Sunday, March 21, 2004

Posted here Sunday, March 21, 2004 at 12:52:57 PM     Ifweback up from The campaign and taking a longer look, which I always think is a good idea , we need to look at continuity across large events The similarities and policies between Clinton and bush especially the economy that trend from Reagan to bush 2    in the context of Thatcher and Blair the post world war 2 American economy and militarism the struggle for empire and the resulting security problems , world war one, world war two and the current security problems the rise of the combination of technology , elites , money and the nation state since say 1400 the masculine dominance in the military response to population pressures from the reaction of Islam to the merging of Christianity and the Roman empire to Islam as the hope for those without justice or jobs in the 21st century ********

Posted here Sunday, March 21, 2004 at 12:45:15 PM     And, a key point from talking points memo The first months of the Bush administration were based on a fundamental strategic miscalcuation about the source of the greatest threats to the United States. They were, as Clark suggests, stuck in a Cold War mindset, focused on Cold War problems, though the terms of debate were superficially reordered to make them appear to address a post-Cold War world. ********

Posted here Sunday, March 21, 2004 at 12:10:24 PM     Go read Billmon and the discussion on the60minut tonight clark interview .It willsave a lot of time. http://billmon.org/archives/001239.html ********

Social structure and teror Posted here Sunday, March 21, 2004 at 8:41:02 AM     We have a social structure,which means we each have some local friends and work connections, not many.we don't know the mayor o city council,we hire people to do the stuff or us, keep the electricity going, the gas flowing,all people whom we don't know.Terrorism arises within tis framework. The ethos of terror is very complex,having to do with ambition and power and perception, and long historical rivers of symbol and meanings,all mixed with human nature. Technology has fundamentally shifted the distribution of effectiveness. before incursion into Iraq,some in the military were talking about "the super empowered individual",which meant individuals with extreme tech and extreme money, or both. Perhaps with such people around we need to rethink social structure. the current trend is to put more stress on security as police and military, but maybe we are fundamentally flawed and in neglecting community, a world where each knows many, we have set up a response that only provokes en more hostility. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1174502,00.html  Forget the idea of al-Qaeda as a coherent fighting group, or even a flag of convenience. Call it what you will - 'Islamist', 'Salafi' or 'Jihadi' - it hardly matters. According to some intelligence experts, they do not wish to be understood. For an increasing number of young Muslims, resistance to the western values is now a way of life. Most are not terrorists and those who are do not accept the term, because they believe they are fighting imperialism by western infidels. As the investigators continued yesterday trying to piece together details of the terror network in Europe, the reverberations from the Madrid blasts swept America and Britain. The terrorists had scored a spectacular victory, ousting the Spanish Prime Minister and a key ally over the war in Iraq. New security measures were being deployed to protect trains and tunnels from suicide bombers, and London announced a huge increase in the number of intelligence officers being deployed to hunt the enemy. They have one major problem: they are fighting a mindset, not an army, and nobody has yet patented a technique to read minds. 'At first we thought we were up against an organisation,' one western intelligence source told The Observer. ' Something with a definable body and head. In fact, the war on terror is being fought against an idea. That does not make it any easier.' ********