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2/19/15 - The Appeal of Islamic State:
Present Obama's speech yesterday is generally on the right track in emphasizing that the war against IS must be ideological as well as military. He is correct that the success of the West is based on offering better life alternatives than IS can, but he doesn't go nearly far enough or get to the real root of the problem. It's not just a matter of facilitating good jobs for young men, the massively evident injustices of the Western world must also be corrected. They are the real root of the problem.
IS offers a primal appeal to the male psyche. Defeat and kill the enemies of righteousness and rescue their women and girls from evil by taking them for your own. This is not at all anything new. Anyone who studies history is aware this has been an oft repeated theme throughout history. In fact it is only in the last couple of centuries that this widely accepted traditional rationale has been largely suppressed by alternative politically correct ideas in the West, so we should not be surprised it is emerging once again.
Young men growing up today in modern Western societies are faced with a number of serious challenges in finding their places. Due to the modern explosion in communication they are barraged with news of the accelerating destruction of the environment at the hands of massively powerful corporate entities controlled by a small number of global oligarchs who enforce their power by buying control of states and their militaries. They are flooded with news of impoverished and innocent people, especially in non-Western countries, repeatedly suffering as victims of callous collateral damage, especially if these injustices disproportionately affect marginalized minorities with which these young men identify. Simultaneously, in Western societies, these naturally horny young men are continually bombarded by images of highly sexualized near perfect young girls and women society won't allow them to possess.
The result of all these pressures is a vast cultural malaise, in which huge numbers of largely isolated individual young men feel powerless to do anything while the world goes to hell around them. There are no highly effective Western groups where they can find a purpose and identity in trying to right these wrongs. The groups that do exist are largely powerless against the money and power of the vast financial, corporate and military powers who largely control the world.
In the face of this, IS offers an alternative that appeals directly to the primal male nature so throughly repressed by Western societies. IS offers purpose and meaning and group commaradery in fighting against the Western corporate forces that are perceived to be destroying the world these young men are coming of age in. In this context it seems reasonable to use any means necessary to defeat the evil enemy, no matter how brutal the methods may be. After all this becomes a fight to the finish for the future of the planet itself.
Thus the rise of IS is a very natural reaction to the the well documented destructive excesses of the West, and their effect on the thinking of young coming of age males. Even if IS is defeated and destroyed other similar military ideologies will arise in its place. There is only one way to keep this from happening and that is to change the course the West is on, to quickly evolve to a society in sustainable balance with a maintainable natural environment, and to find an effective and just means of equitably redistributing opportunity, wealth and power among all peoples of the planet. Just giving jobs to young men while the world careens towards destruction of the environment at the hands of the 1% who wield near absolute power over the rest of us will not succeed. What must be done to defeat IS type ideologies is to give young men effective purpose in making the world a truly better place for everyone, and to honor and validate their existences in that effort.
2/4/15 - IS's execution of Jordanian pilot & Jordan's revenge:
Our media is telling us this killing has horrified the world. Certainly it was a horrible event for the pilot himself but objectively that pilot was captured as he was killing, or attempting to kill, IS members, and very likely some innocent civilians as well, and he was killing them with bomb impacts and fire. It is very likely he had already killed multiple Syrians by bombing them. So certainly all these killings, as well as some survivors no doubt maimed for the rest of their lives, are equally horrific. The fact that these killings and maimings weren't recorded and posted to the internet is the only real difference here in terms of the suffering involved. And the next day revenge execution of prisoners by Jordan was an equally barbaric act. Such interminably repetitive cycles of revenge, such as one sees between Israel and the Palestinians, generally just incite additional violence and solve nothing, leaving the underlying root of the problem untouched.
Of course most people judge such acts on the basis of taking sides in any conflict, but there are always two sides in such conflicts and no doubt the judgements of IS members would reflect that.
The goal should be to reduce injury and death of all people, not just those one aligns with. So again the best approach to such conflicts is generally not to add more killing and destruction, not to add more fuel to a fire, but to do everything possible to defuse and resolve conflicts.
From the perspective of the West, the best approach to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world is simply not to get involved, other than with humanitarian assistance, and let these tragic conflicts play themselves out. Before the West began attacking them IS was concerned entirely with fighting against other local Muslims. So long as Shia and Sunni fight it out they diminish each other's military resources at their own expense as the West gets stronger by not wasting its resources on wars. Think of what the trillion or so dollars the US has expended in its recent wars could have done if expended at home to improve America. Perhaps there would be a Taliban government in Afghanistan and Saddam would still rule a relatively stable Iraq but American could have been much much more stronger and wealthy at home. Does anyone imagine that would have been worse than the current situation?
And history shows us that once in power and stabilized, nations often change in character and may well become less aggressive. The US should simply have contacted IS and Al Queda and told them as long as you don't attack us we won't attack you. Let them degrade each other while the US turns its resources from destruction in other lands to improving the homeland. This has been China's strategy and this is a main reason China is growing in wealth and power much faster than the West. Ultimately global wealth and power come from construction at home rather than destruction abroad.
The key point here is the extremist ideology of radical Islamist groups. The best, most effective, least costly and most humane approach is to counter than ideology with massive media campaigns presenting a clearly superior and more positive way of life to all their people. To that end the US and the West must first clean up their own act so that could legitimately be done. That message, continually beamed to everyone in the Muslim world, is basically the one I present on this website.
2/4/15 - US considering supplying lethal military weaponry to Ukraine:
Here is an excellent example of irresponsibly adding fuel to an already dangerous fire, one that is so dangerous it could potentially spiral out of control and even lead to a third world war and a nuclear attack on the US mainland. The root of the Ukraine conflict is the West continually trying to expand its influence into the areas of the old Soviet Union, and the increasing resistance to that by Russia.
The simple and just solution is simply to allow those areas of eastern Ukraine that would rather live under Russia or independently from Kiev to do so. Open, monitored, free area by area elections should have been held to allow each area to choose their allegiances. This would solve the issues to the benefit of the local populations with a minimum of conflict. And a peaceable redistricting rather than one by war greatly increases the likelihood of protection of minorities as any legacy of ill will between groups is minimized. This is the same principle that should apply to all peoples everywhere as there are many national boundaries that have been imposed on peoples by external forces that are best peaceably redrawn. The Kurds are a prime example. Not to do so will likely only lead to some level of near continuous conflict and create long term reservoirs of mutual ill will.
Of course this process should guarantee the rights and freedoms and equality of those minorities who find themselves stuck in the new districts rather than choosing to move to ones that better reflect their beliefs. In a just world, one should not expect anyone to have to give up their ancestral homes to find freedom or peace. In any case the eventual goal is free travel for everyone across all national boundaries which become just administrative districts in a single planetary nation in which all citizens are equals under the law.
1/21/15 - The Paris Charlie Hebdo & Kosher Market Attacks:
The underlying issue regarding all such terrorist attacks is how to minimize them with the minimal use of resources. This has to be addressed by addressing the root causes of terrorism and running cost benefit analyses of the benefits of resources spent in combatting it.
In real terms the societal effects of terror attacks is quite small in comparison to deaths due to accidents, preventable diseases, and general infrastructure deterioration, yet enormous societal resources are employed to try to prevent them, often at some degree of expense to the personal liberty of the public. Consider the enormous benefits the many billions of dollars spent each year on national security would have if redirected to the many needed public works designed to make countries healthier, happier and more prosperous, including perhaps some of those in the terrorists' home countries.
And no matter how it is reported in the western media, almost all terrorism does have its origins in real grievances, such as relative poverty and lack of opportunity, exploitation and oppression, or previous deadly attacks on families or countries. There is no question at all that the US and other western countries have a very long history of this almost everywhere in the world.
So the question becomes how to reduce and redress these issues to minimize the perceived need for terrorist acts. Certainly in the case of the Islamic State, their interests were originally exclusively in creating an Islamic caliphate in the MIddle East. It was only after they were attacked by western countries that they, quite reasonably, began planning attacks against the countries that had attacked them first. So pretty obviously the best strategy for western countries to avoid retaliatory attacks was not to attack IS in the first place. By letting the actors in the area use up their resources fighting one another the west would become relatively stronger. If any resources were expended they would have best been exclusively humanitarian.
But of course political decisions are not generally made with the best interest of the general public in mind, but rather to increase the wealth and power of already powerful interests such as those that manufacture weapons and military equipment and run national security agencies.