Saturday, November 08, 2003

Posted here Saturday, November 08, 2003 at 10:11:51 AM     Testing mail to ********

Last few days, Posted here Saturday, November 08, 2003 at 9:59:17 AM       The following all from summaries in the Current Foreign Affairs. Sorry no links yet.   The hawks came to see an Americanized Iraq as a replacement for Saudi Arabia. The plan was risky, not least because the secular Baath government had been among the main ramparts against Sunni and Shiite religious radicalism in the Gulf. The hawks argued that a liberated Iraq would kick-start a wave of democratization in the Middle East, paralleling events in Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union weakened and then fell. (They did not explain why the United States, if it wanted democratization, did not start with places like Egypt and Jordan, which were more plausible candidates, being allies, developed civil societies, and recipients of substantial aid). They believed, incorrectly, that Iraq’s petroleum-producing capacity—while not at Saudi levels—was significant enough to offset Saudi dominance of the oil markets. And unlike Saudi Arabia, Paul Wolfowitz thought, Iraq did not have holy cities such as Mecca and Medina that would make the stationing of U.S. troops there objectionable: Iraqis, he said, “don’t bring the sensitivity of having the holy cities of Islam being on their territory.” (He apparently did not then know about the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala). The hawks were aware that a democratic Iraq would have a Shiite majority, but their client, Ahmad Chalabi (head of the expatriate Iraqi National Congress), convinced them that Iraqi Shiites were largely secular in mindset and uninterested in a Khomeinist theocracy. In the short term, they thought, Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress would run Iraq in at least a semi-democratic fashion   Eyeless in Iraq By Arthur Schlesinger Jr. President George W. Bush has made a fatal change in the foreign policy of the United States. He has repudiated the strategy that won the cold war—the combination of containment and deterrence carried out through such multilateral agencies as the UN, NATO, and the Organization of American States. The Bush Doctrine reverses all that. The essence of our new strategy is military: to strike a potential enemy, unilaterally if necessary, before he has a chance to strike us. Iraq: What Went Wrong By General Wesley K. Clark The decisive phase of the American campaign to invade Iraq and seize Baghdad was remarkably successful. But there were also problems that should not be ignored. Un-American Activities By Anthony Lewis The harsh treatment of aliens since September 11 has had little political attention. Relatively few Americans know or care much about it. In his powerful book, Enemy Aliens, David Cole shows why we should care, as a matter not only of humanity but of self-interest. The repressive measures that President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft first took against aliens are now being applied to citizens.   I am really quite fascinated to be reading a book called socio cultural evolution by Bruce Trigger. The book is not tightly reasoned, but has a good story line and is susceptible to a good look at his method of argument. Basically he wants to maintain that progress is real and that the conservatives of a cyclicalists, and the postmodernist all miss the underlying coherence of an unfolding of human history in a positive direction. That is a good argument to try to make but it is more interesting to try to understand how the argument works and where it might break down.   for example,To justify the shift from a medieval fairly static point of view, wherein the material world was just a given, and the dynamics were in the psychology of salvation, to a more modern world of material progress, he cites Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, and then lumps together Hobbs and locke. These help make a coherent story but at the same time leaves out elements that would be very important in another story with different sensitivities.   If there is a strong religious tone broadly spread within a society, it is clear that most people are willing to align themselves with it and feel justified. A semi a coherent story strongly believed in games the allegiance of most people. It is clear that a fairly thin structure logically and rhetorically can have this impact. Most people are drawn more to believe them to question.   My own view is that meaning is what we do frequently and a story believed in becomes meaningful concretely in the lives of those who believe it.   Relativism is only important when there are competing points of view that are emotionally charged.  Otherwise the existing believe is rooted in meaning and quite stable. But it would be wrong to read into this stability the discovery of the truth which is independent of the live lives of the believers.   Science, for example, is the story about the nature of the world as though the storyteller did not exist nor that the early history of the storytellers in math and animism was not the source of the very categories within which science finds its meaning, nor in the motives of earlier spiritual life which find themselves re embodied in the unconscious lives of scientists.   If there is to be progress it will be fragile and have high costs. The story is open. This book, socio cultural evolution, believes that there is a direction to the unfolding of human history. But as an anthropologist he succumbs too limited a real sensitivity at the cost of a psychic and cultural sensitivity. The most remarkable I never said along these lines might be the one he quotes from John Locke and 1690, " taking of a large and fruitful territory there feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day laborer in England." modern sensitivity is alert to the psychic in social differences of the emotional and relational life between the two.  It is hard to conceive that there was a time when it only the material conditions seem to that important, but in that time, when the feeling the life of animals and the soul life of women was unacknowledged and actively denied, it may have been possible.   On restarting the draft..   The slow documentation of "not enough troops"  leads to The Selective Service is soliciting volunteers to constitute local draft   boards: <http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/sss092203.html>.   Will U.S. bring back the draft? <http://tinyurl.com/trs1> (Toronto Star)   US raises spectre of conscription <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3242923.stm>   Appeal for draft board volunteers revives memories of Vietnam era <http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1077906,00.html>   Comment: what a shell shock that will be. I can see how the more conservative folks, who want to do away with social security, bring back family values, and fight for the nation, would like this.   Overheard:   Donora, Pennsylvania...   Even in the 1960s the place looked decrepit. The old houses were clad in an asphalt-based product which was intended to look like brick - from a far distance... to a near-sighted half-wit.   It had probably been put on in the 20s or 30s... or maybe the 40s. By the '60s it had cracked and warped like a neglected packing lot.   When owners went to replace the asphalt, they typically put on aluminum siding... which almost looked good for a year or two... until it became dented and faded.   Like Argentina, Russia, and Baltimore... Donora did what now seems almost impossible. For most of the 20th century, the real value of its property went down. Americans can hardly believe it; but real estate can go down in price for very long periods of time.   From Los Angeles comes news that house prices have been rising at 8.3% for the last 34 years. The numbers lean a bit, bent in a favorable direction by the warm winds of the last couple of years. Over the last 12 months, for example, prices in LA County rose 24%.   Comment: The numbers are staggering. Where do so many people get so much money? How much is leveraged up on cheap interest plus equity inn an old house now sold?   From Kristoff in the NYT   Mr. Cheney has cited a Zogby International poll to back his claim that there is "very positive news" in Iraq. But the pollster, John Zogby, told me, "I was floored to see the spin that was put on it; some of the numbers were not my numbers at all." Mr. Cheney claimed that Iraqis chose the U.S. as their model for democracy "hands down," and he and other officials say that a majority want American troops to stay at least another year. In fact, Mr. Zogby said, only 23 percent favor the U.S. democratic model, and 65 percent want the U.S. to leave in a year or less. "I am not willing to say they lied," Mr. Zogby said. "But they used a very tight process of selective screening, and when they didn't get what they wanted they were willing to manufacture some results. . . . There was almost nothing in that poll to give them comfort." Sure, we're making some progress in Iraq. A hand grenade sells for $2.50 now, compared with 10 cents a few months ago. But U.S. troops now face 25 to 30 attacks daily, compared with 15 to 20 in September. Last month 33 Americans were killed, twice as many as in September.   Pasted from <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/opinion/05KRIS.html>   This is such a long ay from Clinton.. How the country has changed. There is almost no scrutiny by the press.   Why is the "mechanism" language so embraced? An example here.   Decoding, imitating and influencing the actions of others: the mechanisms of social interaction - Frith & Wolpert http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/phil_bio/news/decoding.html   Comment: this theme I think is critical for an understanding of the current strategy of much of science, and its social usefulness.   ======   On Putin and the US.       http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/11/04/006.html     Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003. Page 10 Putin the New Saddam? Emboldened by their historic propaganda success -- the creation ex nihilo of a justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq completely unsanctioned by international law -- members of the dangerous Washington faction with deep links to the security services and the military-industrial complex, the dread Bushoviki, have identified a new "terrorist threat": President Vladimir Putin.   The means they are now deploying are strikingly similar: planted "intelligence," manipulation of public opinion by tame journalists and "nonprofit foundations," as well as the insidious repetition of evident lies on the assumption that at least something will stick. In a recent op-ed piece in the increasingly reactionary Washington Post, Bruce Jackson, president of the innocuous sounding Project on Transitional Democracies, accuses Putin not just of re-establishing a tsarist state, but of the supreme crime of opposing U.S. political and economic interests in Russia's historic sphere of influence: the CIS. After long service in the weapons trade (Lockheed, Martin), Jackson is now a hatchet-man for the Bush administration. A member of the far-right Project of the New American Century, he serves with the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld. Jackson was instrumental in rounding up support for the Iraq war with a stealth attack, corralling East European presidents into signing the notorious letter of the "Vilnius 10."   All is fair in love and (propaganda) war. In a crass insult to the world's Jews, Jackson deploys one of the most cynical foreign policy ploys of the Bushoviki: the callous exploitation of anti-Semitism, demeaning the sufferings of the Jewish people by reducing the term "anti-Semitism" to an epithet for any regime inimical to U.S. interests.   Jackson notes that three of the business magnates who came to a sticky end are Jewish, but neglects to mention that so were six of the original seven oligarchs, as well as 90 percent of those who currently qualify for the oligarch title. Given the ratios, the real surprise would have been if the fallen angels had been, say, Orthodox Hindus.   Nowhere, of course, does Jackson mention the dozens of Russian Jewish businessmen currently building their businesses, attracting foreign partners, and enjoying all the good things that Russia's resurrection has brought. It is ironic that of the spinmeisters warning of the anti-Semitic threat coming from Russia not one, to my knowledge, is a Jew.   Mikhail Khodorkovsky has managed to shake off a profoundly unenviable reputation in a very short time. In fairness, Yukos, acquired for some $300 million in the notorious loans-for-shares auctions and still largely controlled through a cascade of offshore vehicles, has proved to be an absolute star in recent years. But it is Khodorkovsky's generous funding of various U.S. neo-conservative causes, in part through his Open Russia foundation (one of the board members of which is Henry Kissinger, responsible inter alia for the Pinochet coup and the illegal, secret war that devastated Cambodia), that has given him with access to the most reactionary elements of the Bush administration -- Perle, Dick Cheney et al. -- all of whom are now lobbying furiously for the oligarch's interests.   What is less clear is why Khodorkovsky was naive enough to share their characteristic misconception that U.S. writ runs across the entire planet, and that support from Washington would solve his increasingly grave problems at home. Certainly, if his U.S. backers convinced him of this, they have done him a major disservice.   Yukos was the first Russian company to understand the profound changes brought about by the Putin government: with safety of ownership regardless of past misdeeds and a stable political and economic backdrop, far greater wealth could be built by increasing company valuations than by stripping assets. Emulation of their examples has fueled a historic boom in equity prices. Most of Khodorkovsky's peers thought the concessions demanded in return (payment of taxes and an end to the meddling in politics) were a small price to pay. It is deeply unfortunate that Yukos increasingly sought to build its influence, not just in the oil fields and capital markets, but by buying control of the State Duma.   On Thursday, Putin met with the heads of the major investment banks, reassuring them about the future direction of reform. With arch-reformer German Gref smiling at his side, he was uncompromising in his message that he would attack corruption wherever it was found -- be it in the bureaucracy, private sector or Duma -- but that minority Yukos shareholders' interests would be zealously protected. He was forceful, lucid and remarkably well-briefed on market issues. Vitally, Putin reiterated that there was no question of a generalized attack upon the other oligarchs nor a revision of the results of privatization -- historically, those who have ignored his words have done so at their own cost.   The president also announced the dismantling of the Gazprom ring-fence "in a matter of months." The impact of this move may well outweigh the unarguably negative effects of the Yukos saga. Opening Gazprom to foreign investment would overnight almost double Russia's weighting in the main benchmark, the MSCI Index, mechanically driving a huge wave of buying by foreign funds. Looking beyond the current turbulence, the vital issue affecting Russia's progress over the next four years is not the fate of one oligarch, but the upcoming Duma elections. Polls show a sharp rise in the popularity of Putin's party, which is set to win a sizeable majority in the next parliament. A clear victory would renew the bold reform drive which characterized the start of his presidency, before the Duma succumbed to oligarchic lobbying.   Russia has historically done best when it relied on its own internal strengths -- Jackson's coalition-of-the-available may huff and puff, but Putin's house is made of stone. Eric Kraus is chief strategist for Sovlink Securities. His full views can be found at www.sovlink.ru   Comment: the big game is who controls - not the oil - but the whole.   So that is the game in town. All players and moves can be analyzed in this frame. It suggests that we have moved beyond the market to geopolitical empire struggles. Do I believe it? Not yet. Alternative scenarios need to be considered.     The following on Us corporations and globalization   Boeing has won a $2 billion order to build up to 30 737-model jets from the commission that OKs purchasing for China's state-owned airlines, the financial news service Bloomberg.com reported. The carriers are Air China, Shandong Airlines Co., and Xiamen Airlines Co. Citing sources at Boeing, the world's largest aircraft builder, Bloomberg.com said the deal may be confirmed when Chinese Premier Wen Jibao visits Washington later this month. Analysts see the deal as an effort by China to help narrow its massive $130 billion trade imbalance with the US, the news agency said.   Comment: at first reading you might think that this means US jobs and profit. The problem is the planes will be built ( I suspect) in Boeing plants inside China. China gets the balance of trade figures, but still gets the benefits. Some might recall a NYT article of about five years ago on new competitiveness sponsored by the Commerce department, where Boeing was mentioned, but the small text gave the details of how Boeing would be shifting production into China.   **Credit agencies sending our files abroad David Lazarus Friday, November 7, 2003 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle |Feedback   URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/11/07/MNG4Q2SEAM1.DTL   Two of the three major credit-reporting agencies, each holding detailed files on about 220 million U.S. consumers, are in the process of  outsourcing sensitive operations abroad, and a third may follow suit shortly,  industry officials acknowledge for the first time.   Privacy advocates say the outsourcing of files that include Social Security numbers and complete credit histories could lead to a surge in  identity theft because U.S. laws cannot be enforced overseas.   For their part, the credit agencies say the trend is a necessary cost- cutting move in light of new legislation that would allow all consumers to  obtain free copies of their credit reports.   The top credit agencies  --  Equifax, Experian and Trans Union  -- have  refused in the past to comment on their outsourcing plans. No longer.   "A hundred percent of our mail regarding customer disputes is going to go  to India at some point," said David Emery, executive vice president and chief  financial officer of TransUnion in Chicago. "We are now testing the system and  negotiating a contract with an outside vendor. We expect to sign that contract  by the end of the year."   Why thre might be limits to government run as a business. (In case you weren't convinced).   In Foreigners, Ted Gup says that the CIA thinks of itself as a commercial enterprise—and with “new customers” like the Department of Homeland Security, business is booming. But, Gup writes, with “The Company’s” COO a former investment banker and a flattering Fortune profile that documents the agency’s “corporate turnaround,” the business metaphor is getting a bit overblown and dangerous. “The same business model that now intoxicates Langley also allows it to block out a succession of intelligence failures, the way some high-flying corporations once deemed profits irrelevant.”   ** USA Today and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with the economy—USAT, with word of looming job growth; the WSJ, with an increase in worker productivity and hints from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that a hike in interest rates could be on the horizon.   Pasted from <http://slate.msn.com/id/2090928/> note theat increased job productivity can mean less workers. the details here are needing to be dis-aggregatede.   comment:     ********