Whatever Happened to Afghanistan?

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

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10 Years Of War In Afghanistan    10 Years Of War In Afghanistan

Remember Afghanistan? Anybody?

As America winds up its 13-year war in Afghanistan, where do things stand?

Is it going to end up like Vietnam, won the battles, but lost the war.

That’s the take-away of the last ten years for me.

The public now have a perception that the war is over, because of the lack of media coverage which fuels the public’s perception, it’s becoming a check-back-in-and-see story.

Not too long ago the word “Afghanistan” was mentioned in the media almost every day, coverage now is that it barely make a blip on the media’s radar unless something big happens, a horrific event. The weight of media coverage has been drawn elsewhere.

This war was and is an abomination.

In addition to the thousands of US and other NATO troops who have been killed or impaired for life, physically and/or mentally, the US-led invasion/occupation of Afghanistan has resulted in a huge number of Afghan casualties, with estimates running from several hundred thousand to several million.

Afghanistan is already a distant memory for the news. It is fast becoming the all-but-forgotten war an afterthought, like Somalia, Panama, Colombia, Rwanda, Iraq after the first gulf war–countries that quickly faded from the news or hardly made the headlines in the first place.

In late February that Afghan President Hamid Karzai (at least we all remember him) came to Washington to deliver the message “Don’t forget Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan now has democracy, and the results are not altogether encouraging; nor are they likely to lead to cohesion and peace and prosperity. Many Afghans see their current government, hastily formed under US influence, as a continuation of the power and impunity of warlords rather than a reflection of true democratic participation.

Deaths among Afghan National Security Forces almost doubled from 2012 to 2013, according to RT.com. The Defense Department announced in November that the death rate among Afghans rose to above 100 per week during the peak of the summer fighting season for the first time ever. Last week, al Qaeda claimed control of Fallujah, the town in western Anbar province where scores of Americans lost their lives in house-to-house fighting in 2004.

So why are we losing interest.

Is it because the war has never being legally justified, therefore, the war in Afghanistan has never been morally justified.

Or is that our perception of the Afghan government is still corrupt and unjust has impeded long-awaited peace and well-being in Afghanistan.

Or perhaps we are being keep in the dark on purpose so as not to hand a psychological victory for an Islamist movement who will claim they defeated the U.S. like the Soviet empire.

Or it is more likely that our vital interests in Afghanistan are limited and military victory is not the key to achieving them.

The big questions remain over how much the U.S. will continue to be involved there to provide support to Afghan forces, and how stable Afghanistan is. Will it again become a threatening hive of terrorist activity? Will the years of fighting there be considered to have been worth the cost, in both human lives and the billions of dollars spent?

What is the use of waging a lengthy counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan which may well do more to aid Taliban recruiting than to dismantle the group, help spread conflict further into Pakistan, unify radical groups that might otherwise be quarreling among themselves.

When the US leave, whenever that might be, what happens if the Taliban regains control?  U.S. presence hasn’t intimidated the Taliban, and when American troops leave, whether it’s 2014 or 2024, Afghan forces will inherit a huge task in trying to stabilize the country and keep the Taliban from gaining ground. Continued U.S. military presence hasn’t worked so far, it might not work in the future. And since it’s highly unlikely that American troops will remain in Afghanistan forever.

Where do we stand?

People are still dying in Afghanistan. The fighting is not over and it won’t be over once U.S. troops leave. Afghan forces will still be up against the Taliban, but they would be in a much more advantageous position if the U.S. worked to set up institutions through which the country is able to sustain itself, not just in the immediate aftermath of troop withdrawal, but well into the future.

It’s obvious to anyone that the effects of war are devastating.

If I were a betting man there is a collision coming, one-third of those Afghan Security Forces trained at fabulous expense to protect them will fight for the government (whoever that may be), one-third will fight for the opposition, and one-third will simply desert and go home. That sounds almost like the plan.

But this time there will be little or no Media coverage as the war has already displaced Afghans from their homes and from their country for over three decades creating over 5.7 million refugees.

So don’t be amazed when the US lead war has no lasting influence other than long-term ramifications for possible terrorist attacks against the U.S/UK and the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and rage, destabilizing the whole region of years to come – ISIS.

The West is a paper tiger like bin Laden said and it’s only a matter of time.

Afghanistan will not be unable to recover from 20-plus years of conflict. In order to do that they have to believe in something first and be willing to assert that.

Governments cannot really do this; only people can. This is what happens when cultures come together, like in Andalusia. It’s messy and chaotic and sometimes violent. … There is a ton of risk involved, but the payoff is huge. This is when cultures come together and new ones are created. This is the risk that Hellenization embraces—that people can engage on this level without reflexive recourse to violence. This is the how cultures engage.10 Years Of War In Afghanistan

“Meanwhile, in other news,”

We have not apprehend the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Is our United Nations an organization chronically torn by divisions between North and South as well as between dictatorships and democracies

20 Monday Oct 2014

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I have no intention in this post of out line the in and out of the United Nations. (This can be found in the many articles written and available on the Internet)

Also I have to the best of my memory address the subject twice before (Another look at the united Nations post dated 10/05/2014) so in the hope of avoiding repetitiveness in this post I will endeavor to concentrate on obscure facts and reforms that could be implemented to-morrow.

However this is probable the most difficult World Organisation to exam never mind suggesting reforms. As we all know with such a large Organisation it is impossible to effect reform from the bottom up. Any reforms have to come from the top down.

Its Members include virtually all countries in the World and in the 7 continents with one non-member observer state, the Holy See in Vatican City. Its an organization of the largest in the world.

Before we go any further it received the Nobel Peace Prize on 5 separate occasions. The first in 1954 awarded to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva, for its assistance to refugees, and finally in 1988 to the United Nations Peace-keeping Forces, for its peace-keeping operations.

United Nations, started off as the League of Nations and is now called the United Nations. It was founded in 1919 shortly after the first world war in order to prevent any more wars. Almost all countries of the 51 countries that founded the United Nations are the winner of the Second World War.

We start with a few facts that you might not know.

The name “United Nations” was suggested by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The United Nations Headquarters is an international zone. This means that the land on which the UN sits does not belong to just the United States. It has its own flag and its own security officers who guard the area. The land of the United Nations Headquarters in New York City was purchased from real estate mogul William Zeckendorf with money donated by John D. Rockefeller. It doesn’t even meet all of New York City’s fire safety and building codes.

It also has its own post office and issues its own stamps.

The logo of the United Nations was designed by Donal McLaughlin, who worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA.

Agencies and organizations of the United Nations all have their own flags:

The UN Secretariat employed some 15,000 people worldwide (in comparison, the Pentagon employed 23,000 people in Washington D.C. alone!)

There are 6 official languages in the United Nations: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

The newest member of the United Nations is South Sudan, bringing the number of member countries to 193.

The current Secretary-General is Ban Ki-Moon from South Korea.

The UN must pay its staff equally for work of equal value, despite differences in levels of pay in various countries from where they are drawn. This translates to a base salary of $113,000 for the Under Secretary-General, to the bottom salary of $32,000.

The UN budget comes from the member states, determined by their ability to pay (for example, France and the UK were assessed 6% of the budget, where as Liberia was assessed 0.001%, the minimum rate). The United States shoulder the lion’s share: it pays 22% (and 27% of the peacekeeping budget, which is assessed separately). In 2006, this turns out to be $423 million or $1.42 per American citizen.

The approved budget for UN Peacekeeping operations for the fiscal year 1 July 2014-30 June 2015 is about $7.06 billion.  By way of comparison, this is less than half of one per cent of world military expenditures (estimated at $1,747 billion in 2013).

The top 10 providers of assessed contributions to United Nations Peacekeeping operations in 2013-2015

  1. United States (28.38%)
  2. Japan (10.83%)
  3. France (7.22%)
  4. Germany (7.14%)
  5. United Kingdom (6.68%)
  6. China (6.64%)
  7. Italy (4.45%)
  8. Russian Federation (3.15%)
  9. Canada (2.98%)
  10. Spain (2.97%

Although the payment of peacekeeping assessments is mandatory, as of 31 August 2014, Member States owed approximately $4.29 billion in current and back peacekeeping dues. Congress approved payment of only $819 million of the over $1 billion the United States owes the organization in unpaid dues. Moreover, the legislation set forth some 38 conditions to be met before the United States will pay its arrears.

Despite being assessed the most, the United States is constantly late in payment. By 2005, the US owed more than $960 million in arrears. Thankfully, it’s not alone: only 40 out the 192 members paid on time – in fact, late payment is considered standard practice by many nations!

Being a diplomat to the United Nations, on the other hand, has its benefits: because of their diplomatic immunity, many of them refuse to pay parking tickets. Indeed, 6 countries have an average of over 100 parking tickets per diplomat!

The U.N. Charter makes clear that the General Assembly can only offer “recommendations” to the world community. The decisions of the General Assembly were not – and are not – binding on members as a matter of international law.

Moreover, while decisions of the Security Council, which has primary responsibility for the U.N.’s activities with respect to maintaining peace and security, were intended to be binding on all member states, they are not so in fact.

Decisions on major issues such as peace or security issues, new Member admissions or budget issues require a two-thirds majority. Other decisions require only a majority vote.

A new president, 21 vice-presidents, and the chairmen of the six Main Committees of the General Assembly are elected at the start of each regular session.

An emergency special session may be called within 24 hours if any of the nine members of the Security Council request it or if a majority of the Member States request it, or if one Member State requests it and the majority concur.

So the question of how it was to enforce its authority.

In truth, the United Nations was never intended to be representative of people’s but of sovereign states.

The governments of these states may or may not be the products of free elections. This does not mean the United Nations is antidemocratic, only that its non-binding resolutions represent the opinion of people as expressed through their governments.

Through debate in the Security Council and votes in the General Assembly, member states can express the moral outrage of their citizens over all sorts of earthly misbehavior. But, in the end, it is the five permanent members that decide issues of peace and war – and, I might add, determine who is secretary-general and what amendments are made to the U.N. Charter. None of the other 180 member nations – either individually or as members of the General Assembly – possess those prerogatives.

The veto is surely not democratic, it keeps the big players in the game, and there is no game without them. The reluctant acquiescence by the lesser powers to the veto at San Francisco was an acknowledgment of this reality.

The UN is biased, because Israel has violated 69 Rules of the UN, but the UN allowed Israel granted. But if an Islamic state violated one rule alone it will get heavy sanctions. The UN was not going to defend the Islamic State. It supports only the United States and its allies.

The UN does not deserve to be called as the Organization of Peace. Because it can not resolve the conflict and war, such as the Israeli raid into Gaza, Invasion USA to Iraq and Afghanistan, and other conflicts. It is stagnant when it comes to ISIS.

All permanent members of the State Security Council (Russia, China, USA, Britain, and France) have a nuclear bomb.

Every year, the Secretary General of the UN draws the lucky country who will sit in the front left seat for one year. Other countries will be seated alphabetically. This year, Jamaica has the front seat, followed by Jordan, Korea, etc and Italy is up in the back right-hand corner.

If resolutions are not followed, the first course of action is always a dialogue. Conversation and discussion is followed by fact-finding missions, eventually sanctions, and military action as a last resort. The practice of power politics still overwhelms the United Nations.

The UN has the image of a world organization based on universal principles of justice and equality. In reality, when the chips are down, it is nothing other than the executive committee of the Third World dictatorships.

There are currently 16 peacekeeping operations,

  • Uniformed personnel…96,535 *
    (83,327 troops, 11,420 police and 1,788 military observers)
  • Approved budgets for the period About 7.06 billion
    from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2015
  • Outstanding contributions to peacekeeping (as of 31 July 2014)
    About 4.78 billion.

The 192 Members of the United Nations pay for everything that the Organization does. It has no other source of income. Police and other civilian personnel are paid from the peacekeeping budgets established for each operation.

The UN also reimburses Member States for providing equipment, personnel and support services to military or police contingents.

Peacekeeping soldiers are paid by their own Governments according to their own national rank and salary scale. Countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the UN at a standard rate, approved by the General Assembly, of a little over US$1,028 per soldier per month.

A member of the public might desire to learn, for example, where the UN gets its money. How much is each member nation contributing to the UN’s regular budget? To the capital budget? To peacekeeping operations? For a brief period, the UN posted such details monthly. But then at the end of 2010, the UN stopped disclosing its personal financial records. All you can get now is a PowerPoint file. For a somewhat unfair comparison, imagine if President Obama submitted his budget to Congress via PowerPoint.

Another illusion on the part of many people is that the United Nations was organized on the basis of democratic principles. First of all the United nations has sought to bring Democracy to every corner of the world-to free the citizens of this planet from tyrannical governments and dictatorships.

As I have said it is an organization of sovereign nations not a world government. As such its peacekeeping forces are require to act passively and may not instigate an attack, unless in self-defense.

At this point it is not fully universal and still reflects some great power interests because of economic situations. This can be clearly seen in the environmental issues.

In this day and age, society operates in constant threat of terrorism, war, and nuclear fallout; the rapid growth of international militaristic power contributes to the ever-present fear in the back of all of our minds. None of us can go through the day without hearing a newscaster or radio personality talking about the growing threat that Iran or Afghanistan or North Korea, Isis poses to the global community.

The problem is that the UN does not have enough power internationally to fully contain any of these issue. The question is whether the United Nations is important to the world, or if it should be thrown out. There is no transparency, there is lack of accountability.

Current UN Peacekeeping Operations

Region/Country Began
AFRICA
Western Sahara (MINURSO) April 1991
Democratic Republic
of the Congo (MONUSCO)		 June 2010
Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) April 2004
Liberia (UNMIL) Sept. 2003
Sudan (UNMIS) March 2005
Darfur (UNAMID) July 2007
AMERICA
Haiti (MINUSTAH) June 2004
ASIA and the Pacific
India/Pakistan (UNMOGIP) Jan. 1949

 

Timor-Leste (UNMIT) Aug. 2006
Afghanistan (UNAMA)¹ 2006
EUROPE
Cyprus (UNFICYP) March 1964
Kosovo (UNMIK) June 1999
MIDDLE EAST
Middle East (UNTSO)) May 1948
Syria (UNDOF) June 1974
Lebanon (UNIFIL) March 1978

Total:  Troops 83.327, Military Observers 1788, Police 11420,

Total Personnel 115610, Budget $ 7.06 billion.

The world is changing, and with it the demands on the United Nations. The UN provides a unique platform for international action. It offers unparalleled legitimacy for global engagement, owing to its universal membership; its inclusive decision-making processes; its unequaled reach; and its ability to provide critical services that are essential to international peace, security, stability and prosperity.

It turns 69 this year and, like many individuals it is facing middle age. Reforms and changes in the United Nations have always been fraught with obstacles that must be overcome and they are many in the pipe line.

For Example:

40 percent of the world’s population still relies on solid fuels for household use.

There are currently 190 million people unemployed and more than 500 million will be looking for jobs over the next 10 years.

Today 1.7 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water since 1990, but 884 million people are still without clean drinking water.

All countries are vulnerable to natural hazards, but most of the 3.3 million deaths from disasters in the last 40 years have been in poorer nations.

Of the 33 cities that will have at least 8 million residents by 2015.  Twenty one of these cities are in coastal areas. Coastal flooding is expected to increase rapidly due to sea level rise and weakening of coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs impacted by sea temperature rise.

Over 60 per cent of the world’s major marine ecosystems that underpin livelihoods have been degraded or are being used unsustainably.

It is estimated that by 2050, adverse effects associated with global climate change will result in the displacement of between 50 and 200 million people globally.

Aid agencies like the United Nations in the 21st century cannot continue to act like old-fashioned travel agents–repositories of expertise and information about options, to whom the money was given and decisions delegated. If aid agencies want to retain public trust, mandate and funding, they will have to become a platform on which citizens can see meaningful, comparable and reliable information and then exercise choices themselves.

Unless aid agencies respond to these changing expectations, support for their work is likely to continue to decline, perhaps disastrously.

By dispelling the persistent myths about the founding and history of the United Nations, we should gain a clearer vision of the world organization around which the demands for reform, are long over due.

What we can see is in the United Nations is an organization that was born of and remains subject to politics. It is, moreover, an organization chronically torn by divisions between North and South as well as between dictatorships and democracies, in which the United States and, by extension, its two preeminent political parties, remains the major player.

As a body its authority, is moral, political, and economic rather than coercive.

It should be a body that adjust to changing conditions and be capable of acting swiftly and decisively – albeit sometimes indirectly.

It shows surprising durability but if it is to remain relevant it must be funded and not be seen as it is to-day pathetically appealing for help after the event.

If it does not reform it will be of little assistance when it comes to future events that are going to threaten our very existence.

There are 19 Specialized agencies  (autonomous organizations) working with the United Nations.  NGOs and foundations have been partners of the United Nations since 1947. In accordance with Article 71 of the UN Charter, NGOs can have consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).  Is vast.

The trouble with today’s techniques of finance (Capitalism) is that they’re designed to make the rich richer. None are designed to make the poor richer.

 

This is why we must tap into Greed ( See previous Posts) It will finance the United Nations without the need to beg.

Are we now just beginning to reap the dark side of the Industrial Revolution

17 Friday Oct 2014

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The Historiography of the first World War bear witness to destruction and death made possible by the Industrial revolution.

The present day turmoil that we see in the world has its roots created by man during this period.

So has the Industrial Revolution improved life or not? Is the world a better place? A safer place? Do most people have more material wealth than they did two centuries ago? Are we healthier? Are we happier? Is the world more socially and economically just? Is the world headed in the right direction?

It’s not possible to answer all these questions without an in-depth examination of the Industrial Revolution and its effects. There is no definitive answer, other than in short, we cannot hope to understand the modern world without understanding the Industrial Revolution as it resulted in the most profound, far-reaching changes in the history of humanity.

Perhaps it is adequate to say that its influence continues to sweep through our lives today. Just look at the last 250 years of industrialization.

It has altered our lives more than any event or development in the past 12,000 years: in where we live, how we work, what we wear, what we eat, what we do for fun, how we are educated, how long we live and how many children we have.

It greatest failure is that it has not spread wealth evenly across the globe, and the consequences have often been unjust.

For example, to-day in developing countries, where 85% of people in the world live, 16,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes—that’s one child every five seconds.

It did provided the countries that first adopted it with the technological and economic advantages necessary to eventually rule most of the world. In short, the Industrial Revolution is the “game changer” of modern world history. More than anything else, it’s what makes the modern world, well, “modern.”

But how has it come about that 10% of the world’s wealthiest people controlled 85% of the world’s wealth? Mostly because they were born into wealth that was made during the Industrial revolution.

So what exactly is the Industrial Revolution?

An Industrial Revolution at its core occurs when a society shifts from using tools to make products to using new sources of energy, such as coal, to power machines in factories, oil, electricity. nuclear power.

It began at the end of the 18th century, but it has yet to end.

It has transformed into much more complex global phenomena recently. Multi-national corporations design, build, and assemble products using resources and labor from around the world.

Proponents of the benefits of industrialization point to amazing inventions, technological advances, and increased global wealth. Global GDP per capita—the most common measurement of national wealth—has increased 800% over the past 200 years.

I would say to them that it also developed into a global economic system that seems exploitative and unsustainable, fueling unbridled capitalism that has led to exploitation of the weakest and most vulnerable on a global scale.

Giving Birth to multinational corporations that owe their loyalty not to any nation but to the profit motive.

So what happens in a country when free-market capitalism has no constraints.

The record of the last five thousand years of history clearly suggests that every single preceding civilization has perished, no matter where or how long it has been able to flourish, as a result of its sustained assault on the environment, usually ending in soil loss, flooding, and starvation, and a successive distension of all social strata, usually ending in rebellion, warfare, and dissolution.

They all seem unable to appreciate scale or limits, and in their growth and turgidity were unable maintain balance within or without.

Our Industrial civilization is no different only in that it is now much larger and more powerful than any known before, by geometric differences in all dimensions, and its collapse will be far more extensive and thorough going, far more calamitous.

We are now in the technology age and you might say that The Industrial age is water under the bridge.

No matter how you look at it we are staring down the barrel of a gun with many different bullets. Climate change,  Killer virus, World conflicts due to unadulterated Greed/ Rampant Inequality, Technology deserts and disfunctional non resourced World Organisations.

While demand for depleting resources are skyrocketing ,water, clear air and energy. By any biological gauge we moving beyond sustainability.

So is it time to abandon the concept of sustainability? altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure it.  If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?

The most important resources that drive current industrialization are finite. If billions of people replicate the same level of consumption, they will hasten? ecological and economical disaster.

So who or what will keep us from creating pollution or exploiting weak, desperate countries?

Who will stop global resource depletion?

Is there any point to the Technology Revolution, other than brain work instead of muscle work, if history is only going to repeating itself.

Now you don’t have to be a raw prawn to know that most of our all-powerful politicians and world organisations live in what I call a reactivate state.

By the time they have called a conference and blabbered on for days it’s too late. Now many times have you witnessed the pathetic sight of the UN and its world Organisations pleading for funds, equipment. Just look at the current Ebola outbreak. Growing the economy at all costs and keeping Wall Street happy seems to be their solution to all or woes.

Here are a few things that could be done.

Restore meaning to sustainability as more than just a marketing tool.

Share knowledge, share capital, and investments around the world.

Remove the Veto in the United nations and give all nations an equal standing.

Remove Carbon Credits. Set trading admission penalties for pollution.

And Make Greed contribute by,

Place a world Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over £20,000, and Foreign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. This would create a perpetual fund removing the need to beg for funds every time there is a disaster. The funds could replace the World bank, the IMF, Save the Children, fund Conservation, and make enormous inroads into Inequality the scourge of our Technology Age.

For me there has be a greater willingness by our politicians to question conventional measures of economic growth in favor of more sustainable models with a greater emphasis on well-being.

Before you bombard me with all the good things the have come out of the Industrial Revolution I refer you to the title of this post.

Yes we would not have the Internet, Landed on the moon, developed drugs, and invented this and that, but there is no point in relying on all the answers coming from Google than experiencing it in reality.

IF WE DON’T WANT THE LEGACY of the Industrial Revolution to be a divided world due to Inequality we must conquer Greed by harnessing it to contribute to all or there will be nothing left to be greedy about.

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The World Bank: Another World Organisation fraught with problems.

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

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As promised.  Sorry its rather long winded.

The first thing I have to say is I had little or no knowledge as to what the World Bank did other than when ever it calls its Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors presided over by some bloke named  Jim Yong Kim the 12th president of the Bank it is in the lime light for all the wrong reasons.

So what is it and what is it function?

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, commonly known as the World Bank was Established in 1944, its headquartered are in Washington, with 10,000 employees in more than 120 offices worldwide.

It and its sisters organisations of global capitalism, the IMF and WTO have their origins in the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944.

Originally established to rebuild Europe after the war. Once the rubble was cleared up it branched out into the world expanding from a single institution to a closely associated group of five development institutions with close ties to the International Monetary Fund. (IMF)

The Bank to-day is like a cooperative in which 188 member countries are shareholders.

The term “World Bank” incorporates five closely associated entities that are to suppose to work collaboratively toward poverty reduction World Wide.

These are:  The World Bank (IBRD and IDA), and three other agencies, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Its member countries, or shareholders, are represented by a Board of Governors, who are the ultimate policymakers at the World Bank. Generally, the governors are member countries’ ministers of finance or ministers of development.

All members must first join the International Monetary Fund.

Members are shareholders in the bank but they do not all pull equal weight within the organisation.

The leading contributors, and therefore those with the biggest say in World Bank policy, are: the United States, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Each of these five countries has a nominee on the bank’s board of executive directors. The remaining 178 countries are between them allowed to nominate a total of 19 other board members.

It is this select board that decides on the bank’s work.

So the rich and powerful decide where the money goes?

That should come as no surprise, even to the most die-hard anti-capitalist protester.

Some more moderate critics argue that while it is normal for the richest countries to choose who they are willing to help, the methods used are too narrowly focused.

The critics say that to invest in projects that seek to smash corruption, for example, will do little to alleviate long-term poverty unless and until the entire international economic system is reformed and made fairer. True but impossible to achieve.

And the critics go on to say that the bank attaches far too many strings to its loans. For example, in return for debt relief Benin, the poverty-stricken African country, was forced to liberalize its cotton sector and introduce a performance-based pay structure for civil servants. Zambia was forced to privatize its copper mines in return for relief. The move led to 60,000 job losses in the sector.

The poorest countries of the world owe more money to the World Bank and the IMF than they do any other private or government institutions because most of these loans were so poorly designed that the borrowing countries have not reaped enough income to pay them back.

Up to quite recently the World Bank and IMF refuse to cancel debts because these two institutions say that their bylaws prohibit them from doing this. Additionally, governments have special incentive to stay current with their multilateral debts, since the IMF determines the creditworthiness of countries: i.e., until the IMF gives its stamp of approval (which usually requires adherence to the economic policies it recommends), poor countries generally cannot get credit or capital from other sources.

IN 1996 the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was introduced by the world bank to address the above problem.

Since the HIPC Initiative was adopted in 1996, only five countries-Uganda, Bolivia, Guyana, Mozambique, and Mali-have received or are in a position to receive any relief this year (2000). And these countries have found HIPC relief to be worth relatively little. Uganda began to receive debt relief worth US$350 million in April 1998, but as a consequence lost access to other debt relief mechanisms. With a drop in the international price of coffee, its chief export, Uganda found itself by April 1999 once again saddled with an officially “unsustainable” debt burden. An internal World Bank/IMF report indicates that Mali and Burkina Faso (slated for HIPC relief in early 2000) will actually pay more on their debt after graduating from HIPC.

(This multilateral debt (money owed to international institutions like the World Bank and IMF as well as their sister institutions like the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank) has skyrocketed in the last few years for the poorest countries. For low-income countries (defined by the World Bank as those with per capita Gross National Product below US$785), multilateral debt increased by some 544% between 1980 and 1997, from US$24 billion to US$155 billion, and currently constitutes 33% of their total long-term debt burden (versus about 25% in 1980). For the most severely indebted of those low-income countries, multilateral debt increased by 459%, from US$10.6 billion to US$59 billion, with a corresponding percentage increase in their long-term debt from 22% to 30%.)

Of the 32 countries classified as severely indebted low-income countries, 25 are in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the country of Chad in West Africa saw its debt increase from US$330 million in 1987 to US$1 billion ten years later. Chad’s debt/GDP ratio rose from 28 percent in 1987 to 55 percent in 1997.

The World Bank Group has set two goals for the world to achieve by 2030:

  • End extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to no more than 3%
  • Promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country

So why is there still so much poverty after 60 years of the Bank’s existence?

Its ethos is simple: Countries that are open to international trade, are diversified, attract foreign direct investment and adhere to free market economic policies are the most likely countries to sustain growth.

It is a case of capitalism will feed itself.

The theory goes that, by encouraging countries to pursue US-style economic management and by attracting private investment, economies will grow and poverty will die as a knock-on effect. Worthless as Inequalities of trade, health, education, and the like ensure that any knock-on effect is controlled.

Much of the World banks money, goes on efforts to strengthen the banks and capital markets.

How and where does it get its Funds?

It is primarily financed by selling IBRD bonds AAA-rated in the world’s financial markets.

The Banks Capital consists of reserves built up over the years and money paid in from the bank’s 188 member country shareholders. IBRD income also pays for World Bank operating expenses and has contributed to IDA and debt relief. It has US$178 billion in what is known as “callable capital,” which could be drawn from our shareholders as backing, should it ever be needed to meet IBRD obligations for borrowings (bonds) or guarantees.

Although the World Bank attempts to present the goal of the organisation as “reducing poverty”, this has never been their objective.

Their main objective is to fund large-scale power and infrastructure projects in the third world to prepare the way for the exploitation of these countries natural resources and cheap labour by northern corporations.

The poor have no say in “development” projects which often displace them, rob their countries of valuable natural resources, and contribute to the climate change which is hitting their countries the hardest.

The World Bank, in conjunction with the IMF also provides loans to countries in debt in return for “structural adjustment” reforms to their economy which usually involve the slashing of healthcare, education and social services budgets, to the detriment of the local population, as well as dropping tariffs and opening their markets to a flood of cheap western imports. These often destroy local industry, farming and quality jobs, increasing the availability of easily exploitable labour for multinational corporations to take advantage of.

Regardless of whatever alleviating measures are taken, because of the very nature of global capitalism, the World Bank cannot be transformed into a benevolent global institution, since its very premise is to protect and promote the interests of multinational corporations.

The World Bank has no democratic accountability to those whom its decisions affect, decisions which take place behind closed doors and with little transparency.

The World Bank recently admitted that the world added 200 million poor people to the rolls of poverty by 1998 over the 1.3 billion classified as living below the international poverty line in 1993 (people with an income of less than a dollar a day).

Tanzania, half of whose population is illiterate, spends a third of its budget on debt payments and spends four times more on debt than it does primary education.

Niger, where life expectancy is only 47 years, spends more on debt payments than it does on health and education combined.

Altogether sub-Saharan Africa spends four times as much on debt repayment as she does on healthcare.

And you wonder why we have Ebola.

What we need is an Organisation that provide interest-free credits, and grants to developing countries. That offers support to developing countries through policy advice, research and analysis, and technical assistance. That ensure that countries can access the best global expertise and help generate cutting-edge knowledge to reduces Inequality not poverty.

In my view it should be scraped and replaced by a WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions ( over £20,000) and on all Sovereignty Wealth Funds Acquisition.

This would produce a perpetual funded source of finance that could be run by a compact Organisation Independent of the United Nations. ( see previous Postings)

In the mean time it could and should at this every moment spend its so-called “callable capital,” to advert the Spread of Ebola. World Bank Mission

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Are you going to be in the new underclass.The pace of technological change outstrips job creation,

13 Monday Oct 2014

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Most computer scientists are busy making the technology happen rather than asking what the results will be,”

Tomorrow’s organizations may bear little resemblance to those we are familiar with.

A lot of things that were routine are becoming automated.

Technological advancement is rampant in every walk of life.

We’er seeing this with automated sales calls and administrative work that can all be done with software. For example Algorithms can easily identify safe borrowers — followed by receptionists, paralegals, retails salespeople and taxi drivers.

If that does not get the alarm bells ringing the first synthetic chromosome for a creature with complex cells has being designed on a computer and made from scratch in a laboratory. The day of designer plants an animal is not far off.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have allowed robots to climb the corporate ladder.

So what do we have?

On one hand, you have the neoclassical economists saying some jobs will be destroyed, but others will be created, so there’s nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, you have what some people are calling the neo-luddites, who believe there’s something different about this technology.

How high can they go? Is there a corner office in R2-D2’s future?

Within 30 years, computers and machines will replace a fully half of the North American workforce and as demographic shifts, globalization and technology replace traditional work practices 47% of the World’s jobs will be automated in the next twenty odd years.

So what happens when labor is not human any longer but automated, as more and more jobs requiring medium levels of skill are automated away.

What going to happen is economic growth will accrue to an ever increasingly smaller group of highly payed people, with automation becoming self-perpetuating while skills are lost forever to invisible robots.

We probable see a new underclass with new means of social thought that might well see the demise of Capitalism itself.

This however is highly unlikely, because automation is rapidly becoming an integral part of the system. What we now call work has morphed to accommodate automation advancement.

Capitalism will be over the moon.  As the future of labour in the Capitalist world has always being to create profit by extracting what’s call value from workers. Another words paying the worker less than what their time is worth and gaining the difference as profit.  As John Tomlinson said in his book The Culture of Speed, The Coming of Immediacy, no idiom captures the spirit of Capitalism better than –

” Time is money”

So it stands to reason that if machines are producing stuff around the clock the underclasses will have to find new jobs that will offer no stability, less satisfaction, and no security of a standard of living.

At the very moment there are millions of part-time no hours contract workers called Parecariat ( These are workers who are no longer definable by fixed rules relative to the labor relation, to salary,to the length of the working day.

Capital no longer recruits people , but buys packets of time. This time is fractalized, that is reduced to minimal fragments that can be reassembled so to ensure minimum wages or salary.

The working day is now all day every day. Time is far more fluid concept than before.

All of this paint a pretty dismal picture and it will be unless we harness automation and divest its technological advancement from the motives of capitalism.

We must ensure that technology works for all of us and not just for the privileged few.

Technology at the moment is by its nature an ill-defined residue of hope and fear.

If we don’t want a world run by algorithms (that are raping us all every second of the day with high frequency trading,) and bill boards that respond to your anticipated needs from data supplied by your digital smart phone we must remain wary of interfacing too closely with machines.

We can stop the march of technological progress, but we can stop the downward pressure on wages stemming from automation, by guaranteed a minimum income that will mitigate the destructive impact of technology on labour.

The future has not been written, and issues will manifest themselves in different ways depending on the social, technological, economic and political changes in the world. These issues, however, will be important to any future in which organizations want to attract and retain the best talent.

The hire-to-retire cycle is being as you read this post retired.

What would my advise be?

Learn a Computer Language you are going to need to be able to talk to them.

     

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Are our World Organisations out of date? “The Ebola crisis is a wake up call”

11 Saturday Oct 2014

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Ebola     Ebola Exercise

Lets start with The World Health Organisation (called WHO)

The current outbreak in West Africa of Ebola has brought it into public view.

Formed by the United Nations in 1948, (76 years ago) it is still trying to be an efficient and effective organisation.

In the 76 years of its existence the agency has promulgated only two major treaties: The International Health Regulations and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

It has declare two global health emergencies. The 2009 swine flu (H1N1) epidemic, and in reaction to a reversal of progress in eradicating polio in May 2014.  

A deeply political organisation, it remains the undoubted leader in global health.

With its incomparable expertise, global influence, and normative powers it has no substitute. There is no other show in town. So it survives as a global health agency within the United Nations, the question is.

“If we try to improve it, will it fall to pieces?”“

At the moment it resembles nothing so much as a dinosaur on the edge of the Ice Age, only in this case it will be the Age of Global Warming and the age of the lifestyle-associated non-communicable pandemics that cannot be stopped by an immunizing needle, quarantine or medicine that is going to test it in the future.

What exactly is it?

It comprises of six regional offices that are uniquely independent within the UN system, with each regional office having full power over regional personnel, including appointment of country representatives, all administered by 147 country offices.

It is controlled by delegates from its 194 member states, each of which has an equal vote on the direction of agency policies.

So what we really have is six separate WHOs in six different regions – Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific governed by 194 governing member states.  An Organisation that is plagued by ossified structures that prevent it from exercising the flexibility it needs.

It’s no wonder it has problems and in need of reform.

Few would dispute that a stronger, more effective World Health Organisation would benefit all.

THIS CANNOT BE ACHIEVED BY AN Agency whose work and policies ultimately reflective of its wealthiest donors, leaving it scant margin to set its own.

It simply is not sustainable to have wealthy states and foundations control some 80% of WHO’s budget.

Don’t be surprised that it is now pointing its finger at the lack of contribution it is getting to manage the current outbreak of Ebola.

However it can not be excused for using the voluntary funds it does receive primarily for infectious diseases (60%), with negligible allocations for non-communicable diseases (3.9%) and injuries (3.4%). Yet, non-communicable diseases account for 62% of all deaths worldwide, and injuries constitute 17% of the global burden of disease.

Just three years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) was in deep financial trouble, with a US$300-million deficit. More importantly, its extra-budgetary expenditure rose from 48.8% to 77.3% from 1998/99 to 2008/09.

The $3.98-billion budget approved by the assembly for 2014–15 shows zero growth on the WHO’s $3.96-billion budget for 2012–13,

Its income from member dues has stagnated since the 1990s. WHO is probably funded at about 10% of what it needs.

However it is not to be blamed for its inability to tackle infectious diseases such as Malaria because over 80% of its budget is voluntary. The agency has long been plagued by the fact that it has total control of only a small part of its budget:

77% — of the 2014–15 budget comes from voluntary contributions from member states and other donors.

Budget cuts at the WHO have severely hobbled the agency’s ability to respond to the Ebola epidemic.

So what are we going to do?”

We see over and over again with disasters. It’s the money that flows after something happens – after Hurricane Sandy, or Katrina or, in this case, Ebola.

The world of global health is rapidly changing if WHO is to offer leadership for urgent challenges facing the global health, such as emerging infectious diseases and noncommunicable diseases (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer) it must have its Financing changed from voluntary to fully funded.

Mandatory contributions are more aligned with the actual global burden of disease than voluntary funding. The ideal solution for this is to set higher member state mandatory contributions. Member states must become genuine shareholders in the World Health Organisation’s future, act collectively, and refrain from exerting narrow political interests.

The World Health Organisation is presently financed through two main streams. First, member-states pledge a set amount based on each country’s wealth and population. The second stream is through voluntary contributions often earmarked for specific diseases.  This has to change

Extra-budgetary funding would transform the WHO from a donor-driven organization, restricting its ability to direct and coordinate the global health agenda into some thing worth while.

Organizations like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC); Doctors Without Borders (MSF); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; the Gavi Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are important actors, often with more money and visibility than the WHO. There’s an obvious need for a higher degree of inter agency coordination and collaboration embracing the WHO, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Labour Organization,UNICEF and UNHCR.

Preparedness is a constant battle. It’s not like you can just make an investment and walk away. It’s something that needs to be kept up. And quickly, once the crisis passes and the headlines aren’t there anymore, that money dries up.

The organisation could take a more active role in regulating key global health issues, including counterfeit medicines, food safety, and nutrition. It could be more engaged and influential in international regimes with powerful health impacts, such as trade, intellectual property, arms control, and climate change.

The WHO must undergo fundamental reform if it’s to retain its rightful place as the leader in global health. While remaining true to its normative and bold vision of health-for-all, the organisation must adapt to a new political climate, demonstrate global leadership, and deliver results. The Gatekeeper of the planet’s health must publishing more about where its money goes and what it achieves.

Can any of this actual happen?  Of course not.

The only way to funds these organisations it to cap Greed at it source. (See Previous Posts)  Once the funding is there then we can HAVE MEANINGFUL WORLD ORGANISATIONS.

We all know that World Organisations end up as bickering, skint, power, shops.

Next Post we will look at the World Bank.

 

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Name of the organisation Headquarter Head:

UN Security Council New York The presidentship is held for one month by member countries in alphabetical order.
UN General Assembly New York Huke Jeremic; 2013-John William Ashe
UN Secretariat New York Ban Ki Moon
International Court of justice The Hague, Netherlands Peter Tomka
International Criminal Court Lyons, France Song Sang-Hyun
Economic and Social Council New york Milos koterek
Food and Agriculture organisation Rome Jose Graziano da Silva
International civil Aviation organisation Montreal, Canada Raymond Benjamin
International Labour organisation Geneva Juan Somavia
International Monetary Fund Washington DC Christian Lagarde (former head Dominique Strauss Kahn was involved in a sex scandal)
International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna, Austria Yukiyo Amano
International Maritime Organisation London, U.K. Koji SekimizuUnited nations Educational Cultural and Social organisation Paris Irina Bokova (1st woman to have become director-general)
Internatioonal labour organization Geneva Juan Somavia
International fund for Agriculture Development Rome Kanayo F. Nwanze
World Bank New York Jim Yong kim
World health Organisation Geneva Dr. Margaret Chan
World intellectual property organisation Geneva Francis Gurry
World trade Organisation Geneva Pascal Lamy
United nations International Children and Women Fund New York Anthony Lake

Capitalism is growing increasingly unfit for purpose.

09 Thursday Oct 2014

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The present global economy is caught in a catch-22 of its own making.

After the fall of communism, capitalism was left as the only show in town, and what a show it is turning out to be.

By the beginning of the 21st century the world’s environment was in critical decline.

Oceans are turning acidic from atmospheric CO2 threatening marine life, melting glaciers are flooding cities where soon little water will flow at all, species are disappearing from the Earth at a faster rate than during the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago.

Much is being said about the importance of democracy and how it brings growth and prosperity, but the truth is that to date it has indeed enriched a few at the cost of the rest of us.

Economic growth these days is usually associated with technological changes, it is not for the benefit of the average person as is commonly believed. It is solely to create enough currency to keep the faulty global economy treading water so it doesn’t collapse.

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Politicians proudly report strong national economic growth statistics, perpetuating the illusion that this implies some kind of bonus for the average person, yet they systematically ignore ballooning national debt as though it is inconsequential.

The design of the global economy demands that by 2019 the economy will be twice the size it was in 2000.

At its present rate of growth, by 2059 the global economy will be ten times its 2000 size. But Earth cannot sustainable support a global economy the size it was in 2000. So in order to survive, the global economy is compelled to keep growing like a cancer, at an unsustainable rate that will kill its host.

This self-destructive design is a direct result of the flaw in the global money system which is guarded by Capitalistic profit to the dethronement of Values, causing vast inequalities which is the root cause of to days terrorism, and wars.

We we all know the scenario the more you grow the bigger the appetite till you either explode or there is nothing left to consume. Self destructive, not what they call sustainable growth.

The Capitalist economic plan we hear every day of growth, growth is running out fodder and nothing about the Internet, solar power, or 3D printing will change the fact that individuals have conflicting needs and desires and if it does not change courses soon, ( which it is incapable of doing so) it will leave all of us including the rich standing up to our necks in Shit.  ( See previous post on capturing greed at the heart of Capitalism)

The best stuff bubbles up from below, when will markets and technology be allowed to amplify the ideas of people and give voice and choice.

Real change requires that we address both the bottom-up and the top-down, that we design our efforts with beneficiaries front and center, and that we use evidence of real impact in the lives of the poor as the indicator of whether we’re doing it right.

But what do we see these days only an erosion of the public safety net, the increasing prevalence of low-wage employment, and decreases in low-wage earnings have combined to place low-income families under constant pressure as they struggle to work, to care for their families, and to maintain their access to public benefits.

Let’s assume, like most corporations and politicians do, that the world’s resources are endless and that no environmental threats exist. Even if that were the case, the global economy is self-destructive for an entirely different reason.

During the 20th century, subtle changes to global money systems turned currency from a sustainable means of exchange into one of the most destructive agents on Earth.

However, most of us were so busy struggling to get some money that this mutation of currency was mostly overlooked. The world is now obliged to pay back to banks more money than the banks ever create in the first place, an obviously impossible task.

Solutions exist, but the blindness that created the problem also stops the solutions from being seen.

Over the next 10 to 20 years, environmental destruction will escalate exponentially as we race towards the meltdown of civilization as we know it. Capital accumulation is driving ever-greater wealth inequality?

Ironically, the harder we try to alleviate this financial shortage, the faster we create it.

What is the solution?

Fundamental changes need to be made to align the global money system with reality. Money supply must be restructured into a sustainable means of exchange that serves countries rather than destroys civilizations.

The deadly aspect of our modern money system stems from the way money is now created.

Just look at the below example.

Modern money is created via credit  by the creation of debt.

If you borrow £100 from a bank, the £100 is not transferred to your account from existing currency held at the bank.

The £100 is created into existence by the loan.

You get £100 to spend, but you still owe the bank a £100 debt.

The money created is balanced out by the debt created.

As the loan is paid back to the bank, the repayments do not go into bank coffers but cancel out the original debt owed to the bank.

The repaid loan money is literally cancelled out of existence again.

So where do the banks get their profit from lending?

From the interest that is paid to the bank during the repayment of the loan.

The interest paid on loans is the fatal flaw in our modern currency systems.

Say during the term of the above loan, there is £200 generated in interest. This means that while the original hundred is created and then cancelled out, there is an extra £200 that must be found somewhere.

The only possible place this interest money can now be found is from circulating money generated by a different loan.

This, of course, means that even the capital of the second loan cannot be paid back, as there is now a shortfall of money in circulation.

The second loan amount – plus its interest – can only be repaid via money generated from yet further loans, and so on. (Quantitative Easing)

97% of the Money in the world is Debt, run by neoclassical economics which is divorced from reality. Giving us Socialism for the rich and Capitalism for the poor.   

Perhaps we could take a leaf from Muslim Banks.

Salam Islamic or sharia Banks offer interest free loan because the Bank gives loan through the method of buying and selling goods with an agreed margin which can be paid in installments

The question is where do we go next? ‘After Capitalism’  

The key to understanding development is to remain open to the true complexity of the global processes of innovation and diffusion and the myriad pathways through which politics, geography, economics, and culture can shape the flows of technologies around the world. 

An increase in the capacity of an economy to produce goods and services, compared from one period of time to another perhaps is not the best model, as we have ending up being governed by corporations debasing the value of currency.  

Automation is replacing (for lack of a better word) the working classes, The Internet and the resulting social media has caught all of our world organisations with their pant down. Antibiotics are being defeated, you have to live longer to qualify for a state pension, you are consistently pressurized to buy crap you don’t need, and our politicians don’t know where to turn next.

All of these developing problems will overthrow capitalism as the world’s dominant economic model.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: A modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. 

Our digital wallet will have to have a conscious if we are all not to end up hoodwinked into a lethargy of Sport, Celebrities cooks, and reality TV.

The age of Consequences has started.

What is left unsaid has, with the Internet no place to hide.  

Our inability to grasp the new world is coming to an end. Its goodbye to collective disillusionment and I don’t give a dam.

Its time to put a stop to Greed and distribute wealth fairly by Putting a 0.05% commission on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions , on all High Frequency Stock Exchange Transaction and on all Currency transactions over $20,000. ( See previous Posts)   

            

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When a robot dies you don’t have to write a letter to its Mother.

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

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An Observation:

The BARBARIC ACT OF ISIS terrorism is rightly standing at the forefront of national and international agendas.

We all know that terrorism has taking on many forms, covering a wide variety of groups and motivations making it especially difficult to define, or defeat.

It has led to a revolution in WAR.

Because life and death decisions are becoming more and more robotic.

The 5000 years of men fighting Wars is coming to an end and is causing wrinkles in the Geneva Convention Laws of WAR AND WAR CRIMES.

You don’t have to convince a Robotic or a drone or ID that there are 72 virgins awaiting in heave. You can build one in the morning put it on a web site and some lunatic sitting at home can remotely detonate from his armchair., without any declaration of war.

This Robotic Unmanned Slaughter is presenting a new human dilemma because it is imparting a message of Cowardliness, which I am sure is the very reason that we see ISIS waving their black flags, Saying come and fight us on the ground.

The disconnectedness of engagement is leading to what I call WAR PORN on U tube. Videos for entertainment set to music that are reshaping the public views on war.

The Future of war is not going to set by the USA.

The how and who we are fighting and with what is it going to be the future force that determine’s Wars. It will be a bloke who controls remotely the more powerful killing machines and then goes home after a 12 hour shift for his dinner, turns on the Telly to view the results of his joy stick.

A Drone see 0000, or  1111 whether it’s a eight year old granny holding a child or a tank. If it makes a mistake in identity.  The product can be recalled and modified, with the unmanned killing put down to a software glitch.

The Drive to destroy, to create, and build more and more inventive machines to participate in Watch wars requires the rules of engagement to be updated. Now.

The consequences of not doing so could be dramatic considering that nearly everyone agrees on the abhorrent moral character of terrorism,while simultaneously disagreeing on how to define and identify it

Because these drones and robotic leave a  perceptual effects that may occur largely unconsciously, a wide range of people may end up associating American enemies with terrorism, even if the factual basis for this connection is quite tenuous.

The following words were used to project terrorism as verminous:

1. Attack
2. Kill
3. Enemy
4. Danger
5. Tragedy

Should we be adding Unmanned Killing and Guantanamo Bay.

We read and hear daily a Global war on terror.  Is this terminology, mis-characterizing the nature of the War?

You might say if you are killed by a charging elephant or robotic drone it makes little difference you dead, AND YOU WOULD BE RIGHT DEAD IS DEAD.

So is there need for the Geneva Convention to take a look at the use of Weapons and Robotic programmers which have become highly securitized and politicized as a weapon for the realization of the goals of war on terror after 9/11.

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

It seems to me incredibly stupid that human mankind that has the ability to build an International space station, a marvel of human collective engineering, of knowledge passed down from the first carved flint arrow-head to the written word is so bent on self-destruction.

Why?

The answer is staring us all in the face. If you have anything there is nothing to lose.

Inequality is the source of most of to days worlds woes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will emerging technology save us or destroy us all.

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

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A thought!

It has being a summer of bad news.

Geopolitical turmoil, Carbon spewing into the atmosphere, Ebola spreading, Global warming, Species and Forests disappearing, Ice melting, Inequality rampant, while Sovereign Wealth Funds privatize the world resources for profit.

All of this pales in comparison to what could be inflicted by high-tech nightmares that are awaiting in the long grass.

Bio-engineered pandemic, nanotechnology or Nano biotechnology gone haywire, AI run amok all could kill far quicker than ISIS or Capitalism.

Accidental self-destruction by any of the above is more than possible.

When you realize that there are people out there experimenting in their garden sheds. Recently Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the university of Wisconsin engineered a strain of the deadly virus Swine flu than could evade the immune system. At least he did it in a proper Laboratory.

Nanotech is endeavoring to engineer microscopic factories of self-replicating bots with the power to make anything out of common materials.

If this was to happen we could have omnivorous bacteria that would wipe out real bacteria that could spread like pollen reducing the biosphere to dust.

AI on the other had if we get it right could be the best thing to happen in the universe, but get it wrong we wont be colonizing anywhere.

At the moment we spend more on lipstick than making sure our species survives.

Maybe its time we created another one of those useless World organisations to monitor emerging technology just in case it comes back to bit us all.

           

 

Lets Call a Spade a Spade. ISIS are maniacs in foreign lands that want war.

05 Sunday Oct 2014

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They say that the beginning of wisdom lies in recognizing the facts.

Let me start by saying that the title of this piece does not reflect my personal opinion. I believe no matter what you call them, ISIS, ISIL, or the Islamic State, that these barbaric maniacs are everyone’s problem.

It is easy to write and express one’s opinion but it is a totally different kettle of fish if you were the person that had to send young men and woman into war.

Most wars are started by nations look to their own self-interest in the final analysis. Greed – the desire for more power and more territory.

* Religious idealism * Corrupt governments * Discontent and poverty * starts wars.

This war has all the ingredients combined into one.

If you don’t believe me watch one of the beheadings they perform on video for the entertainment of the masses.  If you don’t think ISIS is our enemy TODAY, you are seriously misguided and potentially delusional.

The question is how do we stop them from driving around flying black flags and saying, ‘Hey, come blow us up’…

Is it too late, and will more violence only embed the current positions? ( Leaving a cesspool of frustrated terrorist armed to the teeth to fight it out between themselves.)

Should we say we’ve done enough damage and all that can be done now is bomb them.

Is it naive, the obtuse or the dishonest to believe (or profess to believe) that trying harder will have the slightest chance of producing a different and more favorable outcome?

Twenty-three years after Operation Desert Storm laid the basis for George H.W. Bush’s ‘new world order’ and 11 years after George W. Bush went his father one better by capturing Baghdad itself — ‘Mission Accomplished’ —

The Iraq war has resumed in the form of a small-scale but apparently open-ended air campaign.

As the United States and its Coalition partners moves into the eighth week of its bombing campaign against the Islamic State, we still have little info about the scope, duration and cost both in human terms and financial, or what will be in place when ISIS is destroyed?

Is there or should there be any strategic objective? Other than U.S. weapons being used on both sides.

Libya is an example of the disasters that U.S. wars leave behind them — a war, by the way, with U.S. weapons used on both sides, and a war launched on the pretext of a claim well documented to have been false that Gaddafi was threatening to massacre civilians.

The answer is that there is no long-term strategy. 

The present military of bombing is just a substitute for strategy, indeed, for acknowledging the fact that nearly a quarter-century of military involvement in Iraq and in the Middle East more generally has produced next to nothing of value.

Regardless of how well we do the job it is quite obvious that the Iraqi government isn’t going to be able to hold up. With another x amount of years of war and it is certain that any little hope of forging any durable political order will be destroyed.

Together with its neighbor Syria ( supported by Moscow who suspects Washington’s ulterior motive is removal of its ally, Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad) like Syria it will end up as waste land of religious fractions fighting it out over what ever oil is left.

So where are we to-day. 

Today, ISIS and al-Qaeda compete for influence over Islamist extremist groups around the world. Some experts believe ISIS may overtake al-Qaeda as the most influential group in this area globally.

Isis now controls territory the size of the UK, it is making £600,000 a day from oil and has a fighting force of 10,000 militants, according to a leading expert.

Isis offers fighters more money than any group in the region – $400 (£243) a month – and offers more military equipment, to boot. Isis is trading of antiquities, some up to 8,000 years old, from which they are thought to have made around $36 million (£21.8 million) from just one region of Syria. ISIS is selling oil by the barrel on the black market for between $25 and $65 (£15 and £40), the terror group is thought to be raking in around $2 million (£1.2 million) a day.

From Syria they could be making double or even triple that.

There is no doubt the ‘Islamic State’ poses a danger of sorts to USA and Europe but the danger is negligible.

The United States plans to train and arm an initial 5,000 Syrian rebels, but this would not be a sufficient number to retake territory seized by the Islamic State.

The longer we wait to annihilate these barbaric monsters, the heavier the cost will be.

To have any chance the U.S. would need to train between 12,000 and 15,000, the costs would likely run between $200 and $320 million per month, This adds up to $2.4 to $3.8 billion per year. The deployment of 25,000 U.S. troops on the ground, as some have recommended, costs would likely reach $1.1 to $1.8 billion per month, and $13 to $22 billion annually.

All wonderful for the arms industry.

Even if this was to happen and ISIS were wiped off the face of the earth there will be a need to leave troops and supporting structure in place for decades to avoid repeating the mistakes of unleashes responses beyond the control of the actors as now is all too evident.

This is exactly how ISIS came into existence in the first place.

The U.S. and its junior partners destroyed Iraq, left a sectarian division, poverty, desperation, and an illegitimate government in Baghdad that did not represent Sunnis or other groups.

While the Syrian government declared war on its own people.  Almost 200,000 people had already died in this conflict, and 3 million made homeless it is no wonder that we have given birth to a monster called ISIS.

President Obama, recently said, “We don’t have a strategy yet for fighting ISIS.” He acknowledged that a group like ISIS “is beyond the pale; that they have no vision or ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people. And as a consequence, we got to all join together – even if we have differences on a range of political issues – to make sure that they’re rooted out.

I would respectively point out that ISIS is in possession of U.S. weaponry provided directly to it in Syria and seized from the Iraqi government.

The U.S. armed and  trained ISIS and allied groups in Syria, while continuing to prop up the Baghdad government, providing Hellfire missiles with which to attack Iraqis in Fallujah and elsewhere.

At last count by the U.S. government, 79% of weapons transferred to Middle Eastern governments come from the United States, not counting transfers to groups like ISIS, and not counting weapons in the possession of the United States.

You don’t have to be a General or Military expert to see that unless the world mounts a massive ground offensive ISIS will not be defeated. They will melt into what is left of the civilian population and the vast territorial lands they now hold.

The sooner they feel the full force of the world led by American (who has the largest obligation to retake the arms they brought or gave to the region) the sooner we can move to a peaceful solution and an eventual victory over radical Islamic terror that wants to control the world.

It entails destroying the Syria’s Assad regime, and shoring up the Afghanistan’s new President Ashraf Ghani who recently took office in the country’s first democratic transfer of power, making a pledge to stamp out corruption and calling for peace with the Taliban insurgents who marked the day with a fresh attack in Kabul.

After all blood and treasure spent in Afghanistan US delegation to Ghani inauguration will not include any cabinet members.”

My suggestion is grow-up and face the reality.

Washington refuses to consider working with Russia as long as Moscow insists that U.S. strikes need Syrian and U.N. approval.

Our, and the USA  only choice is to kill them before they kill us. If not the United States would be better served simply to butt out and leave it to the Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran who are more directly threatened and in a far better positioned to deal with it. What a blood bath that would be.

The Big question as always is what will we leave in place if and when ISIS is destroyed. What are the desired end state in both Iraq and Syria, not to mention Afghanistan?

Bombing nations into ruins, and shipping more arms that will eventual turn up on our door steps is no solution.

Removing Inequality/poverty, with education, healthy and fair trade, is the long-term resolution to the worlds sorry state.

As I said at the start of this post God forbid any of us had to order young lives into a war. I like all of us can only hope and offer our sincere sympathy with those that have already losses their liver and love ones.