Eric, you are right on! 100% correct!
Posted by ColinLeesburg at March 12, 2008 01:18 PM
It’ll be interesting to see the extent to which India will indenture itself to the U.S. arms industry. In the past, the Indians have been institutionally smarter than that, generally opting to license arms production domestically.
I wonder if they are prepared to leave their Air Force, among other branches, at the mercy of U.S parts suppliers. The Japanese are already purchasing F-22’s for their military, presumably because they are a most “trusted ally,” though more likely because Japan is both rich enough to toss the arms-lobby-backed U.S. government a bone on equipment that it unlikely to ever really need to use in a military capacity. I’d be willing to bet that, were the Japanese to put their minds to it, they could design fifth generation fighters of comparable capability at far lower cost than we Americans have.
That said, I’ve never totally agreed with Eric’s characterizations of India as alternately “an economy smaller than Denmark,” and then as a rising strategic power looking to rival the United States. Foolish dreams of superpower aside, I hardly think that India’s destiny is any different from China’s; to control it’s regional security concerns while acting as an economic and cultural player in a more global capacity. In order to do either, however, the Indians need to focus more on real infrastructure and food distribution to the rural outlands than on a ‘nuclear delivery triad.’
What the Americans want are regional arms races; buying or developing arms, while necessary to some extent, are deadweight loss to economies like India and China, which enjoy enormous growth, but also suffer tremendous internal inefficiency. The more money either country spends on eliminating internal barriers to growth, the better. Neither nation poses a significant enough threat to each other to justify an arms race, and in modern terms, I don’t think either nation has the emnity for the other to justify such spending. Officious intermeddling on the part of American corporate-military interests can only work to destabilize the region, but I often wonder whether India or China can see pierce the pretexts of our professed “interest” in South or East Asian economic or military development.
Posted by chatman at March 12, 2008 02:44 PM
Yes, it’s all about the money. The U.S. increasingly has nothing to sell China, India, Saudi Arabia, etc. except arms. And of course the arms industry is very heavily subsidized by the state. So much for free enterprise.
Posted by hyperbolus at March 12, 2008 03:17 PM
I am surprised Mr. Margolis did not mention that the U.S. government (under the republicans) paved the way for China to in fact purchase uninhibited military weapons technology by way of the bill H.R. 3100 “east Asia security act” failing in congress to pass in 2005.
What is really interesting is this bill passed by a majority vote first round. When the second vote came around it was then defeated after lobbyists had a chit chat with all who voted for the bill in first round votes.
All the while telling the general public how distressed the U.S. government is about China buying weapons?
More factual is certain parties rubbing their greedy palms together in glee with this announcement by the NEW? menace.
An excerpt below.
I thank you.
With the East Asia Security Act of 2005 (H.R. 3100), Congress has the opportunity to give the President valuable leverage to form a strategic consensus on arms sales to China. EASA mandates that any person, firm, or country that provides military arms, equipment, or technology to China or dual-use items to the Chinese military, security forces, police, or other repressive agencies face heightened scrutiny of its arms relationship with China and, if warranted, be denied access to U.S. weapons technology. By giving teeth to U.S. diplomats’ warnings to Europeans who would end the EU’s embargo on arms sales to China, EASA will enhance U.S. security and force China to reconsider its military buildup and confront the growing backlash against its aggressive behavior in East Asia.
Posted by spiffter at March 12, 2008 05:32 PM
Excellent article. I appreciate that Mr.Margolis is one of the few in the western media who writes about such issues.
It really is sad to see what we’ve done with this world. After WW2 there was a real opportunity to create a more peaceful future. The UN was created with its priority to stop wars between nation states. Militarist nations like Japan and Germany conpletely rejected their past. And the good guys - USA, Britain, France etc… - supposedly ruled the world.
What’s happened in the 21st century? The UN appeases wars of agression. Japan and Germany are now reasserting their military pasts. And the “good guys” continue to either attack, occupy or threaten one developing nation after another. Through it all the “beacon of freedom and democracy” continues to spend ridiculous sums on its military, as it has been doing since 1945.
Please stop blaming Bush on this. Most Americans thought Iraq was a great little war until they started losing it. And nearly all Americans still believe it’s ok for the US to ignore international law anytime it wants to. All the other toady western powers are just as bad(they simply don’t spend trillions on their militaries - though they are all, including Canada, trying to catch up). Plus they are all democracies so all westerners bear some responsiblity for our crimes.
Once again human civilisation gives in to extremism over moderation. The opportunity has shown us in our true colours. We’re still the same civilisation which ran the African slave trade, plundered colonies, ethnically clensed native North Americans, destroyed Europe through two insanely egotistical wars and murdered 6 million Jews in the process.
Everyone repeat after me: “we are the good guys.” Just like we always have been.
Posted by Paul Whiteside at March 13, 2008 08:46 AM
Paul
Most crimes require an intent to commit them, and I think your assertion that we Westerners bear responsibility for the misconduct of our leaders ignores the intent. Given the complex web of relationships that lead from our individual votes to the policy choices of our leaders (or the political inertia generated by leaders past), you can hardly expect the average American/Canadian/European to even know, let alone intend, the consequences of our government’s actions. Further, given that most Westerners have far less control over the makeup of our own governments than they imagine, I find the argument fatally flawed.
The counter-argument to absence of citizen control, made by some on this message board, is that we should all participate in active revolution. That utopic musing misunderstands that (a) most people would not know why they’re revolting, and (b) people aren’t generally willing to risk their lives for the mere possibility of improving someone else’s, particularly when that someone is nameless, faceless, and unconnected to you.
Your rhetoric is aggressive, but what would you be willing to risk for the life of a nameless, faceless, suffering Iraqi or Afghani? Your family’s well being? Your own?
Some of my teachers have committed their professional expertise toward protecting the rights of such people against my own government’s impulses to detain and torture them; I’d be willing to do the same, even though I know that change through positive litigation in the United States is difficult at best. And of course I can vote or help others vote, for as little good as that does.
But I am hardly prepared to foment overthrow of my government. I think few, if any, truly concerned citizens would be willing to go so far, or so easily accept the mantle of blame you (and Osama Bin Laden) might heap on our, and necessarily your own, shoulders. You see it in black and white, but the reality (and solutions to it) are far more complex than your most recent post might indicate.
Posted by chatman at March 13, 2008 12:10 PM
Very interesting Eric.
The US economy has become so addicted to war that (as with any addiction) it just cant stop. Employing many hundreds of thousands of people and sucking up trillions of dollars yearly, the arms industry has nothing to gain from a peaceful world and will continue to sponsor political leaders who lead us to, and keep us at,war.
These same forces,’The military industrial complex’ also have considerable influence over a media that consistently exaggerates and even invents potential threats in order to justify spending, and reckless military adventures overseas.
As Eric said, Bush may be ‘incompetent’ as president of his people, but in his main job as salesman for the arms industry he has done magnificently. Forget military objectives, forget the genocide, win or lose in Iraq and Afghanistan the longer the wars go on for, all the better for business.
Isn’t Capitalism wonderful.
Posted by muckdisturber at March 13, 2008 12:25 PM
muckdisturber
Too true. The people that make me laugh the hardest are those neocons and conservatives who somehow argue that wars are good for the economy… specious. It may be good for the economy of… Halliburton, KBR, or General Dynamics, but it’s hardly any good for the majority of folks working in some plowshare-related business.
Posted by chatman at March 13, 2008 01:04 PM
As with every great power or empire, the USA is going thorugh the same cycle of decline in its hegomonic postion. The US may out spend coutries in defence, however it also pays $300.00 for hammers that go to the military.
The money changers a “Power Elite” have had war and conflict make them very rich. Alas, there is no one left to fight, ergo make an enemy. Perhaps that is what arming India is about….future consideration as an enemy. There is on problem though, the Indians are smarter than that. While their IQ, along with China and Russia, continues to increase ours keeps on going the other way.
Posted by Frank at March 13, 2008 02:47 PM
Chatman, thank you for the response. I always value your views though I can’t say I’m in agreement with you on this occasion.
How much responsibility do citizens in a democracy bear? That is a legitimate question in this day and age. I’m not sure speculating on people’s intent helps the discussion because part of defining intent is assuming individuals are honest with themselves(which practically all of us are not).
I do disagree with this idea we are helpless. Britons could have ended their participation in the Iraq war by voting Liberal Democrat, yet they reelected Blair. In Canada we can end the Afghanistan occupation by voting for any party other than Conservative/Liberal. We could end it before the next election by protesting against the war in many different ways - not wearing red like a bunch of fools every Friday! If helplessness is the case then I’d say it’s willful helplessness, along with willful ignorance. We most certainly can control the actions of our governments. We choose not to.
The only revolution I would be suggesting is electoral revolution. We citizens do control our government, if we only choose to. Voting out of office politicians who choose to settle international disputes violently is a very simple process if the electorate actually cared enough about such issues. I’m not looking to build a utopia. Nor do I believe I’ve ever risked my life by voting Green.
If my rhetoric is aggressive it is because I must try to change people’s attitudes through my writing. Apathy should anger anyone who hates hypocrisy. It’s not about a suffering Iraqi or Afghan. It’s about needless violence anywhere. If the two world wars proved one thing it’s that the chickens do come home to roost. After centuries of militarism Europe got exactly what it deserved. Yet we embark on that same path of self destruction all over again?
You, my friend, are the only one mentioning the otherthrow of your government. The political otherthrow of the established parties is what I work for. If every pathetic non-voter in the last Canadian election had voted Green we would have swept the Liberals/Conservatives into oblivion. If young Americans now voting for the first time were not so foolish as to be seduced by some silver tongued spellbinder, they could be working towards a third party the US democracy desperately needs. Instead of wasting their time and money supporting the Democratic Party, which will always be part of the problem.
My post was not suggesting the end to all world problems. It was simply to stop the West and this obvious trend of wars of aggression. If you oppose wars you vote against the people who start them or become involved in them. If you care about world peace then such wars are your #1 priority when voting. It really isn’t that complex. The complexity lies in the dishonesty of each and every individual.
Posted by Paul Whiteside at March 14, 2008 12:16 AM
Paul Whiteside:
Your faith in western democracy is admirable but naive. True democracy depends upon certain factors, an informed electorate and fair representation of the people. To take the US as an example, no leader can ever hope to be elected without corporate dollars, and funding from powerful single minded special interest groups to drive their glitzy media campaigns. These dollars will not flow if the candidates intend to deviate from the intended agenda’s of these forces.
Today’s democracy is less and less about votes and more and more about money. Politicians and government are now for sale to the highest bidder. The electorate is being increasingly marginalized and the real power now rests mostly with the wealthy elite and the increasingly globalized corporate world.
The media is also a victim of globalization and has been propagandized. Hidden agenda’s are spun into policies that are more palatable for the masses, and any criticism is ignored.
Take the lead up to Iraq as an example, there were huge demonstrations all over the word, including one in Britain that numbered in the millions, the biggest mass protest EVER in that country, but the war went ahead regardless on the basis of lies. If a genuinely free press had been doing its job there would have been some media investigation, some debate about a policy as serious as this and more people would have better understood the implications. As the then head of Britain’s MI5 Sir Richard Dearlove said after a meeting with his US counterparts in a leaked Downing st memo, “The facts are being made to fit around the policy”
Democracy steamrollered!
Posted by muckdisturber at March 14, 2008 02:30 PM
Too true that you must assume I believe what I’ve written and that would be naive. To clarify I don’t believe I’ll ever see it happen - for reasons very well expressed by others above. Therefore I’d say I’m being theoretical, not naive. After all, in theory what I’ve said is perfectly possible.
The British example is a good one. Yes millions protested the Iraq war but where were those millions when it came time to vote against Blair? Either the war really wasn’t such a high priority to them or the silent majority actually supported the war(there are over 60 million Britons). If the former is true then we reach the point where I get on my soapbox. Why was it not a high priority? I contend that for these people what mattered was “appearing” to oppose the war. There’s no such grandstanding in the privacy of a voting booth, then their real apathy was displayed.
It’s true the western media are remarkably dishonest and the decline and fall of western journalism is a great hinderance to our democracies. Yet even if our media was truthful it wouldn’t matter. People simply don’t care when it comes to foreign wars. They believe the simplicities the politicians(and they themselves) want them to believe and ignore the issue as much as possible. If the media controls how voters think it’s because they don’t think at all. Voters first must start thinking about these matters before we reach the point where the media manipulates them.
Sorry but the fault does not lie with the political systems nor political parties nor the media. It is the individual voter who has relinquished his say in matters. And naturally takes no responsibility when anything bad happens.
Posted by Paul Whiteside at March 14, 2008 10:46 PM
Paul:
I agree with you that many of the electorate (possibly the majority) seem disinterested in important issues such as foreign wars. The main reason for the lack of interest however, is not apathy, but ignorance.
This state of affairs though has not happened by accident, it has been created, and is managed by the ruling class through the media in order to further they own interests. It is very desirable to have a majority of the people living in ignorance and there are considerable resources being employed to make sure things stay this way.
I will continue to use the Iraq war as our example, I recently went to a photography exhibition in the city where I live, the subject matter was world conflict. One photo showed an Iraqi father carrying a little girl probably around 5 or 6. She was clearly dead, she was covered in blood and one of her legs was broken and horribly twisted. The photographer captured the look of anguish on the fathers face perfectly. Another photo was of a young US Marine who had terrible facial burns from an explosion, he was pictured in full uniform on his wedding day next to his beautiful bride, again the artist captured the tears in her eyes as she stood with the disfigured man she still loved. For me and many other people there I spoke to, this was a reality check, it cut through the BS, these were images that told a version of the story that we never hear.
This is the horrible reality of war that is being kept from the public. Instead we are fed stories of how we are doing a wonderful job spreading democracy and how we are helping the local people.
During the Vietnam war a now famous photo was taken of a young Cambodian girl who was running naked and screaming along a road with her village burning in the background from a napalm attack. The photo was a reality check for the masses, and was reproduced all over the world and had an enormous effect on how people viewed the war, as we know, it was people power that led to withdrawal from that conflict not military defeat.
No such ‘mistakes’ are being made now however. The process of editing information we receive in order to prolong war has entered a new level of sophistication, ‘Embedded’ journalists aren’t even allowed to travel around in war zones without military escort; every piece of information, every photo is censored by the military authorities. While people die, at home we are fed a diet of saturation entertainment by the media, who focus on the latest sporting match or the most recent indiscretion of a famous celebrity, instead of questioning the policies of our leaders, which the media would have us believe is now controversial, unpatriotic or even blasphemous.
Our leaders have learned from their mistakes and know how to effectively undermine the democratic process and shape public opinion with the help of a compliant media, particularly when it comes to major issues such as wars.
You say the fault lies with the voter who fails to speak out, if the voter only knew the truth, I believe he would be shouting very loudly right about now.
Posted by muckdisturber at March 15, 2008 11:44 AM
I do not think there is a black/white situation here. I believe both arguments are correct and feed into one another. Yes, the media does intentionally hide the real situation with respect to foreign policy thereby deceiving the population and directing attention away from the atrocities and therefore the media and corporate world are at fault.
Conversely, the general population could demand more from the media because there are snippets of real information out there and with some effort, people could find out what is really going on and make more informed decisions. Therefore, the people are at fault for their own ignorance. But people in general are too busy or too lazy to go looking for information or are just too content with their own lives.
Current capitalism has been working excellently. If you continue to push people to work 10-14 hours per day, make sure both men and women are in the workplace worried about their job and where their next meal is coming from, teach students that the only important things are the material ones, of course all of their focus is going to be on their own issues and not the issues at large.
Until their is a fundamental change in the ruling powers and direction that drives the economy, the people will be slaves to the system and will have to keep their heads down and work their fingers to the bone and not disturb the current situation. Conversely, the only way to change the current situation is a grass roots shift that takes the focus away from money and objects to people and quality of life for the population of the whole world - not just the elite.
Posted by guesswho at March 15, 2008 12:36 PM
Excellent posts, both of them. It’s quite true that the media and politicians have sanitized war. That clearly was the only lesson learned from Vietnam. We should have seen this coming. With the age of video games and x-boxes our society has been in a long process of, for want of a better term, “clean violence”. As Oscar Madison made slobbery funny, our entertainment creates Felix Unger type violence - nice and neat. It’s very easy to picture Blair or Bush at the arcade going for the high score on the Space Invaders machine. This is the quality of leadership western democracies are producing.
I guess our discussion still comes down to how much responsibility the average citizen should be held accountable for. As correctly put, there isn’t an absolute right nor wrong answer. I still am not cutting my fellow citizens any slack. Yes the media could do more to get the truth out but I don’t even think that would dismantle this general apathy. With reporting being propaganda there is no hope of a breakthrough.
Nevertheless, we are in the Information Age and are not helpless. In Ontario 150 years ago most people worked 72 hour weeks, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. They only got Sunday off and were not allowed to do anything but go to church. Such was how the Canadian middle class got its start. This is my definition of a powerless citizenry. Yet history shows they were anything but powerless.
Thus I have to question how much this has to do with a ruling elite controlling everything. Western society has come a long ways from the 1870s. Yes people are still busy with their own lives, however we are more free than we’ve ever been so there is no excuse for just accepting wrongs and putting up with them.
I remember in the mid 1980s Toronto Sun columnist George Jonas wrote comparing Vietnam to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. His point was that Vietnam ended because America had a conscience, therefore Afghanistan would not end because the Soviets had no conscience. Jonas was proven wrong. The decade long occupation did end because the Russians did find a leader with a conscience. Will NATO be out of Afghanistan in 10 years time? Does the West have a conscience today?
I thank you all for the points you’ve made in this discussion. To be honest, I am still tripping over this problem. I see Canadian society today with people wearing red shirts to work or standing on bridges waving flags yet claiming they don’t support the war. I see them saying in polls they care about the environment yet never vote Green. I see many of them not voting at all yet endlessly whining about the political system. I see them complain about dishonest politicians yet elect people like Peter MacKey(whose lies are on record for all to see).
In my books Canadians don’t care about peace, nor the environment, nor honesty. They only care about APPEARING TO CARE. Everything else is so superficial to count for nothing. I suspect all westerners are the same. Unlike my fellow citizens who take responsibility for nothing I still have to conclude that ultimately we are the only ones responsible for our society and its crimes.
Posted by Paul Whiteside at March 15, 2008 02:00 PM
Paul,
I hope there is no high bridge close to you. You sound like you are going to jump! Just kidding.
I do not know if there is much more to be said. I think these posts have laid it out there and it is for the individual to decipher their own honesty. I despair about the few people pushing the boulder uphill against propaganda as well as the heavy weight of apathy. But we must keep trying, educating, and caring.
Posted by guesswho at March 15, 2008 07:29 PM
What is happening to Western European societies (including North America) is qualitatively no different than any other civilization in history. We rose on the strength of aggressiveness and we will die on the strength of apathy and corruption.
Posted by Weary at March 16, 2008 12:31 PM