sparrow chat

Today, the BBC asked the question: has the world lost faith in the USA?^[1]

Surely, before asking that question, one or two others should be considered, like: has the world ever had any faith in the USA; is the world seriously concerned about the USA; or, is it all just a load of political guff designed to consolidate corporate power both inside and outside the USA?

The BBC is basing its question around the latest report from the US National Intelligence Council, a body composed of representatives from US intelligence agencies, charged with crystal-ball gazing in an attempt to come up with some notion of what the future might hold for the world at large, and America, in particular.^[2]

Apparently, the BBC is keen to emulate the CIA, or perhaps it’s just been watching too many Bond movies, but to access the particular webpage, I had to invent secret questions, passwords, and a whole host of other security items, before realizing this was just to allow me to comment.

Note: I would never consider commenting on anything the BBC has to offer. Mainly because three and a half million seriously deranged headcases, in desperate need of frontal lobotomies, have got there before me. Like, for example, “Out of Touch” from the EU:

maybe the laid back texan just wants to live in peace and be in 22nd position of military power as in 1901. the world needs leadership by western culture developed in europe … intelligent and cultural….they probably have the balance that indians chinese and muslims will respect… europe should abosorbe itself with pride and be inteligent and dutiful…. ameriaca does not want to lead…laid back texan wants to smoke…and the english should speak spanish and italian and french

I’m not totally sure what the “laid back Texan” will be smoking, but “Out of touch” from the EU is obviously an expert, and it sure sounds too good to miss.

Then, of course, there is always the super-nationalist, “American Voice” from San Francisco, who’s not going to let anyone criticize his country:

Even if the US domination goes down by a factor of 20, still US will be 20 times more powerful than the closest competitor…… So don’t count US out !!!

No, don’t dare count the US out, even if it has been comatose on the mat for twenty minutes and shows no sign of ever regaining consciousness.

Why, I wonder, does that last sentence remind me of ex-Israeli prime minister Arial Sharon?

Question: what ever did happen to him?

Answer: he’s still snoring profusely on some hospital gurney in Tel Aviv, oblivious to all but the fact that no-one, but no-one, is ever going to have the temerity to permanently turn him off.

I digress.

The National Intelligence Council today pronounced: “US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades.” China and India will grow more powerful. The US dollar will lose its status as the world’s major currency, and an increasing scarcity of food and water will fuel conflicts.

While all the above is hardly arguable – unless you happen to be “American Voice” from San Francisco – the report also assumes that a world with more power centers will be less stable than when the planet had only one.

Given that, in the last eight years, George W Bush as managed to ruin the global economy, propagate military mayhem throughout the Middle East, instigate torture and imprisonment without trial as normal procedures, and alienate every foreign power on the planet, that statement may appear a trifle far-fetched. Unfortunately, given that the National Intelligence Council is a US institution, and therefore bound towards bias, and bearing in mind that only four years ago it categorically stated the US was on the up and up and would remain a strong and indomitable superpower ad infinitum, one must regrettably take its utterances with the proverbial pinch or two of sodium chloride.

Let’s not forget, the US intelligence services charged with concocting this report were also responsible for providing the sure-fire certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction stashed away all over Iraq, and – we don’t want the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud, now do we?

Still, according to Marti, another BBC commentator, we’ll all be sorry:

As an American I would LOVE to see us lose our dominance:
Dominance in Foreign Aid to an ungrateful world
Dominance in Humanitarian efforts that are unappreciated
Dominance in troops defending YOUR countries

I say let someone else have dominance for a bit. Keep American resources in America for 10 years and you’ll have the whole world begging for us to accept the Crown. (What’s left of the world, that is.)

Oh, Marti, you’ve been watching that Fox News again.

Marti was, of course, from – TEXAS.

Where else?

^{[1] “Who will be the next superpower?” BBC “Have your say”, November 21st 2008}

^{[2] “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” an incredibly boring, rather egocentric, 120-page report by the NIC, in pdf format}

Filed under: Intelligence – or, lack of it

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Many in this world consider the human species way too important to have evolved from a primitive form in the distant past. They believe our intelligence and mental dexterity are so far above even the most advanced of animals, that any suggestion of a connection between the two is absurd.

Though relatively primitive creatures are capable of social interactions with their own kind, many humans fail to accept this is evidence of any evolutionary link between humankind and the animal kingdom.

Take honey bees, as an example. They live in colonies and maintain a rigid social order. A hierarchy exists within the colony, and while there are many varieties of honey bee, only one will be accepted within the colony. Any attempt at intrusion is met with fierce resistance, usually culminating in the demise of the unfortunate visitor.

Manish Kumar was just fifteen years old. He lived in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, and had fallen in love with a girl from his own village. He wrote to her telling of his affections. For this appalling crime he was kidnapped on his way to school by members of a rival caste; his head was shaved, he was beaten, then thrown to his death under the wheels of a moving train while his mother looked on helplessly.^[1]

Manish Kumar was from the Yadav dairyman caste. The girl belonged to a different Indian community – the washerman – considered a lower caste than the dairyman.

Writing a love letter was Manish Kumar’s only crime, for which he suffered horrific torture before being murdered.

Recently, researchers from the Australian National University, working with honey bees, succeeded in overcoming their instinctive impulse to kill intruders and managed to cultivate the first ever mixed-species colony, combining Apis mellifera, the European honey bee, and Apis cerana, its Asiatic equivalent. While the two types each utilize different dialects, the researchers discovered both can communicate the whereabouts of food to the other, by dances of differing duration. Both species of bee can now live within one colony, coexisting in harmony.^[2]

Perhaps, the researchers of the Australian National University should consider turning their attention to the eastern Indian state of Bihar?

^{[1] “Indian boy thrown under train in caste punishment” Daily Mail, November 20th 2008}

^{[2] “Bees Can Count” Live Science, September 26th 2008}

Filed under: Sad state of our species

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Daewoo is best known for its automobiles, though GM bought them out and has been rebadging Daewoo cars as low-end Chevrolets and other brands ever since. GM held a stake in Daewoo cars since 1972.

Automobiles only played a minor part in Daewoo’s fortunes, and misfortunes, over the years, for Daewoo is a South Korean chaebol (big business conglomerate) and has been involved in areas of business that include electronics, heavy industries, shipbuilding, and many others.

Now, though, it’s moving into agriculture.

The Financial Times is reporting that Daewoo has gone halfway around the world, to Madagascar, and leased over 99 years an area of agricultural land half the size of Belgium (1.3 million hectares) – free of charge.^[1]

Daewoo intends to produce corn for South Korean consumption, and for export to other nations, using almost half of Madagascar’s arable land of 2.5 million hectares. Daewoo say it will provide employment for Madagascans, along with new roads, irrigation, and grain storage facilities.

According to the FT:

……a European diplomat in southern Africa said: “We suspect there will be very limited direct benefits [for Madagascar]. Extractive projects have very little spill-over to a broader industrialisation.”

South Korea is not the only nation to turn to Africa for its future food supplies. The Guardian’s George Monbiot has long been campaigning against pillage of the continent in this way:

…….we learn that Middle Eastern countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are securing their future food supplies by trying to buy land in poorer nations. The Financial Times reports that Saudi Arabia wants to set up a series of farms abroad, each of which could exceed 100,000 hectares. Their produce would not be traded: it would be shipped directly to the owners. The FT, which usually agitates for the sale of everything, frets over “the nightmare scenario of crops being transported out of fortified farms as hungry locals look on.” Through “secretive bilateral agreements,” the paper reports, “the investors hope to be able to bypass any potential trade restriction that the host country might impose during a crisis.”

Both Ethiopia and Sudan have offered the oil states hundreds of thousands of hectares. This is easy for the corrupt governments of these countries: in Ethiopia the state claims to own most of the land; in Sudan an envelope passed across the right desk magically transforms other people’s property into foreign exchange. But 5.6 million Sudanese and 10 million Ethiopians are currently in need of food aid. The deals their governments propose can only exacerbate such famines.”^[2]

Madagascar, also, is a nation in poverty. 70 percent of its populace live below the poverty line. According to the FT, the WFP presently provides food relief to about 600,000 people there.

As global warming begins to bite, food will become an ever more valuable commodity. The wealthy nations are setting aside grain for the hard times ahead, and are doing so by robbing Africans of the land they need to survive.

The specter of “crops being transported out of fortified farms as hungry locals look on” will likely transform to reality sooner than we think.

^{[1] “Daewoo to cultivate Madagascar land for free” FT, November 19th 2008}

^{[2] “Manufactured Famine” Monbiot, August 26th 2008}

Filed under: Rocking the cradle

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Tonight, the BBC World News reported on an Indian warship, the INS Tabar, that blew an alleged pirate dhow out of the water, after the dhow’s crew “threatened to sink the warship.”

The Tabar is 400 feet long and carries cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and six-barreled 30-mm machine guns for close combat:

No information is available on the size of the pirate dhow, but below is a typical vessel of the type used in the Gulf of Aden:

Later reports confirmed the dhow attacked the warship with phasers, plasma rockets, and short range nuclear warheads, but was disabled before it could re-cloak and attain maximum warp speed.

Great contest!

NBC Nightly news began its report with Brian Wiliams saying, “And now to what is fast becoming the most dangerous stretch of water in the world……”

The Gulf of Aden may be the most inconvenient stretch of water in the world, but it certainly isn’t dangerous – unless, that is, you happen to be an “African coastguard’. As stated in the original article, no-one has been injured or killed as a result of the hijacks, though if such heavy-handed tactics are to be employed on a regular basis – and British Foreign Secretary David Milliband said today Britain is planning “to lead an armada of European warships against the pirates” – it won’t be long before that situation is reversed.

After all, why should we in the western world have to put up with it, anyway?

We only took their fish.

Filed under: Pieces of eight

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Everyone loves the story of Robin Hood and his merry band of outlaws, plundering the rich to give to the poor. Well, everyone that is apart from the tyrants: King John, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and those of the wealthy who were being plundered.

Absolutely no-one, outside of those mentioned above, took the side of the tyrants. Everyone, but everyone, was a fan of Robin Hood.

The merry band of outlaws evolved, so legend has it, because the powerful barons stole the food of English peasants by levying exorbitant taxes that left the peasantry starving. Eventually, there seemed no alternative but to hit back.

There is another band of merry men presently in circulation, committing similar acts against the rich and powerful, yet this time we’re being told they’re ruthless, bloodthirsty, and engaged in the oldest maritime profession known to man. It’s enough to make you shiver your timbers, quake in your boots, or suffer nightmares of swashbuckling, plank walking, and keelhauling, sufficient to satisfy the bloodlust of even that most notorious of pirates, Captain Morgan himself.

This latest band of seagoing outlaws has chosen the Indian Ocean for their marauding. It’s not known exactly how many ships have been hijacked so far this year, but the figure is fast approaching thirty, with the most newsworthy – the huge oil tanker, Sirius Star – being the latest.

As western media does its worst to paint these matelots as bloodthirsty subhumans, armed to the teeth and set for rape and pillage, the truth as usual is somewhat different. Had King John and his trusty Nottingham sheriff been favored by access to NBC or BBC News, the picture we have today of Robin Hood may well not be so favorable. Imagine the effect of beaming into every peasant’s home the latest stagecoach hijack, or assault upon the sheriff’s treasury coffers, creating – according to the Nottinghamshire Broadcasting Service – further hardship for all poor people, being as the good sheriff was just about to distribute his excess riches amongst the peasant populace.

What price popular support for Robin Hood, champion of the poor and needy, then?

Much of the west and east coast of Africa is unproductive country. Fishing was once the principal occupation. Life was hard, but fruitful. There were plenty of fish to be had and most folk made an adequate, though peasant-style, living.

Meanwhile, among the rich and wealthy of Europe, there was consternation. Used to gorging themselves on fish and fish products, the seas around that continent were fast unable to support the huge amount of its product demanded by voracious British, German, and Spanish stomachs. The cry went out, “More fish!” But none was to be had.

Desperate to satisfy demand and top-up their dwindling coffers, European trawler owners looked further afield to fill their voluminous nets. There were fish a-plenty around Africa, but Europeans weren’t allowed to fish there. Quickly, the wealthy trawler owners turned to the European Union for assistance. They found there a champion of their cause, a veritable sheriff of Europe, one Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner.

Sheriff Mandelson soon badgered and bullied African government officials into allowing European companies to set up offices in their countries, by making them believe there would be enormous benefits for their corrupt wallets. Once EU fishery companies had set up their branch offices, they could re-register their vast bottom-trawling ships as African, and legally fish that nation’s waters.

Nothing was set in writing stating they had to market their catch in Africa, so once the ship’s holds were stuffed, they steamed with all speed to the European marketplace, their catch nicely frozen and ready to be landed for European consumption.

Before long, all the fish once abundant in Africa’s inshore waters were vacuumed up by the huge EU trawlers, which then turned their attention to deeper offshore areas where local fishermen couldn’t go with their small, fragile, boats.

The fishermen of the African coast, like the peasants of old England, had had their livelihoods stolen from them by the wealthy and powerful, and were being left to slowly starve.

Like Robin Hood and his merry men of yore, they decided to take back what had been stolen from them, and distribute it among the peasant population. Being men of the sea, they formed themselves into bands of pirates and began hijacking merchant vessels and holding them for ransom.

The plan worked wonderfully well. They made more money than they’d ever dreamed of. The western world’s ‘King John’ leaders ran around like headless chickens, demanding of their “sheriffs of Nottingham” that something be done to capture the pirates. Much was tried, but nothing succeeded.

Then the pirates pulled off their greatest ever coup. The “Sirius Star”, a supertanker owned by the oil-rich nation of Saudi Arabia was carrying over two million barrels of Saudi oil, bound for the United States, when Somali pirates boarded the vessel in the Gulf of Aden and took the crew hostage.

The great appeal of Robin Hood and his band was their humanity and righteousness. While stories abound of rogues killed in self defense, no-one suffered unnecessarily at their hands. The pirates of Africa have, so far, practiced a similar philosophy. There is no record of them killing, or hurting, anyone taken hostage. All are released unharmed once a ransom is paid. In fact, the pirates are on record as saying, “We hurt no-one. Our only interest is the money.”

No doubt, as the pirates grow richer – their wealth is already extensive, with an estimated thirty million dollars paid out in ransoms this year – the attempts to capture them will become greater. The modern day King Johns of this world can’t be seen as acquiescing to a band of marauding African fisherman. Already reports are abroad of ties to al Qaeda, and militant Muslim extremists. As yet, the evidence for that is slim to the point of non-existence. Mud sticks, however, and we will see much more mud thrown at us through our TV screens, before the last African pirate is rounded up and thrown into jail.

Meanwhile, they’re enjoying a fine lifestyle, unknown to them before EU and Japanese trawlers destroyed their fish stocks. They have big houses, new cars, and beautiful wives. Neither do they see themselves as pirates.

According to one Somali resident, Abdulkadil Mohamed, “Illegal fishing is the root cause of the piracy problem,” he says, “They call themselves coastguards.”^[1]

^{[1] “Somali pirates living the high life” BBC, October 28th 2008}

Further reading on the background to this issue:

^{“Manufactured Famine” Monbiot, August 26th 2008}

^{“Protect and Survive” Monbiot, September 9th 2008}

^{“Foreign fields: Rich states look beyond their borders for fertile soil” Financial Times, August 19th 2008 (Free registration required)}

Filed under: Pieces of eight

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Earlier this year, the world was shocked by pictures out of Tibet, of Buddhist monks and members of the Tibetan people being brutally assaulted by Chinese military forces, for daring to protest the sixty year occupation of their country.

The response from western governments was, to say the least, cowardly. Beijing was preparing to host the Olympic Games. No-one wanted to upset the applecart by risking criticism, and only a few politicians quietly whispered of the possibility of Olympic boycott.

Even they caved before the International Olympic Committee, and a swift diplomatic message from the Chinese government regarding future trade deals. All must be spic and span, clean and politically tidy, for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The Chinese promised openness and honesty for all, and reneged on both counts, but the Beijing games were an outstanding success – at least for China.

Meanwhile, Tibet was casually dropped from western media attention, and, along with the hopes and aspirations of a few million Tibetans, allowed to slide into obscurity.

That is, until now, and a global recession that threatens to bankrupt the western world. China has become an important player in the efforts to prevent the global economy nosediving further, and Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, is spearheading talks to introduce a new global order, in which he sees China’s involvement as crucial.

So crucial, in fact, he’s publicly sold the Tibetan people down the river, in order to get it.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the British government quietly announced its decision to recognize China’s sovereignty over Tibet. So quietly, that hardly any foreign media carried the story. And that’s hardly surprising, given that other western nations have, apparently, already decided to back the Chinese communist government’s occupation of Tibet, and have done so with such stealth that nobody knew about it -until now.

This week, one of the BBC’s greatest journalists, John Simpson, secured an interview with a senior Chinese official, Zhu Weiqun, an expert on Tibet, who said the UK’s move had brought it “in line with the universal position in today’s world”.^[1]

The BBC also reported that:

In a little publicised parliamentary statement on 29 October, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband…….asserted, “Like every other EU member state, and the United States, we regard Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China.”^[2]

Around thirteen hundred years ago, Tibet was first unified as a kingdom by Songtsän Gampo, the founder of the Tibetan empire. Just seven hundred years prior to that, or so the Bible tells us, one Judas Iscariot was paid forty pieces of silver to betray the Son of God.

Since that time, the teachings of Jesus have come under assault and betrayal by priests and politicians prepared to re-enact the Judas Iscariot story to further their own selfish ends. It goes on to this day.

The betrayal of Tibet by western leaders is not just the abandoning of a nation, but the ditching of everything we hold sacred in our society: honor, trust, duty, the need to do what is right whatever the cost.

It is an abandonment of those qualities our fathers and grandfathers were told they were sacrificing their lives in two world wars to uphold.

This time, the blood money comes not in Roman silver, but Chinese gold.

^{[1] “China minister speaks on Tibet (video)” BBC, November 14th 2008}

^{[2] “China welcomes UK Tibet decision” BBC, November 15th 2008}

Filed under: Tibet and the kiss of Judas

Posted under Sparrow Chat