Tuesday, June 04, 2002

Good Morning, all systems are back online. Yesterday's failure lasted about three hours. Lots of new stuff at SynEARTH network. Thoughts on India and Preparing for War Rajesh Babu writes on the India/Pakistan situation: The current “war threat” was an unnecessary act by both governments. I felt that it was a hollow statement. Though it got amplified and caused ripples in international circles. How is it ok to wage war on neighboring country that creates problem to your country, when all the while it is wrong to retaliate the neighboring family who creates problem? This arms race and retaliation is not going to help in prospering both nations. Both countries’ representatives (government and people) have been sitting opposite to each other and pointing fingers towards each other. I think we all should sit on the same side and face the future. ... Joshua Micah Marshall writes on preparing for war with Iraq: This sort of ugly, worst-case scenario is precisely what the professional military fears and insists on preparing for. In an attack on a metropolis like Baghdad, the U.S. could have far less of the advantages of its high-tech military and precision-guided bombs. If the Iraqi army were spread throughout the city, the toll of civilian casualties would simply be too high to destroy the Iraqi military from the air. Going in with the sort of overwhelming power that the professional military envisions is actually the only strategy that would make Perle's waiting-game scenario feasible. If the U.S. invaded and bottled up Saddam and a portion of the Republican Guard in Baghdad, war planners could then survey the rest of the country and gauge the reaction of the civilian population. If it was generally positive (or at least quiescent) we could likely hold back and wait them out. But if one of the darker scenarios began to unfold--a restive civilian population, a Kurdish declaration of independence, an Iranian mobilization to the east--then we would have to choke off resistance fast. Rather than go in with relatively few troops--as the hawks propose--and risk being drawn into a volatile and dangerous waiting game outside Baghdad, the professional military wants to go in with overwhelming force --at least 200,000 troops--to do whatever is required in Baghdad rapidly, and on our terms. Many lives would certainly still be lost; but there would be fewer Iraqi civilians and American GIs among them. Equally important, moving in with overwhelming force would make a quick American victory a near certainty, greatly increasing the odds that the Iraqi army would remove Saddam before a final assault became necessary. (06/04/02) A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words An Indian guard, left, and a  Pakistani guard standing at the daily closing ceremony at a border post near Lahore, Pakistan. [K.m. Chaudary / AP] (06/03/02) My Thoughts On Investments Wiseman Daniel Quinn writes: Many of the biggest and most far-reaching investments we make in our lives are investments that have little or nothing to do with money. In fact, the things I'm thinking of are things that most people don't think of as investments at all, though I'd like to have a look at two or three of them from that point of view here today. All of them are of the "all our eggs in one basket" variety of investment, which makes them especially interesting--and especially risky.  (06/03/02) The Evolution of Politics Peter A. Corning writes: The tumultuous political events of the past decade or so have, among other things, compelled political scientists to rethink some of their long established concepts and analytical constructs. One example is "political development," a term which has traditionally been associated with the optimistic post-World War Two scenario in which "developing nations" were said to be following "industrial societies" into a final stage of "post-industrial" history that would, presumably, be permanently embalmed in stable democracy and some variant of the traditional "balance of power" -- or terror. That smug scenario has been deflated by a sequence of events which suggest that the modern nation-state may itself be a transient phenomenon, a stepping-stone on the way to something larger, or smaller, or both -- or perhaps neither. (06/03/02) Natural Gas: Running on Empty II USA TODAY -- U.S. natural gas consumers are critically dependent on U.S. production, and U.S. production is in a long-term decline that experts don't think will reverse. ''We've been poking holes in the lower 48 since the 1920s,'' explains O'Grady, who notes that all the relatively easy gas-producing areas have long been picked over. Most of what's left are tough and expensive fields. ... ''The entire industry knew: I drill gas wells, I get rich,'' says Mark Papa, chairman of EOG Resources, a large independent gas producer. ''A huge effort was put in place to drill gas wells.''  But despite that effort, gas production barely budged. From 18.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 1999, domestic gas production crept up to 19.4 Tcf in 2001 -- a 3% increase.  ''What in the world explains why you had to double gas well completions just to stay flat?'' asks Matthew Simmons, chairman of energy investment bank Simmons & Co. ''I think we're in very scary shape.''  (06/03/02) A Structure for a Time-binding Trust Time-binding creates evermore knowing. That knowing to be useful to humanity needs to be accessable. One tool for accessability is the developing Internet and ever growing linked websites. But how do we organize that information so it is quickly available. Software engineer David Winer suggests: "The Googlish way to do Directories" (06/03/02) We Must All Prevent War There has never been a shooting war between two nuclear powers. And war, by definition, carries its own irrational momentum. The possibility of new Hiroshimas on the subcontinent is real, perhaps imminent. From within the dispute between India and Pakistan, issues of national sovereignty and religious identity seem worth the risk even of nuclear war, but from outside there is no conceivable justification of that risk. This is the position of the United States and other nations. ... The context within which India and Pakistan have moved to the brink of nuclear war has thus been defined not only by the irresponsibility of other governments, but by the detachment of citizens everywhere who no longer see the prevention of such war as involving them. And now? Are we really to watch the unfolding of the crisis along the border of India and Pakistan as if it is the Catholic bishops, say, in contest with the press? As if it is the FBI in blame-game competition with the CIA?  We owe it to the ''fate of the earth,'' in Jonathan Schell's great phrase, to do far more than that. We must, first, think the unthinkable again, imagining what the world after even a limited nuclear war would be like. And we must face the question that such a possible future already puts to every one of us: What are you doing to try to prevent this disaster? The only way to live humanly - still - is in resistance to war. The prevention of war, in the nuclear age, must be a central purpose of every person's life. Scientists, physicians, lawyers, bishops, mothers, students, writers - where are you? We must remember what we learned already, but forgot; what the leaders of India and Pakistan are showing us again: If we human beings leave this problem to governments, we are doomed.   (06/02/02) Swords to Plowshares ISLAMABAD -- Consider the realities that more than 21 million people died in Third World countries after World War II. The Third World debt is way over $1,000 billion today. Since World War II, governments spent close to $10 trillion dollars on defense, an amount enough to feed the entire world. Analyzing the lopsided policies of the global powers, devised to keep the poor countries in perpetual cycle of poverty, Najma Sadeque of Shirkat Gah, women's resource center, details the causes in three publications titled "Why We Are Poverty Stricken," "How They Run Pakistan," and "Debt by Entrapment: How Two UN Created Banks Recolonized the South."  (06/02/02) 6:26:25 AM

© TrustMark 2002 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 7/1/2002; 6:28:26 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.