World Affairs

[Ocram's Razr 963]

It used to be primarily Christians and Muslims but Jews fought also. Nowadays, even though it is mainly between Jews and Muslims, many Palestinians are Christian. That means that the big three (the Abramic/Abrahamic) religions fought over shared holy land since the beginning and will continue to fight for the foreseeable future.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: mightygoose

remember half the problems in the middle east were exacerbated when the allies came up with the Partition Plan for Palestine in 1948....quote>

The date of the Balfour declaration is 1917, all the allies did was implement it, alas.

There is no question that the liberated Jews from Europe had to go somewhere, and Palestine was the logical destination.  It might have been better if they had been dropped off on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea and allowed to migrate for forty years again, than plopping them down with pseud-national borders in the face of all the local opposition.  The allies were feeling their oats.

As for Jerusalem, the Romans completely destroyed the Jewish Jerusalem, and made off with all of its treasure.  The Colosseum was built with part of the gold of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus.  It is really too bad that the Romans were not completely thorough, but the days of actions like the final Punic War would have been considered atrocious by then.  My guess is that they still wanted the site as a nexus for trade routes.

Jerusalem, after the Roman destruction, was rebuilt by whoever wanted to live there.  Mostly Jews, I suppose, but there must have been other Palestinian tribes present.  The Muslims didn't come along until nearly 500 years later.  Why Mohammed took his last breath in Jerusalem is a good question, but, being a devout ex-Jew, I suppose it is only natural.

As far as Christians wanting Jerusalem, this is a left-over from the crusades.  Christians should want area of Galilee much more than Jerusalem, because the Bible states that Jesus lived and spoke mostly there.  The site of his death is not what one should be killing people for.

One would think that Muslims would be much more interested in Mecca and Medina, since these are living places rather than places of death.  What is it about charismatic leaders' place of expiration the attracts so much attention?  Jesus ministry in Jerusalem consisted of about one week for that fatal Passover.

Old religious edifices are not what one should be concerned with if you are religious.  You should be concerned with your relationship with your god, and not the junk left over from previous epochs.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I see, Galilee is far away from the Capitol.

[DocRorlach 25]

The "funny" part of modern Israel's claim that Palestinians are "anti-semitic" is, of course, that pretty much all tribes of that region are consider Semites.

On a "lighter" note: will anyone be surprised by this article from our Guardian?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: DocRorlach

The "funny" part of modern Israel's claim that Palestinians are "anti-semitic" is, of course, that pretty much all tribes of that region are consider Semites.

On a "lighter" note: will anyone be surprised by this article from our Guardian?

quote>

How many times have I iterated that the mess in the eastern end of the med is a civil war?  Half-brothers shouldn't fight.  The whole business is a Caine and Abel situation.  I have an Arab friend who dislikes Jews intensely, but is not anti-Semitic because it is not good to be against yourself.

As for your other point, Doc, who could possibly be surprised?  Fox news is foxy at best, and to find that one of their big guns is dicey on something like climate change should not surprise anyone.  As far as climate change is concerned, it is a natural phenomenon that has happened before in geologic history.  The forces operating here are beyond our petty powers, so we had better start thinking of ways of living with it, rather than opposing it.  We are acting like King Knute.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The United States is at war with Pakistan?  Linky.

This is much worse than the WikiLeaks comedic-tragedy.  What on earth is the U.S. thinking?  This kind of activity amounts to acts of war even if condoned by Pakistan.  The CIA is not the police force in Pakistan, and should not be involved.  This is the way the Viet Nam war got going.  Want another unpopular foreign war?

[DocRorlach 25]

That does not even deserve the term "skirmish"; it is merely CIA West vs. CIA-like East. The US is however right in thinking that Al-Qaeda & Co. are up in the hills and mountains north of the Khyber. Nobody has ever been able to control those tribes, certanly not Pakistan. And Afghanistan also claims some areas as its own, although it always did so rather quietly, lest it offend the tribal arms dealers up there. My one and only visit to the area showed me backyards with MIG spare parts, anti-tank weaponry, and other goodies, still in original packing (though minus the warranties). Besides that, most of the area is passable only via four-legged transport, full of caves the bigger than most houses there, and largely hostile to outsiders. Heck, the guy in the next village is considered an outsider.

As for the methods, well, that could be discussed. Less of a hue and cry would be made of it if the military were to send in the drones. The alternative, short of total whithdrawel from the failed war on the Taliban and AQ, would be to send in the clowns, otherwise known as the US infantry. The outcome would be predictable: Both Pakistan & Afghanistan would claim sovereign ownership and thus see it as an act of undeclared war. Meanwhile the tribes would simply route all tresspassers, and the results would probably be a lot worse than Vietnam.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I predict that Afghanistan will be status quo ante by 2020.  If the Taliban takes over again, so be it.  Rulers rule with the consent of the governed.  I don't see the Taliban or anyone else having any effect on the hill tribes or the Pashtun nomads.  Banditry will be the order of the day, and it would be important to put a general arms embargo on the whole area.  It should be very difficult for anyone in that area to get modern armament, and shipping arms in there should be a terminal disease.

Alexander the Great couldn't take this area, the Romans didn't, and the British Raj couldn't.  The Russians got the bear grease kicked out of them.  Why should anyone expect any other result.  Resources notwithstanding, the countryside is against everyone, and if you want to live there, I suppose it is possible, since people do.  We should forget all the ideological bull pucky, and just leave them alone (provided they leave us alone).

As far as Afghanistan supporting AQ, if they do, and AQ causes any more trouble, well, there are methods of interdiction that could be applied.  I'd hate to have to do it, but extreme problems need serious remedies.  It is time to de-radicalize Islam, and they probably need help to clean house.  We could try being nicer to the Saudis and try not to antagonize them with our ideas of how things should be run.  If you send a team in there it should be men (only) who are arabic speakers, and who know the rules.  It would be good if they were muslim so that they could attend the lcoal mosques.  Just picking up a squad of national guard in Podunk and posting them there is stupid.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Here's a Roman candle.

A strange selection of targets.  What do Switzerland, Chile, and the Ukraine have in common that would cause some anarchist to attack them?

[DocRorlach 25]

Simple: except perchance for Switzerland (although I doubt it) these nations are far less focused on terror attacks than say the obvious targets such as France, Germany, UK, and USA. Moreover, their embassies are far less grand affairs and again, far less the focus of local authorities, making the task for the terrorist easier. That latest foil in Sweden is typical for that - were it not for the failure of the would-be martyr, It would have been a desaster because locally, nobody expected it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

No one can afford to be complacent.  The mad murderers are after everyone.  We take it all  quite seriously and have foiled several plots on our own soil.  The Toronto thing was not a show trial, we had them cold, and the evidence showed it.  Our homeland security outfit (the RCMP) does a fairly good job hand in glove with our security people (CSIS).  Canadians are a quiet people, but watch out if you run us into a corner.

[mightygoose 92]

to be honest, its hardly serious if the guys who triggered the bombs by opening them only suffered minor injuries to their hands...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: mightygoose

to be honest, its hardly serious if the guys who triggered the bombs by opening them only suffered minor injuries to their hands...quote>

You aren't paranoid enough.  Depends on what else was dispersed besides explosion gases.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, it is 2011 and here we are with another "crisis".  The Brits are sabre rattling over the Ivory Coast.  I am personally against any intervention by anyone except, maybe, the Organization of African States. 

If Mr. umpronounceable wants to cling to power, let the country sort it out.  His security must be good, or someone would have got him already.

Let us start no more (unpopular) foreign wars again.  Most of our guys will be out of Afghanistan in a couple of months, and I am sick to death of the casualty lists.  Time for Canada, at least, to stay home.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It would appear that someone has allowed the fox into the hen house.

[mightygoose 92]

well that looks suitably destabilatory to the middle east, carry on as normal for them then. as for the UK sabre rattling over the Cote d'ivoire, i sometimes wonder what our government is doing... or if it failed to read the book on 20th century political stupidity i sent them for christmas.

i would also like to note that inflation worries worldwide are pushing the oil prices ever upward again.... and this time we are not in a bubble

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Saw a prediction somewhere that when oil reaches $100/bbl, there is an economic tippiing point.

[mightygoose 92]

well OPEC make money on anything over $57 per barrel, thats the saudi break even margin. the rest of opec is around $60-$70 so anything more is just lining their pockets. you have to compare the prices with nominally adjusted dollars. i think it would be interesting to see the price of oil over the last 10 years in contemporary sterling.... i may have to graph that.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

As if there wasn't enough trouble in this area.  Shades of the killing of Indira Ghandi.  If your own personal guard goes sour, what can a poor, beleaguered head of state do?  This could set off a civil war in that powder keg when advantage will be taken by both Al Queda and India to day nothing of the Taliban and the "free traders" of the cave communities.

I am beginning to think the large population die-back due to drought in this region after the Himalayan snow packs are gone will be a great benefit to the peace of the world if the Pakistanis don't start a nuclear holocaust.  Loss of water supply will surely concentrate their minds on other things besides killing each other.

[Cobraroll 138]

^Concerning that last sentence there:

Wouldn't that just make them kill each other even more, but over different things? I mean, who cares of Kashmir (apart from designers of wooly garments) when the most important resource we've got is at stake?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ When the Ganges runs dry, I expect a general Volkerwanderung and the usual amount of resistance.  I expect the Pakistanis will be accused of withholding the water, and that a real hot war between Pakistan and India will ensue over water rights, let alone nearly a century of animosity.  The rest of the world will have its own water problems, too much or too little, so nobody else will have the energy to intervene.  Since both are members of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Brits will tsk, tsk and sit it out while trying to not drown in the higher levels of the Atlantic.

Unless Sri Lanka is underwater, they will have more problems than a few Tamils in the north end of the island, and Bangladesh will be no more than a memory, having been inundated long before.  Where the Bangladeshis will go is a really good question, and I suspect they will be the first of the displaced by water people.

There is no longer any point in debating about global warming, it is here now, and we can't stop it, and couldn't have anyway since it is a natural phenomenon.  We'll just have to cope with it and adapt or die.  New York City had better start thinking about dykes.  The Dutch, who originally had Manhattan, could give them a few lessons.

Meanwhile, cities that have tides in their rivers, for example London and Bordeaux, had better start seriously thinking about inundation possibilities.  The Gironde at Bordeaux isn't very much below the bridges when the tide is in.  Biarritz will be flooded.  The tides there come in very quickly.  (I was nearly cut off by it when I was there.)  Low-lying coastal cities on both North American coasts have to start working on this now, or they will eventually drown.  You'll be able to go boating in the LA archipelago among the tops of the drowned skyscrapers.

When the Cascadia fault moves, the cities of the Northwest will be in real trouble if not obliterated.  Doesn't pay to be on the leading edge of a tectonic plate that is being subducted.

[mightygoose 92]

meanwhile, the price of Oil, the price of corn, the FAO food price index, the FTSE and DOW are all at levels higher than anything seen since the big crash in july 08, are we caught in an economic bounce??

[hamsterTK 93]

So, what do you propose? Forbidding companies from moving out of the country?quote>

what happens is that all the big countries in the world need to get together and form a badass army of mercenaries to invade and utterly destroy the Cayman Islands. Switzerland is tougher because they do, contrary to popular belief, have a military. We'll just nuke those chocolate sucking kleptocrats to hell.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK

So, what do you propose? Forbidding companies from moving out of the country?quote>

what happens is that all the big countries in the world need to get together and form a badass army of mercenaries to invade and utterly destroy the Cayman Islands. Switzerland is tougher because they do, contrary to popular belief, have a military. We'll just nuke those chocolate sucking kleptocrats to hell.

quote>

This is one of those moments you've mentioned when you post something and then come back the next day and wonder what the heck you were thinking, isn't it?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK

So, what do you propose? Forbidding companies from moving out of the country?quote>

what happens is that all the big countries in the world need to get together and form a badass army of mercenaries to invade and utterly destroy the Cayman Islands. Switzerland is tougher because they do, contrary to popular belief, have a military. We'll just nuke those chocolate sucking kleptocrats to hell.

quote>

Context please.  And just what substance were you abusing when you posted this.  Or you've just watched Avatar.

[hamsterTK 93]

Clearly nobody has a sense of humor today. The mistake I will own up to is my forgetting that sarcasm is difficult to convey on internet forums

To be more serious, I can't be the only one who finds the subject of offshore banking and tax havens fascinating. In such a globalised world where few really play fair, it seems counter-intuitive that these places are allowed to do what they do. Currency and banking being what they are, and since a few big economies like the US, China, Germany, etc control the way the world works, I would think it would be possible to put heat on places that act rogue. In the last few years Switzerland has started to comply though.

It truly is a global security issue. Ever ask the question, how do terrorist organizations handle financing, and where do arms dealers and human traffickers cash their checks? It's nothing that should be taken lightly.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Here this should help you: the snark mark/irony point:

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Somehow, I missed the fact that there is a sub-thread on the vicissitudes of international banking and its abuses. 

When I was in retail banking more than 50 years ago, there were certainly controls to prevent large international transfers that were suspicious.  The SWIFT system has done a lot of abrogate a lot of that, to say nothing of the international cartels that are actually legal businesses who want to do multinational things. 

I strongly suspect that the days of the good old letter of credit have passed.  It has gotten to the point that the banks no longer really place many controls on such transfers.  There are rules about reporting large amounts, but all this reporting is ex post facto.

At one time, the gnomes of Zurich were looked upon benevolently by many.  However, now that they have been used by so many international criminals, probably starting with the NAZIs, things are not so rosy for them.  They should be feeling used, IMHO.

As for the other off-shore bankers, they are simply complicit with the organized crime crowd.  There isn't enough international law to regulate this properly, and probably never will be because the debating society will talk it to death.  The UN is not much of an enforcement body and hasn't been since the Korean war.  Too many kid gloves and pussy footing goes on there for my taste, and some of the non-paying "members" have altogether too much to say.  If you are not paid-up at the UN, you should not be allowed to vote.  Being nominally a member and not paying your dues is a show of disrespect for the organization, and I can see NATO going the same way if they don't pull up their socks.

As for keeping corporations from voting with their feet, if labor hadn't priced itself out of the market with the more-more-more syndrome after the War to End All Wars, corporations would be content to stay put.  However, asking for more without doing more is asking for companies to go look for another labor pool.  It is true that if you always do what you have always done you may very well not get what you've always got. 

The suburb-living, SUV driving, digital-TV watching, PVR equipped union members have too much wealth for what they do.  Labor in the west is feather-bedded, and they shouldn't be surprised if things are not going their way anymore when we now have a global village.  Belt-tightening is the order of the day to prevent the employers from fleeing the labor contracts.  There has already been a rigorous lesson on what happens when there is a little recession, and if they keep up their current attitude, the whole inflationary bubble may go bust.  This time, the 1930s will look like a Sunday school picnic.  Starvation could very well be the order of the day.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

This is yet another mess that the Americans are heading into.  This part of the world is worse than Viet Nam for the leave-us-alone syndrome.  Increased American (bumbling) interference will only serve to further destabilize the region and Pakistan particularly.

If the Pakistanis can't control their own people, what help do you think Americans stamping their feet on the ground will do even if they intend to take the country over.  Whatever hawks are advising Obama on this need to have their wings clipped.

About the No. 3 cause of the fall of Rome was unpopular foreign wars.  Doesn't anyone read history anymore?  No matter how you spin it as a part of the so-called war on terror, this is just another annoyance for the American people.  There are times when the Americans should butt out and stay home.

[Cobraroll 138]

So, the world might get a new country one of these days: Southern Sudan. After many years as one state, Sudan is now on the verge of break-up. The two parts of the country have different historical backgrounds, and were united to one country because that was the most convenient for the British colonists. Some say it's been a "forced relationship" between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian south. As the capitol, and thus the government, resides in the north, South has always alleged the government for favouring the north in political issues. However, most of the country's resources, among them rich oil fields, are in the south. North is mostly desert, but they have a small strip of coastline that might be of use. To get a view on how split the country is, take a look at this satelite image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sudan_sat.jpg

What are your views? Will this influence the political theatre in Africa? Will it bring peace, war, or something in-between? Do people really care? Should they?