Sunday Posts

This is a bit of Washington-speak I picked up from watching the news: It basically means that the American strategy for world dominion, shall we say world peace, have changed its focus to Asia. The Cold War is well and truly over, and despite its vast nuclear arsenal and apparent ambitions, Russia is no longer considered a threat. The American military personnel and arsenal would now shift to Asia, particularly East Asia, where the Chinese presents the biggest threat to the current world order, one of American hegemony. Or, at least that's the plan.  Indeed, despite the professed Asian pivot, very little has actually happened on the ground. The United States has started withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Europe, but they have mostly gone home. The American military may have the biggest budget in the world, but they may have been over-reaching, not in terms of technology or military prowess, but in terms of willingness to engage all over the world and to b...

Palestinians want to be recognized as a State, what's wrong with that? Israel was curved out of Palestine in one of the first acts of the rubber-stamp imperialism era. That was a different age. That was a time when the retreating British empire wanted to leave small pockets of direct influence and weaken the incumbent states. So, we had Pakistan, which was meant to be a client state of the Empire overlooking its oil interests in Persia; So was Israel, another protege, another victim, tasked with the job of holding Middle East on balance. But, Israel was being curved out of Palestine, a state which existed then, which the Palestinians objected to. They ended up being gobbled up, exactly as they would have feared, in the end. For someone watching the drama, this would have been amusing if not for all the bloodshed. Palestinians objected to Israel then not because they were nationally minded, but it made no sense curving out some land to a nation of immigrants. It ...

About a week back, while we were following the events in Tunisia, I pondered whether this will be the 'Domino' moment . A week on, with protests spreading to Algeria, Yemen and finally Egypt, it indeed seems so. In fact, Egypt seems to be on the brink and Hosni Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt and the bulwark against freedom and democracy in the Middle East, seems poised to go. Finally. Mubarak indeed is a survivor and it is still too early to write him off. Joe Biden had to eat his liberal credentials only a few hours back to deny that Hosni Mubarak is a dictator. No one pushed him on the point almost out of sympathy: American administrations seems to be completely clueless on what to do. They are currently opting for a holding strategy. They let Ben Ali run from Tunisia and held the country through a proxy, expecting the crowd power to subside. That did not work. They are on similar paths in Egypt, trying to ditch Mubarak and getting behind the Army or another proxy administ...

Throughout Cold War, the Western Policymakers drummed up the fear of a 'Domino' effect, when, well, all hell breaks loose. The rationale was, and this was pretty strongly held as the Vietnam War was fought on this basis, that once a major country chose to go the 'Red' way, this may mean every other country in the region will be encouraged to change sides and a global communist movement will become reality. Hence, the efforts were to nip any expression of discontent with the assorted dictators CIA put in place. Ironically, this worked in the name of freedom: A radical secular leader often found himself in front of a speeding truck, or murdered by a bodyguard. The times changed, but the techniques have not. Indeed, we have scarcely moved a generation. Frederick Forsyth and John Le Carrie may be slightly out of favour, but still alive and still able to churn new novels. The straightforward divide between freedom and evil has not changed much; just the actors now have new ...

Israel can get away with anything. They can copy other people's passports and send out death squads. They can blockade an area and starve civilians. They can bulldoze unarmed students. They can board a ship with medical aid and food supply and fire on those who had the courage to carry them. They can develop nuclear weapons on their own but have the license to bombard anyone else if there is any hint of a nuclear ambition on the other country's part. They can get away because they are civilizations outpost in a resource-rich region. They are the stooges of old colonialism, mainly British. They are supposed to divide and terrorise the Middle East, and keep it in permanent disarray. They seem to be under permanent seize, even if they are the strongest country in the region. They regularly give the impression that they are some superior race, returned and maintained in their land by God [or by America] and they can kill, maim or rape anyone they wish. The problem is - they can...