design expertise in India - the cars that we manufacture in India are world class, but the coaches are not.
The idea is to start a coach building company that would engage as Consultants designers like Dilip Chaabria (name mentioned without any personal knowledge of the person, merely with the object of picturizing the idea) as also the Designers from Indian and International automobile / coach building companies, employ researchers from Design studios and schools who would identify modern, alternate materials for various interior components, come up with a coach design that is ergonomic and safe. The coaches are to built by the proposed private enterprise on the present Coach chassis to start with. Later, the company could progress to assemble the chassis also, with an improved design. The demand can not only be from Indian Railways, but also for Export. A division of this company can use its design expertise to build BUSES as well.
Other Micro examples that can be elaborated: 3. Wayside motels for bus passengers owned and operated by companies such as Hilton and Indian Hotels. 4. Large corporate hospitals in cities and Class A & B towns with a "Government Hospital" in the basement. 5. A luxury omnibus company combined with a safe school bus company....
Sir, Please look into this.
Thank you.
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
CEO
Isolated Networks
Whitefiled, 389/1 Perundurai Road
Erode 638 011
Tamilnadu
India
www.isolatednetworks.com
network (at] isolatednetworks.com
0424 4030334
(0) 93641 00639
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
On making the whole world prosperous
[First written as Sample of written work to Society of Fellows, Harvard, and as Research Proposal for Pre-Doctoral Candidacy at John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard in 1991.Published now, 16 years later, as a blog, verbatim, as what was said 16 years ago remains unchanged and more relevant today.]
Foreword
New opportunities and possibilities emerge for development when the style of thinking and planning is changed to an unconventional model. In these papers, I have endeavored to reverse the process of thinking by first defining the ultimate ideal and then later coming back to list the constraints, to be attacked one by one.
By and large the accepted and practiced model of thinking approaches the problems from the constraints and in the process constraints weight down on the thinking and a lot of possibilities are hopelessly dismissed on their first coinsurance.
These papers talk about making the whole world prosperous, which as an ultimate object of the international system is possible after all. But not everything that needs to be done to make the whole world prosperous are covered in these papers. These papers which at best define a direction are not elaborate enough to be a vivid master plan or blueprint for world development. Many of the basic ideas indicated do not fall in line with the present programs of the governments and the international system. Besides an exhaustive analysis of the needs of the world is not made in these papers and the various proposals do not cover everything that needs to be done to make a more prosperous world. Various facets of the problems outlined are yet to be thoroughly examined and a more thorough examination is yet to be made. At best these few pages could be described as musings on world development) and the thinking is not rigid in any way) or random pieces of a large picture that is yet to emerge in its totality.
These papers originated on the theme of a draft resolution that I introduced as a participant from India at The International Model United Nations organized by Junior Chamber International and held at the United Nations headquarters at New York during July 29- August 2, 1991. Originally what I had said in the draft resolution was that it is no longer necessary for member states to distance themselves from another, it is prejudicial to internationalism for member states to be nationalistic and patriotic and called upon the member states to look beyond their national interests and strengthen the united nations. The draft resolution introduced a specific proposal that the political structure of the united nations be improved and that a resource base be founded for the united nations.
After the model united nations I elaborated on the theme, more clearly defined the idea as a research theme and am submitting it as Sample of written work to The Society of Fellows, Harvard University. I have not had at all any formal education in international development, foreign policy or government. I am not well read either.
These papers do not follow a standardized academic or diplomatic format and there could be errors in expression among other shortcomings. These papers may please be treated as papers of the 'first draft' status, to be further worked on and improved.
Muthusamy Sivasubramanian, Theni, India. 09 November 1992.
On making the whole world prosperous
Towards more ambitious developmental objects
Extensively widening the demands on the international system both by the developing and the developed nations
By the help of God the world is progressing towards the realm of world peace. Not long ago the only object of the international system was to stop war, but today the demands on the international system is wider than peace keeping and as varied from reducing the mortality rates of the world's children to preserving the planet earth for the generations to come.
Not only do the developing nations have demands on the international system - demands for access to markets, access to technology, fair prices for raw materials and commodities, debt relief and more favorable financial flows, - which are for the purpose of comparison, simple demands, but also the developed world whose demands are more complicated in nature developed nations are unable to reconcile the need to promote repatriation of the illegal immigrants with the ideals of generously proclaimed human rights; in the course of history they have built a massive nuclear arsenal but now find it necessary to ensure that the spread of nuclear capability is restricted; on their own they find it difficult to control the illegal economy of the underworld; the legitimate national economy is upset when there are differences in monetary policies of different nations such as different interest rates that cause currency fluctuations; the present economic system of the world has a tenuous and artificial base which is highly vulnerable to manipulation; urban decay, traffic congestion, pollution and environmental degradation are some of the several other problems which the developed world would find it difficult to solve independently.
As the imbalance in development remains and widens not only the developing world, but also the developed world would have persistent problems.
Strengthening the weak without weakening the strong
The present economic system is such that when the weak economies are strengthened the strong economies are jeopardized. This is unacceptable.
The ideal which the world leaders may strive to attain to the extend that is practically attainable, is to increase the income of the third world citizen to that of the developed world without causing a decline in the income of the citizens of the developed world and at the same time not reducing the prospects of higher income. The ideal to aim and get as close as possible is to make the whole world wealthy as expressed in an ancient prayer "Lokas Samastas Sukino Bavantu" (Let the people of the whole world prosper).
Any developed nation of today was once undeveloped and as the nation developed an overall economic uplift happened. It is not that unemployment and poverty are eliminated, but by and large, the people of the developed nations live well and nation can support the unemployed and the poor.
The developed nations have not impoverished the prosperous of their people to make the poor prosperous but merely caused their national economies to prosper and more and more people flourished. When one man bought his second car the other man did not lose his first.
This overall uplift has been proved to be realizable among people of a nation, and it is possible to realize it among the nations of the world.
The possible flaws in this thinking apart, what obstructs such thinking is the fact that the whole world is fragmented. The world is not administratively divided like states within a nation, but politically divided as fragments of nationalistic and conflicting boundaries.
For the world to progress the fragments of waring nations have to become regions of friendly nations. With a climate of profound international relations it becomes possible to evolve and implement comprehensive developmental plans to make the poor nations wealthy without making the rich nations poor.
The world will be a more prosperous place to live if we could reorient the world economy to higher worldwide development. It is understandable that the present economic order can not be disturbed abruptly otherwise there would be unpleasant effects on the world economy.
This new approach has to be introduced smoothly over a long period of time and the transition would be highly desirable for all the nations of the world if planned to take effect smoothly.
The essential prerequisite is an acceptably strengthened united nations. When the United Nations was founded international peace was the need of the hour and so this was the primary object of the international system. But the needs today are vast and the objects of the united nations have to be redefined so as to be far more emphatic about the world prosperity and far more ambitious than what was enunciated in the charter.
World Development
World Development has to be a desirable proposition for the nations of the world, if it is to be carried out without injustice done to any one nation, systematically.
It is time that the nations realized that one nation can not develop in isolation. The world, especially the economy of nations, is becoming increasingly interdependent. When one country in the world undergoes an economic crisis, it has repercussions on the economies of the rest of the world.
A virus found in one continent travels undetected across the oceans and the world wakes up with a dreadful epidemic for which there is no cure at the moment, despite all the scientific and medicinal advances the world has made.
If there is an oil spill on the sea, accidental or strategic, the oceans of the world get polluted. It is of concern to the whole world when someone acquires the capability to build nuclear weapons.
It is as much irresponsible to stand by and watch a child die every other second elsewhere in the world as it is to watch a vengeful soldier mounting a nuclear warhead on his aircraft.Beyond Nationalism
What comes in between is nationalism. It does not reach an inquiring young mind why someone stop stop at and would not move beyond from being a nationalist and a patriot. Nationalism in excess is highly prejudicial to internationalism.
Nationalism is showing compassion towards anyone living on one side of the border but not on the other.
The people of a nation think more about their nation, feel better about their nation, right from their childhood when theory learn more of their national history at school than the history of the world. After they grow up the narrow view of the world learnt at school does not broaden because by and large the media places its emphasis on regional and national coverage and the people's views are largely restricted by the importance the media gives to the region and nation as against the whole world.
This limited thinking should broaden and the nations of the world should think beyond their national interests and become responsible for all that happens all over the world and not only in their nations and cause to develop the whole world.
United Nations
Possible limitations on independent international initiatives
The world is a better place to live today than it was a 100 years ago. The progress that the world has made so far is to be attributed not only to the United Nations but also to a few nations whose independent initiatives have exceeded the efforts of the United Nations.
States that have been noticeably active both within the international organization and outside the system have substantially contributed to the progress of internationalism. But progress can not always be a straight line from darkness to light and history is not a guarantee that the future will be a linear extension of its course. The people's perception of priorities change from time to time and the government of a nation with an international outlook may not be able to pay the level of attention that it wishes to give for international development especially when the nation faces a decline in economic growth rate or a state of political uncertainty or both as how it happens.
Secondly there are times when an independent initiative taken by a country attracts criticism from several other nations, largely because the initiative is taken independently.
Thirdly national governments change from time to time. When a new government gets elected it may announce newer international programs that may be more benevolent, but may not be a linear extension of the programs of the previous government there by causing to lose consistency of developmental involvement.
Such factors necessitate that the international organization has to be strengthened as a permanent foundation to bear the larger responsibilities with the direct initiatives by independent governments taking a supplementary role.
Larger purpose for the United Nations
The founding fathers of the United Nations defined three basic purposes of the United Nations (each of which was seen as a counter to the aggressive policy of the axis Powers that had culminated in World War II)
The world today is far more harmonious today and international relations are effectively maintained.In the process the world has become far more interdependent today than it was forty seven years ago.
The world today needs the United Nations to effectively address problems such as economic development and environment than essentially revolve its concerns around the need for military restraint.
It implies that the United Nations has to have a more ambitious object - not merely international harmony, but more emphatically, world prosperity as the ultimate purpose.
With a view to cause the whole world to develop, the objects of the UN have to become more emphatic and ambitious, with world prosperity as the ultimate purpose.
A more functional political structure of the United Nations
United Nations has a political structure which is too cautious. It does not have a President (Executive) and the Secretary General's authority is limited. The Secretary General is to be empowered issue by issue by the General Assembly, as opposed to the President of an evolved presidential form government., who heads the Executive with the parliament and judiciary functioning separately but blindingly.
The political structure of the U.N. is incomplete without a President. The world had just seen two world wars and nationalistic priorities were dominant and the world had not yet began to think truly international when the United Nations was conceived.
The world political environment of this day is not the same as it was 47 years ago. World politics today is much more evolved than it was at the time of the Dumberton Oaks and San Francisco Conferences.
From its inception till the present the United States of America has been a major determinant in the evolution and activities of the United Nations. President Wodroo Wilson's 14 points started a debate which eventually resulted in the formation of the League of Nations, which later gave way to the formation of the United Nations. United States was the major force behind the 1974 World Population Plan of Action, which established the Universal Rights to Family Planning and was instrumental in founding the United Nations Population Fund. The US Declaration of Human Rights inspired the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
The evolved form of the American Government could also be adopted by the United Nations. The united nations could be governed by an international government, headed by; a President, electe4d by the Heads of Government or the Heads of State of the members states of the United Nations for a predetermined period (may be 5 years), with his powers balanced by the U.N. General Assembly and differences adjudicated by the International Court of Justice.
The President should be able to function independently as head of the Executive without having to wait for the approval of the General Assembly in every move he is to make. At the same time the Executive has to be balanced. The U.N. General Assembly could do that very effectively. The International Court of Justice can determine what is and what is not excessive exercise of power or unconstitutional.
As it is considered it is important to remember that:
1. The political equations between nations are changing and would continue to change for the better.
2. All the nations as members of a stronger United Nations would continue to be sovereign, perhaps more sovereign than now, because with a stronger United Nations, thereat of war between nations could be nearly eliminated.
3. A stronger United Nations would not be a government issuing directives to nations, but one that would get the nations ot modify its policies and programs to accommodate international considerations through diplomatic discussions with the nations concerned., or by coordinating discussions and programs between member states.
4. The stronger United Nations would be of a participatory government, in the sense that the United Nations General Assembly becomes world parliament in which all nations are the members of parliament.
With a strengthened united nations with a well evolved and acceptable control structure it becomes possible to evolve and implement significant programs to make a more prosperous world.
Generating Revenues for the United Nations
Because the UN does not have vast resources at its disposal, it depends entirely on contribution from its member states.
It should be possible for the United Nations to reduce its dependence on contributions from member states if the United Nations can generate income, some form of International Income as National Income is to its member states. If the United Nations has to generate revenues on its own, it is necessary that the U.N. creates a resource base, in the form of a geographic zone.
U.N. does not have its own freely accessible geographical territory, not even the size of the smallest state in the world. It is ironical that the United Nations, which ought to be working towards a borderless world has its premises landlocked within the boundary of some its member states. Today not even one square inch of the world, on the world map, is permanently international or non-national. The exceptions are the high seas and the frozen continents.
Founding an Income generating mechanism for the United Nations
If the United Nations is to generate international revenues for world development, it is necessary that it creates a geographical base, that could in effect be the property of all the nations of the world.
A geographical base would open up opportunities for the UN to create a central economy. UN can create a central econonmy by housing non-tariff and several other forms of global trade, global industry and global banks to create an economy, which will generate revenue for the United Nations.
1. The Zone could be, to start with an area of not less than 100,000 hectares granted on lease for a period of, may be 499 years, to the United Nations by broad minded member states in consideration of a value. The land may be acquired on lease or even as outright purchase. 100,000 hectares of developable wasteland could cost between US $ 30 million ot US $ 300 million.
2. If the land has to be developed as an industry and trade district, the infrastructure could be developed at a cost of between US $ 1-10 billion. The foundation cost must be met by a fund set up by all the member states by making a one time contribution and the notional or actual profits earned on the basic infrastructural investments is to be non-dividendable. The total tax revenue or the earnings on the basic infrastructural investment made by all the member states in union, is not to be dividendable to member states but to be utilized for International Development.
3. The United Nations can create a mega company with a capital base of between US $10-25 billion dollars, subscribed by the member nations and private investors.
4. The capital base of $25 billion dollars would enable the company to borrow, on conservative banking norms $225 billion. So the total resources available for investments could be $250 billion. The United Nations could invest this quarter of a trillion dollars to promote companies, with a clearly defined object of making profits.
5. The capital base has to come from member nations and from private investors, who will earn a taxable dividend on their investment. The tax rate has to have a floor rate of 25% on which there will be no concessions to any of the share holder nations, and a voluntary higher rate of any proportion above 25% . All the tax revenue goes to the United Nations.
6. Such tax revenues could be partly reinvested in United Nations owned companies and the income generated by these companies could add to the United Nations fund for World Development.
It is understandable that member states may not be prepared to sacrifice their international business and banking houses to the United Nations. But if a new international land zone in the world is to come into existence as owned by all the nations, it would be an international trade and industry zone, which could foster new international mega cartels of the size and scope of the Airbus Industrie, European Space Agency and Intelstat.
Secondly, it is important to remember that the management and work force will be drawn from the member nations, part of most of the profits earned will be added to the national income of the member states as the investment in these companies have to come from governments and the private investors of the member nations, the input commodities have to be bought from the member nations and so on..
Also, it is necessary to remember that even after the foundation of a geographical zone for the United Nations, the United Nations would not have as much land as it would need for locating the industries. Some of the projects could be located in the UN member nations and if it is done that way, it amounts to attracting UN sponsored investments that would generate employment in the nation of location which is as beneficial as the present foreign investments.
Only a consortium of national investments could create certain mega and ultra mega business establishm
ents. To illustrate without going into aspects such as the economic feasibility or profitability at this stage, it is not possible for a private industrial house or for a single nation to establish an insurance company that would insure national governments against external developments that cause huge unfair economic hardship for the nation, or against natural calamities such as an earthquake that cost the nation billions of dollars of unplanned expenditure.
At present every time there is a natural calamity of a vast scale, most developing nations are forced to appeal for international aid which is some times sufficient and arrives in time, and sometimes not. Even for a developed nation such as the United States of America, it should make sound economic sense to insure the national treasury against such unforeseen demands as a natural calamity or against currency loss during recession.
International construction projects such as the Tunnel between England and France are at present shared by the governments and private investors of nations involved. There is a possibility that there are intercontinental projects at present and more in the future, such as intercontinental roads, railways and waterways. Such projects could be under the jurisdiction of the United Nations.
We already have a world bank and an International Monetary Fund which are under the aegis of the United Nations. The United Nations can found a Global Bank - a global commercial bank with the major banks of various national and interested private banks of every nationals subscribing and dividend-earning shareholders to finance trans-national cartels, to make commercial lending to those nations who have a high credit ranking (The object is to earn profits for the bank which would be taxable by the United Nations or jointly taxable by the United Nations and the investing nations.)
More such institutions could be conceived and inter-governmental and international private investments encouraged with the object of creating tax-paying International Income.
This would make it necessary for the United Nations to think in terms of a world money as a common currency. The Central Bank of the United Nations could start by selling instruments such as Travelers Cheques, denominated, instead of in national currencies, in what may be called world money, which is to eventually become a central currency and ultimately to become the basis for settling exchange rate disputes.
Reorienting the world economy to higher development
If the desirable high ideal of making the world wealthy is to be attained to the extent possible, comprehensive socio cultural economic programs of world wide reach and impact have to be planned by the world economists to reorient the world economy towards higher development.
A comprehensive program, while preserving jobs and generating more jobs, would simultaneously work on ambitious targets for world population control; it would reconcile technological advances with the trends and needs of the job market; while creating promising new inventions for the society of the future would preserve the wisdom of the ancients.; while continuing to send relief supplies to drought affected areas, would simultaneously make the uncultivable wastelands cultivable; it would combat the underworld activities and at the same time consider offering some form of amnesty along with some rehabiliatory financial concessions in the form of legalizing the illegal wealth in inviolable exchange for reformation and reorienting destructive illegal investments to sometimes as lucrative, but legal and productive investments.
Such comprehensive programs should extend beyond economic planning and cover areas such as developing committed and capable men for the governments of the world and making people more productive and less wasteful.
The Concept of National Waste
If we could evolve a method by which we estimate Gross National Waste as against Gross National Product the combined figure for the world would be alarming. We do not make the optimal use of our natural, human and material resources, which is one of the major reasons why we remain undeveloped.
We spend on arms that we can not and should not hope to use when we could instead be buying equipment to strengthen our internal law and order agencies. We spend on espionage and counter espionage when nations find it impossible to trace intra-national criminals and bring them to the court of law.
We misuse our human and material resources to produce soft drinks when we ought to be perfecting techniques of extracting natural fruit and vegetable juices and preserving them free of artificial preservatives. We build mineral water and carbonated water plants when we might instead be building desalination and water sterilization plants or rather using our human and material resources to explore underground water.
We make paper plates instead of metal ware, built more military intelligence satellites than communication satellites, make wall papers instead of smooth plasters, continue with gasoline engines instead of developing electric/battery vehicles. We throw away surplus food when the cost of storage exceeds the national value of the retained surplus food.Sanctions have contributed to the status quo of world economy
For valid strategic reasons, in the recent past, it has become an accepted practice for nations to impose economic sanctions openly as well as covertly mount an economic offensive that in effect weakened the enemy by the economic hardship that results for the nation. Economic sanctions have been in force for a very long time in the case of Cuba, in the recent past in the case of Iraq, Libya and until recently in the case of several Eastern European Nations.
While the validity or the strategic merit of these sanctions could not be doubted, the point made here is that such sanctions, though strategically valuable, have been weakening the economies of the nations, indirectly and in some cases directly, lowering national production, causing the nations to become weak, which in turn has made the world less prosperous than it could have been.
Sanctions also affect the nations that impose sanctions.
For instance, US Trade embargo on Cuba cost the US companies an estimated $30 billion though 1998, according to a John Hopkins University estimate.
If there is a way out of economic sanctions, the world would prosper sooner.The world order was such that Iraq occupied Kuwait and the rest of the world went to war with Iraq. The US cost of war was $61 billion and it cost the Arab countries $620 billion, according to the Arab Economic Report. If the war did not happen and if the UNDP or US AID were pledged $681 billion, half the poor people of the world would have risen above the poverty line.
Manpower shortage also exists all over the world
A chronic manpower shortage coexists along with the much publicized unemployment problem.
This is because the work force (Research, Executive and Labor force) is not distributed in the right proportion between various field of specialization. For instance in the US, where the unemployment problem is mounting, there may be a shortage of Language Teachers or shortage of computer programmers, because theoretically this category of work force is employed to teach languages to personnel employed in projects of narrow and limited economic and social benefit and most of the available programmers are employed by the military or military industries, so to say.
Human and material resources are misused.
If today the US government wants to rebuild all the downtown residential and commercial areas it would not be able to find investors/ bankers because their money is already invested in projects that may not be of optimal utility to the world, for instance, in a renovation project for a corporate office that does not require renovation. The government may not find enough architects and structural designers for they are employed in commercial projects of least social utility; it may not find enough construction workers for they are building a lavish airport in a tiny island in the Caribbean.It may not be possible for the government to build a transcontinental oil pipe line or to connect the river ways nationally - for there may not be enough of the more skilled engineers, workers and mangers left to be deputed for the projects.
The waste-oriented programs - commercial and noncommercial, absorbs a certain number of certain specialized work categories and because such a demand exists, a proportion of the population prepares for careers that the demand which the waste-oriented industry has generated. A proportion of population, instance prepares for careers in a weapons assembly plant, who would otherwise have prepared for careers in agriculture or medicine.
Demand meets supply - even the wrong demand
Reorienting the world economy to higher development - smoothly
It is understandable that the present economic order can b\not be disturbed abruptly lest there would be unpleasant effects on the world economy. An abrupt transition could cost the nation a million jobs and trillions of dollars.This new approach has to be introduced smoothly over a long period of time and the transition would be highly desirable for all the nations of the world if planned to take effect smoothly.
The world would be a more prosperous place to live if we could reorient the world economy to higher worldwide development.
Help for the world's suffering
George C Marshall proposed the plan to reconstruct post war Europe in a graduation ceremony at Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
We need another Marshall Plan at a point of time when even the prosperous of the nation are suffering from economic hardship - it may not be easy for the developed world to substantially increase its foreign aid budget. There is a recession in the United States, with unemployment mounting, trade deficit accumulating and its budgetary deficit widening. United Kingdom and France have similar problems and Germany is attending to the demands placed on its prosperous economy by the integration that has just happened.
The developing countries have an outstanding debt of $1.3 trillion dollars. Due to debt service demand, among other reasons, in the 80's aggregate net resource transfers to the developing countries shifted from positive to negative.
In 1989, aggregate Long Term net resource flows to developing countries (Net-flows) stood at 63.3 billion dollars. If the population of the developing countries is taken as 4 billion people, per capita resource receipts amount to $4 billion dollars for the year.
There is no way the world's problems will be solved with the present level of money flow.
A new born child dies somewhere in the world every two seconds, 1.5 acres of forests are destroyed every second, 25000 people die every day from acute water shortages and polluted water, 100 species of plant and animal life becomes extinct, more than 75 million tons of top soil is eroded or blown away and tons of toxic waste dumped somewhere in the world - EVERY DAY. If current trends continue 1990s will see 1/3 of the world's productive land erode, 1 million species of plant and animals become extinct and 1 billion people born to compete for increasingly scarce resources.
4 million people face death in Somalia, there is a civil war in Eastern Europe because there is an anachronistic ethnocentricity and a revival of nationalism. Russia, the other Republican republics and Eastern Europe have embraced western ideals at a point of time when the west can not afford to support the transition; on their own these nations neither have the knowledge nor the resources to make the transition work. There is the possibility of "bungled reforms discrediting capitalism before it has time to take root".
Arms race has ended but the arms remain stored. World Peace is desirable but military oriented manufacturing plants can not be closed down. They can not be closed down because the industry can not afford the cost of winding up the units and the governments can not re-employ or at least support those who lose jobs. Unemployment is already mounting. The budgets of governments are already on deficit and there is not enough money to be found to acceptably compensate the owners or substantially aid their diversification.
The world - Developing as well as the Developed world, needs a second Marshall Plan, a Marshall Plan of exponential magnitude, longer time frame, broader and more ambitious objects and of world wide proportion funded not only by the United States but by as many nations as possible to reconstruct not only Europe but the whole world.
Extending the NATO model of military alliance to the whole world
Looking beyond the present and ahead, we could consider an extended NATO type of alliance with all the nations of the world as allies.
This could be achieved in several ways. The Rapid Deployment Force, already granted to the Secretary General by the Security Council could be so constituted as to gradually become a world military organization with a balanced and fail proof control structure. It could also be achieved by including for NATO membership the erstwhile Warsaw Pact as well as the remaining countries and transferring control of the larger NATO to UN Security Council, General Assembly and other organs of the United Nations that may be created for the purpose.
The broader alliance could simultaneously constitute a military organization by drawing equitably personnel and other resources from all the members of the alliance or if possible from all the U.N.member states.
The United military organization would require no more than a tenth of the military personnel and other resources to be a complete force.
The alliance could, with the back up of such a military organization positively proclaim that any aggression or a move to war by any nation on any other nation would be considered an attempt to war with the rest of the world.
In the history of the world, wars have been fought for major reasons as well as for ludicrous reasons. The ear of an English sailor sparked a war between Great Britain and Spain in the 18th century. The animosities lasted 9 years.
More recently, in the year 1969, the Latin passion for football boiled over as El Salvador and Honduras competed in an important world cup qualifying match. Riots after the game led to a five day war in which 2000 people were killed and much of the Honduran Air Force destroyed.
With the foundation of the World Security Alliance, it would become very difficult for any nation to be aggressive and the threat of war between nations would be nearly eliminated. Nations could save billion of dollars hitherto over-allocated to defense and utilize them for development, to save the world's children, to preserve the rain forests or to maintain bio-diversity.
Goods such as nuclear weapons that are produced merely to threaten the enemy, aeroplanes and submarines that are built to merely be on guard - one nation builds them merely because someone else is building them - need no longer be produced in such wasteful quantities. Nuclear weapons, especially, were produced in quantities that could destroy the whole world several times over, when nations were still aware that the possession of nuclear weapons could do no more than produce a stalemate. It was said that nuclear weapons could not even be used across the conference table.
Military spending is about 5% of GNP in the industrial as well as the developing countries. About half of the combined spending on health and education in the industrial countries where as the two magnitudes are about the same in developing countries.
A world wide military alliance would not require more than a very small proportion of personnel employed in the militaries of the nations of the world. Once these resources are drawn from the military of all the nations, most of the rest of the world's military resources would be redundant. In such a scenario, military intelligence and counter intelligence could be reoriented to monitor and control the underworld; The military personnel could be reoriented to maintain law and order which at present the nations find it very difficult to maintain.
Billions of dollars of scarce monetary resources could be saved in this scenario.
The model of the French Foreign Legion
The United Nations military organization, could be to the extend that is appropriate, be modeled after the principles of French Foreign Legion, a proud, elite fighting unit, which from an unpromising start in 1831, built its mystique as 'romantic, swashbuckling, totally loyal, terrifying to its enemies, and fearless in the face of death'. The Legion is a unique permanent force, now represented by over 100 nationalities, who have taken the solemn obligation that binds them to serve, not France, but the Legion itself. The force of about 9000 men are eligible to French Citizenship upon their retirement.
The United Nations military organization could be organized with each of the member states deputing 5% of their military men and women. The UN force could be constituted as cosmopolitan divisions of various nationalities, who take the solemn obligation to serve to maintain world peace, and in times of war, fight their own motherlands if need be. The United Nations Military Organization, manned by personnel drawn from the member states' militaries, may be funded by a diversion of the member states' military expenditure, to be based around the world at bases leased to the United Nations in consideration for nominal rents, and equipped with weapons already in surplus in the various national militaries.
With the founding of the United Nations military organizations, well controlled by an elaborate system of checks and balances by all the member nations, it becomes the responsibility of the United Nations to maintain bilateral as well as world peace.
The United Nations' Military Organization could be a World Counter terrorist Force, an elite crack down force, ruthless in its tactics.
In addition to the above, the United Nations could found an intelligence organ, apart from a reinforced Interpol, to deal with trans-national and trans-continental crimes, with a hierarchical advantage over the member states' police, similar to the advantage the Federal Bureau of Investigations enjoys over the State Police organizations.
Foreword
New opportunities and possibilities emerge for development when the style of thinking and planning is changed to an unconventional model. In these papers, I have endeavored to reverse the process of thinking by first defining the ultimate ideal and then later coming back to list the constraints, to be attacked one by one.
By and large the accepted and practiced model of thinking approaches the problems from the constraints and in the process constraints weight down on the thinking and a lot of possibilities are hopelessly dismissed on their first coinsurance.
These papers talk about making the whole world prosperous, which as an ultimate object of the international system is possible after all. But not everything that needs to be done to make the whole world prosperous are covered in these papers. These papers which at best define a direction are not elaborate enough to be a vivid master plan or blueprint for world development. Many of the basic ideas indicated do not fall in line with the present programs of the governments and the international system. Besides an exhaustive analysis of the needs of the world is not made in these papers and the various proposals do not cover everything that needs to be done to make a more prosperous world. Various facets of the problems outlined are yet to be thoroughly examined and a more thorough examination is yet to be made. At best these few pages could be described as musings on world development) and the thinking is not rigid in any way) or random pieces of a large picture that is yet to emerge in its totality.
These papers originated on the theme of a draft resolution that I introduced as a participant from India at The International Model United Nations organized by Junior Chamber International and held at the United Nations headquarters at New York during July 29- August 2, 1991. Originally what I had said in the draft resolution was that it is no longer necessary for member states to distance themselves from another, it is prejudicial to internationalism for member states to be nationalistic and patriotic and called upon the member states to look beyond their national interests and strengthen the united nations. The draft resolution introduced a specific proposal that the political structure of the united nations be improved and that a resource base be founded for the united nations.
After the model united nations I elaborated on the theme, more clearly defined the idea as a research theme and am submitting it as Sample of written work to The Society of Fellows, Harvard University. I have not had at all any formal education in international development, foreign policy or government. I am not well read either.
These papers do not follow a standardized academic or diplomatic format and there could be errors in expression among other shortcomings. These papers may please be treated as papers of the 'first draft' status, to be further worked on and improved.
Muthusamy Sivasubramanian, Theni, India. 09 November 1992.
On making the whole world prosperous
Towards more ambitious developmental objects
Extensively widening the demands on the international system both by the developing and the developed nations
By the help of God the world is progressing towards the realm of world peace. Not long ago the only object of the international system was to stop war, but today the demands on the international system is wider than peace keeping and as varied from reducing the mortality rates of the world's children to preserving the planet earth for the generations to come.
Not only do the developing nations have demands on the international system - demands for access to markets, access to technology, fair prices for raw materials and commodities, debt relief and more favorable financial flows, - which are for the purpose of comparison, simple demands, but also the developed world whose demands are more complicated in nature developed nations are unable to reconcile the need to promote repatriation of the illegal immigrants with the ideals of generously proclaimed human rights; in the course of history they have built a massive nuclear arsenal but now find it necessary to ensure that the spread of nuclear capability is restricted; on their own they find it difficult to control the illegal economy of the underworld; the legitimate national economy is upset when there are differences in monetary policies of different nations such as different interest rates that cause currency fluctuations; the present economic system of the world has a tenuous and artificial base which is highly vulnerable to manipulation; urban decay, traffic congestion, pollution and environmental degradation are some of the several other problems which the developed world would find it difficult to solve independently.
As the imbalance in development remains and widens not only the developing world, but also the developed world would have persistent problems.
Strengthening the weak without weakening the strong
The present economic system is such that when the weak economies are strengthened the strong economies are jeopardized. This is unacceptable.
The ideal which the world leaders may strive to attain to the extend that is practically attainable, is to increase the income of the third world citizen to that of the developed world without causing a decline in the income of the citizens of the developed world and at the same time not reducing the prospects of higher income. The ideal to aim and get as close as possible is to make the whole world wealthy as expressed in an ancient prayer "Lokas Samastas Sukino Bavantu" (Let the people of the whole world prosper).
Any developed nation of today was once undeveloped and as the nation developed an overall economic uplift happened. It is not that unemployment and poverty are eliminated, but by and large, the people of the developed nations live well and nation can support the unemployed and the poor.
The developed nations have not impoverished the prosperous of their people to make the poor prosperous but merely caused their national economies to prosper and more and more people flourished. When one man bought his second car the other man did not lose his first.
This overall uplift has been proved to be realizable among people of a nation, and it is possible to realize it among the nations of the world.
The possible flaws in this thinking apart, what obstructs such thinking is the fact that the whole world is fragmented. The world is not administratively divided like states within a nation, but politically divided as fragments of nationalistic and conflicting boundaries.
For the world to progress the fragments of waring nations have to become regions of friendly nations. With a climate of profound international relations it becomes possible to evolve and implement comprehensive developmental plans to make the poor nations wealthy without making the rich nations poor.
The world will be a more prosperous place to live if we could reorient the world economy to higher worldwide development. It is understandable that the present economic order can not be disturbed abruptly otherwise there would be unpleasant effects on the world economy.
This new approach has to be introduced smoothly over a long period of time and the transition would be highly desirable for all the nations of the world if planned to take effect smoothly.
The essential prerequisite is an acceptably strengthened united nations. When the United Nations was founded international peace was the need of the hour and so this was the primary object of the international system. But the needs today are vast and the objects of the united nations have to be redefined so as to be far more emphatic about the world prosperity and far more ambitious than what was enunciated in the charter.
World Development
World Development has to be a desirable proposition for the nations of the world, if it is to be carried out without injustice done to any one nation, systematically.
It is time that the nations realized that one nation can not develop in isolation. The world, especially the economy of nations, is becoming increasingly interdependent. When one country in the world undergoes an economic crisis, it has repercussions on the economies of the rest of the world.
A virus found in one continent travels undetected across the oceans and the world wakes up with a dreadful epidemic for which there is no cure at the moment, despite all the scientific and medicinal advances the world has made.
If there is an oil spill on the sea, accidental or strategic, the oceans of the world get polluted. It is of concern to the whole world when someone acquires the capability to build nuclear weapons.
It is as much irresponsible to stand by and watch a child die every other second elsewhere in the world as it is to watch a vengeful soldier mounting a nuclear warhead on his aircraft.Beyond Nationalism
What comes in between is nationalism. It does not reach an inquiring young mind why someone stop stop at and would not move beyond from being a nationalist and a patriot. Nationalism in excess is highly prejudicial to internationalism.
Nationalism is showing compassion towards anyone living on one side of the border but not on the other.
The people of a nation think more about their nation, feel better about their nation, right from their childhood when theory learn more of their national history at school than the history of the world. After they grow up the narrow view of the world learnt at school does not broaden because by and large the media places its emphasis on regional and national coverage and the people's views are largely restricted by the importance the media gives to the region and nation as against the whole world.
This limited thinking should broaden and the nations of the world should think beyond their national interests and become responsible for all that happens all over the world and not only in their nations and cause to develop the whole world.
United Nations
Possible limitations on independent international initiatives
The world is a better place to live today than it was a 100 years ago. The progress that the world has made so far is to be attributed not only to the United Nations but also to a few nations whose independent initiatives have exceeded the efforts of the United Nations.
States that have been noticeably active both within the international organization and outside the system have substantially contributed to the progress of internationalism. But progress can not always be a straight line from darkness to light and history is not a guarantee that the future will be a linear extension of its course. The people's perception of priorities change from time to time and the government of a nation with an international outlook may not be able to pay the level of attention that it wishes to give for international development especially when the nation faces a decline in economic growth rate or a state of political uncertainty or both as how it happens.
Secondly there are times when an independent initiative taken by a country attracts criticism from several other nations, largely because the initiative is taken independently.
Thirdly national governments change from time to time. When a new government gets elected it may announce newer international programs that may be more benevolent, but may not be a linear extension of the programs of the previous government there by causing to lose consistency of developmental involvement.
Such factors necessitate that the international organization has to be strengthened as a permanent foundation to bear the larger responsibilities with the direct initiatives by independent governments taking a supplementary role.
Larger purpose for the United Nations
The founding fathers of the United Nations defined three basic purposes of the United Nations (each of which was seen as a counter to the aggressive policy of the axis Powers that had culminated in World War II)
- To maintain international peace and security;
- To develop friendly relations among nations;
- To achieve international cooperation of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian nature and encourage respect for human rights.
The world today is far more harmonious today and international relations are effectively maintained.In the process the world has become far more interdependent today than it was forty seven years ago.
The world today needs the United Nations to effectively address problems such as economic development and environment than essentially revolve its concerns around the need for military restraint.
It implies that the United Nations has to have a more ambitious object - not merely international harmony, but more emphatically, world prosperity as the ultimate purpose.
With a view to cause the whole world to develop, the objects of the UN have to become more emphatic and ambitious, with world prosperity as the ultimate purpose.
A more functional political structure of the United Nations
United Nations has a political structure which is too cautious. It does not have a President (Executive) and the Secretary General's authority is limited. The Secretary General is to be empowered issue by issue by the General Assembly, as opposed to the President of an evolved presidential form government., who heads the Executive with the parliament and judiciary functioning separately but blindingly.
The political structure of the U.N. is incomplete without a President. The world had just seen two world wars and nationalistic priorities were dominant and the world had not yet began to think truly international when the United Nations was conceived.
The world political environment of this day is not the same as it was 47 years ago. World politics today is much more evolved than it was at the time of the Dumberton Oaks and San Francisco Conferences.
From its inception till the present the United States of America has been a major determinant in the evolution and activities of the United Nations. President Wodroo Wilson's 14 points started a debate which eventually resulted in the formation of the League of Nations, which later gave way to the formation of the United Nations. United States was the major force behind the 1974 World Population Plan of Action, which established the Universal Rights to Family Planning and was instrumental in founding the United Nations Population Fund. The US Declaration of Human Rights inspired the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
The evolved form of the American Government could also be adopted by the United Nations. The united nations could be governed by an international government, headed by; a President, electe4d by the Heads of Government or the Heads of State of the members states of the United Nations for a predetermined period (may be 5 years), with his powers balanced by the U.N. General Assembly and differences adjudicated by the International Court of Justice.
The President should be able to function independently as head of the Executive without having to wait for the approval of the General Assembly in every move he is to make. At the same time the Executive has to be balanced. The U.N. General Assembly could do that very effectively. The International Court of Justice can determine what is and what is not excessive exercise of power or unconstitutional.
As it is considered it is important to remember that:
1. The political equations between nations are changing and would continue to change for the better.
2. All the nations as members of a stronger United Nations would continue to be sovereign, perhaps more sovereign than now, because with a stronger United Nations, thereat of war between nations could be nearly eliminated.
3. A stronger United Nations would not be a government issuing directives to nations, but one that would get the nations ot modify its policies and programs to accommodate international considerations through diplomatic discussions with the nations concerned., or by coordinating discussions and programs between member states.
4. The stronger United Nations would be of a participatory government, in the sense that the United Nations General Assembly becomes world parliament in which all nations are the members of parliament.
With a strengthened united nations with a well evolved and acceptable control structure it becomes possible to evolve and implement significant programs to make a more prosperous world.
Generating Revenues for the United Nations
Because the UN does not have vast resources at its disposal, it depends entirely on contribution from its member states.
It should be possible for the United Nations to reduce its dependence on contributions from member states if the United Nations can generate income, some form of International Income as National Income is to its member states. If the United Nations has to generate revenues on its own, it is necessary that the U.N. creates a resource base, in the form of a geographic zone.
U.N. does not have its own freely accessible geographical territory, not even the size of the smallest state in the world. It is ironical that the United Nations, which ought to be working towards a borderless world has its premises landlocked within the boundary of some its member states. Today not even one square inch of the world, on the world map, is permanently international or non-national. The exceptions are the high seas and the frozen continents.
Founding an Income generating mechanism for the United Nations
If the United Nations is to generate international revenues for world development, it is necessary that it creates a geographical base, that could in effect be the property of all the nations of the world.
A geographical base would open up opportunities for the UN to create a central economy. UN can create a central econonmy by housing non-tariff and several other forms of global trade, global industry and global banks to create an economy, which will generate revenue for the United Nations.
1. The Zone could be, to start with an area of not less than 100,000 hectares granted on lease for a period of, may be 499 years, to the United Nations by broad minded member states in consideration of a value. The land may be acquired on lease or even as outright purchase. 100,000 hectares of developable wasteland could cost between US $ 30 million ot US $ 300 million.
2. If the land has to be developed as an industry and trade district, the infrastructure could be developed at a cost of between US $ 1-10 billion. The foundation cost must be met by a fund set up by all the member states by making a one time contribution and the notional or actual profits earned on the basic infrastructural investments is to be non-dividendable. The total tax revenue or the earnings on the basic infrastructural investment made by all the member states in union, is not to be dividendable to member states but to be utilized for International Development.
3. The United Nations can create a mega company with a capital base of between US $10-25 billion dollars, subscribed by the member nations and private investors.
4. The capital base of $25 billion dollars would enable the company to borrow, on conservative banking norms $225 billion. So the total resources available for investments could be $250 billion. The United Nations could invest this quarter of a trillion dollars to promote companies, with a clearly defined object of making profits.
5. The capital base has to come from member nations and from private investors, who will earn a taxable dividend on their investment. The tax rate has to have a floor rate of 25% on which there will be no concessions to any of the share holder nations, and a voluntary higher rate of any proportion above 25% . All the tax revenue goes to the United Nations.
6. Such tax revenues could be partly reinvested in United Nations owned companies and the income generated by these companies could add to the United Nations fund for World Development.
It is understandable that member states may not be prepared to sacrifice their international business and banking houses to the United Nations. But if a new international land zone in the world is to come into existence as owned by all the nations, it would be an international trade and industry zone, which could foster new international mega cartels of the size and scope of the Airbus Industrie, European Space Agency and Intelstat.
Secondly, it is important to remember that the management and work force will be drawn from the member nations, part of most of the profits earned will be added to the national income of the member states as the investment in these companies have to come from governments and the private investors of the member nations, the input commodities have to be bought from the member nations and so on..
Also, it is necessary to remember that even after the foundation of a geographical zone for the United Nations, the United Nations would not have as much land as it would need for locating the industries. Some of the projects could be located in the UN member nations and if it is done that way, it amounts to attracting UN sponsored investments that would generate employment in the nation of location which is as beneficial as the present foreign investments.
Only a consortium of national investments could create certain mega and ultra mega business establishm
ents. To illustrate without going into aspects such as the economic feasibility or profitability at this stage, it is not possible for a private industrial house or for a single nation to establish an insurance company that would insure national governments against external developments that cause huge unfair economic hardship for the nation, or against natural calamities such as an earthquake that cost the nation billions of dollars of unplanned expenditure.
At present every time there is a natural calamity of a vast scale, most developing nations are forced to appeal for international aid which is some times sufficient and arrives in time, and sometimes not. Even for a developed nation such as the United States of America, it should make sound economic sense to insure the national treasury against such unforeseen demands as a natural calamity or against currency loss during recession.
International construction projects such as the Tunnel between England and France are at present shared by the governments and private investors of nations involved. There is a possibility that there are intercontinental projects at present and more in the future, such as intercontinental roads, railways and waterways. Such projects could be under the jurisdiction of the United Nations.
We already have a world bank and an International Monetary Fund which are under the aegis of the United Nations. The United Nations can found a Global Bank - a global commercial bank with the major banks of various national and interested private banks of every nationals subscribing and dividend-earning shareholders to finance trans-national cartels, to make commercial lending to those nations who have a high credit ranking (The object is to earn profits for the bank which would be taxable by the United Nations or jointly taxable by the United Nations and the investing nations.)
More such institutions could be conceived and inter-governmental and international private investments encouraged with the object of creating tax-paying International Income.
This would make it necessary for the United Nations to think in terms of a world money as a common currency. The Central Bank of the United Nations could start by selling instruments such as Travelers Cheques, denominated, instead of in national currencies, in what may be called world money, which is to eventually become a central currency and ultimately to become the basis for settling exchange rate disputes.
Reorienting the world economy to higher development
If the desirable high ideal of making the world wealthy is to be attained to the extent possible, comprehensive socio cultural economic programs of world wide reach and impact have to be planned by the world economists to reorient the world economy towards higher development.
A comprehensive program, while preserving jobs and generating more jobs, would simultaneously work on ambitious targets for world population control; it would reconcile technological advances with the trends and needs of the job market; while creating promising new inventions for the society of the future would preserve the wisdom of the ancients.; while continuing to send relief supplies to drought affected areas, would simultaneously make the uncultivable wastelands cultivable; it would combat the underworld activities and at the same time consider offering some form of amnesty along with some rehabiliatory financial concessions in the form of legalizing the illegal wealth in inviolable exchange for reformation and reorienting destructive illegal investments to sometimes as lucrative, but legal and productive investments.
Such comprehensive programs should extend beyond economic planning and cover areas such as developing committed and capable men for the governments of the world and making people more productive and less wasteful.
The Concept of National Waste
If we could evolve a method by which we estimate Gross National Waste as against Gross National Product the combined figure for the world would be alarming. We do not make the optimal use of our natural, human and material resources, which is one of the major reasons why we remain undeveloped.
We spend on arms that we can not and should not hope to use when we could instead be buying equipment to strengthen our internal law and order agencies. We spend on espionage and counter espionage when nations find it impossible to trace intra-national criminals and bring them to the court of law.
We misuse our human and material resources to produce soft drinks when we ought to be perfecting techniques of extracting natural fruit and vegetable juices and preserving them free of artificial preservatives. We build mineral water and carbonated water plants when we might instead be building desalination and water sterilization plants or rather using our human and material resources to explore underground water.
We make paper plates instead of metal ware, built more military intelligence satellites than communication satellites, make wall papers instead of smooth plasters, continue with gasoline engines instead of developing electric/battery vehicles. We throw away surplus food when the cost of storage exceeds the national value of the retained surplus food.Sanctions have contributed to the status quo of world economy
For valid strategic reasons, in the recent past, it has become an accepted practice for nations to impose economic sanctions openly as well as covertly mount an economic offensive that in effect weakened the enemy by the economic hardship that results for the nation. Economic sanctions have been in force for a very long time in the case of Cuba, in the recent past in the case of Iraq, Libya and until recently in the case of several Eastern European Nations.
While the validity or the strategic merit of these sanctions could not be doubted, the point made here is that such sanctions, though strategically valuable, have been weakening the economies of the nations, indirectly and in some cases directly, lowering national production, causing the nations to become weak, which in turn has made the world less prosperous than it could have been.
Sanctions also affect the nations that impose sanctions.
For instance, US Trade embargo on Cuba cost the US companies an estimated $30 billion though 1998, according to a John Hopkins University estimate.
If there is a way out of economic sanctions, the world would prosper sooner.The world order was such that Iraq occupied Kuwait and the rest of the world went to war with Iraq. The US cost of war was $61 billion and it cost the Arab countries $620 billion, according to the Arab Economic Report. If the war did not happen and if the UNDP or US AID were pledged $681 billion, half the poor people of the world would have risen above the poverty line.
Manpower shortage also exists all over the world
A chronic manpower shortage coexists along with the much publicized unemployment problem.
This is because the work force (Research, Executive and Labor force) is not distributed in the right proportion between various field of specialization. For instance in the US, where the unemployment problem is mounting, there may be a shortage of Language Teachers or shortage of computer programmers, because theoretically this category of work force is employed to teach languages to personnel employed in projects of narrow and limited economic and social benefit and most of the available programmers are employed by the military or military industries, so to say.
Human and material resources are misused.
If today the US government wants to rebuild all the downtown residential and commercial areas it would not be able to find investors/ bankers because their money is already invested in projects that may not be of optimal utility to the world, for instance, in a renovation project for a corporate office that does not require renovation. The government may not find enough architects and structural designers for they are employed in commercial projects of least social utility; it may not find enough construction workers for they are building a lavish airport in a tiny island in the Caribbean.It may not be possible for the government to build a transcontinental oil pipe line or to connect the river ways nationally - for there may not be enough of the more skilled engineers, workers and mangers left to be deputed for the projects.
The waste-oriented programs - commercial and noncommercial, absorbs a certain number of certain specialized work categories and because such a demand exists, a proportion of the population prepares for careers that the demand which the waste-oriented industry has generated. A proportion of population, instance prepares for careers in a weapons assembly plant, who would otherwise have prepared for careers in agriculture or medicine.
Demand meets supply - even the wrong demand
Reorienting the world economy to higher development - smoothly
It is understandable that the present economic order can b\not be disturbed abruptly lest there would be unpleasant effects on the world economy. An abrupt transition could cost the nation a million jobs and trillions of dollars.This new approach has to be introduced smoothly over a long period of time and the transition would be highly desirable for all the nations of the world if planned to take effect smoothly.
The world would be a more prosperous place to live if we could reorient the world economy to higher worldwide development.
Help for the world's suffering
George C Marshall proposed the plan to reconstruct post war Europe in a graduation ceremony at Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
We need another Marshall Plan at a point of time when even the prosperous of the nation are suffering from economic hardship - it may not be easy for the developed world to substantially increase its foreign aid budget. There is a recession in the United States, with unemployment mounting, trade deficit accumulating and its budgetary deficit widening. United Kingdom and France have similar problems and Germany is attending to the demands placed on its prosperous economy by the integration that has just happened.
The developing countries have an outstanding debt of $1.3 trillion dollars. Due to debt service demand, among other reasons, in the 80's aggregate net resource transfers to the developing countries shifted from positive to negative.
In 1989, aggregate Long Term net resource flows to developing countries (Net-flows) stood at 63.3 billion dollars. If the population of the developing countries is taken as 4 billion people, per capita resource receipts amount to $4 billion dollars for the year.
There is no way the world's problems will be solved with the present level of money flow.
A new born child dies somewhere in the world every two seconds, 1.5 acres of forests are destroyed every second, 25000 people die every day from acute water shortages and polluted water, 100 species of plant and animal life becomes extinct, more than 75 million tons of top soil is eroded or blown away and tons of toxic waste dumped somewhere in the world - EVERY DAY. If current trends continue 1990s will see 1/3 of the world's productive land erode, 1 million species of plant and animals become extinct and 1 billion people born to compete for increasingly scarce resources.
4 million people face death in Somalia, there is a civil war in Eastern Europe because there is an anachronistic ethnocentricity and a revival of nationalism. Russia, the other Republican republics and Eastern Europe have embraced western ideals at a point of time when the west can not afford to support the transition; on their own these nations neither have the knowledge nor the resources to make the transition work. There is the possibility of "bungled reforms discrediting capitalism before it has time to take root".
Arms race has ended but the arms remain stored. World Peace is desirable but military oriented manufacturing plants can not be closed down. They can not be closed down because the industry can not afford the cost of winding up the units and the governments can not re-employ or at least support those who lose jobs. Unemployment is already mounting. The budgets of governments are already on deficit and there is not enough money to be found to acceptably compensate the owners or substantially aid their diversification.
The world - Developing as well as the Developed world, needs a second Marshall Plan, a Marshall Plan of exponential magnitude, longer time frame, broader and more ambitious objects and of world wide proportion funded not only by the United States but by as many nations as possible to reconstruct not only Europe but the whole world.
Extending the NATO model of military alliance to the whole world
Looking beyond the present and ahead, we could consider an extended NATO type of alliance with all the nations of the world as allies.
This could be achieved in several ways. The Rapid Deployment Force, already granted to the Secretary General by the Security Council could be so constituted as to gradually become a world military organization with a balanced and fail proof control structure. It could also be achieved by including for NATO membership the erstwhile Warsaw Pact as well as the remaining countries and transferring control of the larger NATO to UN Security Council, General Assembly and other organs of the United Nations that may be created for the purpose.
The broader alliance could simultaneously constitute a military organization by drawing equitably personnel and other resources from all the members of the alliance or if possible from all the U.N.member states.
The United military organization would require no more than a tenth of the military personnel and other resources to be a complete force.
The alliance could, with the back up of such a military organization positively proclaim that any aggression or a move to war by any nation on any other nation would be considered an attempt to war with the rest of the world.
In the history of the world, wars have been fought for major reasons as well as for ludicrous reasons. The ear of an English sailor sparked a war between Great Britain and Spain in the 18th century. The animosities lasted 9 years.
More recently, in the year 1969, the Latin passion for football boiled over as El Salvador and Honduras competed in an important world cup qualifying match. Riots after the game led to a five day war in which 2000 people were killed and much of the Honduran Air Force destroyed.
With the foundation of the World Security Alliance, it would become very difficult for any nation to be aggressive and the threat of war between nations would be nearly eliminated. Nations could save billion of dollars hitherto over-allocated to defense and utilize them for development, to save the world's children, to preserve the rain forests or to maintain bio-diversity.
Goods such as nuclear weapons that are produced merely to threaten the enemy, aeroplanes and submarines that are built to merely be on guard - one nation builds them merely because someone else is building them - need no longer be produced in such wasteful quantities. Nuclear weapons, especially, were produced in quantities that could destroy the whole world several times over, when nations were still aware that the possession of nuclear weapons could do no more than produce a stalemate. It was said that nuclear weapons could not even be used across the conference table.
Military spending is about 5% of GNP in the industrial as well as the developing countries. About half of the combined spending on health and education in the industrial countries where as the two magnitudes are about the same in developing countries.
A world wide military alliance would not require more than a very small proportion of personnel employed in the militaries of the nations of the world. Once these resources are drawn from the military of all the nations, most of the rest of the world's military resources would be redundant. In such a scenario, military intelligence and counter intelligence could be reoriented to monitor and control the underworld; The military personnel could be reoriented to maintain law and order which at present the nations find it very difficult to maintain.
Billions of dollars of scarce monetary resources could be saved in this scenario.
The model of the French Foreign Legion
The United Nations military organization, could be to the extend that is appropriate, be modeled after the principles of French Foreign Legion, a proud, elite fighting unit, which from an unpromising start in 1831, built its mystique as 'romantic, swashbuckling, totally loyal, terrifying to its enemies, and fearless in the face of death'. The Legion is a unique permanent force, now represented by over 100 nationalities, who have taken the solemn obligation that binds them to serve, not France, but the Legion itself. The force of about 9000 men are eligible to French Citizenship upon their retirement.
The United Nations military organization could be organized with each of the member states deputing 5% of their military men and women. The UN force could be constituted as cosmopolitan divisions of various nationalities, who take the solemn obligation to serve to maintain world peace, and in times of war, fight their own motherlands if need be. The United Nations Military Organization, manned by personnel drawn from the member states' militaries, may be funded by a diversion of the member states' military expenditure, to be based around the world at bases leased to the United Nations in consideration for nominal rents, and equipped with weapons already in surplus in the various national militaries.
With the founding of the United Nations military organizations, well controlled by an elaborate system of checks and balances by all the member nations, it becomes the responsibility of the United Nations to maintain bilateral as well as world peace.
The United Nations' Military Organization could be a World Counter terrorist Force, an elite crack down force, ruthless in its tactics.
In addition to the above, the United Nations could found an intelligence organ, apart from a reinforced Interpol, to deal with trans-national and trans-continental crimes, with a hierarchical advantage over the member states' police, similar to the advantage the Federal Bureau of Investigations enjoys over the State Police organizations.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Architecture for Web 2.0 and beyond
From: S < s...m...@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 4, 2006 12:15 PM
Subject: First of a possible series of Papers on Internet NeXt: Unforeseen and unseen Ogre in today's Internet Architecture viewed from 500,000 feet above:
To: DWe < dj...@w3.org>, st...@w3.org, ti...@w3.org
Cc: S " s@in.name"
(This was in 2004, though well meant, for want of sufficient understanding, the ideas expressed were unbalanced)
Internet NeXt:
Paper One
Unforeseen and unseen Ogres in today's Internet Architecture viewed from 500,000 feet above:
This is a more presentable version of an email message that I sent to the Technical Architecture Group of the W3
consortium while my company is still not a member of W3C. This is the first of an emerging series of a non-technical
conceptual treatise on Internet NeXt, that would go on to point technical directions, so as to emerge as a blue print
for a far more advanced, but far less dangerous Internet.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2006Nov/0095.html
Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web and a world of brilliant scientists and professionals have caused and
continue to cause this amazing wonder called world wide web happen.
From 50, 000 feet above the complex architecture that has emerged in such a short time as 10 years amazes anyone.
This amazement is suspended with the purpose of telescoping on the unintended and uncontrollable critical flaws in
the foundation, structure, facade and interiors.
Sky way without air routes and ground control
From far higher above, from 500, 000 feet above, it looks like a million aeroplanes, all piloted by those who assert their
right to fly, no pilot's licence, no air traffic control, no air routes, aeroplanes not only made by Boeing, Airbus and
McDonnel Douglas, but made by anyone, even by garage mechanics, not under legislation to mark the planes with
an ID, no air speed limits, no ground clearance, no navigation laws, no ground crew, no X ray machines to enter or
leave the aircraft.... total and complete freedom to fly.
Or, is this New York city as an absolutely free port with no traffic lights?
Or it looks like New York city without an immigration authority, no FBI, no NYPD, citizens drive their unmarked cars
on the right, left, center, across, on pavements and lawns and sometimes inside the buildings, their own and every one's,
no traffic police, no traffic lights, no toll gates, no road blocks, no speed limits, no driving licence, no name plates, no
driver's age limits....Freedom to live in a house without a door number. Someone unknown pings ceaselessly on the
door, someone scans the windows and pipe lines for gaps and holes. Seconds later a heap of garbage gets pumped up
the water pipe, clogs not only the water pipe but floods the entire house, spills over onto the streets, and still continues
to flow across the city... Who is doing this? It looks like a school girl... no it is a boy.... No, no, it is a grown up adult....
Or is it a robot? He, She or It is here... Oh NO, gone, gone away without leaving a trace..
Privacy and Anonymity are not Synonymous
The West understands and values Freedom but not the concept of obligations as an essence of such freedom. ( There
is a Declaration of Human Rights, but is there a Declaration of Human Obligations to balance the rights? ) Privacy can
not exist in complete anonymity. There can be no freedom when essential controls are non-existent.
Rights can not exist without Obligations
Concerns for excessive freedom and privacy on the worldwide web caused the exact opposites to happen - a freeman
does not have to hide, but on the Internet most people hide. Amidst all the clamour for privacy anything that anyone
says on the Internet today is open for theft and abuse by anyone with advanced search skills or basic hacking skills.
So much for the results of the universal cries for freedom and privacy, flawed by the inherent narrow thinking that
stops short of the concept of obligations..
Life 30 years later is a millennium apart
Before the Internet, before Windows and Mac, people invited people to their homes; people trusted people. The bus
driver, door man, schoolmate, workplace colleague and neighbours recognized a person, knew his or her name and
he or she had no concerns about socializing. There was enough privacy when he or she chose to. But on the Internet
today everyone hides sometime, and some people hide all the time. It is not too abnormal to come across someone
who refuses to say if he is man or daemon. Often it is because the open Internet is becoming unworthy of openness.
Spam, Filters, More spam
Spam, Filters, more spam, Virus, antivirus and more virus, intrusions, firewalls and stealthier intrusions.... it is a never
ending battle on the Internet and the world is not winning on this battle within.
Worldwide web is not free as long as it is free, is not private as long as it permits total and complete anonymity (which
is sometimes desirable and sometimes necessary) and it is not productive enough unless there are some basic
safeguards.
Split Second Shut Down to Reboot
Newer standards and greater technical advances are emerging. But what needs to be done when new hardware and
software are installed on a PC? Reboot the machine otherwise the new hardware and software does not work or cause
more chaos.
Is there a way or rebooting the world wide web? (this is a notional expression, explained in the papers to follow)
Can we explore the possibility of an master re-design and concerted implementation of newer hardware, newer software,
newer protocols, a split second shut down, universal log off and an instant reboot?
There is a definite way, the world will like it, it can be smooth, can happen fast if not in a split second, it will make not
only the cyberspace less dangerous but also the physical space and the effort can find its own funds, its results can
be commercially prolific, if so desired for common good...That would be Internet NeXt.
The focus on this first paper has been largely on one of the fundamental aspects, namely authenticity. A lot more to
be written, (perhaps to be based on basic and advanced technical guidance from W3C, possible online and offline
interaction with W3C and later by interaction with experts from everywhere, on so many other aspects) before a
complete picture of a possible blueprint emerges.
(some of the) Conceptual Outlines to follow before a complete picture emerges
- Costume Party Gateway.
- URIs (Digital id) in two levels, visible and invisible
- Harmless Graphics
- A re look at the NeXt browser for NeXt
- Real Revenues from Virtual Space for the good of the people in general and for the Internet in particular.
Paper Two
Reconciling Society's Concern's for Privacy with the imperative of Authentication:
The Costume Party Model
This part of the paper deals with the issue of reconciling Privacy considerations with a need for authentication. To
propose a solution the Costume Party model is examined:
What happens in a costume party? People take part in costume parties to be there free and uninhibitted, unnoticed,
for whatever reason. Even in a perfectly anonymous costume party, shut out from law and order agencies, free of all
rules.... there are some UNDERLYING SAFEGUARDS AND RULES.
1. As the hostess of a costume party Jane from SmallTown is not in a position to match each of the costumed guest
with the real people she had INVITED, but she knows who she had invited. She knows that everyone present, beneath
their masks is legitimate. If there are 100 costumed guests, all 100 costumed guests were pre-approved by Jane at
some point of time in the past, she knew them all, so invited all those whom she knew or those whom she knew knew to the
costume party.
2. The real people changed into their costumes at the parlor at Jane's Doorway. The trusted parlor maid attended to
the guests, she knows that Cynthia went into the changing room and came out costumed as a White Rabbit. Likewise
she knows what costumes each of the guests took up. Parlor is isolated from Jane's house and the parlour maid is
not part of the costume party. Guests know that the Parlour maid wouldn't come to the party to interfere in their
anonymous adventures.
3. No guest present will know the real identifies of the other guests unless they mutually chose to disclose their
identities to each other. This is a rule that is always honored in all of Jane's costume parties.
4. If someone had spilt wine on the table by accident Jane barely noticed it. If someone deliberately broke a wine
bottle and splashed wine on the carpet Jane gently warned them in-costume. If any one of the costumed guest
behaved in a manner that was not even tolerated in a costume party, Jane sent that person out, in-costume. No
costumed guest is unmasked, almost never, ALMOST, unless it is noticed that one of the guests, say, the White
Rabbit was wearing a concealed weapon and that the person's movements were perceptibly malicious.... Then
Jane calls the parlor maid and finds out that the white rabbit is Cynthia.....Her Security staff makes some further
enquiries on Cynthia and discover a criminal background and suddenly Jane is alert and the White Rabbit aka Cynthia
is turned over to the police.
This RARE EXCEPTION of a call to the parlor maid is understood by all costumed guests who are otherwise secure
that Jane would never unmask a person unless the person becomes a dangereous threat or has committed a
dangerous act. All guests endorse this exception which is essential for their security.
Jane On the internet:
1. Gateway Master Authentication: A CENTRAL Internet Gateway master Authentication Server (IGMAS) where a person
authenticates with his real identiry on his very first entry into the Internet as a new Internet user. After registering with IGMAS
the new user takes his Authorization code and superficial and minimal personal particulars to the local ISP for a new internet
connection. The user gets an Internet Account and user name, which is all that is required for session authentication.
This gateway authentication by the ISP for every session is negotiated through IGMAS servers to permit / deny internet access
for the session. The only way to get on the internet is through this gateway. The internet infrastructure is so modified of all
side doors. If Jane from SmallTown connects to her local ISP, the ISP communicates the LIMITED INFORMATION Jane
has provided to the central Internet Gateway master Authentication Server (IGMAS) or its ultra secure authentication
mirrors. IGMAS stores in its info vault a MORE ELABORATE AUTHENTICATION RECORD of everyone who wants
to be on the Internet. IGMAS is perhaps owned by an internet governing authority, or owned and operated by the people
of the world represented by Internet Security Groups and Internet Privacy rights groups. IGMAS server stores such data
as Jane's age, sex, permanent physical address, nationality, employment data, biometrics, passport number, social
security number and all other particulars that may be necessary. The local ISP stores merely Jane's user name,
password and if implemented, biometrics.
( Jane signed up for the internet account with the ISP by first logging on to IGMAS with her IGMAS internet master
identity and on the IGMAS web interface Jane navigates to find the ISP named SmallT ISP, IGMAS gives Jane a
session through its web interface with the SmallT ISP and by this token the SmallT ISP knows that the person
attempting to sign up is a IGMAS authenticated person. SmallT ISP asks no further questions. Jane says she is Jane,
doesn't disclose age or sex or physical address, chooses a bandwidth plan, chooses a password and presents her
biometrics. This is how she signed up for the internet account. IGMAS in this earlier case acted like a one time
internet account sign up gateway )
2. IGMAS authenticates Jane without disclosing any further details about Jane to SmallT ISP and SmallT ISP connects
Jane to the Internet. Jane enters the internet gateway for her internet session. She goes into the chat room as Amidilla,
logs into her email account as Cityboy_123@anomail.com , logs into her employer's website LegitimateCorporation.com
as Jane.William, connects to an anonymous proxy server, masks her IP address and NIC address and browses
shopping sites or other sites that she chooses to. She interacts with groups with an altogether different id, says she is
from Midcity in South America and she maintains this identity with the groups. She does whatever she pleases.
Anomail required some quasi-authentication on the part of Jane before allowing her an email account, Jane authenticated
by identifying herself as the same person as the person with the email account Jane.William@LegitimateCorporation.com.
The chat room required very basic authentication, so Jane said she is Cityboy_123@anomail.com. Jane trusted the
chat room administrator not to reveal her cityboy email address and trusted anomail not to reveal her legitimate
corporation identity. The anonymous proxy server knows that Jane is Jane from SmallT ISP and beyond this it is
impossible for the proxy server or for the ISP to know the complete personal particulars of Jane.
3. SmallT ISP prompts to authenicate at intervals if Jane's session is too long or if timed out and mid session
authentication between SmallT ISP and IGMAS happens at the background and does not take the 10 seconds it took
at the beginning of the session.
Jane's multiple identies are legitimate, her concerns for privacy is legitimate, all the masks that she chose to wear are
agreeable. Jane might do a bit of mischief here and there and IGMAS would ignore such minor mischief if reported by
SmallT ISP or anomail. But if Jane becomes a serious threat to the internet infrastructure or to humanity in general,
Law and Order Agents with escalated responsibilites may approach IGMAS with an unmask request. The Authentication
server has a right to reject even those requests and when inclined to grant a request, requires a veto like internal
directive for release of authentication records. IGMAS server respects privacy rights and it would take an incident of
very dangerous implications for IGMAS to pull up her records by a process that would require simultaneous multiple
approvals within IGMAS.
Law and Order agencies, commercial establishments may be tempted to approach IGMAS with an unmask request on
minor crimes, but the IGMAS data storage and retrieval system is to be so designed to be almost permanently locked
up, unless in a specific incident of extraordinary significance and even those extraordinary circumstances would require
veto like procedures within IGMAS administration. IGMAS would in a sense work like a global proxy server or as a
gateway level compulsive router.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Geographical Nationhood.
European Union has happened. When the idea was mooted to unite 12 states in Europe it was considered a bit far fetched at least, it happened after 10 or more years of diplomacy and another 10 years later it has stretched as far as the borders of Russia and would sooner or later embrace of all Russia.
United States announced NAFTA, NAFTA exists but beyond a free trade agreement and a free flow, the union is not progressing on the footsteps of Europe, but America seems to have a different model of embracing and expanding.. largely through trade. All other nations reach out to the world much the same way.
American money is not only in America, American businesses are not only in America, but all over the world. In America there isn't merely American money, but money from all over the world. The businesses, big and small are owned not only by Americans. Same can be said of India, Europe, Japan, China and Russia in varying degrees.
These are different tracks on which the world is becoming more and more borderless. There is a central spine that runs through the changing world of today: Internet. Intenet is the EFFECT of the early efforts on globalization and it is equally or more so, Internet is the CAUSE the rapid globalization.
What would the world be like, 30 years from now?
3000 years ago, the world was fiercely territorial. It has been so until 30 years ago.
The world is still territorial. I can take up residence elsewhere in the world if I want to, but there are procedures for approval that I need to go through.
30 years from now, the world would be far more cosmopolitan, at least half the world. More of American money in Japan, more of Japanese money in Europe, more European money in India and more Indian money in Pakistan.
More Indians and more Africans will work for European and American businesses and more Americans will live in Russia, China and India. Cross cultural, cross national residences would be far more accepted and resistence to immigration would become exceptional from being normal.
30 years from now the world would still be very much a world of Americans, Indians, Japanese, European and Tanzanian nationals, but there would be an increasingly visible distinction between nationality and residence.
Nationality or citizenship would have a lot less to do with residence.
What would national governements be doing ? National governments would be governing an international poplulation - not so geographically permananent as the population for the present times. The governement of Canada would govern not only Canadian citizens but rather Canadian residents of multiple nationalities, whose permanence and impermence would depend on how the governement of Canada compares in relation to the Government of France or the Reunion Island, perhaps even in comparison to England. For by then international migration would have become far less complicated and would be just about as difficult as moving from New Jersey to New Orleans.
In the first half of the twentieth centry, Prime Ministers and Presidents were warriors in spirit. Then they became diplomats. Today they are businessmen corporatising entire nations they are heading. The business leadership of a Head of Government is what is crucial for the nation to progress.
30 years from now Heads of Government will be hoteliers in spirit.
...
United States announced NAFTA, NAFTA exists but beyond a free trade agreement and a free flow, the union is not progressing on the footsteps of Europe, but America seems to have a different model of embracing and expanding.. largely through trade. All other nations reach out to the world much the same way.
American money is not only in America, American businesses are not only in America, but all over the world. In America there isn't merely American money, but money from all over the world. The businesses, big and small are owned not only by Americans. Same can be said of India, Europe, Japan, China and Russia in varying degrees.
These are different tracks on which the world is becoming more and more borderless. There is a central spine that runs through the changing world of today: Internet. Intenet is the EFFECT of the early efforts on globalization and it is equally or more so, Internet is the CAUSE the rapid globalization.
What would the world be like, 30 years from now?
3000 years ago, the world was fiercely territorial. It has been so until 30 years ago.
The world is still territorial. I can take up residence elsewhere in the world if I want to, but there are procedures for approval that I need to go through.
30 years from now, the world would be far more cosmopolitan, at least half the world. More of American money in Japan, more of Japanese money in Europe, more European money in India and more Indian money in Pakistan.
More Indians and more Africans will work for European and American businesses and more Americans will live in Russia, China and India. Cross cultural, cross national residences would be far more accepted and resistence to immigration would become exceptional from being normal.
30 years from now the world would still be very much a world of Americans, Indians, Japanese, European and Tanzanian nationals, but there would be an increasingly visible distinction between nationality and residence.
Nationality or citizenship would have a lot less to do with residence.
What would national governements be doing ? National governments would be governing an international poplulation - not so geographically permananent as the population for the present times. The governement of Canada would govern not only Canadian citizens but rather Canadian residents of multiple nationalities, whose permanence and impermence would depend on how the governement of Canada compares in relation to the Government of France or the Reunion Island, perhaps even in comparison to England. For by then international migration would have become far less complicated and would be just about as difficult as moving from New Jersey to New Orleans.
In the first half of the twentieth centry, Prime Ministers and Presidents were warriors in spirit. Then they became diplomats. Today they are businessmen corporatising entire nations they are heading. The business leadership of a Head of Government is what is crucial for the nation to progress.
30 years from now Heads of Government will be hoteliers in spirit.
...
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
America, changing.
I am beginning to respect America more. A lot more. Earlier my respect for America was for the spirit of its receptiveness to the people of all geographic regions in its formative years, its benevolent consitution, the role that it had played in bringing the League of Nations into being, its participation to end Hilter's regime, its Marashal's plan... America had championed the concepts of freedom, equality and justice in all immensity, drew such practical philosophical ideals from various philosphers ancient and modern, made it a comprehensive doucment that it stood for and chamioned for.
Industrial Revultion began in Manchester, but it is America that expanded it. Cars, airtravel and computers have become common for the commonman largely because America had a climate that nurtured large scale production of wonderful goods and services and made it possible for the commonman to own and use them.
This is all that I admired about America and what bothered me was that it became a little self centered along the process - ten, twenty years ago and remained so for a long time. When it talked about Democracy or the absence of it in some other nation, it wasn't really worried about Democracy. When it talked about Free Trade, it meant American business interests. When it talked about Peace elsewhere it meant war, overt or covert with that nation.
And it appeared a little arrogant for a period of ten, twenty years... I have a feeling that this is all changing.
Recent history is dominated by its involvement in Iraq... Critics keep harping on the Intelligence goof up about the Weapons of Mass Destruction intelligence which was the public excuse of the American government to go to war, critics and others criticise the sporadic beatings that the troops take, even after three years of the recent Amercian presence in Iraq, kidnap incidents are blown out of proportion by the media, conspiracy theorits say it is all about oil... No, there is a larger design. It is taking time to take shape but it is happening. Slowly. The world is becoming a better place to live.
In taking such a larger view, I let go a few injustices that have occured. Abu Graf, the Iraq Musuem, the inevitable lies and propaganda that still has to go on, it is all part of the game, but in the end the world would be better balanced with yet another harmonious nation in its roll.
It is not what America did in Iraq that makes America more respectable. Its grand design on Iraq (with larger non-military geographic and economic implications in middle east) is still in progress, lot more work to be done, may be with another TWENTY years of its presece and involvement on a significant level, in some form or another. For now, what America has done and is doing in Iraq is not to be disapproved.
What has impressed me most is that it now appears genuine that America respects President Mushraff as an ally. If this happened ten, twenty years ago, it would have been nothing more than a trick, a deceptive posture, a game on a leader of a nation that the Administration would have discarded once the American purpose was served. It has been happening for the past four or five years, and America appears genuine.
With India, America's participation is amazing. America is embracing India and its embrace feels warm. Ok, we took your advice here and there about economic reforms, but we maintained our caution, we were not like the Latin American countries that rushed to reform and faced consequences. It probably took America a bit of time to understand why India was calculatedly slow in its reform progress, why India isn't all that drastic about the reform process as much as America would like it to be, but in the end it has become evident to America that India is progressing in a manner that the progress is sustained. And America has ceased to play one-up, has even made gestures of commendable humility that clearly characterise today's America as refined, more evloved and somewhat great. One little example is the reception hosted to our Union Minsiter recently at the White house, something that would have been conceptually impossible for America as a protocol exception ten, twenty years ago...
I dont know much about America's positive changes in how it handles diplomatic and trade relations with other nations, but how it handles Britain, India, Pakistan offer a glimpse of signs of a refined govenement...
I am a little reluctant to be a America Centric when I talked about the whole world, but it so happens that America has a considerable impact on the whold world.
America can take a few more simple steps, and a few far reaching steps to make the world a wonderful place.
One or two simple steps for now: Invite Fidel Castro to be the Chief Guest in the Foreign Policy Association Dinner. Offer him a cigar officially imported from Havana. Invite Colonel Muammer Guadaffi to lecture on the History of Libya at the John F Kennedy School of Governement, followed by a Dinner at 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue.....
Industrial Revultion began in Manchester, but it is America that expanded it. Cars, airtravel and computers have become common for the commonman largely because America had a climate that nurtured large scale production of wonderful goods and services and made it possible for the commonman to own and use them.
This is all that I admired about America and what bothered me was that it became a little self centered along the process - ten, twenty years ago and remained so for a long time. When it talked about Democracy or the absence of it in some other nation, it wasn't really worried about Democracy. When it talked about Free Trade, it meant American business interests. When it talked about Peace elsewhere it meant war, overt or covert with that nation.
And it appeared a little arrogant for a period of ten, twenty years... I have a feeling that this is all changing.
Recent history is dominated by its involvement in Iraq... Critics keep harping on the Intelligence goof up about the Weapons of Mass Destruction intelligence which was the public excuse of the American government to go to war, critics and others criticise the sporadic beatings that the troops take, even after three years of the recent Amercian presence in Iraq, kidnap incidents are blown out of proportion by the media, conspiracy theorits say it is all about oil... No, there is a larger design. It is taking time to take shape but it is happening. Slowly. The world is becoming a better place to live.
In taking such a larger view, I let go a few injustices that have occured. Abu Graf, the Iraq Musuem, the inevitable lies and propaganda that still has to go on, it is all part of the game, but in the end the world would be better balanced with yet another harmonious nation in its roll.
It is not what America did in Iraq that makes America more respectable. Its grand design on Iraq (with larger non-military geographic and economic implications in middle east) is still in progress, lot more work to be done, may be with another TWENTY years of its presece and involvement on a significant level, in some form or another. For now, what America has done and is doing in Iraq is not to be disapproved.
What has impressed me most is that it now appears genuine that America respects President Mushraff as an ally. If this happened ten, twenty years ago, it would have been nothing more than a trick, a deceptive posture, a game on a leader of a nation that the Administration would have discarded once the American purpose was served. It has been happening for the past four or five years, and America appears genuine.
With India, America's participation is amazing. America is embracing India and its embrace feels warm. Ok, we took your advice here and there about economic reforms, but we maintained our caution, we were not like the Latin American countries that rushed to reform and faced consequences. It probably took America a bit of time to understand why India was calculatedly slow in its reform progress, why India isn't all that drastic about the reform process as much as America would like it to be, but in the end it has become evident to America that India is progressing in a manner that the progress is sustained. And America has ceased to play one-up, has even made gestures of commendable humility that clearly characterise today's America as refined, more evloved and somewhat great. One little example is the reception hosted to our Union Minsiter recently at the White house, something that would have been conceptually impossible for America as a protocol exception ten, twenty years ago...
I dont know much about America's positive changes in how it handles diplomatic and trade relations with other nations, but how it handles Britain, India, Pakistan offer a glimpse of signs of a refined govenement...
I am a little reluctant to be a America Centric when I talked about the whole world, but it so happens that America has a considerable impact on the whold world.
America can take a few more simple steps, and a few far reaching steps to make the world a wonderful place.
One or two simple steps for now: Invite Fidel Castro to be the Chief Guest in the Foreign Policy Association Dinner. Offer him a cigar officially imported from Havana. Invite Colonel Muammer Guadaffi to lecture on the History of Libya at the John F Kennedy School of Governement, followed by a Dinner at 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue.....
Monday, April 18, 2005
America America
first posted in slate.com on April 8, 2003
Published at blog-city on Monday, 2 June 2003
Subject: How did America became what it isn't?
From: shiva
Date: Apr 8 2003 9:03AM
How did America became what it is not ? When did it begin to lose its goodness?
In 1790 America was a nation of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and a few others. Hundred years later, the nation had become a land that had the diversity of the whole world. Today it is a nation of people of the most diverse cultural origins. It is a microcosm of the culturally diverse Planet Earth.
Politically the nation emerged as a nation of a noble vision, founded on the principles of liberty, equality and justice, constructing its values of nationhood based on the thinking of John Locke, David Hume, Voltaire among other greatest thinkers known.
Earlier in this century it had been a peace loving nation that wouldn't go to war, and after it won a war that it was drawn into, it went on to reconstruct Europe with its Marshall's plan. To make the world a world without war it founded the United Nations.
The nation's political framework, its values such as Democracy, Equality and Social Justice and its overall benevolent spirit had set the nation apart as an example. Its people reflect the spirit of the nation as by and large the people of the United States are magnanimous in spirit. Americans have instituted more foundations than several other nations combined.
With what is happening in the recent past- its domineering attitude towards the rest of the world, the war in Iraq for instance, America appears to have become what it is not.
All that America was remains covered with dust today. Like a dusty mirror which distorts light, the light within America is more than blurred by simple misconceptions in political execution.
What happened?
America has been good, but it became self righteous about its own goodness. Wanted to impose its values such as Democracy in the rest of the world, championed human rights and free trade. Perfect. But somewhere along the process the values that America set out to advocate took a back seat and the power that the rhetoric brought about became the objective. The result was that the nation ended up being one-up over the rest of the world. What remains now is that high handed stance and not the values which America set out to advocate.
Immersed in its belief that its constitution and institutions are superior, America did not review its constitution and institutions periodically. The founding fathers of America wrote the most profound constitution when America became a nation, but periodic review would have made it more balanced.
After all, how old is democracy? ie., the democracy as it is in America? Set aside the ancient Roman senate, Democracy is 225 years old. In the time line of mankind 225 years of experience is not at all long enough. It is too little a time to understand the inherent flaws of the system (I am not a socialist, not a communist, not a monarchist, but someone thinking aloud). Monarchy is the most ancient institution and we don't have much of it left in its active form. My argument is that half the world believed that socialism was noble until it burst. Same may not happen with democracy, but in 225 years it is far from perfected.
The Judiciary, Executive and Congress were constituted as balanced branches, but then with changing times, the balance was hurt by various forces, such as the various lobbies that exercised their influence over the Congress, as also various branches of government such as Pentagon or CIA that emerged stronger than even the Office of the President in some instances. This may not exactly be what is really happening at this point of time, but part of the historical cause of how America became what it is not. What has America done to review its constitution? What has it done to debate on the need to keep the various organs balanced with changing times? What has America done to balance the lobby groups? What has it done to ensure press freedom in its true sense while keeping the press as an institution balanced? What has the nation done to examine if any of the Administrative organs have gained more than due influence over national affairs?
The World War era required America to spend on Defense and the cold war era required America to develop more powerful weapons. The cold war era required America to adopt various strategies, overt and covert and this behavior has left a lasting impression and a pattern in itself which ought to have been erased with the emergence of the new world order.
Today America doesn't seem to care about Democracy. It uses it as a doctrine to be advocated when a certain government does not suit its national interests. Same can be said of its championship of human rights. It funded the Taliban and it patronized Saddam Hussein when it suited America. This means that America could brook any abuse of human rights as long as its own national interests are not hurt. Free Trade? Free Trade became an unspoken slogan to make the rest of the world Buy American.
Somewhere along the time-line America set itself apart from the rest of the world. American life is precious: Come on, LIFE IS PRECIOUS, every life. The national interests of America as a World Power is important: Well, if you wish to be a global power, why place national interests paramount? National interests are fulfilled automatically when that isn't the only item in your agenda. When you are instrumental in making the world at large a better place to live your own national well-being is more than duly served.
What is now happening is that America is trying to assert itself as a world leader without placing the interests of the world paramount. It wants to lead the world while blatantly talking about its national interests. It prides in itself as a Super power. The reality is that it is an illusion that America is a superpower. If it indeed is, it wouldn't shout at the top of the voice that it is a superpower. Real power gives modesty and if America is really powerful it would have made UN look powerful.
American posture has always been domineering. What makes it worse is a basic phenomenon that no one in Diplomacy seems to have noticed: American English isn't the same as the English as the world knows it. Some American expressions convey an entirely wrong meaning. At other times the way the American government speaks is a reflection of its one-up, on-top attitude. And American protocol is so overbearing. Few heads of state and heads of government get past as equals of anyone above the rank of an Under Secretary in US Administration. American protocol is unwittingly designed to make it all burst one fine day.
American English sounds too casual. Everyone in the American Government including the American Press reporters call Iraqi President as Saddam on TV (outside America, it sounds so jarring). Other examples of what irritates some of those from the rest of the world are this: foreign nationals are "aliens" and "sanctions" are imposed on nations, big or small that did not fall in line.
It is with this attitude that America has been condescending towards its real and imagined enemies and in the process it has always underestimated its enemies. It has always thought that it could overthrow its enemies, in Libya, in Cuba and now in Iraq.
Even if America thinks it would overthrow Saddam Hussein, what great harm would befall America if it refers to the Iraqi President as the President of Iraq? Whatever be the degree or reasons for hatred for your enemies, if you make an effort to consider them respectable as strong individuals, then everything changes. Everything changes. It would be basic statesmanship to follow such a protocol. Who writes the President's speeches? The Psychological operations? Does the Psychological Operations know that there are other cultures existing elsewhere in the world that are at least slightly different from American?
Who is advising the American administration to adopt such a posture of a "bully" as America is began to be viewed as?
Why has America been one-up over the UN, which is all world, when it could at least pretend to be a part of it?
A little more modesty would make America far more greater. There are such simple reasons why America has made so many enemies.
How many enemies can America afford?
shiva ( dot ) madras (at) gmail ( dot ) com [ new email ]
Comments at blog-city
comment added :: 12th October 2003, 14:40 GMT+05:30
The Americans did not create the United Nations Organisation. The UNO was an offshoot of the League of Nations which was based in Europe. The Americans "offered" the UNO a base in New York.
slate.com reactions to America, America, some very angry
Subject: we failed to change with our changing people
From: mark14
Date: Mar 29 2003 8:11AM
and stay true to our ideals of equality and fairness. The original immigrants became a entrenched power elite intent on emulating the British colonialists through brainwashing the disenfranchised into supporting acts of agression in the name of freedom but for much darker motives. There is lots of money to be made in this process. Where is Ken Lay? (He's really just a symbol of the pervasive rot). Support the troops and working Americans. Change the leadership that is leading us deeper and deeper into this mess.
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: Clearview
Date: Mar 29 2003 8:37AM
What happened is that a weak leader was elected, and due to his deep weakness he is trying to show the opposite. He is surrounded by a bunsh of self beneficiaries.They are telling him exactly what they need to get more profit,but they make him think he is the decision maker, (The poor cowboy). The problem is that no wise man is standing in his face and telling him to stop what he is pushing us to. But for sure WISE MEN still exist and will act soon to save America.
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: ksmutzer
Date: Mar 30 2003 2:43AM
You are quick to blame Bush, but there has been a long line of weak leaders that lead up to the current situation. We are a people of a weak mind and of nieviety. Look beyond what the press and the people of this forum tell you and maybe you will see the light. A learned mind comes from research and interest and not slanders from the uneducated. Open your eyes and you shall see the truth.
Subject: Until you learn how to spell 'naiveté,
From: Catnapping4444
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:12AM
you might wanna shy away from comments about others' educations...LOL(pssst: It's not spelled, 'nieviety.')
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 8:54AM
I would tend to agree with you and I can see that you have a deep respect for the principles that our nation was founded. I was very upset about the fact that we were going to war without un approval until I heard the president's speeches. I chose to believe him and to trust him and I didn't even vote for him. If we do find weapons of mass destruction then I would have to then say that the view of America you expressed is not accurate, that there are enough Americans who DO care about their country to make it worth standing up for. I am going to wait a bit before making my judgement of the Bush administration. After some time more of the truth will come out. We the American people can see how our leaders handle the post-war period... like whether or not we're going to keep our oil companies from getting their greedy little fingers on Iraqi oil, how long will we actually have to occupy Iraq, what type of leadership is going to replace Saddam and will the world economy be opened up to Iraq... etc.
We do have to pay close attention through all of this and always remember that WE have the power to change things so America is what WE make of it.
Subject: the scary thing is you're right
From: Bdbureau1987
Date: Mar 29 2003 11:21AM
You're absolutely right. Our country that was founded on ethics, principles, and fair play. In the last few decades, we have seen every one of those virtues torn to shreds. Watching the presidential elections have been like watching the deevolution of man. We went from Roosevelts (homo-sapiens) to Nixxons (Cro-Magnon) to Reagans (Neanderthal) to Bushes (A Chimpanzee who has been strategically shaven and forced into a suit.) I suspect we'll be seeing inanimate objects in office before this is over. There was a time when we could stand up with pride for what our country did. Now we defend its leaders' thoughtless arrogance with jargon, propaganda, and those little dowel-mounted flags you buy down at K-Mart.
Let's remember that patriotism isn't always a good thing. Nazi Germany had heaping, festering gobs of patriotism.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 7:22PM
I take it you're a democrat? heheh :-)
I am neither. I try to give all candidates equal consideration. The way I see it is both parties have legitimate views. Its the ying and yang of politics that keeps things in check. When clinton was in office for 8 years things were looking great! But during this period the American people began to lose interest once again in foreign affairs and all during this time criminals had been building their power both over-seas and here at home while we just smoked cigars and played the saxophone (and perhaps allowed big business to do unethical things to other countries as well as our own for cryin out loud!!!). Now Americans are once again becoming interested in what is going on in the rest of the world and I think thats a very good thing. This war could turn out to be the first step towards healing our differences with other cultures.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: Bdbureau1987
Date: Mar 29 2003 10:34PM
Close... I'm actually fiscally conservative, but I believe in voting your conscience; not your wallet. So naturally, I tend to vote Democrat. They may be annoyingly naive, but they're not evil.Basically, as I see it, the office of president has devolved since the early 1900's. Clinton was really no exception. Certainly, he was more intelligent than Ronald Reagan or Pappy Bush, but let's face it, there are bedpans out there that are more intelligent than the Reagans and the Bushes. Perhaps he wasn't as hell-bent on destroying the environment and dragging us into pointless wars. But, On an ethical and moral level, Clinton was a festering pile of lying swine fodder. Same as Reagan. Same as Pappy and Baby Bush.
Basically put:
1. We expect our leaders to engage in immoral, unethical, highly corrupt acts.
2. We expect them to be stupid and clumsy enough to get caught in the act.
3. If we ask our leaders to graciously step down after being caught in said acts, we've come to accept that they won't. They'll cling on to office for dear lives, letting the scandal humiliate both themselves, their families, and their country. We expect them to offer pathetic justifications ("I said I did not sleep with THAT woman," "he tried to hurt my daddy,") and play out the media circus until we're so tired of it we're willng to just give up and wait for their term limit to be over with.I think that this lack of accountability is less than pathetic. If a trainee accidentally puts his retainer into a Big Mac, he/she's fired. If a teacher accidentally lost seven children on a field trip, he/she would be fired. If a surgeon accidentally sews their egg sandwich into a patient's gallbladder, he/she would be fired. It's a shame we don't hold those given the *priviledge of leading to the same standard as we would a M'cee-Dee's trainee.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: ksmutzer
Date: Mar 30 2003 2:52AM
Actually, if you look at our history, corruption has infected our politics for longer than just a mere few decades. Time and time again there has been scandal involving political figures. I only wonder if you even voted in the past election, considering that a very small percentage of this nation actually votes. Yet everyone has a complaint about someone in office and didn't use their privilage of voting. And that's what's wrong with our country today. It isn't the people in office, because it's the people that put them there. The real blame lies on the shoulders of the masses that chose not to vote for whatever reason. It all boils down to our system failing to work because the citizens fail to take advantage of the one thing that makes this country great!!! Work on this and you can solve the problem.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:26PM
I've voted almost religiously since I was 18 and yeah you are right, that IS the problem with the US. I hate to say this but I think that anyone who doesn't get off their lazy rear ends to vote is nothing but a free-loader and has no business living here! I've also rarely voted Dem. or Rep.. I feel that there have been some very interesting candidates from other parties that would have made good leaders. So you can see why I am FOR voting. If more people would vote, maybe we can get someone in office who can make a difference. I'm sick of the Dems and the Reps fighting each other all the time and really feel its time for all that to change. But voters keep putting one or the other in office. Why? I realize its taking a big chance letting another party take a crack at leading the country but I'm willing to take that chance I guess so I vote independantly.
Subject: TO SHIVA HOW AMERICA IS AMERICA PART 3
From: americaislost
Date: Mar 30 2003 12:49PM
I would like to answer your assumptions in CAPITALS. First I want to make a statement that you have to keep in mind as you read my response. Every one thinks they are on the "GOOD" side this is because we are tribal in nature and will always look upon our tribe as the "good and pure" THE OTHER TRIBE IS THE BAD AND EVIL"How did America became what it is not ? When did it begin to lose its goodness? In 1790 America was a nation of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and a few others. Hundred years later, the nation had become a land that had the diversity of the whole world. Today it is a nation of people of the most diverse culturual origins.AMERICAN HISTORY DOES NOT SHOW YOU WERE BORN OUT OF GOODNESS AND ACCEPTED DIFFERENT RACES. (WHITE ANGLO-SAXON WERE ACCEPTABLE) YOU CONVENIENTLY FORGOT ALL THE NEGRO SLAVES THAT WERE BRUTALLY TREATED FOR 400 YEARS BY YOUR GOVERNMENT AND SLAVE OWNERS.
EVEN AS LATE AS THE 1940 AND 1950 NEGROES IN THE USA WERE LUNCHED (APPROXIMATELY (6 TO 7,000). WAS THAT JUSTIFIABLE? >>> NEVER!! YET THE GOVERNMENT DID NOTHING..NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS WERE KILLED BY THE MILLIONS' SMALLPOX INFESTED BLANKETS WERE GIVEN TO NORTH AMERICA INDIANS, BY THE EARLY BRITISH AND AMERICAN SETTLERS. Politically the nation emerged as a nation of a noble vision, founded on the principles of liberty, equality and justice, constructing its values of nationhood based on the thinking of John Locke, David Hume, Voltaire among other greatest thinkers known. DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR THOUSANDS OF BRITISH SETTLERS LEFT AMERICA AND MIGRATED TO CANADA TO ESCAPE THE AMERICA REVOLUTION IN ORDER TO REMAIN LOYAL BRITISH. SUBJECTS.
SPANISH SETTLERS IN TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA WERE BUTCHERED AND THEIR LAND WAS CONFISCATED (YOU WERE ON THE WINNING TRIBE OF THESE LITTLE WARS SO OF COURSE YOU WERE THE GOOD GUYS THE OTHERS WERE EVIL AND MEAN AND KILLED THERE OWN PEOPLE SOUNDS FAMILIAR) Earlier in this century it had been a peace loving nation that wouldn't go to war, and after it won a war that it was drawn into, it helped reconstruct Europe with its Marshall's plan. To make the world a world without war it founded the United Nations. IT MAY APPEAR PEACEFUL AND LOVING TO YOU MAYBE BUT TO OTHERS IN THE EARLY CENTURY AMERICA DID MANY WAR CRIMES JUST ASK THE NATIVES INVOLVED WITH THE CONQUEST OF HAWAII.
OR AMERICA FIRST UNJUSTIFIABLE WAR "THE SPANISH AMERICA WAR" AMERICA WANTED TO FLEX ITS MUSCLES AND SO IT DID. THE NATION REJOICED IN VICTORY ONLY FOR AMERICA TO BE HATED ONCE AGAIN WARMONGERS HAD THERE WAY AGAIN..YOUR MILITARY CONTRIBUTION WAS APPRECIATED TO DEFEAT THE NAZI'S BUT DOES NOT REMEMBER THAT THE REST OF THE FREE WORLD WAS IN THE WAR SINCE 1939. AMERICA ONLY SUPPLIED MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND ENTERED THE WAR ON DEC 1941. BY THE TIME THE TROOPS WERE IN BATTLE POSITIONS IN WAS LATE 1942. THE MARSHALL PLAN ASIDE YOU WERE ALSO DEALING WITH A SOCIETY THAT WAS AROUND FOR MANY CENTURIES AND HAD SOME COMMONALITY WITH AMERICA SO THIS WAS A PLAN THAT HAD SUCCESS WRITTEN ALL OVER IT FROM THE START UNLIKE THE SITUATION IN IRAN, IRAQ, PALESTINE, VIETNAM ETC.... AMERICAS CONSTANT FEAR OF COMMUNISTS SOCIETIES CREATED A PARANOIA IN AMERICA. SO AMERICA PLANNED THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION ONLY TO FAIL. PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIPLOMATIC HANDLING OF THE CUBAN CRISIS WAS A MASTER PIERCE. UNFORTUNATELY HE LISTENED TO THE MILITARY ONCE AGAIN IN THE CASE OF VIETNAM. WHAT FOLLOWED WAS A DISASTER IN VIETNAM. TO THE REST OF THE WORLD IT LOOKED LIKE AMERICA WAS CREATING CONFLICTS. YOU WERE AND STILL ARE PROPPING UP DICTATORS ALL OVER THE WORLD AS LONG AS AMERICA HAS A PERSONNEL; GAIN, FROM THOSE DICTATORSHIPS, FROM THE SHAH OF IRAN, TO SAUDI KING, TO IRAQI IN ITS WAR WITH IRAN, TO AFGHANISTAN IN ITS WAR WITH RUSSIA, TO CENTRAL AMERICA GUATEMALA, SAN SALVADOR, SOUTH AMERICA SUPPORT FOR COLUMBIA, CHILE. THE VIETNAM WAR WAS NEVER REALLY JUSTIFIABLE NOTHING WAS ACCOMPLISHED. AMERICA ONLY CREATED ANIMOSITY IN ASIA AND SHOWED THE WORLD THAT AMERICA IS A BULLY.. AMERICA HAS SUPPORTED ISRAEL EVEN THOUGH THE UNITED NATIONS HAS MANY RESOLUTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL. I BELIEVE IT'S 65 RESOLUTIONS TO STOP THE ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP. FOR YOUR INFORMATION THERE ARE A TOTAL OF 120 ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS YET AMERICA CONTINUES TO GIVE FOREIGN AID (MILITARY EQUIPMENT) TO ISRAEL $10 BILLION PER YEAR. FOR EVERY PALESTINIAN THAT IS KILLED (100 PER MONTH) THERE IS A BULLET THAT SAYS "MADE IN AMERICA" The people of the United States are by nature magnimous. Americans have instituted more foundations than several other nations combined. YES THE AMERICA PUBLIC IS GOOD AS A HOLE AND I HAVE MANY AMERICA FRIENDS, THE REAL QUESTION IS NOT ABOUT AMERICANS ITS ALL ABOUT YOUR FUCKED UP FOREIGN POLICY THAT IS THE PROBLEM THIS IS FROM ANOTHER OF MY POSTS
The Bush administration and the Clinton Administration Did not sign the following and have objected other treaties
1. Mine Ban treaty (1998 Clinton)
2. Comprehensive Ban Treaty in (1999 Clinton)
3. Child Soldiers Treaty (2000)4. Bush has withdrawn from the 1972
4. Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
5. The US has exempted its self from inspection requirements of The Chemical Weapons Convention.
6. America has rejected the Bio-Weapons Protocol developed in the 1990's to strengthen the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
7. America has blocked the UN Small Arms Action Plan.
8. America decided to no longer support the clause in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty about Nuclear powers and working towards disarmament.
9. America has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
The nation's political framework, its values such as Democracy, Equality and Social Justice and its overall benevolent spirit had set the nation apart as an example. YOU VALUE THE FRAMEWORK OF DEMOCRACY BUT YOU MAKE EXCEPTIONS YOU DO NOT APPLY THE RULES FAIRLY AND PROPERLY. RECENT EXAMPLES BIG FUSS OVER THE AMERICAN POW'S YET AMERICA AMERICA CRIES FOWL OF GENEVA CONVENTION YET YOU DO NOT ABIDE BY THE GENEVA CONVENTION EITHER. With what is happening in the recent past- its domineering attitude towards the rest of the world, the war in Iraq for instance, America appears to have become what it is not. All that America was remains covered with dust today. Like a dusty mirror which distorts light, the light within America is more than blurred by simple misconception in political execution.AMERICA WAS ALWAYS DUSTY. AMERICA MAKES A BIG DEAL OF THE 2,800 DEATHS (23 CANADIANS I BELIEVE) SEPT. 11 YET AMERICA FORGETS THAT OVER 12,000 AMERICAS DIE FROM HANDGUNS EVERY YEAR.. THIS IS A FAR CRY FROM CANADA WERE OUR HANDGUN MURDER RATE IS A MIR 166 PEOPLE. SO BEFORE YOU GO OUT AND TRY TO FIX EVERYONE ELSE PROBLEMS… STAY AT HOME AND FIX YOUR OWN PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS OF RACE, (THIS IS STILL AND ISSUE IN AMERICA) POVERTY, EDUCATION AND VIOLENT CRIMES, OVER TWO MILLION PRISONERS IN THE USA JAILS. SO BEFORE YOU TALK ABOUT FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. ASK THE PEOPLE IN VIETNAM WHAT THEY THINK AMERICA AND WAS AMERICA THE GREAT LIBERATOR, CERTAINLY NOT. AMERICA WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED A LIBERATOR IN IRAQ EITHER. NO ONE IN THE MIDDLE EAST IS THINKING THAT NOW. IF YOU CONTINUE WITH YOUR CURRENT FOREIGN POLICY THAN "THE AMERICAN DREAM" WILL BECOME THE "AMERICAS NIGHTMARE"
Subject: RE: TO SHIVA HOW AMERICA IS AMERICA PART 3
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:54PM
When you add it all up like that I agree it doesn't look too good. The more I read from people from around the world, the more I understand. I'm doubting that we Americans ever get the whole story from our leaders. I also agree that we have to remove the log from our own eyes before we can help others to see. I hope though that this time you are wrong about American motives because if you're correct then its time to get into politics! I am trusting that the Bush administration has legitimate reasons for invading Iraq. If I find out otherwise I am going to be one pissed off American!As a simple American citizen I am disgusted with the things you pointed out previously. I want nothing more than for all nations to be friends and to help each other so we can live peacefully which I'm sure is true of most common folk around the globe. It angers me to know that there are those who would seek to use the freedom America provides to do evil things.
I do have one question for you though; Have any of the dictators put in place by America ever been accused of inhumanity?
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: LittleAlex
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:17PM
Consolidation of wealth in America has more damage then any terrorist nation could dream. With wealth consolidation comes power consilidation, and the original meaning of democracy becomes diluted. Now government mailny represents different intestes of mainly the wealthy, their is no party that represents the working class. It a government for the wealthy, by the wealthy.
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: outdoorsdad
Date: Mar 31 2003 8:21AM
America has not lost its goodness. If it wasn't for America being willing to make a stand and spill the blood of its people the rest of the world would have been pretty much taken over by tyrants by now because frankly, besides England, no one else has the balls to make a stand and do what is right. It is only Americas power that stops that from happening. If America hadn't stood up to Iraq the first time do you think Saddam would have stopped at Kuwait? If it wasn't for the generosity of the American people there would be millions and millions more people living in poverty in this world.......where would everyone else be without the billions in aid we give out every year? You bitch about America......but if it wasn't for America this world would be a pretty dark place.....living under communism and tyrants. Count your blessings.
Subject: RE: America, America (Part II)
From: Shdw98
Date: Mar 29 2003 11:03AM
First of all, The US has NEVER funded the Taliban and we had no way of knowing how wicked Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaida group or for that matter Saddam Hussein's regime would have been back in the 1980's. We weren't mind readers!
Second, I don't subscribe to your view of America where our success or failure is contingent upon your approval. Live Free or Die! Do you know what that means? That means that I would rather take every action neccesary (even if it means my life) to not live under oppression or terrorist threats. Fact: Saddam has scud missles, his surrendering troops have been found with cypro, he has used chemical weapons on his own people and he funds terrorist groups such as Hamas and Al Qaida. He has not once tried to live up to the UN resolutions HE AGREED TO! We Americans are not arrogant but that doesn't mean we have to wallow in self-pity like France (or anti-war protesters around the globe) constantly asking ourselves, "how can we understand them or what have we done?" Screw you! My America was founded on principles that don't change and a constitution that even today, no other comes close. A big part of being American is knowing that you can't stick your head into the sand and ignore the threats and dangers in the world. We learned this after WWII. Liberating Iraq is a secondary benifit. The primary purpose of this war is to end the threat of terrorism and I fully support President Bush. Many anti-war types opposed Reagan for building up nukes in the eightie's too. They labeled him a cowboy and predicted a grim post-nuclear world. Today half of Europe and many other nations are free because of his no-nonsense policy. You'll never give him credit for that just as you will never give Bush or Blair credit for thier efforts on Terrorism but we know the truth.
Subject: RE: America, America (Part II)
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 12:28PM
I would have to agree with Shdw98 on this one. Your concerns are totally legitimate but not everything the government does is bad. As for high handedness, when two people are fighting and things are getting serious, somebody has to break it up! To do so though takes courage. We DO need to be aware of what our elected official's true motivations are but at the same time we also need to pay attention to whats going on in the world or we're liable to wake up one morning under a full scale attack, a surprise suicide attack. There is enough unjustified hatred towards America out there right now that we had better show vigilance or we are doomed. There will always be hatred towards whatever nation has the most power. I think that America is generally pretty responsible with her power but only because its citizens share in that responsibility. So, keep up the good work but please don't give up on the US! Its worth fighting for. Mar 29
Subject: To Shdw98 and hadoz. the CIA thinks your
From: americaislost
Date: Mar 29 2003 4:35PM
wrong. The rest of the world does care about your power they are anti-American because you are abusing your power.....People that attacked you on Sept 11 attacked for a reason and the reason is your arrogance and double standard. Any dictator who is pro American is OK with Bush and the Cronies.. . But any other dictator or government that has a different view America threatens including Canada for not supporting your unjustifiable war..
So guys live free and die in America leave the rest of the world alone..Former CIA analyst: US 'conned into war'Robert Baer charges that the American-led invasion is a 'dire mistake'BEIRUT: Middle East expert and former Central Intelligence Agency officer Robert Baer has charged that the American-led war in Iraq is a dire mistake based on false assumptions and faulty information, but that President George W. Bush cannot stop now and leave Saddam Hussein in power after the long emotional and political buildup to the war.
"The American people, Congress, government and president were conned into this war, in the full sense of the word, by neo-conservatives and hawks in Washington who sold a false bill of goods. The president was lied to and given erroneous information that was filtered through Iraqi exiles who had not lived in Iraq for 20 or 30 years and had no clear idea of realities inside Iraq. The exiles had no intention of fighting themselves, but wanted the US to fight for them," he told The Daily Star Thursday in an interview.
The 21-year CIA veteran quit the agency in good standing about five years ago, and was given the Career Intelligence Medal for his service. He called this "almost an accidental war," against the backdrop of an American population that did not bother with foreign affairs but suddenly suffered the wrenching emotional experience of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"There was already in place among some circles in Washington an old plan to attack Iraq. After Sept. 11, 2001 it was sold to the president, who was told that this would be a quick, decisive, easy, almost bloodless operation, at little expense and with no resistance by Iraqis, with Saddam Hussein gone at a flash of the muzzle. But it has not worked out that way.
Determined Iraqis who stalled mechanized divisions in southern Iraq are not just pockets of resistance. In its first week the war did not go as planned."Baer, who has published a book on his years in the CIA and is now publishing a second book about Saudi Arabia, said the worst scenario for the US is to surround and lay siege to Baghdad and its 5 million people.
He fears that this will increase the bitterness felt against the US by Arabs and Muslims, who increasingly see Americans as hostile to them. He is also concerned "that young Americans now are fighting and dying in Iraq based on faulty analyses from questionable sources," but he cannot see Bush stopping the war now.
"President Bush spent nine months working the American population into a frenzy of fear and anger about Saddam Hussein, and he cannot now tell them that it was not so serious after all, that he has to stop the war and leave Saddam in power."
The best way to minimize long-term damage to the US' standing in this region is for Washington "to make a brisk, clean transition to Iraqi or Iraqi-UN rule after the war ends, offer substantial assistance for reconstruction, leave the Iraqis alone , and turn America's attention quickly to achieving a fair resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict." R.K.
Subject: RE: To Shdw98 and hadoz. the CIA thinks your
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 6:30PM
I sure hope that you are wrong! I find it hard to believe that US intelligence knows only faulty information and they sure aren't going to share anything important with the media until this is all over if even then. The only way this could be true is if Bush were an amature, a phoney, or completely mad. He grew up with a man Saddam tried to have asassinated. That would motivate me to make sure I had accurate information about him. I agree 100% with what you said here though:
" The best way to minimize long-term damage to the US' standing in this region is for Washington "to make a brisk, clean transition to Iraqi or Iraqi-UN rule after the war ends, offer substantial assistance for reconstruction, leave the Iraqis alone , and turn America's attention quickly to achieving a fair resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict." R.K."
I would much rather have the Iraqi people as an allie than an enemy. Personally I've heard enough disturbing things about Saddam's regime to convince me he is inhumane and should not be allowed to continue. America is indeed taking a very big chance. We are sticking our neck way out on this one. Bush would have to be crazy to continue with this if his information was faulty. Until the whole truth be known I am going to have to stand behind my country though. Maybe we are making things worse but one thing I'm sure of, The United States is not to blame for all of the world's problems and alot of people from other countries don't understand everything about our culture especially if all you know of us is what you see through american tv. Hollywood is what is out of touch with the rest of the world not the U.S.Government. Unfortunately they are the ones who's opinions and views are most widely dispursed across the globe.
ps. If it weren't for us inventing the automobile, airplane, Jet, etc... they wouldn't have half the money they have now. And if it weren't for the US and UK, europe would be speaking German or Russian.
Subject: RE: How did America became what it is not ?
From: suddenfun
Date: Apr 10 2003 11:52PM
Very balanced and well toned manner of saying, is America really this STUPID? i CANNOT BUT RANT...Unfortunately for now we are. Self examination, the mere suggestion of which raised hackles post 911 apparently has ono place in governance here. Sta-THE-quo-doh! lagarrdship with no surprises. Stone willed laziness with the power and moral bilge rot character to sail the festering stank schow right up the flag pole of fear and FOX Gnuze a salute to our collective igno-fizz-ichs, science pre fit to conclude, no problems of integrity here, "BLESS HE, THE HALO OF DELUDED GRANDIOS Will LIGHT THE PATH ...CAST in darkness all basis in balance...RE_ASSSESS a POSITION, OR DISCERN ONE GROUND UP DIMBY...ITS JUST THE FREE WORLD YOU FOUL... "Apparently its not a lie if he believes," the rest of us do not HAVE TO ...TRUST AND SECRECY...ITS ALL ON US FOR THIS GUYS SETING STINK DEEP IN TO THE FOLD ...
Leadership by browbeating figureass, a rE-cockulous buffoon akin to a steaming "dump," a cow-shit boot stank figurehead and HIS clustering maggot clowns of groupthink to lick it for him. He is deceitful and deceptive and traNsparant in his motiveS but thinks a suit jacket somehow respects the office...welll since it doesn't respect people, international law, proper english in the nuKewlar age....and we are TO be left to hold bag. The malingering Bush puke sak that we have SUFFERED WITH UNRELENTING ... had our attentions pestered to wits end, and in defience of any logic, urgency or simple math and finance [>inspections: 80 million, security intact, diplomatic place of respect just tarnished....1 year.[>THEBUSHWARFOR-HALLI-BECHTEL-BURTON and other, providers of "unfettered" access to opinion for the Veep, Dick "STAIN on this Republic" Cheney...THE 100 BILLION DIRECT cost, the opportunity cost of these 9 months of recovery of our domestic economy held in abayance, 100 Lives no more of Americans who Deserved better, 1000's of Iraqi's lives too who deserved simply that you would have put a sock in it scud bush and taken yes for an answer (not in plan), 1.5 billion in direct "reconstruction" contracts...efficiently awarded...1 year.Haliblewya, ANWAR here we come ...the man and the top stumps now seem to rattle and posture as if they are next to bring our 225 years of democracy to 3000 year old civilizations... to bring it to Saudi and Syria and to their Leaders there THROUGH THEIR PEOPLE, their own people...so give him a tranquilizer someone! toss this frat zero a new duncan yoyo and propPELLER hat and pretzels, LITTLE ONES...if we don't get lucky, please, please more radical schools of A MIND TO STEP TO THIS prez for his high crimes and treasons against this country...remember the mortal wound of the anti-BUBBA of THE DARKNESS IT nears the apocalyptic end game foretold, SO think MOAB, precision guided stuff...
NO MATTER SUCCESSESS OF LATE THEY BUILD ON FAILED LEADERSHIP, GREED, LIES, MANIPULATION, FRIVOLOUS EXCESS OF SPENDING VIOA CRONIES AND KIND, HE IS A LIAR AND TREASONOUS EVIL SPEWER...MAY HIS DEMISE DELIVER US FROM THIS LOW BAR OF INTELLECTUAL STILTING AND STATIC THOUGHT...
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: RS-1
Date: Apr 8 2003 4:59PM
when we let guys of your race and color come over. Go back to India. You obviously feel more comfortable in mono-race society. This multi-culturalism is clearly a threat to you.The only land we hold in foreign countries is the land we used to bury our dead soldiers. Bugger off fella.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: Skeptic-3
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:14PM
"when we let guys of your race and color come over. Go back to India."Your racist attitudes towards Arabs and now Indians is getting tiring. I note that you like to refer to all Arabs who opposed a US war in Iraq as "the Enemy." Apparently, you now lump Indians into that category as well.Your utter contempt and disrespect towards anyone who questions the morals of the US government just proved this person's point. We are a nation of arrogant fools.
Subject: RE: He's an arrogant nation of fools
From: RS-1
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:24PM
Funny how this racist rants about the US in terms of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and then tells us what an imperialistic sack of crap we are. Too bad I know real Indians who live here and don't tear this nation down. They build it up. I doubt he's from here so he can go about the business of fighting with his Hindu brother or Muslim brother depending on which side of the fence this racist fool falls. What a sad freaking joke he is. What a sad fool you are to fall for it. As for me bashing Arabs, use my MBTU to point me to it. Arafat's a terrorist and thief and I'll stand behind that post.
Subject: RE: He's an arrogant nation of fools
From: Skeptic-3
Date: Apr 8 2003 7:07PM
"Funny how this racist rants about the US in terms of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and then tells us what an imperialistic sack of crap we are." What racist rants? Are you referring to some other post of his?"Too bad I know real Indians who live here and don't tear this nation down. They build it up."You can't build up anything without identifying its faults on the way. How dare the abolitionists criticize slavery! How dare civil rights activists critize racist governmental policies! It is the shameless apologist for anything the US government does who keeps a nation from truly progressing."I doubt he's from here so he can go about the business of fighting with his Hindu brother or Muslim brother depending on which side of the fence this racist fool falls. What a sad freaking joke he is."You must be referring to some other post. I didn't read anything racist in what he said. Perhaps the explicit racist sentiment of your response wasn't genuine -- it was simply a response to what you perceived in his post. If so, I apologize for the criticism. Otherwise, you're an ass."What a sad fool you are to fall for it. As for me bashing Arabs, use my MBTU to point me to it. Arafat's a terrorist and thief and I'll stand behind that post."I don't dispute the dubious nature of Arafat. Your hostility towards Arabs in general, however, is evident in some of your other post. An example: RS Doesn't Like Arabs [bbs.slate.msn.com]In response to Lukey's post where he writes, "..it depends on how many muslims we've pissed off by killing civilians in Iraq" you write "WHO CARES! You're actually worried about pissing off the enemy?"Do you believe that a Muslim who is angered by our actions in Iraq is an "enemy" and their views are therefore illegitimate? That's what your response implied. If that's the case, you explain to me why it's not a racist point of view.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: LiberalSoul
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:44PM
The only land we hold in foreign countries is the land we used to bury our dead soldiers. Bugger off fella..................................................Listen, you poor ignorant soul, America doesn't need to own foreign land, it owns the foreign leaders.Boy, do we get tired of your uninformed bullshit!
Subject: RE: What a load of kaka
From: RS-1
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:52PM
You post with a serious face. These retards can barely run the country let alone have shadow governments the world over.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: SybreDeth
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:54PM
"Listen, you poor ignorant soul, America doesn't need to own foreign land, it owns the foreign leaders.Boy, do we get tired of your uninformed bullshit!"You have proof of this? Please provide proof before it becomes clear your slanderous intent.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: Inquiring_Mind
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:03PM
"we"???Mouse in your pocket?IM
Subject: Have you forgotten already?
From: SybreDeth
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:29PM
Has it already passed into the blurry fog of forgotten horror when we were attacked?How many times in our history have we tried to avoid conflict only to be pulled into it by other countries who's motivations and agendas have nothing to do with our interests?You say we are bullies and I say we are defending the freedoms that allow you the ability to post your opinions here.
Subject: RE: Have you forgotten already?
From: BrerBear
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:51PM
"You say we are bullies and I say we are defending the freedoms that allow you the ability to post your opinions here.">>>Nonsense. You neocon yokels resent those freedoms.
Subject: RE: Have you forgotten already?
From: SybreDeth
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:55PM
">>>Nonsense. You neocon yokels resent those freedoms."Untrue, you racist.
Subject: RE: Have you forgotten already?
From: BrerBear
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:10PM
Alright, I'm a racist.
Subject: Who cares? LOL!
From: George1
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:41PM
Subject: RE: Who cares? LOL!
From: LiberalSoul
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:00PM
George,How can you care about anything when you don't know what the f**k is going on?
Subject: Dear little dodo, I am much more knowledgable
From: George1
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:53PM
and wiser than you. :)
Subject: RE: Dear little dodo, I am much more knowledgable
From: LiberalSoul
Date: Apr 8 2003 7:14PM
My daddy can beat up your daddy!Just trying to find your intellectual level.
Subject: RE: Dear little dodo, I am much more knowledgable
From: hal007
Date: Apr 9 2003 4:03PM
George claims he is smarter than everyone who proves his spin wrong. :)
Subject: RE: How did America became what it is not ?
From: Inquiring_Mind
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:02PM
Shiva,This country began to lose its goodness when people with your attitude began to dominate the popular culture. This country began to lose its goodness when poverty was seen not as a condition to escape, but a virtue to be held up as a source of guilt for all not in that state. This country began to lose its goodness when justice began, routinely, to be sacrificed to mercy. This country began to lose its goodness when claptrap like your post was given rave reviews amongst the equally depraved intelligensia.You talk about arrogance, and so I look at this country, and I wonder where you see it. Do you see it in the arrogant fools who think the money earned by individuals is to be spent on the object of their particular compassion? Do you see it in those arrogant brats of the coasts who think they can prescribe what sort of vehicle everybody in the country ought drive? Do you see it in the arrogant media morons who think they can slap their fans, the root of their fame and success, and simply walk away, unscathed? Do you see it in the statist politicians who observe that the bulk of the nation is just so much 'fly-over country'?Where, exactly, are you finding this arrogance? I should like to know...As to the historical facts, it's high time you learned a few:It was this nation that was dragged into the first world war by an interventionist president. That we tipped the scales in favor of the Brits and French is obvious, but what is not so obvious is that in the lopsided Treaty of Versailles, the groundwork was set for the next great adventure. We did not win that war, so much as exchange enemies at the end. Rather than face Germans and Japanese and Italians on the battlefield, openly, we instead allowed a tyrant to rise in the East, actually more than one, all in pursuit of that proven colossal irrelevance known as the United Nations.Do we need the UN? No. Does it serve our interests? No. Does it serve the interests, generically, of the globe? Only if those interests include wanton aggression, statist and theocratic dictatorships, and merchants of death. If you conceive these to be in the interests of the globe, I bid you go live with the rest of the globe, and stay the hell out of my country.Back to the matter of 'arrogance', briefly, I perceive, and I think I am correct here, that what you call 'arrogance' is merely the self-esteem, the national pride, of a people that has risen from awfully austere beginnings to dominate the world stage, having EARNED IT.What has India earned? What of France? What of Iran? What of any of the other nations you would suggest had not been arrogant? I find it to be the height of arrogance that people from any of those nations would suggest, or somebody else on their behalf, that they had a legitimate claim to influence in the world. That's laughable. France has been in a state of decay since they whacked off the heads of the royals, rapidly replacing them with a different sort of monarchy of the proletariat. India has not been able to settle its internal squabbles, or the ones with its neighbors, for decades. Iran has see-sawed from one nonsensical regime to the other. The list goes on and on and on. Would you have me believe that we should humble ourselves and turn to this list for the proper conduct of internal or international affairs? Please... Many people here conceive that I too am arrogant. That's their choice. If arrogance, as you call it, is the result of having earned my existence, so be it, call me the most arrogant man alive for daring to wish to keep what I have earned. Your parade of filthy looting people's states scattered all over the globe are nothing more and nothing less than the encroachment of savagery into the modern age.What perturbs you most, by my accounting, is that we have such power, having earned it. We earned it on the battlefield, and are doing so again in Iraq. We earn it on the floors of our factories, in our high-rise offices, and on our farms. We earn it in our courtrooms, and in our public forum. We pay for it in sweat and blood and thought, particularly the last of these.
We pay. We earn. We set the standard to which none have yet risen.Yet we have, of late, began to fall, and not due to our virtues, listed in the preceding paragraph, but due to the vices described in my queries as to your observance of arrogance. It is in that list of vices that you will find the root cause of any diminution of our stature, and the goodness at its base.When we subject ourselves to rants such as yours, racist, almost tribalistic, we have two alternatives: To pass moral judgment and discard your lunacy, or to practice moral agnosticism and give your views equal weight to ours. The rational among us will see that the latter is a fool's sacrifice. The rational among us will pass judgment on your buffoonery, and label it appropriately. That is the purpose of this response. I want you to know that you are indeed the enemy of America, at least in philosophy if not in fact, and it is away from you and your bankrupt ideology that we must turn in order to survive. Yes, this most of all, you call arrogance: The willingness of Americans to pronounce moral judgment, those of us with spines still remaining, and moral uprightness still guiding us. It is this you fear, and it is that we might act upon the basis of those judgments that sends you screaming into the night about our diminished goodness.It is my most fervent hope that in time, more Americans will come to the rational conclusion that they need not feel guilt for their virtues, the source of your curses against us. It is my solemn desire to see a day when Americans can stand in pride, arrogance you will call it, and tell those of your mentality to go back to your hovels, your war-torn, tribalistic hate-filled sties, and revel in it alone.IM
Subject: What Inquiring-Mind said
From: S
Subject: RE: To Shdw98 and hadoz. the CIA thinks your
From: Shdw98
Date: Mar 30 2003 6:55PM
Hadoz put it better than I ever could. I don't believe the Bush administration got faulty information from the CIA and that Saddam Hussien is just another nice guy. I also don't believe that we should have to solve all the world's problems, however, Iraq's regime is our enemy and poses a direct threat to the US. The term, "Live Free or Die" came out of the american revolution. Again, it means I would rather die than live under the control and domination of any government or terrorist group. Now if you have some real evidence that this war is unjust or being waged under faulty information, I'm all ears but don't give me that war for oil crap or America's imposing it's values on others crap. NONE of the nations in the middle east or the world for that matter have to do business with us if they don't want to.
Published at blog-city on Monday, 2 June 2003
Subject: How did America became what it isn't?
From: shiva
Date: Apr 8 2003 9:03AM
How did America became what it is not ? When did it begin to lose its goodness?
In 1790 America was a nation of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and a few others. Hundred years later, the nation had become a land that had the diversity of the whole world. Today it is a nation of people of the most diverse cultural origins. It is a microcosm of the culturally diverse Planet Earth.
Politically the nation emerged as a nation of a noble vision, founded on the principles of liberty, equality and justice, constructing its values of nationhood based on the thinking of John Locke, David Hume, Voltaire among other greatest thinkers known.
Earlier in this century it had been a peace loving nation that wouldn't go to war, and after it won a war that it was drawn into, it went on to reconstruct Europe with its Marshall's plan. To make the world a world without war it founded the United Nations.
The nation's political framework, its values such as Democracy, Equality and Social Justice and its overall benevolent spirit had set the nation apart as an example. Its people reflect the spirit of the nation as by and large the people of the United States are magnanimous in spirit. Americans have instituted more foundations than several other nations combined.
With what is happening in the recent past- its domineering attitude towards the rest of the world, the war in Iraq for instance, America appears to have become what it is not.
All that America was remains covered with dust today. Like a dusty mirror which distorts light, the light within America is more than blurred by simple misconceptions in political execution.
What happened?
America has been good, but it became self righteous about its own goodness. Wanted to impose its values such as Democracy in the rest of the world, championed human rights and free trade. Perfect. But somewhere along the process the values that America set out to advocate took a back seat and the power that the rhetoric brought about became the objective. The result was that the nation ended up being one-up over the rest of the world. What remains now is that high handed stance and not the values which America set out to advocate.
Immersed in its belief that its constitution and institutions are superior, America did not review its constitution and institutions periodically. The founding fathers of America wrote the most profound constitution when America became a nation, but periodic review would have made it more balanced.
After all, how old is democracy? ie., the democracy as it is in America? Set aside the ancient Roman senate, Democracy is 225 years old. In the time line of mankind 225 years of experience is not at all long enough. It is too little a time to understand the inherent flaws of the system (I am not a socialist, not a communist, not a monarchist, but someone thinking aloud). Monarchy is the most ancient institution and we don't have much of it left in its active form. My argument is that half the world believed that socialism was noble until it burst. Same may not happen with democracy, but in 225 years it is far from perfected.
The Judiciary, Executive and Congress were constituted as balanced branches, but then with changing times, the balance was hurt by various forces, such as the various lobbies that exercised their influence over the Congress, as also various branches of government such as Pentagon or CIA that emerged stronger than even the Office of the President in some instances. This may not exactly be what is really happening at this point of time, but part of the historical cause of how America became what it is not. What has America done to review its constitution? What has it done to debate on the need to keep the various organs balanced with changing times? What has America done to balance the lobby groups? What has it done to ensure press freedom in its true sense while keeping the press as an institution balanced? What has the nation done to examine if any of the Administrative organs have gained more than due influence over national affairs?
The World War era required America to spend on Defense and the cold war era required America to develop more powerful weapons. The cold war era required America to adopt various strategies, overt and covert and this behavior has left a lasting impression and a pattern in itself which ought to have been erased with the emergence of the new world order.
Today America doesn't seem to care about Democracy. It uses it as a doctrine to be advocated when a certain government does not suit its national interests. Same can be said of its championship of human rights. It funded the Taliban and it patronized Saddam Hussein when it suited America. This means that America could brook any abuse of human rights as long as its own national interests are not hurt. Free Trade? Free Trade became an unspoken slogan to make the rest of the world Buy American.
Somewhere along the time-line America set itself apart from the rest of the world. American life is precious: Come on, LIFE IS PRECIOUS, every life. The national interests of America as a World Power is important: Well, if you wish to be a global power, why place national interests paramount? National interests are fulfilled automatically when that isn't the only item in your agenda. When you are instrumental in making the world at large a better place to live your own national well-being is more than duly served.
What is now happening is that America is trying to assert itself as a world leader without placing the interests of the world paramount. It wants to lead the world while blatantly talking about its national interests. It prides in itself as a Super power. The reality is that it is an illusion that America is a superpower. If it indeed is, it wouldn't shout at the top of the voice that it is a superpower. Real power gives modesty and if America is really powerful it would have made UN look powerful.
American posture has always been domineering. What makes it worse is a basic phenomenon that no one in Diplomacy seems to have noticed: American English isn't the same as the English as the world knows it. Some American expressions convey an entirely wrong meaning. At other times the way the American government speaks is a reflection of its one-up, on-top attitude. And American protocol is so overbearing. Few heads of state and heads of government get past as equals of anyone above the rank of an Under Secretary in US Administration. American protocol is unwittingly designed to make it all burst one fine day.
American English sounds too casual. Everyone in the American Government including the American Press reporters call Iraqi President as Saddam on TV (outside America, it sounds so jarring). Other examples of what irritates some of those from the rest of the world are this: foreign nationals are "aliens" and "sanctions" are imposed on nations, big or small that did not fall in line.
It is with this attitude that America has been condescending towards its real and imagined enemies and in the process it has always underestimated its enemies. It has always thought that it could overthrow its enemies, in Libya, in Cuba and now in Iraq.
Even if America thinks it would overthrow Saddam Hussein, what great harm would befall America if it refers to the Iraqi President as the President of Iraq? Whatever be the degree or reasons for hatred for your enemies, if you make an effort to consider them respectable as strong individuals, then everything changes. Everything changes. It would be basic statesmanship to follow such a protocol. Who writes the President's speeches? The Psychological operations? Does the Psychological Operations know that there are other cultures existing elsewhere in the world that are at least slightly different from American?
Who is advising the American administration to adopt such a posture of a "bully" as America is began to be viewed as?
Why has America been one-up over the UN, which is all world, when it could at least pretend to be a part of it?
A little more modesty would make America far more greater. There are such simple reasons why America has made so many enemies.
How many enemies can America afford?
shiva ( dot ) madras (at) gmail ( dot ) com [ new email ]
Comments at blog-city
comment added :: 12th October 2003, 14:40 GMT+05:30
The Americans did not create the United Nations Organisation. The UNO was an offshoot of the League of Nations which was based in Europe. The Americans "offered" the UNO a base in New York.
comment added :: 11th September 2004, 01:35 GMT+05:30
In order to understand any country and its role in the world, one must understand its divisions. I skimmed this critique and it seems like a prelude to The Picture of Dorian Grey. In fact, no country is homogenous or univocal.
Note: the USA has machinery for amending its constitution, but total revision is regarded as anathema because of the danger that the party in power at the time of revision will destroy fundamental liberties. Nevertheless, there have been some extraordinary transformations of the US polity through amendments.
James R MacLeanslate.com reactions to America, America, some very angry
Subject: we failed to change with our changing people
From: mark14
Date: Mar 29 2003 8:11AM
and stay true to our ideals of equality and fairness. The original immigrants became a entrenched power elite intent on emulating the British colonialists through brainwashing the disenfranchised into supporting acts of agression in the name of freedom but for much darker motives. There is lots of money to be made in this process. Where is Ken Lay? (He's really just a symbol of the pervasive rot). Support the troops and working Americans. Change the leadership that is leading us deeper and deeper into this mess.
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: Clearview
Date: Mar 29 2003 8:37AM
What happened is that a weak leader was elected, and due to his deep weakness he is trying to show the opposite. He is surrounded by a bunsh of self beneficiaries.They are telling him exactly what they need to get more profit,but they make him think he is the decision maker, (The poor cowboy). The problem is that no wise man is standing in his face and telling him to stop what he is pushing us to. But for sure WISE MEN still exist and will act soon to save America.
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: ksmutzer
Date: Mar 30 2003 2:43AM
You are quick to blame Bush, but there has been a long line of weak leaders that lead up to the current situation. We are a people of a weak mind and of nieviety. Look beyond what the press and the people of this forum tell you and maybe you will see the light. A learned mind comes from research and interest and not slanders from the uneducated. Open your eyes and you shall see the truth.
Subject: Until you learn how to spell 'naiveté,
From: Catnapping4444
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:12AM
you might wanna shy away from comments about others' educations...LOL(pssst: It's not spelled, 'nieviety.')
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 8:54AM
I would tend to agree with you and I can see that you have a deep respect for the principles that our nation was founded. I was very upset about the fact that we were going to war without un approval until I heard the president's speeches. I chose to believe him and to trust him and I didn't even vote for him. If we do find weapons of mass destruction then I would have to then say that the view of America you expressed is not accurate, that there are enough Americans who DO care about their country to make it worth standing up for. I am going to wait a bit before making my judgement of the Bush administration. After some time more of the truth will come out. We the American people can see how our leaders handle the post-war period... like whether or not we're going to keep our oil companies from getting their greedy little fingers on Iraqi oil, how long will we actually have to occupy Iraq, what type of leadership is going to replace Saddam and will the world economy be opened up to Iraq... etc.
We do have to pay close attention through all of this and always remember that WE have the power to change things so America is what WE make of it.
Subject: the scary thing is you're right
From: Bdbureau1987
Date: Mar 29 2003 11:21AM
You're absolutely right. Our country that was founded on ethics, principles, and fair play. In the last few decades, we have seen every one of those virtues torn to shreds. Watching the presidential elections have been like watching the deevolution of man. We went from Roosevelts (homo-sapiens) to Nixxons (Cro-Magnon) to Reagans (Neanderthal) to Bushes (A Chimpanzee who has been strategically shaven and forced into a suit.) I suspect we'll be seeing inanimate objects in office before this is over. There was a time when we could stand up with pride for what our country did. Now we defend its leaders' thoughtless arrogance with jargon, propaganda, and those little dowel-mounted flags you buy down at K-Mart.
Let's remember that patriotism isn't always a good thing. Nazi Germany had heaping, festering gobs of patriotism.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 7:22PM
I take it you're a democrat? heheh :-)
I am neither. I try to give all candidates equal consideration. The way I see it is both parties have legitimate views. Its the ying and yang of politics that keeps things in check. When clinton was in office for 8 years things were looking great! But during this period the American people began to lose interest once again in foreign affairs and all during this time criminals had been building their power both over-seas and here at home while we just smoked cigars and played the saxophone (and perhaps allowed big business to do unethical things to other countries as well as our own for cryin out loud!!!). Now Americans are once again becoming interested in what is going on in the rest of the world and I think thats a very good thing. This war could turn out to be the first step towards healing our differences with other cultures.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: Bdbureau1987
Date: Mar 29 2003 10:34PM
Close... I'm actually fiscally conservative, but I believe in voting your conscience; not your wallet. So naturally, I tend to vote Democrat. They may be annoyingly naive, but they're not evil.Basically, as I see it, the office of president has devolved since the early 1900's. Clinton was really no exception. Certainly, he was more intelligent than Ronald Reagan or Pappy Bush, but let's face it, there are bedpans out there that are more intelligent than the Reagans and the Bushes. Perhaps he wasn't as hell-bent on destroying the environment and dragging us into pointless wars. But, On an ethical and moral level, Clinton was a festering pile of lying swine fodder. Same as Reagan. Same as Pappy and Baby Bush.
Basically put:
1. We expect our leaders to engage in immoral, unethical, highly corrupt acts.
2. We expect them to be stupid and clumsy enough to get caught in the act.
3. If we ask our leaders to graciously step down after being caught in said acts, we've come to accept that they won't. They'll cling on to office for dear lives, letting the scandal humiliate both themselves, their families, and their country. We expect them to offer pathetic justifications ("I said I did not sleep with THAT woman," "he tried to hurt my daddy,") and play out the media circus until we're so tired of it we're willng to just give up and wait for their term limit to be over with.I think that this lack of accountability is less than pathetic. If a trainee accidentally puts his retainer into a Big Mac, he/she's fired. If a teacher accidentally lost seven children on a field trip, he/she would be fired. If a surgeon accidentally sews their egg sandwich into a patient's gallbladder, he/she would be fired. It's a shame we don't hold those given the *priviledge of leading to the same standard as we would a M'cee-Dee's trainee.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: ksmutzer
Date: Mar 30 2003 2:52AM
Actually, if you look at our history, corruption has infected our politics for longer than just a mere few decades. Time and time again there has been scandal involving political figures. I only wonder if you even voted in the past election, considering that a very small percentage of this nation actually votes. Yet everyone has a complaint about someone in office and didn't use their privilage of voting. And that's what's wrong with our country today. It isn't the people in office, because it's the people that put them there. The real blame lies on the shoulders of the masses that chose not to vote for whatever reason. It all boils down to our system failing to work because the citizens fail to take advantage of the one thing that makes this country great!!! Work on this and you can solve the problem.
Subject: RE: the scary thing is you're right
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:26PM
I've voted almost religiously since I was 18 and yeah you are right, that IS the problem with the US. I hate to say this but I think that anyone who doesn't get off their lazy rear ends to vote is nothing but a free-loader and has no business living here! I've also rarely voted Dem. or Rep.. I feel that there have been some very interesting candidates from other parties that would have made good leaders. So you can see why I am FOR voting. If more people would vote, maybe we can get someone in office who can make a difference. I'm sick of the Dems and the Reps fighting each other all the time and really feel its time for all that to change. But voters keep putting one or the other in office. Why? I realize its taking a big chance letting another party take a crack at leading the country but I'm willing to take that chance I guess so I vote independantly.
Subject: TO SHIVA HOW AMERICA IS AMERICA PART 3
From: americaislost
Date: Mar 30 2003 12:49PM
I would like to answer your assumptions in CAPITALS. First I want to make a statement that you have to keep in mind as you read my response. Every one thinks they are on the "GOOD" side this is because we are tribal in nature and will always look upon our tribe as the "good and pure" THE OTHER TRIBE IS THE BAD AND EVIL"How did America became what it is not ? When did it begin to lose its goodness? In 1790 America was a nation of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and a few others. Hundred years later, the nation had become a land that had the diversity of the whole world. Today it is a nation of people of the most diverse culturual origins.AMERICAN HISTORY DOES NOT SHOW YOU WERE BORN OUT OF GOODNESS AND ACCEPTED DIFFERENT RACES. (WHITE ANGLO-SAXON WERE ACCEPTABLE) YOU CONVENIENTLY FORGOT ALL THE NEGRO SLAVES THAT WERE BRUTALLY TREATED FOR 400 YEARS BY YOUR GOVERNMENT AND SLAVE OWNERS.
EVEN AS LATE AS THE 1940 AND 1950 NEGROES IN THE USA WERE LUNCHED (APPROXIMATELY (6 TO 7,000). WAS THAT JUSTIFIABLE? >>> NEVER!! YET THE GOVERNMENT DID NOTHING..NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS WERE KILLED BY THE MILLIONS' SMALLPOX INFESTED BLANKETS WERE GIVEN TO NORTH AMERICA INDIANS, BY THE EARLY BRITISH AND AMERICAN SETTLERS. Politically the nation emerged as a nation of a noble vision, founded on the principles of liberty, equality and justice, constructing its values of nationhood based on the thinking of John Locke, David Hume, Voltaire among other greatest thinkers known. DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR THOUSANDS OF BRITISH SETTLERS LEFT AMERICA AND MIGRATED TO CANADA TO ESCAPE THE AMERICA REVOLUTION IN ORDER TO REMAIN LOYAL BRITISH. SUBJECTS.
SPANISH SETTLERS IN TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA WERE BUTCHERED AND THEIR LAND WAS CONFISCATED (YOU WERE ON THE WINNING TRIBE OF THESE LITTLE WARS SO OF COURSE YOU WERE THE GOOD GUYS THE OTHERS WERE EVIL AND MEAN AND KILLED THERE OWN PEOPLE SOUNDS FAMILIAR) Earlier in this century it had been a peace loving nation that wouldn't go to war, and after it won a war that it was drawn into, it helped reconstruct Europe with its Marshall's plan. To make the world a world without war it founded the United Nations. IT MAY APPEAR PEACEFUL AND LOVING TO YOU MAYBE BUT TO OTHERS IN THE EARLY CENTURY AMERICA DID MANY WAR CRIMES JUST ASK THE NATIVES INVOLVED WITH THE CONQUEST OF HAWAII.
OR AMERICA FIRST UNJUSTIFIABLE WAR "THE SPANISH AMERICA WAR" AMERICA WANTED TO FLEX ITS MUSCLES AND SO IT DID. THE NATION REJOICED IN VICTORY ONLY FOR AMERICA TO BE HATED ONCE AGAIN WARMONGERS HAD THERE WAY AGAIN..YOUR MILITARY CONTRIBUTION WAS APPRECIATED TO DEFEAT THE NAZI'S BUT DOES NOT REMEMBER THAT THE REST OF THE FREE WORLD WAS IN THE WAR SINCE 1939. AMERICA ONLY SUPPLIED MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND ENTERED THE WAR ON DEC 1941. BY THE TIME THE TROOPS WERE IN BATTLE POSITIONS IN WAS LATE 1942. THE MARSHALL PLAN ASIDE YOU WERE ALSO DEALING WITH A SOCIETY THAT WAS AROUND FOR MANY CENTURIES AND HAD SOME COMMONALITY WITH AMERICA SO THIS WAS A PLAN THAT HAD SUCCESS WRITTEN ALL OVER IT FROM THE START UNLIKE THE SITUATION IN IRAN, IRAQ, PALESTINE, VIETNAM ETC.... AMERICAS CONSTANT FEAR OF COMMUNISTS SOCIETIES CREATED A PARANOIA IN AMERICA. SO AMERICA PLANNED THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION ONLY TO FAIL. PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIPLOMATIC HANDLING OF THE CUBAN CRISIS WAS A MASTER PIERCE. UNFORTUNATELY HE LISTENED TO THE MILITARY ONCE AGAIN IN THE CASE OF VIETNAM. WHAT FOLLOWED WAS A DISASTER IN VIETNAM. TO THE REST OF THE WORLD IT LOOKED LIKE AMERICA WAS CREATING CONFLICTS. YOU WERE AND STILL ARE PROPPING UP DICTATORS ALL OVER THE WORLD AS LONG AS AMERICA HAS A PERSONNEL; GAIN, FROM THOSE DICTATORSHIPS, FROM THE SHAH OF IRAN, TO SAUDI KING, TO IRAQI IN ITS WAR WITH IRAN, TO AFGHANISTAN IN ITS WAR WITH RUSSIA, TO CENTRAL AMERICA GUATEMALA, SAN SALVADOR, SOUTH AMERICA SUPPORT FOR COLUMBIA, CHILE. THE VIETNAM WAR WAS NEVER REALLY JUSTIFIABLE NOTHING WAS ACCOMPLISHED. AMERICA ONLY CREATED ANIMOSITY IN ASIA AND SHOWED THE WORLD THAT AMERICA IS A BULLY.. AMERICA HAS SUPPORTED ISRAEL EVEN THOUGH THE UNITED NATIONS HAS MANY RESOLUTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL. I BELIEVE IT'S 65 RESOLUTIONS TO STOP THE ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP. FOR YOUR INFORMATION THERE ARE A TOTAL OF 120 ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS YET AMERICA CONTINUES TO GIVE FOREIGN AID (MILITARY EQUIPMENT) TO ISRAEL $10 BILLION PER YEAR. FOR EVERY PALESTINIAN THAT IS KILLED (100 PER MONTH) THERE IS A BULLET THAT SAYS "MADE IN AMERICA" The people of the United States are by nature magnimous. Americans have instituted more foundations than several other nations combined. YES THE AMERICA PUBLIC IS GOOD AS A HOLE AND I HAVE MANY AMERICA FRIENDS, THE REAL QUESTION IS NOT ABOUT AMERICANS ITS ALL ABOUT YOUR FUCKED UP FOREIGN POLICY THAT IS THE PROBLEM THIS IS FROM ANOTHER OF MY POSTS
The Bush administration and the Clinton Administration Did not sign the following and have objected other treaties
1. Mine Ban treaty (1998 Clinton)
2. Comprehensive Ban Treaty in (1999 Clinton)
3. Child Soldiers Treaty (2000)4. Bush has withdrawn from the 1972
4. Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
5. The US has exempted its self from inspection requirements of The Chemical Weapons Convention.
6. America has rejected the Bio-Weapons Protocol developed in the 1990's to strengthen the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
7. America has blocked the UN Small Arms Action Plan.
8. America decided to no longer support the clause in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty about Nuclear powers and working towards disarmament.
9. America has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
The nation's political framework, its values such as Democracy, Equality and Social Justice and its overall benevolent spirit had set the nation apart as an example. YOU VALUE THE FRAMEWORK OF DEMOCRACY BUT YOU MAKE EXCEPTIONS YOU DO NOT APPLY THE RULES FAIRLY AND PROPERLY. RECENT EXAMPLES BIG FUSS OVER THE AMERICAN POW'S YET AMERICA AMERICA CRIES FOWL OF GENEVA CONVENTION YET YOU DO NOT ABIDE BY THE GENEVA CONVENTION EITHER. With what is happening in the recent past- its domineering attitude towards the rest of the world, the war in Iraq for instance, America appears to have become what it is not. All that America was remains covered with dust today. Like a dusty mirror which distorts light, the light within America is more than blurred by simple misconception in political execution.AMERICA WAS ALWAYS DUSTY. AMERICA MAKES A BIG DEAL OF THE 2,800 DEATHS (23 CANADIANS I BELIEVE) SEPT. 11 YET AMERICA FORGETS THAT OVER 12,000 AMERICAS DIE FROM HANDGUNS EVERY YEAR.. THIS IS A FAR CRY FROM CANADA WERE OUR HANDGUN MURDER RATE IS A MIR 166 PEOPLE. SO BEFORE YOU GO OUT AND TRY TO FIX EVERYONE ELSE PROBLEMS… STAY AT HOME AND FIX YOUR OWN PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS OF RACE, (THIS IS STILL AND ISSUE IN AMERICA) POVERTY, EDUCATION AND VIOLENT CRIMES, OVER TWO MILLION PRISONERS IN THE USA JAILS. SO BEFORE YOU TALK ABOUT FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. ASK THE PEOPLE IN VIETNAM WHAT THEY THINK AMERICA AND WAS AMERICA THE GREAT LIBERATOR, CERTAINLY NOT. AMERICA WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED A LIBERATOR IN IRAQ EITHER. NO ONE IN THE MIDDLE EAST IS THINKING THAT NOW. IF YOU CONTINUE WITH YOUR CURRENT FOREIGN POLICY THAN "THE AMERICAN DREAM" WILL BECOME THE "AMERICAS NIGHTMARE"
Subject: RE: TO SHIVA HOW AMERICA IS AMERICA PART 3
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:54PM
When you add it all up like that I agree it doesn't look too good. The more I read from people from around the world, the more I understand. I'm doubting that we Americans ever get the whole story from our leaders. I also agree that we have to remove the log from our own eyes before we can help others to see. I hope though that this time you are wrong about American motives because if you're correct then its time to get into politics! I am trusting that the Bush administration has legitimate reasons for invading Iraq. If I find out otherwise I am going to be one pissed off American!As a simple American citizen I am disgusted with the things you pointed out previously. I want nothing more than for all nations to be friends and to help each other so we can live peacefully which I'm sure is true of most common folk around the globe. It angers me to know that there are those who would seek to use the freedom America provides to do evil things.
I do have one question for you though; Have any of the dictators put in place by America ever been accused of inhumanity?
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: LittleAlex
Date: Mar 30 2003 3:17PM
Consolidation of wealth in America has more damage then any terrorist nation could dream. With wealth consolidation comes power consilidation, and the original meaning of democracy becomes diluted. Now government mailny represents different intestes of mainly the wealthy, their is no party that represents the working class. It a government for the wealthy, by the wealthy.
Subject: RE: America, America...
From: outdoorsdad
Date: Mar 31 2003 8:21AM
America has not lost its goodness. If it wasn't for America being willing to make a stand and spill the blood of its people the rest of the world would have been pretty much taken over by tyrants by now because frankly, besides England, no one else has the balls to make a stand and do what is right. It is only Americas power that stops that from happening. If America hadn't stood up to Iraq the first time do you think Saddam would have stopped at Kuwait? If it wasn't for the generosity of the American people there would be millions and millions more people living in poverty in this world.......where would everyone else be without the billions in aid we give out every year? You bitch about America......but if it wasn't for America this world would be a pretty dark place.....living under communism and tyrants. Count your blessings.
Subject: RE: America, America (Part II)
From: Shdw98
Date: Mar 29 2003 11:03AM
First of all, The US has NEVER funded the Taliban and we had no way of knowing how wicked Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaida group or for that matter Saddam Hussein's regime would have been back in the 1980's. We weren't mind readers!
Second, I don't subscribe to your view of America where our success or failure is contingent upon your approval. Live Free or Die! Do you know what that means? That means that I would rather take every action neccesary (even if it means my life) to not live under oppression or terrorist threats. Fact: Saddam has scud missles, his surrendering troops have been found with cypro, he has used chemical weapons on his own people and he funds terrorist groups such as Hamas and Al Qaida. He has not once tried to live up to the UN resolutions HE AGREED TO! We Americans are not arrogant but that doesn't mean we have to wallow in self-pity like France (or anti-war protesters around the globe) constantly asking ourselves, "how can we understand them or what have we done?" Screw you! My America was founded on principles that don't change and a constitution that even today, no other comes close. A big part of being American is knowing that you can't stick your head into the sand and ignore the threats and dangers in the world. We learned this after WWII. Liberating Iraq is a secondary benifit. The primary purpose of this war is to end the threat of terrorism and I fully support President Bush. Many anti-war types opposed Reagan for building up nukes in the eightie's too. They labeled him a cowboy and predicted a grim post-nuclear world. Today half of Europe and many other nations are free because of his no-nonsense policy. You'll never give him credit for that just as you will never give Bush or Blair credit for thier efforts on Terrorism but we know the truth.
Subject: RE: America, America (Part II)
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 12:28PM
I would have to agree with Shdw98 on this one. Your concerns are totally legitimate but not everything the government does is bad. As for high handedness, when two people are fighting and things are getting serious, somebody has to break it up! To do so though takes courage. We DO need to be aware of what our elected official's true motivations are but at the same time we also need to pay attention to whats going on in the world or we're liable to wake up one morning under a full scale attack, a surprise suicide attack. There is enough unjustified hatred towards America out there right now that we had better show vigilance or we are doomed. There will always be hatred towards whatever nation has the most power. I think that America is generally pretty responsible with her power but only because its citizens share in that responsibility. So, keep up the good work but please don't give up on the US! Its worth fighting for. Mar 29
Subject: To Shdw98 and hadoz. the CIA thinks your
From: americaislost
Date: Mar 29 2003 4:35PM
wrong. The rest of the world does care about your power they are anti-American because you are abusing your power.....People that attacked you on Sept 11 attacked for a reason and the reason is your arrogance and double standard. Any dictator who is pro American is OK with Bush and the Cronies.. . But any other dictator or government that has a different view America threatens including Canada for not supporting your unjustifiable war..
So guys live free and die in America leave the rest of the world alone..Former CIA analyst: US 'conned into war'Robert Baer charges that the American-led invasion is a 'dire mistake'BEIRUT: Middle East expert and former Central Intelligence Agency officer Robert Baer has charged that the American-led war in Iraq is a dire mistake based on false assumptions and faulty information, but that President George W. Bush cannot stop now and leave Saddam Hussein in power after the long emotional and political buildup to the war.
"The American people, Congress, government and president were conned into this war, in the full sense of the word, by neo-conservatives and hawks in Washington who sold a false bill of goods. The president was lied to and given erroneous information that was filtered through Iraqi exiles who had not lived in Iraq for 20 or 30 years and had no clear idea of realities inside Iraq. The exiles had no intention of fighting themselves, but wanted the US to fight for them," he told The Daily Star Thursday in an interview.
The 21-year CIA veteran quit the agency in good standing about five years ago, and was given the Career Intelligence Medal for his service. He called this "almost an accidental war," against the backdrop of an American population that did not bother with foreign affairs but suddenly suffered the wrenching emotional experience of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"There was already in place among some circles in Washington an old plan to attack Iraq. After Sept. 11, 2001 it was sold to the president, who was told that this would be a quick, decisive, easy, almost bloodless operation, at little expense and with no resistance by Iraqis, with Saddam Hussein gone at a flash of the muzzle. But it has not worked out that way.
Determined Iraqis who stalled mechanized divisions in southern Iraq are not just pockets of resistance. In its first week the war did not go as planned."Baer, who has published a book on his years in the CIA and is now publishing a second book about Saudi Arabia, said the worst scenario for the US is to surround and lay siege to Baghdad and its 5 million people.
He fears that this will increase the bitterness felt against the US by Arabs and Muslims, who increasingly see Americans as hostile to them. He is also concerned "that young Americans now are fighting and dying in Iraq based on faulty analyses from questionable sources," but he cannot see Bush stopping the war now.
"President Bush spent nine months working the American population into a frenzy of fear and anger about Saddam Hussein, and he cannot now tell them that it was not so serious after all, that he has to stop the war and leave Saddam in power."
The best way to minimize long-term damage to the US' standing in this region is for Washington "to make a brisk, clean transition to Iraqi or Iraqi-UN rule after the war ends, offer substantial assistance for reconstruction, leave the Iraqis alone , and turn America's attention quickly to achieving a fair resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict." R.K.
Subject: RE: To Shdw98 and hadoz. the CIA thinks your
From: hadoz
Date: Mar 29 2003 6:30PM
I sure hope that you are wrong! I find it hard to believe that US intelligence knows only faulty information and they sure aren't going to share anything important with the media until this is all over if even then. The only way this could be true is if Bush were an amature, a phoney, or completely mad. He grew up with a man Saddam tried to have asassinated. That would motivate me to make sure I had accurate information about him. I agree 100% with what you said here though:
" The best way to minimize long-term damage to the US' standing in this region is for Washington "to make a brisk, clean transition to Iraqi or Iraqi-UN rule after the war ends, offer substantial assistance for reconstruction, leave the Iraqis alone , and turn America's attention quickly to achieving a fair resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict." R.K."
I would much rather have the Iraqi people as an allie than an enemy. Personally I've heard enough disturbing things about Saddam's regime to convince me he is inhumane and should not be allowed to continue. America is indeed taking a very big chance. We are sticking our neck way out on this one. Bush would have to be crazy to continue with this if his information was faulty. Until the whole truth be known I am going to have to stand behind my country though. Maybe we are making things worse but one thing I'm sure of, The United States is not to blame for all of the world's problems and alot of people from other countries don't understand everything about our culture especially if all you know of us is what you see through american tv. Hollywood is what is out of touch with the rest of the world not the U.S.Government. Unfortunately they are the ones who's opinions and views are most widely dispursed across the globe.
ps. If it weren't for us inventing the automobile, airplane, Jet, etc... they wouldn't have half the money they have now. And if it weren't for the US and UK, europe would be speaking German or Russian.
Subject: RE: How did America became what it is not ?
From: suddenfun
Date: Apr 10 2003 11:52PM
Very balanced and well toned manner of saying, is America really this STUPID? i CANNOT BUT RANT...Unfortunately for now we are. Self examination, the mere suggestion of which raised hackles post 911 apparently has ono place in governance here. Sta-THE-quo-doh! lagarrdship with no surprises. Stone willed laziness with the power and moral bilge rot character to sail the festering stank schow right up the flag pole of fear and FOX Gnuze a salute to our collective igno-fizz-ichs, science pre fit to conclude, no problems of integrity here, "BLESS HE, THE HALO OF DELUDED GRANDIOS Will LIGHT THE PATH ...CAST in darkness all basis in balance...RE_ASSSESS a POSITION, OR DISCERN ONE GROUND UP DIMBY...ITS JUST THE FREE WORLD YOU FOUL... "Apparently its not a lie if he believes," the rest of us do not HAVE TO ...TRUST AND SECRECY...ITS ALL ON US FOR THIS GUYS SETING STINK DEEP IN TO THE FOLD ...
Leadership by browbeating figureass, a rE-cockulous buffoon akin to a steaming "dump," a cow-shit boot stank figurehead and HIS clustering maggot clowns of groupthink to lick it for him. He is deceitful and deceptive and traNsparant in his motiveS but thinks a suit jacket somehow respects the office...welll since it doesn't respect people, international law, proper english in the nuKewlar age....and we are TO be left to hold bag. The malingering Bush puke sak that we have SUFFERED WITH UNRELENTING ... had our attentions pestered to wits end, and in defience of any logic, urgency or simple math and finance [>inspections: 80 million, security intact, diplomatic place of respect just tarnished....1 year.[>THEBUSHWARFOR-HALLI-BECHTEL-BURTON and other, providers of "unfettered" access to opinion for the Veep, Dick "STAIN on this Republic" Cheney...THE 100 BILLION DIRECT cost, the opportunity cost of these 9 months of recovery of our domestic economy held in abayance, 100 Lives no more of Americans who Deserved better, 1000's of Iraqi's lives too who deserved simply that you would have put a sock in it scud bush and taken yes for an answer (not in plan), 1.5 billion in direct "reconstruction" contracts...efficiently awarded...1 year.Haliblewya, ANWAR here we come ...the man and the top stumps now seem to rattle and posture as if they are next to bring our 225 years of democracy to 3000 year old civilizations... to bring it to Saudi and Syria and to their Leaders there THROUGH THEIR PEOPLE, their own people...so give him a tranquilizer someone! toss this frat zero a new duncan yoyo and propPELLER hat and pretzels, LITTLE ONES...if we don't get lucky, please, please more radical schools of A MIND TO STEP TO THIS prez for his high crimes and treasons against this country...remember the mortal wound of the anti-BUBBA of THE DARKNESS IT nears the apocalyptic end game foretold, SO think MOAB, precision guided stuff...
NO MATTER SUCCESSESS OF LATE THEY BUILD ON FAILED LEADERSHIP, GREED, LIES, MANIPULATION, FRIVOLOUS EXCESS OF SPENDING VIOA CRONIES AND KIND, HE IS A LIAR AND TREASONOUS EVIL SPEWER...MAY HIS DEMISE DELIVER US FROM THIS LOW BAR OF INTELLECTUAL STILTING AND STATIC THOUGHT...
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: RS-1
Date: Apr 8 2003 4:59PM
when we let guys of your race and color come over. Go back to India. You obviously feel more comfortable in mono-race society. This multi-culturalism is clearly a threat to you.The only land we hold in foreign countries is the land we used to bury our dead soldiers. Bugger off fella.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: Skeptic-3
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:14PM
"when we let guys of your race and color come over. Go back to India."Your racist attitudes towards Arabs and now Indians is getting tiring. I note that you like to refer to all Arabs who opposed a US war in Iraq as "the Enemy." Apparently, you now lump Indians into that category as well.Your utter contempt and disrespect towards anyone who questions the morals of the US government just proved this person's point. We are a nation of arrogant fools.
Subject: RE: He's an arrogant nation of fools
From: RS-1
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:24PM
Funny how this racist rants about the US in terms of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and then tells us what an imperialistic sack of crap we are. Too bad I know real Indians who live here and don't tear this nation down. They build it up. I doubt he's from here so he can go about the business of fighting with his Hindu brother or Muslim brother depending on which side of the fence this racist fool falls. What a sad freaking joke he is. What a sad fool you are to fall for it. As for me bashing Arabs, use my MBTU to point me to it. Arafat's a terrorist and thief and I'll stand behind that post.
Subject: RE: He's an arrogant nation of fools
From: Skeptic-3
Date: Apr 8 2003 7:07PM
"Funny how this racist rants about the US in terms of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and German nationals and then tells us what an imperialistic sack of crap we are." What racist rants? Are you referring to some other post of his?"Too bad I know real Indians who live here and don't tear this nation down. They build it up."You can't build up anything without identifying its faults on the way. How dare the abolitionists criticize slavery! How dare civil rights activists critize racist governmental policies! It is the shameless apologist for anything the US government does who keeps a nation from truly progressing."I doubt he's from here so he can go about the business of fighting with his Hindu brother or Muslim brother depending on which side of the fence this racist fool falls. What a sad freaking joke he is."You must be referring to some other post. I didn't read anything racist in what he said. Perhaps the explicit racist sentiment of your response wasn't genuine -- it was simply a response to what you perceived in his post. If so, I apologize for the criticism. Otherwise, you're an ass."What a sad fool you are to fall for it. As for me bashing Arabs, use my MBTU to point me to it. Arafat's a terrorist and thief and I'll stand behind that post."I don't dispute the dubious nature of Arafat. Your hostility towards Arabs in general, however, is evident in some of your other post. An example: RS Doesn't Like Arabs [bbs.slate.msn.com]In response to Lukey's post where he writes, "..it depends on how many muslims we've pissed off by killing civilians in Iraq" you write "WHO CARES! You're actually worried about pissing off the enemy?"Do you believe that a Muslim who is angered by our actions in Iraq is an "enemy" and their views are therefore illegitimate? That's what your response implied. If that's the case, you explain to me why it's not a racist point of view.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: LiberalSoul
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:44PM
The only land we hold in foreign countries is the land we used to bury our dead soldiers. Bugger off fella..................................................Listen, you poor ignorant soul, America doesn't need to own foreign land, it owns the foreign leaders.Boy, do we get tired of your uninformed bullshit!
Subject: RE: What a load of kaka
From: RS-1
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:52PM
You post with a serious face. These retards can barely run the country let alone have shadow governments the world over.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: SybreDeth
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:54PM
"Listen, you poor ignorant soul, America doesn't need to own foreign land, it owns the foreign leaders.Boy, do we get tired of your uninformed bullshit!"You have proof of this? Please provide proof before it becomes clear your slanderous intent.
Subject: RE: Maybe America was ruined...
From: Inquiring_Mind
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:03PM
"we"???Mouse in your pocket?IM
Subject: Have you forgotten already?
From: SybreDeth
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:29PM
Has it already passed into the blurry fog of forgotten horror when we were attacked?How many times in our history have we tried to avoid conflict only to be pulled into it by other countries who's motivations and agendas have nothing to do with our interests?You say we are bullies and I say we are defending the freedoms that allow you the ability to post your opinions here.
Subject: RE: Have you forgotten already?
From: BrerBear
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:51PM
"You say we are bullies and I say we are defending the freedoms that allow you the ability to post your opinions here.">>>Nonsense. You neocon yokels resent those freedoms.
Subject: RE: Have you forgotten already?
From: SybreDeth
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:55PM
">>>Nonsense. You neocon yokels resent those freedoms."Untrue, you racist.
Subject: RE: Have you forgotten already?
From: BrerBear
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:10PM
Alright, I'm a racist.
Subject: Who cares? LOL!
From: George1
Date: Apr 8 2003 5:41PM
Subject: RE: Who cares? LOL!
From: LiberalSoul
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:00PM
George,How can you care about anything when you don't know what the f**k is going on?
Subject: Dear little dodo, I am much more knowledgable
From: George1
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:53PM
and wiser than you. :)
Subject: RE: Dear little dodo, I am much more knowledgable
From: LiberalSoul
Date: Apr 8 2003 7:14PM
My daddy can beat up your daddy!Just trying to find your intellectual level.
Subject: RE: Dear little dodo, I am much more knowledgable
From: hal007
Date: Apr 9 2003 4:03PM
George claims he is smarter than everyone who proves his spin wrong. :)
Subject: RE: How did America became what it is not ?
From: Inquiring_Mind
Date: Apr 8 2003 6:02PM
Shiva,This country began to lose its goodness when people with your attitude began to dominate the popular culture. This country began to lose its goodness when poverty was seen not as a condition to escape, but a virtue to be held up as a source of guilt for all not in that state. This country began to lose its goodness when justice began, routinely, to be sacrificed to mercy. This country began to lose its goodness when claptrap like your post was given rave reviews amongst the equally depraved intelligensia.You talk about arrogance, and so I look at this country, and I wonder where you see it. Do you see it in the arrogant fools who think the money earned by individuals is to be spent on the object of their particular compassion? Do you see it in those arrogant brats of the coasts who think they can prescribe what sort of vehicle everybody in the country ought drive? Do you see it in the arrogant media morons who think they can slap their fans, the root of their fame and success, and simply walk away, unscathed? Do you see it in the statist politicians who observe that the bulk of the nation is just so much 'fly-over country'?Where, exactly, are you finding this arrogance? I should like to know...As to the historical facts, it's high time you learned a few:It was this nation that was dragged into the first world war by an interventionist president. That we tipped the scales in favor of the Brits and French is obvious, but what is not so obvious is that in the lopsided Treaty of Versailles, the groundwork was set for the next great adventure. We did not win that war, so much as exchange enemies at the end. Rather than face Germans and Japanese and Italians on the battlefield, openly, we instead allowed a tyrant to rise in the East, actually more than one, all in pursuit of that proven colossal irrelevance known as the United Nations.Do we need the UN? No. Does it serve our interests? No. Does it serve the interests, generically, of the globe? Only if those interests include wanton aggression, statist and theocratic dictatorships, and merchants of death. If you conceive these to be in the interests of the globe, I bid you go live with the rest of the globe, and stay the hell out of my country.Back to the matter of 'arrogance', briefly, I perceive, and I think I am correct here, that what you call 'arrogance' is merely the self-esteem, the national pride, of a people that has risen from awfully austere beginnings to dominate the world stage, having EARNED IT.What has India earned? What of France? What of Iran? What of any of the other nations you would suggest had not been arrogant? I find it to be the height of arrogance that people from any of those nations would suggest, or somebody else on their behalf, that they had a legitimate claim to influence in the world. That's laughable. France has been in a state of decay since they whacked off the heads of the royals, rapidly replacing them with a different sort of monarchy of the proletariat. India has not been able to settle its internal squabbles, or the ones with its neighbors, for decades. Iran has see-sawed from one nonsensical regime to the other. The list goes on and on and on. Would you have me believe that we should humble ourselves and turn to this list for the proper conduct of internal or international affairs? Please... Many people here conceive that I too am arrogant. That's their choice. If arrogance, as you call it, is the result of having earned my existence, so be it, call me the most arrogant man alive for daring to wish to keep what I have earned. Your parade of filthy looting people's states scattered all over the globe are nothing more and nothing less than the encroachment of savagery into the modern age.What perturbs you most, by my accounting, is that we have such power, having earned it. We earned it on the battlefield, and are doing so again in Iraq. We earn it on the floors of our factories, in our high-rise offices, and on our farms. We earn it in our courtrooms, and in our public forum. We pay for it in sweat and blood and thought, particularly the last of these.
We pay. We earn. We set the standard to which none have yet risen.Yet we have, of late, began to fall, and not due to our virtues, listed in the preceding paragraph, but due to the vices described in my queries as to your observance of arrogance. It is in that list of vices that you will find the root cause of any diminution of our stature, and the goodness at its base.When we subject ourselves to rants such as yours, racist, almost tribalistic, we have two alternatives: To pass moral judgment and discard your lunacy, or to practice moral agnosticism and give your views equal weight to ours. The rational among us will see that the latter is a fool's sacrifice. The rational among us will pass judgment on your buffoonery, and label it appropriately. That is the purpose of this response. I want you to know that you are indeed the enemy of America, at least in philosophy if not in fact, and it is away from you and your bankrupt ideology that we must turn in order to survive. Yes, this most of all, you call arrogance: The willingness of Americans to pronounce moral judgment, those of us with spines still remaining, and moral uprightness still guiding us. It is this you fear, and it is that we might act upon the basis of those judgments that sends you screaming into the night about our diminished goodness.It is my most fervent hope that in time, more Americans will come to the rational conclusion that they need not feel guilt for their virtues, the source of your curses against us. It is my solemn desire to see a day when Americans can stand in pride, arrogance you will call it, and tell those of your mentality to go back to your hovels, your war-torn, tribalistic hate-filled sties, and revel in it alone.IM
Subject: What Inquiring-Mind said
From: S
Subject: RE: To Shdw98 and hadoz. the CIA thinks your
From: Shdw98
Date: Mar 30 2003 6:55PM
Hadoz put it better than I ever could. I don't believe the Bush administration got faulty information from the CIA and that Saddam Hussien is just another nice guy. I also don't believe that we should have to solve all the world's problems, however, Iraq's regime is our enemy and poses a direct threat to the US. The term, "Live Free or Die" came out of the american revolution. Again, it means I would rather die than live under the control and domination of any government or terrorist group. Now if you have some real evidence that this war is unjust or being waged under faulty information, I'm all ears but don't give me that war for oil crap or America's imposing it's values on others crap. NONE of the nations in the middle east or the world for that matter have to do business with us if they don't want to.
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