Friday, July 28, 2006

Authoritarian governments

"Authoritarian governments are identified by ready government access to information about the activities of citizens and by extensive limitations on the ability of citizens to obtain information about the government. In contrast, democratic governments are marked by significant restrictions on the ability of government to acquire information about its citizens and by ready access by citizens to information about the activities of government."

Robert G. Vaughn, Transparency- The Mechanisms: Open Government and Accountability" Issues of Democracy


Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Mideast Crisis

The editorial is worth reading because it makes clear that there is no simple solution to the general Mideast conflict. So long as the Islamic states refuse to recognize Israel, and there is no strong support from the US and western Europe for an independant Palestine, we will have the possiblty of a growing globalconflict.

Mideast crisis also sign of U.S. failure an NCR Editorial

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Crisis in the middle east

When I came back from Pakistan in 1983, I said that World War III would begin in the middle east. We are not at that stage yet but we are very close to a global conflict caused by nationalism driven by religious intolerance.

We are again facing the ineptitude of the British and the U.S. who created Israel by taking land away from the Palestinians. By partitioning the middle east without regard for local realities they perpetuated the sources of conflict rather than ameliorate the problem. Both Syria and Iran seek the destruction of the Jewish state. And both will continue to seek the destruction of a democratic Iraq. They want an Islamic theocratic nationalistic government in both Iraq and in the area that is now controlled by Israel.

Our hope for solving the current crisis is weak at best because the Jewish lobby is such a dominant force in our foreign policy. Both Democrats and Republicans are seeking the Jewish vote in the November elections, so we as a nations will not come down on Israel to stop them from using force rather than diplomacy in dealing with their neighbors.

The justification for creating a Jewish state in the middle of an Islamic territory was weak in 1948, and remains weak today. Yet, the state was created to assuage the guilt of the WWII allies for ignoring the genocide carried out by Nazi Germany.

The solution to the middle east conflict and avoidance of WWIII, if there is to be a solution, must come from enlighten Islamic/Arab governments. The “West” created the problem and is unlikely to be able to solve the diplomatic problem, given the Christian and Jewish fundamentalist leaning of western governments.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Random 2

Here is mine:

By RMR

Random as suggested by Damselfish

1. Pick up any book.
2. Go to page 127.
3. Find third sentence
4. Post it on your blog (plus these instructions)
5. Don't choose the book, just pick up the one closest to you.

Here is my line from the book I'm currently reading.

"It was sometimes accompanied, like Hayden's and King's parties, by a clanking escort of cavalry."

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner

Random

Random as suggested by Damselfish

1. Pick up any book.
2. Go to page 127.
3. Find third sentence
4. Post it on your blog (plus these instructions)
5. Don't choose the book, just pick up the one closest to you.

Here is my line from the book I'm currently reading.

"Catalin Trico and her daughter Sara testified in a custody case that the promiscuous Nan Beech had told them that 'Mr Smith' had fathered the child she was carrying."

The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto

Friday, July 07, 2006

Presidents and Polls

While I was listening to George and Laura on the Larry King Show last night it seemed to me that they were disconnected from reality. Larry kept asking them if the low poll ranking bothered them or caused them to loose sleep. Both of them said that they didn’t worry about the polls and that George was going to continue to govern according his convictions. In other words they seemed to say that once you are elected you don’t need to be responsive to the wishes of the majority of the people. They think that a President who listens to the polls would be a failure. It is good that we have the opportunity to change presidents every four years.

George keeps tying the Iraq conflict to the “War on Terror” and contend that we must fight them there or we will need to fight them here. I believe that there was no tie between September 11, 2001 and the Government of Iraq. George created the conflict and linked it to terror. If we had used the resources that are tied up in that misbegotten venture to pursue those who planed a carried out the September attack we would be in a much safer world today.

No question that Saddam was and is a bad cat and he was harmful to the Iraqi people. But we can not justify the invasion of that county based on that. Nor can we justify staying there based on the idea that we are creating a democracy. It seems that George did not learn anything from Viet Nam or from the Russian failure in Afghanistan. The majority in Iraq may want a theocracy. Who are we to tell them that they shouldn’t?