Against Western Military Involvement in Syria

Pouring petrol onto a fire tends to make matters worse, and also risks burning those who do the pouring. In terms of the likely consequences, in the history of bad ideas, Western military involvement with the civil war in Syria, however well-intentioned, would be very high up in the charts.

It is, of course, possible that, as with any war, there are vested interests, like crows around a battlefield, eager for the financial rewards of a military conflict.

It is the job of military leaders to think about military involvement in any situation (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), whereas there can only be political resolutions (Northern Ireland, South Africa). Without a political resolution, there is no resolution: the First World War begat the Second World War begat the Cold War, usw.

Military spokespeople tend to talk earnestly about ‘surgical strikes’. Yet In Afghanistan there have been many civilian causalities, as well as so-called ‘friendly-fire’ incidents. I suspect that the explosions in Baghdad that we watched on television at the start of the Bush (junior) administration military adventure in Iraq, however well-targeted, killed many people who themselves had been victims of the regime of Saddam Hussein. Explosions do not discriminate who they kill – best not to use them. And besides, soldiers are people, too. Just because they have got caught up, some of them probably fairly arbitrarily, on one side or the other, does not mean that they deserve to die violently.

I may be quite wrong, but I suspect that some of the Syrian anti-government soldiers are not polite, liberal-minded people fighting because the Syrian government is a jolly rotten lot. I suspect that a proportion of the anti-government soldiers are motivated by an ideology that is as implacably opposed to western liberality as it is to the current Syrian regime. In supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Russian ‘occupation’ in the 1980s, the CIA inadvertently spawned the subsequent wave of international terrorism through which we are still living. Giving military assistance to such people sounds like a seriously bad idea.

I am as terrified of weapons of mass destruction as anyone else. However, I believe that Western politicians are responding with their hearts not their heads about the suspected / likely use of chemical weapons in Syria. 

Although it goes against the grain for many people, non-interference by the West could be the best course of action. Western electorates generally appear to support the idea that almost any action carried out by Western states must be experienced as desirable and beneficial for the people on whom it is inflicted. I suspect that the Islamic world, post-colonial Africa, and parts of Asia think somewhat differently.

If the West wishes to do something constructive, then giving significant humanitarian aid, both for the direct benefit of the casualties in the conflict, and also to the neighbouring countries to accommodate the huge number of Syrian refugees, would be a good start. At the diplomatic level, trying harder to build bridges with the Putin regime in Russia (with which the Assad regime in Syria has some kind of ongoing relationship), and trying even harder to broker a rapprochement between Israel and a Palestinian state, could, in the long-term, be of much greater benefit to the people of Syria and of countries surrounding Syria, than simply firing missiles into Damascus.

At one with the world

The traffic in New York City is impatient, and pedestrians are jostling at road junctions. A Buddhist monk had been meditating in Central Park, listening to the song birds and the rhythm of the city. He is now walking serenely down Broadway and starts to feel a little peckish. As he nears Times Square the aroma of fried onions and hotdogs wafts past him. Approaching the hotdog vendor’s cart, he sees that the vendor is reading a newspaper. The monk says to the vendor “Excuse me, could you make me one with everything, please” and smiles to himself at the pun.

The sour-faced vendor, saying nothing, throws a steaming hotdog sausage into a bun, slaps some onions on top, squirts a line each of mustard and tomato sauce, and hands the completed hotdog to the monk. The monk pays with a ten dollar bill, and then waits patiently for his change. The vendor, having returned to reading his newspaper, ignores the monk. After a little while, tomato sauce already dripping onto the sidewalk, the monk asks the vendor, “Excuse me, but where’s my change?” The vendor growls, “Change comes from within.”

Shrinking U.S. Cities Find Splendor in Green

The article below is one of several I have seen recently along the same lines:

World Environment News - Some Shrinking U.S. Cities Find Splendor in Green - Planet Ark

I am aware that there are many millions of people, particularly in South America, Africa and parts of Asia, who would experience a vast improvement in their quality of life were they to be given the opportunity to live in these abandoned neighbourhoods. Is it ethically more sound to raze the houses to make green space, or to provide shelter for people who have none?

I am slowly but increasingly persuaded that no-one should be given the right to exclude other people from land that is not theirs: Israelis should have no right to exclude Palestinians from living in Israel; nor supporters of the British National Party [Front Nationale, Vlaams Blok/Belang] to prevent people with darker-coloured skin from living in western Europe. I guess that there are residents of Flint, Michigan, who would object to people from elsewhere in the world (such as refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants) taking up residence in abandoned neighbourhoods.

A related, though separate, issue concerns social welfare. Were familes say, from Timbuktu, to relocate to Flint, Michigan, or to Pennywell, Sunderland, who would be responsible for their social welfare?

[To be continued ...]

The US Presidential election

1. When I was in the US during August, it was already absolutely clear to me that John McCain would win the election.

2. Subsequent to my return home, the appointment of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate, whilst considered inexplicable from the perspective of European commentators, finally brought fully on board the rednecks, the gun lobby and the evangelicals, all of whom had viewed McCain with suspicion as being somewhat liberal. Whilst it still shocks me that there are Christian people in Britain who would have voted for McCain simply because of his Christian beliefs, I know that the same is much more intensely true in the US.

3. During August I saw John McCain start to change his presentation from being the obviously polite, considerate man that he is, to being a person with clear-cut, no-nonsense, straight-down the line answers to any and all questions. I watched the man transform his presentation from appealing pleasantly to conservative people to appealing to rednecks, pro-lifers and evangelicals. Had he been elected to the White House, it is not him about whom I would have felt concern, but all the lobbies to which he owed allegiance.

4. One of the catch-phrases in the movie Sliding Doors, and I think probably from Monty Python before that, is "No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition". The so-called credit crunch began in September. President Bush, and by implication, the Republicans in general are seen as having handled the US economy badly, whereas Bill Clinton is seen (perhaps fairly, perhaps not) as having handled the US economy remarkably well. I feel certain that Barack Obama has benefited from this perception without having earned that trust.

5. Prior to September, John McCain was doing well in the polls because of his military background. On the other hand, Barack Obama was seen as weak and flaky, as too understanding, as "nuanced". The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not viewed by people in the US as anything like the liability that they are seen by almost everyone in Europe. The credit crunch turned an important issue into a very minor issue.

6. When I was in the US, I was struck by how similar Barack Obama is to how Tony Blair was back in 1997. To many, Tony Blair turned out to be a Tory in Labour livery. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has a Senate track record of attempting to push through liberal welfare reforms. I believe that had Hillary Clinton been chosen as the Democratic Party nominee, she may well have won the election had the credit crunch not happened. I still rue the fact that she was not selected.

7. Since its much-celebrated birth, the United States has been a nation comprised almost entirely of immigrants from all over the world. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of the people were the poor and dispossessed: displaced native Americans, slaves of African ethnicity, and peasants from Europe, from Asia and from Latin America. Having visited Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Florida and Chicago, I know that white-skinned people are a minority in the US, and will soon not even be the largest minority. White-skinned male patricians do not outnumber other groups in the US, yet this is the category of people from which the two political parties have typically selected their candidates. Martin Luther King's dream was 40 years ago. There is part of me that is appalled that "the world and her lovers" are rejoicing about the skin colour of the person elected to be the next US President. Is it really true that these times are still so benighted?

8. The excitement and razzmatazz around Obama has enthused many people, and raised expectations into geostationary orbit. I wonder how long he will be given before people realise that he is merely the Commander in Chief of the US military, and not Superman, Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Jesus Christ merged into one super-hero.

9. I hope and believe that the world is much safer for having a Democrat, rather than a Republican, White House.

10. Had I been able to vote at a Democratic primary, I would have voted for Hillary Clinton. Had I had a vote in the US Presidential election, I would, without a shadow of a doubt, have voted for Barack Obama.

Postscript (18 July 2009)

My overall, if no-longer well-informed, sense is that Barack Obama has done a stirling job during the first six months of his office. In comparison, the UK government under Gordon Brown appears to have stumbled from crisis to crisis in remorseless succession. Whilst Obama's administration inspires hope for the future, the UK is sinking ever deeper into the mire. I should find it much easier to be proud to be American than proud to be British.

European invasion of the Americas (1)

My two visits to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC, prompted me to consider the ethics of the European invasion of the Americas from 1492 onwards. I have been journalling about this issue in detail on paper, but have been reluctant to date to commit any of my thoughts to publicly-accessible electronic form. However, having just read the article reproduced below, I thought that it would make a good start to the process of placing my thoughts about the issue in the public domain. The article is in Planet Ark, world environment news, which I believe to be a subsidiary of Reuters.

***

BRASILIA - Isolated native Indians in the Amazon forest of Brazil and Peru remain threatened by advancing loggers despite growing international attention to their plight, a senior Brazilian official said on Thursday.

"Pressure from Peruvian loggers continues, it's a concern," Marcio Meira, head of the government's Indian affairs agency, Funai, told the foreign press association in Brasilia.

Brazil's Acre state along the border with Peru is one of the world's last refuges for such groups, but increasing activity by wildcat miners and loggers puts them at risk.

Dramatic pictures of pigment-covered Indians from the region threatening the photographer's aircraft with bows and arrows were carried in May by media worldwide.

The Peruvian ambassador to Brazil subsequently told Meira his government was concerned about the issue and preparing measures, without detailing what these were.

Brazil has 26 confirmed native Indian tribes that live with little or no contact with the outside world. There are unconfirmed reports of an additional 35 such groups.

Many of them live in the forest like their forefathers did centuries ago, hunting and gathering.

More than three months after the photographs sparked an international media frenzy, Funai officials continue to witness logging activity in the region. "There is evidence. We see timber floating down the river which originates in Peru," said Meira.

Survival International, a group that campaigns for tribal peoples' rights, said last week that the Peruvian government had not lived up to its promise of publishing an investigation into accusations of illegal logging.

"The Peruvian government must not be allowed to bury this issue, or to turn their backs on the uncontacted tribes," said Survival's director, Stephen Corry.

The issue will be discussed at an international conference on native Indians in Georgetown, Guyana, later this month, Meira said.

Advancing loggers also threaten isolated tribes in Brazil's northern Mato Gross state and along the upper Xingu river in Para state, Meira said.

(Reporting by Raymond Colitt, editing by Ross Colvin)

Story Date: 15/9/2008

***

Book Review: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, Abacus, London, 2001
(ppb., 279 pp., 11 pp. endnotes/references, indexed, first published by Little, Brown, 2000)

It is not often that book titles manage to raise themselves out of the dust thrown up by the noise of everyday life: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The term used by Gladwell in the title to his first book The Tipping Point has now achieved common currency. The relevance to climate change and global warming could lead one to wonder, in all seriousness, whether the concept of the 'tipping point' was itself at a tipping point, ready to tip. For many years we had been either 'on the threshold' (in control) or 'teetering on the brink' (not in control). Tipping points may be less obvious, and inferred only by subsequent analysis. Why did crime in New York City plummet in the 1980s? This is one of the examples Gladwell considers in detail, identifying that a particular set of circumstances were at a sensitive 'tipping point', and a small, highly targetted effort was able to make a massive difference. An example Gladwell does not consider concerns marine clathrates - methane hydrate held in huge volumes in ocean sediments. A small rise in global temperatures currently will do little to these clathrates. However, with global temperatures predicted to rise by four or five degrees over the next forty years, even a miniscule temperature elevation could then release vast quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, setting off a rapid escalation of further, potentially catastrophic, global warming. The ocean temperature at which methane is released from clathrates is a tipping point in terms of climate change.
Most of Gladwell's examples of tipping points are focused around human behaviour. It is easy to see why the same term is used both for physical and social processes. When a transmissible disease starts to spread, the rate of social transmission is likely to change in response to a variety of social factors, such as changes in seasonal behaviour. A viral epidemic, such as seasonal 'flu, may well pass through a tipping point, both on its way up and on its way down. At the time of writing, the much-expected pandemic 'flu epidemic based on the H5N1 bird 'flu virus has not reached a tipping point, although it is understood what that tipping point would be: the point at which the virus mutates to permit efficient human-human transmission. Gladwell considers the fashion industry and how there are tipping points in the sale of particular fashion items. He also considers Paul Revere's ride that led to the American War of Independence, analysing what what made the ride a tipping point.
Gladwell identifies both that the context must be right and that the 'contagion' is contagious, 'sticky'. He also considers that three roles are necessary for a social tipping point: connectors, mavens and salesmen. The designations are supeficially attractive and may contain more than simply a kernel of truth. However, in my view, Gladwell fails to take account of the effectiveness of the vested interests of international commerce and national politics in controlling what we buy, what we watch/read, and what we think. Indeed, his message looks as though it will be attractive to a popular culture that prizes individualism: if you are smart in some way, you can make a difference. Maybe you know lots of people (connectors), maybe you are obsessed with footware or gizmos or supermarket prices (mavens), maybe you can sell beachwear to people living in Greenland (salesmen). I thought time and again: Gladwell knows the culture for which he is writing. A society in which intellect is not fully trusted, but in which people dream of escaping both from the vista of complexity revealed by science, and from the daily tedium of humdrum graft to 'stars in their eyes' silver-bullet breakthroughs.
It is valuable that Gladwell offers plenty of evidence to support his assertions. In popular social science style, the text is made up of one anecdote after another, and includes several well-worked-through examples, albeit largely from the United States. The text is well-supported (11 pages of endnotes and references) with many references to academic books and academic papers, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, albeit largely written by Americans in the United States. This US focus should be surprising as Gladwell was born in the UK and raised in Ontario. The parochialism started to irritate me, not because I hold any anti-American prejudices, but because I started to doubt that his thesis would hold as true for other societies around the world. He does offer a Polynesian example of teenage suicide. However, by this point in the book I had started to become suspicious. How much does Gladwell know about Polynesian society? How much does he understand about suicidal ideation and pyschotherapy? Again, this should be surprising because Gladwell's mother was a Jamaican psychotherapist. Although the precise example of Polynesian teenage suicide may well be valid, I was equally sure that Gladwell was well beyond his home turf.
Academic writing does not make claims beyond those that it can defend. Academic writing considers short-comings, objections and alternative interpretations. Gladwell should be familiar with academic writing because his father, Graham, is emeritus professor of civil engineering at Canada's leading University of Waterloo, Ontario. What is absent from Gladwell's book is anything critical of his thesis, anything that may refute his ideas. At two points (crime reduction in New York City, and the spread of syphilis in Baltimore) Gladwell does rehearse alternative suggestions for what took place, but only as a rhetorical backdrop for his 'white knight' tipping point solution. It is as though, for Gladwell, there is a silver bullet to be found, a tipping point that will make all the difference. The Tipping Point is a text written to persuade and convince. Gladwell is acting as maven and salesman for his own ideas. The example he cites at which he appears to me to be weakest is when considering tobacco smoking reduction behaviour. He fails to acknowledge the emotional complexity of smoking, its multitude of meanings, the meanings associated with quitting, and the fact that much smoking reduction advertising is aimed at adults. Having a degree in history, it is far from obvious that issues of suicide and addictions are areas of Gladwell's strength. Happily, however, his text appears to be much more persuasive when it comes to the commercial advertising of fashion items to a segmented US market. About this he writes well. Indeed, his entire text is written in a style that justifiably belongs to a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine.
It would seem that Gladwell applied to his book, the sub-title of which is How little things can make a big difference, the lessons that constitute his chapters. I bought the book because I had heard of it many times and was interested to learn. The book's advertising puff reads: "The International No. 1 Bestseller", a message advertising how contagious the book is.
The concept of tipping points is important, and deserves to be explored, understood and explained more fully, and above all more rigorously. Maybe is is me who at fault in hoping for a modicum of academic scepticism and balance in a popular social science text. When all is said and done, Gladwell's book is an enthusiastic and encouraging introduction to tipping points.

***

Gladwell biographical information drawn from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell accessed 24 March 2008

Some cities in the US

Mahattan is the capital city of high culture; the most vibrant of cities in which to shop, eat and be entertained; and simply the centre of the world. The terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 prompted me to visit - four times to date. Were a year's job-swap ever possible, I should find it impossible to resist. In the meantime my next visit is being plotted.

DC, with its Smithsonians, its grand architecture, and the charming politeness of many of the people who live there, make it a worthy tourist city. Its pleasant weather, reasonably accessible public transport system, and several vegetarian eating places (all of which had vegan dishes) made the four days I spent there all too brief, and I should have preferred to have spent four weeks. DC is high on my list of cities to revisit.

Boston, on the other hand, is significantly over-rated as a tourist destination, and is worth avoiding until even Washington (Tyne & Wear, UK), Peterlee (County Durham, UK) and Harlow (Essex, UK) have been exhausted. Whereas it likes to trade under the name of 'Beantown', Boston's historical sites are few, poorly presented, and offensively partisan. Many of the people who inhabit central Boston behave coldly at best, some might say rudely. There is virtually no vegan food to be had anywhere near central Boston. On the other hand, Cambridge was pleasant in a very, very low key way, but nothing to Oxford (UK), Cambridge (UK) or ever Dublin (Eire).

Chicago has wonderful architecture stretching back to the nineteenth century. As well as the grand buildings, such as the Institute of Art, and the fascinating 1920s' skyscrapers (such as the Union Carbide building), and the imposing late twentieth century skyscrapers (such as the Sears Tower), Frank Lloyd Wright left his mark, several in fact, at Oak Park - essential viewing for anyone interested in architecture. A boat trip is an excellent way to view the architecture of downtown Chicago. The Instiute of Art, so lovingly featured in John Hughes' movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is world class, and is essential viewing. Several recent movies use the ambience of Chicago as though a chartacter: Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, and While You Were Sleeping, starring Sandra Bullock. The public zoo is set in parkland on the lakeshore. There is vegetarian food in Chicago, including in the gay, bohemian suburb of North Halstead.

To be continued ...