BAGHDAD — Iraqi voters next month will see 14,500 candidates vie for 440 open seats on provincial councils, an outpouring of interest in a new phase of Iraqi self-government that could make for a baffling ballot.
The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.
And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses....
“The myth before was that to be warm you had to have heating. Our goal is to create a warm house without energy demand,” said Wolfgang Hasper, an engineer at the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt. “This is not about wearing thick pullovers, turning the thermostat down and putting up with drafts. It’s about being comfortable with less energy input, and we do this by recycling heating.”
article here (<-- click)
"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.article here (<-- click)
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.
Four blue pills. Viagra.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."Why is it that suddenly everyone seems lost. Only weeks ago, the pantheon of cable news finance wizards flooded our lives around the clock with pride, bluster, and "expertise." And while they frothed and “explained,” lust and frenzy infected world markets like bone cancer. A financial world was built with bedrock institutions packaging, selling, and buying less than nothing.
Albert Einstein
"The shoes were examined by the Iraqi and American security services and then destroyed," the judge told AFP.
Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC...
Mr Zaidi, who lives in Baghdad, has worked for al-Baghdadia for three years.
Mr Zaidi said his actions were for Iraqi widows and orphans
Muzhir al-Khafaji, programming director for the channel, described him as a "proud Arab and an open-minded man".
He said that Mr Zaidi was a graduate of communications from Baghdad University.
"He has no ties with the former regime. His family was arrested under Saddam's regime," he said.
Mr Zaidi has previously been abducted by insurgents and held twice for questioning by US forces in Iraq.
An Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush in a fit of outrage was hit in the head with a rifle butt and had an arm broken in chaotic scenes when he was leapt on by Iraqi security officers, his brother said Tuesday.
WASHINGTON -- Abuse of detainees in U.S. custody was a direct result of decisions by top administration officials, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday.
The report said coercive interrogation practices damaged the government's "moral authority" and its ability to collect accurate intelligence...."What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely," which was "a major cause of the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody," the committee wrote in the report. It was approved unanimously last month by a voice vote of the Armed Services Committee....
The report called it "particularly troubling" that U.S. adopted techniques "designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies against our own soldiers and that were modeled, in part, on tactics used by the Communist Chinese to elicit false confessions from U.S. military personnel."
One of the many reports here (<-- click)
Suddenly I am reading of the capture of the Faina, with 33 T-72 tanks on board(!) and a Saudi tanker with over $100 million of crude on board!
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan on Saturday withdrew an offer to send its spy chief to India to help investigate the Mumbai terrorist attacks, damaging efforts to head off a crisis between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Indian officials have linked the attacks to "elements" in Pakistan, raising the prospect of a breakdown in painstaking peace talks between South Asian rivals that has alarmed the U.S.
First, how does it help to desribe these countries as rivals? Everyone are rivals in some areas. And they are partners, collaborators or neutral in others. This is true for India and Pakistan. Why could not the copy read, "painstaking peace talks between South Asian neighbors"? Is this any less true?
Secondly, if indeed this week's horrifying attacks in Mumbai are linked to "elements in Pakistan," why should this be reported as "raising the prospect of a breakdown in painstaking peace talks between South Asian rivals"? Surely there is a vast likelihood that the Mumbai attacks are linked to "elements in Pakistan." Any 10 year old could tell us that. Shocking news would be if the attacks were not at ALL linked to ANY elements in Pakistan. In our world today, everything is linked, and it is like reporting that someone breathed in then breathed out to note the likelihood that terrorists link across national boundaries. Why should such a pat, dull observation "raise the prospect of a breakdown in painstaking peace talks"? Surely Prime Minister Singh was not suggesting that the government of Pakistan was smuggling soul-less animals into Mumbai to shoot up Indian guests and citizens.
The primary point of the AP article notes that Gilani reversed an earlier agreement to send the head of the Inter Services Intelligence agency, had been changed so that a lower-ranking intelligence official would travel instead.
OK. Yes, this can be seen as a disappointment certainly. But it is understandable. Gilani received sharp criticism from Pakistani opposition politicians and a cool response from the army, which controls the spy agency. How hard is that to figure out? Everyone knows the difficulty and stranglehold domestic partisanship poses for national leaders. This is what I mean when I say we (as the body politic) should think in ways that is supportive, helpful, constructive, and reasonable. And we should refuse to continue consuming news presented in ways that we simply know better. These realities are not complicated. Give the leaders room. Let us and the media stop playing pretend. We already know the story. Every national leader is a target from domestic opposition. Each country has a different power configuration, and things are hard.
For these reasons, the greater the persistence for quiet back channels to remain open among leaders the better we can move forward toward peace. Let Gilani and Singh stay in constant communication, and let common sense world citizens support them in all ways to deepen bonds and shared hopes and needs in the region.
The US, despite the decline of its reputation under the current administration, is always a powerful influence in global affairs. Presently nations must navigate quite a radical transition: The current US administration has being trying to persuade Islamabad to shift its security focus from India, with which it has fought three wars, to Islamic militants along the Afghan border, whereas President-elect Barack Obama has identified rapprochement between India and Pakistan as a main plank of his plan to stabilize Afghanistan and defeat al-Qaida.
The former mentioned pressure from the current administration is self-serving and short sighted, whereas the Obama position reflects insight into how stabilization expands. Should India and Pakistan succeed to develop a unified, harmonized and integrated alliance, every last sector of human enterprise in the region would flourish a hundred fold. Such a rich horizon, more than anything else would seek its own natural call through the northwest borders inviting all to the benefits of peace and prosperity.
In the dreams of such a time let us all, especially media, serve such hopes with a more constructive and more common sense to the obvious realities of life and the simple to understand challenges of national leaders.
Frank Kaufmann is the director of the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace. The opinions here are his own.
In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins, his Secretary of Labor, to draft a plan that might help Americans escape poverty in old age. “Keep it simple,” he told her. “So simple that everybody will understand it.” On August 14, 1935, after bargaining in Congress, Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act at a White House ceremony. The law “represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete,” the President said. He continued:
Roosevelt hoped that the elderly would also receive health insurance; Congress balked. It took thirty years—until July 30, 1965, when Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare bill—to protect older Americans from the ravages of sickness as well as poverty. These were Democratic initiatives, but they gradually became national compacts: Ronald Reagan defended Social Security, and George W. Bush expanded Medicare. They, too, came to recognize that a sound system of social insurance enabled by government makes capitalism and its splendid innovations (the iPhone, the Cartoon Network, the Ultimate Fishing Tool, etc.) more balanced and sustainable.
Last week, the Department of Commerce reported that the economy is shrinking. Almost certainly, the United States has entered its twelfth official recession since Roosevelt’s death. Most of the past eleven recessions have been short and mild, in part because of the “automatic stabilizers,” as economists call them, created by New Deal-inspired insurance and regulatory regimes. The current financial crisis, however, has already proved so severe and so volatile that it has smashed or bypassed a number of important shock absorbers. Some economists fear that this downturn may therefore be atypically long and painful.
The country is fortunate in one respect: the sudden buckling of financial safeguards has put just about everyone in touch with his inner New Dealer. Even Alan Greenspan recently confessed to Congress a crisis of faith in self-regulation. Meanwhile, former free-market true believers in the Bush Administration have tossed out money from the public vault like looters, and just as untidily; if they can sort out exactly what they have done, the Treasury’s mandarins must soon prepare PowerPoint presentations to document for their successors the most expansive nationalizations undertaken in the United States since the Second World War. The Administration seems giddy with a discovery familiar in the palaces of certain despots: yes, you can just print the bills on your own presses and hand them out to your friends.
Embedded in this festival of emergency measures, however, is an important and possibly durable ideological shift. Last week, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, Martin Feldstein, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan Administration, and, more recently, an adviser to John McCain, endorsed large-scale spending on public works as a way to stimulate economic recovery. This was a bit like Al Gore embracing coal. The essay’s appearance indicated that a broad coalition is emerging, where none existed a year ago, in favor of New Deal-style expenditures on roads, bridges, broadband lines, alternative energy, and the like, to support economic recovery and future growth. Such investment could strengthen the economy for a generation, as Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System did.
It’s not enough, of course, just to be like Ike. The campaign of 2008 was notable for its misleading narratives about how Presidents are tested. From the wacky competition over 3 A.M. phone calls to McCain’s alleged campaign suspension, it was suggested repeatedly that Presidents are best measured by their day-to-day crisis-management skills. Of course, sound judgment under pressure is essential to a successful Presidency, and its absence can prove disastrous (see Bush, post-Afghanistan; see Bush, post-Katrina). Coolheadedness on its own is sometimes enough to earn lasting gratitude (see Kennedy, Cuban missile crisis). Yet, great Presidencies can arise only from great causes. To define them and deliver on them is the truer test of the officeholder.
The next Presidency has within its reach at least two generation-spanning causes: the need to jump-start a new energy economy, and, in so doing, help to contain climate change; and the need to enact a plan to provide quality health care to all Americans, and, in so doing, complete the project of social insurance that Roosevelt described in 1935. Each of these projects is urgent, but it is health-care reform that speaks more directly to the economic and human dimensions of the present downturn.
The accumulating failures in the country’s health-care system are a cause of profound weakness in the American economy; unaddressed, this weakness will exacerbate the coming recession and crimp its aftermath. A large number of the country’s housing foreclosures in recent years appear to be related to medical problems and health-care expenses. American businesses often can’t afford to hire as many employees as they would like because of rising health-insurance costs; employees often can’t afford to quit to chase their better-mousetrap dreams because they can’t risk going without coverage. Add to this the system’s moral failings: about twenty-two thousand people die in this country annually because they lack health insurance. That is more than the number of Americans who are murdered in a year.
Presidents who help right a wrong of this character are generally immortalized in granite, but to succeed they require a transformation-minded Congress, too. The next Congress will likely be without the active leadership of its great lion of social reform, Ted Kennedy. There is only one senator with the wonky expertise, work habits, and political stature to fill Kennedy’s place: Hillary Clinton. The psychology she would bring to this inheritance would surely be complex, but no health-care-reform bill will pass without her. Lyndon Johnson, also a person of complex psychology, understood this politics of legacy well. At the Medicare signing ceremony, he invited Jimmy Roosevelt, F.D.R.’s eldest son, and the aging Harry Truman, who had pushed hard for health-care reform, to share the glory. Johnson, in his remarks, linked them (and himself, of course) to the Social Security Act and its “illustrious place in history,” and he carefully recited an “honor roll” of fifteen congressional leaders who contributed to the bill’s passage. It was, Johnson said, a “time for triumph.” It is, even more so, today. ♦
Thursday, November 6th 2008, 4:00 AM
The general consensus of Election Night commentators was that our center-right country has become a center-left country. I must offer what will be, for liberals, a buzz kill: Barack Obama owes his victory not to the left, but to the middle. As he sets out to govern, he forgets that at his peril.
First, and probably most important, the ideological composition of the electorate this year was virtually identical to that of 2004. This year, 22% of voters were liberals, 44% were moderates and 34% were conservatives. In 2004, 21% were liberals, 45% were moderates and 34% were conservatives.
In the voting booth, it was moderates who made the difference. They had given John Kerry a 9-point advantage in 2004; in 2008, they gave Obama a 21-point advantage. That change, in and of itself, is worth most of the swing from Kerry's narrow loss to Obama's big victory.
And look at the voting behavior of self-described conservatives. Here, Obama picked up probably an additional 1-1/2% of the total vote by increasing his share to 20% from Kerry's 15%. Liberals, by contrast, were virtually identical in their levels of support from Kerry to Obama.
The real change between 2004 and 2008 came in the number of people calling themselves Democrats. They had been basically equal in numbers to Republican identifiers in 2004. In this election, exit polls reported self-declared Democrats outnumbered Republicans, 39% to 32%.
Translation: The country has not shifted further left. Rather, in all likelihood, the Democratic Party has shifted further right.
But what about those much talked about, map-changing wild cards - African-Americans and young voters?
African-Americans had been 11% of the electorate in 2004. In this election, they were 12%. Obama did slightly better than Kerry among them, but not by enough to have materially impacted the outcome.
And youth? In 2004, 18- to 29-year-olds made up 17% of the electorate. They were 18% in 2008. While again here Obama did better than Kerry, this would account for only a point or two.
The hidden story of the exit polls, in fact, is that there remains real doubt about expansive government programs, tax increases and, to a lesser extent, Obama himself. A bare majority, 51%, said that government should do more to solve our problems; 43% said that the government is currently doing too much.
When asked about an Obama presidency, 30% said that they were excited by it, while 20% said that they were concerned and a quarter said that they were scared. So, though "hope" is one of the buzzwords of the Obama campaign, there's also palpable fear out there.
What conclusion then, should Obama and the Democratic Congress draw from all this?
One: There is little appetite for a supersized Democratic agenda. Polling does show support for another stimulus program and initiatives to help beleaguered homeowners. But it is hard to see how other Obama initiatives like raising the capital gains tax rate or raising the tax on dividends in the face of a bitter recession will be well-received by an already nervous electorate.
Two: At a time when our deficit is approaching $1 trillion, the public will not be receptive to massive spending programs. On issues of great importance like health care, the electorate is looking for an incremental approach rather than a sweeping effort to cover all 47 million uninsured Americans.
Finally, Democrats must resist the temptation to take on symbolic issues that appeal to the left and divide the country. The failure of pro-gay marriage initiatives around the country should give pause to similar initiatives on the federal level, and the mixed results on affirmative action suggest how important it is for Obama to initiate social change on a class basis, rather than a racial basis.
America has not changed as much as many commentators think it has. Rather, there has been a rejection of George Bush and failed Republican ideas. Carefully crafted bipartisan policies offer the greatest chance to strengthen America and rebuild our battered national psyche.
Schoen, who was President Bill Clinton's pollster in 1996, is author of "The Power of the Vote."
Despite being the strongest computer on the planet, our brains do lapse. It's hard to blame them really. As humans, we spend much of or existence stuffing our brains with stuff.
No matter how powerful our brains are, they need recuperation time to be kept in shape.
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William,
This is a pretty good description of why many of the most tragic mortgage foreclosures on poor people in the inner city occurred. However, there was a larger aspect. The two states with the highest foreclosure rates were Florida and California. In Miami, much of this was based on a "flipping" craze, where development raged and many middle and upper middle class speculators took advantage of the low interest rates to buy condos without ever expecting to personally live in them. In California, homes began to average $850,000. This was not your lower class democrat buying these homes; it was yuppies who wanted to buy a house in California. Many others around the country bought these loans on executive houses of $500,000 or more and they simply walked away from them when the credit bubble burst. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did these bad things-and I am afraid FDIC is no better prepared. But at the core is a credit bubble designed by the Federal Reserve Banks, Oil Companies, and large companies like Hewlett Packard and auto manufactures who wanted easy credit for consumers to buy their products, as much as the sleight of hand tried by liberal politicians like Obama.
This is a long-time problem brewing. Part of it related to changes in laws by banking and financial lobbyists. They supported supply-side economics under Reagan, but under Clinton the Glass-Stegal Act, designed in the 1930s to prevent some of this was repealed in 1999 making way for the Citibank-Travelers merger. During the last twenty years a number of conflict of interest laws were repealed that reduced oversight on fraud and corruption. There is plenty of responsibility on the part of both Republicans and Democrats.
This video showed how the inner city democrats pushed for loans for poor people and destroyed lives of their constituents rather than helping them. The flip side is that wealthy industries were lobbying Republicans for easy credit for their constituents. In the end both parties and many Americans, raised in a period of economic prosperity, failed to understand financial discipline and accepted credit like an opiate of the masses. The root cause is thus lack of understanding natural laws and basic economic principles-an educational and moral weakness. Our political leaders represent the same lack of self discipline as the culture at large.
The last twenty years our economy has been rooted in the philosophy of earning money from someone else's work. When everyone is trying to get more than they personally produce you have economic decline. Couple that with the national trade deficit, of which dependence on foreign oil plays a major role, and you have a prescription for economic collapse. Republicans and Democrats are both responsible.
The only sound government stands upon citizens who produce more than they consume and have both the freedom and ability to take care of themselves. The layers of government which sit on this foundation need to each become smaller, like a pyramid, with each level of government supporting the one on top of it. It defies the laws of society to have the upper levels of a pyramid support the lower, but that is exactly what our society wants to do. It is a fiction. Family, Society, Nation, World-each is a level that needs to support the level on top of it, not the other way around.
There is another issue related to regulation which we must learn about. Total deregulation of an economy is like having a Superbowl game with no referees. You will hear big business lobby for this type of "free market" because on an unlevel playing field they will win. Just like the biggest guys will be standing at the end of a football game. This is anarchy, plain and simple. The genuine free market is what our founding fathers promoted; it included checks and balances on accumulations of power and sanctions when the actions of one person caused harm to another. This way everyone can play on the field without disadvantage.
The other side is what you see the democrats doing-trying to turn government into business. To socialize or even to create government businesses that compete with the free market by giving the government subsidized business the upper hand on the playing field. The only truly free market is one in which the government plays the role of a referee in which neither the government abdicates its role as referee-with fair laws-nor tries to become a player on the economic field itself. You won't find either party advocating this proper role of government in the economy because, simply put, lobbying is too lucrative. It is more profitable to twist the laws in favor of lobbyists than to make them consistent with the objectives of the U.S. Constitution and the Philosophy of the United States founders like Franklin and Jefferson. (Who both argued that consolidation of credit at the federal level should be avoided at all costs.)
One could get into further discussion of taxation policies that also cause unlevel playing fields, and how big players colluded with the government in ways that shifted tax policies to forms that are both unconstitutional and cause a form of serfdom (they undermine the principles of property rights and the right to the fruits of your labor. But that gets beyond the immediate crisis at hand.
But the main conclusion it this: Don't expect either McCain or Obama, or the Republican or Democratic Party to solve these problems. These are two sides the big guys give us to occupy our time. It is more like rooting for Hulk Hogan or Sting in a wrestling match than doing anything that will affect Vince McMahon's control over the entire process. Both conventions were choreographed presentations for the media. There was not one iota of a chance they would contain any real discussions or dialogue. Those who differed were thrown out by the secret service and the police.
“Today, blood is being shed and people are perishing in South Ossetia, and my heart deeply grieves over it,” Patriarch Aleksy said in a statement on Aug. 8 as the fighting raged. “Orthodox Christians are among those who have raised their hands against each other. Orthodox peoples called by the Lord to live in fraternity and love are in conflict.”
This article and this development is important at least for two reasons:
We see potential signs that religion can serve as a harmonizing force across warring boundaries
We see signs that media analysis and reportage is maturing beyond debilitating bias of secular parochialism
The struggle and lamentation of both Georgian and Russian, Orthodox Church leaders demonstrates the potential for religion to serve as a unifying factor, a voice of conscience, and an impetus to move states and militaries away from nation state habit of killing people, harming nature, and destroying property.
In this particular case, the sensibility and concern happened to be because all victims and targets were from the same religion (Orthodoxy). But isn't it possible for us as a species to evolve beyond the archaic shackles of religious parochialism, so that this type of despair suffered and expressed by these Orthodox leaders, would equally arise in the hearts of all religious leaders any and every time any believer from any religion suffers from political and military actions? Or for that matter, couldn't religious leaders grow to feel the same sense of the unconscionable, not only when a co-religionist, or a even a believer suffers, but even when when human beings degenerate to the point of killing, harming, and destroying life, the earth, and property?
Perhaps the solidarity and lament seen this time in the confines of denominationalism, for believers who happen to be of just one sort can serve as an example and as an ideal for the emergence of a broader, greater, and more expansive spirituality that draws from the same basic impulse and sensibility.
If international diplomatic efforts had less of a tin ear for clues from the universe of religion and religious identity, one might have recognized an opportunity in this “cross-enemy” solidarity so rarely found in the midst of this sort of dangerous and horrible war. Could not this Christian (albeit denominational) high-mindedness be seen as a window through which higher, less divisive positions and provocations might have been seized by the United States?
GOP presidential nominee John McCain (perhaps feeling a campaign wedge in the offing) outpaced his own government to rattle US sabers against Russia. Soon thereafter reports came in of a a rare Dick Cheney sighting, this time as he surfaced in Georgia itself to threaten and further sour US-Russia relations.
Might not a more elegant and holistic foreign policy approach to such an intensely sensitive international breakdown, benefit by recognizing a rare and pre-established harmonizing force through these Orthodox leaders? Why not trade on the so-called “Christianness” of American identity and stand in solidarity with leaders from both countries who in unison are calling on conscience and community to rise above the geopolitical forces that led to this tragic and dangerous conflict? Could not “America” have stepped through this door, to engage the leaders on both sides of this dangerous conflict?
We must note and indeed celebrate in this article an occasion in which a writer from mainstream, liberal media has done a fine and impressive job making religious matters, and religious history clear and comprehensible for a popular readership.
Let us hope that the secular bias that has so harmed and diminished the fullness of analysis and human understanding is starting to turn the corner, and fair and solid reporting like this can become a more frequent staple in the news we consume daily.
Frank Kaufmann is the director of the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace. These opinions are his own.
The official line in Washington, Jerusalem and Ramallah is that the decision by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel to resign will not affect American efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians before the end of the year
The article then goes on to present assurances from Olmert, Abbas (speaking from Tunisia), and Rice's "senior administration official" (“Fundamentally, as Americans,” the official added, “don't give up.”)
But author Aaron David Miller is quoted later in the article saying,The bottom line: Can Olmert reach a half-baked agreement minus Jerusalem with Abbas and with Condi looking on proudly in the next several months? Maybe,” said Aaron David Miller, the author of "The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace
But can he sell it, let alone implement it, in an environment in which he has no popular support or moral authority, with Hamas threatening from the sidelines? No way.”
But there is something more urgent and more fundamental than merely the inadequacies of this particular group (in talent, disposition, or mere circumstance) to be effective agents for peace. The most debilitating problem facing our peace hopes is not the characters in the line up at present, but rather the anachronistic spell under which such efforts are conceived and sold. This is what must be changed, not the players on the scene at any given moment.
It is not a particular bias, strategy, political skill and insight (or lack thereof) that suddenly and magically will produce a coming era of stability and security. "If only we had a take-no-prisoners Nethanyahu at the helm, THEN we'd see progress." "Our only hope is an Annapolis-committed Livni, if we are to see the end of tensions and horror." Both views miss the point. Attachment to either dogma does nothing more than extend the spirit of political contention that itself inherently contradicts what is required to dissolve hatred and conflict.
Hope should not rest with whether or not this candidate or that matches my own preferred degree of intolerance and aggression that I like to see in my political figures of choice. Hope must lie first in the prospect that peace actors and commentators awaken from the slumber and pig-headed view that state actors in isolation can succeed as agents for meaningful change.
Political reality and state to state negotiations are wholly inadequate as peace-seeking platforms when taken in isolation. They only can contribute positively when integrated into a creative, carefully designed treillage of related peace-seeking activity. These include religion, social service, empowerment economics, intercultural foundations for education, the arts, sports, and other long term investment, organizations, and activities devoted to peace. The narrow, parochial characteristics of state actors and politicians cannot in isolation bring peace. This expensive activity does not deserve the privileged, excessive attention and resources it enjoys.
The political arena itself is contentious by nature. Political figures themselves are transitional by nature. Harmonization in political terms is characterized by compromise and self-interest. These characteristics are not evils. They have a role to play and cannot and should not be excluded from peace efforts. But the hubris, and the blind adherence old and failed mentalities that imagine political figures in isolation can bring peace, by now should be an embarrassing position to hold.
State level, politically based efforts for peace should not attract much attention until they are integrated creatively, strategically, and effectively into holistic peace-seeking agendas inclusive of central, more long term, and better suited enterprises for peace, such as civil society, the private sector, voluntary associations, and those from the enlightened sector of religion.
Frank Kaufmann is the Director of the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace
The opinion here is his own
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran on Wednesday test-fired a missile it said is capable of reaching Israel, angering the United States amid growing fears that the standoff over the contested Iranian nuclear drive could lead to war.
The Shahab-3 was among a broadside of nine missiles fired off simultaneously from an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert during war games being staged by the Revolutionary Guards, state television showed.
"The aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend the integrity of the Iranian nation," state-run Arabic channel Al-Alam quoted Revolutionary Guards air force commander Hossein Salami as saying...
Al-Alam said the missiles test-fired by the Revolutionary Guards included a Shahab-3 with a one-tonne conventional warhead and a 2,000-kilometre (1,240-mile) range."Our missiles are ready for shooting at any place and any time, quickly and with accuracy. The enemy must not repeat its mistakes. The enemy targets are under surveillance," Salami added.
The more important information than what is to be gleaned from all mainstream media feeding off a single story is the De Borchgrave commentary piece that appears in today's Washington Times. Due to the importance of this piece, it is reproduced here in its entirety:Is the United States heading into a deadly confrontation with Iran? Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the unsuccessful maverick Republican presidential candidate, warned millions of radio listeners this is now inevitable. He cited House Congressional Resolution 362, lobbied hard by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as a "Virtual Iran War Resolution."
Since its introduction three weeks ago, and before the weeklong July Fourth break, the resolution garnered 150 cosponsors. In the Senate, sister Resolution 580, introduced by Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh, was also gathering momentum.
After 11 "whereas" items to build a casus belli against Iran, House 362 would require a naval blockade to "prohibit the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products, impose stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran." It would also ban the international travel of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."
If passed by both houses, the United States would be at war with Iran - alone, without allies, and oil would double immediately to $300 a barrel. The Bush administration has pledged it will keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and protect tankers transporting 25 percent of the world's daily ocean-borne oil traffic through the 32-mile-wide strait.
Tanker traffic between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea use two lanes, each 2 miles wide, for inbound and outbound ships. Iran's largest naval base at Bandar Abbas commands the northern side of the Strait. Three islands near the middle of the Strait are under Iranian control with naval gun emplacements and concealed missiles. U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters is in Bahrain, further up the Gulf.
Sinking or crippling a couple of the 50 supertankers as they pass each other every day in the Strait would not be much of a challenge for Iranian gunners. U.S. retaliation by air would follow minutes later from a carrier in the Gulf of Oman, but meanwhile shipowners the world over would ban any attempt to navigate around the shipwrecks. A barrel of oil would quickly jump to $500, or $12 a gallon, a dollar less than what the Dutch already pay for their heavily taxed gas in the Netherlands.
Iran's military chiefs warned last Saturday the Islamic Republic would shut down the Strait of Hormuz and use "blitzkrieg" tactics in the Gulf if it came under attack. A blockade of Iran would be an act of war. Last January, small Iranian speedboats darted in and out of three U.S. warships sailing through the strait. Had they been suicide boats, at least one of the U.S. vessels would have been hit, as the USS Cole was in Aden in October 2000.
U.S. Navy denials notwithstanding, Iran's capability to close the Persian Gulf is very real. As the fighting in Lebanon demonstrated two years ago, Hezbollah militias deployed mobile missile launchers in large numbers against land-based and naval targets.
Iran has purchased two types of anti-ship cruise missiles from China, the Silkworm and the C-802, whose capabilities are similar to the Exocet and Harpoon family of sea-skimming missiles. NATO estimates the C-802's single shot capability at 98 percent. It was this type of missile, also known as Yingji-82, Chinese for Eagle Strike, that scored two direct hits on the Israeli corvette INS Hanit in 2006, killing four and knocking it out of action.
Some 60 Chinese-made missiles are camouflaged in Iranian coastal batteries, along with hundreds of less sophisticated but just as lethal homemade missiles along the Iranian coast from the Gulf of Oman through the Strait and up its Persian Gulf coastline.
While the new commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, Vice Adm. William Gortney, reiterated his predecessor's guarantee to keep 17 million barrels a day passing through the strategic waterway, a congressional resolution to blockade Iran's ports would change the correlation of forces. Iran would see such a decision as an act of war, as any other country would.
Cooler heads now appear to have gained the upper hand in Tehran. Talk about talking is Iran's way of muzzling talk about war. At the United Nations in New York, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters in subdued tones he had received a proposal from world powers (5 plus 1, shorthand for the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) that could prompt a "new process." Five-plus-one were hoping Iran would agree to freeze uranium enrichment at 3,000 centrifuges for the duration of the next round of talks. Mr. Mottaki didn't exclude that either. "The first word diplomats are taught is compromise," he told reporters over lunch.
Mr. Mottaki also said he is "optimistic" talks on his country's nuclear program may begin based on a package of incentives offered by the United States and the other countries and that Iran's official reply would be forthcoming in a couple of weeks.
The softening of rhetoric was in sharp contrast to firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threats of death and destruction against Israel. But Mr. Mattaki explained his president's views on Israel by saying a grave injustice had been done to the Palestinians to repair the damage Europeans had done to themselves in World War II.
Mr. Mattaki didn't believe the Israelis or the Bush administration would bomb Iran through January 2009. Neither Israel nor the United States could afford to incur the wrath of the world while talks are ongoing. With three former U.S. CentCom commanders on record against the military option, it was hard to see how Israel could strike on its own - without shutting the Gulf down.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
By Frank Kaufmann
This article first appeared in Mission Herald, the denominational newspaper of the National Baptist Convention
"Science is not a wholly objective enterprise. Scientific research is guided by theories, working hypotheses, operational frameworks, and the like. Scientists not only make observations to formulate theories, they also use theories to guide them in making observations and to interpret what they are seeing, and these theories and the manner in which they guide observations, reflect the biases of the scientific community at the time."The same is true for AIDS. We have observations (the immune systems of some people break down - some irreversibly), and theories (it happens because of this reason or that).