Yet Another Armageddon Scenario

As we all know, the new year started with violence in the Middle East, well what else is new. The Israelis have again launched another so-called terrorist cleansing operation following their previous botched adventure in Lebanon. This time it is because of incessant rocket launches into Israeli territory and this time these rockets are more advanced, reaching deeper into Israel. The militant Palestinian group Hamas wants to kill Israelis and Israelis want to kill or weaken Hamas and the Palestinians. Deja-vu, nothing new here. And it’s precisely because of the fact that we are all already numbed by news coming out of this area that I don’t think we have come to acknowledge that this particular conflict have been the most devastating of the 21st century. It has been the mother of all 21st century terrorism. In some ways or another, terrorist acts committed so far have a line related back to this Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s given birth to Al-Qaeda and bin Laden, pushed America into an Afghanistan-Iraq quagmire, caused chaos in Spain, Mumbai and inspired the conservatives in Iran and other Middle-East nations to sponsor terrorism. It has been the chief excuse used for all the Western hate-mongering cooked up by the Middle-East Islamists, the rallying cry for Muslims.

Why has it come to this and why can’t this problem be solved ? Well here’s my version inspired by game theory. This hate and division have its roots all the way back into the 20th century when the Western powers led by Britain, annexed a piece of land to settle the misplaced Jews after World War II, giving birth to today’s Israel. But the Middle-Easterners then are not entirely happy with this arrangement. So in 1967, they launched a war against Israel which ended in failure and giving Israel control of Palestinian lands. So start this decades-old conflict with the Palestinians fighting for their land. With each passing decade, the conflict has hardened the resolve of both sides and deepen their suspicions of each other. Both sides have now come to a point of deadlock and continuous violence. It has come to a point where the hardline elements of both sides have increasingly gained the upper hand. Unfortunately, it has come to a point where the solution to this conflict is no longer in negotiations. The framework of negotiations has all but broken down long ago. Forget the United Nation resolutions, resolutions are empty without an incentive or disincentive to act. The other most influential actor in this is America. But America, being Israel’s chief ally, has lost credibility in its neutrality because it’s not willing to lean on Israel to give in. This has also turned America into the target of Palestinian anger. They don’t trust America anymore. There is now no credible neutral party that can influence these 2 parties to broker a peace and this situation in particular really needs a strong neutral power to force both sides to compromise. So Palestine, being the much weaker party in this dispute, have to take matters into their own hands. They can’t match the economic and military power of Israel and so they chose the terrorism as we see it today as the weapon to even out the imbalance. In all negotiations, it does not pay to be in a position of weakness because you will never get what you want. The Palestinians think by mutually destroying their opponents, they can force Israel to capitulate. But Israel have no incentive to concede and apparently by their own calculations, they believe they can contain the violence coming from Palestinians. In this deadlocked scenario, you can expect violence will only continue well into President Obama’s terms.

The endgame in this may be the gradual extinction of Palestinians given the current parity of power. That is what the hardliners in Israel is hoping for, the total annihilation of the Palestine thorn. But the problem is, the disease is starting to spread beyond Palestine. It has infected other regions like Pakistan and to a certain extent Central Asian, African countries and even Xinjiang of China because of the religion factor, Islam. 9/11 and Mumbai have shown that the disease is now spreading to where it can take root. America’s actions to date have always tried to contain these problems rather than nip it in the bud because there is simply no political will to do otherwise. The Jewish influence on American government is simply too strong. America’s public strategy so far is mainly to militarily take out terrorists where they are found, not in preventing their existence in the first place. It’s like curing the symptoms but not solving the root cause, just like America’s broken health care system. So terrorist groups, fuelled and united by hate and anger towards America and Israel, are now spreading worldwide, actively seeking to exploit simmering local distrust and sow discord between peoples and countries. They are constantly working to find ways and tools to further chaos and probably force a world war which they hope will re-arrange the current status quo. Given these conditions, it is no wonder that there is an assessment by the Commission On The Prevention of WMD and Terrorim that more deadly terrorist attacks are very likely in the next few years. The real danger here is mainly the terrorists’ belief and reliance on mutual destruction and violence to push their cause instead of negotiations as the platform of choice to address issues. During the cold war, America and the old Soviet Union are also deadlocked in a mutual destruction scenario. But the armageddon scenario did not happen because the risks are simply too great for either side and both have parity in firepower. But for 21st century terrorists, they have nothing to lose as they are the David and they are hoping to exploit the chaos they have caused to Goliath.

The credibility of peaceful negotiations and non-violent approaches must be reinstated before we can see progress. The hardliners in both Palestine and Israel must be discredited and sidelined giving way to moderates and centrists. There is only 1 solution to the Palestine problem : An honest and neutral America who will arm-twist both sides to compromise for peace. Barring that, no amount of “peace talks”, diplomacy, rockets or tanks will work. Doing so will eliminate the chief excuse and rallying cry for Islamist terrorists. America and the world have a huge incentive to do so, prevent armageddon.

Where’s the Joe the plumber logic

So what’s this hoopla surrounding Joe the plumber anyway ? Another 1 of McCain’s aimless roundhouse punches again at Obama. McCain’s tactic here is basically devoid of any purpose but to paint the image of a fight-for-the-ordinary-guy in our minds. There’s a complete lack of mojo in this Joe the plumber caricature. Now Obama didn’t make Joe famous, McCain did and he has the bloody cheek to apologize to Joe for bringing him overnite fame and Joe the man is probably already busy milking his newfound fame. Now what’s all this fuss about Joe anyway. He’s far from being in the $250k bracket, so what’s the big deal ? I would dare say that most plumbers are unlike Joe, making less than $250k but maybe McCain’s own plumber is different. There is just no message here, nothing, nada, except for the fact that McCain wants to stick his face on Joe’s body so that we see him as our plumber next door who’ll save the country’s economy. Maybe McCain has a fetish of being a plumber ? Who knows ?

Now unless the conservatives want to make the case that progressive taxation doesn’t work, I can’t see where they’re going with Joe the plumber. Progressive taxation has been with us since time began. The poor will always pay less taxes than the rich. Under Obama, the rich will probably be asked to fork out more. Well call it socialism or communism or whatever, in times of need, it only makes sense that those with the means be asked to bear more of the burden. Good times will generally benefit the rich as the saying goes, “the rich gets richer” but in bad times, the poor and not-so-well-off is harder hit than the rich. The rich can ride it out but the poor suffers more. Now taxing the rich more does not call for the dismantling of the free market nor is it that we become a welfare state or even changing the current status quo much. Here’s why from a snippet in wikipedia :

In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.

In describing tax systems, it is important to distinguish between the percent of taxes paid on a given income, and the percent of taxes paid by a person with a given income. For example, if a person earns $1,000,000 and is taxed at a rate of 10%, they will owe $100,000 in taxes. On the other hand, if a person earns $10,000 and is taxed at a rate of 20%, they will owe $2000 in taxes. The person with the greater income is taxed at a lower rate but pays a higher tax. The person with the lesser income is taxed at a higher rate but pays a lower tax. The United States has a tax system which is a mixture of progressive taxation and regressive taxation. The income tax is progressive, capital gains tax, at a lower rate than the income tax, is regressive, as is the sales tax, since the less wealthy spend a greater percentage of their income. In 2003, the one percent with the highest salaries paid more than 34% of the nation’s federal income tax; the ten percent with the highest salaries paid more than 66% of the total income tax; the top 25% of paid 84% of the income taxes; and the upper half accounted for virtually the entire U.S. income tax revenue (nearly 97%). This is an inevitable consequence of the concentration of wealth. People who do not have much money cannot pay high taxes, even when they pay a greater percentage of their earnings in taxes.

Now 40% of population owns less than 1% of nation’s wealth. Yes, 40%, holy shmokes ! Raising or lowering taxes for this group has no effect at all on tax revenues. The top 10% accounts for 66% of tax revenues. So now, who are you going to collect more in taxes to make any difference at all ? The top 10% of course. So Obama’s plan is not changing anything at all except collect more tax money from the top 5-10% of the population who can afford it. So I don’t see where Joe & McCain is going with all this sand being kicked in our faces.

The 9/11 Shadow

Every time 9/11 comes by, there’ll be the usual observance and commemorations. But has the US learn anything from this the past 7 years ? Has the sacrifices of the dead been not in vain ? I’m not sure. How the Americans have gone about dealing with 9/11 have been 1 of knee-jerk arrogance and defiance, going for gung-ho violent tactics in the name of spreading freedom and chest-thumping, flag-waving, patriotic self-promotion. They have largely ignored what the effect is on the world and even more so in Iraq. Lucky for Bush, an able general Petraeus have stood up for the job and saved the US some discredit in this war by not having any of the Republican’s cowboy attitudes get in the way. He knows that it’ll take much more than guns blazing to win this kind of war. Gen Petraeus have succeeded not only because he wants to win for the US but because he also wants to secure the peace among Iraqis. He has succeeded because the war should also be as much about the Iraqi citizens as about the American troops. In the many years ahead, it will not be violent intimidation of terrorists that will win but more in winning and educating the hearts and minds, and in particular the enemies’ hearts & minds. The enemies here have a more complicated profile than a simple good guy / bad guy stereotype. They will have the support of the disenchanted or misguided segments of the local population and the line will not be clear as to who’s foe. They also truly believe that they’re doing the right thing. So how many can you kill before you’re safe. It only takes 15 people to wreak havoc on 9/11. Israel+Palestine and Chinese swordfighting movies have shown us the unproductive, destructive cycles of vengeance. The US will get caught up in this cycle if they were to continue in their cavalier, cowboy, gun-toting attitudes and there’ll be no end in sight for terrorism. It will also alienate the world and end up having less support from everybody else for their causes. The US’ll definitely need the help of friendly as well as, yes, god forbid, even more so really unfriendly countries to root out terrorism. It doesn’t take much to see that Iran + Palestine are the 2 keys that can help solve this problem.

The myopic Bush would like to think that all’s well as nothing has happened yet on US soil but has the threat been eliminated ? Then why send more troops to Afghanistan’s border ? The number of troops overseas active in counter-insurgency is still increasing and this is a clear indication that all’s not really very well. The terrorists have simply split and regrouped somewhere else and like cancer, they wait to strike again. It’s a forever cat & mouse game that will slowly bleed the US and time is on the side of the terrorists. The neocon Republican ways have been lose-lose from the start and I think the US is still back where they started or even worse off, year-on-year having to spend increasingly massive amount of resources to keep America terrorism-proof.

Leadership

There are a couple of things that have become clearer as the US presidential elections are moving along. Both parties are actually now more or less harping along the same lines that the public wants to hear. The republicans in particular have now stolen the basic platform that the democrats have based their message on. They are now saying that they are all along the best agents of change. How lame can they get. Before that they were extolling the great things they have done the past 8 years and now they have totally changed their tune by claiming the mantle of change because they just wanted to win the election. Now of course, all parties would love to win but when American hero John McCain, with a straight face, claiming his intentions is just to serve the nation and not to win the election, it just makes the skin crawl. How lame can he & his party get ? They have basically totally revamped their message to pander to the people and it is extremely obvious that they are just trying to win rather than being the best they can to govern. One of their really lousy tactics have been in choosing the vice president Sarah Palin. This is a really shamefully obvious move to pander to Clinton’s supporters rather than choosing a VP that’s in the best interests of the country. The amazing thing is there are Americans out there who are singing the praises of the republican party after all this. It really does not take a political guru to see through the hypocritical actions of the republicans.

Now Obama may have not been through much in Washington but the past 18 months have shown something to me which the press does not seem to notice. Instead, the press have been fixated on the more news-worthy items of the campaign. He has shown that he can lead and he will make a good leader. Look at how he has outmaneuvred the old-hand Clintons. Coming from an underdog to win the primaries speaks volumes of him and of his team’s competency. It speaks volumes of the fact that he can assemble a winning coherent competent team and keep his house in order in contrast to the missteps taken by the Clintons even though the Clintons are very very “experienced” (Bill was president for crying out loud). It speaks of his ability to lead. He has been leading in the message to reform Washington, to ween it of the lobbies, to make the government more accountable to the people rather than the special interests. He has stuck to this basic message so far. He’s leading on the way campaigns are conducted, less on personal attacks and more on the substance. Choosing Joe Biden as running mate is to cover his own shortcomings as president rather than to pander to the electorate. He could very well have chosen Hillary as it will drastically raise his chances of winning. But he didn’t. He leads on galvanising the people, red or blue or black or yellow to come together to work together. And from this, I can see when he’s president how he will use his unique skills to lead the world’s nations to solve its most pressing problems. If you ask me, in the last short 18 months, he has already demonstrated the attributes for a great leader. And it is against this backdrop, in stark contrast, it shows the insecurity and degree of desperation of the republicans. It is just a no-brainer hands down choice as to who is more presidential so far. C’mon Americans, are ye so blind ?

President Obama

As far as I’m concerned, it is already President Obama. Yes, he’ll win the election in November. Not only Americans but the world is hoping that this man can deliver. After decades of hypocritical and senseless American policies that have screwed up the world and end up screwing the Americans themselves, it is time for change. The overseas respect he gets on his recent trip is overwhelming. This man is the only one after so long who has the ability to convince, cajole and lead the world in solving its most pressing problems. It may seem like this doesn’t benefit ordinary Americans but only the myopic today can claim that the world doesn’t affect America after 9/11. Only with a stable global environment can America hope to thrive. President Obama may not deliver, may not live up to the Kennedy legacy but heck what better choice do we have right now. No one else today is even close. So let’s all usher in President Obama’s new era of hope and change. Yes, we all can !

Historic moment for US

America is making history today. This is a great moment for America. It certainly shows how much progress & change that have happened since the racial tensions of the past. It is still pretty unbelievable that this can happen what with all the stereotypes about race that is still peddled thru the media. I think there’s a very high possibility that he’ll be the most powerful black man on earth. You can’t help but like this guy especially after all the redneck idiocy demonstrated by Bush and cronies.