Towards a global perspective . . .

Apparently, the OSCE, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, will soon be sending Peacekeepers  to Kyrgystan to police the upheaval that has followed the recent coup that deposed a corrupt and unpopular President Bakyev.   Though Kyrgystan is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is China and Russia’s regional platform,  China and Russia have stood down.   Not only have they not rushed to the aid of their beleaguered member state, but they have  turned away from formal pleas for assistance from the new government, which, we are told is more sincere, less corrupt and more popular than the deposed President Bakyev.    It appears that they have given over a corner of their world to the West.   Why?  Is it evidence of  internal weakness or weakness within the SCO?  Is it due to a conciliatory political pragmatism that defers to the real power in the world?   Maybe they think they are giving a bone to the wild dog pack?

I am sure there are all kinds of complex regional currents in the conflict.   It is true that Kyrgystan is a member of the SCO, and for purposes of local trade and regional solidarity, that makes sense.  However, the explanation for Russia and China’s reticence is very simple.  The US has it’s largest supply base for the Afghan war located in Kyrgystan.   The US has spent a fortune unconditionally supporting deposed President Bakyev to maintain this base, as they did with the corrupt government before him.    In that light, this base has most likely been a thorn in the side of the leaders of the SCO all along, so their boundaries are already compromised.   Now, if they go in to assist the new government in regaining order, their efforts will ultimately fall in one of two directions.  Either they will be expending their resources to protect US interests in the region, or they will be drawn into a proxy war against the US and it’s pawns.

Let me explain.   Read the rest of this entry »

Defamation, a documentary film written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, is a film that every American should see.     As far as I know, it hasn’t been shown in theaters here, but I’m sure you can rent it from various online sources.   Those like myself, who have Netflix can see it online for free on their Netflix account.   Yesterday, I couldn’t find a place to watch it on Youtube, but got a screen showing a copyright conflict. I wasn’t surprised because Gilad Atzmon’s website said it wasn’t available on Youtube in the US. Today I found that you can watch on Youtube by starting from the trailer on the web page for the film, linked below.

The film begins with the director saying that, as an Israeli, he has never experienced antisemitism, so he is going to explore the subject in this film. Read the rest of this entry »

I saw a performance by Gilad Atzmon a few days ago, and he really has something interesting to say.   A disaffected, anti-Zionist, ex-Israeli, he speaks not only for Palestinian rights, but for a reasonable assumption that no one is ‘chosen’ and all people should have equal rights.  As an ex-Israeli citizen, he critiques Israeli policy and Zionist culture in a way that is quite shocking by standards in the  US,  not that he doesn’t get some serious heat for his stance.

Gilad is a popular Saxophone player and Jazz Artist in the UK, and his music is most enjoyable.   You can sample his work on Amazon and iTunes.     He’s also written a couple of novels that I can’t say much about because I haven’t read them.  However, he has a great website, which I highly recommend.  It is linked in on the sidebar.

Recently, we haven’t been paying a lot of attention to Iraq.   When we do hear something, we hear about a prolonged and possibly rather disorderly process reflecting an incompetent or maybe recalcitrant embodiment of Democracy.   There are, in fact, some interesting and reasonably democratic forces at play, along with some that are less so.  In any case, the type of democracy they have is somewhat complicated, especially at the current stage they.   The situation is sometimes represented as a competition between two guys, Iyad Allawi and his people, and Nouri Al Maliki and his people.  We see Mr. Allawi insisting that he won, while Mr. Al Maliki is being a very bad sport, using all of the resources he can muster as the incumbent to change the outcome, so far without success.  And, at some level, this is all too true.

But there are some significant, and quite reasonable players driving events behind the scenes.   Read the rest of this entry »

The London Times online headline says Israel Stations Nuclear Missile Subs off Iran.   The article says that the subs have already spent time in the region, but a “decision has now been taken to insure the presence of at least one of the subs.” The New York Times headline says U.N. Says Iran Has Fuel for Two Nuclear Weapons.  They go on to say that “Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to build 2 nuclear bombs. ” What does that mean?   Iran has had the same amount of nuclear materials from the start.   It has taken them 10 years to enrich it to to 3%.   To be used in a bomb, it has to be enriched to 95%.   With relation to Iran, The NY Times is constantly trying to find a way to make newsworthy the absence of news.

But, there is some real news and the world press is reporting it: Read the rest of this entry »

This week congress decided, after much debate, to continue the unemployment benefits of the core of the 10% of the population currently being serviced.   In consideration of the deficit, they decided not to continue subsidies to the COBRA health plans of those on unemployment.   It’s a token at best.  The cost of COBRA assistance is trivial compared to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the cost of the gulf catastrophe that has yet to begin accumulating.    But, it’s something.  And, as usual, the meek, who have yet to inherit the earth, are paying in advance.

I was thinking that I wouldn’t be affected because my COBRA coverage ends on June 30, but in fact, I will have to pay the full amount for June.   The full amount, for me, a single person, is more than my pre-tax weekly unemployment check.   I was notified on Friday, so I have no opportunity to adjust my plans.  Too bad.  Had I known a couple of months ago, I would have saved myself more than a week’s income, but at this point, I have long planned final Doctor appointments and prescription refills in the balance.   I’ll have to pay.

But, it isn’t just me.   Read the rest of this entry »

According to Eurasianet.org, Tbilisi is wooing Tehran.    Georgian President Saakashvili is now making overtures to Iran.   They have mutually waived the need for visas and initiated programs to increase their interstate trade and tourism.  Iran is investing in Georgia.  Read the rest of this entry »

Our priceless friend and ally, Israel, has just assaulted a flotilla of supplies with 800 civilian activists aboard and several tons of building materials, food, toys and various necessities.   There was live coverage online from the lead ship, broadcast through a Turkish news station.    Live TV coverage of a war crime, this is today’s media.  This is our world.   Even so, as time will show, Israel managed to come up with a conflicting story and a video of their own to prove it, only a few hours later.  They are ingenious and persistent.

There were around 600 people on the lead ship where the most serious confrontation took place, all unarmed civilians.   Al Jazeera and the Turkish station have video of a stairway crowded with people with people in life jackets.  You can hear a loudspeaker in the background directing people to go to their rooms and wait.   The reporter from Al Jazeera says that at least two are dead and there are an unknown number of injured.  Speedboats race alongside and around the ship.  Helicopters hover overhead.  He says that he is going to join them, and the scene ends, but the Turkish coverage continues. Floodlights are flashing over the deck as uniformed soldiers board the ship from the air and the sea.     Read the rest of this entry »

It has been brought up that I might seem to be advocating for Kurdish independence from Iran.  That was not my point.  I  support civil rights for the Kurds in Iran and everyone else there as well.   But my point was that the Kurds have been disenfranchised within the ‘modern’ countries where they reside, and that the European colonialists, by alternately supporting their quest for civil rights, and sovereignty, then opposing them at their convenience and for the furtherance of their own purposes, has seriously aggravated the problem.

The situation of the Kurds in Iraq is, I think, very fragile at present.  The convenience to the US of their independence is passing.  Yet they have used it well over the last 10 years, and it would be a good thing if they were rewarded for their success.  For them to become, at least, a self governed, federalist state of Iraq and be free to continue their progress would be good for the Kurds and good for Iraq.   They have much recent experience in developing a working state infrastructure to share.   And, their assertion of self direction and self government would be a safety valve of sorts for all of the Kurds in the region.  Of course this would only be true if the Kurds possessed the freedom in the countries where they reside to speak their language and and express their ethnicity without fear of reprisal.

This is my response to the previous entry, a poetic description of the conditions under which many Kurds live, and have lived for the last century.   The letter was posted on Facebook by a friend of the author, a Kurdish dissident in Iran, who was recently executed after about 5 years on death row in Iran’s notorious Evan Prison. The Kurds have many sad stories.  The story below is similar to other stories the Kurds tell.  And the ending is consistent as well, with the Kurdish experience.  The Peshmerga, the Kurdish militia, are “those who don’t fear death.”

I spent some time in Kurdish Iraq last summer.  They are doing pretty well there right now.  But, they have terrible stories to tell and their suffering continues in their feelings for lost relatives and friends and homes. Across the northern mountainous region of the Middle East and Persia, the Kurds are, and have been persecuted and disenfranchised for a hundred years and more.   Read the rest of this entry »