Friday, January 30, 2009

Shredding agreements Korean style

South Korea's president Lee Myung bak should be smiling from ear to ear. His aggressive policy towards North Korea is buying off in spades. Lee scrapped the Sunshine Policy, and now North Korea has responded to Seoul's restaring the cold war with Pyongyang, by shredding all agreements with South Korea. Lee has acted provocatively if you look at the record; he was going to give the North hard love. Suddenly, Lee's game has turned serious. Korea hands now are beginning to sweat; not all, the hard right wing is dancing in the streets, for to them, North Korea is evil incarnate, and deserves the destruction that the old testament has visited on the enemies of a new Jerusalem which they see in Seoul. In consequent, a siege mentality obtains; detente is flung on recent history's dust heap; and this at a time when the once strong South Korean economy is slipping deeply into serious recession. Lee is banking on the fact that the new US president Barack Obama will back his standpoint towards Pyongyang. It is a wager that he may not win. Mr. Obama is looking towards diplomacy to resolve long standing issues, especially ones that concern the divided Korean peninsula. He cannot fully count on Lee because the South Korean president will not refrain from pushing the envelope towards the colour red. America's right wing supporters of Lee's are salivating looking for a military solution and regime change in the North. No one in his right mind would want to engage the million man North Korean force on the 38 parallel. And as one muscular arm chair general journalist who has nothing but contempt and loathing for Pyongyang points out that Lee's moves might boomerang on Seoul in these parlous economic times. For as South Korea's companies teeter on bankruptcy and diminished profits, Lee faces social dissension and unrest which may call for renewed dialogue with the North. Pyongyang may in all likelihood appeal to these forces, to push for renewed detente, which is furtherest from Lee's intentions. Alas, South Korea and the world are seeing the logical extension of George W. Bush's failed moves towards forcing North Korea to cry uncle! And fact show that Bush blinked first. And so will Lee.

Shredding of agreements Korean style

South Korea's president Lee Myung bak should be smiling from ear to ear. His aggressive policy towards North Korea is buying off in spades. Lee scrapped the Sunshine Policy, and now North Korea has responded to Seoul's restaring the cold war with Pyongyang, by shredding all agreements with South Korea. Lee has acted provocatively if you look at the record; he was going to give the North hard love. Suddenly, Lee's game has turned serious. Korea hands now are beginning to sweat; not all, the hard right wing is dancing in the streets, for to them, North Korea is evil incarnate, and deserves the destruction that the old testament has visited on the enemies of a new Jerusalem which they see in Seoul. In consequent, a siege mentality obtains; detente is flung on recent history's dust heap; and this at a time when the once strong South Korean economy is slipping deeply into serious recession. Lee is banking on the fact that the new US president Barack Obama will back his standpoint towards Pyongyang. It is a wager that he may not win. Mr. Obama is looking towards diplomacy to resolve long standing issues, especially ones that concern the divided Korean peninsula. He cannot fully count on Lee because the South Korean president will not refrain from pushing the envelope towards the colour red. America's right wing supporters of Lee's are salivating looking for a military solution and regime change in the North. No one in his right mind would want to engage the million man North Korean force on the 38 parallel. And as one muscular arm chair general journalist who has nothing but contempt and loathing for Pyongyang points out that Lee's moves might boomerang on Seoul in these parlous economic times. For as South Korea's companies teeter on bankruptcy and diminished profits

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Ostrich's bum is showing in Mitchell's trip to the Middle East

Israel thinks that Egypt can control Hamas. It saves the Jewish state from dealing directly with the legitimate authority in the Gaza strip. On the other hand, Jerusalem can and does act with impunity towards the Palestinians and Hamas in Gaza. It is true, Cairo has helped broker a "truce" between Hamas and Israel; Egypt's a middleman. It has no claim to Palestine. In fact, to it, Hamas is odious, the more especially since Hamas has elective affinities with Cairo's bete noire, the Muslim Brotherhood. The US, too, sees Egypt as a player in the denouement of the Palestine/Israel game. Cairo is linked with the much discredited and weakened Fateh. Today Obama's envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell is on a fact finding mission, in order to unravel the mess that George W. Bush has famously made. Fateh, Cairo, Jerusalem are on his agenda, but not Hamas. Rumour has it, Mitchell may in the future meet with it, but no one can say for sure. Obama went on Al Arabia, a Saudi based news service, to soothe ruffed Arab feathers. The new American president has a charm and a facility with words to calm excited opinion on the Arab street. It would have made better sense for him to embrace the airwaves of Al Jazeera which has a wider following in the Arab and Muslim worlds. But let's not quibble.
There is no doubt that Mitchell is walking in beaten paths. Some suggest that he widen his horizon to include Damas and Beyrouth, but not Hamas. It stands to reason that no matter how much Israel like Rumpelstilkin, stamps its feet, no matter what terror it can rain down on the Gaza strip from the skies, no matter how much illegal land it grabs on the Palestine's west bank, it has perforce to come to the table and deal with Hamas, either as a national unity government with Fateh or by Hamas itself.
It seems that the only one with an ounce of commonsense is former president Jimmy Carter. He has talked to all parties, including Hamas. He has stripped Israel's violation of the truce that it agreed to with Hamas, one by breaking it on 4 November 2008, but more importantly by its unbending, deliberate policy of keeping the Gaza strip on the edge of starvation. Why has Hamas launched rockets, everyone queries. To bring attention to the dire straits its own people find themselves in in Gaza. Israel has steadfastly kept borders closed; it has reneged on its pledge to allow 750 lorries a day with supplies, food, fuel, medical equipment, so on and on into the Gaza strip. If it permits 100 daily, that's alot. Ergo, the calculated policy of starving and strangling slowly to death the Palestinians in Gaza. Small wonder the tunnels which carry not so much arms but the needed supplies Israel denies Gazans. But who believes Jimmy Carter? Washington keeps him at arms distance; Israel has branded him an 'anti-Semite', the brand of Cain, for all to see and for all to keep away from. Had Israel lived up to its word and allowed supplies to enter Gaza and forsaken its ghettoising Gaza, as a collective punishment for electing democratically Hamas, we would be more on a road to solving long outstanding Palestine/Israel issues. Well, helas, we're not. Mitchell will come and go, but will he be able to do anything? He could if Washington told Israel sotto voce that unless they come to heel, the US will cut off significantly economic and military aid, and will call for repayment of forgiven debts which add up to us$ trillions. For the moment the Mitchell mission is like an ostrich with its bum in the air, head in the sand denying reality.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Rumour mills flourish in Seoul

Seoul is a buzz with rumour about Kim Jong il's heir apparent. Yonhap news agency has let the cat out of the bag: the new little king is Kim Jun on, the Dear Leader's youngest son. Endless are the scurrying mice who are trying to trace the rumour. Rumour mills are working overtime in these dire economic times. Think tanks have taken on new life, with endless commentary of a tale told by a nameless idiot. More sensible minds think that the rumour is baseless at best or the floating of a balloon of disinformation by South Korea's intelligence. The rumour has given new life to endless speculation; it has taken attention away from the necessary, but arduous task of negotiations with Pyongyang on its nuclear programme. Some analysts simply think that the rumour is a distraction. And it probably is.
Even if the rumour of an heir apparent to Kim Jong il has the ring of truth, Mr. Kim remains firmly and completely in charge. He has reappeared after months of absence. His government has signalled that it ready to engage with the US to resolve long, outstanding matters; it has signed significant contracts with an Egyptian telecommunications company and France's LaFarge group, to jump start infrastructure projects which will put North Korea's economy on a more modern footing.
On the other hand, relations with South Korea are at a dead point, thanks to the agressive policies of its president Lee Myung bak who has no trouble copying former US president George Bush's erratic and failed policy towards Pyongyang during his first administration. Mr. Lee's policies will meet the same lack of success. The current bleak economic climate in South Korea would predicate a more conciliatory opening to the north, you would think.
Even if the rumour has the ring of truth. What do we know of Kim Jong un? Indications point to a western education; fluency in the ways of the west and European languages; a good grasp of the capitalistic, global system. Though he may lack years of experience, everything will point to the fact that he or any of his brothers or uncles in law, is no pushover.
It is useless to weigh on the side of the future; solutions are there in the present to conclude a deal with North Korea. An overall solution lies in the reconvening of a Geneva Conference to end the Korean war once and for all; by that decision alone, all sorts of formulae can obtain to deal with current problems on a bi or multilateral level.
The rumour as we say, takes our mind off the work at hand. It is time to put away the toys of speculation, and have the will to end the more than half century of delay in coming to terms with North Korea.

Flourish rumour mills in Seoul

Seoul is a buzz with rumour about Kim Jong il's heir apparent. Yonhap news agency has let the cat out of the bag: the new little king is Kim Jong un, the Dear Leader's youngest son. Endless are the scurrying mice who are trying to trace the rumour. Rumour mills are working overtime in these dire economic times. Think tanks have taken on new life, with endless commentary of a tale told by a nameless idiot. More sensible minds think that the rumour is baseless at best or the floating of a balloon of disinformation by South Korea's intelligence. The rumour has given new life to endless speculation; it has taken attention away from the necessary, but arduous task of negotiations with Pyongyang on its nuclear programme. Some analysts simply think that the rumour is a distraction. And it probably is.
Even if the rumour of an heir apparent to Kim Jong il has the ring of truth, Mr. Kim remains firmly and completely in charge. He has reappeared after months of absence. His government has signalled that it ready to engage with the US to resolve long, outstanding matters; it has signed significant contracts with an Egyptian telecommunications company and France's LaFarge group, to jump start infrastructure projects which will put North Korea's economy on a more modern footing.
On the other hand, relations with South Korea are at a dead point, thanks to the agressive policies of its president Lee Myung bak who has no trouble copying former US president George Bush's erratic and failed policy towards Pyongyang during his first administration. Mr. Lee's policies will meet the same lack of success. The current bleak economic climate in South Korea would predicate a more conciliatory opening to the north, you would think.
Even if the rumour has the ring of truth. What do we know of Kim Jong un? Indications point to a western education; fluency in the ways of the west and European languages; a good grasp of the capitalistic, global system. Though he may lack years of experience, everything will point to the fact that he or any of his brothers or uncles in law, is no pushover.
It is useless to weigh on the side of the future; solutions are there in the present to conclude a deal with North Korea. An overall solution lies in the reconvening of a Geneva Conference to end the Korean war once and for all; by that decision alone, all sorts of formulae can obtain to deal with current problems on a bi or multilateral level.
The rumour as we say, takes our mind off the work at hand. It is time to put away the toys of speculation, and have the will to end the more than half century of delay in coming to terms with North Korea.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

BBC 'deux mesures, deux poids' -- raising money for Gaza

The British Broadcasting System [BBC] have scotched any televised fund raising to come to the aid and comfort of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip, in the wake of the terror bombing and destruction by Israel. Were the shoe on the other foot, would they ban raising funds for Israel? Probably not. So here again we face an example of double standards, when it comes to the Palestinians. Are the BBC afraid that the monies raised would fund Hamas'war objectives? The short answer is yes. Israel's shock and awe aerial warfare against the Palestinian population, has left the strip almost bombed back to year zero, but not quite. It is reminiscent of the Jerry bombing of Conventry during world war 2, or the allied bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, and Rotterdam. How much pressure did Israel put on Whitehall or 10 Downing street? Have the new Labour government donned the same cloak of self righteousness that Tony Blair did when he sided with fabricated evidence allowing Bush to invade Iraq? It would do BBC much good were it to espouse the timeless British tradition of fair play in allowing monies to be raised for the victims of Israel's agression in Gaza.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Israel withdraws from Gaza

As anyone who could read the handwriting on the wall, it was expected that israel would beat a retreat from Gaza at the 11 hour before the Bush presidency would expire. It declared a cease fire. Hamas said that it would give Jerusalem a week to live by the terms of its own withdrawl. Israel has more to fear from the new American president than it does from Hamas. It has much cottong to threat if it parsed Barack Obama's inauguration speech; for the first international issue that Mr. Obama spoke of was improving relations with the Arab world. It was an announcement that the US would take a more even handed approach towards Israel, say along the lines of George HW Bush.
In the Israeli daily 'Ha'artez' [20 Jan 2009], the writer David Grossman summed up Israel's trail of death and destruction in Gaza: his message can best be summed up in the old saying, 'might doesn't make right'. Israel's 3 week war in Gaza was predicated on visiting as much sock and awe and terror on a population which voted Hamas into office. Ingenuous as Jerusalem's statement that it had invited the Palestinian civilian population to flee the war, Israel kept the borders firmly closed. Thus the civilians were cut between a rock and a hard place. Prime minister Olmert's apologies to Gazans that Israel meant no harm to civilian Palestinians does not pass the test of what actually happened from the air and on the ground. Here, we're in the land of Orwell's 'newspeak'. Jerusalem's 'blitzkrieg' targeted public buildings, schools, universities, libraries, mosques, and houses, thereby making the civilian population pay with its lives and and its property; its purpose was plein enough: to bomb Gaza almost back to the year zero so that Palestinians would rise up and overthrow Hamas. Which despite recrimination, they didn't do, but bonded more firmly with it.
Israel introduced ground troops late in the fighting; they hardly engaged Hamas, but continued the work which bombs couldn't complete, and tried to complete the physical destruction of Gaza's infrastructure. The Israeli government broke rules of civilised behaviour; it did it with impunity. For whom would bring it to account before the international court of justice in the Hague? Yet by posing the question in no way absolves Olmert, Livni, Barka, Peres & co from the weight of their crimes. The Bush administration shares in the blame through acts of omission and commission.

Israel withdraws from Gaza

As anyone who could read the handwriting on the wall, it was expected that israel would beat a retreat from Gaza at the 11 hour before the Bush presidency would expire. It declared a cease fire. Hamas said that it would give Jerusalem a week to live by the terms of its own withdrawl. Israel has more to fear from the new American president than it does from Hamas. It has much cottong to threat if it parsed Barack Obama's inauguration speech; for the first international issue that Mr. Obama spoke of was improving relations with the Arab world. It was an announcement that the US would take a more even handed approach towards Israel, say along the lines of George HW Bush.
In the Israeli daily 'Ha'artez' [20 Jan 2009], the writer David Grossman summed up Israel's trail of death and destruction in Gaza: his message can best be summed up in the old saying, 'might doesn't make right'. Israel's 3 week war in Gaza was predicated on visiting as much sock and awe and terror on a population which voted Hamas into office. Ingenuous as Jerusalem's statement that it had invited the Palestinian civilian population to flee the war, Israel kept the borders firmly closed. Thus the civilians were cut between a rock and a hard place. Prime minister Olmert's apologies to Gazans that Israel meant no harm to civilian Palestinians does not pass the test of what actually happened from the air and on the ground. Here, we're in the land of Orwell's 'newspeak'. Jerusalem's 'blitzkrieg' targeted public buildings, schools, universities, libraries, mosques, and houses, thereby making the civilian population pay with its lives and and its property; its purpose was plein enough: to bomb Gaza almost back to the year zero so that Palestinians would rise up and overthrow Hamas. Which despite recrimination, they didn't do, but bonded more firmly with it.
Israel introduced ground troops late in the fighting; they hardly engaged Hamas, but continued the work which bombs couldn't complete, and tried to complete the physical destruction of Gaza's infrastructure. The Israeli government broke rules of civilised behaviour; it did it with impunity. For whom would bring it to account before the international court of justice in the Hague? Yet by posing the question in no way absolves Olmert, Livni, Barka, Peres & co from the weight of their crimes. The Bush administration shares in the blame through acts of omission and commission.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Playing by its own rules...Israel & Hamas

The long awaited and hoped for cease fire may come to pass, it seems. Israel is calling the shots, and the US in a flexing of the muscles of strong power is falling into line with its marching orders. It looks now as though Israel's cabinet with vote for a unilateral cease fire of short duration...some say 10 days. In this way, it won't deal with Hamas; it won't lift the economic blockade; it will, however, keep its ground troops in the Gaza strip. In other words, the Palestinians in Gaza will continue to live in the Israeli imposed ghetto with all the hardships that we all know from the three weeks war Jerusalem is waging against Hamas. Translation: it is really carrying out a policy of slow death and massive destruction. It is playing out the mad message at the end of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', to wit, 'exterminate the beast'. This is so obvious that the world has turned a blind idea to the real goal Israel has pursued against Palestinians, and is root and branch part of Zionism.
Did you catch on the television US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice exchanging 'bisou' with Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni in Washington after each signed a protocol by which the US will further arm Israel with the latest sophisticated military materiel, whilst hypocritically condemning Hamas for arming itself against the Israeli invader?
The world will again pay a heavy price for ignoring the destruction of a people like it did when it did little against the Shoah in Europe.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Lebensraum in Gaza?

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has dismissed the UN Security Council's demanding a cease fire in the war that Israel is waging in the Gaza strip. Mr. Olmert dismissed it as 'unworkable', and is pursuing his country's military offensive. He is apparently tone deaf to the will of the United Nations, and more especially to the unanimous vote of the Council with Israel's unflinching ally, the US, abstaining. Washington's abstention show raise a red flag, but it hasn't. It is a signal that the new Obama administration which will assume the White House in 10 days time, is indirectly hinting that doing business the Bush way is over. Today's 'Financial Times of London' carries an op ed essay by Philip Stephens, translated from the Hebrew, that Israel incursions into Gaza won't bring nor guarantee its strategic security. This observation has been quite noticeable since the beginning of the war 12 days ago; it simply underscores the bankruptcy of Israeli military strategy, and the lack of any government in Jerusalem to seek a political solution other than on completely Israeli terms.
Pursuit of its military actions in Gaza has but one unacceptable conclusion: Israel is seeking Lebensraum in Palestinian territory. We know what 'Lebensraum' mean--forceful removal of populations as on the west bank; implantation of settler colonies; and the complete domination in selected enclaves of Palestianians. It could and does carry implications of 'exterminate the beast', the raving mad conclusion of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of darkness'. Israel alas has learnt nothing and is tottering of the edge of madness

Saturday, January 3, 2009

What Israel forgot

During world war 2, Vichy France lived under the shadow of its conqueror Nazi Germany, and with which it collaborated. The Free French who fought in the name of Charles DeGaulle, sang as a national anthem 'le chant des partisans' [song of the partisans]; it couldn't sing 'la marseille'for France's national hymn Vichy France had appropriated for its own as a defeated nation and then ally of Hitler Germany. Now you may ask what has this to do with Israel? Well for one thing, 'le chant des partisans', music and lyrics were written by two French cousins who were Jews. Joseph Kessel, a journalist and advocate of a Jewish state in Palestine and later a member of 'l'Academie Francaise', and the popular writer Maurice Duron. Again what has this to do with Israel? Everything in a way. Look at Israel's proactive war against Gaza now in its eighth day. Israel bombs have killed two leading members of Hamas' military wing, and one of its objectives in war. Yet it has rained 200 tonnes of bombs on a postage size strip called Gaza visiting untold death and injury on civilians and much destruction. And yet, Hamas has never stopped raining down rockets on Israel's south, reaching even Beersheva. What has 'le chant des partisans' to do with Israel? Everything in a way, we say again. Israel's never ending war against the legally elected Hamas government in Gaza which it calls 'terrorist' will not end no matter how many leaders of Hamas it bombs kill. It will simply increase the number of rebels. The national hymn of resistance resounds loudly during these times, but Israel is deaf. 'Friend, if you fall, a friend will come out of the shadows and take your place'. And in deliberate pursuit of Hamas, Israel has but one solution which it ultimately will have to abandon: the complete destruction of Gaza and its inhabitants. And that the lesson Israel forgot, and will ultimately have to learn.

Friday, January 2, 2009

The sad song of J. Alfred Paulson

US secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson pleads unusual circumstances. The US Treasury and the Fed hadn't the instruments to contain the subprime meltdown. Is that so? Until the bubble burst totally in September 2008 with the deliberate bankrupting of Lehman Brothers, the largest purveyor of commerical paper, and his buddy Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke applied standard Economic 101 bromides. The former big cheese of Wall Street and the bright economic professor from Princeton had saw the crisis which was eviscerating the national and world economies, from a hazy standpoint. They fed the bubble. If they looked backed to Volker's remedy for stagflation or Greenspan's 'irrational exuberence' to make froth of a growing bubble, they didn't show it. Yet, they had instruments and powers at hand to do something before it was too late. They didn't. The US current accounts was and is a pyramid built on debt, fuelled by monies from abroad. Easy money encouraged false hopes and the achievement of financial nirvana which the Fed and Treasury sustained the market. At no time till the damage was done, did these two men confront these fallacies. At no time till now, did they use the big stick of monetary policy, nor did they raise lending margins nor want to cool the economy by raising interest rates, lest inflation take wings. And they acted on the assumption that bubbles could only be identified ex post facto. On top of wiggling out of any responsibility, the two held on to the misguided economic apologia pro sua vita of the economic theory they believed: the market regulates itself. And when the dykes broke they went hat in hand to the US Congress for money, which came with strings attached, and with the much dreaded once denouced 'socialist' notion of the right of Congress to regulate the taxpayers' money. Did J. Alfred Paulson's plaint sound plausible. Not. And now, the big broom is left to the incoming Obama administration to sweep away the small Himalaya of greed, inefficiency, self deception, and devil may care mentalies.