Yeswecanistan

All the crying from the left about how Obama “the peace candidate” has now become “a war president” … Whatever are they talking about? Here’s what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:

We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don’t do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.

Why should anyone be surprised at Obama’s foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: “Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban.” This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.

But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label “Taliban” are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label “al Qaeda”. “I am convinced,” the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, “that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak.”

Obama used one form or another of the word “extremist” eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America’s never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are “extremists”, that “extremists” are by definition bad guys, that “extremists” are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.

And the bad guys attacked the US “from here”, Afghanistan. That’s why the United States is “there”, Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future. That gives him the right to occupy the country and kill the citizens as he sees fit. Robert Baer, former CIA officer with long involvement in that part of the world has noted: “The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They simply want us gone because we’re foreigners, and they’re rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters.” ¹

The pretenses extend further. US leaders have fed the public a certain image of the insurgents (all labeled together under the name “Taliban”) and of the conflict to cover the true imperialistic motivation behind the war. The predominant image at the headlines/TV news level and beyond is that of the Taliban as an implacable and monolithic “enemy” which must be militarily defeated at all costs for America’s security, with a negotiated settlement or compromise not being an option. However, consider the following which have been reported at various times during the past two years about the actual behavior of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan vis-à-vis the Taliban, which can raise questions about Obama’s latest escalation: ²

The US military in Afghanistan has long been considering paying Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul, as the United States has done with Iraqi insurgents.

President Obama has floated the idea of negotiating with moderate elements of the Taliban. ³

US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said last month that the United States would support any role Saudi Arabia chose to pursue in trying to engage Taliban officials. ⁴

Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban in various ways.

A top European Union official and a United Nations staff member were ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration’s knowledge. And two senior diplomats for the United Nations were expelled from the country, accused by the Afghan government of unauthorized dealings with insurgents. However, the Afghanistan government itself has had a series of secret talks with “moderate Taliban” since 2003 and President Hamid Karzai has called for peace talks with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.

Organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as the United Nations have become increasingly open about their contacts with the Taliban leadership and other insurgent groups.

Gestures of openness are common practice among some of Washington’s allies in Afghanistan, notably the Dutch, who make negotiating with the Taliban an explicit part of their military policy.

The German government is officially against negotiations, but some members of the governing coalition have suggested Berlin host talks with the Taliban.

MI-6, Britain’s external security service, has held secret talks with the Taliban up to half a dozen times. At the local level, the British cut a deal, appointing a former Taliban leader as a district chief in Helmand province in exchange for security guarantees.

Senior British officers involved with the Afghan mission have confirmed that direct contact with the Taliban has led to insurgents changing sides as well as rivals in the Taliban movement providing intelligence which has led to leaders being killed or captured.

British authorities hold that there are distinct differences between different “tiers” of the Taliban and that it is essential to try to separate the doctrinaire extremists from others who are fighting for money or because they resent the presence of foreign forces in their country.

British contacts with the Taliban have occurred despite British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly ruling out such talks; on one occasion he told the House of Commons: “We will not enter into any negotiations with these people.”

For months there have been repeated reports of “good Taliban” forces being airlifted by Western helicopters from one part of Afghanistan to another to protect them from Afghan or Pakistani military forces. At an October 11 news conference in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai himself claimed that “some unidentified helicopters dropped armed men in the northern provinces at night.” ⁵

On November 2, IslamOnline.net (Qatar) reported: “The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed. ‘US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast … America wants eight army and air force bases in different parts of Afghanistan in order to tackle the possible regrouping of [the] Al-Qaeda network,’ a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net.” ⁶

There has been no confirmation of this from American officials, but the New York Times on October 28 listed six provinces that were being considered to receive priority protection from the US military, five which are amongst the eight mentioned in the IslamOnline report as being planned for US military bases, although no mention is made in the Times of the above-mentioned offer. The next day, Asia Times reported: “The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan [or Nooristan], on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles.” Nuristan, where earlier in the month eight US soldiers were killed and three Apache helicopters hit by hostile fire, is one of the six provinces offered to the Taliban as reported in the IslamOnline.net story.

The part about al-Qaeda is ambiguous and questionable, not only because the term has long been loosely used as a catch-all for any group or individual in opposition to US foreign policy in this part of the world, but also because the president’s own national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, stated in early October: “I don’t foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling. The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.” ⁷

Shortly after Jones’s remarks, we could read in the Wall Street Journal: “Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al-Qaida is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. … For Arab youths who are al-Qaida’s primary recruits, ‘it’s not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,’ said a senior U.S. official in South Asia.” ⁸

From all of the above is it not reasonable to conclude that the United States is willing and able to live with the Taliban, as repulsive as their social philosophy is? Perhaps even a Taliban state which would go across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has been talked about in some quarters. What then is Washington fighting for? What moves the president of the United States to sacrifice so much American blood and treasure? In past years, US leaders have spoken of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, liberating Afghan women, or modernizing a backward country. President Obama made no mention of any of these previous supposed vital goals in his December 1 speech. He spoke only of the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda, the Taliban, terrorists, extremists, and such, symbols guaranteed to fire up an American audience. Yet, the president himself declared at one point: “Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border.” Ah yes, the terrorist danger … always, everywhere, forever, particularly when it seems the weakest.

How many of the West Point cadets, how many Americans, give thought to the fact that Afghanistan is surrounded by the immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions? Or that Afghanistan is ideally situated for oil and gas pipelines to serve much of Europe and south Asia, lines that can deliberately bypass non-allies of the empire, Iran and Russia? If only the Taliban will not attack the lines. “One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south …”, said Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in 2007. ⁹

Afghanistan would also serve as the home of American military bases, the better to watch and pressure next-door Iran and the rest of Eurasia. And NATO … struggling to find a raison d’être since the end of the Cold War. If the alliance is forced to pull out of Afghanistan without clear accomplishments after eight years will its future be even more in doubt?

So, for the present at least, the American War on Terror in Afghanistan continues and regularly and routinely creates new anti-American terrorists, as it has done in Iraq. This is not in dispute even at the Pentagon or the CIA. God Bless America.

Although the “surge” failed as policy, it succeeded as propaganda.

They don’t always use the word “surge”, but that’s what they mean. Our admirable leaders and our mainstream media that love to interview them would like us to believe that escalation of the war in Afghanistan is in effect a “surge”, like the one in Iraq which, they believe, has proven so successful. But the reality of the surge in Iraq was nothing like its promotional campaign. To the extent that there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq (now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation), we must keep in mind the following summary of how and why it “succeeded”:

• Thanks to America’s lovely little war, there are many millions Iraqis either dead, wounded, crippled, homebound or otherwise physically limited, internally displaced, in foreign exile, or in bursting American and Iraqi prisons. Many others have been so traumatized that they are concerned simply for their own survival. Thus, a huge number of potential victims and killers has been markedly reduced.
• Extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place: Sunnis and Shiites are now living much more than before in their own special enclaves, with entire neighborhoods surrounded by high concrete walls and strict security checkpoints; violence of the sectarian type has accordingly gone down.
• In the face of numerous “improvised explosive devices” on the roads, US soldiers venture out a lot less, so the violence against them has been sharply down. It should be kept in mind that insurgent attacks on American forces following the invasion of 2003 is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.
• For a long period, the US military was paying insurgents (or “former insurgents”) to not attack occupation forces.
• The powerful Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire for his militia, including attacks against US troops, that was in effect for an extended period; this was totally unconnected to the surge.

We should never forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women’s rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their friends, their families, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.

The War against Everything and Everyone, Endlessly

Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded some 30 at Fort Hood, Texas in November reportedly regards the US War on Terror as a war aimed at Muslims. He told colleagues that “the US was battling not against security threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islam itself.” ¹⁰ Hasan had long been in close contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric and al Qaeda sympathizer now living in Yemen, who also called the US War on Terror a “war against Muslims”. Many, probably most, Muslims all over the world hold a similar view about American foreign policy.

I believe they’re mistaken. For many years, going back to at least the Korean war, it’s been fairly common for accusations to be made by activists opposed to US policies, in the United States and abroad, as well as by Muslims, that the United States chooses as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that in 1999 one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns ever — 78 days in a row — was carried out against the Serbs of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. Indeed, we were told that the bombing was to rescue the people of Kosovo, who are largely Muslim. Earlier, the United States had come to the aid of the Muslims of Bosnia in their struggle against the Serbs. The United States is in fact an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become an American bombing target appear to be: (a) It poses a sufficient obstacle — real, imagined, or, as with Serbia, ideological — to the desires of the empire; (b) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.

Notes

1. Video on Information Clearinghouse ^↩
2. For the news items which follow if not otherwise sourced, see:
   • The Independent (London), December 14, 2007
   • Daily Telegraph (UK) December 26, 2007
   • The Globe and Mail (Toronto) May 1, 2008
   • BBC News, October 28, 2009 ^↩
3. New York Times, March 11, 2009 ^↩
4. Kuwait News Agency, November 24, 2009 ^↩
5. Pakistan Observer (Islamabad daily), October 19, 2009; The Jamestown Foundation (conservative Washington, DC think tank), “Karzai claims mystery helicopters ferrying Taliban to north Afghanistan”, November 6, 2009; Institute for War and Peace Reporting (London), “Helicopter rumour refuses to die”, October 26, 2009 ^↩
6. IslamOnline, “US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases“, November 2, 2009^↩
7. Washington Times, October 5, 2009, from a CNN interview ^↩
8. Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009 ^↩
9. Talk at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007. ^↩
10. Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2009 ^↩

Iraq and Afghanistan

Two Purposeless Wars…

The Vietnam War proved a complete waste of money, time and 58,300 American lives along with 350,000 horribly wounded. Subsequently, studies show between 150,000 to 200,000 American veterans eventually committed suicide from their war traumas. Additionally, Vietnam caused countless divorces and fatherless children as well as drug and alcohol abuse that ravaged hundreds of thousands of veterans. Several million Vietnamese died. After 10 years, we vacated Vietnam while accomplishing nothing.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson started the war with his contrived “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” that created his ‘reason’ for waging war against North Vietnam. In reality, that country suffered a civil war with no threat to the United States whatsoever. I remember my drill sergeant at Fort Benning barking at us, “We pledge our lives to Father Johnson for freedom. Now move out!” Johnson proved one of the most corrupt presidents in U.S. history. When he absorbed the enormity of his mistake, it broke him and he died a deeply depressed human being.

Forty years later, President George W. Bush started the Iraq War with his contrived “Weapons of Mass Destruction” charade that, thus far, killed 4,500 U.S. men and women along with 35,000 hideously wounded soldiers. He “shocked and awed” Afghanistan to stop al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks while he left our southern border as open as a 24 hour mall—to any terrorist that wanted to waltz into the USA.

Eight years later, our kids serve and die in Iraq and Afghanistan without any purpose, no plan, no exit and no winning against those ancient civilizations. Even their own citizens want America out of their countries. The U.S. government espouses a continuing charade of fighting terrorism, but again, leaves America’s southern border open to one million unlawful aliens crossing annually.

Russia withdrew from Afghanistan after a bloody near-decade of killing its soldiers. For what? Answer: nothing!

Muslim culture sets the benchmark for violence against women and anyone outside that ancient religion. Tribal leaders behead, be-finger, hang and commit many types of barbaric savagery against their enemies.

After eight years, we lost more soldiers in Afghanistan this year than ever before. As we withdraw from Iraq, more bombs last month killed more people than ever before. Why? The people themselves battle one another for supremacy, i.e., Kurds, Sunni and Shiites. The same holds true for Afghanistan.

Last week, George Will said, “Genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.”

The United States remains a thorn in the side of world peace. We fight two “Purposeless Wars” for what? Answer: nothing! Except, a few folks make a lot of money!

At $12 billion per month expended for those wars, our Congress drives our civilization into a moral and financial black hole. No one wins or loses—everyone limps away.

Greg Dobbs, Evergreen, Colorado, said, “To retard al-Qaeda as we originally did is one thing. To burden ourselves with costly goals we cannot achieve is another. Now substitute Afghanistan for Iraq. It is their neighborhood, not ours, their culture, not ours, and their history, not ours.”

Michael Jacobs, Aurora, Colorado, commented, “As Kenny Rogers said, “Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em and know when to walk away.” Not to walk away at this point and explore other avenues of intervention of influence would be the ‘calamitous mistake’ that historians will take note of in years to come.”

R. Keifer, Arvada, Colorado, “Let us pack up, swallow the neo-cons’ false pride, and try to reclaim what’s left of our nation.”

Finally, “How many people do we intend to kill to obtain whatever is our objective in Afghanistan? The Soviet Union killed a million before leaving…the flight schools in Florida were the training camps that made the tragedy for 9/11 possible. And the individuals responsible were not even from Afghanistan—17 of the hijackers were Saudi Arabians! What threat are these Afghanistans? That is one of the poorest nations in the world. They don’t have missiles, they don’t have nuclear weapons, no air force, they don’t even have a helicopter. What kind of threat to they pose to the U.S. that justifies killing them?”

I agree with George Will, “U.S. forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special units, concentrating on the porous 1,500 border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.”

Did you notice Will talked about securing Pakistan’s ‘porous’ border? How about President Obama and Congress securing our borders with our military troops?

In the final analysis, Iraq and Afghanistan must take care of their own civilizations and governing in their own ways according to their own cultures. Muslims abhor a republican form of government. Introducing highly sophisticated ‘democracy’ to ancient civilizations cannot and will not work no matter how many people stick their fingers into a bottle of dye and say, “I voted!” Already, in the elections last week with Karzi of Afghanistan, women suffered killings from death squads and Karzi’s supporters stuffed the ballot boxes with tens of thousands of bogus votes.

We must leave Iraq and Afghanistan today or tomorrow. The sooner the better! We cannot keep killing al-Qaeda because they replace themselves immediately. And, it’s their home. They will outlast us. The same would be true if anyone tried to invade the USA, we would defeat them because it’s our country. As a wise Japanese general said during WWII: “We cannot invade America; there is a rifle behind every blade of grass.”

As I said before, staying in Iraq and Afghanistan reminds me of sticking a hand in a pail of water. While in the water, the hand creates change. But once the hand withdraws, the water returns to its original condition. Whether we leave in a year or 10 years or vacated those countries five years ago, it would all return to an ancient culture. Just like Vietnam! In all, three purposeless wars caused enormous death, suffering, cost and global instability. It’s time for the U.S. to pursue the “peace option.”

The continual selling of the Afghanistan war

“But we must never forget,” said President Obama recently, “this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”[10]

Obama was speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the ultra-nationalist group whose members would not question such sentiments. Neither would most Americans, including many of those who express opposition to the war when polled. It’s simple — We’re fighting terrorism in Afghanistan. We’re fighting the same people who attacked New York and Washington. Never mind that out of the tens of thousands the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001. Never mind that the “plot to kill Americans” in 2001 was hatched in Germany and the United States at least as much as in Afghanistan. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? A room with some chairs? What does “an even larger safe haven” mean? A larger room with more chairs? Perhaps a blackboard? Terrorists intent upon attacking the United States can meet almost anywhere, with Afghanistan probably being one of the worst places for them, given the American occupation.

As to “plotting to do so again” … there’s no reason to assume that the United States has any concrete information of this, anymore than did Bush or Cheney who tried to scare us in the same way for more than seven years to enable them to carry out their agenda.

There are many people in Afghanistan who deeply resent the US presence there and the drones that fly overhead and drop bombs on houses, wedding parties, and funerals. One doesn’t have to be a member of al Qaeda to feel this way. There doesn’t even have to be such a thing as a “member of al Qaeda”. It tells us nothing that some of them can be called “al Qaeda”. Almost every individual or group in that part of the world not in love with US foreign policy, which Washington wishes to stigmatize, is charged with being associated with, or being a member of, al Qaeda, as if there’s a precise and meaningful distinction between people retaliating against American aggression while being a member of al Qaeda and people retaliating against American aggression while NOT being a member of al Qaeda; as if al Qaeda gives out membership cards to fit in your wallet, as if there are chapters of al Qaeda that put out a weekly newsletter and hold a potluck on the first Monday of each month.

In any event, as in Iraq, the American “war on terrorism” in Afghanistan regularly and routinely creates new anti-American terrorists. This is scarcely in dispute even at the Pentagon.

The only “necessity” that draws the United States to Afghanistan is the need for oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea area, the establishment of military bases in this country that is surrounded by the oil-rich Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf regions, and making it easier to watch and pressure next-door Iran. What more could any respectable imperialist nation desire?

But the war against the Taliban can’t be won. Except by killing everyone in Afghanistan. The United States should negotiate the pipelines with the Taliban, as the Clinton administration unsuccessfully tried to do, and then get out.

Globalization to Global Peace?

vision.org

This is a scary commentary on the perceived “benefits” and reasons for a World Government. It’s incredibly naive and the author Brian Orchard takes the European style of government as an example of how the World Government should be run, even though the Eurocrats, the European Elite, their Commission and many corrupt MEP’s have built the EU on lies, deceit and fraud. See our related links for more.

Also note that vision.org is sponsored and funded by “the Church of God”, an International Community, a nondenominational organization that traces its roots to Sabbatarian believers in 17th-century Europe.

Furthermore, did Jesus want a world government?

“In those days, and they are hardly more than half a lifetime behind us, no one thought of any sort of world administration. . . . Communications were far too difficult for any sort of centralised world controls.”

—H.G. Wells, The New World Order(1940)

“Europeans want to . . . create a sustainable world of peace in the near or not too distant future. . . . They seek to establish a politics based on inclusivity—that is, honoring everyone’s individual dream equally.”

—Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream (2004)

“To manage the global economy; . . . to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority.”

—Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth (Papal Encyclical, July 2009)

Humankind desperately wants peace. One of the most tantalizing and promising ways to achieve this age-old objective is to establish global governance. Today, perhaps more than at any other time in human history, we may be approaching the realm of worldwide cooperative governance.

There are spoilers, of course, including Russia with its belligerent attitude toward the West, Iran and North Korea each involved in a nuclear impasse, Sudan and its resistance to resolving the international crisis of Darfur, and the international impact of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. These impediments aside, many societies are—through technology—employing flat, integrated models of management that seem ideally suited to the purpose of such global governance. The European Union provides a pertinent example. Could this signal the first light of dawn in a new age of peace and prosperity?

Many efforts at securing peace through broad international cooperation have failed, including those of the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations. More recently, both the United States and certain Islamic factions have tried to force their own solutions. Under the Bush Doctrine, the U.S. attempted to export democracy (even forcibly), believing that a democratized world would be more peaceful. Some Islamic groups hold to a contrasting view—that exporting Islamic models of government will result in stability through theocracy.

Peace and World Government in History

The idea of peace through world government can be traced back at least as far as the early 1300s when Italian poet Dante Alighieri wrote De Monarchia, a political treatise in which he promoted his ideas for a universal monarchy. The work concludes with a call for the Holy Roman Empire to provide a universal emperor in the temporal sphere (as distinct from the pope in the spiritual realm), who would use his power to create conditions of peace.

In 1713, Frenchman Charles Castel advocated an international organization responsible for maintaining world peace. He proposed that Europe’s royals yield some of their sovereign rights to a federal body charged with safeguarding their interests. His model sounds remarkably similar to that of the present European Union.

Eighteenth-century philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant contributed various ideas of their own to the concept of supranational government. Rousseau advocated, among other things, “such a form of federal Government as shall unite nations by bonds similar to those which already unite their individual members, and place the one no less than the other under the authority of the Law” (A Lasting Peace Through the Federation of Europe, 1756). Kant, for his part, set out a prescription for putting an end to war in a 1795 essay titled Perpetual Peace.

A century later, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels envisioned world peace through a classless world order. And in 1940, novelist H.G. Wells offered his vision of how a peaceful world order might come about, noting that “the task of the peace-maker who really desires peace in a new world, involves not merely a political but a profound social revolution, profounder even than the revolution attempted by the Communists in Russia” (The New World Order).

Many approaches to world government have come and gone, but to date none have led to universal peace. Perhaps a key to such failure lies in the inherent conflict between existing political systems. For example, democratic approaches are at odds with Islamic law or communist thinking. Effecting peace through any of these systems means forcing the others into compliance. In a politically plural world, this has met only resistance.

The desire for a form of government that would overarch national governments gained momentum after the 20th century’s two dreadful world wars. Following the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Albert Einstein wrote that technological developments had shrunk the planet, and that in order to secure peace, “a world government must be created which is able to solve conflicts between nations by judicial decision. This government must be based on a clearcut constitution which is approved by the governments and the nations and which gives it the sole disposition of offensive weapons.” Judicial decision requires authority and structure, and it appeared to be the natural way to approach government. But a fulfillment of Einstein’s proposal has yet to see the light of day.

Technology and Globalization

Now perhaps we are on the brink of another bold experiment in world governance on a scale not seen before. Globalization is creating a new set of political, economic and social circumstances. Could this be the type of revolution H.G. Wells had in mind? The effects of globalization are real. National borders are increasingly permeable and irrelevant. Such changes demand reconsideration of old paradigms.

The development of the Internet in the late 1960s allowed computer networks to be created. Connectedness across borderless cyberspace became possible as the World Wide Web broke down centralized structures. The continual development of supporting technology has subsequently changed the way the world does business. Communication and information transfer is now global, transcending most nation-state boundaries. This is having an impact on how governments function.

As a result we are living in a very new and different world. The old world order consisted primarily of centralized systems of governance. These were hierarchical in nature, with a vertical structure that concentrated control inward and upward. Economist and bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin suggests that this 20th-century governing model was a derivative of the industrial model developed by Frederick W. Taylor, whose Principles of Scientific Management (1911) revolutionized the way industry operated. Later, notes Rifkin, governments adopted a political version. This system worked well in a world where most nations operated in a similar centralized fashion, whether capitalist or communist. The technology revolution has changed all that, however. Technology allows the old top-down system to be flattened into a more open model.

Revolution in Governance: the European Model

By design or by necessity, a new government structure is developing in Europe that many feel has merit for consideration on a wider scale. An important feature of the model provided by the European Union (EU) is that the system, while “unified,” is actually decentralized. As information flows across national boundaries and allows people in diverse locations and cultures to offer input on all kinds of issues, a feedback loop is created. The governing style is quite fluid. Constant adjustments are made as so-called environmental feedback is received. Thus everyone has some power to influence the direction of government.

This governing style is known as the process model. According to Rifkin, “a new generation of political scientists and policy analysts favored a process approach to governance that would replace the old closed hierarchical model with a new open-systems model. They argued that effective governance is less a matter of imposing, from on high, predetermined decisions on passive recipients at the bottom than of engaging all the actors—government, business, and civil society players—in an ongoing process of deliberation, negotiation, compromise, and consensus with the radical suggestion that the best decisions are the ones reached democratically by everyone affected. The process itself—with its emphasis on continuous feedback—becomes the new governing model” (The European Dream). This European development is evidence that technology and globalization are dramatically affecting the way government is administered and how people perceive its role.

A strong current is pulling other nations in this direction as well. Even the United States appears to be favoring the process model. According to the new president’s own statements, we can expect to see the Obama administration emphasize the United Nations in matters of international treaties and agreements. This is a small but significant change. The embattled foreign-policy efforts of the previous administration and the current economic crisis have certainly weakened America’s ability to impose its model on other nations, so a European-style process model may seem an appealing alternative. Along with other European countries, even Britain is divesting itself of aspects of its sovereign rights (especially in the area of law) in order to comply with EU membership.

Revolution in Management: the Process Model in Business

In various countries where the process model may not be in evidence, the same decentralized process is nevertheless establishing itself in the way companies operate and do business. New terms, such as peering (organizing horizontally), are being coined to help explain new forms of organization.

Business consultants Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams coauthored Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. They write, “Due to deep changes in technology, demographics, business, the economy, and the world, we are entering a new age where people participate in the economy like never before. This new participation has reached a tipping point where new forms of mass collaboration are changing how goods and services are invented, produced, marketed, and distributed on a global basis.” As business embraces the new process model of organizational structure, it will be only a matter of time before political structures are impacted.

In The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom boldly assert that “decentralization has been lying dormant for thousands of years. But the advent of the Internet has unleashed this force, knocking down traditional businesses, altering entire industries, affecting how we relate to each other, and influencing world politics.” In other words, we may now have a unique opportunity to actually realize this slumbering ideal through technology.

Thus it appears that new structures are being created in both political and economic realms worldwide. Will this development eventually bring about a new form of universal governance? Will universal peace be the outcome?

Technology is revolutionizing systems of authority around the world. Globalization and the Internet demand new approaches to old problems, world peace included. The process model of government we see developing could become another of mankind’s grand experiments in rulership. But the model has some very troublesome risks, including degenerating moral boundaries and reversion to tyranny. Because past systems have failed, it would be good to weigh the potential downsides of the process model as it applies to Europe(See Risk 1: The Moral Dilemma and Risk 2: Vulnerability to Tyranny).

Looking Past Human Structures

As world history unfolds and humanity continues to grasp for a way to achieve lasting peace, we should consider that Jesus Christ came to deliver the good news of the government of God. It was a message about world government of a different kind. After humans have exhausted every last way to govern themselves apart from God, Christ said He will return to the earth to establish the rule of God’s government over all nations and peoples, and that the world will at last live in peace under the rule of a benevolent government structure.

It is an amazing story. When it is to be realized no one knows precisely, but it will come at a time of manmade crisis such as the world has never before experienced. The Bible addresses the nature of human rule that will exist prior to Christ’s return, and it promises that the government of God will bring the peace that has always eluded humanity.

Source: vision.org

Bin Laden Worked for US Till 9/11

By Lukery

July 31, 2009 “Daily Kos” –  Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript).

In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, “all the way until that day of September 11.”

These ‘intimate relations’ included using Bin Laden for ‘operations’ in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These ‘operations’ involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict,” that is, fighting ‘enemies’ via proxies.

• lukery’s diary :: ::

Shadow Secrets

Compiled, edited and produced by TheDossier, this new film looks at the origins and history of the Afghan Mujahedin & al-Qaeda and their associations with various intelligence agencies including the CIA, FBI, MI6 and those of Saudi Arabia & Pakistan.

Shadow Secrets.

The Dossier – Shadow Secrets (2008)