Andrew Bacevich on US Presidential History
January 23rd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Susan Modares of Press TV’s excellent Autograph interviews Andrew J. Bacevich, one of PULSE’s top 10 global thinkers of 2010.
Americans mostly tend to divide their history into presidential terms. Thus, they think there are great differences between the presidents. Many, however, believe there is a national security policy consensus which continues through all presidencies without any change. The same issue is discussed with author and Boston University Prof. Andrew J. Bacevich in this edition of The Autograph.
Is Pakistan’s ‘Monkey Show’ Coming Apart?
January 23rd, 2011 § 3 Comments
M. Shahid Alam
For too long now, the government of Pakistan – at its highest levels – has looked like a monkey show staged by the United States of America.
The USA picks the mercenaries from Pakistan’s wealthy and corrupt elites who are eager to play the part of the monkey. Once in office, they act upon cues that are called by the US plenipotentiary in Islamabad or elsewhere. The monkey master says, Give us transit rights; the monkey obliges. He says, Join our war against Afghanistan; the monkey obliges again. He says, We will bomb your people, you take the blame; the monkey obliges again. The monkey never disappoints.
All that the monkey master has to do to keep this monkey show going is to toss a few peanuts to the monkeys in the show for every act well-performed.
Of course, in order to try to fool the Pakistanis, the monkey master complains periodically that the monkey is not “doing enough.” The monkey replies that the master is not “giving enough” – peanuts, that is.
How long is this monkey show going to go on?
How long will Pakistanis stand for this humiliation?
The Net Delusion
January 22nd, 2011 § 1 Comment
In this brilliant lecture Evgeny Morozov asks if free information means free people? The event was recorded on 19 January 2011 in LSE’s Sheikh Zayed Theatre. It was moderated by Alison Powell.
Available as: mp3 (38 MB; approx 82 minutes)
At the start of the twenty-first century we were promised that the internet would liberate the world. We could come together as never before, and from Iran’s ‘twitter revolution’ to Facebook ‘activism’, technological innovation would spread democracy to oppressed peoples everywhere. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Morozov destroys this myth, arguing that ‘internet freedom’ is an illusion, and that technology has failed to help protect people’s rights. Not only that – in many cases the internet is actually helping authoritarian regimes. From China to Russia to Iran, oppressive governments are using cyberspace to stifle dissent: planting clandestine propaganda, employing sophisticated digital censorship and using online surveillance. We are all being manipulated in more subtle ways too – becoming pacified by the net, instead of truly engaging. This event marks the publication of Evgeny Morozov’s new book The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate The World.
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Wikileaks as a modern challenge
January 21st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
by Farid Farid
One of Australia’s most acclaimed authors, Tim Winton, has re-released Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir. Through a series of autobiographical reflections, Winton describes how Australia is a littoral society always on “the edge of things” – floods, bushfires, riots etc… Winton talks about the sensuality of water being central to the Australian imaginary. Through his prose about surfing and sharks, readers can also envision human cargo packed on a floating boat teetering between life and death.
It is perhaps then fitting that this was underscored a couple of days ago by the enthusiastic reception by foreign minister Kevin Rudd and defence minister Stephen Smith of their British counterparts William Hague and Liam Fox at the HMAS Watson on a naval base in Sydney harbour. In an ironic scene on the water, the Australian government’s foreign image untarnished by floods or asylum seekers was tactfully kept and strategic interests were shared between “cousins on opposite sides of the world” according to Hague and Fox.
Hague & Fox in their joint opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald opt for a turgid title that spells out their foreign policy objectives — ‘Stronger alliance required to meet modern challenges’. They probably had Wikileaks in mind as one of these trans-national challenges with both countries agreeing to tighten intelligence cooperation against cyber crimes.
WikiLeaks: Why it Matters. Why it Doesn’t?
January 21st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
A panel of leading thinkers explore WikiLeaks and its implications for access to information, security, first amendment rights, innovation, and more. Moderated by The Real News founder Paul Jay and presented by the Churchill Club, the panel speakers are Daniel Ellsberg, Clay Shirky, Neville Roy Singham, Peter Thiel and Jonathan Zittrain.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL): Prerequisites for Injustice?
January 20th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Omar Nashabe delivers the LSE Global Governance public lecture.
This event was recorded on 18 January 2011 in Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
The indictment of the STL in the Hariri assassination case is expected to be filed soon. However there are suspicions that the judicial process has been politically manipulated. This lecture will attempt to show that there have been serious flaws in the STL as an international mechanism for achieving justice. Omar Nashabe received a PhD in Criminal Justice; he serves as editor of the justice section of al-Akhbar newspaper and advisor on human rights and prisons to the Lebanese government. In 2007 he published The Roumieh Prison, if it could speak [in Arabic] with Dar as-Saqi, Beirut/London. The event was chaired by Professor Susan Marks.
Available as: mp3 (51 MB; approx 112 minutes)
Editor’s note: Unfortunately the first few minutes of the lecture are missing from the podcast.
Event Posting: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL): Prerequisites for Injustice?
Iraqi Donkey Awaits Better Life in America
January 20th, 2011 § 10 Comments
Photo courtesy of US Marine Corps/File
Last week, USA Today ran what was intended to be a heartwarming story about a former U.S. marine colonel’s struggle to “bring home a little four-legged piece of Iraq”:
John Folsom, who was [Iraqi] Camp Taqaddum’s commandant in 2008, hopes to bring Smoke the donkey home to Nebraska to brighten the lives of children whose parents are serving overseas.
Folsom and Smoke first met when a Marine under Folsom’s command decided to catch one of the many donkeys wandering the base outside Fallujah.”
We learn that the Marines “immediately took a liking to the animal” and assigned him his name based on “his gray color and tendency to snatch up cigarettes, lit or not.” In order to get around the prohibition on pets in the war zone, “a Navy lieutenant helped designate Smoke a therapy animal” and the donkey thus “started receiving care packages of treats and blankets along with the troops.”
As for two-legged pieces of Iraq, these enter the story in the form of an Iraqi sheikh to whom Smoke was ceded after the Marines evacuated Taqaddum. The article continues:
US Decimates Entire Afghan Village
January 19th, 2011 § 4 Comments
Stories like this should be unbelievable.
Writes Spencer Ackerman:
In October, a U.S.-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley after it became overrun with Taliban insurgents. It’s hard to understand how turning an entire village into dust fits into America’s counterinsurgency strategy — which supposedly prizes the local people’s loyalty above all else. But it’s the latest indication that Gen. David Petraeus, the counterinsurgency icon, is prosecuting a frustrating war with surprising levels of violence. Some observers already fear a backlash brewing in the area.
Ackerman quotes Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell who says there were no civilian casualties and argues that the village needed to be destroyed for the good of the people who lived there (emphasis is mine):
It seems difficult to understand how Broadwell or the 1-320th can be so confident they didn’t accidentally kill civilians after subjecting Tarok Kolache to nearly 25 tons worth of bombs and rockets. The rockets alone have a blast radius of about 50 meters, so the potential for hitting bystanders is high with every strike. As she clarified in a debate on her Facebook wall, “In the commander’s assessment, the deserted village was not worth clearing. If you lost several KIA and you might feel the same.” But without entering Tarok Kolache to clear it, how could U.S. or Afghan forces know it was completely devoid of civilians?
Helen Thomas on the perils of criticizing Israel in the US media
January 19th, 2011 § 20 Comments
A remarkably fair and respectful segment on legendary journalist Helen Thomas from CNN.
