Dignity and Prosperity

Since we decided to invade and conquer Iraq in 2003, the United States (with its ally, Britain) appears to have embraced a new and unfortunately deadly version of the Keystone Cops – we really don’t seem to able to get anything right. We invaded Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction; they didn’t. Listening to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (who was the financial power in government back in 2003) justify that effort, after the fact with an entirely different explanation of why invasion was a good thing, is simply chilling. There is an underlying assumption, here and in the U.K., that governments just don’t make mistakes… you just have to explain your error better.

On March 5^th, Brown declared that the Iraq invasion was “the right decision for the right reasons” and even added that “everything that [then-Prime Minister Tony] Blair did during this period, he did properly.” Calling Saddam Hussein’s Iraq a “persistent serial violator” of multiple U.N. resolutions, he noted that: “We cannot have an international community that works if either we have terrorists breaking the rules, or in this case aggressor states that refuse to obey the laws of the international community.” He blasted the Bush administration’s methodology, however, saying that: “I never subscribed to what you might call the neo-conservative proposition: that somehow, at the barrel of a gun, overnight liberty or democracy could be conjured up.” The British press had a field day with this absurd justification for the war, and even members of his own party were taken aback.

As the recent Iraqi elections reflect, the “nation” we “liberated” doesn’t seem to be a nation at all. It very much seems fractured along the ethnic and religious lines that have never really got along, an animosity that was “contained” under the Hussein Sunni minority regime by ultra-violent repression. The Shiites – the clear majority (and acting that way) – even fielded a candidate who has been accused of leading Shiite death squads against Sunni minorities after the creation of the new government (created under the aegis of American conquest)… even as many Sunni leaders, having served in Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, have been prohibited from even running. We’re back to separatist Kurds in the North, minority Sunnis (many of who see terrorist attacks on Shiite facilities as their only means of fighting back) in the southwest, and the overwhelming Shiite majority everywhere else.

Iraq has most certainly become a government of Shiites, for Shiites and by Shiites. There’s even talk, once again, that this three-way animosity which is festering into an ugly and rather open wound, may require U.S. forces to extend their stay to avert a bloodbath based on the failure of the “democracy” that the United States shoved at the Iraqi people… clearly a failed constitution, failed leadership and a failed system to protect the minority – who want to be in separate nations anyway – from the tyranny of Shiite oppression. Iran – the center of Shiite power – is grinning from ear to ear at our unbelievable stupidity. At this juncture, the United States has neither the money nor the will to restructure this failed nation, and perhaps, it isn’t even our role to continue to experiment with Iraqi politics; we did such a horrible job the first time around.

Meanwhile, back at the farm… er… the super-corrupt opium farm we refer to as “Afghanistan,” American forces are busy rooting out Taliban strongholds – okay, we know that lots of these extremists have just slid over the border to safe haven in Taliban-friendly Pakistan (despite assertions to the contrary) to wait until we leave to return – and replacing the repressive Taliban governments with solid, competent indigenous leadership. Folks like the new civilian leader of recently “liberated” Marja (in the border province of Helmand), Abdul Zahir, who stated, in a Los Angeles Times interview (reported on March 6^th): “The Taliban did nothing for Marja; we will bring back dignity and prosperity.” Do you think that Mr. Zahir served time in a German prison for stabbing his son should have been taken into consideration before he got the job? We’re good… hey… like the Keystone Cops!

I’m Peter Dekom, and that we just don’t get how badly we have failed still astounds me!

Airport Porn – Bigger, Broader, More Fully Packed

Voyager voyeurs vaunt very visible vectors! I’ve blogged about the technology… the intimate details… and the view from separate rooms “with a view” that special agents get to have… away from those pretty new full body scanners. Yum! Another Christmas bomber screening device. Whoa! They really do expose those hidden assets, and there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Sure travelers can object – and submit to an alternatively invasive examination – but here are more than a few of these expensive puppies sitting around, in “mothballs,” so to speak, ordered but sitting in government warehouses waiting to be deployed.

Apparently there’s about $757 billion left in the President’s stimulus package that has yet to emitted from government coffers – about $25 billion was allocated for those chi chi fully body scanners, but a bunch of them have not be placed in service. The February 23^rd LA Times: “Apparently, it took the Homeland Security Department seven months to order 150 of the scanners. Their California-based manufacturer, Rapiscan, says it has delivered more than 100 of the machines to the Transportation Security Administration, where they sit waiting… Maybe the delay is good news for privacy advocates, who still don't like those scanners.”

Like the Pope? The February 23^rd Travel.Aol.com noted: “Pope Benedict XVI spoke out against body scanners, insisting that ‘it is above all essential to protect and value the human person in their integrity.’… Speaking to an audience of 1,200 airport workers, the Pope acknowledged that airports were at the forefront of the terrorist threat, but added: ‘Even in this situation, one must never forget that respecting the primacy of the human person and attention to his or her needs does not make the service less efficient nor penalize economic management… For you this reality represents an even more task of complex organization and it is a labor that if often discreet and barely known, not always noted but which does not escape the eyes of God, who sees all of Man's work even those that are hidden.’”

Wanna see breast implants? Folks tell me that’s easy with these scanners. They’re currently in 19 American airports and scheduled to spread to most venues by the end of the year. Wonder if we can cut the deficit by selling tickets? Oops, some folks think these diabolical deviant devices actually cross the line on child pornography. Mainstream religion and anti-kiddie-porn advocates pitted against those who wish to protect our nation from terrorists?! What a dilemma?! How will we balance these interests?! Oh noooo!

Back on January 4^th, the British rag, the Guardian, reported: “The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned… Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to ‘virtual strip-searchin’ and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved… Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offenses under child pornography laws… [They did exempt kids, by the way.] They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. The Department for Transport confirmed that the ‘child porn’ problem was among the ‘legal and operational issues’ now under discussion in Whitehall [slang for the British government] after [PM] Gordon Brown's announcement [in early January] that he wanted to see their ‘gradual’ introduction at British airports.”

Sorry, gotta run, I’m missing some important Cialis and Viagra ads on the local news! Imagine describing any of this to a happy passenger getting on one of those first 707 passenger jet flights back in the 1950s?! No, really, imagine the conversation. Where would you start? With the guy who wore explosive underwear on a Christmas day flight? Hey… every once and while, ever think how completely the terrorists have totally won?!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am shaking my head again.

Pray Tell?

Millennials are those born after 1980, and in a world of rapidly expanding universe of evangelical Christians, America’s youngest generation may be the least religious in our history. Yeah, we know there are no atheists in foxholes and that people tend to become more committed to religion as they get older, but the trend lines are interesting to review. A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (the February 2010 Religion Among the Millennials) is a treasure-trove of information about this latest phenomenon. Here’s a little bit of what they found about this less-devoted young, 18-29:

Only 21% regularly attend church or temple services.

26% of this cohort have no religious affiliation.

64% absolutely believe that God does exist.

Reflecting a trend across most age groups, about three quarters believe in an afterlife.

78-79% of all age groups believe in miracles (someone should make a “fix this economy” request)

18-29’s are more open to formerly unacceptable moral acceptance of homosexuality, accepting of other religions and believing that there are multiple paths to “salvation.” Even among evangelicals, the differences between under and over 30 are quite significant. For example, according to the study, only 47% of evangelicals under thirty believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, while that percentage rises to 61% for those evangelicals over that age.

For younger believers who have affiliated with one particular religion, the numbers appear to buck the trend lines: 29% of the under 30 believe that their faith is the “one true path” to salvation, a view held by only 23% of adherents over 30. The Pew study looked at X-Gen and Boomers when they were the same age, and indeed, they were somewhat more religious than this flock (and the older one goes, the greater the disparity).

The February 22^nd Los Angeles Times review this report: “The Pew study found that, although young adults -- the so-called Millennial generation born after 1981 -- are shunning traditional religious denominations and services in unprecedented numbers, their faith in God and the power of prayer appears nearly as strong as that of young people in earlier generations… ‘If you think of religion primarily as a matter of whether people belong to a particular faith and attend the worship services of that faith . . . then millennials are less religious than other recent generations,’ said Alan Cooperman, associate director of research for the Pew Forum, a Washington-based think tank run by the nonprofit Pew Research Center. ‘But when it comes to measures not of belonging but of believing, they aren't so clearly less religious… Millennials are coming of age less affiliated than any recent U.S. generation,’ Cooperman said. ‘ And . . . I would say there's no reason to think that they're going to become more affiliated.’”

In a world where the line between politics and religion appears to be increasingly blurring, where the electability of our representatives is often contingent on the degree that they are committed to one form of Christianity or another – and yes, it is Christianity – it will be interesting to watch the impact of these changes on future American elections. Young adults still believe as much as ever… just not exactly as much through a formal religious base.

I’m Peter Dekom, and everything seems to be connected to… well… everything else.

Zo! Beware of the Big Shareholder

Authorities are blaming 34 deaths on Toyota malfunctions. Almost 10 million Toyota manufactured automobiles have been recalled since recent investigations have shown defects ranging from brake failures, mostly in hybrid vehicles, to sticking accelerator pedals in other Toyota models, with possible additional problems also under investigation. Those investigations, by the U.S. government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, were mounted after, it appears, a federal bailout in which the government wound up as the majority owner of General Motors and a 10% shareholder in Chrysler.

Ah, a weak General Motors and Chrysler and a very strong number one global car maker, Toyota. And once the recalls were announced, Toyota sales plunged even as all American car manufacturers showed sales increases. Hmmm…¦ If you are a conspiracy theory player,¦ and you happen to be Japanese, guess where you think this story goes? Yup;¦ the Japanese spin may find Toyota at fault at how it handled the mess, but a whole flock of Japanese believes that this was a carefully orchestrated plan by the American government to help their recent charges survive out of bankruptcy. Effectively, these conspiracy theorists say, the U.S. government wrongfully used its governmental regulatory power to investigate and then humiliate GM’s and Chrysler’s biggest competitor, Toyota. What American cars could not do in a head-to-head contest based on quality and popularity, so the story goes, the American government did for them.

The February 26^th Los Angeles Times looked at a few Japanese reactions: “Even some Japanese analysts, while acknowledging problems in Toyota's handling of its recall, said they thought Congress has been a bit too opportunistic in its pursuit of a solution.” It does seem that emotions are a factor at these hearings, said Masahiro Fukuda, manager of Fourin Inc., a research and publishing company specializing in the auto industry. “Many Japanese see these hearings as an effective way for the U.S. to beat up Toyota and allow General Motors and Chrysler to recover and grab a bigger share of the market,” said Koji Endo, an analyst at Advanced Research Japan, an independent research house. Wait a minute, those guys aren’t Japanese Jesse Venturas on a “Conspiracy Theory” cable show, they’re professional financial and business analysts!

And there are even American experts who see truth in this view of the world. “It can't be ignored,” said Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester's School of Business. Zupan said that if lawmakers applied the same standard to all auto companies, the hearings would never end. “This is not an unbiased jury.” Toyota has made things worse by not addressing its problems more aggressively, he said. [On February 26^th] auto information company Edmunds.com released its analysis of sudden-acceleration complaints to NHTSA and found that while Toyota's rate of complaints was higher than any other automaker, Ford Motor Co. also had a high number. “The emphasis of the recent congressional hearings seems to have been who learned about what and when they learned it. The core issue of what's re ally causing the unresolved cases of unintended acceleration has been skirted.” said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of Edmunds.com. “The truth is that no one can say for sure.” The Times. But in testifying before a House subcommittee, Toyota President Akio Toyoda and the senior U.S. sales representative, Jim Lenz, specifically rejected this theory. Were they just being polite and trying to avoid more criticism? Lenz actually said, “I don't believe that's true. I think the government's acting fairly.” Or did they really believe otherwise?

“It's not about politics, it's about safety,” said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), the ranking minority on a House committee that organized one of the Capitol Hill hearings. “ The view that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee efforts to review Toyota's safety defects and recalls to assist U.S. companies is ‘idiotic’ considering that Issa was an ardent opponent of the automaker bailouts, Bardella said.” The Times. Interesting. Which side do you believe? Really? 100%? Does it matter that even the Japanese government is now investigating 38 consumer complaints about Toyotas with sticking accelerator pedals?

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are two sides to almost any story…¦ at least.

Virulently Anti-American

If Pakistan is truly the most dangerous nation on earth, at least from an American perspective, exactly what part of that South Asian nation makes it so scary? The estimated 60 to 70 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, many of which are aimed at neighbor India? That the government is less than stable and that such weapons could fall into the hands of Islamic militants hell-bent on blowing up the United States? That Pakistan, under the aegis of Dr. A.Q. Khan, effectively spread nuclear capacities to enemies of the United States, like North Korea and Iran? That al Qaeda and Taliban militants have found safe harbor in Pakistan’s Tribal District across the border from Afghanistan? Or is it something else?

Would you believe it just might be found in Pakistan’s lower middle class? The poorest peasants are too busy surviving to be much threat, the middle of the middle class is too comfortable to destroy their lives in the pursuit, frequently fatal, of militant Islam, and the wealthy, well, hey, with the occasional exception of someone like Osama bin Laden, rich folks might be content to finance militant attacks, but they are hardly like to be directly involved in the physical risk-taking. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan (in the 1980s), with lots of U.S. dollars in support, and with the Pakistani governmental policy very much in favor of finding “volunteers” to subvert Indian authorities in the disputed state of Kashmir (which unlike most of India but very much like most of Pakistan, is Muslim ), militant groups were allowed to recruit openly on Pakistan’s college campuses, often with an official government blessing. While government policies may have changed, the legacy of those earlier decisions continues unabated into the present day.

The upwardly mobile members of the lower fringes of Pakistan’s middle class were and continue to be the most commonly drawn individuals to these recruiting efforts. Emerging from smaller towns and rural communities, these conservatively raised young men are often shattered when towns or cities. The February 27^th New York Times: “[These unprepared country youths bring their] past — part shyness, part shame — with [them to college towns]. The city [is] an explosion of things modern. Traffic jams. Fancy restaurants. Uncovered women. For young people from small town s, unfamiliar with city life, the atmosphere can arouse a rigid defensiveness, said Mughees-uddin Sheikh, a dean at the University of the Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city… ‘The student is tempted, but he doesn’t understand it because he wasn’t educated,’ said Mr. Sheikh. ‘He’s been deprived of things like this.’ … To ease the adjustment, young people join student groups, which, like powerful inner-city gangs, help them navigate life — how to use a bank, which mosque to pray in — but also offer protection…

“It is the lower middle class in Pakistan that is most vulnerable to radicalization, according to Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies. They consume virulently anti-American media. They are recruited aggressively by Islamic student groups in public universities, which are attended almost exclusively by lower- and middle-cl ass youth… ‘They’re politically conscious, but it’s not mature,’ Mr. Rana said. ‘They have big problems, but when they try to solve them, they get confused.’” Confused enough to take up arms, often against their own government, whom they find reprehensible for cooperating with the attacker of Islam – the United States of America – applying their education to plan attacks using Google Earth, communicating with modern Web-based and mobile-based networks, operating in small and often unaffiliated independent groups and following what they believe is their God-mandated obligation to destroy the perceived enemies of their faith. Some may find solace in large groups, in al Qaeda-backed organizations, but increasingly, they are willing to take up the cause without such formal associations.

It is not unusual for young men, with their family’s encouragement, to find support and comfort, when they arrive at their university, within the local Islamic communities that preach the conservative line with which they are so familiar. Families believe that their sons will steer clear of the temptations of the big city by sticking close to religious groups that preach values that parallel those from “back home.” Back in the 1990s, groups like “Lashkar-e-Taiba, ran charities and prayer meetings. It also offered training for jihad in Kashmir. Lashkar’s blend of adventure and patriotism appealed to restless young men. It even had an office on [more than one campus…] By the 1990s, recruiters for jihad in Kashmir were holding rallies on public university campuses. After 2001, Lashkar was driven underground, but it continues to operate through a charity wing. American, Indian and Pakistani officials say it carried out the attacks on hotels and other landmarks in Mumbai, India, in November 2008.” The Times.

There are tens of thousands of these young men, and certainly a significant number of young women as well, waiting for the opportunity to attack their enemies, even their own government, and most certainly America targets wherever they may occur. They have been raised on hatred, and their ire is very much focused on America and anyone who might call themselves an ally of what they believe is the most anti-Muslim country on earth (along with Israel). These young men and women will be around for a long time, unrest continues at Pakistani universities, and they are dedicated to perpetuating the next generations of militants to continue the cause until the “Great Satan” is vaporized from this earth. We will be dealing with them for years, long after w e have withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. We may be able to move farther from their bombs or the sights of their angry rifles, reduce the intensity of their focus just on us, but they will be there for a very long time. Regardless of the failures of our military efforts in the region, we can never let down our guard against these mentally unstable individuals who live only to see our destruction.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am deeply saddened at the intensity of this hatred.

Ring of Fire

The tectonic plates that float over the molten magma at the earth’s core under the Pacific Ocean provide the basis of the world’s largest zone of massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Killer quakes have reached unparalleled magnitudes, hundreds of times more violent than the devastation that recently rocked Haiti, releasing after-shocks and crushing tsunamis. The biggest ever recorded occurred in the same country, Chile, where the February 27^th 8.8 shaker decimated hundreds of miles from the epicenter, about 385 miles southwest from that nation’s capital of Santiago (the epicenter of Haiti’s quake was just 15 miles from the capital city). On May 12, 1960, a shattering 9.5 earthquake struck basically the same area, killing an estimated 1,655 people, rendering 2 million homele ss, sending killer tsunamis to ply their devastation across the Pacific, taking lives as far away as Japan and Hawaii.

According to local estimates, the February 27^th quake is currently projected to take over 700 Chilean lives (compared to Haiti’s 220,000 deaths), seriously injuring a multiple of that, displacing over 1.5 million, with tsunamis that raced across the Pacific, sending waves across the “rim” (causing no major damage, fortunately). The regional shock was so strong that buildings were evacuated in Buenos Aires, Argentina… over 700 miles away. Infrastructure crumbled, buildings collapsed, magnitude 6 to 6.9 mega-aftershocks trembled and millions against face homelessness and incalculable suffering. Chile’s President declared the nation to be in a “state of catastrophe.” Chile has its share of poor citizens, but unlike Haiti (the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere where most buildings are ramshackle or shoddily built ), it is a relatively rich and prosperous South American country; yet it too will have difficulty affording the cost of rebuilding and recovering to find a sunny day again. Older buildings fared the worst, of course, but unlike Haiti, modern building codes probably helped keep the toll of death and destruction to a much less devastating level.

The Ring of Fire, which embraces the entire American west coast, from Alaska to California and across the ocean to Hawaii, has a history of terrible natural disasters. 80% of the earth’s earthquakes – and 90% of the really big ones – have hit this region. There are 752 known active and dormant volcanoes (75% of all the volcanoes in the world) that have exploded throughout the Ring region; remember Mount St. Helens (Oregon) bringing us the largest recorded eruption in the 48 contiguous states in 1980? Big quakes hit California all the time (although an 8.8 is slightly beyond the maximum risk assigned by seismologists to our San Andreas Fault), huge ones smash Alaska at will. On March 27, 1964, a magnitude 9.2 quake hit the Anchorage area, killing 131 people in this sparsely populated state, leveling entire towns in the process.

These are numbers, history and facts. But hundreds of millions of people – I’m one of them – choose to live on a set of faults, cracks and seismic instability that truly plague no other place on this planet remotely to this extent. “The next most seismic region (5–6% of earthquakes and 17% of the world's largest earthquakes) is the Alpide belt, which extends from Java to Sumatra through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic.” Wikipedia. Are we crazy? Begging for it? Tempting fate? How about people living in hurricane country? Them too?

Clearly the early settlers to each segment of this Ring of Fire region (home to some pretty ancient societies) had no idea of the danger. Some were lured by rich farmland, incredible mineral deposits, a treasure-trove of temperate climates (yes, we know the Ring extends into some pretty cold areas too), the richness of the Pacific Ocean and more than a few stellar views along the way. Most were just born there. Civilization dug in, building cities and towns, creating jobs, opportunities and hope throughout the region, lacking the seismic data and historical details of what might have led some to conclude that the risks of living on the Ring, particularly in the hyper-active and heavily populated areas like Chile, Japan, and California, were simply too great. Would we be willing to pack up and leave the Silicon Valley, the sprawl of modern Sa n Francisco and Los Angeles, the oil pipeline that crosses Alaska? Even the Winter Olympics sit in and around a magnificent port city, Vancouver, whose natural beauty and exceptional commercial harbor were actually caused by the seismic activity.

The question remains: who pays for the recovery? If people knowingly live in dangerous places, is it their problem? Let New Orleans sink into the Gulf as many believe it is destined to do. Screw Los Angeles and those crazies in California. Hey, we only spend hundreds of billions to rescue financial institutions from devastation of their own making! Rising tides are going to affect all coastal cities if global climate change predictions are remotely accurate. Americans have big hearts (the President has already pledged U.S. aid), ready to help people suffering from natural disasters all over the world, and I suspect we will most certainly help our own in times of crisis – from hurricanes to earthquakes to fires and mudslides to economic collapse. But right now, Haiti and Chile are center stage. They need our help.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we should all be in this world together; it’s too bad that it often takes tragedy to unite us.