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mark s reviewed The Silver Spike: The Chronicles of the Black Company (Chronicles of The Black Company) 2 weeks ago.
“ While not a Book Strickly about the Black Company, it details those members that left and stayed in the North at the end of... ”
mark s added Third Eye.
mark s is planning to read Third Eye.
mark s now owns THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION..
mark s is planning to read THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION..
mark s added THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION..
mark s now owns Evil: A Historical and Theological Perspective.
mark s rated Evil: A Historical and Theological Perspective 3 weeks ago.
mark s finished reading Evil: A Historical and Theological Perspective 3 weeks ago.
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Not to worry...a few typos don't obscure your discussion...your meaning is clear. My point about cartels ultimately self-destructing: it doesn't matter that, after OPEC backed down, the west failed to seriously pursue alternate energy... the point remains that OPEC backed down because if it had done otherwise, we WOULD have pursued such alternatives in earnest. OPEC recognized it was poisoning its own well, and had to stop...in short IT was compelled to recognize the limitations of its own power, even as a cartel controlling a near-monopoly of an "irreplaceable" commodity.OPEC didn't go away, but its effort to exploit its market advantages as one would exercise a coercive power... to compel policy changes by western states... was a complete failure. It didn't work. Instead, the effort backfired, aroused enormous animus, and revealed the impotence of even this singularly unified and well-situated cartel to exercise power in this way. Cartels are mortal.How did Mexico nationalizing oil resources in the Gulf "steal" anything from American companies? By what right did American companies "own" oil that is still in the ground, under water, when those American companies don't own that ground, or that water, and haven't extracted that oil? And if the answer is that some contract, concluded with some previous government, is controlling, I'd have to point out that things aren't so simple... even IF the companies had some favorable right under contract, there is still the question whether the other party ever had both a right to the resources any contract purports to grant, AND the authority to grant them to someone. Considering the questionable legitimacy of Mexican governments of the past, these are not irrelevant issues.And who DOES own oil, in the ground, under the sea? I wouldn't be too quick to cry for American oil companies. Considering the vast profits they have returned....even when the rest of the country is struggling... and the great harm their operations have sometimes imposed on indigenous populations abroad, they are not a sympathetic victim.
Hiya, Mark! Sometime ago I asserted that cartels fail in the long run. In response you asked me what force or process I was claiming would bring them down, and I don't recall if, or how, I answered.Dubai's developing credit crisis, like Venezuela's need to process its particular kid of crude in American refineries, provide an example of the forces at work. If Dubai's problem is serious enough (and I think it is) it puts the emirate very much into the hands of its petroleum customers and its debtors... at a price to cartel discipline.The tendency of members of a cartel to gorge during times of plenty, and cheat when times are lean, is all over the history of such endeavors... even if they are not broken up by some external intervening force (like Teddy's trust-busters), the conflicts in the interests of their various members always seem to create an irresistable centrifugal force.OPEC may have already recognized its own limitations some time ago, when it effectively backed down, after a brief demonstration of its power threatened to backfire (the oil crisis of the Carter years... which not only cost the oil producing nations dearly in political good will, but began to put wind into the sails of alternative energy and conservation efforts that cost them even more, and threatened further, greater losses in the future).Besides, if the US (or other major importer nations) can exercise substantial influence with even one major player (like, e.g., Saudi Arabia), the "power" of the cartel is substantially neutralized... it may be useful to all concerned to maintain the illusion of its importance, but a cartel whose leader has defected to the camp of the customer is a toothless tiger.
i agree that the dragon drums were the best. i love menolly and the fact that she gets them in the end. its aYES! book
I think everything will come to a head sooner, rather than later, and a resolution will have to be found within our lifetime. As I understand what you are saying, your assessment is that the bitterness between Israelis and Palestinians is just too profound to overcome so quickly, and you may be right. People can be remarkably resilient, though, when survival requires it.Although the current political situation gives me little reason for optimism...especially since I anticipate that the most likely source for any initiative that could lead to peaceful resolution is the Israeli peace movement, and it has looked pretty anemic for the last few years... I don't think we should abandon hope. The status quo is intolerable, especially for the Palestinians, and the ubiquity of the Internet makes it nearly impossible for any party to prevent people everywhere... including especially in Israel itself... from learning the facts about these matters, if they are so inclined.A sufficiently bleak humanitarian crisis in Gaza, or even the lesser hardships of life in the West Bank, and direct confrontation between the Israeli electorate and the reality of the choices they face, informed by awareness of those harsh conditions, may finally persuade Israel to elect a government that is prepared to negotiate in good faith, and make difficult decisions now to prevent facing impossible ones later. I am convinced that the majority of Palestinians have been more than willing to do the same for some time, now, except that they recognize the obvious... that the Israelis haven't been serious about making any deal, up to now, but have just been buying time, and the passive acquiescence of the Arabs and the global community, while they continue to expand and solidify their control over the West Bank... and thus the conclusion that, up to now, the Israelis (those making the decisions) have always wanted the land...all of it... more than they wanted peace.If and when a large enough majority of the Israeli public recognizes the stark choices they actually face, it is possible that they will reassess the desirability of a just peace.
I ran across an article today in the Christian Science Monitor, and immediately thought of our discussion of the future outlook for Israel, given one course of events or another. This is the address of this editorial: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091117/cm_csm/ywhitbeck I found it interesting because, for one thing, the CSM is, in its editorial policies, a staunch advocate for Israel, and for another, because, even so, the author's analysis of the situation corroborates my own perceptions as to important points: (1) that for some time, no Israeli leader seriously intended to reach a resolution by negotiation, however much they pretended readiness to do just that (and WHY this is so); and (2) that if Israel has rendered a two-state soluton impossible, Israel now faces exactly the choice I warned of earlier... between conducting a genocide, an "ethnic cleansing" of the Palestinians from their remaining fragments of their former country, or the eventual demographic extinction of Israel as a specifically-Jewish state, as Arabs come to be, again, the majority in the Levant.The author is, in my opinion, insightful as to another imporant point, too... and that is advising the people of Israel to wisely and carefully choose the model they wish to follow, as an inevitable political change takes place... the peaceful transition of accomodation, acknowledgment and forgiveness, as accomplished by South Africa and its Truth Commissions, or doing it the hard way.... as did Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.I sincerely hope you don't tire of these discussions. I find them both interesting and useful... all the more so because we don't agree about everything (hard to learn anything new in an echo chamber!).
Just to focus on the matter of Iran, and Mossadegh's alleged intention to nationalize foreign oil extaction operations. It is true that British Petroleum was making money hand over fist extracting oil, presumably pursuant to contracts executed with some previous government or purported representative of Iran, and that BP stood to lose this cash cow... but nationalization is not simply seizure... even IF Mossadegh's government had proceeded as expected, the owners of contract rights would typically have been paid for their interest. The oil, after all belongs to Iran, not to BP... however much that offends wealthy American industrialists invested overseas, this IS a right of any nation that WE would insist upon, were the tables turned, and OUR government decided to nationalize, say, foreign timber interests in our country. This was clearly not a moral or legal justification for subverting the Iranian government, and helping to impose a bloody autocracy on that country for the next quarter century... but the gist of my argument is that this illegal and immoral act was ALSO wrong from a purely pragmatic standpoint. I described a chain of causality that led from that wrongful act to the Islamic revolution of 1979, to the Iraq-Iran war, to the invasion of Kuwait, to the First Gulf War, to 9/11 and to the Bush government's invasion of Iraq in 2003. Our act was not by any means the ONLY cause of ANY of those subsequent events....as you quite correctly point out... we do not carry the entire burden of moral responsibility for all of that all alone, on our own shoulders, after the fashion of Atlas. Even so, the Iran coup and its consequences were still A major cause in the chain of events that led, quite directly, from the crisis of 1953 to the crises of 1979, of 9/11/01 and of our current belligerent actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. I do not mean in the least to minimize the huge moral responsibility of others in these events... especially the likes of Saddam Hussein and his fascist thugocracy, or murderous messianic megalomaniacs like Osama bin Laden.... but their guilt is too obvious to be controversial... or the causal effects of other events. The fact remains that none of these things would have happened as they did without the causal force of our subversion of the Iranian democracy in 1953, and that many of them are direct results of a backlash, a reaction TO injustice, that is quite predictable (even if the form it eventually takes is unforseeable).Bush was no fan of the UN, and Hussein's defiance of the UN played no part in Bush's reasons for invading Iraq, except that it was a facile excuse to throw in the face of his political adversaries, including especially people who advocate internationalism. I say this, despite my own assertion (which I stand by) that it is usually an uncertain task to try to divine the motives of actors by the consequences of their actions. In this case, there is too much additional information on the record demonstrating Bush's desire to attack Iraq, that he came into office with that desire, and that his administrations eager exploitated any and every excuse to accomplish this. Considering Bush's rather vocal and intentional direspect...contempt, really...for the UN in his previous statements (and in his subsequent responses to UN criticism), it is impossible to take seriously a claim that Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq to vindicate the writ of the UN, or any level. WMD were not a rational reason for invading, either, and were also NOT any major component of the real reasons we invaded... they were just the excuse all Bush's advisors agreed upon. Bush's desire to attack Iraq predated that excuse, too, as we know from Clarke and others.You ask if the freedom of the Kurds and others from the horrors of the Hussein government might justify the deaths of thousands of Iraqis. Clearly, you would get different answers on that from the Kurds, and from relatives of the dead Iraqis, but in any case, that wasn't a calculus WE had any right to make and impose upon them. And our invasion DID NOT "win freedom" for most of the identifiable "others" in Iraq... it merely unleased ethnic strife that eradicated many Chaldean Christians, Yazidis, Jews and others, and drove most of the survivors of these populations out of the country entirely, en masse. I suppose our most fundamental disagreement is over a philosophical or ethical point... whether it is ever justified to do violence to a non-aggressor. You say there are very few innocents... in context, I can't agree with that, either... often both sides in a war are wrong, but usually in different degrees, and sometimes one side is clearly to blame, and the other, as clearly the victim.... Hitler's Reich invaded Poland. Despite the Reich's professional spinmeisters and efforts to perpetrate a fraud, it is plainly unreasonable to blame Poland for the armed conflict, and just as unreasonable to exonerate the Nazis. This doesn't mean Poles were all saints, or their government wise and free of corruption, but in the context of that war, the Poles were "innocent". I don't know of any war in which an objective observer could reasonably say BOTH sides were right. There ARE right and wrong, and if violence against the innocent is not a clear example of wrong, then ethical standards are meaningless.
The British Mandates in Palestine...both under the League of Nations and the later one under the United Nations...were TRUSTS. The Mandatory power was not, purportedly, free to do whatever it wanted. Britain accepted the Mandate with its conditions, that the territories were to be held in trust for the INDIGENOUS INHABITANTS, and only until they were prepared to govern themselves. Palestine was never British owned territory. Anyway, Britain was already violating its promises to the Arabs (Balfour, Sykes-Picot, etc) even before the League of Nations, and the first of these two mandates, had come into existence.I believe there are some moral precepts that are sufficiently universal as to preclude the necessity to decide between "American justice" or some other kind... and those universal precepts include that it is wrong for anyone..individual or nation... to initiate aggression against a non-aggressor... it is wrong to threaten the innocent with violence, or perpetrate violence against them, or to take what belongs to another by force or fraud. You offer a good example to test the "lesser harm" theory (that an otherwise wrongful act might be justified to prevent or alleviate a greater harm), but that theory of justification really doesn't cover American and British conduct in 1953, because the purportedly greater "harm" to be prevented by the violent subversion of Iran's parliamentary government was to preserve a "right" we didn't legitimately possess in the first place: namely, the "right" of American and Brirtish petroleum companies to Iran's natural resources.You are correct in the details about bin Laden and the Saudis, the religious hypocrisy of the Saudi royal family, and so forth, but none of that refutes what I said about the Saudis supporting Wahabbism worldwide, or that the '53 coup in Iran led to the '79 revolution, which led to the Iran-Iraq war, which led to the dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, thus to the invasion of Kuwait, and to our subsequent military adventures in the region. Bin Laden's personal story would therefore have been quite different, absent our initiative in Iran in 1953... the point I was making is that committing such an act is like throwing a stone into a pond. Long after the stone has disappeared, the ripples it made continue to race back and forth across the pond... we are still dealing with (then unforseeable) negative consequences of our misbehavior in Iran over half a century ago.I'm not arguing for isolationism. I am arguing against pointless militarism, against maintaining our military forces in places around the world where they do not contribute to American security, and, because foreign troops are always an irritant to any local population, even subject our nation to greater risk than if they were not deployed everywhere. I don't contend that we should conclude no alliances, when there is a useful purpose for them, but that our current interests are often not well-served by military alliances created to oppose threats that no longer exist.As for Hussein, he was a monster we played an unwholesome role in creating and supporting for years....INCLUDING encouraging him in his war of aggression against Iran, because we were still angry with Iran (over a dispute in which WE were the initial wrongdoer). We should never have supported him, or had anything to do with him in the first place (including involvement by people like Rumsfeld, selling him the equipment he used to manufacture the chemical weapons used against the kurds)... but our complicity in any of Hussein's crimes doesn't justify our commission of a further crime against Iraq (invasion, for the purpose of changing a government one doesn't like is recognized as a war crime by the UN, and by treaties to which we are signatory). Fact remains, we were deceived (whether intentionally or not is another debate) by our own officials, and went to war with Iraq on a false pretext, perhaps BECAUSE the real reason... the desire to unseat Hussein... was not a legitmate excuse for attacking.This is another instance where the "lesser-harm" justification is often asserted, but where I think its totally misplaced. Hussein was an autocrat, but we killed tens of thousands of people (perhaps hundreds of thousands...the numbers are disputed), displaced MILLIONS from their homes, and made a total mess of Iraq... there is no way to justify this as a benign act, committed for the benefit of the Iraqi people... even the ones who survived our magnanimous gesture.OPEC is a cartel. All cartels fail, eventually, because the individual interests of its members conflict with those of the group, and the members ultimately will act in their ownindividual interests. Nor is oil the only source of energy, or solely controlled by OPEC countries. The fear of OPEC "getting its way" in any short term is not a very compelling reason to maintain hundreds of thousands of American troops in the region, much less for hundreds of them to die, and thousands to be crippled. I agree with you completely about the inadvisability of the use of private contractors to fill military roles, and execute military missions.
We ae in substantial agreement about the motives behind American cold-war strategy...if not necessarily about the wisdom of that strategy. As to Iran, it is American (and British... we weren't alone in this) subverson of the nascent democracy of 1953 that I find corrupt. Certainly it was deemed to be in our self interest, but so is all corrupt conduct seen to be in the self-interest of the actor. What makes it corrupt was that it was dishonest, hypocritical, and destructive of the right of ordinary Iranians to self-government and to the greater principle of the rule of law, in general.I also agree with you that the United States has no grand duty to be the policeman of the world, but that isn't what I am arguing for. I do not contend we are morally required to prevent or punish the injurstice of other nations, but I DO consider it a moral imperative to refrain from committing injustice ourselves...and, unfortunately, that was what our clandestine services did, to our eventual detriment, in Iran back in 1953. Nor am I an advocate of Empire, God forbid. Not even an empire ruled by the United States, though every prior imperial power that I can identify in history...the European colonialists, the Romans, Byzantines, Alexander's Greeks, the Mogols, the Mongols, the Caliphates...every one seems, in its own way, to have committed acts worse than anything we've done in the world.As to Kuwait, Iraq had a legtimate grievance, and a colorable claim that Kuwait had been carved out of Iraq by the British Mandatory power, in violation of its trust. The Sabah autocacy established in Kuwait had certainly no more legtimacy than did Hussein's Ba'athists did in Iraq. This is not to justify Iraq's aggression, but the United States has no moral leg to stand on complaining of other nations vindicating their perceived national rights and interests by armed force... and in any case, the Iraq-Kuwait war was in a sense, a great blunder by all parties, because the United States could have prevented it by simply more alert and assertive diplomacy before it began, the Kuwaitis WERE stealing oil from reserves shared with Iraq by teaty, and Hussein miscalculated by thinking nobody would intervene. In the long run, American interests are NOT, in my opinion, better served by supporting autocracies like the House of Saud, or the Sabahs, versus secular thugs like Hussein...OR vice versa. Any of them, whoever is in control of any given territory at any given time, MUST sell the oil. And THAT is our primary legitimate strategic interest in that region. We paid for our support of the House of Saud on 9/11, and people are still confused about this by our monkeying about in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saud supports the Wahabbi religious factions within Islam, all over the world.... bin Laden and his merry men were a direct consequence of that activity, against the backdrop of American meddling in the affairs of that region... for example BY supporting the House of Saud.Israel is almost an issue apart from other issues, but these things are all related in one way or another. My perception is that it would be hard to point to any specific strategic benefit we receive from our relationship with Israel. That nation is something of an international pariah, not because the whole world is rife with anti-Semitism, but because of specific conduct attributable to Israel... the same sort of conduct which is routinely criticized when it occurs elsewhere. The United States pays billions of dollars in direct aid to Israel every year, and to Egypt, the latter being the purchase price of peace between the autocratic government of Egypt, and Israel...we buy off the Egyptian dictatorship to be nice to Israel, so ALL this aid is in a real sense, for the benefit of Israel. Because we align with Israel in matters before the various UN bodies, and because we so heavily subsidize Israel, we are subject to grave mistrust, resentment and hostility from the various Arab and even non-Arab Mulsim countries. This is another direct cost to us, for which we receive no compensatory benefit from our "ally" (or dependent). As for loyalty, although I didn't know about it at the time, in addition to the Entebbe Raid, I later learned that Israeli military adventures back in 1967 had a dark side, and that we were generally not told about it at all. The Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty, when you ascertain what really happened, is pretty good evidence of the astonishing limits of good faith and loyalty on the part of Israel toward the United States... this incident, and official Israeli explanations for both this incident and the Six Day War itself, also lend credence to the Israeli reputation for false flag operations, but thats another matter.If I thought Israel was wholly justified in the things it as done, I would be little concerned with the lack of practical utility of our alliance, but as things are, I think the pragmatic concerns merely underscore the strategic risks, and morally questionable implications, of the current U.S. relationship with the Jewish State. All in all, I think a nearly total "hands-off" policy in the Middle East, of all places, would serve our interests better in the long run. I am content with the United States Navy, NATO, and other major nations of the planet patrolling the sea-lanes to establish and maintain free maritime movement for all of us, but other than what is needed for that, I'd like to see ALL American forces return to our own borders, and less official U.S. intervention into the affairs of other nations generally, whether by subsidy or sanction.
Thank you for the invitation, Mark. I am honored!
I'm afraid I don't agree that utility to American interests ought to be decisive in picking sides (if, indeed, we must pick sides at all)... I think justice is a more profound imperative than near-term national interest, and that our eagerness to countenance INjustice, when it seemed to do that, has invariably cost us in the longer term. Case in point, our complicity in the coup that put Shah Pahlavi in power, and kept him there, despite that he was a bloody autocrat, because he was compliant, gave our companies valuable oil contracts... until 1979 and the Islamic Revolutionary government became manifest consequences of that historic misbehavior on our part. We'd have done better to promote justice, and work with the elected Prime Minister back in 1953, even though we couldn't control him. Utility won out over justice, and we're paying for it still. So is Iran. In a way, so is Iraq... the Kuwait invasion was a consequence of the Iraq-Iran war... which in turn was a result of the events of 1953 and 1979. Round and round we go.Anyway, Israel has become more of a liability to US interests on the world stage, than it ever was an asset. If the Israeli-Palestine issue could be resolved, with some kind of justice for all parties, that might change, but as it is, Israel is an albatross around our neck, attracting more enmity than its cooperation can justify. Israel is also, too often, its OWN worst enemy... in following, lockstep, this doctrine of the "Iron Wall", Israel has shot itself in the feet ALMOST as frequently as the Palestinians have done. I'm afraid the least constructive elements of Israeli politics have had WAY too much influence, both here and there, for way too long... but the present danger is that it may be a disastrous mistake to continue following that lead now... there is such a thing as being cursed by having ones wishes granted, and the Likudnik/Shaz/settler factions may turn out to be an example.
Very! Finklestein vs Dershowitz, taking no prisoners! "Beyond Chutzpah" is Finklestein's answer to the Dershowitz book "The Case for Israel"; he takes poor Alan to task for everything from plagiarism to false assertions.My impressions of Dershowitz are ambivalent... I have great respect for his legal work (he's a great champion of civil liberties, and of the criminal defense bar), but his pretenses to scholarship (at least on this issue) are another matter, as Finklestein demonstrates.I appreciate that your strongest sympathies on this matter are for Israel (I am inferring... please correct me if I'm wrong). For anyone with a deep emotional attachment to Israel, this could be hard to read. Dershowitz advances some of the most frequently-heard defenses of the Zionist cause and movement, and Finklestein takes some of them apart pretty mercilessly.Although I began my own inquiry into these issues as an admirer of Israel (the Entebbe raid was executed when I was 14 years old... I was more than impressed by the courage and the determination of Netanyahu and his command, which seemed emblematic of the whole Israeli nation), it was a difficult and painful intellectual journey to the "other side" for me... and I had no particular emotional attachment to Israel except for my youthful admiration for the bravery of her soldiers. I also believe that intellectual courage is in every way as admirable as the physical kind, and in the long run, even more useful to humanity... good for you, Mark.
It's been years, bur I did read Changing Land, Madwand and many, many others. I'm not sure I ever read a bad book by him...
Enough to feed a couple of worms in the worm bin for a couple of minutes.Hey, did you ever read 'Vandenberg' yourself?
Its alright, not what I expected, but I guess you could say "I'm adjusting to it". I can probably say it won't be one of my favorites, and its not necessarily enjoyable... but it is an interesting idea, the characters are built well, and the style is unique. I haven't decided yet if I'd actually recommend it...
