The
rapid rise in greenhouse gases over the past century is
unprecedented in at least 800,000 years, according to a
study of the oldest Antarctic ice core which highlights
the reality of climate change.
Air bubbles trapped in ice for
hundreds of thousands of years have revealed that humans
are changing the composition of the atmosphere in a
manner that has no known natural parallel.
Scientists at the British
Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge have found there have
been eight cycles of atmospheric change in the past
800,000 years when carbon dioxide and methane have risen
to peak levels.
Each time, the world also
experienced the relatively high temperatures associated
with warm, inter-glacial periods, which were almost
certainly linked with levels of carbon dioxide and
possibly methane in the atmosphere.
However, existing levels of
carbon dioxide and methane are far higher than anything
seen during these earlier warm periods, said Eric Wolff
of the BAS.
"Ice cores reveal the
Earth's natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000
years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an
accompanying climate change," Dr Wolff said.
"Over the past 200 years, human activity has
increased carbon dioxide to well outside the natural
range and we have no analogue for what will happen next.
"We have a no-analogue
situation. We don't have anything in the past that we can
measure directly," he added.
The ice core was drilled from a
thick area of ice on Antarctica known as Dome C. The core
is nearly 3.2km long and reaches to a depth where air
bubbles became trapped in ice that formed 800,000 years
ago.
"It's from those air
bubbles that we know for sure that carbon dioxide has
increased by about 35 per cent in the past 200 years.
Before that 200 years, which is when man's been
influencing the atmosphere, it was pretty steady to
within 5 per cent," Dr Wolff said.
The core shows that carbon
dioxide was always between 180 parts per million (ppm)
and 300 ppm during the 800,000 years. However, now it is
380 ppm. Methane was never higher than 750 parts per
billion (ppb) in this timescale, but now it stands at
1,780 ppb.
But the rate of change is even
more dramatic, with increases in carbon dioxide never
exceeding 30 ppm in 1,000 years -- and yet now carbon
dioxide has risen by 30 ppm in the last 17 years.
"The rate of change is
probably the most scary thing because it means that the
Earth systems can't cope with it," Dr Wolff told the
British Association meeting at the University of East
Anglia in Norwich.
"On such a crowded planet,
we have little capacity to adapt to changes that are much
faster than anything in human experience."
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2.
GREAT SOUL OF POWER
BY
NOAM CHOMSKY
It is a challenging task to select a few themes from
the remarkable range of the work and life of Edward Said.
I will keep to two: the culture of empire, and the
responsibility of intellectuals — or those whom we
call "intellectuals" if they have the privilege
and resources to enter the public arena.
The phrase "responsibility of intellectuals"
conceals a crucial ambiguity: It blurs the distinction
between "ought" and "is." In terms of
"ought," their responsibility should be exactly
the same as that of any decent human being, though
greater: Privilege confers opportunity, and opportunity
confers moral responsibility.
We rightly condemn the obedient intellectuals of brutal
and violent states for their "conformist
subservience to those in power." I am borrowing the
phrase from Hans Morgenthau, a founder of international
relations theory.
Morgenthau was referring, however, not to the commissar
class of the totalitarian enemy, but to Western
intellectuals, whose crime is far greater, because they
cannot plead fear but only cowardice and subordination to
power. He was describing what "is," not what
"ought" to be.
The history of intellectuals is written by intellectuals,
so not surprisingly, they are portrayed as defenders of
right and justice, upholding the highest values and
confronting power and evil with admirable courage and
integrity. The record reveals a rather different picture.
The pattern of "conformist subservience" goes
back to the earliest recorded history. It was the man who
"corrupted the youth of Athens" with
"false gods" who drank the hemlock, not those
who worshipped the true gods of the doctrinal system.
A large part of the Bible is devoted to people who
condemned the crimes of state and immoral practices. They
are called "prophets," a dubious translation of
an obscure word. In contemporary terms, they were
"dissident intellectuals." There is no need to
review how they were treated: miserably, the norm for
dissidents.
There were also intellectuals who were greatly respected
in the era of the prophets: the flatterers at the court.
The Gospels warn of "false prophets, who come to you
in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening
wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them."
The dogmas that uphold the nobility of state power are
nearly unassailable, despite the occasional errors and
failures that critics allow themselves to condemn.
A prevailing truth was expressed by US President John
Adams two centuries ago: "Power always thinks it has
a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of
the weak." That is the deep root of the combination
of savagery and self-righteousness that infects the
imperial mentality — and in some measure, every
structure of authority and domination.
We can add that reverence for that great soul is the
normal stance of intellectual elites, who regularly add
that they should hold the levers of control, or at least
be close by.
ONE common expression of this prevailing view is that
there are two categories of intellectuals: the
"technocratic and policy-oriented
intellectuals" — responsible, sober,
constructive — and the "value-oriented
intellectuals," a sinister grouping who pose a
threat to democracy as they "devote themselves to
the derogation of leadership, the challenging of
authority, and the unmasking of established
institutions."
I am quoting from a 1975 study by the Trilateral
Commission — liberal internationalists from the US,
Europe and Japan. They were reflecting on the
"crisis of democracy" that developed in the
1960s, when normally passive and apathetic sectors of the
population, called "the special interests,"
sought to enter the political arena to advance their
concerns.
Those improper initiatives created what the study called
a "crisis of democracy," in which the proper
functioning of the state was threatened by
"excessive democracy." To overcome this crisis,
the special interests must be restored to their proper
function as passive observers, so that the
"technocratic and value-oriented intellectuals"
can do their constructive work.
The disruptive special interests are women, the young,
the elderly, workers, farmers, minorities, and majorities
— in short, the population. Only one specific
interest is not mentioned in the study: the corporate
sector. But that makes sense. The corporate sector
represents the "national interest," and
naturally there can be no question that state power
protects the national interest.
The reactions to this dangerous civilising and
democratising trend have set their stamp on the
contemporary era.
For those who want to understand what is likely to lie
ahead, it is of prime importance to look closely at the
long-standing principles that animate the decisions and
actions of the powerful — in today’s world,
primarily the United States.
Though only one of three major power centres in economic
and most other dimensions, it surpasses any power in
history in its military dominance, which is rapidly
expanding, and it can generally rely on the support of
the second superpower, Europe, and Japan, the second
largest industrial economy.
There is a clear doctrine on the general contours of US
foreign policy. It reigns in Western journalism and
almost all scholarship, even among critics of policies.
The major theme is "American exceptionalism":
the thesis that the US is unlike other great powers, past
and present, because it has a "transcendent
purpose": "the establishment of equality in
freedom in America," and indeed throughout the
world, since "the arena within which the US must
defend and promote its purpose has become
worldwide."
The version of the thesis I have just quoted is
particularly interesting because of its source: Hans
Morgenthau. But this quote is from the Kennedy years,
before the Vietnam war erupted in full savagery. The
previous quote was from 1970, when he had shifted to a
more critical phase in his thinking.
Figures of the highest intelligence and moral integrity
have championed the stance of "exceptionalism."
Consider John Stuart Mill’s classic essay, "A
Few Words on Non-Intervention."
Mill raised the question whether England should intervene
in the ugly world or keep to its own business and let the
barbarians carry out their savagery. His conclusion,
nuanced and complex, was that England should intervene,
even though by doing so, it will endure the
"obloquy" and abuse of Europeans, who will
"seek base motives" because they cannot
comprehend that England is "novelty in the
world," an angelic power that seeks nothing for
itself and acts only for the benefit of others. Though
England selflessly bears the cost of intervention, it
shares the benefits of its labours with others equally.
Exceptionalism seems to be close to universal. I suspect
if we had records from Genghis Khan, we might find the
same thing.
The operative principle is illustrated copiously
throughout history: Policy conforms to expressed ideals
only if it also conforms to interests. The term
"interests" does not refer to the interests of
the US population, but to the "national
interest" — the interests of the concentrations
of power that dominate the society.
In the article "Who Influences US Foreign
Policy?," published last year in the American
Political Science Review, the authors find,
unsurprisingly, that the major influence is
"internationally oriented business
corporations," though there is also a secondary
effect of "experts," who, they point out,
"may themselves be influenced by business."
Public opinion, in contrast, has "little or no
significant effect on government officials."
One will search in vain for evidence of the superior
understanding and abilities of those who have the major
influence on policy, apart from protecting their own
interests.
THE great soul of power extends far beyond states, to
every domain of life, from families to international
affairs. And throughout, every form of authority and
domination bears a severe burden of proof. It is not
self-legitimising.
And when it cannot bear the burden, as is commonly the
case, it should be dismantled. That has been the guiding
theme of the anarchist movements from their modern
origins, adopting many of the principles of classical
liberalism.
One of the healthiest recent developments in Europe, I
think, along with the federal arrangements and increased
fluidity that the European Union has brought, is the
devolution of state power, with revival of traditional
cultures and languages and a degree of regional autonomy.
These developments lead some to envision a future Europe
of the regions, with state authority decentralised.
To strike a proper balance between citizenship and common
purpose on the one hand, and communal autonomy and
cultural variety on the other, is no simple matter, and
questions of democratic control of institutions extend to
other spheres of life as well.
Such questions should be high on the agenda of people who
do not worship at the shrine of the great soul of power,
people who seek to save the world from the destructive
forces that now literally threaten survival and who
believe that a more civilised society can be envisioned
and even brought into existence.
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3.
'LEBANON CRISIS AN INTERNATIONAL CONSPIRACY'
BY
FIRAS AL-ATRAQCHI
The Israeli-Hezbollah
conflict threatens to drag Syria, Iran and the US into a
regional war.
As'ad AbuKhalil, author of Bin
Laden, Islam, and America's New 'War on Terrorism' as
well as The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty,
Fundamentalism, and Global Power, believes the recent
violence is a symptom of an international conspiracy
under way to enforce UN resolution 1559, which calls for
the disarmament of militia groups in Lebanon - a
reference to Hezbollah.
A professor of political science
at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting
professor at the University of California at Berkeley,
AbuKhalil just returned from Lebanon. He also maintains
the Angry Arab blogsite (http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
).
Aljazeera.net:
Israel says its assault on Lebanon is in self-defence
against Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks and the
capture of two of its soldiers.
Hezbollah says southern Lebanon
has long been an area of conflict with Israel occupying
Lebanese land and that it wants indirect negotiations to
secure the release of its prisoners in Israeli jails. How
did the situation deteriorate so rapidly and so
violently?
As'ad AbuKhalil: This particular
conflict, and Israel's act of aggression on Lebanon, did
not take place in a vacuum, and Israel did not act in
some spontaneous fashion.
Hezbollah did not surprise
Israel with the capture of the two Israeli occupation
soldiers. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has repeatedly
warned that if Israel does not release its Lebanese
prisoners, he will be compelled to take Israeli soldiers
as bargaining chips.
And Israel has not been sitting
idly by since its partial withdrawal from South Lebanon
in 2000. It has not only continued to occupy parts of
South Lebanon, but also has been violating Lebanese
sovereignty, by air, sea, and land.
Israel has also been kidnapping
innocent Lebanese citizens: fishermen and shepherds. And
one fisherman from Tyre - my hometown - is still missing,
and at least one shepherd was killed last year.
Furthermore, Israel has
adamantly refused to give to Lebanon a map of the more
than 400,000 land mines that it left behind in South
Lebanon, and which continue to kill Lebanese children in
the region.
The recent crisis, as the
article in the Washington Post by Robin Wright pointed
out yesterday, is an international/regional conspiracy to
implement United Nations Security Council resolution
1559.
The groundwork for this
aggression began with the work of Rafiq al-Hariri [the
slain former Lebanese prime minister] in 2004, when he
worked with the US and France to pass that resolution in
the Security Council.
The plan has the full support of
Israel and client Arab regimes of the US: Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. But it will not work, and
Hezbollah will not lay down its arms.
If the Lebanese government, led
by the Hariri camp, thinks that it can now convince
Hezbollah to lay down its arms and to trust the Lebanese
Army - which has been sitting idly over the last week -
to take care of Lebanon's defence, it is wildly mistaken.
What are Israel's goals?
What are Hezbollah's goals?
I think that Israel often acts
in revenge. The Zionist movement is a vengeful movement;
it always has been.
It wants not only to implement
UNSC 1559 to disarm Hezbollah, but it also wants, as it
did in 1982, to pave the way for the installation of
American puppets as rulers of Lebanon. These plans never
work: All grand plans for Lebanon strike the rocks of
deep sectarian divisions in the country.
I think that Hezbollah started
by wanting to achieve a prisoner exchange with Israel,
and probably to ease the pressures on Palestine.
But now, they mostly and
primarily want to retain possession of their weapons, and
they have in that at least the overwhelming support of
the Shia in Lebanon, the single largest sect in the
country.
Dozens of civilians have
been killed on both sides but there has been little
movement in the international community. Is there a
feeling that mediation or efforts to bring about a
ceasefire will be fruitless?
The silence of the so-called
international community, which has been under the control
and in the service of the US government since the end of
the Cold War, has been most painful for those in Lebanon
who have been told in the last two years that the
international community cares about Lebanon and its
people. Now people know better.
I do believe that the same
racist impulse that considers Israeli lives worth more
than Arab lives is at play here. I have no doubt that the
lives of Arabs never meant much for the descendants of
colonial powers in the region.
And it is important that we
don't allow Israeli propaganda to present an image of
symmetry between the two sides: There is no symmetry
between the two sides in this conflict.
Not only in terms of Israeli
military superiority, but also in terms of massive
killings by Israel of largely innocent civilians.
Do the Lebanese blame Hezbollah or Israel for
this crisis?
I think that all Lebanese blame
Israel for the killing and for the aggression. But the
Saudi clients in Lebanon are trying to exploit the events
to build up resentment against Hezbollah.
In Lebanon, there never are
unified opinions on anything, and certainly the sectarian
divisions do not amount to a unified stance behind
Hezbollah.
There are many Lebanese who
don't support the ideology of Hezbollah but who also
believe that the party is now single-handedly defending
Lebanon against savage Israeli aggression.
John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN,
implicated Iran and Syria as being at least partially to
blame for supporting Hezbollah...
It is ironic to speak of John
Bolton - the same person who was honoured a few months
ago by the Hariri ruling coalition in Lebanon.
Yes, Hezbollah receives the
support of Iran and Syria, just as the Hariri coalition
receives the support of US, France, Saudi Arabia, and
Jordan, and possibly Israel indirectly.
Will Israel attack Syria or Iran next? Could this
become an all-out regional war? Could this draw the US
into the conflict?
It seems that Israel will avoid
attacking Iran and Syria at this stage. With the Israeli
war on Palestine still proceeding unabated, the Israelis
may not find a need.
The US/EU/UN will deal with both
countries, on behalf of Israel, through pressures and
punitive measures.
But, if Syria and Iran come under attack, then all bets
are off in the region, and US plans in Iraq will face
more challenges and more subversion.
Iran has indirectly facilitated
the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Syria has
recently been co-operating with the US occupation in
Iraq.
If attacked, both countries can
easily make things worse for the US, and that explains
the reluctance of the US in endorsing attacks on Iran or
Syria.
With Iraq on the verge of civil war, how will the
Lebanon crisis affect the region?
It depends on what happens. If
Israel is permitted to continue in the aggression, Syria
and Iran may feel threatened, and that may unleash their
forces in Iraq against the US.
Under such circumstances,
American troubles in the region will only increase. But
no matter what happens, this carnage will have affects
throughout the Middle East.
Let us remember that the 1982
Israeli invasion of Lebanon unleashed seismic changes and
movements in the region, including the rise of Hamas and
Hezbollah.
Those who think that when the
dust settles, all will go back to normal, are people who
have not read the contemporary history of the Middle
East.
In the history of the
Arab-Israeli conflict, this Israeli aggression will go
down as a watershed; it will have an impact on the course
of the conflict and also on the stability of the very
regimes that the US spends money and weapons to prop up.
As the main power-broker in the Middle East, what
role can the US play to end the violence?
You have to be either ignorant
or foolish or both to consider the US interested in
ending the current conflict. The US has clearly endorsed
an unconditional Israeli aggression on Lebanon and
Palestine. The US will leave it to Israel to decide not
only the manner of killing of Arabs, but even to
determine the number of Arabs that Israel wishes to kill.
Some Arab countries have
criticised Hezbollah and its backers for the recent
crisis but Iran and some fighters in Iraq have firmly
stood by Hezbollah. Could we see a more extensive
Shia-Sunni conflict on the sidelines of an Arab-Israeli
war?
Yes, the Saudis have now
officially endorsed a Shia-Sunni conflict in the Middle
East. And this plan has the support of the US and Israel.
This can easily, however, affect stability of several
Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. So trying to
manipulate the Sunni-Shia divide is like playing with
fire. We saw the fruits of American sectarian
manipulation in Iraq.
How likely is the Lebanese government to survive
the crisis?
The Hariri element of the ruling
coalition will come out weaker as a result of this
crisis. That seems certain. They will either be seen as
incompetent, or as secret partners of the
American/Israeli/Saudi plan for Lebanon.
But even at the humanitarian
level, the Lebanese government has failed miserably in
meeting the basic demands of the refugees.
In recent months, there was a general feeling
that Lebanon had bounced back with major economic drive
and a tourism boost. How do Lebanese look at their
long-term prospects now that much of what they rebuilt
has been destroyed?
The Lebanese have been through a
lot - the people of south Lebanon have been through
scores of savage Israeli invasions and campaigns of
aggression. Not only are the people known for resilience,
but their ability to reconstruct and resume normal life -
as much as possible - has become well known.
But the funds needed for
reconstruction will come at a high price: It will be like
Hariri's accruement of foreign debt which further eroded
the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon.
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4.
CLEARING THE AIR WITH THE TRUTH
|
BY
JUAN
GONZALES
|
| |
After nearly five years
of lies from top city and federal officials about
the health dangers from the toxic dust released
by the World Trade Center collapse, the truth has
finally begun to emerge.
Back on Oct. 26, 2001,
in a Daily News front-page story headlined
"A Toxic Nightmare at Disaster Site," I
reported that hundreds of tests conducted by the
federal Environmental Protection Agency revealed
far more elevated levels of toxic pollutants in
the air and dust in lower Manhattan than the
public had been told.
That shocking story was
immediately attacked by top officials in
then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani's administration, by the
EPA boss at the time, Christie Whitman, and even
by the city's main business group, the
Partnership for New York City, whose top official
labeled it "irresponsible journalism."
Yes, there were some
"spikes" in toxic emissions, Whitman
and Giuliani Health Commissioner Neal Cohen
admitted, but no long-term danger.
Despite their
assurances, thousands who returned to lower
Manhattan came down with new physical ailments,
especially among the city's first responders and
recovery workers, but also downtown residents and
office workers.
Yesterday came the first
conclusive proof that those assurances from City
Hall and the EPA were horribly wrong. We got an
inkling, as well, of the huge public health toll
our city now faces.
Nearly 70% of 9,500
Ground Zero responders and workers monitored by
Mount Sinai Medical Center over the past five
years have new or worsened respiratory problems.
Some may be sick for the rest of their lives.
But this astonishing
illness rate cannot simply be attributed to
honest human error.
Three years ago, an
investigation by the EPA's own inspector
general's office revealed that in the first days
after 9/11, White House aides rewrote agency
press releases to downplay any dangers in order
to reopen Wall Street quickly.
Government documents
uncovered by this column since 9/11 showed city
and federal officials hid important information
about the true extent of contamination.
The city's Department of
Environmental Protection, for example, found high
levels of asbestos in 27 of the first 38 air
samples it took in lower Manhattan before Sept.
17, 2001. But the city didn't publicly disclose
those results until five months later.
On Sept. 12, 2001, Dr.
Ed Kilbourne, a top federal scientist, warned in
a strongly worded memo to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention against the quick
reoccupation of buildings in lower Manhattan
because of possible dangers from asbestos and
other toxic material, but he was ignored.
On Oct. 6, 2001,
Associate City Health Commissioner Kelly McKinney
complained that health and safety protections for
Ground Zero workers were not being enforced.
McKinney offered to have "[Department of
Health] personnel ... issue [violations] for
non-compliance." But City Hall did not
immediately act on his recommendation.
Those at the top simply
ignored the warning signs.
Now, thousands are sick,
more will get sick in the years to come and an
unknown number will die before their time.
Yesterday, Mayor
Bloomberg finally recognized this huge problem.
He announced the city will provide health
treatment to anyone sickened by Ground Zero
contaminants — at no out-of-pocket cost to
the victim. His program also will treat office
workers and nearby residents, thus implicitly
recognizing that more than Ground Zero workers
have been affected.
It is, however, small
consolation to the sick New Yorkers who expected
their leaders to tell them the truth when it
mattered.
Back to Top
5. WAR-MONGERING AMERICA TERRORIZES THE
WORLD
BY
HOWARD ZINN
There is something
important to be learned from the recent
experience of the United States and Israel in the
Middle East: that massive military attacks,
inevitably indiscriminate, are not only morally
reprehensible, but useless in achieving the
stated aims of those who carry them out.
The United States, in
three years of war, which began with shock-and-
awe bombardment and goes on with day-to-day
violence and chaos, has been an utter failure in
its claimed objective of bringing democracy and
stability to Iraq. The Israeli invasion and
bombing of Lebanon has not brought security to
Israel; indeed it has increased the number of its
enemies, whether in Hezbollah or Hamas or among
Arabs who belong to neither of those groups.
I remember John Hersey's
novel, "The War Lover," in which a
macho American pilot, who loves to drop bombs on
people and also to boast about his sexual
conquests, turns out to be impotent. President
Bush, strutting in his flight jacket on an
aircraft carrier and announcing victory in Iraq,
has turned out to be much like the Hersey
character, his words equally boastful, his
military machine impotent.
The history of wars
fought since the end of World War II reveals the
futility of large-scale violence. The United
States and the Soviet Union, despite their
enormous firepower, were unable to defeat
resistance movements in small, weak nations --
the United States in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan -- and were forced to withdraw.
Even the
"victories" of great military powers
turn out to be elusive. Presumably, after
attacking and invading Afghanistan, the president
was able to declare that the Taliban were
defeated. But more than four years later,
Afghanistan is rife with violence, and the
Taliban are active in much of the country.
The two most powerful
nations after World War II, the United States and
the Soviet Union, with all their military might,
have not been able to control events in countries
that they considered to be in their sphere of
influence -- the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe
and the United States in Latin America.
Beyond the futility of
armed force, and ultimately more important, is
the fact that war in our time inevitably results
in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of
people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism.
That is why a "war on terrorism" is a
contradiction in terms. Wars waged by nations,
whether by the United States or Israel, are a
hundred times more deadly for innocent people
than the attacks by terrorists, vicious as they
are.
The repeated excuse,
given by both Pentagon spokespersons and Israeli
officials, for dropping bombs where ordinary
people live is that terrorists hide among
civilians. Therefore the killing of innocent
people (in Iraq, in Lebanon) is called
accidental, whereas the deaths caused by
terrorists (on 9/11, by Hezbollah rockets) are
deliberate.
This is a false
distinction, quickly refuted with a bit of
thought. If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a
house or a vehicle on the grounds that a
"suspected terrorist" is inside (note
the frequent use of the word suspected as
evidence of the uncertainty surrounding targets),
the resulting deaths of women and children may
not be intentional. But neither are they
accidental. The proper description is
"inevitable."
So if an action will
inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral
as a deliberate attack on civilians. And when you
consider that the number of innocent people dying
inevitably in "accidental" events has
been far, far greater than all the deaths
deliberately caused by terrorists, one must
reject war as a solution for terrorism
For instance, more than
a million civilians in Vietnam were killed by US
bombs, presumably by "accident." Add up
all the terrorist attacks throughout the world in
the 20th century and they do not equal that awful
toll.
If reacting to terrorist
attacks by war is inevitably immoral, then we
must look for ways other than war to end
terrorism, including the terrorism of war. And if
military retaliation for terrorism is not only
immoral but futile, then political leaders,
however cold-blooded their calculations, may have
to reconsider their policies.
Back to Top
6. US ARMY CONTEMPLATES REDRAWING
MIDDLE EAST MAP TO STAVE-OFF LOOMING GLOBAL
MELTDOWN
BY
NAFEEZ
MOSADDEQ AHMED
09/02/06 "Dissidentvoice"
In a little-noted article printed in early
August in the Armed
Forces Journal, a monthly magazine for
officers and leaders in the United States
military community, early retired Major Ralph
Peters sets out the latest ideas in current US
strategic thinking. And they are extremely
disturbing.
Ethnically Cleansing the Entire Middle East
Maj. Peters, formerly assigned to the Office of
the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence where
he was responsible for future warfare, candidly
outlines how the map of the Middle East should be
fundamentally re-drawn, in a new imperial
endeavour designed to correct past errors.
"Without such major boundary revisions, we
shall never see a more peaceful Middle
East," he observes, but then adds wryly:
"Oh, and one other dirty little secret from
5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing
works."
Thus, acknowledging that the sweeping
reconfiguration of borders he proposes would
necessarily involve massive ethnic cleansing and
accompanying bloodshed on perhaps a genocidal
scale, he insists that unless it is implemented,
"we may take it as an article of faith that
a portion of the bloodshed in the region will
continue to be our own." Among his proposals
are the need to establish "an independent
Kurdish state" to guarantee the long-denied
right to Kurdish self-determination. But behind
the humanitarian sentiments, Maj. Peters declares
that: "A Free Kurdistan, stretching from
Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most
pro-Western state between Bulgaria and
Japan."
He chastises the United States and its coalition
partners for missing "a glorious
chance" to fracture Iraq, which "should
have been divided into three smaller states
immediately." This would leave "Iraq's
three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated
state that might eventually choose to unify with
a Syria that loses its littoral to a
Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia
reborn." Meanwhile, the Shia south of old
Iraq "would form the basis of an Arab Shia
State rimming much of the Persian Gulf."
Jordan, a US-Israeli friend in the region, would
"retain its current territory, with some
southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its
part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would
suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan."
Iran too would "lose a great deal of
territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan,
the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but
would gain the provinces around Herat in today's
Afghanistan." Although this vast imperial
programme could be impossible to implement now,
with time, "new and natural borders will
emerge", driven by "the inevitable
attendant bloodshed."
As for the goals of this plan, Maj. Peters is
equally candid. While including the necessary
caveats about fighting "for security from
terrorism, for the prospect of democracy",
he also mentions the third important issue --
"and for access to oil supplies in a region
that is destined to fight itself".
The whole thing sounds disturbingly familiar,
especially to those who have read the musings of
then Israeli Foreign Ministry official Oded
Yinon.
Keeping the World Safe... for Our Economy
Despite trying to dress up his vision as an
exercise in attempting to selflessly democratize
the Middle East, in a contribution to the
quarterly US Army War College journal Parameters
almost a decade ago, he acknowledged with some
jubilation that: "Those of us who can sort,
digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge
soar--professionally, financially, politically,
militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a
minority." This minority will inevitably
conflict with the vast majority of the world's
population. "For the world masses,
devastated by information they cannot manage or
effectively interpret, life is 'nasty, brutish .
. . and short-circuited.'" In "every
country and region", these masses who can
neither "understand the new world", nor
"profit from its uncertainties... will
become the violent enemies of their inadequate
governments, of their more fortunate neighbors,
and ultimately of the United States." The
coming clash, then, is not really about blood,
faith, ethnicity, at all. It is about the gap
between the haves and the have-nots. "We are
entering a new American century", he says,
in a veiled reference to the Bush administration Project
of the same name founded in the same year he was
writing. In the new century, "we will become
still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and
increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds
without precedent."
In predicting the future course for the US Army,
Maj. Peters argues that: "We will see
countries and continents divide between rich and
poor in a reversal of 20th-century economic
trends." In this context, he says, "we
in the United States will continue to be
perceived as the ultimate haves", and
therefore, "terrorism will be the most
common form of violence", along with
"transnational criminality, civil strife,
secessions, border conflicts, and conventional
wars." Meanwhile, "in defense of its
interests", the US "will be required to
intervene in some of these contests." And
then he sums it all up in one tidy paragraph:
"There will be no peace. At any given moment
for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be
multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the
globe. Violent conflict will dominate the
headlines, but cultural and economic struggles
will be steadier and ultimately more decisive.
The de facto role of the US armed forces will be
to keep the world safe for our economy and open
to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will
do a fair amount of killing."
So what's prompted Maj. Peter's decision to air
his vision for the Middle East in the Armed
Forces Journal at this time in the wake of the
latest Middle East crisis? A number of critical
developments.
Source: Imminent Global Crises Converge
According to an American source with high-level
access to the US military, political and
intelligence establishment, Western policymakers
are in no doubt that the world faces the imminent
convergence of multiple global crises. These
crises threaten not only to undermine the basis
of Western power in its current military and
geopolitical configurations, but also to
destabilize the entire foundations of industrial
civilization.
The source said that the latest petroleum data
indicates that "global oil production most
likely peaked two years ago." This is
consistent with the findings of respected
geologists such as leading oil depletion expert Dr.
Colin Campbell, who in the late 90s predicted
that world oil production would peak in the early
21st century. "We have come to the end of
the first half of the Oil Age," said Dr.
Campbell, who has a doctorate in geology from the
University of Oxford and more than 40 years of
experience in the oil industry. Similarly,
Kenneth Deffeyes, a geologist and professor
emeritus at Princeton University, estimates the
occurrence of the peak near the end of last year.
The source also said that leading US financial
analysts privately believe that "a collapse
of the global banking system is imminent by
2008." Although the warning is consistent
with the public findings of other experts, this
is the first time that a more precise date has
been estimated. In a prescient analysis drawing
on highly
placed financial sources, US historian
Gabriel Kolko, professor emeritus at York
University, concluded in late July that:
"All the factors which make for crashes
– excessive leveraging, rising interest
rates, etc. – exist... Contradictions now
wrack the world's financial system, and a growing
consensus now exists between those who endorse it
and those, like myself, who believe the status
quo is both crisis-prone as well as immoral. If
we are to believe the institutions and
personalities who have been in the forefront of
the defense of capitalism, and we should, it may
very well be on the verge of serious
crises."
The source also commented on the danger posed by
rapid climate change. Although most conventional
estimates suggest that global climate catastrophe
is not due before another 30 odd years, he argued
that the multiplication of several
"tipping-points" suggested that a
series of devastating climatic events could be
"triggered within the next 10 to 15
years." Once again, this is consistent with
the findings of other experts, most recently a joint
task-force report by the Institute for Public
Policy Research in the UK, the Center for
American Progress in the US, and the Australia
Institute, which said in January last year that
if the average world temperature rises "two
degrees centigrade above the average world
temperature prevailing in 1750 before the
industrial revolution", it would trigger an
irreversible chain of climatic disasters. In its report,
the task-force says:
"The possibilities include reaching climatic
tipping points leading, for example, to the loss
of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets
(which, between them, could raise sea level more
than 10 meters over the space of a few
centuries), the shutdown of the thermohaline
ocean circulation (and, with it, the Gulf
Stream), and the transformation of the planet's
forests and soils from a net sink of carbon to a
net source of carbon."
The source also revealed that US generals had
repeatedly war-gamed a prospective conflict with
Iran, but consistently found that the simulations
predicted "an absolute nuclear
disaster", from which no clear winner would
emerge. The scenarios gamed were so dismal, he
said, that the generals briefed administration
officials to avoid such a war at all costs.
However, the source said that the Bush
administration is ignoring the fears of the US
military.
In this context, it would seem that the musings
of Maj. Peters issue less from a concerted
confidence in US power, than from a sense of
growing desperation and unease as the political,
financial and energy architecture of the global
system is increasingly fragmenting under the
weight of its own inherent instability. Despite
the seeming gloominess of the situation, however,
there is clearly fundamental dissent about the
current trajectory of American and Western policy
at the highest levels of power. The source
remarked that "humanity is on the verge of a
precipice, and either we'll all just drop off the
edge, or we'll evolve. I'm not sure what that new
human being might look like, but it will clearly
have to involve a completely new set of ideas and
values, a new way of looking at the world that
respects life and nature."
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