jottings

Sensex

2006-02-11T04:17:00.000-08:00

For the premier Stock Exchange that pioneered the stock broking activity in India, 128 years of experience seems to be a proud milestone. A lot has changed since 1875 when 318 persons became members of what today is called "The Stock Exchange, Mumbai" by paying a princely amount of Re1.

Since then, the country's capital markets have passed through both good and bad periods. The journey in the 20th century has not been an easy one. Till the decade of eighties, there was no scale to measure the ups and downs in the Indian stock market. The Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) in 1986 came out with a stock index that subsequently became the barometer of the Indian stock market.

SENSEX is not only scientifically designed but also based on globally accepted construction and review methodology. First compiled in 1986, SENSEX is a basket of 30 constituent stocks representing a sample of large, liquid and representative companies. The base year of SENSEX is 1978-79 and the base value is 100. The index is widely reported in both domestic and international markets through print as well as electronic media.

The Index was initially calculated based on the "Full Market Capitalization" methodology but was shifted to the free-float methodology with effect from September 1, 2003. The "Free-float Market Capitalization" methodology of index construction is regarded as an industry best practice globally. All major index providers like MSCI, FTSE, STOXX, S&P and Dow Jones use the Free-float methodology.

Due to is wide acceptance amongst the Indian investors; SENSEX is regarded to be the pulse of the Indian stock market. As the oldest index in the country, it provides the time series data over a fairly long period of time (From 1979 onwards). Small wonder, the SENSEX has over the years become one of the most prominent brands in the country.

The growth of equity markets in India has been phenomenal in the decade gone by. Right from early nineties the stock market witnessed heightened activity in terms of various bull and bear runs. The SENSEX captured all these events in the most judicial manner. One can identify the booms and busts of the Indian stock market through SENSEX.

SENSEX Calculation Methodology

SENSEX is calculated using the "Free-float Market Capitalization" methodology. As per this methodology, the level of index at any point of time reflects the Free-float market value of 30 component stocks relative to a base period. The market capitalization of a company is determined by multiplying the price of its stock by the number of shares issued by the company. This market capitalization is further multiplied by the free-float factor to determine the free-float market capitalization.

The base period of SENSEX is 1978-79 and the base value is 100 index points. This is often indicated by the notation 1978-79=100. The calculation of SENSEX involves dividing the Free-float market capitalization of 30 companies in the Index by a number called the Index Divisor. The Divisor is the only link to the original base period value of the SENSEX. It keeps the Index comparable over time and is the adjustment point for all Index adjustments arising out of corporate actions, replacement of scrips etc. During market hours, prices of the index scrips, at which latest trades are executed, are used by the trading system to calculate SENSEX every 15 seconds and disseminated in real time.

Understanding Free-float Methodology

Concept:

Free-float Methodology refers to an index construction methodology that takes into consideration only the free-float market capitalization of a company for the purpose of index calculation and assigning weight to stocks in Index. Free-float market capitalization is defined as that proportion of total shares issued by the company that are readily available for trading in the market. It generally excludes promoters' holding, government holding, strategic holding and other locked-in shares that will not come to the market for trading in the normal course. In other words, the market capitalization of each company in a Free-float index is reduced to the extent of its readily available shares in the market.

In India, BSE pioneered the concept of Free-float by launching BSE TECk in July 2001 and BANKEX in June 2003. While BSE TECk Index is a TMT benchmark, BANKEX is positioned as a benchmark for the banking sector stocks. SENSEX becomes the third index in India to be based on the globally accepted Free-float Methodology.

Major advantages of Free-float Methodology:

A Free-float index reflects the market trends more rationally as it takes into consideration only those shares that are available for trading in the market.
Free-float Methodology makes the index more broad-based by reducing the concentration of top few companies in Index. For example, the concentration of top five companies in SENSEX has fallen under the free-float scenario thereby making the SENSEX more diversified and broad-based.
A Free-float index aids both active and passive investing styles. It aids active managers by enabling them to benchmark their fund returns vis-à-vis an investable index. This enables an apple-to-apple comparison thereby facilitating better evaluation of performance of active managers. Being a perfectly replicable portfolio of stocks, a Free-float adjusted index is best suited for the passive managers as it enables them to track the index with the least tracking error.
Free-float Methodology improves index flexibility in terms of including any stock from the universe of listed stocks. This improves market coverage and sector coverage of the index. For example, under a Full-market capitalization methodology, companies with large market capitalization and low free-float cannot generally be included in the Index because they tend to distort the index by having an undue influence on the index movement. However, under the Free-float Methodology, since only the free-float market capitalization of each company is considered for index calculation, it becomes possible to include such closely held companies in the index while at the same time preventing their undue influence on the index movement.
Globally, the Free-float Methodology of index construction is considered to be an industry best practice and all major index providers like MSCI, FTSE, S&P and STOXX have adopted the same. MSCI, a leading global index provider, shifted all its indices to the Free-float Methodology in 2002. The MSCI India Standard Index, which is followed by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) to track Indian equities, is also based on the Free-float Methodology. NASDAQ-100, the underlying index to the famous Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) - QQQ is based on the Free-float Methodology.

Definition of Free-float:

Share holdings held by investors that would not, in the normal course come into the open market for trading are treated as 'Controlling/ Strategic Holdings' and hence not included in free-float. In specific, the following categories of holding are generally excluded from the definition of Free-float:

Holdings by founders/directors/ acquirers which has control element
Holdings by persons/ bodies with "Controlling Interest"
Government holding as promoter/acquirer
Holdings through the FDI Route
Strategic stakes by private corporate bodies/ individuals
Equity held by associate/group companies (cross-holdings)
Equity held by Employee Welfare Trusts
Locked-in shares and shares which would not be sold in the open market in normal course.

The remaining shareholders would fall under the Free-float category.

Determining Free-float factors of companies:

BSE has designed a Free-float format, which is filled and submitted by all index companies on a quarterly basis with the Exchange. (Format available on www.bseindia.com) The Exchange determines the Free-float factor for each company based on the detailed information submitted by the companies in the prescribed format. Free-float factor is a multiple with which the total market capitalization of a company is adjusted to arrive at the Free-float market capitalization. Once the Free-float of a company is determined, it is rounded-off to the higher multiple of 5 and each company is categorized into one of the 20 bands given below. A Free-float factor of say 0.55 means that only 55% of the market capitalization of the company will be considered for index calculation.

Free-float Bands:

% Free-Float	Free-Float Factor	% Free-Float	Free-Float Factor
>0 – 5%	0.05	>50 – 55%	0.55
>5 – 10%	0.10	>55 – 60%	0.60
>10 – 15%	0.15	>60 – 65%	0.65
>15 – 20%	0.20	>65 – 70%	0.70
>20 – 25%	0.25	>70 – 75%	0.75
>25 – 30%	0.30	>75 – 80%	0.80
>30 – 35%	0.35	>80 – 85%	0.85
>35 – 40%	0.40	>85 – 90%	0.90
>40 – 45%	0.45	>90 – 95%	0.95
>45 – 50%	0.50	>95 – 100%	1.00

Index Closure Algorithm

The closing SENSEX on any trading day is computed taking the weighted average of all the trades on SENSEX constituents in the last 30 minutes of trading session. If a SENSEX constituent has not traded in the last 30 minutes, the last traded price is taken for computation of the Index closure. If a SENSEX constituent has not traded at all in a day, then its last day's closing price is taken for computation of Index closure. The use of Index Closure Algorithm prevents any intentional manipulation of the closing index value.

Maintenance of SENSEX

One of the important aspects of maintaining continuity with the past is to update the base year average. The base year value adjustment ensures that replacement of stocks in Index, additional issue of capital and other corporate announcements like 'rights issue' etc. do not destroy the historical value of the index. The beauty of maintenance lies in the fact that adjustments for corporate actions in the Index should not per se affect the index values.

The Index Cell of the exchange does the day-to-day maintenance of the index within the broad index policy framework set by the Index Committee. The Index Cell ensures that SENSEX and all the other BSE indices maintain their benchmark properties by striking a delicate balance between frequent replacements in index and maintaining its historical continuity. The Index Committee of the Exchange comprises of experts on capital markets from all major market segments. They include Academicians, Fund-managers from leading Mutual Funds, Finance-Journalists, Market Participants, Independent Governing Board members, and Exchange administration.

On-Line Computation of the Index:

During market hours, prices of the index scrips, at which trades are executed, are automatically used by the trading computer to calculate the SENSEX every 15 seconds and continuously updated on all trading workstations connected to the BSE trading computer in real time.

Adjustment for Bonus, Rights and Newly issued Capital:

The arithmetic calculation involved in calculating SENSEX is simple, but problem arises when one of the component stocks pays a bonus or issues rights shares. If no adjustments were made, a discontinuity would arise between the current value of the index and its previous value despite the non-occurrence of any economic activity of substance. At the Index Cell of the Exchange, the base value is adjusted, which is used to alter market capitalization of the component stocks to arrive at the SENSEX value.

The Index Cell of the Exchange keeps a close watch on the events that might affect the index on a regular basis and carries out daily maintenance of all the 14 Indices.

Adjustments for Rights Issues:
When a company, included in the compilation of the index, issues right shares, the free-float market capitalisation of that company is increased by the number of additional shares issued based on the theoretical (ex-right) price. An offsetting or proportionate adjustment is then made to the Base Market Capitalisation (see 'Base Market Capitalisation Adjustment' below).

Adjustments for Bonus Issue:
When a company, included in the compilation of the index, issues bonus shares, the market capitalisation of that company does not undergo any change. Therefore, there is no change in the Base Market Capitalisation, only the 'number of shares' in the formula is updated.

Other Issues:
Base Market Capitalisation Adjustment is required when new shares are issued by way of conversion of debentures, mergers, spin-offs etc. or when equity is reduced by way of buy-back of shares, corporate restructuring etc.

Base Market Capitalisation Adjustment:

The formula for adjusting the Base Market Capitalisation is as follows:

				New Market Capitalisation
New Base Market Capitalisation	=	Old Base Market Capitalisation	x	---------------------------------------
				Old Market Capitalisation

To illustrate, suppose a company issues right shares which increases the market capitalisation of the shares of that company by say, Rs.100 crores. The existing Base Market Capitalisation (Old Base Market Capitalisation), say, is Rs.2450 crores and the aggregate market capitalisation of all the shares included in the index before the right issue is made is, say Rs.4781 crores. The "New Base Market Capitalisation " will then be:

2450 x (4781+100)
--------------------------	=	Rs.2501.24 crores
4781

This figure of 2501.24 will be used as the Base Market Capitalisation for calculating the index number from then onwards till the next base change becomes necessary.

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Criteria for Selection and Review of SENSEX Constituents

The scrip selection and review policy for BSE Indices is based on the objective of:

Improvement
Transparency
Simplicity

Qualification Criteria:

The general guidelines for selection of constituent scrips in SENSEX are as follows:

A. Quantitative Criteria:

Final Rank:
The scrip should figure in the top 100 companies listed by Final Rank. The final rank is arrived at by assigning 75% weightage to the rank on the basis of six-month average full market capitalisation and 25% weightage to the liquidity rank based on six-month average daily turnover & six-month average impact cost.

Trading Frequency:
The scrip should have been traded on each and every trading day for the last six months. Exceptions can be made for extreme reasons like scrip suspension etc.

Market Capitalization Weightage:
The weight of each scrip in SENSEX based on six-month average Free-Float market capitalisation should be at least 0.5% of the Index.

Industry Representation:
Scrip selection would take into account a balanced representation of the listed companies in the universe of BSE. The index companies should be leaders in their industry group.

Listed History:
The scrip should have a listing history of at least 3 months on BSE. However, the Committee may relax the criteria under exceptional circumstances.

B. Qualitative Criteria:

Track Record:
In the opinion of the Committee, the company should have an acceptable track record.

Index Review Frequency:
The Index Committee meets every quarter to review all BSE indices. However, every review meeting need not necessarily result in a change in the index constituents. In case of a revision in the Index constituents, the announcement of the incoming and outgoing scrips is made six weeks in advance of the actual implementation of the revision of the Index.

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History of replacement of scrips in SENSEX

Date	Outgoing Scrips	Replaced by
01.01.1986	Bombay Burmah	Voltas
	Asian Cables	Peico
	Crompton Greaves	Premier Auto.
	Scinda	G.E.Shipping

03.08.1992	Zenith Ltd.	Bharat Forge

19.08.1996	Ballarpur Inds.	Arvind Mills
	Bharat Forge	Bajaj Auto
	Bombay Dyeing	BHEL
	Ceat Tyres	BSES
	Century Text.	Colgate
	GSFC	Guj. Amb. Cement
	Hind. Motors	HPCL
	Indian Organic	ICICI
	Indian Rayon	IDBI
	Kirloskar Cummins	IPCL
	Mukand Iron	MTNL
	Phlips	Ranbaxy Lab.
	Premier Auto	State Bank of India
	Siemens	Steel Authority of India
	Voltas	Tata Chem

16.11.1998	Arvind Mills	Castrol
	G. E. Shipping	Infosys Technologies
	IPCL	NIIT Ltd.
	Steel Authority of India	Novartis

10.04.2000	I.D.B.I	Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories
	Indian Hotels	Reliance Petroleum
	Tata Chem	Satyam Computers
	Tata Power	Zee Telefilms

08.01.2001	Novartis	Cipla Ltd.

07.01.2002	NIIT Ltd.	HCL Technologies
	Mahindra & Mahindra	Hero Honda Motors Ltd.

31.05.2002	ICICI Ltd.	ICICI Bank Ltd.

10.10.2002	Reliance Petroleum Ltd.	HDFC Ltd.

10.11.2003	Castrol India Ltd.	Bharti-Tele-Ventures Ltd.
	Colgate Palomive (India) Ltd.	HDFC Bank Ltd.
	Glaxo Smithkline Pharma. Ltd.	ONGC Ltd.
	HCL Technologies Ltd.	Tata Power Company Ltd.
	Nestle (India) Ltd.	Wipro Ltd.

19.05.2004	Larsen & Toubro Ltd.	Maruti Udyog Ltd.

27.09.2004	Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.	Larsen & Toubro Ltd.

06.06.2005	Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd.	National Thermal Power Corpn. Ltd.
	Zee Telefilms Ltd.	Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.

A royal farce in Nepal

2006-02-11T02:24:00.000-08:00

A royal farce in Nepal

A nationwide election that could not be held in half the number of districts in the country; which all major political parties boycotted; for which candidates could be found only for a third of the available posts; and which attracted just 21 per cent of voters on election day — this farce is what King Gyanendra would have the world believe heralds the return of democracy in Nepal. The results are no surprise. Most contestants were either pro-royal independents or belonged to the royalist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party; so the municipalities where the elections were held are now in the hands of the King's men and women. The royal camp blames the Maoist threat of violence for the low participation. That is to ignore the undemocratic building blocks to this electoral exercise, including restrictions on the media, the arrest of political leaders, and the ban on legitimate political activities. Judging by the immediate reaction, the world has not been taken in. New Delhi has correctly said the elections lacked credibility and would not help restore democracy in Nepal. The United States condemned the entire exercise as a "hollow attempt" by the King to legitimise the power he grabbed unconstitutionally in February 2005. Britain and Japan have also come out against the King. Elections are a part of a process, all the elements of which have to be democratic. Plainly, an election imposed by an autocratic regime with patently undemocratic rules cannot pass for democracy.

The cynicism with which King Gyanendra is trying to window-dress his unconstitutional rule is bound to strengthen the republican sentiment in Nepal. Until recently, it was only the Maoists who wanted to abolish the monarchy. The people were apprehensive that the armed Maoists would rush into the vacuum left by the monarchy and establish their own dictatorship. In this respect, the unequivocal declaration by the Maoist leader, Prachanda, in an interview to The Hindu, that the party had embraced the idea of a multi-party democracy (and his appeal to similar parties in India to do the same) is encouraging. It was on this understanding that the Maoists and an alliance of seven political parties decided to join hands last September in the struggle for democracy. Although these parties are still not fully convinced about doing away with Nepal's monarchy, they are not closed to the idea as much as they were even a year ago. India, whose initial hopes that the monarch would act honourably have been dashed, may also need to rethink its support for retaining the "two pillar" formula of a constitutional monarchy in a multiparty democracy, as Prachanda has demanded. But the Maoists must realise that they can never hope to be completely trusted by democratic forces so long as they are committed to achieving their political goals through violence. Were they to give up the armed struggle, they would also deny the King the fig leaf of a reason for his continued authoritarian rule and delaying the return to democracy.

Quotas: Why common sense won’t do

2006-02-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

When the irresistible force of social aspiration collides with the immovable object of social discrimination, sparks must fly. Quotas in education and in jobs arouse strong passions all around. The underprivileged see these as crucial to raising their economic status. Politicians, who must respond to social aspirations, agree and are now pushing for quotas in the private sector.

Those opposed to quotas see these as undermining merit, stoking social divisions and benefiting only a tiny upper crust. They say they favour the goal of reservation, which is to uplift large sections of the population. But quotas are not the way to achieve this goal. How do they know?

Because that is what “common sense” tells them.But common sense is not the best guide to decision making. We have better tools available for analysing affirmative action, the tools of economics. As a recent survey paper shows, economic analysis throws up conclusions that are counter-intuitive and that indeed serve to debunk myths about affirmative action. (Affirmative action and its mythology, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2005).

One myth, resurrected in the debate on reservations in India, is that affirmative action can involve goals set by employers while avoiding quotas imposed by government. As the authors point out, this is a dubious distinction. Goals set by employers make sense only when a regulator levies rewards or penalties based on the outcomes.

If the penalties for producing “bad results” are severe, firms or educational institutions will see themselves as facing rigid quotas. If the penalties are light, then the quotas will be seen as flexible. But, in either situation, there is an implicit quota against which the employer is judged.

Another myth is that affirmative action undercuts incentives. When people from a targeted group know that the qualifying standards are lower, they have no motivation to do better. Says who? It could well be that by creating opportunities that were previously out of reach, affirmative action enhances incentives for skill acquisition. Whether this happens or not is an empirical issue, it cannot be determined a priori.

A third and much touted myth is that it is enough to create equality of opportunity for disadvantaged groups. This in itself will eventually lead to equality in outcomes for various groups. Not true, the authors say. This is because an individual’s entire background will be a determinant of his success. First, less successful parents are less able to contribute to an individual with various forms of social and cultural capital. Secondly, children of less successful parents will live in communities with inferior public goods.

So, even if an individual from a disadvantaged group has the same innate ability as somebody from a privileged group and suffers no discrimination, he is less likely to be successful. This knocks the bottom out of a commonly held position — do not have quotas, just make sure there is enough financial support for all.

Consider another argument that opponents of reservation in jobs are particularly fond of. Do not go for reservations in higher education or in jobs because that undermines merit in institutions or the competitiveness of firms. Go for affirmative action much earlier in the developmental cycle of an individual— say, by extending support at the point of basic education.

This sounds reasonable but, as the authors point out, which approach works better is an empirical issue. To take an example, suppose we want to increase the share of minority faculty in an educational institution. Do we do this by lowering the standards for faculty applicants? Or by lowering admission standards for minority students in graduate programmes? If we opted for the latter, we would enhance skills of some students. But other minority students may not develop similarly and they may leave the programme.

So affirmative action in the graduate programme would make sense if only if a sufficiently large group completes the programme. On the other hand, lowering standards for faculty recruitment would be preferable only if the cost of having underqualified faculty is not too high. Which is a better solution is not obvious — the costs and benefits of the two alternatives have to be weighed.

The paper has more in this vein. It makes clear there are no ready answers to issues of affirmative action. The answers have to be found by applying the tools of economic analysis. If politicians are not buying the arguments against reservation and are bent on widening its scope, you can’t blame them. “Common sense” tells them that nothing else will work.

( The author is a professor at IIM, Ahmedabad )

Beware The Ides Of March (iran)

2006-02-07T02:54:00.000-08:00

Beware The Ides Of March

By Mathew Maavak

07 February, 2006
Countercurrents.org

Soothsayer’s warning before Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44BC.

If Julius - regarded as one of the greatest Caesars - couldn’t take note, the leader of the current superpower should. This March, his actions may spark off a conflict from which the world might never recover.

There is no superstition needed for the coming month, as too many converging forces are spiraling out of hand to tip the world into a precipice burning in peak oil.

History was created on Jan 1 when Russia abruptly cut off gas supplies to Europe for a day, a brutal reminder that the stakes in the current game can be raised dramatically at will. It caught the world by surprise and converted millions into news addicts. Unless saner elements among the Bush administration prevail, the next neocon project will involve playing Alexander the Great vs. Persia. That ancient conquest took the Greeks right to India, and history is repeating itself, except that it may have run out of cycles by March.

In March, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei may summit the results of his findings on Iran’s nuclear program to the UN Security Council. The United States will be pressing for sanctions, and it is still unclear which way China or Russia may vote. Both have a history of surprises. Either way, the neocons may press President George W. Bush for war.

Undoubtedly, Iran’s continued uranium enrichment program is a destabilizing factor in the Middle East. It is not just Israel - the only nuclear armed nation in the region- which may feel threatened. The entry of a nuclear Iran would shift colossal power back to the Persians, and in the long-run, enable it to control oil supplies in the region.
The Iranians may feel justified in having nukes in a hostile terrain; a feeling further amplified by the egregious policies of successive US administrations. When there was time to engage, or even congage (contain + engage) and it preferred to concircle Tehran with sanctions. Instead of lending moral support to the nascent democratic aspirations of Iranian youths - which would have immensely benefited Washington - sanctions eventually brought about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardliner president who is sabre-rattling the Middle East of today.

Time for a regime change?

Unfortunately, the message is still not sinking in that Iran is not Cuba. The Bay of Pigs is not the Straits of Hormuz. There, on an island called Abu Musa, the Iranians have already deployed sophisticated anti-ship missiles and artillery shells, trained on a tiny gateway through which half of our global oil flows. In other words, the Iranians can turn this vital oil route into a fiery inferno and precipitate global pandemonium, should the US embark on a unilateral action.

The Iranians can achieve this, even if its nuke facilities are blasted to smithereens. Think of a few submerged oil tankers blocking traffic to the rest of the world? There will be no room for environmental cries here; they will drowned out by the shrills of the global economy, choked right at the straits.

The Iranians may call this a “military blunder,” which, incidentally is the title of a History Channel program on the controversial shooting down of an Iran Air Airbus A300 on July 3, 1988, by USS Vincennes, exactly at the same spot. Close to 300 people died.

Iran has other arsenals at its disposal. In this game of brinkmanship, tit for tat verbal provocations between Washington and Tehran is enough to shoot up the price of oil, and so far, the Iranians have too many aces up their sleeve.

Tehran has unusual allies in this case - the global economy, major oil companies and financial institutions, Russia, China, etc. In fact, the list stretches to anyone who stands to lose a job or faces starvation after it gets “Mission Accomplished.” And there are tens of millions who might in an oil gutted world.

Any sort of liberating, counter-terrorism or manufactured mission will be both Pyrrhic and pyric, any way you look at it. China, which, sources a significant amount of oil from Iran might be tempted to flex its own muscles. The Russians may prefer another chessboard en passant on Europe.

The ides of March are ominous. Military options will be counterproductive.

Geopolitically, surgical strikes by US bombers or warships are a ready-made gooey mess, as they may have to operate out of Arab soil or waters. The Iranians need only retaliate on two or three major oil installations, besides sinking enough tonnage to make the Straits of Hormuz perilous for navigation. Letting loose a tiny armada of floating mines is another option.

Any unusual activity on Iraqi soil will be noted and passed on to the Iranians before it is time for take-off. Turkey is a good lunching pad, if it relishes a Shabab-3 or two in return, and so would Israel. The Central Asian nations are unlikely to be a party to this charade, especially after the Russians have reasserted their hegemony there.

But the Persian menu also includes the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse, slated to begin operations in March. Oil can be purchased and sold here in euros, just like in a stock exchange. It is a monopoly up till now enjoyed by New York’s NYMEX and London’ International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), both effectively owned and operated by the same cartel, and denominated in dollars.

Put it simply, the privilege of printing greenbacks so that other nations can buy its oil in dollars is in jeopardy. Financially, printing more dollars so that it can be exchanged for euros wouldn’t work either. Some claim Saddam Hussein became unpardonable and beyond redemption when he insisted on euros for Iraqi oil sales. He got the currency wrong from October 2000 and a handsome profit till his Weapon of Messing up the Dollar - the more realistic WMD - landed him Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Iranians so far have not indicated whether they have come with an oil marker - a euro-denominated oil pricing standard - like the dollar denominated West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), Norway Brent crude, and the UAE Dubai crude. That can wait till the Iranian New Year on March 20, where oil markers, missiles, nukes and euros can be unveiled amidst fireworks. The New Year is commonly referred to as Norouz, the festival of spring, at the exact day of the vernal equinox.

That soothsayer, if he were still around, may chuck equinoxes and ides in favor of more modern terms like a Spring Offensive.

Guess where Bush is heading in March? To India. Forget about an overstretched US Army; this problem cannot be tackled militarily unless our world population is comfortable with a looming $100-$300 per barrel.

The game is effectively lost, and this visit may be an option to initiate a realistic foreign policy. India - the one-time democratic nemesis - is now being seen as the only long-term reliable ally between Tel Aviv and Tokyo.

It would be quite retarded to court New Delhi when hostilities are commenced. The Indians had enough of Jihad jamborees and wouldn’t want to be seen as Washington’s comrade in arms when the first shots are fired.

If Bush ever goes to India in March, there are plenty of soothsayers around who can point to a new celestial axis, linking Washington, Brussels, Tel Aviv, New Delhi, Tokyo and Canberra. There are enough sympathetic nations in between.

There are no more resources left for mindless games in Venezuela and Cuba. A rationale foreign policy, if it ever actualizes, has come rather late. Till March, there is yet hope of lighting up a Havana cigar instead of a global bonfire.

But that would involve tightening the belt in the long run and that’s an anathema to the neocons. Bush does need an Indian soothsayer.

What is Globalization?

2006-02-03T06:59:00.000-08:00

Globalization

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Globalization is the term used to describe the changes in societies and the world economy that result from dramatically increased international trade and cultural exchange. It describes the increase of trade and investing due to the falling of barriers and the interdependence of countries. In specifically economic contexts, the term refers almost exclusively to the effects of trade, particularly trade liberalization or "free trade" (however, see "meanings" below). More broadly, the term refers to the overall integration, and resulting increase in interdependence, among global actors (be they political, economic, or otherwise).

A picture taken in Dubai International Airport, in the United Arab Emirates showing some of the characteristics of globalization. Here, the corporation McDonalds is marketing their "McArabia" meal, consisting of grilled kofta.

From 1910 to 1950, a series of political and economic upheavals dramatically reduced the volume and importance of international trade. After World War II, international trade dramatically expanded, fostered by international economic institutions and rebuilding programs. From the 1970s, the effects of this trade became increasingly visible in terms of benefits and disruptive effects.

It is useful to distinguish economic, political, and cultural aspects of globalization, although all three aspects are closely intertwined. The other key aspect of globalization is changes in technology, particularly in transport and communications, which it is claimed are creating a global village.

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Meanings

"Globalization" can mean:

Globalism, if the concept is reduced to its economic aspects, can be said to contrast with economic nationalism and protectionism. It is related to laissez-faire capitalism and neoliberalism.
It shares a number of characteristics with internationalization and is often used interchangeably, although some prefer to use globalization to emphasize the erosion of the nation-state or national boundaries.
Making connections between places on a global scale. Today, more and more places around the world are connected to each other in ways that were previously unimaginable. In Geography, this process is known as complex connectivity, where more and more places are being connected in more and more ways. Arjun Appadurai identified five types of global connectivity:
- Ethnoscapes: movements of people, including tourists, immigrants, refugees, and business travellers.
- Financescapes: global flows of money, often driven by interconnected currency markets, stock exchanges, and commodity markets.
- Ideoscapes: the global spread of ideas and political ideologies. For example, Green Peace has become a worldwide environmental movement.
- Mediascapes: the global distribution of media images that appear on our computer screens, in newspapers, television, and radio.
- Technoscapes: the movement of technologies around the globe. For example, the Green Revolution in rice cultivation introduced western farming practices into many developing countries.

Although Appadurai's taxonomy is highly contestable, it does serve to show that globalization is much more than economics on a global scale.

In its cultural form, globalization has been a label used to identify attempts to erode the national cultures of Europe, and subsume them into a global culture whose members will be much easier to manipulate through mass media and controlled governments. In this context, massive legal or illegal immigration has been allowed, mainly in European countries.
The formation of a global village — closer contact between different parts of the world, with increasing possibilities of personal exchange, mutual understanding and friendship between "world citizens", and creation of a global civilization.
Economic globalization — there are four aspects to economic globalization, referring to four different flows across boundaries, namely flows of goods/services, i.e. 'free trade' (or at least freer trade), flows of people (migration), of capital, and of technology. A consequence of economic globalization is increasing relations among members of an industry in different parts of the world (globalization of an industry), with a corresponding erosion of National Sovereignty in the economic sphere. The IMF defines globalization as “the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, freer international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology” (IMF, World Economic Outlook, May, 1997). The World Bank defines globalization as the "Freedom and ability of individuals and firms to initiate voluntary economic transactions with residents of other countries".
In the field of Management, globalization is a Marketing or Strategy term that refers to the emergence of international markets for consumer goods characterized by similar customer needs and tastes enabling, for example, selling the same cars or soaps or foods with similar ad campaigns to people in different cultures. This usage is contrasted with internationalization which describes the activities of multinational companies dealing across borders in either financial instruments, commodities, or products that are extensively tailored to local markets. Globalization also means cross-border management activities or development processes to adapt to the emergence of a globalized market or to seek and realize benefit from economies of scale or scope or from cross-border learning among different country-based organizations.
In the field of software, globalization is a technical term that combines the development processes of internationalization and localization.
For anti-captalist groups, globalization is a catch-all term for the alleged negative effects of for-profit multinational corporations and the use of legal and financial means to circumvent local laws and standards, in order to leverage the labor and services of unequally-developed regions against each other.
The spread of capitalism from developed to developing nations.
"The concept of Globalisation refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole" - Benedikt Kiesenhofer

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History

Since the word has both technical and political meanings, different groups will have differing histories of "globalization". In general use within the field of economics and political economy, however, it is a history of increasing trade between nations based on stable institutions that allow firms in different nations to exchange goods with minimal friction.

The term "liberalization" came to mean the combination of laissez-faire economic theory with the removal of barriers to the movement of goods. This led to specialization of nations in exports, and the pressure to end protective tariffs and other barriers to trade. The period of the gold standard and liberalization of the 19th century is often called "The First Era of Globalization". Based on the Pax Britannica and the exchange of goods in currencies pegged to specie, this era grew along with industrialization. The theoretical basis was David Ricardo's work on Comparative advantage and Say's Law of General equilibrium. In essence, it was argued that nations would trade effectively, and that any temporary disruptions in supply or demand would correct themselves automatically. The institution of the gold standard came in steps in major industrialized nations between approximately 1850 and 1880, though exactly when various nations were truly on the gold standard is contentiously debated.

The "First Era of Globalization" is said to have broken down in stages beginning with the first World War, and then collapsing with the crisis of the gold standard in the late 1920's and early 1930's. Countries that engaged in that era of globalization, including the European core, some of the European periphery and various European offshoots in the Americas and Oceania, prospered. Inequality between those states fell, as goods, capital and labour flowed remarkably freely between nations.

Globalization in the era since World War II has been driven by Trade Negotiation Rounds, originally under the auspices of GATT, which led to a series of agreements to remove restrictions on "free trade". The Uruguay round led to a treaty to create the World Trade Organization or WTO, to mediate trade disputes. Other bilateral trade agreements, including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and the North American Free Trade Agreement have also been signed in pursuit of the goal of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.

See Antecedents of Globalization for more extensive historical background on this subject.

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Nature and existence of globalization

There is much academic discussion about whether globalization is a real phenomenon or only an analytical artifact (a myth). Although the term is widespread, many authors argue that the characteristics attributed to globalization have already been seen at other moments in history. Also, many note that such features, including the increase in international trade and the greater role of multinational corporations, are not as deeply established as they may appear. For example, the United States global interventionist policy is also a stumbling point for those who claim that globalization has entered a stage of inevitability. Thus, many authors prefer the term internationalization rather than globalization. In internationalization, the role of the state and the importance of nations are greater, while globalization in its complete form eliminates nation states. So, they argue that the frontiers of countries, in a broad sense, are far from being dissolved, and therefore this radical globalization process is not happening, and probably will not happen (see Linda Weiss), considering that in world history, internationalization never turned into globalization (the European Union and NAFTA are yet to prove their case).

However, the world increasingly shares problems and challenges that do not obey nation-state borders, most notably pollution of the natural environment, and the movement previously known as anti-globalization has transformed into a movement of movements for globalization from below, seeking, through experimentation, forms of social organisation that transcend the nation-state and representative democracy. Whereas the original arguments that globalization is taking place can be refuted with stories of internationalisation, as above, the emergence of a global movement is indisputable and therefore we can speak of a real process towards a global human society of societies. Other authors have argued that we are in transition to a planetary phase of civilization; the exact form and character of the global society is contested and will be determined by the choices we make in the critical decades ahead. For example, the Global Scenario Group has outlined alternative visions of the global future, with "market forces" or economic globalization being just one option, contrasted with "policy reform," "fortress world," "breakdown," "eco-communalism" and a "new sustainability paradigm."

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Characteristics

Globalization/internationalisation has become identified with a number of trends, most of which may have developed since World War II. These include greater international movement of commodities, money, information, and people; and the development of technology, organizations, legal systems, and infrastructures to allow this movement. The actual existence of some of these trends is debated.

Economically
- Increase in international trade at a faster rate than the growth in the world economy
- Increase in international flow of capital including foreign direct investment
- Erosion of national sovereignty and national borders through international agreements leading to organizations like the WTO and OPEC
- Development of global financial systems
- Increase in the share of the world economy controlled by multinational corporations
- Increased role of international organizations such as WTO, WIPO, IMF that deal with international transactions
- Increase of economic practices like outsourcing, by multinational corporations
Culturally
- Greater international cultural exchange,
- Spreading of multiculturalism, and better individual access to cultural diversity, for example through the export of Hollywood and Bollywood movies. However, the imported culture can easily supplant the local culture, causing reduction in diversity through hybridization or even assimilation. The most prominent form of this is Westernization, but Sinicization of cultures also takes place.
- Greater international travel and tourism
- Greater immigration, including illegal immigration
- Spread of local foods such as pizza and Indian food to other countries (often adapted to local taste)
Development of a global telecommunications infrastructure and greater transborder data flow, using such technologies as the Internet, communication satellites and telephones
Increases in the number of standards applied globally; e.g. copyright laws and patents
Formation or development of a set of universal values
The push by many advocates for an international criminal court and international justice movements (see the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice respectively).
Some argue that even terrorism has undergone globalization, with attacks in foreign countries that have no direct relation with the own country.

Barriers to international trade have been considerably lowered since World War II through international agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT and the WTO, for which GATT is the foundation, have included:

Promotion of free trade
- Of goods:
  - Reduction or elimination of tariffs; construction of free trade zones with small or no tariffs
  - Reduced transportation costs, especially from development of containerization for ocean shipping.
- Of capital: reduction or elimination of capital controls
- Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of subsidies for local businesses
Intellectual Property Restrictions
- Harmonization of intellectual property laws across nations (generally speaking, with more restrictions)
- Supranational recognition of intellectual property restrictions (e.g. patents granted by China would be recognized in the US)

[edit]

Glocalization

A term coined by Roland Robertson, glocalization describes a process whereby the "local" is integrated into the "global". This results in a heterigenization of cultures, as local quiditties of particular areas become disseminated around the world, and cultures clash with newly introduced cultural concepts, ideologies, practices, and so on. One keen example of glocalization is that of museums. Museums take local culture and history and prepare them for mass consumption, especially among tourists. Such manufacturing of local culture for mass consumption results in heterogenization, rather than homogenization, because it introduces, rather than supplants, the local culture.

Glocalization is an opposing theory to that of "Globalization", a term coined by George Ritzer to identify globalization with cultural homogenization. Here, the manufacturing of cultural artifacts is taken to involve the homogenization of such artifacts, so as to be apt to be consumed by many consumers around the world.

Within the contemporary debate about globalization, the debate regarding glocalization-versus-grobalization is widespread. There have been major proponents of both, and each theory carries with it its own set of differing interpretations. For example, Appadurai is a proponent of a theory of hybridization, which may be associated with glocalization, whereby there is occuring an overall heterogenization of cultures, and a creation of new cultures resulting from clashes among various -scapes.

While the dispute has yet to be fully reconciled, each theory carries with it its own pros and cons. Furthermore, it is certain that globalization cannot be viewed as a unidimensional phenomenon. Indeed, the study of globalization carries multiple theories, especially with respect to the cultural dimensions of globalization, regarding the characteristics, and entailed processes, contained within the contemporary process of globalization.

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Anti-globalization

Stocks and Stripes flag, the united stockholders of Amercia. A protest flag signifying the alleged coporate influence over the U.S.

Main article: "Anti-globalization".

Various aspects of globalization are seen as harmful by public-interest activists as well as strong state nationalists. This movement has no unified name. "Anti-globalization" is the media's preferred term; it can lead to some confusion, as activists typically oppose certain aspects or forms of globalization, not globalization per se. Activists themselves, for example Noam Chomsky, have said that this name is meaningless as the aim of the movement is to globalize justice. Indeed, the global justice movement is a common name. Many activists also unite under the slogan "another world is possible", which has given rise to names such as altermondialisme in French.

There is a wide variety of kinds of "anti-globalization". In general, critics claim that the results of globalization have not been what was predicted when the attempt to increase free trade began, and that many institutions involved in the system of globalization have not taken the interests of poorer nations, the working class and the environment into account.

Economic arguments by fair trade theorists claim that unrestricted free trade benefits those with more financial leverage (i.e. the rich) at the expense of the poor.

Many "anti-globalization" activists see globalization as the promotion of a corporatist agenda, which is intent on constricting the freedoms of individuals in the name of profit. They also claim that increasing autonomy and strength of corporate entities increasingly shape the political policy of nation-states.

Some "anti-globalization" groups argue that globalization is necessarily imperialistic, is one of the driving reasons behind the Iraq war and is forcing savings to flow into the United States rather than developing nations.

Some argue that globalization imposes credit-based economics, resulting in unsustainable growth of debt and debt crises.

Increase in law and order with a decrease in state intervention at home in order to protect the wealth and businesses.

The main opposition is to unfettered globalization (neoliberal; laissez-faire capitalism), guided by governments and what are claimed to be quasi-governments (such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) that are supposedly not held responsible to the populations that they govern and instead respond mostly to the interests of corporations. Many conferences between trade and finance ministers of the core globalizing nations have been met with large, and occasionally violent, protests from opponents of "corporate globalism".

Some "anti-globalization" activists object to the fact that the current "globalization" globalizes money and corporations, but not people and unions. This can be seen in the strict immigration controls in nearly all countries, and the lack of labour rights in many countries in the developing world.

Another more conservative camp opposed to globalization are state-centric nationalists who fear globalization is displacing the role of nations in global politics and point to NGOs as impeding upon the power of individual nations. Some advocates of this warrant for anti-globalization are Pat Buchanan and Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The movement is very broad, including church groups, national liberation factions, left-wing parties, environmentalists, peasant unionists, anti-racism groups, anarchists, and others. Most are reformist, (arguing for a more humane form of capitalism) while others are more revolutionary (arguing for a more humane system than capitalism). Many have decried the lack of unity and direction in the movement, but some such as Noam Chomsky have claimed that this lack of centralization may in fact be a strength.

Protests by the global justice movement have forced high-level international meetings away from the major cities where they used to be held, into remote locations where protest is impractical.

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Pro-globalization (globalism)

Supporters of democratic globalization can be labelled pro-globalists. They consider that the first phase of globalization, which was market-oriented, should be completed by a phase of building global political institutions representing the will of world citizens. The difference with other globalists is that they do not define in advance any ideology to orient this will, which should be left to the free choice of those citizens via a democratic process.

Supporters of free trade point out that economic theories of comparative advantage suggest that free trade leads to a more efficient allocation of resources, with all countries involved in the trade benefiting. In general, they claim that this leads to lower prices, more employment and higher output.

Libertarians and other proponents of laissez-faire capitalism say higher degrees of political and economic freedom in the form of democracy and capitalism in the developed world produce higher levels of material wealth. They see globalization as the beneficial spread of liberty and capitalism.

Critics argue that the anti-globalization movement uses anecdotal evidence to support their view and that worldwide statistics instead strongly support globalization:

the percentage of people in developing countries living below US$1 (adjusted for inflation and purchasing power) per day has halved in only twenty years [1], although some critics argue that more detailed variables measuring poverty should instead be studied [2].

Life expectancy has almost doubled in the developing world since WWII and is starting to close the gap to the developed world where the improvement has been smaller. Child mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world [3]. Income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing [4].

Democracy has increased dramatically from almost no nation with universal suffrage in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations in 2000 [5].

The proportion of the world's population living in countries where per-capita food supplies are under 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s.

Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of the world. Women made up much of the gap: Female literacy as a percentage of male literacy has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80% in 2000.

There are similar trends for electric power, cars, radios, and telephones per capita, as well as the proportion of the population with access to clean water [6].

However, some of these improvements may not be due to globalization, or may be possible without the current form of globalization or its negative consequences, to which the global justice movement objects.

Many pro-capitalists are also critical of the World Bank and the IMF, arguing that they are corrupt bureaucracies controlled and financed by states, not corporations. Many loans have been given to dictators who never carried out promised reforms, instead leaving the common people to pay the debts later. They thus see too little capitalism, not too much. They also note that some of the resistance to globalization comes from special interest groups with conflicting interests, like Western world unions.

Others, such as Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., simply view globalization as inevitable and advocate creating institutions such as a directly-elected United Nations Parliamentary Assembly to exercise oversight over unelected international bodies.

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Measurement of Globalization

To what extent a nation-state or culture is globalized in a particular year has until most recently been measured employing simple proxies like flows of trade, migration, or foreign direct investment. A more sophisticated approach to measuring globalization is the recent index calculated by the Swiss think tank KOF. The index measures the three main dimensions of globalization: economic, social, and political. In addition to three indices measuring these dimensions, an overall index of globalization and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows, economic restrictions, data on personal contact, data on information flows, and data on cultural proximity is calculated. Data are available on a yearly basis for 122 countries. According to the index, the world's most globalized country is the USA, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, and France. The least globalized countries according to the KOF-index are Burundi, Belize, and Sierra Leone.[7]

Telesur and al-Jazeera sign deal

2006-02-03T06:29:00.000-08:00

Telesur says it wants to offer an alternative to US networks

The Latin American TV station Telesur, backed by the Venezuelan government, has signed a co-operation agreement with the Arabic channel al-Jazeera.

They will share content, as well as journalistic and technical expertise.

Head of Telesur Andres Izarra said his channel felt inspired by the path which al-Jazeera had taken to become a reference point in the Arab world.

Telesur says it seeks to promote regional integration and offer an alternative to US networks.

Telesur is also backed by three other left-wing Latin American governments - Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay - and can be seen in more than 20 countries.

It started its first broadcast from the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, last year.

Both Telesur and al-Jazeera have been criticised by politicians in the United States.

The Qatar-based Arabic channel is seen by Washington as being often critical of the US, particularly in its coverage of the "war on terror".

And some in the US have branded Telesur a "propaganda tool" for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is seen by the White House as an unfriendly head of state in South America.

Last year, the US House of Representatives voted to enable the Bush administration to begin broadcasting its own TV signals to Venezuela.

Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo

2006-02-03T06:24:00.000-08:00

Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo

PM promised to be 'solidly behind' US invasion with or without UN backing

Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday February 3, 2006

Tony Blair and George Bush at a press conference in the White House on January 31 2003. Photograph: Shawn Thew/AFP

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was "solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.

The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam".

The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College, London. Professor Sands last year exposed the doubts shared by Foreign Office lawyers about the legality of the invasion in disclosures which eventually forced the prime minister to publish the full legal advice given to him by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

The memo seen by Prof Sands reveals:

· Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

· Mr Bush even expressed the hope that a defector would be extracted from Iraq and give a "public presentation about Saddam's WMD". He is also said to have referred Mr Blair to a "small possibility" that Saddam would be "assassinated".

· Mr Blair told the US president that a second UN resolution would be an "insurance policy", providing "international cover, including with the Arabs" if anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning oil wells, killing children, or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq.

· Mr Bush told the prime minister that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups". Mr Blair did not demur, according to the book.

The revelation that Mr Blair had supported the US president's plans to go to war with Iraq even in the absence of a second UN resolution contrasts with the assurances the prime minister gave parliament shortly after. On February 25 2003 - three weeks after his trip to Washington - Mr Blair told the Commons that the government was giving "Saddam one further, final chance to disarm voluntarily".

He added: "Even now, today, we are offering Saddam the prospect of voluntary disarmament through the UN. I detest his regime - I hope most people do - but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully."

On March 18, before the crucial vote on the war, he told MPs: "The UN should be the focus both of diplomacy and of action... [and that not to take military action] would do more damage in the long term to the UN than any other single course that we could pursue."

The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair, attended by six close aides, came at a time of growing concern about the failure of any hard intelligence to back up claims that Saddam was producing weapons of mass destruction in breach of UN disarmament obligations. It took place a few days before the then US secretary Colin Powell made claims - since discredited - in a dramatic presentation at the UN about Iraq's weapons programme.

Earlier in January 2003, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, expressed his private concerns about the absence of a smoking gun in a private note to Mr Blair, according to the book. He said he hoped that the UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, would come up with enough evidence to report a breach by Iraq of is its UN obligations.

Downing Street did not deny the existence of the memo last night, but said: "The prime minister only committed UK forces to Iraq after securing the approval of the House of Commons in a vote on March 18, 2003." It added the decision to resort to military action to ensure Iraq fulfilled its obligations imposed by successive security council resolutions was taken only after attempts to disarm Iraq had failed. "Of course during this time there were frequent discussions between the UK and US governments about Iraq. We do not comment on the prime minister's conversations with other leaders."

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat acting leader, said last night: "The fact that consideration was apparently given to using American military aircraft in UN colours in the hope of provoking Saddam Hussein is a graphic illustration of the rush to war. It would also appear to be the case that the diplomatic efforts in New York after the meeting of January 31 were simply going through the motions.

"The prime minister's offer of February 25 to Saddam Hussein was about as empty as it could get. He has a lot of explaining to do."

Prof Sands says Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's UN ambassador at the time, told a foreign colleague he was "clearly uncomfortable" about the failure to get a second resolution. Foreign Office lawyers consistently warned that an invasion would be regarded as unlawful. The book reveals that Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the FO's deputy chief legal adviser who resigned over the war, told the Butler inquiry into the use of intelligence during the run-up to the war, of her belief that Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, shared the FO view. According to private evidence to the Butler inquiry, Lord Goldsmith told FO lawyers in early 2003: "The prime minister has told me that I cannot give advice, but you know what my views are".

On March 7 2003 he advised the prime minister that the Bush administration believed that a case could be made for an invasion without a second UN resolution. But he warned that Britain could be challenged in the international criminal court. Ten days later, he said a second resolution was not necessary.

Veega land issue

2006-02-01T04:28:00.000-08:00

PUBLIC FINANCE
Entertainment tax bonanza in Kerala
The Kerala government gives the entertainment industry a huge tax break, by reducing dues from the operations of amusement parks. With no political party interested in opposing the drain on the treasury, taxpayers will be left to foot the bill for this largesse, note M Suchitra and P N Venugopal.

04 November 2005 - In the tax tussle between the Kunnathunadu Gram Panchayat and Veega Land Amusement Park in Kerala's Ernakulam district, (Taken for a taxing ride?, September 2004) the park owned by V Guard Industries has had the last laugh. Their legal battle began with the panchayat's rejection of an application filed by the park requesting to exempt it from the entertainment tax for a period of five years and also for compounding the tax at a nominal rate. But now, through a hastily-introduced ordinance, the Congress-led United Democratic Front Government has amended the Kerala (Local Authorities) Entertainment Tax Act 1961 enabling the park to emerge unscathed in its legal battle with the panchayat. The Amendment was passed by the Assembly and the Bill got the Governor's assent on the 12th of August. With the implementation of the new Act the panchayat will have to withdraw all the 22 cases it had filed before the Supreme Court against the park.

In 2003 too, the government had tried to exempt all the amusement parks in the state from entertainment tax, but had to withdraw in the face of stiff opposition from Kunnathunadu Panchayat; this second - and successful - attempt at diluting the entertainment tax has written off potentially huge tax revenues to the benefit of the industry.

The new Act has been implemented on the ground that the former one was 'not realistic'. The State will now implement a slab system to the entertainment industry with effect from 1999. Slabs are fixed according to the area of the park and the investment on the park. [see box]. The parking spaces and unutilised areas inside the park are exempted. (According to the website of Veega Land, it has parking space for 150 buses, 700 cars, 700 two wheelers). Accordingly Veega Land would come under slab C and it would have to pay annually entertainment tax between Rs 25-30 lakhs. Even this will become payable only from the fifth year onwards, as there is relaxation ranging from 60 per cent to 10 per cent during the first four years. The tax structure will be reviewed every three years.

Veega Land's grounds for seeking such exemption were that it had invested a huge amount, the average daily expenditure of the park was much more than the average daily collection, and thus the company was incapable of paying the tax. The panchayat rejected the application holding that the inability of the company to pay the tax was not a sufficient ground for exemption. The local body demanded Rs.9.23 crores as entertainment tax for a period from 2000 April to 2002 November. The park refused to pay and the panchayat issued a closure order. Even though, the panchayat won a favourable verdict from a single bench of the Kerala High Court, the verdict was overturned by a Division Bench favouring Veega Land. Then the local body was forced to approach the Supreme Court. The State's Amendment neutralises that appeal.

• Taken for a taxing ride?

The panchayat seems to have accepted the new turn of events as inevitable. In fact, the Bill amending the original act had been circulated among the members of the Assembly in 2003 itself, making the cases against Veega Land weak. "It was difficult to fight the case in the Supreme Court once the Bill had been circulated among MLAs. When the government itself says the original act is unrealistic, how can we fight the case?" asks Advocate Raju Joseph, who has been reelected to the panchayat council in the recently held elections to the local bodies. "Also, we are convinced that it's futile to fight against Veega Land. They have money and influence. We have lost confidence even in the courts."

Last year the panchayat had decided not to renew the working licence of the amusement park, and the very same day Veega Land managed to get a stay order issued by the secretary of Local Self-Governance Department, points out Sali Raju (Congress), who led the panchayat council as President until last month. "Of course, as per the Panchayati Raj Act, it's the local body that should decide whether licence should be issued or not. But we constantly had pressure from the top level leaders and ministers. Leaders of all political parties favour Veega Land. In this issue, there is no difference between the ruling front and the opposition."

She points out that for a low-income panchayat like Kunnathunadu, it's better to have something than nothing. "That's why we won't fight against the new Act. We have already spent Rs 3 lakhs for the legal battles against Veega Land." Her criticism about the government and the opposition is not baseless. During the discussions on the ordinance in the Assembly, the main opposition party, CPI (M) made only a feeble criticism. The party is itself linked with an amusement park, this one located on the banks of the Valapatnam river at Parassinikkadavu in Kannur district. The promoters, Malabar Pleasures (India) Pvt. Ltd., list the CPI(M)'s Kannur District secretary as a member of their board, and the other members too are senior functionaries of the party. The first phase of the project envisages an investment of Rs.25 crores. Work has already begun, despite criticism from environmentalists pointing to potential water misuse and questions from the rank and file and the fellow travellers of the party as to weather a proletarian political party should get involved in such profit-motivated, bourgeois enterprises.

The previous method for taxation had a logical basis. The gate collection was the criterion for the tax. The new act has abandoned that basis, and taken the cost of fixed assets as the benchmark for calculating the tax. Opponents of the tax exemptions point out that this is contrary to the custom of tax being levied on the income derived, whatever be the activity. According to the Veega Land management itself, an average of 4000-5000 people visit the park daily. During vacations and weekends the number of daily visitors rises to an average of 6000. The gate charges for adults and children are Rs.320 and Rs.240 respectively on weekends and Rs.260 and Rs.90 on weekdays. Even an estimate with the lowest parameters throws up a figure of Rs.25 crores as the park's annual collection.

Nor do all these crores come into the coffers of the park from the investments made by the owners within its four walls alone. Veega Land is not a charmed castle existing in a vacuum; it needs every bit of the infrastructure outside, developed using public money. It takes 6 to 8 lakh litres of water a day from the nearby Kadambra river free of cost, and its consumption of electricity is charged at lower rates than normal under tourism promotion schemes. Everyone agrees that access and enjoyment of private investment should be at a price, and should also produce a profit. But this same criterion is not applied to the private use of public investment! Giving up what legitimately belongs to the public - by changing the law to favour private interests - is also probably not what the voters expected, but as in most legislation there was little opportunity for citizen input in this case too.

In the media itself, attention to this dilution of tax liabilities has hardly merited a mention. The entertainment industry is a big advertising source, and the silence of the media is therefore telling. ⊕

The Plachimada issue

2006-02-01T04:25:00.000-08:00

The Coke saga in Kerala took a new twist towards the end of 2005 when the company expressed its interest to shift out of Plachimada to a nearby industrial estate where water consumption may be less contested. Meanwhile, the tussle between Coke and the Perumatty Panchayat awaits resolution at the Supreme Court, reports P N Venugopal.

27 January 2006 - Adding a new dimension to the ongoing tussle between the people of Plachimada and the soft drink giant Coca Cola, the company has expressed its willingness to shift its plant from the region governed by the Perumatty Panchayat in Kerala. The Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd made this proposal in a letter addressed to the Minister for Industries, Kerala, in late November 2005. The proposed site, about 40 kms away from Plachimada and is in the Kanjikode Industrial Estate, also in the same Palghat district. The company has demanded at the new site, "a confirmed resolution for meeting the infrastructure needs such as water and electricity along with an amicable environment devoid of the problems as have been faced in Plachimada."

Subsequently, a meeting was convened by the Industries Department on the 3rd of January. It was attended by the representatives of Perumatty Panchayat, the District Industries Centre, Palakkad, Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and Coca Cola. Perumatty Panchayat, it is reported, did not have any objection to the company being shifted. No decisions were reached in the meeting and there will be further discussions in the coming months.

Meanwhile, following dictates of the Kerala High Court, [see box on Plachimada Saga] on 4 January 2006, the panchayat renewed Coke's license for three months and laid out thirteen conditions. The first of these is that the company shall not use groundwater from Perumatty Panchayat for industrial purposes, or for producing soft drinks, aerated carbonate beverages or fruit juice. The local body quoted two documents in support of its stance.

File illustration: Sameer Mahoolkar.

One was the Supreme Court judgment in M C Mehta v/s Union of India 2004(12) SCC118. According to this judgment, groundwater is a social asset, and the right of the citizen to the use of air, water and earth are protected under Article 21 of the Constitution. It further states that the environmental balance is to be maintained and wherever groundwater is required for domestic and agricultural needs, priority is to be given to these. (Incidentally, M C Mehta vs Union of India was cited in the Division Bench High Court hearings that went in favour of Coke in 2005, but according to Perumatty Panchayat counsel K Ramkumar, the judges did not mention it while narrating the proceedings.)

The second document the panchayat cited was the notification by the Kerala State Groundwater Department which declared Perumatty Panchayat along with four other panchayats in Kerala as 'over exploited' with regard to groundwater. The Panchayat also quoted its own resolution of a fortnight ago, which stipulated that in view of the acute shortage of water neither surface water or groundwater can be used for any purposes other than domestic and agricultural.

There is one other commercial consumer of water in Chittoor Block, Kerala Alcoholic Products Ltd. This brewery is at Meenakshipuram, about 6 kms from Plachimada, and it draws 5 lakh litres of water/day. The source is groundwater and a nearby canal. (Source: District Industries Centre, Palghat.)

According to activists, the area has not experienced any water scarcity and the company does not cause any pollution as such.

Effectively, the panchayat was renewing Coca Cola's license, but not allowing it to draw a drop of water.

Two other stipulations made by the panchayat. One, it asked Coke to reveal the components used for making the soft drink in order to ensure that no hazardous items are used and two, it asked Coke to ensure that cadmium or other chemical pollutants are not taken out of the factory. As the people are being supplied drinking water in tanker lorries from outside, the panchayat also asked the company to arrange for supply of one lakh litres of water everyday. It has also asked Coca Cola to implement the social security measures as suggested by the High Court within a period of one month.

As could be anticipated, the company rejected the conditions as impractical and not keeping with the spirit of the various High Court orders. It claimed that it has the right to tap the water sources within its premises and also quotes the High Court order permitting it to draw 5 lakh litres of water per day. The company also refused to reveal the components of its soft drink claiming that no poisonous or hazardous items including cadmium are present in it. It expressed its willingness to get the drink examined in any laboratories suggested by the panchayat. The company also further averred that no waste from its plant is taken outside and arrangements have been made to treat them within the factory premises. It asked for details of the social security measures to be implemented and requested for a discussion on the issues within 15 days.

This is perhaps an indication that the company will try its best to remain at Plachimada itself, despite the proposal to shift. The company has made it amply clear in the letter to the Industries Minister and also in the discussions that relocating will be a last resort. Their letter to the minister said: "… does not wish to relocate the plant if alternate proposition to sort out the various issues being faced by the company in their present location are explored favourably by the government." However, Coca Cola has requested the government for sales tax concessions and also for "other applicable beneficial schemes" to offset the additional expenditure involved in shifting base.

An interesting aspect of the proposal is that the Kanjikode industrial estate is in the Puthussery Panchayat from where Pepsi Cola is operating without many hassles, at least for the time being, even though those opposing it are gathering forces. However, it is a notified industrial area within the purview of Kerala Industrial Development Act and also within the meaning of Kerala Panchayat Raj Act. Hence the likelihood of their being any legal tangles for either Pepsi or Coca Cola - if it is shifted - is remote.

The Plachimada story

March 2000 - Factory established.

April 2002 - Agitation commences.

March 2003 - Panchayat refuses to renew license.

May 2003 - State government stays the panchayat decision.

Dec 2003 - Single judge bench of the Kerala High court upholds the panchayat's decision.

March 2004 - Coca Cola factory shut down on Kerala government's orders.

April 2005 - A High Court Division Bench allows appeal by Coca Cola and permits the company to draw 500,000 litres of water per day. Orders the panchayat to renew license.

May 2005 - Panchayat files special leave petition in the Supreme Court.

1 June 2005 - Company approaches the High Court again as the panchayat did not renew the license. The court orders panchayat to renew the license within 7 days, or it would be deemed that the license stands renewed for two years from 10 June 2004.

6 June 2005 - Panchayat informs the company that license will be renewed for three months; asks them to remit the fee and collect license.

November 2005 - High Court rejects the company's petition that since panchayat did not keep up the stipulated time frame, it should be deemed that the license stands renewed for two years. The company ought to have accepted the opportunity to function for three months. But the court again orders the panchayat to renew the license.

November 2005 - Panchayat files SLP against the latest High Court order in the Supreme Court.

• Colas: dissent at home, abroad
• Save groundwater, ground d'cracy?
• Rain or no rain, water for Coke
• JPC report on Colas
• Coke case in decisive phase

At the same time, everything about the Kanjikode Industrial Estate does not appear to be above board. The Kerala government has recently published a document which is to be the basis for all future groundwater utilisation in the state. "The Dynamic Groundwater Resources of Kerala As On March 2004" has been jointly prepared by the Groundwater Department of Kerala and the Central Ground Water Board. The report is a reassessment of the groundwater resources and its present utilization, block-wise and also classifies the blocks as 'safe', 'critical' and 'over exploited.' It is based on this report that 5 blocks including Chittoor block have been declared 'over exploited.' Plachimada falls in the Chittoor block. However, the report has not disaggregated commercial water usage at the level of individual firms (commercial consumers of water) in the various blocks.

There are concerns about the report itself. Because the current groundwater usage figures are not available, the report has gone by projections based on the average increase in use for the period 1992 to 1999. Some data could be considered stale, and this raises questions on the reports conclusions and assumptions. However, it's not as if all the data are stale. The report's findings are also not a mere repetition of earlier figures. And what is astonishing is that the report has left out one block out of the total 152 blocks of the state and that block is Malampuzha block. Kanjikode Industrial Estate and Puthussery Panchayat are in Malampuzha block. As noted earlier, this is where Pepsi and a number of others water reliant firms are operating and where Coke proposes to move to as a last resort, and it is very difficult not to attribute motives.

The reason given in the report for this omission is that Malampuzha block is a 'new' one and hence required data is not available. However, Malampuzha block was formed in 1990 and it is unbelievable that data is not available.

Even though it cannot in anyway be taken for granted that the soft drink giant is shifting from Plachimada, the anti Coca Cola agitation committee led by Velur Swaminathan has already demanded that Coca Cola adequately compensate the damage done to the people. Apart from the contention that Coke caused water scarcity, the company had distributed hazardous sludge to gullible farmers as fertilizer polluting water bodies. The committee also criticized the government for helping the company to relocate within the state. However, Perumatty Panchayat President Risha Premnath said that no formal demand for compensation has been made till now. An oral submission was made in the meeting, but there were no discussions on it.

Supreme concerns rest at the apex court

There are 5 Special Leave Petitions (SLP) pending at the Supreme Court, challenging various High Court judgments. Three were filed by the panchayat and one each by the Kerala Government and the KSPCB. All of them will be bunched and heard together, said Advocate K Ramkumar, counsel for Perumatty Panchayat. But the SLPs have not been listed, as yet, so hearing dates are not available. Asked about the M C Mehta vs Union of India judgment not having a bearing on the High Court's Division Bench proceedings, Ramkumar said that, "This omission too has been questioned in the SLP."

There is another curious angle to the litigation at the High Court. All the petitions filed by Coca Cola in the Kerala High Court are being heard by a bench comprising of the same two judges -- M Ramachandran and K P Balachandran. Queried about this, Ramkumar said: "It is very unusual. The panchayat had filed a written complaint about this to the Chief Justice. But no action was taken. Again, I had very clearly objected to this in the counter affidavit filed in the latest case which was decided on the 16th of November."

However, ruling on 16 November and asking the panchayat to renew Coke's license, the bench dismissed his objection saying: "Mr K Ramkumar, appearing for the first respondent-Panchayat submits that the Rules of the High Court of Kerala as well as the precedents do not permit such applications to be entertained and the sinister attempt was to get the matter posted before the same Bench, who had been party to the judgment, as favourable orders could have been solicited, as a soft approach could have been reasonably expected. The suggestion was that if at all there was any cause of action, such grievances should have been independently adjudicated by fresh proceedings. Although the affidavit filed contains allegations and innuendos and per se discloses bad taste, we do not think we have to invest or strain ourselves to be bothered about such irrelevant murmurings…"

All in all, the situation continues to remain murky, and the question of Coke's liabilities to the people and the land of Perumatty Panchayat stemming from over exploitation of natural resources remains unsettled. Even though the Plachimada agitation had begun as a local issue, it changed qualitatively during the last four years and has come to symbolise third world resistance to corporate giants. It will be an irony if all that the struggle results in is not a just and speedy resolution to the dispute, but instead merely pushes Coca Cola out of Plachimada, 40 kms away, where it will continue to draw hundreds of thousands of litres of groundwater each day, along with a number of others firms including its competitor, Pepsi Cola. ⊕

Iranian leader defiant over nuclear programs

2006-02-01T02:24:00.000-08:00

World

Iranian leader defiant over nuclear programs

12:27

01/ 02/ 2006

TEHRAN, February 1 (RIA Novosti) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went on the offensive Wednesday over Western criticism of his country's nuclear programs by vowing to press ahead with the controversial research and branding U.S. President George Bush a war criminal.

After arriving in the southern town of Bushehr, where Russia is building a $800-million nuclear power plant, Ahmadinejad told journalists: "The West's has been living with its colonial dreams throughout the last 200 years, and its decisions on Iran's 'nuclear file" will not influence the decisions of the Iranian people."

He said the country would "resolutely defend its legitimate rights" to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, though other nations suspect it of a pursing a weapons program, and criticized the position of the trio of European negotiating with Iran - Great Britain, France and Germany. The nations recently announced that they would seek to refer the matter to the UN Security Council through the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog.

"The Europeans themselves lost the opportunity to hold negotiations with Iran," he said, alluding to the three countries' decision.

Although Javad Vaeedi, the head of the Iranian delegation for the last round of talks in Brussels January 30, was cautiously optimistic, the Europeans did not change their position, citing a lack of progress. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said the talks had come to a dead end, but did not exclude progress if Iran took relevant measures.

On Tuesday, a leading Iranian negotiator said the referral of Iran's nuclear file to the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it is found to be in breach of its international commitments, would mark "the end to diplomacy."

Meanwhile, the Iranian leader, who has courted controversy for his apparent hard-line views and call for Israel to be "wiped from the face of the map" at the end of last year, severely criticized the West for exerting pressure on the country.

"Iran has been taking every effort for equal political relations with any state, but when they [Western countries] exert fruitless pressure on us, we can do nothing with this," the president said.

In particular, he turned his sights on Bush, who the previous night had charged Tehran with "defying the world" with its nuclear ambitions, and said "the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons".

Ahmadinejad responded by accusing the U.S. leader of waging war all over the world and "killing millions pursuing economic interests". He said the American leader and his allies should stand before a "court of justice."

In an earlier taste of the mood in Tehran, the presidential press service also said Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had told his South African counterpart Tabo Mbeki during a telephone conversation, that Iran would abandon the supplementary agreement to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that allowed international inspections of its nuclear sites if the Iranian file were to be referred to the UN.

"The Iranian government will abandon the supplementary agreement in line with a law passed by country's parliament," Ahmadinejad said, adding that the West was trying "to revoke the right of any country for peaceful nuclear technology."

Tabo Mbeki, who is also the chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), comprising over 100 member-states, said the organization supported Iran's right for peaceful nuclear research and advocated holding regular discussions with Iran, including on nuclear issues.

Russian and Chinese diplomats are set to arrive in Tehran Wednesday to discuss the agreements reached at a Monday meeting of the United States, China, Russia, and the European trio. The gathering agreed that the UN Security Council would not yet make any decision on Iran until March, but will be kept informed about the issue after an upcoming session of the International IAEA's 35-member board of governors.

Institutional excesses, elite deadlock

2006-01-31T22:51:00.000-08:00

Institutional excesses, elite deadlock

Harish Khare

A democratic constitutional arrangement is predicated on mutual respect among various institutions. We appear to be entering a phase where the assumption is the elected representatives cannot be trusted with the public interest.

AT THE height of the Quattrocchi controversy last month, the Central Vigilance Commissioner told an Indian Express reporter that he had written to the Central Bureau of Investigation for "a complete factual position on the [Bofors] case." He wanted to "have a better understanding of our own rules and see if changes need to be made." Presumably Mr. Shankar deemed it necessary to go public with his own bit because every television channel and every newspaper was indignant over the defreezing of the Quattrocchi accounts. In the process Mr. Shankar displayed the creeping penchant of all our institutions to play Savonarola, the medieval preacher who zealously took it upon himself to cleanse public life.

The incumbent CVC is a wise man and having served in the Indian bureaucracy for three decades can be presumed to know the limit of his institutional authority. When he was told that the existing Supreme Court guidelines did not permit the Commission any say in the matter of an on-going investigation, he quietly let it be. This admirable restraint is not easily imitated by others. Everyone seems to be eager to practise a bit of institutional encroachment.

If this trend is not reversed, new experiments in institutional autonomy are sure to produce chaos and worse. This desire on the part of almost every authority-person to redefine and expand his or her institutional limits is bound to become the enemy of good governance.

A democratic constitutional arrangement is predicated on the principle of mutual respect among various institutions. The Indian polity has been at its creative best when it has been able to produce a dynamic balance between autonomous institutions while retaining a collective capacity for listening to and addressing the democratic voices and aspirations from below. Whenever the elites displayed respect for the masses and tried to channel popular energy into a positive and constructive force, the political system moved forward. Whenever one section of the elites — be they from the political or judicial or corporate arena — overplayed its hand, the result has been paralysis and conflict.

Of late we appear to be on the verge of entering a dangerous phase. There seems to be a new arrogance: the government does not deserve to be respected, and it is deemed a legitimate exercise to question not only policies but also motives. The assumption is that the elected representatives of the people cannot be trusted with the public interest, and that it is up to the unelected gods — in the judiciary, the media, civil society, the private sector — to step in and to "save the nation."

Part of the problem, of course, is within the political domain. Disparate political parties come together to cobble together coalitions at the Centre and in the States without the leaders being sufficiently anchored in the responsibilities of power and restraints of authority.

Since political parties and leaders choose to bargain and negotiate in the full glare of round-the-clock television cameras, the system gets choked with one "crisis" after another. Bargaining among unappetising political players produces images of haggling and unethical deals, generating disrespect for the politician. Entitlements claimed — and claimed brazenly — by allies and supporting parties in a coalition government end up eroding public confidence in and respect for governing institutions.

Unfortunately, the principal opposition party in the country is most guilty of unrestrained behaviour. The Bharatiya Janata Party has perfected the art of accusing its political rivals of the worst offences while using the same presumably undesirable tactics when it suits its internal needs. For instance, the BJP has come close to instigating the President to act independently of the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers.

At the drop of a hat, senior National Democratic Alliance leaders troop to Rashtrapati Bhavan to demand dismissal of this Cabinet Minister or that Governor, as if the Constitution stipulates any kind of voice for the President in such matters. In the context of the Supreme Court judgment on Bihar, there have been mischievous suggestions that the President should resign because he was "misguided" by the Prime Minister in signing the Proclamation.

When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister, the BJP was watchful — and correctly — of the institutional respect of his office; now its leaders merrily deploy a less than respectful tone for the current Prime Minister. Out of office, the BJP invites supervision by other institutions of the working of the executive. When the political leadership is unable to know and respect the limits of power and powerlessness, it becomes an ideal setting for encroachment by other institutions.

The Indian judicial system operates under a comforting but unexamined assumption that the judges are absolute servants of the Constitution without any personal biases — ideological or intellectual. This too has been taken in our collective stride but now there seems to be a new itch to regulate the disputes among the political players as well as to penalise political players who do not pass some mythical (mostly middle class) test of public probity. It should be a cause for concern when a verdict gets influenced less by constitutional arguments and legal reasoning and more by a disapproval of the ways of the political class.

Any reminder of institutional boundaries is sought to be seen as a "confrontation." It is the job of the courts to scrutinise and strike down, if necessary, laws passed by Parliament, just as it is the duty of the executive to find ways and means of meeting the courts' objections while still exploring the possibility of carrying out its political and legislative priorities within the constitutionally prescribed procedures. An attempt to get around a judicial pronouncement need not be seen as an essay in confrontation.

Stalemating of authority

The cumulative impact of various kinds of institutional excesses is the stalemating of authority at the Centre, which in turn invites further testing and encroachment from all kinds of players at home and abroad. When an executive authority is made to be seen as subject to all kind of pressures and counter-pressures, it becomes open season for one and all to poke their nose in others' business.

Take, for instance, the extraordinary gumption of the American Ambassador in New Delhi. While an envoy can legitimately claim a right to explain his government's policies, he has no business commenting on the correctness or otherwise of our domestic disputes. Yet David Mulford can be said to be the victim of the same set of calculations that motivated the Chief Vigilance Commissioner to overshoot his brief. What is reassuring is that political leaders across the spectrum have closed ranks against the American envoy's transgressions.

Our collective fortunes seem to be hostage to two kinds of infirmities: a fragmented polity, as no political party is capable of commanding the confidence of the majority and, second, a new itch for institutional over-reaching.

The first infirmity not only necessarily produces a less efficacious governing arrangement but also aggravates elite conflicts, played out by the middle classes. The second infirmity becomes an antidote for any kind of working synergy at the national level, as each and every player wallows in a "me-too" self-importance, unrelated to public interest or national purpose.

The basic axiom in democratic thinking all over the world has been that a strong executive must be restrained by various devices like the doctrine of separation of powers or theory of judicial review. In the ideal Indian context, the need for countervailing institutional force suggests itself when a political party commands a runaway majority in the Lok Sabha, when the Opposition is weak and fragile, or power gets centralised in the Union Government.

Now we seem to be saddled with the worst of both worlds. Because of a breakdown in the norms of self-restraint among those who fancy themselves as guardians of the constitutional order and public interest, we have produced a script for paralysis.

"Hamas ready for a just peace"

2006-01-31T22:50:00.000-08:00

"Hamas ready for a just peace"

Khalid Mish'al

IT IS widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world's leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognise the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine, and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the U.S. and EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment for exercising their right to choose their parliamentary representatives.

Our message to the U.S. and EU governments is this: your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain. Our people who gave thousands of martyrs, the millions of refugees who have waited for nearly 60 years to return home and our 9,000 political and war prisoners in Israeli jails have not made those sacrifices in order to settle for close to nothing.

Hamas has been elected mainly because of its immovable faith in the inevitability of victory; and Hamas is immune to bribery, intimidation, and blackmail. While we are keen on having friendly relations with all nations we shall not seek friendships at the expense of our legitimate rights. We have seen how other nations, including the peoples of Vietnam and South Africa, persisted in their struggle until their quest for freedom and justice was accomplished. We are no different, our cause is no less worthy, our determination is no less profound, and our patience is no less abundant.

Our message to the Muslim and Arab nations is this: you have a responsibility to stand by your Palestinian brothers and sisters whose sacrifices are made on behalf of all of you. Our people in Palestine should not need to wait for any aid from countries that attach humiliating conditions to every dollar or euro they pay despite their historical and moral responsibility for our plight. We expect you to step in and compensate the Palestinian people for any loss of aid and we demand you lift all restrictions on civil society institutions that wish to fundraise for the Palestinian cause.

Our message to the Palestinians is this: our people are not only those who live under siege in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but also the millions languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria and the millions spread around the world unable to return home. We promise you that nothing in the world will deter us from pursuing our goal of liberation and return. We shall spare no effort to work with all factions and institutions in order to put our Palestinian house in order. Having won the parliamentary elections, our medium-term objective is to reform the PLO in order to revive its role as a true representative of all the Palestinian people, without exception or discrimination.

Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us — our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society, and banished our people.

We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.

A messy compromise on Iran

2006-01-31T22:49:00.000-08:00

A messy compromise on Iran

Siddharth Varadarajan

Reporting Teheran to the Security Council but deferring action till March will neither still Washington's appetite for confrontation nor make a diplomatic solution more likely.

IN REACHING agreement among themselves to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council for failing to comply with previous resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the P-5 countries and Germany have let the Manmohan Singh Government off the hook. If there is consensus in the February 2-3 IAEA Board of Governors (BoG) meeting on a draft resolution reporting Iran, India need simply go along. And even if Cuba, Venezuela, and one or more non-aligned countries refuse to support the resolution, the probable affirmative votes of Russia and China will likely provide the United Progressive Alliance Government with enough of a cushion to weather any domestic political criticism.

After Monday's meeting of Britain, China, Russia, France, Germany, and the United States, the numbers in favour of an affirmative vote in the 35-member BoG will be higher than what prevailed last September. Having facilitated that original vote — which found Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations — India has reverted to being a minor player whose views matter little to the Iranians and even less to the P-5. In any event, now that the Big Five have decided on a certain course of action, there is precious little any country or group of countries can really do to stand in the way at this stage of the game at least.

Russia and China, which had hitherto been opposed to reporting Iran to the UNSC, have taken a pragmatic decision to step back. Their intention, presumably, is to fight another day, in a battleground where they can exercise their veto power.

In India, the debate over the Manmohan Singh Government's vote against Iran last September was so polarised that it was often forgotten that the stakes were much higher than merely the security of gas supplies or the fate of the civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S. Today, what has to be grasped by everyone is that the U.S. is hell-bent on setting the stage for a military conflict with Iran. And that the course and outcome of such a conflict will have consequences even more disastrous for our region than the Iraq war so far.

The compromise struck in London on Monday only pushes back by a month the timetable by which this tragedy will be enacted. It has been decided that the Board of Governors will report Iran to the Security Council this week but the latter will not take up the matter for active consideration until after IAEA Director General Mohammed el-Baradei presents his latest report on Iran to the BoG in the first week of March. There is one last safety valve put in by Russia and China: They insisted, and the U.S. and its allies agreed, that the Security Council should also "await... any Resolution from the March meeting [of the IAEA Board], before deciding to take action to reinforce the authority of the IAEA process."

On paper at least, this means the Security Council will not act even in March without explicit authorisation from another IAEA resolution. It remains to be seen how this clause is incorporated into the draft resolution to be circulated to the IAEA Board on February 2.

Last September, the compromise reached with India and other countries was that while Iran would be held non-compliant, the timing of the Security Council report would be decided later. The compromise today is that while Iran will be reported, the timing of any Security Council action would be decided later.

U.S.' gameplan

Each time it appeases Washington's relentless pressure on Iran, the international community is being made to climb higher and higher up a ladder whose final rungs can only be sanctions and war. This is precisely the route the U.S. followed against Iraq in its quest to effect regime change there. Its war of attrition using sanctions, inspections, no-fly-zones, air strikes, and impossible ultimatums lasted 12 years before ending finally in an invasion that surprised no one.

In a candid speech to the Arms Control Association in Washington last week, Hans Blix, former head of the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC), repeated a charge he has made before that the U.S. was never really interested in weapons inspections in Iraq. "My belief is that if we had been allowed to continue to carry out inspections for a couple of months more, we would then have been able to go to all the sites which were given by intelligence, and since there weren't any weapons of mass destruction, we would have reported that there weren't any." However, even with such a report, David Ruppe of the Global Security Newswire quoted him as saying, war probably would not have been averted as "there was a certain momentum behind it."

Is there a lesson in all this for the world to learn as the Iran crisis slowly unfolds? Mr. Blix certainly thinks there is. "Today, I think I worry about the spin and momentum on Iran," he said. And well he might. The U.S. is not unaware that there exists a resolution of the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, demanding that Iran withdraw its temporary acceptance of the Additional Protocol as soon as the IAEA refers its case to the Security Council. Iran is a highly politicised and polarised society and there is every likelihood that MPs will demand implementation of this resolution once the IAEA Board votes the way the U.S. wants it to. What would happen once Iran withdraws from the Additional Protocol, joining, in the process, the 106 countries who have yet to sign that document? IAEA inspectors would no longer be able to visit sites outside of those facilities that are already safeguarded.

If indeed Iran has built clandestine nuclear facilities — as Britain and the U.S. believe — there cannot be a worse outcome from the non-proliferation perspective than IAEA inspectors losing their `go as you please' pass. However, in a perverse way, this is precisely what the Bush administration is hoping Iran will do. For once IAEA inspectors lose the special access they currently enjoy, this would allow the U.S. to seek yet another escalation — citing the urgency of regaining access.

Is there a way out of this impasse? There is, and that way consists of combing the continuation of inspections with the development of two compromise packages, one technical, the other economic. The first would seek to induce Iran to accept a version of Russia's offshore enrichment proposal that also fulfils Iran's rights as an NPT signatory. The second package would seek to provide Teheran guarantees against economic sanctions and military threats. Regardless of what the IAEA Board decides this week, India must join hands with other countries to insist that the U.S. and its allies not go down the path of coercion and confrontation.

In Defense of the Student Movement - Noam Chomsky

2006-01-30T00:05:00.000-08:00

In Defense of the Student Movement

Noam Chomsky

The student movement today is the one organized, significant segment of the intellectual community that has a real and active commitment to the kind of social change that our society desperately needs. Developments now taking place may lead to its destruction, in part through repression, in part through what I think are rather foolish tactics on the part of the student movement itself. I think this would be a great, perhaps irreparable, loss. And I think if it does take place the blame will largely fall on the liberal enlightened community that has permitted a situation to arise in which the most committed, sincere, and most socially active of young people are perhaps working themselves into a position at the end of a limb, from which they may be sawed off at great cost to all of us and to society as a whole.

One development that makes me feel that this matter is of crucial importance right now is the rise on the campuses of a growing movement that I think is quite ill-conceived and that may lead to repression of student activism and destruction of what I deem the few possibilities for significant social change. I have in mind a letter (which I did not receive, though a number of my colleagues did) from the Coordinating Center for Democratic Opinion headed by Sidney Hook and a number of other people. [The organization is now called University Centers for Rational Alternatives.] The letter calls upon people to join this organization, the goals of which "will be to defend academic freedom against extremism, to promote the activism of non-extremists in all aspects of civic affairs, to foster rational treatment of contemporary problems, and to combat attacks on the democratic process," particularly "terrorist attacks and multiple varieties of putschism" such as at San Francisco State, and also "many other extremist resorts to disruption, Intimidation and violence," all of which amount to a "new McCarthyism of the left." The letter speaks of the dangers of appeasing this movement, pointing out that appeasement is both "morally intolerable and practically disastrous." And it says that "the main thrust" of the new organization is to be "to protect and advance the freedom and democratic integrity of academic life," to struggle against the "extremist challenge," "to support the university as an open center of free thought and speech – as a meeting house of many viewpoints – not as an enclave of enforced conformity or a totalitarian beachhead in a democratic society."

It would be very difficult to find anyone who would reject these goals. It would be difficult to find anyone who would be in favor of a university that would be an "enclave of enforced conformity" or who would oppose the view that the university should be "an open center of free thought and speech." But in another and more serious sense it represents, I think, an extremely dangerous, even perhaps vicious development; no doubt inadvertently, but I think objectively. When I see things of this sort, what immediately comes to mind is some advice that A. J. Muste gave to pacifists about a half century ago. He said that their task is to

denounce the violence on which the present system is based and all the evil, material and spiritual, this entails for the masses of men throughout the world. So long as we are not dealing honestly and adequately with this 90 per cent of our problem, there is something ludicrous – and perhaps hypocritical – about our concern over the ten per cent of violence employed by the rebels against oppression.

I think that's a sensible remark. And in fact, even if the criticism of "McCarthyism of the left" contained in this letter and similar statements were entirely accurate, still I think Muste's words would be quite appropriate. It would be surprising that that much attention should be given to this minuscule element in the problems of society and the problems of the university.

I want to apologize in advance because later I am going to do something, in Muste's words, "ludicrous and perhaps hypocritical"; namely, spend part of this discussion on an infinitesimal part of the problems that face American society and in particular the universities: tendencies in the student movement that strike me as irrational and objectionable and probably ultimately suicidal. My reason for doing this is precisely because I think that the student movement does have a historic mission, and I think it would be a great tragedy if the tendencies to which I have referred were to lead it into such disaster that this mission will not be fulfilled. There's no other force in society that I see from which one can hopefully expect that a comparable achievement will come.

But before turning to this important though marginal aspect of our present social problems, let me refer, obviously inadequately, to what seem to me the real problems. The basic problem is indicated by the fact that since World War II, our society has devoted something over a trillion dollars to what is euphemistically called "defense" and unknown additional amounts to subversion. We have intervened with military force to overthrow governments that we admit were popular and legally constituted and to maintain in power repressive dictatorships throughout the world that are willing to subordinate themselves to our interests. And furthermore we have at least once certainly, and perhaps several times, brought the world perilously close to nuclear destruction. Worse still, we continue to accept as legitimate the principles on the basis of which those decisions were made. So we can expect the situation to recur.

It's remarkable that liberals and conservatives alike, just about all those in the mainstream of opinion, applaud this splendid performance. There is very little serious criticism of the decisions that were made, let us say, during the Cuban missile crisis, when we did bring the world very close to total destruction in order to establish the principle that we have a right to have missiles on the borders of the Soviet Union while they do not have the same right to have missiles on our border. One finds little criticism of that principle, little mention of the criminal insanity of those willing to risk nuclear war to defend such a principle, within the mainstream of opinion. What you find rather are statements like those of Presidential historian Thomas Bailey, who refers to this as a high point of the Kennedy Administration: when Kennedy showed that he knew how to play "nuclear chicken."

The dangers of nuclear war and its consequences are obviously immense and require no comment. But the problem of repression, of the institution of dictatorial forms, is one that definitely can be talked about and is very serious. For example, last year there was a good deal of reporting in the papers about political developments in Thailand. But there were a number of things that were not mentioned in these reports. In particular there was a long report in the New York Times about the sudden reappearance in Peking of a man named Pridi Phanomyong, who was simply identified as a Communist Thai leader who had suddenly come into some prominence in China. There is an interesting background, not reported in the story, to his appearance in Peking.

If one looks into the history of these developments, one finds some important things. In 1932 Pridi Phanomyong was leader of the liberal reform movement that tried to introduce parliamentary institutions into Thailand and overthrew the absolute monarchy. He himself was overthrown shortly afterward, then during World War 11 fought together with the American OSS in the "Free Thai" guerrilla movement against the Japanese, while Thailand was under the rule of a basically fascist dictator who had an alliance with Japan. In 1946-7 Pridi led a liberal parliamentary reform movement and won Thailand's only more-or-less free election in history. But he received almost no support from the United States and was quickly overthrown in a coup. By 1948 the fascist dictator who had been a collaborator with the Japanese was back in power. He was immediately recognized by the United States and given very substantial military and economic aid to develop Thailand as one of the supposed bastions of freedom in Southeast Asia.

In fact, Thailand developed into one of the most bloody, repressive, vicious dictatorships in the world. Its enormous crimes are reported in such historical documents as a book by a Kennedy liberal named Frank Darling (one of the signers of the Hook Committee's statement, incidentally) who goes to great length to detail the repression and the role of the United States in instituting it during this post-war period after the coup. And he points out something that the Times did not bother to mention; namely, after Pridi was overthrown by a coup that was supported immediately by the United States, he remained in Thailand for a few years and then escaped to China, so that by 1954 the liberal reformer who had been fighting against the Japanese, with the Americans, was in Communist China, and the fascist dictator who had been allied with the Japanese, and had declared war on us, was ruling in Thailand, now an authoritarian military dictatorship with substantial American military support.

This, Mr. Darling says, was "ironic"! He then concludes and summarizes this situation as follows:

the vast material and diplomatic support provided to the military leaders by the United States helped to prevent the emergence of any competing groups who might check the trend toward absolute political rule and lead the country back to a more modern form of government.

The last phrase is interesting: "lead the country back to a more modern form of government." But it is quite accurate because the Thais had a more modern form of government in 1946-7 under the leadership of a liberal reformer who is now in Communist China; and it was American military aid that very largely created a situation in which one now hopes they might move back to this more modern form of government.

This is a fairly typical example of the American impact on the less developed Countries. If we can escape nuclear war, then the prospects for peace are really prospects for the peace of the prison or the peace of the graveyard, if present tendencies continue. It is interesting that Darling, though he deplores the consequences of our actions in Thailand, nevertheless urges that we continue about as before. He thus expresses the predominant voice in American society: What follows from our actions is deplorable, but it is not our fault, we have no choice, we must continue. Now of course this is not quite the predominant voice because Frank Darling is liberal, a CIA analyst and basically a Kennedy liberal.

There is another voice in the mainstream of American opinion that is becoming more dominant: the voice of people like Melvin Laird, who has called for a "first strike" if the situation requires it. This makes us as far as I know, the only country in the world where the Minister of War has come out in favor of "preventive war" if "our interests" demand it. And he is supported – I suppose again this makes us the only country in the world where this is true – by the leading military spokesman in the press, Hanson Baldwin, who has come out in favor of first use of nuclear weapons for what he refers to as "defensive purposes"; specifically, bolstering weak governments against subversion and aggression – where we decide, of course unilaterally, when this is taking place – as in Vietnam in 1964, when it appears a decision was made perhaps even prior to the 1964 election campaign to escalate the war and to attack North Vietnam. One recalls the rhetoric during the election campaign. This decision, whenever it was actually made, was secret and private. It was a conspiracy, an illegal conspiracy to carry out acts of war that then were put in effect in February, 1965. This conspiracy has not been challenged in the courts although it is one of very great significance, not only to the people of Vietnam but to ourselves, and although it violates domestic law insofar as international treaties are part of that law.

What is investigated in the courts are other sorts of "conspiracies"; for example, the "conspiracy" by Dr. Spock and others to challenge the illegal acts of the government. It is striking that the government made clear what it regards as the basis of the Spock conspiracy. It made this even more clear at the appeals level than it did during the trial by giving a list of "co-conspirators," of whom I am one. The criterion that identifies this set of co-conspirators is precise; the people tried at the Spock trial and the co-conspirators happen to be exactly the group that appeared at a press conference, independently, to speak their minds, to say what they thought about the war and resistance. Many of them never met before or since. This was the only link between the people named as "conspirators" in the Spock trial.

I believe this indicates what is the real peril not only to academic freedom, but to the freedoms provided by the Bill of Rights. Even if one were to agree with everything said in criticism of the student movement, this criticism would, in proper perspective, be quite insignificant.

The dominant voice in American society, the mainstream opinion, is bracketed by people like Frank Darling, on the one side, and by people like Melvin Laird and Hanson Baldwin, on the other. This voice is one that was made explicit by Barrington Moore in an article in the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in early 1960:

You may protest in words as loud as you like. There is but one condition attached to the freedom we would like very much to encourage. Your protests may be as loud as possible so long as they remain ineffective. Though we regret your sufferings very much and would like very much to do something about them – indeed we have studied them very carefully and have already spoken to your rulers and immediate superiors about these matters – any attempt by you to remove your oppressors by force is a threat to civilized society and the democratic process. Such threats we cannot and shall not tolerate. As you resort to force we will, if need be, wipe you from the face of the earth by the measured response that rains down flame from the skies.

I think if you observe American society, you find that this is its predominant voice. It's a voice that expresses clearly the needs of the socio-economic elite; it expresses an ideology that is adopted and put forth with varying degrees of subtlety by most American intellectuals and that gains a substantial degree of adherence on the part of a majority of the population, which sees itself as entering or already having entered the affluent society.

This predominant voice is supported by a predominant attitude of almost total apathy that makes it possible for any atrocity to appear in the front pages as long as it is directed against alleged "communists" or landless peasants or something of the sort. And it arouses virtually no response, certainly no response commensurate with what is described. This attitude is developed from the very earliest years.

I've become more aware of that since my children have been in school. Let me give you one example that I came across. I have a daughter in the Lexington, Massachusetts, Public School. Lexington is a very progressive, professional, largely upper-middle-class community that prides itself on its outstanding school system. My daughter had a social science reader that talked about the marvelous New England heritage. The protagonist in this reader is a young fellow named Robert, who is being told about the wonders of the colonial past, including the following:

Captain John Mason made plans to capture the Pequot fort where the Rhode Island Colony and the Connecticut Colony met. His little army attacked in the morning before it was light and took the Pequots by surprise. The soldiers broke down the stockade with their axes and rushed inside and set fire to the wigwams. They killed nearly all the braves, squaws and children and burned their corn and other food. There were no Pequots left to make more trouble. When the other Indian tribes saw what good fighters the white men were they kept the peace for many years.

"I wish I were a man and had been there," thought Robert.

And this is his last thought on the subject.

There is no doubt that if the Germans had won World War II, little Hans would be reading similar stories about Lidice, and he would also be wishing that he were a man and had been there. But this is the fare that is fed our children from earliest school experience, that is reinforced by the mass media, and that certainly goes a long way toward accounting for the fact that it's possible to have a story exactly like this in the newspapers where one replaces "Pequots" by "Vietnamese" and "stone axes" by "B-52s" – and to find the zombie-like reaction that permits any kind of atrocity to take place with nothing said about it. Now my daughter is not being exposed to some of the more remarkable statements by New England intellectuals at the time; for example, Cotton Mather, who described that very same incident as follows: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day." Mather goes on to talk about the diseases that decimated the Indians after the Mayflower landing, saying, "The woods were almost cleared of these pernicious creatures to make room for a better growth."

This is a part of our tradition that people ought to be exposed to, and they ought to be shown how it relates and compares to what is happening today. In such circumstances it might be possible to maintain peace – if the oppressed peoples of the world were silent and quiet, if they were willing to continue to play the role that was once described by Philippine nationalist Jose Rizal in castigating his countrymen because their aspirations were "dreams of a slave who asks only for a bandage to wrap the chain so that it may rattle less and not ulcerate his skin." But of course, those days are over. The slaves are no longer just calling for a bandage to wrap the chains, and that is the major reason for the disorder around the world, and the resulting disorder on American campuses.

It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the very same predominant voice is heard with reference to domestic issues A look at the files of the New York Civil Liberties Union will explain very clearly what "law and order" means to the poor. What it means is permanent harassment by the forces of justice. You get a very clear picture of this in books by Algernon Black, for example, or Paul Chevigny in Police Power, where he discusses no real atrocities but just the low-level, day-to-day harassment that defines the life of poor people in their relation to the forces of order. He does not mention events like the murder of students, events which lead to a great deal of sympathetic clucking of tongues, but do not lead to the formation of any national committees to defend the rights of students.

I might mention that the hypocritical role of the government in the civil rights movement is evident to everyone who had anything to do with it. My own involvement was not very great, but it was enough to make clear what was going on. The federal government does have the authority under the United States Code to use force to defend the rights of citizens against state authorities. It has not done so. Everyone, many other people much more than I, has seen incidents of brutal violence carried out by state authorities against citizens, with F.B.I. agents standing there taking notes when they have the right, the duty in fact, to intervene to prevent this if they are given the appropriate orders, which they're seldom given.

Let me turn to another area. Ralph Nader has pointed out that in the state of Pennsylvania 2,000 miners die each year of so-called "black lung." This is not a cost that is calculated by business or by professional economists when they talk about the health of the economy. And we can be quite certain that if these miners were, let's say, to seize the mines, if they were to insist that reasonable standards be imposed, or to be more exact, that reasonable standards be enforced to prevent this, then we can be quite sure that there would be a movement to prevent "left fascism" from taking over American society; and any impoliteness or violence that would result would be blamed on the miners and headlined on the front pages, as the troops are called in to repress these þmultiple forms of putschism," as they were by Franklin D. Roosevelt 30 years ago.

There are more subtle but equally pernicious forms of violence. The Hook letter quoted earlier mentions San Francisco State. The letter did not mention that San Francisco Is a city that is 20 per cent black, and that its college is there to serve the urban community. San Francisco State College last year had 3.6 per cent black students, down from 11 per cent seven years before, in a city that is 20 per cent black.

According to an article by Professor A. K. Bierman of San Francisco State, a bill to provide funds to help disadvantaged students to enter college passed the state legislature but was vetoed by Governor Reagan, who may well have been trying to set up a confrontation for political reasons. No national committees were formed to investigate this particular situation, let alone to deplore it; and the facts that I just mentioned are not referred to in the discussion of the "putschism" that took place on the San Francisco campus, though they surely have something to do with it. This kind of omission makes one seriously question the judgment of people who are putting together this kind of ultimately repressive movement. I need not mention that a college degree is a certificate of entry to the affluent society.

Personally I would entirely agree with the people I quoted who deplore the acts of those who shout down speakers at public meetings. Thus I deplore the acts of the "responsible" students who during the years 1965 and 1966 helped to break up public meetings against the war, to deface churches in which public meetings were taking place, and so on. In Boston in I 965 and early I 966, it was impossible to hold a public meeting on the Boston Common to oppose the bombing of North Vietnam, because it would be broken up by force by M.I.T. students, for example, who would march over from the fraternities, with many others. And the Arlington Street Church was pelted with tomatoes and tin cans when the meetings were shifted indoors. This was all headlined on the front pages of the newspapers. In the Boston Globe on October 16, 1965, the entire front page was taken up by a description of the events that happened the day before, and the radio ran constant and detailed reports. And of course the commentators were very indignant about what was happening. They were indignant about the peaceful demonstrators who by what they were saying were inciting this reaction on the part of the responsible, short-haired students. And they were joined by liberal Senators like Mike Mansfield, who also spoke against the irresponsibility of the demonstrators for making statements that he himself was to endorse when the time came two years later. Perhaps he might even admit that, had he done so earlier, the world would be a slightly better place. Again, there were no national committees formed to protect the right of free assembly in the face of this kind of violence.

Let's turn to the matter of politicization of the universities, which is a matter that Professor Hook's committee is much concerned with and that he himself has spoken about quite eloquently many times. Professor Hook has argued that there is a prima facie case that Communist Party members should not be granted the rights of academic freedom, the normal rights, because of the fact that they belong to an organization that by its own statements endorses limitations on free speech and urges its members not to tell the truth under certain circumstances. There are also other organizations that have behaved in such fashion; for example, the United States Government, which urges and in fact enjoins participants in its programs not to tell the truth on many subjects. Arthur Sylvester, director of information. for the Defense Department a few years ago, said in a fit of anger that anyone who believes a word said by spokesmen for the government should have his head examined, or words approximately to that effect. Quite apart from such outbursts, it is clear that people with access to classified information are required by law to withhold relevant information, or even to lie, with respect to matters that may very well be related to their teaching and research supervision.

Now by Professor Hook's argument, it should follow that in the case of people who are involved in work for the American government, there is also a prima facie case that they should be denied the opportunity to teach. Putting aside Hook's argument, which I do not for a moment accept, their involvement in teaching, in fact their dominance of it in fields like engineering or the social sciences, would certainly suggest a high degree of a very dangerous sort of politicization of the universities. For example, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there are two major universities, Harvard and M.I.T. Each has an outstanding department of government and political science. The chairmen of both departments are deeply involved in the Indochina war. One is chairman of a Council on Vietnamese Studies that is ultimately responsible to the State Department. The other supervises three-quarters of a million dollars of research outside the university on such topics as counterinsurgency and pacification in Vietnam. This is not untypical, and it does indicate a high degree of politicization of the universities. We need not ask how many projects there are in which political scientists and technologists work on the question of how poorly armed guerrillas might better defend themselves against an overwhelming military force from 10,000 miles away, or how many social science projects there are to deal with the problems of, say, revolutionary development of Third World societies in anything like an objective or sympathetic manner.

Those who are sympathetic to revolution are treated rather differently. For example, Staughton Lynd was denied an appointment at Roosevelt University, a very liberal university in Chicago. The history department voted to appoint Lynd, and this decision was simply overturned by the administration. At San Francisco State, according to the information that I have been able to obtain, in one of the acts that initiated the disorders there, George Murray was suspended without due process by the Regents for statements that he was alleged to have made. He had made some statements of which they disapproved. He was apparently suspended by the trustees over the objection of the president of the University, the mayor of San Francisco, and the police chief of San Francisco in what appears to have been another attempt to make political capital by setting up a confrontation on the campus. These are matters that ought to be explored, but no national committees are set up to defend academic freedom in the face of instances of this sort, which might be enumerated at considerable length.

Let me turn now to the other aspect of the problem of combatting the politicization of the universities, the dominant and overwhelming element of which results from the national psychosis that has developed during the Cold War, with the subversion of science and technology and scholarship as they devote themselves to the goals expressed by the þpredominant voice" in American society. This is the real problem of the universities. Professor Hook's group I think is right in much of what it deplores; but it is talking about a speck at the margin of the problem. It is ignoring the real problems of politicization. It is remarkable that if one wants to find a critique of the subversion of the universities, the betrayal of the public trust by the universities, if one wants to hear a real voicing of this critique, one turns not to the civil libertarians but rather to Senator Fulbright or Admiral Rickover or General Eisenhower, all of whom have spoken quite correctly about the dangers to a free society when the university associates itself with powerful social institutions. It's remarkable that a critique of this development, which is fundamental and significant, has to come primarily from such sources.

I have up to now been discussing "the violence on which the present system is based," to use Muste's words. How about the other aspect, the 10 per cent, or more accurately, the 1 per cent or less of the violence? George Orwell once described political thought, especially on the left, as a kind of masturbation fantasy where the world of facts hardly matters. Unfortunately, there is a good deal of truth to that characterization. One of the Movement newspapers once carried an article by a very distinguished professor at Harvard, an old friend of mine who has become deeply involved in radical politics lately and who says that the "goal of university agitation should be to build anti-imperialist struggles in which the university administration is a clear enemy." Now this man knows American universities very well, and in particular he knows Harvard very well. It's very difficult for me to believe that he really thinks of Nathan Pusey as the representative of imperialism on the Harvard campus. In fact if that were true, things would be very easy. All you would have to do would be to sit in at the administration building and you would have struck a blow at imperialism. But it doesn't work like that. The problem is far deeper. This is almost a pure fantasy.

The real problem is that those who call for freedom in the universities are calling for something that exists but that is very badly misused. The universities are relatively free, fairly decentralized institutions in which the serious decisions, those that actually relate to the interrelation between student and faculty, to the curriculum, to what a person does with his life, the kind of work he does those decisions are very largely made by the faculty and very largely at the departmental level. At least this is true at the major universities I am familiar with.

Of course, the temptations are very strong to make certain decisions rather than others. For those who choose to put their talents to the service of the powerful institutions of the society, there are many rewards – or what might be thought to be rewards. There's power, prestige, and affluence – a share in the great project of designing an integrated world system dominated by American power, which many feel to be a reward. Those who make different choices can confidently expect a good deal of abuse and recrimination, perhaps the destruction of their professional careers. Hence, in one sense the choice is hardly free. In fact, the choice is approximately as outlined by General Hershey in one of his most famous statements; namely, this is the American or indirect way to insure compliance.

But in a much more important sense the choice really is free. And the fact of the matter is, and I think one has to face this, that the politicization of the universities and the subversion of science and scholarship, which is quite real, is the result of a relatively free choice by students and by faculty who have been unwilling to resist the temptations and to face the real difficulties of standing outside the mainstream and of rejecting the rewards, if such they are, that are offered for compliance.

Consider the problem of developing radical scholarship in the universities. This is a category I do not believe adequately exists. I personally believe that objective scholarship will very often lead to radical conclusions in the social sciences, as in every other field. One takes for granted in fields outside the social sciences that objective scholarship will often challenge the predominant framework of thinking. Only in the social sciences is this considered somehow the mark of an alienated intellectual who has to be dealt with by psychiatric means. But the fact of the matter is that the task of developing objective scholarship free from the constraints imposed by the American political consensus is a quite real one, and I personally believe that it will lead to radical conclusions.

The burden of proof is obviously on someone like me, who makes that assertion, who believes that objective research will support conclusions of a radical nature. And this is exactly the point that I want to stress. The failure to develop what might be misleadingly called radical scholarship, the failure to build it into the curriculum, this is by no means the result of decrees by college administrators or by trustees. Rather it results directly from the unwillingness of the students and the faculty to undertake the very hard and serious work that is required and to face calmly and firmly the kind of repression, or at least recriminations and abuse, that they are likely to meet if they carry out this work in a serious way. I would expect these to come not from the administration but rather more from the faculty, which may feel that its guild structure, the professional structure on which its security rests, is being threatened. Particularly in the social and behavioral sciences, where theoretical content is virtually nonexistent and intellectual substance is slight, the pretense of professional expertise is very often used as a defense against quite legitimate criticism and analysis. Here I think can be found one source of the abuse of academic freedom: namely, the restricting of those who try to develop objective academic scholarship that will challenge the prevailing framework of thinking in the professions and the conclusions that are often reached.

Suppose that these barriers are overcome – the barriers being, I think, the unwillingness of students to do the hard work required and the fear of the faculty that their guild structure will be threatened. Suppose that these barriers are overcome. Then it might be that the trustees and the administration would step in to erect new barriers against the implementation of study and research and teaching that leads to radical conclusions and the action programs that ought to flow from honest, serious research. However, this is only speculation. We do not know that the universities will not tolerate programs of this sort, both as teaching programs and programs of research and action as well, because the effort has barely been made. There are cases of administrative interference and they are deplorable, but it would be a great mistake to think that they constitute the heart of the problem. They do not.

I think it crucial that the effort be made. I think we very much need understanding of contemporary society, of its long-range tendencies, of the possibilities for alternative forms of social organization and a reasoned, serious analysis, without fantasy, of how social change can come about. I have no doubt that objective scholarship can contribute to that understanding. But it is hard work and it has to be conducted in an open-minded and honest fashion. Furthermore, I think work of that sort has a political content almost at once and can strike directly at repressive institutions. To cite one example, there's a group of graduate students and junior faculty in Asian studies at Harvard and other universities who have formed a Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars that is attempting to develop – I can only describe it in value-laden terms – a more objective and hence more humane and more sympathetic treatment of the problems of the developing Asian societies. If this attempt on their part succeeds – and I think it may, if it consists of solid and well-grounded work – it may seriously weaken one foundation stone of the national psychosis that plays a major role in promoting the garrison state with its enormous commitment of resources to destruction and waste, and its continual posing of the threat of nuclear war.

Let me mention perhaps a more important example, the problem of organizing scientists to refuse military work. For example, consider the matter of the ABM. Most scientists know that the ABM is a catastrophe, that it will not increase our security but in fact will probably endanger it by increasing international instability and tensions. But it is quite predictable that having given their lectures to the Senate committees, many of these very same scientists have gone to work to build it, knowing what they are doing. There is no law of nature that dictates that this must be the case. They can refuse individually; they can refuse collectively. They can organize to refuse. I think the real point is that lectures on the irrationality of the ABM, though quite amusing, are basically beside the point if in fact the ABM is motivated not so much by the search for security as by the need to provide a subsidy for the electronics industry. And I think there's very good evidence that that's true. The fact of the matter is that if I may quote from a paper given at the December, 1967, meeting of the American Economics Association –

... the current proposal for an ABM system has been estimated to involve 28 private contractors with plants located in 42 states and 172 congressional districts. Given the political reality of such situations and the economic power of the constituencies involved, there is little hope that the interaction of special interest groups will somehow cancel each other out and that there will emerge some compromise that serves the public interest.

These interest groups are further specified as "the Armed Services, the contractors, the labor unions, the lobbyists who speak of free enterprise while they are getting a government subsidy, the legislatures who for reasons of pork or patriotism vote the funds," and so on. These are the political realities; they have not got much to do with whether there might be an accidental nuclear explosion or the chances of shooting down one of those Chinese missiles that Melvin Laird is worried about. Incidentally, I might add that the electronics industry itself is quite aware of all of this. For example, there is a study of the Electronic Industries Association that discusses prospects for the future. It states that "arms control agreements during the next decade are unlikely. The likelihood of limited war will increase and thus for the electronics firms the outlook is good in spite of the end of hostilities in Vietnam."

Scientists can organize to refuse cooperation with such projects, and they can also try to organize and to take part in the mass politics that provides the only hope in the long run for countering and ultimately dispelling the nightmare that they are creating. I think that if an organization of scientists to refuse military work develops on any significant scale, then precisely because of the role that this work plays in maintaining the so-called "health" of the society, they may find themselves involved in very serious political action. I wouldn't be surprised if they find themselves involved in what is called an "illegal conspiracy," in a kind of resistance. In general, I think one can expect that effective politics – by that I mean politics that really strikes at entrenched interests, that really tries to bring about significant social change – is very likely to lead to repression, hence to confrontation.

There is a corollary to this Observation: The search for confrontation clearly indicates intellectual bankruptcy. It indicates that one has not developed an effective politics that by virtue of the way it relates to the social realities, calls forth an attempt to defend established interests and perhaps attempts at repression. One who takes his rhetoric at all seriously will work towards serious reforms, perhaps even reforms that have ultimately revolutionary content, and will try to delay confrontations as long as possible, at least until he has some chance of succeeding.

The search for confrontations is a suicidal policy. Now there is an argument for the search for confrontations, and I think one should face it frankly and openly. It's put forward clearly by people like – to quote a past master in this – Daniel Cohn-Bendit. He denies being a leader, but was certainly one of the most articulate spokesmen for the French student actions. He has the following to say about "provocation," about confrontation politics. He says:

Provocation is not a weapon of war except in special circumstances. It can only be used to arouse feelings that are already present, albeit submerged. In our case [the student case in France] we exploited student insecurity and disgust with life in an alienated world where human relations are so much merchandise to be used, bought and sold in the market place. All we did therefore was to provoke students to express their passive discontent, first by demonstrations for their own sake and then by political action, directly challenging modern society. The justification for this type of provocation is its ability to arouse people who have been crushed under the weight of repression.

That is not an unfamiliar argument and one cannot discount it. But when we talk about the student movement in the United States, we are really not in any serious sense talking about people who have been traditionally crushed under the weight of repression. That's rather hyperbolic. And I think in the actual concrete situation of the student movement the idea of confrontation tactics is often a confession of the inability to develop effective politics or the unwillingness to do the serious and hard work of social reconstruction that can easily be condemned as "reformist," but that any true revolutionary would understand immediately is the only kind of work that could lead to new social forms, which might perhaps even pave the way for a revolutionary or far-reaching change in social organization.

I think that confrontation tactics as they actually evolve are frequently rather manipulative and coercive and really the proper kinds of tactics only for a movement that, inadvertently or not, is aiming toward an elitist, authoritarian structure of a sort that we have had far too much of on the left in the last half-century and that in fact has destroyed what there was of a living, vital left in the Western world.

There is a confusion in all of this talk about tactics that ought to be faced more clearly in the student movement. I am referring to the practice of counterposing "radical tactics" to "liberal tactics." This is a senseless distinction. It makes no sense at all to try to place tactics in a spectrum of political judgment. Tactics are neither radical nor conservative, nor do they lie anywhere else on the political spectrum. They are successful or unsuccessful in achieving certain goals that may be discussed in terms of their political character. But to talk about the tactics as what is "radical" or "liberal" is to make a fundamental error. Part of the style of the student movement is to focus great attention on immediate concerns that are close at hand – what do you do tomorrow, how do you relate to the people near you, and so on. This is nice in some ways. It gives an attractive style to many of the student actions, but it can be politically quite destructive, I think, if it becomes the general framework within which the movement develops.

Any serious movement for social change will have to involve many different strata of the population, people who certainly see their needs and goals quite differently, including many groups that are in no position even to articulate their goals and needs, and certainly not to bring them to public attention or to develop political action based on them. I think that these may prove to be related and compatible goals but of course that has to be shown.

The major task for intellectuals – including the student movement, which in large part has been the cutting edge of a growing movement for social change – is to try to understand and to articulate those goals, to try to assess and to understand the present state of society and how it might change, what alternative forms there are for the future, to try to persuade and to organize and ultimately to act collectively where they can, and individually if it comes to that. On the other hand, it is clear that if the adult community fails to act in some way to meet the real problems of the universities and society, if it contents itself with deploring the occasional absurdities of the student movement and various superficial manifestations of student protests, then I think we can expect with perfect confidence that student unrest will continue. Furthermore it is right that it should continue. Those who deplore the forms that it takes, I think might do much better to ask what they can do to eliminate the evils that constitute the core of the problems we face, and then proceed to act in a serious and committed manner to confront these problems.

The Responsibility of Intellectuals -Noam Chomsky

2006-01-29T22:25:00.000-08:00

The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Noam Chomsky

The New York Review of Books, February 23, 1967

TWENTY-YEARS AGO, Dwight Macdonald published a series of articles in Politics on the responsibility of peoples and, specifically, the responsibility of intellectuals. I read them as an undergraduate, in the years just after the war, and had occasion to read them again a few months ago. They seem to me to have lost none of their power or persuasiveness. Macdonald is concerned with the question of war guilt. He asks the question: To what extent were the German or Japanese people responsible for the atrocities committed by their governments? And, quite properly, he turns the question back to us: To what extent are the British or American people responsible for the vicious terror bombings of civilians, perfected as a technique of warfare by the Western democracies and reaching their culmination in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, surely among the most unspeakable crimes in history. To an undergraduate in 1945-46—to anyone whose political and moral consciousness had been formed by the horrors of the 1930s, by the war in Ethiopia, the Russian purge, the "China Incident," the Spanish Civil War, the Nazi atrocities, the Western reaction to these events and, in part, complicity in them—these questions had particular significance and poignancy.

With respect to the responsibility of intellectuals, there are still other, equally disturbing questions. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the Western world, at least, they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. The responsibilities of intellectuals, then, are much deeper than what Macdonald calls the "responsibility of people," given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy.

The issues that Macdonald raised are as pertinent today as they were twenty years ago. We can hardly avoid asking ourselves to what extent the American people bear responsibility for the savage American assault on a largely helpless rural population in Vietnam, still another atrocity in what Asians see as the "Vasco da Gama era" of world history. As for those of us who stood by in silence and apathy as this catastrophe slowly took shape over the past dozen years—on what page of history do we find our proper place? Only the most insensible can escape these questions. I want to return to them, later on, after a few scattered remarks about the responsibility of intellectuals and how, in practice, they go about meeting this responsibility in the mid-1960s.

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. This, at least, may seem enough of a truism to pass over without comment. Not so, however. For the modern intellectual, it is not at all obvious. Thus we have Martin Heidegger writing, in a pro-Hitler declaration of 1933, that "truth is the revelation of that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong in its action and knowledge"; it is only this kind of "truth" that one has a responsibility to speak. Americans tend to be more forthright. When Arthur Schlesinger was asked by The New York Times in November, 1965, to explain the contradiction between his published account of the Bay of Pigs incident and the story he had given the press at the time of the attack, he simply remarked that he had lied; and a few days later, he went on to compliment the Times for also having suppressed information on the planned invasion, in "the national interest," as this term was defined by the group of arrogant and deluded men of whom Schlesinger gives such a flattering portrait in his recent account of the Kennedy Administration. It is of no particular interest that one man is quite happy to lie in behalf of a cause which he knows to be unjust; but it is significant that such events provoke so little response in the intellectual community—for example, no one has said that there is something strange in the offer of a major chair in the humanities to a historian who feels it to be his duty to persuade the world that an American-sponsored invasion of a nearby country is nothing of the sort. And what of the incredible sequence of lies on the part of our government and its spokesmen concerning such matters as negotiations in Vietnam? The facts are known to all who care to know. The press, foreign and domestic, has presented documentation to refute each falsehood as it appears. But the power of the government's propaganda apparatus is such that the citizen who does not undertake a research project on the subject can hardly hope to confront government pronouncements with fact.^[1]

The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock. It is therefore useful to recall that although new levels of cynicism are constantly being reached, their clear antecedents were accepted at home with quiet toleration. It is a useful exercise to compare Government statements at the time of the invasion of Guatemala in 1954 with Eisenhower's admission—to be more accurate, his boast—a decade later that American planes were sent "to help the invaders" (New York Times, October 14, 1965). Nor is it only in moments of crisis that duplicity is considered perfectly in order. "New Frontiersmen," for example, have scarcely distinguished themselves by a passionate concern for historical accuracy, even when they are not being called upon to provide a "propaganda cover" for ongoing actions. For example, Arthur Schlesinger (New York Times, February 6, 1966) describes the bombing of North Vietnam and the massive escalation of military commitment in early 1965 as based on a "perfectly rational argument":

so long as the Vietcong thought they were going to win the war, they obviously would not be interested in any kind of negotiated settlement.

The date is important. Had this statement been made six months earlier, one could attribute it to ignorance. But this statement appeared after the UN, North Vietnamese, and Soviet initiatives had been front-page news for months. It was already public knowledge that these initiatives had preceeded the escalation of February 1965 and, in fact, continued for several weeks after the bombing began. Correspondents in Washington tried desperately to find some explanation for the startling deception that had been revealed. Chalmers Roberts, for example, wrote in the Boston Globe on November 19 with unconscious irony:

[late February, 1965] hardly seemed to Washington to be a propitious moment for negotiations [since] Mr. Johnson…had just ordered the first bombing of North Vietnam in an effort to bring Hanoi to a conference table where the bargaining chips on both sides would be more closely matched.

Coming at that moment, Schlesinger's statement is less an example of deceit than of contempt—contempt for an audience that can be expected to tolerate such behavior with silence, if not approval.^[2]

TO TURN TO SOMEONE closer to the actual formation and implementation of policy, consider some of the reflections of Walt Rostow, a man who, according to Schlesinger, brought a "spacious historical view" to the conduct of foreign affairs in the Kennedy administration.^[3] According to his analysis, the guerrilla warfare in Indo-China in 1946 was launched by Stalin,^[4] and Hanoi initiated the guerrilla war against South Vietnam in 1958 (The View from the Seventh Floor pp. 39 and 152). Similarly, the Communist planners probed the "free world spectrum of defense" in Northern Azerbaijan and Greece (where Stalin "supported substantial guerrilla warfare"—ibid., pp. 36 and 148), operating from plans carefully laid in 1945. And in Central Europe, the Soviet Union was not "prepared to accept a solution which would remove the dangerous tensions from Central Europe at the risk of even slowly staged corrosion of Communism in East Germany" (ibid., p. 156).

It is interesting to compare these observations with studies by scholars actually concerned with historical events. The remark about Stalin's initiating the first Vietnamese war in 1946 does not even merit refutation. As to Hanoi's purported initiative of 1958, the situation is more clouded. But even government sources^[5] concede that in 1959 Hanoi received the first direct reports of what Diem referred to^[6] as his own Algerian war and that only after this did they lay their plans to involve themselves in this struggle. In fact, in December, 1958, Hanoi made another of its many attempts—rebuffed once again by Saigon and the United States—to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with the Saigon government on the basis of the status quo.^[7] Rostow offers no evidence of Stalin's support for the Greek guerrillas; in fact, though the historical record is far from clear, it seems that Stalin was by no means pleased with the adventurism of the Greek guerrillas, who, from his point of view, were upsetting the satisfactory post-war imperialist settlement.^[8]

Rostow's remarks about Germany are more interesting still. He does not see fit to mention, for example, the Russian notes of March-April, 1952, which proposed unification of Germany under internationally supervised elections, with withdrawal of all troops within a year, if there was a guarantee that a reunified Germany would not be permitted to join a Western military alliance.^[9] And he has also momentarily forgotten his own characterization of the strategy of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations: "to avoid any serious negotiation with the Soviet Union until the West could confront Moscow with German rearmament within an organized European framework, as a fait accompli"^[10] —to be sure, in defiance of the Potsdam agreements.

But most interesting of all is Rostow's reference to Iran. The facts are that there was a Russian attempt to impose by force a pro-Soviet government in Northern Azerbaijan that would grant the Soviet Union access to Iranian oil. This was rebuffed by superior Anglo-American force in 1946, at which point the more powerful imperialism obtained full rights to Iranian oil for itself, with the installation of a pro-Western government. We recall what happened when, for a brief period in the early 1950s, the only Iranian government with something of a popular base experimented with the curious idea that Iranian oil should belong to the Iranians. What is interesting, however, is the description of Northern Azerbaijan as part of "the free world spectrum of defense." It is pointless, by now, to comment on the debasement of the phrase "free world." But by what law of nature does Iran, with its resources, fall within Western dominion? The bland assumption that it does is most revealing of deep-seated attitudes toward the conduct of foreign affairs.

IN ADDITION to this growing lack of concern for truth, we find, in recent published statements, a real or feigned naiveté about American actions that reaches startling proportions. For example, Arthur Schlesinger, according to the Times, February 6, 1966, characterized our Vietnamese policies of 1954 as "part of our general program of international goodwill." Unless intended as irony, this remark shows either a colossal cynicism, or the inability, on a scale that defies measurement, to comprehend elementary phenomena of contemporary history. Similarly, what is one to make of the testimony of Thomas Schelling before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, January 27, 1965, in which he discusses two great dangers if all Asia "goes Communist"?^[11] First, this would exclude "the United States and what we call Western civilization from a large part of the world that is poor and colored and potentially hostile." Second, "a country like the United States probably cannot maintain self-confidence if just about the greatest thing it ever attempted, namely to create the basis for decency and prosperity and democratic government in the underdeveloped world, had to be acknowledged as a failure or as an attempt that we wouldn't try again." It surpasses belief that a person with even a minimal acquaintance with the record of American foreign policy could produce such statements.

It surpasses belief, that is, unless we look at the matter from a more historical point of view, and place such statements in the context of the hypocritical moralism of the past; for example, of Woodrow Wilson, who was going to teach the Latin Americans the art of good government, and who wrote (1902) that it is "our peculiar duty" to teach colonial peoples "order and self-control…[and]…the drill and habit of law and obedience…." Or of the missionaries of the 1840s, who described the hideous and degrading opium wars as "the result of a great design of Providence to make the wickedness of men subserve his purposes of mercy toward China, in breaking through her wall of exclusion, and bringing the empire into more immediate contact with western and Christian nations." Or, to approach the present, of A.A. Berle, who, in commenting on the Dominican intervention, has the impertinence to attribute the problems of the Caribbean countries to imperialism—Russian imperialism.^[12]

AS A FINAL EXAMPLE of this failure of skepticism, consider the remarks of Henry Kissinger in his concluding remarks at the Harvard-Oxford television debate on America's Vietnam policies. He observed, rather sadly, that what disturbs him most is that others question not our judgment, but our motives—a remarkable comment by a man whose professional concern is political analysis, that is, analysis of the actions of governments in terms of motives that are unexpressed in official propaganda and perhaps only dimly perceived by those whose acts they govern. No one would be disturbed by an analysis of the political behavior of the Russians, French, or Tanzanians questioning their motives and interpreting their actions by the long-range interests concealed behind their official rhetoric. But it is an article of faith that American motives are pure, and not subject to analysis (see note ¹). Although it is nothing new in American intellectual history—or, for that matter, in the general history of imperialist apologia—this innocence becomes increasingly distasteful as the power it serves grows more dominant in world affairs, and more capable, therefore, of the unconstrained viciousness that the mass media present to us each day. We are hardly the first power in history to combine material interests, great technological capacity, and an utter disregard for the suffering and misery of the lower orders. The long tradition of naiveté and self-righteousness that disfigures our intellectual history, however, must serve as a warning to the third world, if such a warning is needed, as to how our protestations of sincerity and benign intent are to be interpreted.

The basic assumptions of the "New Frontiersmen" should be pondered carefully by those who look forward to the involvement of academic intellectuals in politics. For example, I have referred above to Arthur Schlesinger's objections to the Bay of Pigs invasion, but the reference was imprecise. True, he felt that it was a "terrible idea," but "not because the notion of sponsoring an exile attempt to overthrow Castro seemed intolerable in itself." Such a reaction would be the merest sentimentality, unthinkable to a tough-minded realist. The difficulty, rather, was that it seemed unlikely that the deception could succeed. The operation, in his view, was ill-conceived but not otherwise objectionable.^[13] In a similar vein, Schlesinger quotes with approval Kennedy's "realistic" assessment of the situation resulting from Trujillo's assassination:

There are three possibilities in descending order of preference: a decent democratic regime, a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castro regime. We ought to aim at the first, but we really can't renounce the second until we are sure that we can avoid the third [p. 769].

The reason why the third possibility is so intolerable is explained a few pages later (p. 774): "Communist success in Latin America would deal a much harder blow to the power and influence of the United States." Of course, we can never really be sure of avoiding the third possibility; therefore, in practice, we will always settle for the second, as we are now doing in Brazil and Argentina, for example.^[14]

Or consider Walt Rostow's views on American policy in Asia.^[15] The basis on which we must build this policy is that "we are openly threatened and we feel menaced by Communist China." To prove that we are menaced is of course unnecessary, and the matter receives no attention; it is enough that we feel menaced. Our policy must be based on our national heritage and our national interests. Our national heritage is briefly outlined in the following terms: "Throughout the nineteenth century, in good conscience Americans could devote themselves to the extension of both their principles and their power on this continent," making use of "the somewhat elastic concept of the Monroe doctrine" and, of course, extending "the American interest to Alaska and the mid-Pacific islands…. Both our insistence on unconditional surrender and the idea of post-war occupation…represented the formulation of American security interests in Europe and Asia." So much for our heritage. As to our interests, the matter is equally simple. Fundamental is our "profound interest that societies abroad develop and strengthen those elements in their respective cultures that elevate and protect the dignity of the individual against the state." At the same time, we must counter the "ideological threat," namely "the possibility that the Chinese Communists can prove to Asians by progress in China that Communist methods are better and faster than democratic methods." Nothing is said about those people in Asian cultures to whom our "conception of the proper relation of the individual to the state" may not be the uniquely important value, people who might, for example, be concerned with preserving the "dignity of the individual" against concentrations of foreign or domestic capital, or against semi-feudal structures (such as Trujillo-type dictatorships) introduced or kept in power by American arms. All of this is flavored with allusions to "our religious and ethical value systems" and to our "diffuse and complex concepts" which are to the Asian mind "so much more difficult to grasp" than Marxist dogma, and are so "disturbing to some Asians" because of "their very lack of dogmatism."

Such intellectual contributions as these suggest the need for a correction to De Gaulle's remark, in his Memoirs, about the American "will to power, cloaking itself in idealism." By now, this will to power is not so much cloaked in idealism as it is drowned in fatuity. And academic intellectuals have made their unique contribution to this sorry picture.

LET US, HOWEVER, RETURN to the war in Vietnam and the response that it has aroused among American intellectuals. A striking feature of the recent debate on Southeast Asian policy has been the distinction that is commonly drawn between "responsible criticism," on the one hand, and "sentimental," or "emotional," or "hysterical" criticism, on the other. There is much to be learned from a careful study of the terms in which this distinction is drawn. The "hysterical critics" are to be identified, apparently, by their irrational refusal to accept one fundamental political axiom, namely that the United States has the right to extend its power and control without limit, insofar as is feasible. Responsible criticism does not challenge this assumption, but argues, rather, that we probably can't "get away with it" at this particular time and place.

A distinction of this sort seems to be what Irving Kristol, for example, has in mind in his analysis of the protest over Vietnam policy (Encounter, August, 1965). He contrasts the responsible critics, such as Walter Lippmann, the Times, and Senator Fulbright, with the "teach-in movement." "Unlike the university protesters," he points out, "Mr. Lippmann engages in no presumptuous suppositions as to 'what the Vietnamese people really want'—he obviously doesn't much care—or in legalistic exegesis as to whether, or to what extent, there is 'aggression' or 'revolution' in South Vietnam. His is a realpolitik point of view; and he will apparently even contemplate the possibility of a nuclear war against China in extreme circumstances." This is commendable, and contrasts favorably, for Kristol, with the talk of the "unreasonable, ideological types" in the teach-in movement, who often seem to be motivated by such absurdities as "simple, virtuous 'anti-imperialism,' "who deliver "harangues on 'the power structure,' " and who even sometimes stoop so low as to read "articles and reports from the foreign press on the American presence in Vietnam." Furthermore, these nasty types are often psychologists, mathematicians, chemists, or philosophers (just as, incidentally, those most vocal in protest in the Soviet Union are generally physicists, literary intellectuals, and others remote from the exercise of power), rather than people with Washington contacts, who, of course, realize that "had they a new, good idea about Vietnam, they would get a prompt and respectful hearing" in Washington.

I am not interested here in whether Kristol's characterization of protest and dissent is accurate, but rather in the assumptions on which it rests. Is the purity of American motives a matter that is beyond discussion, or that is irrelevant to discussion? Should decisions be left to "experts" with Washington contacts—even if we assume that they command the necessary knowledge and principles to make the "best" decision, will they invariably do so? And, a logically prior question, is "expertise" applicable—that is, is there a body of theory and of relevant information, not in the public domain, that can be applied to the analysis of foreign policy or that demonstrates the correctness of present actions in some way that psychologists, mathematicians, chemists, and philosophers are incapable of comprehending? Although Kristol does not examine these questions directly, his attitude presupposes answers, answers which are wrong in all cases. American aggressiveness, however it may be masked in pious rhetoric, is a dominant force in world affairs and must be analyzed in terms of its causes and motives. There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism. To the extent that "expert knowledge" is applied to world affairs, it is surely appropriate—for a person of any integrity, quite necessary—to question its quality and the goals it serves. These facts seem too obvious to require extended discussion.

A CORRECTIVE to Kristol's curious belief in the Administration's openness to new thinking about Vietnam is provided by McGeorge Bundy in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs (January, 1967). As Bundy correctly observes, "on the main stage…the argument on Viet Nam turns on tactics, not fundamentals," although, he adds, "there are wild men in the wings." On stage center are, of course, the President (who in his recent trip to Asia had just "magisterially reaffirmed" our interest "in the progress of the people across the Pacific") and his advisers, who deserve "the understanding support of those who want restraint." It is these men who deserve the credit for the fact that "the bombing of the North has been the most accurate and the most restrained in modern warfare"—a solicitude which will be appreciated by the inhabitants, or former inhabitants of Nam Dinh and Phu Ly and Vinh. It is these men, too, who deserve the credit for what was reported by Malcolm Browne as long ago as May, 1965:

In the South, huge sectors of the nation have been declared "free bombing zones," in which anything that moves is a legitimate target. Tens of thousands of tons of bombs, rockets, napalm and cannon fire are poured into these vast areas each week. If only by the laws of chance, bloodshed is believed to be heavy in these raids.

Fortunately for the developing countries, Bundy assures us, "American democracy has no taste for imperialism," and "taken as a whole, the stock of American experience, understanding, sympathy and simple knowledge is now much the most impressive in the world." It is true that "four-fifths of all the foreign investing in the world is now done by Americans" and that "the most admired plans and policies…are no better than their demonstrable relation to the American interest"—just as it is true, so we read in the same issue of Foreign Affairs, that the plans for armed action against Cuba were put into motion a few weeks after Mikoyan visited Havana, "invading what had so long been an almost exclusively American sphere of influence." Unfortunately, such facts as these are often taken by unsophisticated Asian intellectuals as indicating a "taste for imperialism." For example, a number of Indians have expressed their "near exasperation" at the fact that "we have done everything we can to attract foreign capital for fertilizer plants, but the American and the other Western private companies know we are over a barrel, so they demand stringent terms which we just cannot meet" (Christian Science Monitor, November 26), while "Washington…doggedly insists that deals be made in the private sector with private enterprise" (ibid., December 5).^[16] But this reaction, no doubt, simply reveals, once again, how the Asian mind fails to comprehend the "diffuse and complex concepts" of Western thought.

IT MAY BE USEFUL to study carefully the "new, good ideas about Vietnam" that are receiving a "prompt and respectful hearing" in Washington these days. The US Government Printing Office is an endless source of insight into the moral and intellectual level of this expert advice. In its publications one can read, for example, the testimony of Professor David N. Rowe, Director of Graduate Studies in International Relations at Yale University, before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (see note ¹¹). Professor Rowe proposes (p. 266) that the United States buy all surplus Canadian and Australian wheat, so that there will be mass starvation in China. These are his words:

Mind you, I am not talking about this as a weapon against the Chinese people. It will be. But that is only incidental. The weapon will be a weapon against the Government because the internal stability of that country cannot be sustained by an unfriendly Government in the face of general starvation.

Professor Rowe will have none of the sentimental moralism that might lead one to compare this suggestion with, say, the Ostpolitik of Hitler's Germany.^[17] Nor does he fear the impact of such policies on other Asian nations, for example, Japan. He assures us, from his "very long acquaintance with Japanese questions," that "the Japanese above all are people who respect power and determination." Hence "they will not be so much alarmed by American policy in Vietnam that takes off from a position of power and intends to seek a solution based upon the imposition of our power upon local people that we are in opposition to." What would disturb the Japanese is "a policy of indecision, a policy of refusal to face up to the problems [in China and Vietnam] and to meet our responsibilities there in a positive way," such as the way just cited. A conviction that we were "unwilling to use the power that they know we have" might "alarm the Japanese people very intensely and shake the degree of their friendly relations with us." In fact, a full use of American power would be particularly reassuring to the Japanese, because they have had a demonstration "of the tremendous power in action of the United States…because they have felt our power directly." This is surely a prime example of the healthy, "realpolitik point of view" that Irving Kristol so much admires.

But, one may ask, why restrict ourselves to such indirect means as mass starvation? Why not bombing? No doubt this message is implicit in the remarks to the same committee of the Reverend R.J. de Jaegher, Regent of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Seton Hall University, who explains that like all people who have lived under Communism, the North Vietnamese "would be perfectly happy to be bombed to be free" (p. 345).

Of course, there must be those who support the Communists. But this is really a matter of small concern, as the Hon Walter Robertson, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs from 1953-59, points out in his testimony before the same committee. He assures us that "The Peiping regime…represents something less than 3 per cent of the population" (p. 402).

Consider, then, how fortunate the Chinese Communist leaders are, compared to the leaders of the Vietcong, who, according to Arthur Goldberg (New York Times, February 6, 1966), represent about "one-half of one percent of the population of South Vietnam," that is, about one-half the number of new Southern recruits for the Vietcong during 1965, if we can credit Pentagon statistics.^[18]

In the face of such experts as these, the scientists and philosophers of whom Kristol speaks would clearly do well to continue to draw their circles in the sand.

HAVING SETTLED THE ISSUE of the political irrelevance of the protest movement, Kristol turns to the question of what motivates it—more generally, what has made students and junior faculty "go left," as he sees it, amid general prosperity and under liberal, Welfare State administrations. This, he notes, "is a riddle to which no sociologist has as yet come up with an answer." Since these young people are well-off, have good futures, etc., their protest must be irrational. It must be the result of boredom, of too much security, or something of this sort.

Other possibilities come to mind. It may be, for example, that as honest men the students and junior faculty are attempting to find out the truth for themselves rather than ceding the responsibility to "experts" or to government; and it may be that they react with indignation to what they discover. These possibilities Kristol does not reject. They are simply unthinkable, unworthy of consideration. More accurately, these possibilities are inexpressible; the categories in which they are formulated (honesty, indignation) simply do not exist for the tough-minded social scientist.

IN THIS IMPLICIT DISPARAGEMENT of traditional intellectual values, Kristol reflects attitudes that are fairly widespread in academic circles. I do not doubt that these attitudes are in part a consequence of the desperate attempt of the social and behavioral sciences to imitate the surface features of sciences that really have significant intellectual content. But they have other sources as well. Anyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by "sophisticated" methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real. Responsible, non-ideological experts will give advice on tactical questions; irresponsible, "ideological types" will "harangue" about principle and trouble themselves over moral issues and human rights, or over the traditional problems of man and society, concerning which "social and behavioral science" has nothing to offer beyond trivalities. Obviously, these emotional, ideological types are irrational, since, being well-off and having power in their grasp, they shouldn't worry about such matters.

At times this pseudo-scientific posing reaches levels that are almost pathological. Consider the phenomenon of Herman Kahn, for example. Kahn has been both denounced as immoral and lauded for his courage. By people who should know better, his On Thermonuclear War has been described "without qualification…[as]…one of the great works of our time" (Stuart Hughes). The fact of the matter is that this is surely one of the emptiest works of our time, as can be seen by applying to it the intellectual standards of any existing discipline, by tracing some of its "well-documented conclusions" to the "objective studies" from which they derive, and by following the line of argument, where detectable. Kahn proposes no theories, no explanations, no factual assumptions that can be tested against their consequences, as do the sciences he is attempting to mimic. He simply suggests a terminology and provides a facade of rationality. When particular policy conclusions are drawn, they are supported only by ex cathedra remarks for which no support is even suggested (e.g., "The civil defense line probably should be drawn somewhere below $5 billion annually" to keep from provoking the Russians—why not $50 billion, or $5.00?). What is more, Kahn is quite aware of this vacuity; in his more judicious moments he claims only that "there is no reason to believe that relatively sophisticated models are more likely to be misleading than the simpler models and analogies frequently used as an aid to judgment." For those whose humor tends towards the macabre, it is easy to play the game of "strategic thinking" à la Kahn, and to prove what one wishes. For example, one of Kahn's basic assumptions is that

an all-out surprise attack in which all resources are devoted to counter-value targets would be so irrational that, barring an incredible lack of sophistication or actual insanity among Soviet decision makers, such an attack is highly unlikely.

A simple argument proves the opposite. Premise 1: American decision-makers think along the lines outlined by Herman Kahn. Premise 2: Kahn thinks it would be better for everyone to be red than for everyone to be dead. Premise 3: if the Americans were to respond to an all-out countervalue attack, then everyone would be dead. Conclusion: the Americans will not respond to an all-out countervalue attack, and therefore it should be launched without delay. Of course, one can carry the argument a step further. Fact: the Russians have not carried out an all-out countervalue attack. It follows that they are not rational. If they are not rational, there is no point in "strategic thinking." Therefore,….

Of course this is all nonsense, but nonsense that differs from Kahn's only in the respect that the argument is of slightly greater complexity than anything to be discovered in his work. What is remarkable is that serious people actually pay attention to these absurdities, no doubt because of the facade of tough-mindedness and pseudo-science.

IT IS A CURIOUS and depressing fact that the "anti-war movement" falls prey all too often to similar confusions. In the fall of 1965, for example, there was an International Conference on Alternative Perspectives on Vietnam, which circulated a pamphlet to potential participants stating its assumptions. The plan was to set up study groups in which three "types of intellectual tradition" will be represented: (1) area specialists; (2) "social theory, with special emphasis on theories of the international system, of social change and development, of conflict and conflict resolution, or of revolution"; (3) "the analysis of public policy in terms of basic human values, rooted in various theological, philosophical and humanist traditions." The second intellectual tradition will provide "general propositions, derived from social theory and tested against historical, comparative, or experimental data"; the third "will provide the framework out of which fundamental value questions can be raised and in terms of which the moral implications of societal actions can be analyzed." The hope was that "by approaching the questions [of Vietnam policy] from the moral perspectives of all great religions and philosophical systems, we may find solutions that are more consistent with fundamental human values than current American policy in Vietnam has turned out to be."

In short, the experts on values (i.e., spokesmen for the great religions and philosophical systems) will provide fundamental insights on moral perspectives, and the experts on social theory will provide general empirically validated propositions and "general models of conflict." From this interplay, new policies will emerge, presumably from application of the canons of scientific method. The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values.

There is much more that can be said about this topic, but, without continuing, I would simply like to emphasize that, as is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent. Obviously, one must learn from social and behavioral science whatever one can; obviously, these fields should be pursued as seriously as possible. But it will be quite unfortunate, and highly dangerous, if they are not accepted and judged on their merits and according to their actual, not pretended, accomplishments. In particular, if there is a body of theory, well-tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret. In the case of Vietnam, if those who feel themselves to be experts have access to principles or information that would justify what the American government is doing in that unfortunate country, they have been singularly ineffective in making this fact known. To anyone who has any familiarity with the social and behavioral sciences (or the "policy sciences"), the claim that there are certain considerations and principles too deep for the outsider to comprehend is simply an absurdity, unworthy of comment.

WHEN WE CONSIDER the responsibility of intellectuals, our basic concern must be their role in the creation and analysis of ideology. And, in fact, Kristol's contrast between the unreasonable ideological types and the responsible experts is formulated in terms that immediately bring to mind Daniel Bell's interesting and influential "The End of Ideology," an essay which is as important for what it leaves unsaid as for its actual content.^[19] Bell presents and discusses the Marxist analysis of ideology as a mask for class interest, quoting Marx's well-known description of the belief of the bourgeoisie "that the special conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions through which alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided." He then argues that the age of ideology is ended, supplanted, at least in the West, by a general agreement that each issue must be settled in its own terms, within the framework of a Welfare State in which, presumably, experts in the conduct of public affairs will have a prominent role. Bell is quite careful, however, to characterize the precise sense of "ideology" in which "ideologies are exhausted." He is referring to ideology only as "the conversion of ideas into social levers," to ideology as "a set of beliefs, infused with passion,…[which] …seeks to transform the whole of a way of life." The crucial words are "transform" and "convert into social levers." Intellectuals in the West, he argues, have lost interest in converting ideas into social levers for the radical transformation of society. Now that we have achieved the pluralistic society of the Welfare State, they see no further need for a radical transformation of society; we may tinker with our way of life here and there, but it would be wrong to try to modify it in any significant way. With this consensus of intellectuals, ideology is dead.

There are several striking facts about Bell's essay. First, he does not point out the extent to which this consensus of the intellectuals is self-serving. He does not relate his observation that, by and large, intellectuals have lost interest in "transforming the whole of a way of life" to the fact that they play an increasingly prominent role in running the Welfare State; he does not relate their general satisfaction with the Welfare State to the fact that, as he observes elsewhere, "America has become an affluent society, offering place…and prestige…to the onetime radicals." Secondly, he offers no serious argument to show that intellectuals are somehow "right" or "objectively justified" in reaching the consensus to which he alludes, with its rejection of the notion that society should be transformed. Indeed, although Bell is fairly sharp about the empty rhetoric of the "new left," he seems to have a quite utopian faith that technical experts will be able to cope with the few problems that still remain; for example, the fact that labor is treated as a commodity, and the problems of "alienation."

It seems fairly obvious that the classical problems are very much with us; one might plausibly argue that they have even been enhanced in severity and scale. For example, the classical paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty is now an ever-increasing problem on an international scale. Whereas one might conceive, at least in principle, of a solution within national boundaries, a sensible idea of transforming international society to cope with vast and perhaps increasing human misery is hardly likely to develop within the framework of the intellectual consensus that Bell describes.

THUS IT WOULD SEEM NATURAL to describe the consensus of Bell's intellectuals in somewhat different terms from his. Using the terminology of the first part of his essay, we might say that the Welfare State technician finds justification for his special and prominent social status in his "science," specifically, in the claim that social science can support a technology of social tinkering on a domestic or international scale. He then takes a further step, ascribing in a familiar way a universal validity to what is in fact a class interest: he argues that the special conditions on which his claim to power and authority are based are, in fact, the only general conditions by which modern society can be saved; that social tinkering within a Welfare State framework must replace the commitment to the "total ideologies" of the past, ideologies which were concerned with a transformation of society. Having found his position of power, having achieved security and affluence, he has no further need for ideologies that look to radical change. The scholar-expert replaces the "free-floating intellectual" who "felt that the wrong values were being honored, and rejected the society," and who has now lost his political role (now, that is, that the right values are being honored).

Conceivably, it is correct that the technical experts who will (or hope to) manage the "industrial society" will be able to cope with the classical problems without a radical transformation of society. It is conceivably true that the bourgeoisie was right in regarding the special conditions of its emancipation as the only general conditions by which modern society would be saved. In either case, an argument is in order, and skepticism is justified when none appears.

Within the same framework of general utopianism, Bell goes on to pose the issue between Welfare State scholar-experts and third-world ideologists in a rather curious way. He points out, quite correctly, that there is no issue of Communism, the content of that doctrine having been "long forgotten by friends and foes alike." Rather, he says,

the question is an older one: whether new societies can grow by building democratic institutions and allowing people to make choices—and sacrifices—voluntarily, or whether the new elites, heady with power, will impose totalitarian means to transform their societies.

THE QUESTION is an interesting one. It is odd, however, to see it referred to as "an older one." Surely he cannot be suggesting that the West chose the democratic way—for example, that in England during the industrial revolution, the farmers voluntarily made the choice of leaving the land, giving up cottage industry, becoming an industrial proletariat, and voluntarily decided, within the framework of the existing democratic institutions, to make the sacrifices that are graphically described in the classic literature on nineteenth-century industrial society. One may debate the question whether authoritarian control is necessary to permit capital accumulation in the underdeveloped world, but the Western model of development is hardly one that we can point to with any pride. It is perhaps not surprising to find Walt Rostow referring to "the more humane processes [of industrialization] that Western values would suggest" (An American Policy in Asia). Those who have a serious concern for the problems that face backward countries, and for the role that advanced industrial societies might, in principle, play in development and modernization, must use somewhat more care in interpreting the significance of the Western experience.

Returning to the quite appropriate question, whether "new societies can grow by building democratic institutions" or only by totalitarian means, I think that honesty requires us to recognize that this question must be directed more to American intellectuals than to third-world ideologists. The backward countries have incredible, perhaps insurmountable problems, and few available options; the United States has a wide range of options, and has the economic and technological resources, though, evidently, neither the intellectual nor moral resources, to confront at least some of these problems. It is easy for an American intellectual to deliver homilies on the virtues of freedom and liberty, but if he is really concerned about, say, Chinese totalitarianism or the burdens imposed on the Chinese peasantry in forced industrialization, then he should face a task that is infinitely more important and challenging—the task of creating, in the United States, the intellectual and moral climate, as well as the social and economic conditions, that would permit this country to participate in modernization and development in a way commensurate with its material wealth and technical capacity. Large capital gifts to Cuba and China might not succeed in alleviating the authoritarianism and terror that tend to accompany early stages of capital accumulation, but they are far more likely to have this effect than lectures on democratic values. It is possible that even without "capitalist encirclement" in its various manifestations, the truly democratic elements in revolutionary movements—in some instances, soviets and collectives—might be undermined by an "elite" of bureaucrats and technical intelligentsia. But it is almost certain that capitalist encirclement itself, which all revolutionary movements now have to face, will guarantee this result. The lesson, for those who are concerned to strengthen the democratic, spontaneous, and popular elements in developing societies, is quite clear. Lectures on the two-party system, or even on the really substantial democratic values that have been in part realized in Western society, are a monstrous irrelevance, given the effort required to raise the level of culture in Western society to the point where it can provide a "social lever" for both economic development and the development of true democratic institutions in the third world—and, for that matter, at home.

A GOOD CASE CAN BE MADE for the conclusion that there is indeed something of a consensus among intellectuals who have already achieved power and affluence, or who sense that they can achieve them by "accepting society" as it is and promoting the values that are "being honored" in this society. It is also true that this consensus is most noticeable among the scholar-experts who are replacing the free-floating intellectuals of the past. In the university, these scholar-experts construct a "value-free technology" for the solution of technical problems that arise in contemporary society,^[20] taking a "responsible stance" towards these problems, in the sense noted earlier. This consensus among the responsible scholar-experts is the domestic analogue to that proposed, internationally, by those who justify the application of American power in Asia, whatever the human cost, on the grounds that it is necessary to contain the "expansion of China" (an "expansion" which is, to be sure, hypothetical for the time being)^[21] —that is, to translate from State Department Newspeak, on the grounds that it is essential to reverse the Asian nationalist revolutions or, at least, to prevent them from spreading. The analogy becomes clear when we look carefully at the ways in which this proposal is formulated. With his usual lucidity, Churchill outlined the general position in a remark to his colleague of the moment, Joseph Stalin, at Teheran in 1943:

The government of the world must be entrusted to satisfied nations, who wished nothing more for themselves than what they had. If the world-government were in the hands of hungry nations there would always be danger. But none of us had any reason to seek for anything more…. Our power placed us above the rest. We were like the rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations.

For a translation of Churchill's biblical rhetoric into the jargon of contemporary social science, one may turn to the testimony of Charles Wolf, Senior Economist of the Rand Corporation, at the Congressional Committee Hearings cited earlier:

I am dubious that China's fears of encirclement are going to be abated, eased, relaxed in the long-term future. But I would hope that what we do in Southeast Asia would help to develop within the Chinese body politic more of a realism and willingness to live with this fear than to indulge it by support for liberation movements, which admittedly depend on a great deal more than external support…the operational question for American foreign policy is not whether that fear can be eliminated or substantially alleviated, but whether China can be faced with a structure of incentives, of penalties and rewards, of inducements that will make it willing to live with this fear.

The point is further clarified by Thomas Schelling: "There is growing experience, which the Chinese can profit from, that although the United States may be interested in encircling them, may be interested in defending nearby areas from them, it is, nevertheless, prepared to behave peaceably if they are."

In short, we are prepared to live peaceably in our—to be sure, rather extensive—habitations. And, quite naturally, we are offended by the undignified noises from the servants' quarters. If, let us say, a peasant-based revolutionary movement tries to achieve independence from foreign powers and the domestic structures they support, or if the Chinese irrationally refuse to respond properly to the schedule of reinforcement that we have prepared for them—if they object to being encircled by the benign and peace-loving "rich men" who control the territories on their borders as a natural right—then, evidently, we must respond to this belligerence with appropriate force.

IT IS THIS MENTALITY that explains the frankness with which the United States Government and its academic apologists defend the American refusal to permit a political settlement in Vietnam at a local level, a settlement based on the actual distribution of political forces. Even government experts freely admit that the NLF is the only "truly mass-based political party in South Vietnam"^[22] ; that the NLF had "made a conscious and massive effort to extend political participation, even if it was manipulated, on the local level so as to involve the people in a self-contained, self-supporting revolution" (p. 374); and that this effort had been so successful that no political groups, "with the possible exception of the Buddhists, thought themselves equal in size and power to risk entering into a coalition, fearing that if they did the whale would swallow the minnow" (p. 362). Moreover, they concede that until the introduction of overwhelming American force, the NLF had insisted that the struggle "should be fought out at the political level and that the use of massed military might was in itself illegitimate…. The battleground was to be the minds and loyalties of the rural Vietnamese, the weapons were to be ideas" (pp. 91-92; cf. also pp. 93, 99-108, 155f.); and, correspondingly, that until mid-1964, aid from Hanoi "was largely confined to two areas—doctrinal know-how and leadership personnel" (p. 321). Captured NLF documents contrast the enemy's "military superiority" with their own "political superiority" (p. 106), thus fully confirming the analysis of American military spokesmen who define our problem as how, "with considerable armed force but little political power, [to] contain an adversary who has enormous political force but only modest military power."^[23]

Similarly, the most striking outcome of both the Honolulu conference in February and the Manila conference in October was the frank admission by high officials of the Saigon government that "they could not survive a 'peaceful settlement' that left the Vietcong political structure in place even if the Vietcong guerilla units were disbanded," that "they are not able to compete politically with the Vietnamese Communists" (Charles Mohr, New York Times, February 11, 1966, italics mine). Thus, Mohr continues, the Vietnamese demand a "pacification program" which will have as "its core…the destruction of the clandestine Vietcong political structure and the creation of an iron-like system of government political control over the population." And from Manila, the same correspondent, on October 23, quotes a high South Vietnamese official as saying that:

Frankly, we are not strong enough now to compete with the Communists on a purely political basis. They are organized and disciplined. The non-Communist nationalists are not—we do not have any large, well-organized political parties and we do not yet have unity. We cannot leave the Vietcong in existence.

Officials in Washington understand the situation very well. Thus Secretary Rusk has pointed out that "if the Vietcong come to the conference table as full partners they will, in a sense, have been victorious in the very aims that South Vietnam and the United States are pledged to prevent" (January 28, 1966). Max Frankel reported from Washington in the Times on February 18, 1966, that

Compromise has had no appeal here because the Administration concluded long ago that the non-Communist forces of South Vietnam could not long survive in a Saigon coalition with Communists. It is for that reason—and not because of an excessively rigid sense of protocol—that Washington has steadfastly refused to deal with the Vietcong or recognize them as an independent political force.

In short, we will—magnanimously—permit Vietcong representatives to attend negotiations only if they will agree to identify themselves as agents of a foreign power and thus forfeit the right to participate in a coalition government, a right which they have now been demanding for a half-dozen years. We well know that in any representative coalition, our chosen delegates could not last a day without the support of American arms. Therefore, we must increase American force and resist meaningful negotiations, until the day when a client government can exert both military and political control over its own population—a day which may never dawn, for as William Bundy has pointed out, we could never be sure of the security of a Southeast Asia "from which the Western presence was effectively withdrawn." Thus if we were to "negotiate in the direction of solutions that are put under the label of neutralization," this would amount to capitulation to the Communists.^[24] According to this reasoning, then, South Vietnam must remain, permanently, an American military base.

All of this is, of course, reasonable, so long as we accept the fundamental political axiom that the United States, with its traditional concern for the rights of the weak and downtrodden, and with its unique insight into the proper mode of development for backward countries, must have the courage and the persistence to impose its will by force until such time as other nations are prepared to accept these truths—or simply, to abandon hope.

IF IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of the intellectual to insist upon the truth, it is also his duty to see events in their historical perspective. Thus one must applaud the insistence of the Secretary of State on the importance of historical analogies, the Munich analogy, for example. As Munich showed, a powerful and aggressive nation with a fanatic belief in its manifest destiny will regard each victory, each extension of its power and authority, as a prelude to the next step. The matter was very well put by Adlai Stevenson, when he spoke of "the old, old route whereby expansive powers push at more and more doors, believing they will open until, at the ultimate door, resistance is unavoidable and major war breaks out." Herein lies the danger of appeasement, as the Chinese tirelessly point out to the Soviet Union—which, they claim, is playing Chamberlain to our Hitler in Vietnam. Of course, the aggressiveness of liberal imperialism is not that of Nazi Germany, though the distinction may seem academic to a Vietnamese peasant who is being gassed or incinerated. We do not want to occupy Asia; we merely wish, to return to Mr. Wolf, "to help the Asian countries progress toward economic modernization, as relatively 'open' and stable societies, to which our access, as a country and as individual citizens, is free and comfortable." The formulation is appropriate. Recent history shows that it makes little difference to us what form of government a country has so long as it remains an "open society," in our peculiar sense of this term—that is, a society that remains open to American economic penetration or political control. If it is necessary to approach genocide in Vietnam to achieve this objective, than this is the price we must pay in defense of freedom and the rights of man.

In pursuing the aim of helping other countries to progress toward open societies, with no thought of territorial aggrandizement, we are breaking no new ground. In the Congressional Hearings that I cited earlier, Hans Morgenthau aptly describes our traditional policy towards China as one which favors "what you might call freedom of competition with regard to the exploitation of China" (op. cit., p. 128). In fact, few imperialist powers have had explicit territorial ambitions. Thus in 1784, the British Parliament announced: "To pursue schemes of conquest and extension of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the wish, honor, and policy of this nation." Shortly after this, the conquest of India was in full swing. A century later, Britain announced its intentions in Egypt under the slogan "intervention, reform, withdrawal." It is obvious which parts of this promise were fulfilled within the next half-century. In 1936, on the eve of hostilities in North China, the Japanese stated their Basic Principles of National Policy. These included the use of moderate and peaceful means to extend her strength, to promote social and economic development, to eradicate the menace of Communism, to correct the aggressive policies of the great powers, and to secure her position as the stabilizing power in East Asia. Even in 1937, the Japanese government had "no territorial designs upon China." In short, we follow a well-trodden path.

It is useful to remember, incidentally, that the US was apparently quite willing, as late as 1939, to negotiate a commercial treaty with Japan and arrive at a modus vivendi if Japan would "change her attitude and practice towards our rights and interests in China," as Secretary Hull put it. The bombing of Chungking and the rape of Nanking were unpleasant, it is true, but what was really important was our rights and interests in China, as the responsible, unhysterical men of the day saw quite clearly. It was the closing of the open door by Japan that led inevitably to the Pacific war, just as it is the closing of the open door by "Communist" China itself that may very well lead to the next, and no doubt last, Pacific war.

QUITE OFTEN, THE STATEMENTS of sincere and devoted technical experts give surprising insight into the intellectual attitudes that lie in the background of the latest savagery. Consider, for example, the following comment by the economist Richard Lindholm, in 1959, expressing his frustration over the failure of economic development in "free Vietnam":

…the use of American aid is determined by how the Vietnamese use their incomes and their savings. The fact that a large portion of the Vietnamese imports financed with American aid are either consumer goods or raw materials used rather directly to meet consumer demands is an indication that the Vietnamese people desire these goods. for they have shown their desire by their willingness to use their piasters to purchase them.^[25]

In short, the Vietnamese people desire Buicks and air-conditioners, rather than sugar refining equipment or road-building machinery, as they have shown by their behavior in a free market. And however much we may deplore their free choice, we must allow the people to have their way. Of course, there are also those two-legged beasts of burden that one stumbles on in the countryside, but as any graduate student of political science can explain, they are not part of a responsible modernizing elite, and therefore have only a superficial biological resemblance to the human race.

In no small measure, it is attitudes like this that lie behind the butchery in Vietnam, and we had better face up to them with candor, or we will find our government leading us towards a "final solution" in Vietnam, and in the many Vietnams that inevitably lie ahead.

Let me finally return to Dwight Macdonald and the responsibility of intellectuals. Macdonald quotes an interview with a death-camp paymaster who burst into tears when told that the Russians would hang him. "Why should they? What have I done?" he asked. Macdonald concludes: "Only those who are willing to resist authority themselves when it conflicts too intolerably with their personal moral code, only they have the right to condemn the death-camp paymaster." The question, "What have I done?" is one that we may well ask ourselves, as we read each day of fresh atrocities in Vietnam—as we create, or mouth, or tolerate the deceptions that will be used to justify the next defense of freedom.

Cuban Crisis - What we didnt know!

2006-01-29T22:01:00.000-08:00

1: The Counter-revolution Commences

When rebel forces under the command of Fidel Castro completed the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista on New Year's Day, 1959, the future of U.S.-Cuban relations became uncertain, at best. As the year progressed, Castro solidified control over the revolutionary government and initiated an ambitious program of reforms, replacing American companies' control of key industries with economic measures focused on national development. The new policies threatened the profits and land holdings of U.S. businesses, causing the administration of Dwight Eisenhower to increasingly turn a hostile glance at Cuba.

By the winter of 1960, just a year after the Revolution, President Eisenhower and his key foreign policy advisers were convinced that Castro's government needed to be replaced-soon and by any means necessary. On March 17, 1960, Eisenhower authorized a Central Intelligence Agency plan, titled "A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime." The document states that the program's objective is to "bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner as to avoid the appearance of U.S. intervention."

The CIA set about the task zealously, eager to attempt a rerun of their successful 1954 operation to overthrow Guatemala's leftist leader, President Jacobo Arbenz. Much of the Agency's planning for the Cuba program was modeled on the Guatemala campaign, which was conducted to appear as an independent invasion of the country by forces under the command of an exiled military officer, Carlos Castillo Armas. In addition to training, funding and directing the small invasion force, the CIA launched a large radio propaganda effort and arranged for some small-scale, but frightening, aerial bombings in Guatemala City. Arbenz was spooked out of office, and the CIA, with assistance from the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, installed Armas as the new president.

Convinced that this combination of armed intervention, sabotage and psychological warfare could also spur Castro's overthrow, the CIA began training a force of Cuban exiles who would ultimately man the U.S.-sponsored invasion of Cuba, and quickly established anti-Castro radio broadcasting. Though the CIA subsidized many stations in the Caribbean, the major conduit for the Agency's propaganda was Radio Swan, a station beaming its signal from Swan Island, a tiny spot of land off the coast of Honduras.

Kennedy gave the
go-ahead for the
invasion three months
into his presidency.

2: Kennedy's Gamble

When John Kennedy entered the White House in January of 1961, the training and planning for the exile invasion were nearing completion. The CIA had organized a brigade of about 1,400 exile fighters at a secluded camp in Guatemala, and was infiltrating advance teams of organizers and saboteurs into Cuba. President Kennedy was excited at the prospect of secretly arranging Castro's overthrow, and took an active interest in the planning.

Kennedy was cautious, however, concerned that the size of the operation would threaten his ability to deny U.S. involvement with the exile brigade. Throughout the preparations for the invasion he was enthusiastic about the CIA's Cuba program, but as the planned D-Day approached, Kennedy became increasing worried that the U.S. hand in the operation could no longer be concealed.

Some of Kennedy's advisers shared his concern about the implications of a loss of deniability. A week before the invasion, Kennedy special assistant Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote a memo to the President urging him to not get caught up in covering up the invasion: "When lies must be told, they should be told by subordinate officials. At no point should the President be asked to lend himself to the cover operation."

Kennedy was as determined to have the Cuba program remain secret as he was to see it succeed. The "cover operation" Schlesinger referred to cranked into high gear in mid-April, 1961, as the CIA and the Kennedy administration labored to maintain the fiction that the exiles attacking Cuba were not under the employ of the United states.
4: A Deniability Debacle

On April 15 at the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson rose to defend his country from charges by the Cubans that the planes attacking the island received U.S. support. He derided the allegations as being "without foundation," and said that the planes "to the best of our knowledge were Castro's own air force planes and, according to the pilots, they took off from Castro's own air force fields." In addition, Stevenson displayed a photo of one of the planes and pointed out its Cuban markings.

As David Phillips, the CIA's propaganda chief, monitored the events at the U.N., he was shocked by Stevenson's statements. As he later wrote: "As I watched Stevenson defend the deceitful scheme a chill moved through my body. What had we done? Adlai Stevenson had been taken in by the hoax! Had no one bothered to tell our Ambassador at the United Nations of the deception involved in the air strike?" In fact, Stevenson had not been briefed on the plans, and was later enraged to find that he had repeated the CIA cover story before the international community.

Within a day, it became apparent that the planes could not have been from the Cuban air force, and as the exile brigade landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, U.S. denials of involvement with the operation lay in ruins.

After the invasion, Kennedy appointed a small, secret commission to evaluate the causes of failure at the Bay of Pigs. Among their conclusions was a statement on the challenges of conducting a secret war: "A paramilitary operation of the magnitude of Zapata [a code-name for the operation] could not be prepared and conducted in such a way that all U.S. support of it and connection with it could be plausibly denied."
5: The Brigade Hits the Beach

When the exile troops landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, the Fidel Castro took personal command of the effort to repel the invaders. He quickly mobilized military and militia units, and instructed his few remaining fighter planes to bomb and strafe the invasion force (several of Cuba's aircraft had been destroyed in air strikes preceding the invasion).

The long-planned covert action to oust Castro met a surprisingly speedy defeat. Cuban air force pilots managed to destroy ships just off the beach that were to supply the invaders with needed ammunition and communication equipment. Cut off from this lifeline and running short on bullets, the exile brigade struggled in vain for a few days before almost all of its members were killed or captured. When the shooting was over, 114 members of the brigade were dead and 1,189 had become Castro's prisoners.

Cuba's revolutionary army and militia had thwarted the invaders before they were able to establish a solid foothold on the island. In Washington, the White House went into a brief period of shock. President Kennedy recovered quickly, however, and made a statement acknowledging U.S. support for the invaders. Days later he said that U.S. efforts to oust Castro with the Bay of Pigs invasion had been restrained, and that future U.S. action against the Cuban government might be more severe.

The covert invasion of Cuba had been a foreign policy disaster, what one historian called "the perfect failure." The events at the Bay of Pigs resulted in embarrassment for the Kennedy administration and provided Castro with a major issue with which to rally the people of Cuba. Though three and a half decades have passed since the invasion, the memory of the Bay of Pigs continues to influence the present-day tensions between the U.S. and Cuba.

Sector by sector

2006-01-27T03:26:00.001-08:00

The strength of the Chinese and Indian economies will actually be decided at the industry level.
Diana Farrell

The answer to the question, "Which is the better approach to economic development?" is not to be found at the national level. You have to look at what's going on in individual industries. And when you do, you find that supportive government policies that encourage competition drive good performance. Both China and India have some sluggish, inefficient industries that are heavily regulated and lack competitive dynamism. But both countries also have successful industries that thrive unfettered by poor regulation.
The McKinsey Global Institute has long argued that the key to high economic growth is productivity and that the main barrier to productivity gains is the raft of microlevel government regulations that hinder competition. This idea is well illustrated in the case of India.

At the high end of India's productivity spectrum is the information technology, software, and business-process-outsourcing sector. It's a big success story, having created hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars' worth of exports. As a new sector—and one whose potential the government, in my view, failed to recognize early on—it has avoided stifling regulation. IT, software, and outsourcing companies are exempt from the labor regulations that govern working hours and overtime in other sectors, and they have been allowed to receive foreign direct investment, which is prohibited in retailing, for example. Without this foreign money, it is debatable whether the sector could have taken off. By 2002 it already accounted for 15 percent of all foreign direct investment in India.
In the middle of the spectrum is the auto industry, which has seen dramatic change since the government began to liberalize it in the 1980s. By 1992 most of the barriers to foreign investment had been lifted, and this made it possible for output and labor productivity to soar. Prices have fallen and, even as the industry has consolidated, employment levels have held steady thanks to robust demand. Nonetheless, with tariffs on finished cars still relatively high, automakers remain sheltered from global competition and the sector is less efficient than it could be.
At the low end of the spectrum is the consumer electronics sector, which, despite the lifting of foreign-investment restrictions in the early 1990s, is still burdened by tariffs, taxes, and regulations. As a result, Indian consumer electronics goods can't compete internationally and prices for local consumers are unnecessarily high. The performance of India's food-retailing industry is even worse. Partly as a result of a total ban on foreign investment, labor productivity is just 6 percent of US levels.
Now look at China, which also has some reasonably liberalized and highly competitive industries, including consumer electronics, in which labor productivity is double that of its Indian counterpart. Over the past 20 years, the industry has become globally competitive through a combination of foreign direct investment and intense competition among domestic companies. It is also remarkable for the relatively liberal approach the government has taken to regulation—probably because of a failure to see its growth potential. Today China makes $60 billion worth of consumer electronics goods a year.
The performance of China's auto industry—which was considered a strategic one and remains tightly regulated because of the government's desire to bring in technology and investment—is less clear-cut. The market has been opened up to foreign automakers, consumer demand has grown enormously, and prices have dropped. Yet the sector shows how government intervention can thwart the potential of foreign direct investment. Foreign automakers can invest only in joint ventures, they have to buy components from local suppliers, and tariffs shield the market from imports. Competition is beginning to increase as private companies grow stronger. But for the time being, the productivity of foreign joint ventures in China is low compared with that of plants in Japan or the United States—astounding given China's low labor costs.
Since there are such big differences in the performance of different sectors within the same country, it makes sense to compare the performance of India and China at the sector rather than the national level. In IT and business-process outsourcing, India is so far ahead of the game that China can't do anything during the next 10 or 15 years that would bring it close to catching up. In consumer electronics, however, China dominates, and India won't provide serious competition during the next 10 years.
The auto sector is a toss-up. India's competitive forces have driven an enormous amount of innovation in the sector. Low-cost labor has been used instead of expensive automation, and local engineering talent has developed innovative new products such as the Scorpio—a sport utility vehicle that sells for a fraction of the price of an equivalent car in the United States. In China, large amounts of foreign direct investment have built a big industry, but regulation has so far limited its competitive potential.
It is far from clear which economy will emerge as the stronger one. The foundations of robust, sustainable economic growth must be built at the industry level, on the back of high productivity, which is achieved when governments ensure a level playing field through sound regulation and remove the barriers that stifle competition. Both China and India still have ample opportunity to help their industries and economies thrive

China: The best of all possible models

2006-01-27T03:26:00.000-08:00

In an efficient market, the private sector is better than governments at allocating investment funds. But China isn't an efficient market, and India has relatively little investment funding.
Jonathan R. Woetzel

Finding fault with China's approach to economic development is easy: cyclical overcapacity, state-influenced resource allocation, and growing social inequalities are just a few of its shortcomings. But it's hard to see how any other model could have given the economy such a powerful kick start.
The Chinese government manages the development of enterprises with a view to driving economic growth. You can be a small entrepreneur in China, but if you want to be big you will have to get money from a government-affiliated source at some point. Government officials essentially have the power to decide which companies grow.
In achieving the objective of growth, this policy has been tremendously successful. China has quickly built industries large enough to drive its economy. Take the auto industry, now an important contributor to the manufacturing sector. Only 20 years ago, China had no auto industry to speak of; there were a few manufacturers of trucks but none of passenger cars. To get started, the government decided that in a high-scale, high-tech industry, some foreign company—in this case, Volkswagen—had to come in and show local ones what to do. Because most local companies were state-owned 20 years ago, Volkswagen was hooked up with a state-owned company.
You might argue that this development model has thwarted entrepreneurship. But there weren't any entrepreneurs in the industry at the time. There were no private companies that could partner with Volkswagen, let alone compete with it. The government simply said, "We want China to modernize. We want the Chinese economy to grow. We don't have the companies we need to make that happen, so we're prepared to do what it takes to create them."
The capital-intensive auto plants built with foreign partners in China as a result of its development policy may have no particular productivity advantage over the plants they might have built at home. But all of the spending by the big car companies has paid off.
Moreover, local, privately owned automakers such as Chery Automotive and Geely Automotive are beginning to thrive. A generation of entrepreneurs has put to good advantage the skills and training that the foreigners provided, so that Chinese companies now put together cars of reasonable quality much more cheaply than foreign automakers can. At present, domestic players benefit from the price umbrella that the foreign ones provide. But these smaller fry are now making cars for $2,000, which means that any company that has high cost structures will eventually suffer. With lower tariffs on the way because of China's accession to the World Trade Organization, and with new competitors proliferating, the automotive industry is heading into a classic price war that only the fittest will survive. This is precisely what happened in the consumer electronics industry, where competition led to the emergence of successful Chinese companies that operate globally. I think that in five or ten years' time, at least a third of the Chinese auto industry will be completely private—nothing to do with the current state players. And this will all have started with the state saying, "We want to build a car industry."
Looking at industry more broadly, inefficiencies and cyclicality have resulted from the fact that many funding decisions are driven at the local-government level. Local officials have GDP growth as a political-performance target, so many of them look for the biggest investments they can make to push along the regional economy. Like stock market investors pursuing the latest speculative fad, they have created a lemming effect, with lots of unsound investments, whether in aluminum smelters, residential real estate, or TV factories. The outcome tends to be waves of overcapacity as investments are made right up to—and sometimes way beyond—the point where it is patently obvious that the economics cannot justify them.
But remember that the essential mechanism of economic reform in China has been the encouragement of competition among provinces and municipalities. Until the 1980s there was no such thing in China as a national company. Everything was local. There was no single legal entity that operated more than five kilometers (about 3.1 miles) from its headquarters. With the removal of internal trade barriers, local entrepreneurs and their government backers invested to build scale and attack neighboring markets. Yes, this does lead to overcapacity and price wars. But over time—and relatively short periods of time, too—all that cyclicality also leads to shakeouts that the most competitive enterprises survive. These enterprises, thanks to their national scale and real competitive advantages, no longer depend on local-government funding and can now start to compete for the long term, both domestically and internationally.
That has certainly been the story in consumer electronics, where the top three players in personal computers control 50 percent of the domestic market, and in beer, where the top ten own 30 percent. It is starting to be the story in heavy industries, where companies such as China Qianjiang own 40 percent of the motorcycle market and Wanxiang dominates its niche in automotive components (see "Supplying auto parts to the world," available on mckinseyquarterly.com on September 16). Interestingly, it is not the foreign companies but the locals that tend to be the winners of the consolidation wars. The beer industry is a case in point: most foreign brewers, unprepared for tough domestic competition and rapid consolidation, entered and exited in the 1990s.
The government is fixing the banks through tough higher reserve margins, branch-level changes, and more flexible risk-based pricing
Moreover, I don't believe that foreign direct investment is linked to the development of China's capital markets or to a reform of the banking system. Multinationals account for only 15 percent of fixed-asset investment, so they don't drive the economy to a very great extent. China must rely on its own domestic financial resources to finance growth. As a result, the country's capital markets are being developed. And the government is fixing the banks through tough higher reserve margins, branch-level changes in performance management and incentives, and more flexible risk-based pricing.
As for the oft-stated view that China is trying to create global state-owned champions, it is at least partly a myth. The government does want to develop strong Chinese companies, but it does not expect them to be state enterprises, which are inefficient by definition. Indeed, it is now telling them that if they want to grow, they will have to get listed on the stock market. The government's policy for the first 20 years of its reform program was, "Let's do what's needed to establish markets." Its policy for the next 20 years will be, "Let's get out of those markets." The global Chinese companies of tomorrow will be competitive, mostly listed, and entirely commercial in their aims and purposes.
Ultimately, you have to ask whether the inefficiencies of the Chinese approach outweigh what it has achieved for the economy overall. The answer, I think, is no. The government still controls most of the country's financial resources and has been reasonably good at allocating them—that's why the economy has grown so fast. Compared with the private sector in an efficient market, the government is no doubt worse at allocating funds. But China is not an efficient market, and the Indian model—essentially one with relatively little investment funding, whether by the government or the private sector—could not have achieved as much growth for the Chinese economy as the approach China's government actually took. The Indian model might not be adequate for India's economy either: the country's family-owned businesses and other private investors may be good at deciding what makes a sound investment for them, but they have not spent enough money to drive the kind of growth seen in China. It would not surprise me at all to see investment in India rise dramatically as foreign and domestic investors alike begin to recognize its potential going forward.

India's entrepreneurial advantage

2006-01-27T03:22:00.000-08:00

China has shackled its independent businesspeople. India has empowered them.
China and India have followed radically different approaches to economic development. China's resulted from a conscious decision; India more or less happened upon its course. Is one way better than the other? There is no gainsaying the fact that China's growth has rocketed ahead of India's, but the conventional view that the Chinese model is unambiguously the better of the two is wrong in many ways; each has its advantages. And it is far from clear which will deliver the more sustainable growth.
Together with Yasheng Huang, of the Sloan School of Management, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), I have argued that these approaches differ on two dimensions. First, the Chinese government nurtures and directs economic activity more than the Indian government does. It invests heavily in physical infrastructure and often decides which companies—not necessarily the best—receive government resources and listings on local stock markets. By contrast, since the mid-1980s the Indian government has become less and less interventionist. The second dimension is foreign direct investment. China has embraced it; India remains cautious.
These differences have an impact on the types of companies that succeed and, I would argue, on entrepreneurialism. Let's look first at what kinds of companies thrive. China trumps India when it comes to industries that rely on "hard" infrastructure (roads, ports, power) and will do so for the foreseeable future. But when it comes to "soft" infrastructure businesses—those in which intangible assets matter more—India tends to come out ahead, be it in software, biotechnology, or creative industries such as advertising.
Thus manufacturing companies whose just-in-time production processes rely on efficient road and transport networks fare poorly in India. But businesses that are unconstrained by shortages of generators and roads flourish. Soft assets underpin even the Indian car industry. Unlike China's car sector, which has expanded as a result of big capital investments from multinational companies, India's has succeeded on the back of clever designs that make it possible to produce cheap indigenous models. India actually sends China high-value-added mechanized and electronic components whose production depends more on know-how than on infrastructure.
Moreover, many hard-asset companies in China exist because the government funnels money to them. The government can do this because it intervenes in domestic capital markets. In India there is no such government intervention. Hence successful companies tend to cluster in industries where capital constraints are less of an issue. You don't need a deep reservoir of capital to start a software company; you do for a big steel plant.
The Indian government's lower level of intervention in capital markets and its decision not to regulate industries that lack tangible assets (software, biotech, media) have created room for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial activity is fueled both by incumbent (often family-owned) enterprises and by new entrants. The former use cash flows from diverse existing businesses to invest in newer ventures. In biotechnology, however, Biocon emerged from pure entrepreneurial effort, as did Infosys Technologies in software. Similarly, hundreds of smaller versions of companies such as Infosys and Wipro Technologies have no government links, unlike so many of China's successful companies.
Although India's stock and bond markets are hardly perfect, they do on the whole support private enterprise. Here too, entrepreneurialism has played a part, even improving India's institutional framework. Take the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), founded about 130 years ago and until recently the most inefficient entity imaginable. It has become radically more efficient in the past decade as a result of the competing efforts of an enterprising former bureaucrat named R. H. Patil. With technological inputs from around the world and some fancy footwork to dodge entrenched interests at the BSE, in 1994 he started a rival institution, the state-of-the-art National Stock Exchange of India, which now has more business. In China, by contrast, the government tries to make stock markets successful by command, with predictably little to show for its efforts. There has been little competition indeed between the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.
Good hard infrastructure and the Chinese government's decision to welcome foreign investment make it reasonably easy for multinationals to do business in China, and since they bring their own capital and senior talent, they do not have to rely heavily on local institutions. China has no shortage of homegrown entrepreneurial talent. But indigenous companies have a much tougher time, hindered as they are by inefficient capital markets, a banking system notorious for bad loans, and the fact that local officials rather than market forces largely decide who receives funding.
The pros and cons of these two models should be studied, and it is fair to ask whether China's will hamper its economic development
China and India both have the ability to keep growing in their own very different ways for a decade or so. The Chinese government's intervention in the economy—including the decision to welcome foreign direct investment—has brought a material improvement in the standard of living that India hasn't enjoyed. It may also be that each country has chosen the path best suited to its own historical circumstances. But the pros and cons of these two development models should be studied, and it is fair to ask whether China's approach will hamper its future economic development.
Huang and I believe that the presence of so many self-reliant multi-national companies has partly relieved the Chinese government of pressure to develop or reform the institutions that support free enterprise and economic growth. And the fact that many domestic investments still are not allocated through sensible pricing mechanisms means that China wastes many of its resources. Productivity and long-term economic growth, as we all know, thrive on competition, which is all too often stifled by government intervention.
When the two countries are compared, it is easy to forget that India began its economic reforms more than a decade later than China did. As India opens up further to foreign direct investment, we might well discover that the country's more laissez-faire approach has nurtured the conditions that will enable free enterprise and economic growth to flourish more easily in the long run. __________________

Poor Buta Singh?

2006-01-27T03:00:00.000-08:00

Bihar Governor Buta Singh sent in his resignation to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Thursday after hoisting the national flag and taking the salute at the Republic Day parade here.

This follows the Supreme Court's strictures against him on the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly.

Mr. Singh said the Supreme Court had done "great injustice" to him. He said he would knock at its door to tell his side of the story and seek a review of its ruling. He said he resigned because he respected the court and its judges.

At a press conference here, Mr. Singh sought to justify his actions on the two counts that the apex court had indicted him — that his report was wrong and that he had mislead the Centre; that he had not entertained any claim for forming a government.

In his first report to the Rashtrapati Bhavan on April 27 last year, he detailed the "horse-trading activity" under way in the State. In his second report on May 21, he appended all the press clippings, and informed the President of the manner in which legislators were herded away in "armed cars."

Mr. Singh said the party resolution sent to him informing him of a split contained 13 to 14 signatures by one person. "How can you accept, by any standards, a party resolution which had been signed by one single person? I had fully documented horse-trading and had attached the false resolution that aimed to split a party. What more proof do you want?"

As for not allowing the formation of a government, Mr. Singh asked: "Did anyone come to me to stake claim to form a government? Did anyone come to the Raj Bhavan and say: `I am coming with the numbers'? Nobody came to me or paraded their strength before the Raj Bhavan or in Patna."

Mr. Singh said as there was no claim to form a government, he could not be held guilty. He denied he acted in a hurry. He described as "baseless" the allegation that pressure had been brought on him to resign.

Reject the American fatwa (Mulford Episode)

2006-01-27T02:34:00.000-08:00

In publicly warning India, on Republic Day eve, to vote against Iran or else, United States Ambassador David Mulford has outrageously crossed the line of diplomatic propriety, inviting condemnation from political players ranging from the Left to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But he has also done India a service by letting the cat out of the bag, if it was ever fully in. In his interview to the Press Trust of India, he has spotlighted the pitiful terms of the bargain struck by the Manmohan Singh Government with Washington under the signboard of civilian nuclear cooperation. Who can, after Mr. Mulford's egregious forthcomingness, doubt that the bargain requires India to behave like a marionette — forced at every turn of major international events to go against its own national instincts and interests for fear of offending Washington? Today it is a fatwa on Iran, tomorrow it will be a diktat on India's plan to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities, which Mr. Mulford has found to fall short of "minimum standards." He did issue a late night "clarification" on Wednesday claiming his remarks on India and Iran had been "taken out of context." But the verbatim transcript of the relevant portion of the interview circulated by the U.S. embassy (see text on the op-ed page) makes matters worse. The U.S. Ambassador is on record that "we have passed on [an observation]... that if they decide that they don't want to vote for this, our view is that the effect on members of Congress with regard to this civil nuclear initiative will be devastating... the initiative will die in the Congress."

If this is not a threat passed on to India to abandon any idea of voting independently on the Iran nuclear issue, what is? Last week, the Manmohan Singh Government came out fists flailing against Iran for an indirect statement against India on the subject of American nuclear double standards. By contrast, the initial official reaction to Mr. Mulford's incendiary remarks was to play down the issue by rejecting "categorically... any attempt to link [India's position on the Iran issue at the International Atomic Energy Agency] to the proposed Indo-U.S. agreement on civil nuclear energy cooperation." In September, the United Progressive Alliance Government allowed itself to be intimidated into voting against Iran at the meeting of the Board of Governors of the IAEA. During the run-up to the crucial Board meeting of February 2, it is refusing to come clean on how it will vote on a resolution that could take the dispute to the United Nations Security Council. It is also unwilling to take the Indian people into confidence on the nuclear separation plan presented to the U.S. in December. If the Manmohan Singh Government lets the country down a second time by dishonouring its stated stand that the Iran issue must be resolved within the confines of the IAEA, it will be responsible for a political crisis it might not be able to survive.

Irish Republican Army

2006-01-27T02:07:00.000-08:00

This article primarily deals with the army of the Irish Republic as it existed up to 1922. For Irish paramilitary organisations after 1922 that use or have used the name Irish Republican Army see Irish Republican Army (1922-1969), Official Irish Republican Army (1969- ), Provisional Irish Republican Army (1969- ), Continuity Irish Republican Army (1986- ), and Real Irish Republican Army (1997- ).

The West Cork Flying Column
during the War of Independence.

The name Irish Republican Army (IRA) has been used to refer to several Irish republican paramilitary organisations. The earliest of these was recognised by the First Dáil as the legitimate army of the Irish Republic, as proclaimed in the Easter Rising in 1916 and reaffirmed by the Dáil in January 1919. Though a series of organisations later claimed to be a continuation of the IRA from the 1920s to today, most Irish people disagree with these claims. After the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, members of the IRA who supported the Treaty formed the nucleus of the National Army founded by IRA leader Michael Collins in 1922. While the anti-Treaty IRA continued to exist after its defeat in the Irish Civil War, by the late 1930s it had lost most of the legitimacy with which most supporters of the Republican side initially regarded it. A small minority of Irish people accepts later claimants to the name as the political heirs of the original Irish Republican Army.

To distinguish between the army of the Irish Republic, and later claimants to the name, the former is often called the Old IRA.

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Origins

Physical force Irish republicanism as an ideology had a long history, from the United Irishmen of the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, to the Young Irelander rebellion of 1848 and the Irish Republican Brotherhood of 1867. One of the key leaders of the IRB was Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. His funeral in 1915 became a major national event and brought together many of the key leaders of early 20th century nationalism, from Padraig Pearse to Michael Collins. In addition, the methods of the IRA were to some extent inspired by the traditions of militant agrarian Irish secret societies like the Defenders and the Ribbonmen.

The acronym IRA was first used by the IRB organization in America (also known as the Fenian Brotherhood). This "Irish Republican Army" of the 1860s comprised the American Fenians' paramilitary forces, organized into a number of regiments. Fenian soldiers wearing IRA insignia fought at the Battle of Ridgeway (June 2, 1866). However the term Irish Republican Army in its modern sense was first used in the second decade of the 20th century from the merger of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army after the Easter Rising.

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Political background

The Government of Ireland Act 1914, more generally known as the Third Home Rule Act, was an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament in May 1914 which sought to give Ireland regional self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Although it received the Royal Assent in September 1914, its implementation was postponed until after the First World War (at that stage expected to last only a matter of months).

However the outbreak of the Easter Rising in 1916 and the unexpected electoral success of Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election made implementation of the Act moot. It was never implemented but was eventually replaced by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which was to give Home Rule separately to six counties in the northeast (Northern Ireland) and to the remaining twenty-six counties (the so-called "Southern Ireland").

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Easter Rising

Main articles: Easter Rising, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]

The Easter Proclamation
read by Padraig Pearse outside the GPO in 1916.

Padraig Pearse
head of the 'Provisional Government' proclaimed in the Easter Rising

For what was initially a minority of nationalists, the home rule was judged to be too little, too late. In the Easter Rising of 1916, these nationalists staged a rebellion against British rule in Dublin and in some other isolated areas. Weapons had been supplied by Germany under the auspices of a leading human rights campaigner, Sir Roger Casement. However, the plot had been discovered and the weapons were lost when the ship carrying them, the Aud, was scuttled to prevent the arms from falling into the hands of the British.

The rebellion was largely centered in Dublin. The leaders seized the General Post Office (GPO), raising a green flag bearing the legend 'Irish Republic', and proclaiming independence for Ireland, though ironically some republicans in the GPO talked of making Prince Joachim of Prussia the King of Ireland if Germany won the First World War. Many Irish people today believe that the Rising and its leaders had public support, but some historians dispute this view; there were calls for the execution of the ringleaders in the major Irish nationalist daily newspaper, the 'Irish Independent', and local authorities also sought the ringleaders. They also claim that Dubliners not only cooperated with the British troops sent to quell the uprising, but undermined the Republicans as well. Many people spat and threw stones at them as they were marched towards the transport ships that would take them to the Welsh internment camps.

However, public opinion gradually shifted, initially over the summary executions of 16 senior leaders—some of whom, such as James Connolly, were too ill to stand—and of other people thought complicit in the rebellion. As one observer described, "the drawn-out process of executing the leaders of the rising...it was like watching blood seep from behind a closed door." Opinion shifted even more in favor of the Republicans in 1917-18 with the Conscription Crisis, an attempt by Britain to impose conscription on Ireland to bolster its flagging war effort.

A small monarchist Irish party, Sinn Féin, was widely, but wrongly, credited with orchestrating the Easter Rising, although the group advocated less-than-full independence at the time. The party's founder and leader, Arthur Griffith, was campaigning for a dual monarchy with Britain, a return to the status quo of the Constitution of 1782, enacted by the Irish Parliament under Henry Grattan's Parliament. The Republican survivors of the Rising, under Eamon de Valera, infiltrated and took over Sinn Féin, leading to a crisis of goals in 1917.

In a compromise agreed to at its Ard Fhéis (party conference), Sinn Féin agreed to initially campaign for a republic. Having established one, it would let the electorate decide on whether to have a monarchy or a republic; however, if they chose a monarchy, no member of the British House of Windsor was to be eligible for the Irish throne.

Cathal Brugha, TD
Príomh Aire (January-April 1919)
Longterm Minister for Defence and rival to Michael Collins.

From 1916 to 1918, the two dominant nationalist movements, Sinn Féin and the Irish Parliamentary Party, fought a tough series of battles in by-elections. Neither won a decisive victory; however, the Conscription Crisis tipped the balance in favor of Sinn Féin. The party went on to win a clear majority of seats in the 1918 general election: of the 73 seats in which Sinn Féin were elected, 25 were uncontested.

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The emergence of the IRA after the Easter Rising

The first steps towards reorganizing the defeated Irish Volunteers were taken in 27 October 1917 when a convention took place in Dublin. This convention, which subsequently became known as an IRA convention, was called to coincide with the Sinn Féin ard fheis.

Nearly 250 people attended the convention; internment prevented many more from attending. In fact, the Royal Irish Constabulary estimated that 162 companies of volunteers were active in the country, although other sources suggest a higher figure of 390.

The proceedings were presided over by Eamon de Valera, who had been elected President of Sinn Féin the previous day. Also on the platform were Cathal Brugha and many others who were prominent in the reorganising of the Volunteers in the previous few months, many of them ex-prisoners.

De Valera was elected president. A national executive was also elected, composed of provincial representatives (including Dublin). In addition, a number of directors were elected to head the various IRA departments. Those elected were: Michael Collins (Director for Organisation); Diarmuid Lynch (Director for Communications); Michael Staines (Director for Supply); Rory O'Connor (Director of Engineering). Seán McGarry was voted General Secretary, while Cathal Brugha was made Chairman of the Resident Executive, which in effect made him Chief of Staff.

The other elected members were: M. W. O'Reilly (Dublin); Austin Stack (Kerry); Con Collins (Limerick); Seán MacEntee (Belfast); Joe O'Doherty (Donegal); Paul Galligan (Cavan); Eoin O'Duffy (Monaghan); Seamus Doyle (Wexford); Peadar Bracken (Offaly); Larry Lardner (Galway); Dick Walsh (Mayo) and another member from Connacht. There were six co-options to make-up the full number when the directors were named from within their ranks. The six were all Dublin men: Eamonn Duggan; Gearóid O'Sullivan; Fintan Murphy; Diarmuid O'Hegarty; Dick McKee and Paddy Ryan.

Of the 26 elected, six were also members of the Sinn Féin National Executive, with Eamonn de Valera president of both. Eleven of the 26 were elected Teachta Dála in the 1918 general election and 13 in the May 1921 election.

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Dáil Éireann

Main articles: First Dáil, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]

Sinn Féin MPs elected in 1918 fulfilled their election promise not to take their seats in Westminster but instead set up an independent 'Assembly of Ireland', or 'Dáil Éireann', in Gaelic. On January 21, 1919, this new, unofficial parliament assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin. As its first acts, the Dáil elected a prime minister (Priomh Aire), Cathal Brugha, and inaugurated a ministry called the Aireacht.

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The battle for control of the IRA

The first meeting of the First Dáil in 1919
The War of Independence started the same day.

The new leadership of the Irish Republic worried that the IRA would not accept its authority, given that the Volunteers, under their own constitution, was bound to obey their own executive and no other body.^[1] The fear was increased when, on the very day the new national parliament was meeting, 21 January 1919 the IRA, acting on their own initiative, killed two Royal Irish Constabulary constables (James McDonnell and Patrick O'Connell) by Seán Tracy and Dan Breen while the South Tipperary IRA volunteer unit were seizing a quantity of gelignite.

Technically, the men involved were considered to be in a serious breach of IRA discipline and were liable to be court-martialled, but it was considered more politically expedient to hold them up as examples of a rejuvenated militarism. The conflict soon escalated into guerrilla warfare by what were then known as the Flying Columns in remote areas. Attacks on remote Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks continued throughout 1919 and 1920, forcing the police to consolidate defensively in the larger towns, effectively placing large areas of the countryside in the hands of the Republicans.

Richard Mulcahy.
Mulcahy and Cathal Brugha helped redefine the relationship between the Aireacht and the IRA.

Moves to make the IRA the army of the Dáil and not its rival had begun before the January attack, and were stepped up. On 31 January the IRA organ, An t-Óglách published a list of principles agreed between two representatives of the Áireacht, acting Príomh Aire Cathal Brugha and Richard Mulcahy and the Executive. It made first mention of the organisation treating "the armed forces of the enemy — whether soldiers or policemen — exactly as a national army would treat the members of an invading army".^[2]

An article in An tÓglách stated that

"The Irish Government claims the same power and authority as any other lawfully constituted Government; it sanctions the employment by the Irish Volunteers of the most drastic measures against the enemies of Ireland . . . England must be given the choice of evacuating the country or holding it by foreign garrison, with a perpetual state of war in existence."^[3]

In the statement the new relationship between the Aireacht and the IRA was defined clearly.

The Government was defined as possessing the same power and authority as a normal government.
It, and not the IRA, sanctions the IRA campaign;
It explicitly spoke of a state of war.

[edit]

The Oath to the Irish Republic

The Príomh Aire (later President of the Republic, Eamon de Valera
He battled to bring the IRA under government control.

As part of the ongoing strategy to take control of the IRA, Brugha proposed to Dáil Éireann on 20 August 1919 that the Volunteers were to be asked, at this next convention, to swear allegiance to the Dáil. He further proposed that members of the Dáil themselves should swear the same oath. On the 25 August Collins wrote to the Príomh Aire, Eamon de Valera, to inform him "the Volunteer affair is now fixed".^[4]

However, a power struggle continued between Brugha and Collins, both cabinet ministers, over who had the greater influence. Brugha was nominally the superior as Minister for Defence, but Collins's powerbase came from his position as Director of Organisation of the IRA and as his key powerbase as a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB. De Valera too resented Collins's clear power and influence, which he saw as coming from the secretive IRB than from his position as a Teachta Dála (TD) and minister in the Aireacht.

[edit]

The full scale war

Main articles: Anglo-Irish War, and War of Independence, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]

The Irish War of Independence was a brutal and bloody affair, with violence and acts of extreme brutality on both sides. The British sent hundreds of World War I veterans to assist the RIC. The veterans at first wore a combination of black police uniforms and tan army uniforms (because of shortages), which, according to one etymology, inspired the nickname Black and Tans. The brutality of the 'Black and Tans' is now legendary, although the most excessive repression attributed to the Crown's forces was often that of the Auxiliary Division of the Constabulary. One of the strongest critics of the Black and Tans was King George V of the United Kingdom. When the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney lay dying on hunger strike the King personally intervened to try to get MacSwiney's release from gaol.

The Black and Tans

Other critics of British policy included Sir Samuel Hoare, a future British cabinet minister, who said

If what is now going on in the Austrian Empire, all England would be ringing with denunciation of the tyranny of the Hapsburgs and of denying people the right to rule themselves.^[5]

The IRA was also involved in the destruction of many stately homes in Munster. These belonged to prominent Loyalists^[6] who were aiding the Crown forces, and were burnt to discourage the British policy of destroying the homes of Republicans, suspected and actual. Many historic buildings in Ireland were destroyed during the war, most famously the Custom House in Dublin, which was disastrously attacked on de Valera's insistence, to the horror of the more militarily experienced Collins. As he feared, the destruction proved a pyrrhic victory for the Republic, with so many IRA men killed or captured that the IRA in Dublin was almost wiped out overnight.

This was also a period of social upheaval in Ireland, with frequent strikes as well as other manifestations of class conflict. In this regard, the IRA acted to a large degree as an agent of social control and stability, driven by the need to preserve cross-class unity in the national struggle ^[7], and on occasion being used to break strikes ^[8].

By June 1921, Collins's assessment was that the IRA was within weeks, possibly even days, of collapse, with few weapons left. However events took an unusual turn which astonished him.

[edit]

The King's Speech

David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister at the time, found himself under increasing pressure (both international and from within Britain) to try to salvage something from the situation. This was a complete reversal of his earlier position. He had consistently referred to the IRA as a "murder gang" up until then. An unexpected olive branch came from King George V, who, supported by South African statesman General Jan Smuts^[9], managed to get the British government to accept a radical re-draft of his proposed speech to the Northern Ireland parliament, meeting in Belfast City Hall in June 1921. The King had often protested about the methods employed by Crown forces to Lloyd George.

[edit]

The Anglo-Irish Treaty

The signed last page of the Anglo-Irish Treaty

Main articles: Anglo-Irish Treaty, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]

The speech, which called for reconciliation on all sides, changed the mood and enabled the British and Irish Republican governments to agree a truce. Negotiations on an Anglo-Irish Treaty took place in late 1921 in London. The Irish delegation was led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, as de Valera — now 'President of the Republic' — insisted that as head of state he could not attend, as King George was not leading the British delegation.

Under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, Ireland was partitioned, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish agreement of 6 December 1921, which ended the war (1919-1921), Northern Ireland was given the option of withdrawing from the new state, the Irish Free State, and remaining part of the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland parliament chose to do so. An Irish Boundary Commission was then set up to review the border.

Irish leaders expected that it would so reduce Northern Ireland's size, by transferring nationalist areas to the Irish Free State, as to make it economically unviable. Contrary to myth, partition was important but not the key breaking point between pro and anti-Treaty campaigners; both sides expected the Boundary Commission to emasculate Northern Ireland.

[edit]

The IRA and the Treaty

The IRA leadership was deeply divided over the decision by the Dáil to ratify the Treaty. Of the General Headquarters (GHQ) staff, nine members were in favour of the Treaty while four opposed it.

Pro-Treaty were Richard Mulcahy (Chief of Staff); Eoin O'Duffy (Deputy Chief of Staff); J.J. O'Connell (Assistant Chief of Staff); Gearóid O'Sullivan (Adjutant General); Sean McMahon (Quartermaster General); Michael Collins (Director of Intelligence); Diarmuid O'Hegarty (Director of Organisation); Emmet Dalton (Director of Training); Piaras Beaslai (Director of Publicity).
Anti- Treaty were Rory O'Connor (Director of Engineering); Liam Mellows (Director of Purchases); Seán Russell (Director of Munitions) and Seamus O'Donovan (Director of Chemicals). Austin Stack, whose position on the GHQ staff was ambiguous after Brugha tried to foist him on GHQ, was also anti-Treaty.

On 10 January, at least three anti-Treaty members of the IRA GHQ (one account claims four); six divisional commanders and the officers commanding of the two Dublin brigades meet to formulate their anti-Treaty strategy. They argued that the IRA's allegiance was to the Dáil of the Irish Republic and the decision of the Dáil to accept the Treaty meant that the IRA no longer owed that body its allegiance. They called for the IRA to withdraw from the authority of the Dáil and to entrust the IRA Executive with control over the army. The following day, this group issued Mulcahy with a letter requesting that an Army Convention be held on 5 February to discuss these proposals. The letter is signed by GHQ staff Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Seán Russell, and Seamus O’Donovan, as well as Oscar Traynor, Liam Lynch and other IRA commandants.

On 13 January, Mulcahy replied to the anti-Treaty IRA officers to state that he would not call a convention without the authority of Dáil Eireann as the Government of the Republic. On same day, Rory O’Connor wrote to Eoin O’Duffy stating that a convention would be called regardless. O'Connor added that O’Duffy’s orders would only be obeyed by the anti-Treaty section provided they were countersigned by himself.

On 16 January, the first IRA division – the 2nd Southern Division – repudiated the authority of the GHQ.

On 18 January, Richard Mulcahy chaired a meeting of the GHQ Staff, divisional commandants and some brigade commandants. It agreed to hold an Army Convention within two months and that, in a meantime, a 'watchdog' committee would be set up with representatives from both sides. This committee did not meet often, however.

A month later, on 18 February, Liam Forde, O/C of the IRA Mid-Limerick Brigade, issued a proclamation stating that: "We no longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army, and renew our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic". This was the first unit of the IRA to break with the pro-Treaty government.

On 24 February, the 'watchdog' committee established a month earlier met. Rory O'Connor requested Mulcahy to secure Dáil approval to hold an army convention on 26 March. Three days later on 27 February, the Dáil Cabinet sanctioned the Minister of Defence's request to hold an Army Convention. This decision was duly announced by IRA chief of staff, Eoin O’Duffy, who requested brigade conventions to assemble to elect delegates.

On 5 March, a stand-off developed between pro- and anti-IRA forces in Limerick over who would take control of a military barracks vacated by the departing British troops. A compromise was reached around the 12/13 March.

Clearly concerned at developments in Ireland, and in Limerick in particular, on 14 March Winston Churchill wrote to Michael Collins, warning him that: "An adverse decision by the convention of the Irish Republican Army (so called) would, however, be a very grave event at the present juncture. I presume you are quite sure there is no danger of this". The following day, 15 March, the Dáil cabinet decided to prohibit the holding of the Army Convention scheduled to take place on 26 March. Amateur historian Dorothy Macardle claims that the banning of the convention arose because "Mulcahy realised that 70 to 80 per cent of the IRA was against the Treaty and he feared that the Convention could have been used to establish a military dictatorship". However, issuing a summons under the title Republican Military Council, 50 IRA senior officers including 4 GHQ staff, 5 divisional commanders and a number of brigade commandants, decided to go ahead with Convention.

On 22 March, Rory O'Connor holds what was to become an infamous press conference at the headquarters of the republican party (Cumann na Poblachta) in Suffolk Street, Dublin. He declares that the army is "in a dilemma, having the choice of supporting its oath to the Republic or still giving allegiance to the Dáil, which, it considers, has abandoned the Republic. The contention of the army", he says, "is that the Dáil did a thing that it had no right to do." When asked if he would obey President Arthur Griffith, he said he would not as he had violated his oath. When asked if the army would forcibly prevent an election being held, O'Connor stated: "It will have the power to do so." He went on to say that "the holding of the Convention means that we repudiate the Dáil … We will set up an Executive which will issue orders to the IRA all over the country." In reply to the question on whether it can be taken that we are going to have a military dictatorship, O’Connor said: "You can take it that way if you like."

On 23 March, Richard Mulcahy (Minister of Defence), in a letter to General O'Duffy, orders the suspension of any officer or man who takes part in the "sectional" Convention.

On 26 March, a Convention of (predominantly) anti-Treaty delegates met in the Mansion House, Dublin with between 220 and 223 delegates present. The convention passed a resolution saying that the Army "shall be maintained as the Army of the Irish Republic under an Executive appointed by the Convention". A temporary Executive of 16 members was elected headed by Liam Lynch and including Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Ernie O’Malley. The convention adjourns until 9 April.

On 28 March, the (anti-Treaty) IRA Executive issued statement stating that Minister of Defence (Mulcahy) and the Chief-of-Staff (O’Duffy) no longer exercised any control over the IRA. In addition, it ordered an end to the recruitment to the new military and police forces of the Provisional Government. Furthermore, it instructed all IRA units to reaffirm their allegiance to the Irish Republic on 2 April.

On 9 April, the (anti-Treaty) Army Convention reconvened in Dublin. It adopted a new constitution and elected a new 16-member Executive composed the following members: Liam Lynch (Cork), Frank Barrett (Clare), Liam Deasy (Cork), Tom Hales (Cork), Tom Maguire (Mayo), Joseph McKelvey (Tyrone), Liam Mellows (Galway), Rory O'Connor (Dublin?), Peadar O'Donnell (Donegal), Florrie O'Donoghue (Cork), Sean O'Hegarty (Cork), Ernie O'Malley (Dublin), Seamus Robinson (Tipperary), Joe O'Connor (?), Sean Moylan (Cork), and P.J. Ruttledge (Mayo). When the Executive met, it elected Liam Lynch as new IRA chief of staff, Ernie O'Malley as assistant chief of staff, and appointed a seven-member Army Council. Barry's Hotel in Gardiner Row was made (anti-Treaty) IRA headquarters.

Main articles: Irish Civil War, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]

The pro-treaty IRA soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army created by Collins and Richard Mulcahy. British pressure, and tensions between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions of the IRA, led to a bloody civil war, ending in the defeat of the anti-Treaty faction. On May 24, 1923 Frank Aiken, the (anti-treaty) IRA chief-of-staff, called a cease-fire. Many left political activity altogether, but a minority continued to insist that the new Irish Free State, created by the "illegitimate" Treaty, was an illegitimate state. They asserted that their "IRA Army Executive" was the real government of a still-existing Irish Republic. Subsequent organisations that have used the name claim lineage from that group, which is covered in full at Irish Republican Army (1922-1969).

For information on later organisations using the name Irish Republican Army, see the table below. For a genealogy of organisations using the name IRA after 1922, see List of IRAs

Damodola tremors

2006-01-27T02:04:00.000-08:00

The village of Damadola in Northwestern Pakistan felt the earth shake. Houses collapsed and men, women and children were killed. When it was over, the US air strike had killed 18 local people, sparking outrage.

For their part, the Americans claimed that they had attacked after receiving intelligence reports that al-Qaida militants were in the area. The villagers, however, profess that everyone killed was innocent. No reports have been confirmed as yet.

Architects of US foreign policy might argue that such deaths, while tragic, are unavoidable in the War or Terror.

In order to "take the fight to the terrorists", those who are plotting to attack America must be targeted wherever they are hiding, even it that means bombing whole villages on circumstantial evidence. Those who support such a policy often appeal to what is termed the "theory of double effect" to justify their position.

The theory of double effect seeks to draw a distinction between actions where the primary purpose is to kill, and actions where the primary purpose is not to kill but where the outcome is that people are killed.

An example of this theory in action would be the difference between a fighter pilot bombing a hospital or a school specifically in order to cause the deaths of the people inside, and a fighter pilot bombing a munitions factory filled with workers, in order to destroy the enemy's capacity to wage war. In both cases, the people inside will die as a result of the attacks.

However, the theory of double effect holds that since the attack on the munitions factory was not directly intended to kill people - though it is the inevitable outcome of such an action - the attack should not be seen as immoral, since the only reason people died is because they happened to be there, not because they were the primary targets. Tragic, but understandable. This is war, after all.

How would we react if a London bus was attacked tomorrow by Chinese missiles because the Chinese government received intelligence that an outspoken dissident of the Chinese Communist Party might be on board?

Is this an adequate justification for killing people who are clearly innocent? Though it may seem morally acceptable when fighting terrorists - those whom we are told represent the "ultimate evil" - it is important to explore this philosophy from the other side, when it is our lives that are affected, our brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers who are killed, tearing our lives apart.

Was the IRA pub bombing in Guildford justified because it was designed to kill a policeman working on the case, even though the people drinking that night had nothing to do with him, didn't know him?

Would we feel somehow reassured if the hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Centre claimed that there were business people working on the forty-second floor who controlled the funding to corporations that funded military operations in the Middle East?

What if the 7 July bombers had claimed that there were legitimate targets on board the tube - a banker who approved the loan for the Ministry of Defence to buy uniforms for the troops who invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, or a lawyer who drafted documents for the British government, or a sympathiser of an ultra-national political party who incited hatred against immigrants living in Britain?

Would we accept that the theory of double effect meant that our loved ones were simply collateral damage, dying for no other reason than that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, sitting next to the wrong person?

I think such claims would provide little or no consolation, and our resentment of those who brought death to us all would only grow stronger.

What happened on the 7 July was murder. What happened in Damadola was murder. If 7 July was unjustifiable regardless of the direction of British foreign policy, how is firing missiles at a village without provocation not similarly unjustifiable? In both cases it was innocent people who died, who were brutally killed as they went about their daily lives.

In other words, we cannot hide behind the theory of double effect as a flimsy excuse for pursing policies that rain bombs down on villagers simply because someone informs the military that a terrorist might have been invited to dinner there, any more than the 7 July bombers can hide behind their claims that they are acting in the name of victimised Muslims everywhere.

No one can take the moral high ground if people are killed in our name, whatever ideology we subscribe to, whatever injustices we believe we have suffered, whatever good we believe might come out of it.

Undoubtedly, some will argue that we cannot be concerned with the niceties of ethics in this life-or-death struggle against terrorists.

Even if such twisted logic can be seen to justify the attack on Damadola because the people who died were not the intended targets, and even if it turns out to be confirmed that terrorists were in fact killed, we still have to ask whether such attacks are strategically beneficial.

This attack was clearly counter-productive. We can add another 100 or so people to the ever-increasing list of those whose lives have been affected negatively by US foreign policy.

It will also increase the domestic pressure on Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, further destabilising his precarious position. It is not in anyone's interest for the government of Pakistan to be put under even more strain.

Furthermore, the idea that killing a few "top ranking al-Qaida members" will lead to its demise is simply naive. Al-Qaida is not and has likely never been a highly centralised organisation, entirely dependent on those at the top to co-ordinate plans and issue commands.

It is a transnational, decentralised organisation, with highly autonomous cells acting almost independently from one another, spread around all corners of the world.

It would be better to imagine al-Qaida as a franchised corporation, with different cells making decisions informed by local circumstances. Even better, think of al-Qaida as a brand name, the Nike of anti-Western ideologies.

Just as knocking off the CEO of a major company would not diminish its capacity to distribute its products or run its advertisements, so too al-Qaida will persist as long as there is a market to which it can appeal.

More and more people are increasingly fed up with what are perceived to be our double standards, where the lives of Westerners killed in terrorist attacks are worth far more than the seemingly throwaway casualties of Damadola.

Remember that their lives were worth living too.

Nepal Shuts down

2006-01-27T01:56:00.000-08:00

Police in Nepal opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators with live ammunition yesterday for the first time in almost a year, wounding at least three, in the resort town of Pokhara, in the shadow of Annapurna.

The country was shut down in a national strike called by political parties to protest against the dictatorial King Gyanendra. The streets of Kathmandu were deserted. Protesters attacked vehicles. Visitors could venture out of hotels only in special buses with banners reading "Tourists only". The bazaars of Thamel were empty and the shutters closed on shops selling Tibetan devil masks and Tintin T-shirts.

The Foreign Office is advising against all but essential travel to Nepal, and tourists are fleeing as a showdown looms between the King and protesters demanding he restore democracy. "Thief, Gyanendra! Leave the country!" the demonstrators chanted as they marched in thousands through Kathmandu.

In an absolute monarchy, it was revolutionary. And their words were echoed at similar protests across the country. For the first time, people are talking openly here about replacing the monarchy with a republic. King Gyanendra is reacting with ever more violent measures to suppress protest. The demonstrators who have come out in daily rallies all week have been tear-gassed, doused with water cannons, beaten with batons and now shot at. But still they keep coming.

Police have waded into rallies, beating protesters indiscriminately. The international press corps now covering the rallies is wearing motorcycle helmets to avoid head injuries.

And it is all playing out against the backdrop of the civil war with the Maoist guerrillas who control vast areas of the countryside, a war which has already cost at least 12,000 lives and has just restarted after the Maoists abandoned a unilateral ceasefire. What started out as demonstrations demanding the King restore democracy and give up the autocratic powers he seized a year ago is fast developing into a movement against the monarchy.

Sanu Raja Shakya, a protester, said: "We don't want a monarchy. It's too heavy a burden. It's useless for the country. What room is there for a monarchy in the 21st century?"

The protesters have vowed to boycott municipal elections being held on 8 February, saying they are just a figleaf for the King to claim he is restoring democracy. Yesterday's strike was held in part to prevent candidates filing their papers.

The Maoists have threatened to target any candidate. They have already killed one, and so serious is the situation that the government is offering special life insurance to anyone brave enough to stand.

King Gyanendra came to power only after most of the royal family was killed in 2001 in a massacre blamed on the then Crown Prince, who is said to have shot most of his family in a drunken rage.

Last year, King Gyanendra sacked the government and seized back the absolute powers of a medieval king. He suspended the most basic human rights, including freedom of speech, claiming that it was necessary to defeat the Maoists. But one year on, he has failed to make headway against the Maoists. The street protests have pitted the King directly against an alliance of the seven democratic parties that he forced from power. They organise the rallies and they called yesterday's general strike.

Crucially, the party leaders have held face-to-face meetings with Prachanda, the elusive leader of the Maoists, who has been in hiding for many years.

They have negotiated the framework for a peace process, and the Maoists have signed a 12-point agreement that includes a commitment to multi-party democracy. The King has accused the parties of playing into the hands of the Maoists.

Madhav Kumar Nepal, a party leader who met the Maoist, said: "It's very difficult to say whether I trust Prachanda or not. But I want to start by giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"If the Maoists have made a commitment to democracy, to peaceful means, to human rights, shouldn't we give them the opportunity to fulfil it? If they don't keep their word, we will see their treachery." Mr Nepal, leader of the Communists, the second-biggest party, spoke by telephone. He is under house arrest and police prevented The Independent from meeting him.

Analysts say it was the talks between the Maoists and the parties that galvanised public opinion against the King. The party leaders promise to deliver peace, but the King insists there is a military solution.

"The tourists are not coming because of this situation," said Balaram Tamang, a shop-owner in Thamel. I want peace so we can do business. If the King could deliver peace I wouldn't mind living in an absolute monarchy, but he has not lived up to his promises."

The parties are demanding that the parliament be reopened, all-party discussions with the Maoists take place, and that the King act as a constitutional monarch.

"We have not yet come down in favour of a republic," Shobhakar Parajuli of the Congress Party, Nepal's biggest, said. "But if the King does not want to give the people their rights, naturally the people will say, 'Why should we have a monarchy?'."

In 1990, massive rallies culminated in a march on the royal palace, and the then king agreed to a constitutional monarchy, the first in Nepal's history.

The Nuclear “Threat” At the End Of The Age Of Petroleum

2006-01-27T01:42:00.000-08:00

It is still an unanswered question who ginned up the fake Niger “yellow cake” memorandum that underlay the case for invading Iraq, and who outed Valerie Plame is still not definitively known. Yet barely three years after America invaded and occupied Iraq on the false pretense that it was developing atomic weapons, the Administration, once again, is clanging the nuclear alarm bells.

Like Strangelovian-Pavlovian dogs trained to attack at the ringing of that bell, America's citizens are whipped into a bellicose, salivating, “preemptive” war frenzy whenever its media and leaders choose. Never mind that Iraq really had no nuclear or chemical or biological weapons. Now there is Iran, and if Iraq was liquidated on the mere suspicion of thinking about the possibility of going nuclear, America's president cannot resist another war strike against an easily demonized “enemy”, this time against a land of tawny-skinned, bearded non-Christian Persians who bluntly state that they distrust America and its allies, that they intend to develop nuclear power generation, and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will not even wear a western style neck-tie!

America says that it is obsessed with preventing the “spread” of nuclear weapons -- as much now as it was determined to remain the sole nation armed with atomic ordinance at the end of the Second World War. But it opened Pandora's Box at Hiroshima, and soon Russia, then Britain and France, then China and Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea joined this most dubious boys' club. More will follow suit. Pandora's Box, once opened, simply cannot be reconstructed by pounding in nails with a military hammer. If you try, you only break the box forever.

There are at least five reasons why the West, and America in particular, fears a nuclear Iran, even if it is only pursuing nuclear power generation.

First, an empire cannot abide a rival or a rebel. Like Asimov's galactic empire of the Foundation Trilogy, the United States will not tolerate any deviation from subservience, because the successful rebellion of one will invite the rebellion of all others. Thus do empires disintegrate. There are other rebels' in the world today -- most notably in South America where Bolivarian style revolutions are emancipating economies and politics from a colonial past. But for the insurgent Iraqis, like Lilliputians who have tied Gulliver down to the ground, the United States would have already tried harder to stamp out the Bolivarians in South America, and, undoubtedly, it will try to do so again (if it could ever put the Middle East to the yoke). Iran, however, lies adjacent to the where the American soldiers and weapons now are stockpiled. To it, therefore, will Washington apply the first lash in an effort to frighten all others back into line.

Second, indeed there is a close correlation between nuclear power generation and the development of nuclear weapons. The technology to do one naturally feeds the technology necessary for the other. The more nuclear power plants a country has, the more nuclear weapons it can produce. America knows this because its own nuclear power plants fed America's nuclear weapons build-up, and the Administration's push to build more “civilian” nuclear reactors will, in turn, feed the next generation of American nuclear weapons.

Similarly Japan, which, at America's instigation, is now determined to amend its pacifist post-war constitution to create an offensive military capability, can translate its nuclear power generation capacity into nuclear weaponry in the twinkling of an eye. Japan has the fissionable material, it has the technical know-how, and, soon, it will also have the constitutional mandate to build its own nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately, the United States is egging on a re-militarized Japan as a “bulwark” against China. In the process, the US is intentionally fomenting an Asian arms race which can serve only American business interests.

The correlation between atomic power and atomic weapons sends tremors up the spines of the generals because, as North Korea demonstrated, the best defense against “Shock and Awe” aggression like that visited upon Iraq is a the threat of a nuclear counter-strike. However rudimentary the bomb or the delivery system might be, nuclear arsenals are truly the antidote to geopolitical domination. You do not mess with a venomous snake, but the fangless garter snake -- like Saddam Hussein -- ends up as your cowboy boots.

The third reason why America fears Iran's nuclear power ambition is because of the waste nuclear power produces. Both the Gulf War in 1991 and the Iraq War in 2003 were “nuclear wars” in which the United States deployed tons of depleted uranium munitions. DU shells cut through Iraqi armor like a hot knife through butter. The Pentagon does not care that the DU dust has sickened, and will sicken, thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of American soldiers and their unborn children. The Pentagon cares only that depleted uranium weapons significantly shift the military balance of power to those that have them.

The depleted uranium used by America's tanks and gunships is a by-product of America's nuclear power generation. It is the waste that no one knows how to dispose of safely, the multi-million year contaminant that nobody wants to store. This radioactive waste that is not suitable for generating power is, however, plentiful and exceedingly dense; thus, an ideal -- if highly toxic -- material for building military projectiles.

The last thing the generals want, however, is for another country -- let alone a country that does not kowtow to Washington -- to develop a source of DU weaponry. No sane nation would subject its own people or soldiers to such poisonous weapons, but -- like any other nuclear pox released from Pandora's Box -- if one country has them and uses them on the field of battle, then those who do not have them will strive to obtain them. Likewise, those who do have such weapons, will take extraordinary measures to prevent anyone else from having them, too.

A fourth reason: ensuring that everyone depends on America for their energy needs is as much a key to hegemony as is securing America's own sources of energy. Control of international energy resources also translates into control of international finance, for the strength of the dollar now depends on nothing less than its value as the standard exchange medium for oil. The dollar is not pegged to gold or silver or even the American economy. Rather, the U.S. currency “floats.” It floats on the oil that is essential to the world's industrial economies.

Iran, like Russia, also holds large reserves of natural gas in addition to oil. However, notwithstanding gas liquefaction and its cryogenic transportation by super-tanker, natural gas is used most economically on the continent where it is found. In the case of Iran, lying astride Europe and Asia, its continental markets lie both east toward China and India, and west toward Europe. The United States is not an optimum consumer of Iranian energy products. China, India and Europe are. Thus Iran, like its Russian gas-and-oil-rich neighbor to the north, not only has a domestic energy resource to fuel its own economy, it also has the ability to control other countries who will depend on it for their own economic viability. Therefore, Iran is a two-fold rival to the United States in that it challenges American dominance of the world's energy resources; and by being the fuel supplier of first-resort to China, India and Europe, Iran gives those nations, too, the ability to resist American influence.

The fifth reason why Washington wants to prevent Iran from developing nuclear power generation, is the most obvious and as important as the other four: it simply does not want Iran to develop an alternative to oil and gas for generating power.

Although Iran is one of the biggest exporters of hydrocarbons in the world, its oil production has peaked and its natural gas production will eventually peak as well. Just like in the United States, the North Sea, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, there are no more large oil fields to find in Iran. It is not that the oil itself will “run out,” it is that the cheap fuel, the low-hanging fruit, has been tapped out around the world. As that happens, nations necessarily will follow one or a combination of three paths -- they will conserve and reduce, or they will attempt to acquire or control the available petroleum for themselves, or they will develop alternative energy sources.

The United States, with Great Britain in its tow, has followed the second course, because it has the military power to seize and control the oil belonging to others, because it needs the oil for its own domestic and military consumption and because it wants to dominate every other hydrocarbon-dependent nation by controlling their energy sources, too.

Iran now seeks to follow the third course -- developing an alternative to hydrocarbons -- because it recognizes that when the gas and oil ultimately become too expensive to extract and refine, it will have to become an American vassal if it has not developed a viable energy alternative.

In the 21st Century, energy independence is essential for political, economic and cultural independence. Those that have it can escape the gravitational pull of America; those that do not will be pulled into and absorbed by it.

In the case of Iran, it certainly perceives nuclear power as one of its few options to cushion its petroleum and natural gas descent, to preserve its independence and to escape the orbit of the United States.

Perhaps those reasons alone -- its presumption that it can be independent in every sense of the word -- guarantee that the United States and/or its allies will strike Iran a violent blow.

It is not that nuclear energy is a smart, safe or economical alternative energy source. Nor is the current Iranian regime any better, or worse, than governments anywhere else in the world. The point of this analysis is simply to recognize where events probably lead as an inevitable worldwide energy and resource crisis escalates into increasingly volatile confrontations.

Zbignew Zingh can be reached at Zbig@ersarts.com. This Article is CopyLeft, and free to distribute, reprint, repost, sing at a recital, spray paint, scribble in a toilet stall, etc. to your heart’s content, with proper author citation. Find out more about Copyleft and read other great articles at www.ersarts.com. copyleft 2006

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What is Globalization?

Globalization

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

Meanings

History

Nature and existence of globalization

Characteristics

Glocalization

Anti-globalization

Pro-globalization (globalism)

Measurement of Globalization

Telesur and al-Jazeera sign deal

Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo

Veega land issue

The Plachimada issue

Iranian leader defiant over nuclear programs

Iranian leader defiant over nuclear programs

Institutional excesses, elite deadlock

"Hamas ready for a just peace"

A messy compromise on Iran

In Defense of the Student Movement - Noam Chomsky

The Responsibility of Intellectuals -Noam Chomsky

Cuban Crisis - What we didnt know!

Sector by sector

China: The best of all possible models

India's entrepreneurial advantage

Poor Buta Singh?

Reject the American fatwa (Mulford Episode)

Irish Republican Army

Contents

Origins

Political background

Easter Rising

The emergence of the IRA after the Easter Rising

Dáil Éireann

The battle for control of the IRA

The Oath to the Irish Republic

The full scale war

The King's Speech

The Anglo-Irish Treaty

The IRA and the Treaty

Damodola tremors

Nepal Shuts down

The Nuclear “Threat” At the End Of The Age Of Petroleum