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Wednesday, October 09, 2002
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This morning, I am beginning a new series at Future Positive disclosing a powerful new mechnanism for the synergic containment of adversary events. Be sure to take a look.
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Children through immaturity and ignorance sometimes engage in dangerous behavior. The danger may be to themselves or to others. Often this begins before they are able to understand the consequence of their behavior, or to be reasoned with. How do you stop them without resorting to adversity and punishment? We have all seen parents slap a small child's hand, when their child reaches for something hot or sharp. The child immediately cries and often runs away, but what has the child learned? Gordon would argue that physically striking the child sends only one message, "You are bad!" And, while the child will withdraw, it is not because they understand that they were in danger, but simply because they fear the parent will strike them again. Now parents often feel that striking the child was necessary to protect the child, but is this really true? (10/09/02) | |
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Margaret J. Wheatley writes: In our daily life, we encounter people who are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together. Many of us are more withdrawn and distrustful than ever. Yet this incessant display of what’s worst in us makes it essential that we believe in human goodness. Without that belief, there really is no hope. There is nothing equal to human creativity, human caring, human will. We can be incredibly generous, imaginative, and open-hearted. We can do the impossible, learn and change quickly, and extend instant compassion to those in distress. And these are not behaviors we keep hidden. We exhibit them daily. How often during one day do you figure out an answer to a problem, invent a slightly better way of doing something, or extend yourself to someone in need? Very few people go through their days as dumb robots, doing only repetitive tasks, never noticing that anybody else needs them. Look around at your colleagues and neighbors, and you’ll see others acting just like you--people trying to be useful, trying to make some small contribution, trying to help someone else. In these times of turmoil, we’ve forgotten who we can be and we’ve let our worst natures prevail. (10/09/02) | |
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Thomas von der Osten-Sacken explains: People in Iraq won't talk freely, because they are terrified that their friends are working for one of Saddam's nine horrible security services. Because of this atmosphere, it took us three or four months to learn some details about the uprising. The Iraqis made people lie down in the streets and then buried them alive under asphalt. They killed everyone who looked a little religious, because this was a Shi'ite area. It was forbidden to take the corpses from the street. All in all, 60,000 or 70,000 people were killed in this area in 1991. ... When I was in southern Iraq in '91, we had a lot of conversations with a very nice, very sophisticated doctor. One day, he was watching television and the Iraqi army was being praised for having won the second part of the Gulf War [after the initial U.S. attack aimed at driving Iraq out of Kuwait]. The doctor just said, `Well, it is a strange victory if daily children are dying of hunger.' That was enough. Someone heard him. He was taken, tortured for three weeks and brought back a broken person. Letting one sentence slip is cause enough for a person to vanish into an Iraqi prison or even to be killed. ... Saddam has killed approximately one million of his own citizens since 1979, and that estimate only includes civilians. A million Iraqi soldiers were killed in the Iran-Iraq war. A half-million Iraqis died of hunger or disease because of sanctions on Iraq, and more were killed in the Gulf War. Some 1.5 to two million people have been internally displaced, and 4.5 million Iraqi refugees are scattered across the globe. Ten percent of the Iraqi population has been killed or deported during the rule of Saddam Hussein. That is the essence of his regime. It is not an accident. It is systematic. ... Seventy percent of the Iraqi people are allies of the Americans. If the war is waged correctly, it will focus on the regime, on the leaders, on the security apparatus and on this horrible Ba'ath Party, but not on the Iraqi people. So if Israel is attacked, it should consider this point: This is a war against the regime, and the Iraqi people are allies in fighting Saddam Hussein. So it is very important to refrain from attacking civilians. There has been a debate about Israel nuking Iraq if attacked with weapons of mass destruction. That would be a disaster - the end of the democratization of the Middle East. Everyone would be against the Iraqi opposition and against Israel. If there is a need for Israel to strike back, it should only be against military targets. Israel should openly declare that it is not conducting a war against the Iraqi people, and that it is ready to support a multi-ethnic democracy in Iraq, friendly to the Iraqi people and only hostile to this government. (10/08/02) | |
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Satire -- This one is just for fun, Enjoy! (10/09/02) | |
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The London Observer -- Oil is emerging as the key factor in US attempts to secure the support of Russia and France for military action against Iraq, according to an Observer investigation. The Bush administration, intimately entwined with the global oil industry, is keen to pounce on Iraq's massive untapped reserves, the second biggest in the world after Saudi Arabia's. But France and Russia, who hold a power of veto on the UN Security Council, have billion-dollar contracts with Baghdad, which they fear will disappear in 'an oil grab by Washington', if America installs a successor to Saddam. A Russian official at the United Nations in New York told the Observer last week that the $7 billion in Soviet-era debt was not the main 'economic interest' in Iraq about which the Kremlin is voicing its concerns. The main fear was a post-Saddam government would not honour extraction contracts Moscow has signed with Iraq. Russian business has long-standing interests in Iraq. Lukoil, the biggest oil company in Russia, signed a $20bn contract in 1997 to drill the West Qurna oilfield. Such a deal could evaporate along with the Saddam regime, together with a more recent contract with Russian giant Zarubezhneft, which was granted a potential $90bn concession to develop the bin Umar oilfield. The total value of Saddam's foreign contract awards could reach $1.1 trillion, according to the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2001. (10/09/02) | |
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An act of kindness is a spontaneous gesture of goodwill towards someone or something – our fellow humans, the animal kingdom, and the kingdom of nature. Kind words and deeds come from a state of benevolence, generated by a core response deep within all of us. When we carry out an act of kindness it is a message from one heart to another, an unspoken "I care" statement. ... A kindness can be acting out all of those lovely, ‘soft’ words that are in our vocabulary, words such as caring, thoughtful, loving, sympathetic, gentle, considerate, warm, compassionate, understanding, forgiving, friendly, tender, amiable, genial, unselfish, generous, helpful, supporting, nurturing. These are words that join, that unite, that build bridges between us. And oh, how the world needs such words! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to sprinkle more of these words and actions in our home, our work, our community? Humankind is capable of such beautiful things, and how sad it is that we lose sight of this all too easily. Will you help to warm your home, your work, your community, by using a greater number of such soft words and actions? As more and more people join the Kindness Revolution, the downward spiral of society fuelled by selfishness, materialism and greed will be slowed, and even reversed. As this happens it will promote an enhanced feeling of ‘belonging’ in the community, and give a greater sense of meaning and purpose to all of our lives. (10/09/02) | |
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The Christian Science Monitor -- The American military campaign against Iraq has been going on for more than a decade in the US- and British-enforced no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. But the low-level warfare between allied pilots and Iraqi air-defense gunners is intensifying and could be considered the opening volleys of Gulf War II. Tim Ripley, an air-power expert at the Centre for Defence and International Studies at Britain's University of Lancaster. "In almost every air war since [the 1991 Gulf War], we've seen a big campaign to destroy air defenses before a major air offensive. You could say this is actually happening now." This tactic was used in Kosovo and Afghanistan. The US Air Force has flown nearly 50 missions so far this year. Among the targets in recent weeks was what Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs, called a "major node" of Iraq's Chinese-supplied fiber-optic network that links the air-defense system. The latest strikes appear to be part of a changing pattern. Instead of going after the missile launchers that target them, allied pilots are blasting the command and communication centers and radar networks for those launchers. While that strategy was adopted haphazardly shortly after President Bush took office in early 2001, Iraq analysts agree that US responses now are far more focused. (10/09/02) | |
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Monday's Speech to America from Cincinnati -- President Bush: As Americans, we want peace -- we work and sacrifice for peace -- and there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I am not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein. Failure to act would embolden other tyrants; allow terrorists access to new weapons and new resources; and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events. The United Nations would betray the purpose of its founding, and prove irrelevant to the problems of our time. And through its inaction, the United States would resign itself to a future of fear. That is not the America I know. That is not the America I serve. We refuse to live in fear. This nation -- in world war and in Cold War -- has never permitted the brutal and lawless to set history's course. ... Today in Iraq, we see a threat whose outlines are far more clearly defined -- and whose consequences could be far more deadly. Saddam Hussein's actions have put us on notice -- and there is no refuge from our responsibilities. We did not ask for this present challenge, but we accept it. Like other generations of Americans, we will meet the responsibility of defending human liberty against violence and aggression. By our resolve, we will give strength to others. By our courage, we will give hope to others. By our actions, we will secure the peace, and lead the world to a better day. (10/08/02) | |
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6:17:20 AM 
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© TrustMark
2002
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
11/3/2002; 7:44:58 AM.
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