Thursday, May 19, 2005
Fear the US, not the "Terrorists"
More to fear than war against terrorism
Don Allan
17 May 2005
It seems to me the War Against Terror initiated by the US after the events of September 11, 2001, has become a greater problem for the world than the problem it was supposed to cure.
Many people in America, Britain, France and other countries who in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were sympathetic to, and understood the US reaction to the attacks, are questioning the war's escalation into areas other than Afghanistan.
Not to put too fine a point on it, some people think that George W. Bush has exceeded his Presidential remit. Some think he is teetering on the border of megalomania; that he has become irrational and views himself as the great leader of an administration elected to save a world that he thinks should be made in America's image. Others have an uncomfortable feeling that he has already crossed the border.
Let me ask those who think this an overstatement to read the President's recent utterances. If they do, they might also feel uncomfortable as some of his utterances are eerily reminiscent of past political leaders who promised that if their proposals were adopted the people of the world would be saved from a fate worse than death but whose schemes, which also involved suppressing the views of people with whom they disagreed, created a world where death came as a welcome relief to many. Some of his utterances also bear a striking similarity to those made by leaders of countries whose politics George Bush disagrees with.
But perhaps megalomania is too harsh a word to use to describe his behaviour? Perhaps paranoia, a mental disorder characterised by delusions of persecution and self-importance or, an abnormal tendency to suspect and mistrust others would be more apt?
Unfortunately many of those close to the President seem to be suffering from the condition that leads to megalomania and paranoia. This condition is known as sycophancy, which means servile flattery or toadying.
This condition is not only confined to the Americans close to the President. Prime Ministers and Presidents from countries across the world as they seek to ingratiate themselves with the man who, in economic terms, can affect their political destiny and that of the country they represent, are in the van of servile flatterers and toadies as they allow themselves, their diplomatic and military chiefs, to be die-to at the whim of the US President.
That they are followers of the great leader can be seen in announcements couched in language such as, “The position we have taken on this matter is consistent with the policy of our great friend and ally the United States.”
And so it is that, at this time, the President of the US, the great republic and allegedly the bulwark of democracy and freedom, has more power than any king ever had. It is my belief he exercises that power in a way that would make the founding fathers of America turn in their grave.
I feel sure they would never have thought of countenancing pre-emptive acts of violence allegedly in the cause of peace.
And nor would they have countenanced giving assistance to countries that perpetrated acts of violence on the basis of religion or heredity.
It seems the immorality of the current situation will continue as the sycophants leave it to those individuals who, in trying to fill the moral void, are ostracised for having the courage to tell the President the truth.
Don Allan
17 May 2005
It seems to me the War Against Terror initiated by the US after the events of September 11, 2001, has become a greater problem for the world than the problem it was supposed to cure.
Many people in America, Britain, France and other countries who in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were sympathetic to, and understood the US reaction to the attacks, are questioning the war's escalation into areas other than Afghanistan.
Not to put too fine a point on it, some people think that George W. Bush has exceeded his Presidential remit. Some think he is teetering on the border of megalomania; that he has become irrational and views himself as the great leader of an administration elected to save a world that he thinks should be made in America's image. Others have an uncomfortable feeling that he has already crossed the border.
Let me ask those who think this an overstatement to read the President's recent utterances. If they do, they might also feel uncomfortable as some of his utterances are eerily reminiscent of past political leaders who promised that if their proposals were adopted the people of the world would be saved from a fate worse than death but whose schemes, which also involved suppressing the views of people with whom they disagreed, created a world where death came as a welcome relief to many. Some of his utterances also bear a striking similarity to those made by leaders of countries whose politics George Bush disagrees with.
But perhaps megalomania is too harsh a word to use to describe his behaviour? Perhaps paranoia, a mental disorder characterised by delusions of persecution and self-importance or, an abnormal tendency to suspect and mistrust others would be more apt?
Unfortunately many of those close to the President seem to be suffering from the condition that leads to megalomania and paranoia. This condition is known as sycophancy, which means servile flattery or toadying.
This condition is not only confined to the Americans close to the President. Prime Ministers and Presidents from countries across the world as they seek to ingratiate themselves with the man who, in economic terms, can affect their political destiny and that of the country they represent, are in the van of servile flatterers and toadies as they allow themselves, their diplomatic and military chiefs, to be die-to at the whim of the US President.
That they are followers of the great leader can be seen in announcements couched in language such as, “The position we have taken on this matter is consistent with the policy of our great friend and ally the United States.”
And so it is that, at this time, the President of the US, the great republic and allegedly the bulwark of democracy and freedom, has more power than any king ever had. It is my belief he exercises that power in a way that would make the founding fathers of America turn in their grave.
I feel sure they would never have thought of countenancing pre-emptive acts of violence allegedly in the cause of peace.
And nor would they have countenanced giving assistance to countries that perpetrated acts of violence on the basis of religion or heredity.
It seems the immorality of the current situation will continue as the sycophants leave it to those individuals who, in trying to fill the moral void, are ostracised for having the courage to tell the President the truth.
One Glaswegian vs the Mighty Empire
Norm Coleman is a fool.
Not an ideological nut case, not a partisan whack, not even a useful idiot -- just a plain old-fashioned, drool-on-his-tie fool.
The Minnesota Republican senator who took Paul Wellstone's seat after one of the most disreputable campaigns in American political history has been trying over the past year to make a name for himself by blowing the controversy surrounding the United Nations Oil for Food program into something more than the chronicle of corporate abuse that it is...
[W]hen Coleman started slandering foreign politicians, he exposed the dramatic vulnerability of his claims that the supposed scandal was much more than a blatant example of US corporations taking advantage of their powerful connections in Washington to undermine official US policy, harm the national interest and profit off the suffering of the poor...
Instead of forcing the President, his aides and the executives of Bayoil, the Texas oil company that the report shows paid "at least $37 million in illegal surcharges to the Hussein regime" -- money that helped the Iraqi dictator solidify his grip on power -- Coleman started to make wild charges about European officials such as British parliamentarian George Galloway.
The problem for Coleman is that Galloway is not a standard-issue American politician -- the kind who has nothing to say and says it poorly. He is a veteran of the rough-and-tumble politics of Glasgow and the equally rough-and-tumble politics of the British Parliament. In other words, Galloway comes from places where voters and politicians do not suffer fools. And anyone who has ever followed British politics knows that George Galloway has beaten every political challenge he has faced -- even those posed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Galloway called Coleman's bluff and flew to Washington for a remarkable appearance before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "I am determined now that I am here, to be not the accused but the accuser," Galloway announced as he stood outside the Capitol Tuesday. "These people are involved in the mother of all smokescreens."
The member of Parliament tore through Coleman's flimsy "evidence,"... He accused Coleman of being "remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice" and pointed out error after error in the report the senator had brandished against him.
For instance, Galloway noted that he had met Saddam twice -- not the "many" times alleged by the report. "As a matter of fact I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times that [Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld met him," said the recently re-elected British parliamentarian. "The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns."
For good measure, Galloway used the forum Coleman had foolishly provided to deliver a blistering condemnation of Coleman's war.
"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies," Galloway informed the fool on Capitol Hill.
"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end but merely the end of the beginning.
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong, and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
"If the world had listened to [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to [French] President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the antiwar movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth," argued Galloway.
Then the Brit turned the tables on Coleman and steered the committee's attention toward "the real Oil for Food scandal."
"Have a look at the fourteen months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first fourteen months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money but the money of the American taxpayer," Galloway said.
"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where. Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it. Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."
The problem for Coleman is that Galloway is not a standard-issue American politician -- the kind who has nothing to say and says it poorly. He is a veteran of the rough-and-tumble politics of Glasgow and the equally rough-and-tumble politics of the British Parliament. In other words, Galloway comes from places where voters and politicians do not suffer fools. And anyone who has ever followed British politics knows that George Galloway has beaten every political challenge he has faced -- even those posed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Galloway called Coleman's bluff and flew to Washington for a remarkable appearance before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "I am determined now that I am here, to be not the accused but the accuser," Galloway announced as he stood outside the Capitol Tuesday. "These people are involved in the mother of all smokescreens."
The member of Parliament tore through Coleman's flimsy "evidence,"... He accused Coleman of being "remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice" and pointed out error after error in the report the senator had brandished against him.
For instance, Galloway noted that he had met Saddam twice -- not the "many" times alleged by the report. "As a matter of fact I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times that [Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld met him," said the recently re-elected British parliamentarian. "The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns."
For good measure, Galloway used the forum Coleman had foolishly provided to deliver a blistering condemnation of Coleman's war.
"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies," Galloway informed the fool on Capitol Hill.
"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end but merely the end of the beginning.
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong, and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
"If the world had listened to [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to [French] President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the antiwar movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth," argued Galloway.
Then the Brit turned the tables on Coleman and steered the committee's attention toward "the real Oil for Food scandal."
"Have a look at the fourteen months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first fourteen months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money but the money of the American taxpayer," Galloway said.
"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where. Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it. Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."
© 2005 The Nation
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Relativism - Moral and Scientific
Papal Perplexity
Roger Beckmann
Roger Beckmann
16 May 2005
THE NEW Pope, the media says, has been much troubled by "relativism". This is not relativity. But it's almost as tricky. I suspect I would have several areas of civilised disagreement with a man whose "infallible" predecessors threatened Galileo with torture, but on some aspects of relativism I might just agree with Pope Benedict XVI.
The Pope is presumably concerned with moral or ethical relativism. My interest is relativism applied to science.
Put simply, relativism is the view that the truth (whether of moral judgments, or explanations of the physical world) is not absolute or universal; rather it depends on society, traditions, lifestyle or time in history. In other words, there is no absolute right or wrong. It is not my intention to discuss moral relativism and established religion, but rather to relate all this to science. For, despite the vast differences it has with religion, science also faces a threat from relativism.
Relativism is seen as inclusive, democratic, egalitarian, pluralist, multicultural and tolerant. And so it is — to a point. It has freed us from old and racist notions of superiority, and allowed anthropologists to view different cultures more objectively and non-judgmentally. But eventually, the egalitarian view of truth has to be jettisoned. Ideas are not equally valid; some ideas or viewpoints are better informed than others. Some ideas work better than others. They predict more accurately. They explain more fully. And, finally, we come to the crux of science: some ideas are founded on congruence with an external reality, however tricky it might be to define this reality.
It is not true to say, as trendy post-modernist academics have tried, that scientific theories are simply one version of truth in a marketplace where all the other versions are just as worthy of consideration.
In this sense, the trendy academic postmodernists are at one with the religious fundamentalists who demand equal time for creationism in science classes.
Although far from being a new idea, relativism has tended to replace absolutism during the 20th century and, ironically, it might well have been scientific advances regarding uncertainty, chaos and quantum theory that helped.
Absolutism takes the view that there is an absolute truth out there, and that there is therefore an objective reference against which the truthfulness of a statement or explanation can be measured. With absolutism, you can rank ideas according to how closely they correspond to the absolute arbiter. Absolutism can be dangerous, because it can lead to a smug, closed attitude. It tends to ossify and lead to the exclusion of other viewpoints. Look at what it has done to religions that started off fresh and revolutionary.
In science, however, we must not abandon a degree of absolutism, while maintaining openness to new points of view. The ultimate test of alternative explanations and points of view must remain the real world, and the evidence from it. A person who claims to be immune to the laws of gravity can be invited to step out of my penthouse window. The results will give immediate and unambiguous clarification.
There is an ultimate arbiter in most areas of science. Unfortunately, many folk who are not educated in science take the view that science is simply a Western construct. It is no more valid than any other "world view". These people would maintain that healing a bacterial infection by waving a crystal dipped in mystic holy water is just as likely to work as an infusion of appropriate antibiotics. They could be right — but a double-blind trial would help to settle the matter. However, that requires a rational approach and the assumption that there is a truth — which treatment is more effective — that is discoverable.
A proud ignorance of science, and a dismissal of its importance, is becoming politically correct in some circles because of creeping relativism. Science is seen as the antithesis of warm and caring humanity; "green" and feminist movements would like to show that it is simply a male, Western, nature-subjugating construct. Of course, regardless of the sex, racial grouping or beliefs of researchers, the findings of science continue to hold true for everyone. The laws of gravitation, although formally elucidated by a white Anglo-Saxon male who was probably not a very nice chap, are non-discriminatory in their application. In the end, science just means the opposite of ignorance, and is therefore universally liberating and democratic, and this, perhaps, is the real reason that it continues to arouse fear and loathing among many.
And one final irony. It was absolutism that led the Catholic Church to deny Galileo's claim that the Earth orbited the Sun. The Church was convinced that its view was the most correct and rejected all evidence to the contrary. Scientists must learn from this arrogance. Religion relies on fixed texts that never change. Those texts — or the words of the current "infallible" leader — are the absolute. But in science we constantly revise. Although the universe and its behaviour is the absolute arbiter, our view of it is only ever provisional; a scientific explanation is never absolute. We approach truth asymptotically, getting closer but never arriving. Scientific explanations require constant testing against the real world. That is how, one step at a time, we grope our way towards rational understanding. To be absolute about it — it is the only way.
• Roger Beckmann thinks he's absolutely right but is occasionally relatively wrong.
© The Canberra Times
