"There but for ....." and timing

“There but for….” and timing.

With the demise of Castro, of late invisibility but not yet forgotten, an article I read raised the conundrum of why America still has such great antipathy towards Cuba and Castro in particular. Cuba is a mere 160 miles from American boarders yet is still, some decades after the USA lost influence there, largely isolated from the economic influence of it. The USA does not encourage any commercial exchange with the country and does its best to keep it practically and politically isolated. For a young generation it does seem a little achronistic that the USA does hold an obvious anti Cuba / Castro card, yet with a little examination and a play on scenarios, some element of the antipathy may be understood.

The cold war of the post war era reached its climax with the Cuban crisis. This saw the USSR installing facilities, on its cuban door step, to launch nuclear weapon at an enemy – America. For the USA this was a threat that it could not ignore even less so after the ill fêted bay of pigs debacle carried out as an attempt to overthrow Castro and his ‘communistic leaning’. Anyone of an age that took an interest in the event of the time would not fail to note that at this point of time and with this conflict it was the closest the world came to a nuclear war.

The resulting stand off was eventually overcome with the strong and clever posturing of a poker game with one party deciding to blink and fortunately withdrawing. Sanity prevailed on both sides, this though was driven by both sides having in play a system that allowed internal discussion and consensus to be reached based on the application of perhaps unbiased accessible information assessed by advisors unafraid to present counter opinion and viewing reports from all sources, un-doctored by pre conceptions of what ‘steer’ the political master wanted. In essence there was a recognised and practiced form of civil service structure that served President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev even though there was a wide divide between the two party’s with different styles and political ideology.

Move forward to the release of the American Iraq Baker report that lays out the path taken in inflicting a war on Iraq and the assessment of the state of play. This report that coincided with the shift of power from the republican camp to the democrats after the US mid term elections, contained some very serious and illuminating points such as:-

“The US military has a long tradition of partnership between civilian leadership of the department of defence and the uniformed services. Both have long benefited from relationship in which the civilian leadership exercise control with the advantage of fully candid professional advice and the military serves loyally with the understanding that its advice has been heard and valued. That tradition has been frayed, and civil-military relations need to be repaired.”
Or “Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimises its discrepancy with policy goals”
Or “A lack of coordination by senior management in Washington still hampers US contribution to Iraq’s reconstruction”

I may be taking the above out of context but the view may be obvious that one cannot help but draw a parallel between the events of the Cuban crisis1960 and the Iraq ‘war’ of 2003+ over alleged WMD but with a few major differences in the cultural and operational context.
In the Cuban crises there was absolutely no doubt that WMD existed and were available to be used. The tension of the time was of an order significantly greater than the 1990/2000+. There was an established and respected trust mode of political / civil communication.

In comparison with the Iraq disagreement there was no irrefutable evidence of WMD, no delivery method and no active direct threat. The period portrayed little civil trust in politics and substantially less tension of a threat of a global war. However the most important element was the change in the mode of political / civil communication which was bent to the view of the executive.

The Iraq study group report by James A. Baker 111 and Lee H. Hamilton shows that there has been a dangerous shift in the form of civil structure driven by the desire to meet the needs of the ideology of a few people. Some of whom were given virtual executive powers to drive through a perspective of events and a sense of purpose that had little basis in reality, overriding the balanced evidence presented by others. This prescription of orgastated events served to undermine the checks and balances of a democratic structure and became its own momentum of purpose that allowed two people to take a decision to inflict an unnecessary war on another country. Perhaps in a way they had no choice for having created the machine to serve their demands by making direct appointees to key positions, they were fed the information that others thought they wanted to hear and they did not seek the whispers of doubt.

As a result of the 1960 crises in which Cuba was the focus of nearly bringing the start of a nuclear war, the USA and many people of the west do not easily forgive the created tension of the time. For as long as Castro is alive, Cuba will not be allowed to play with America. Younger people may find this stance strange as it is old history however if they consider the parallel that I see it may be instructive.

Now here is the real point of this view, given that there has been a fracturing in the civil process that provided advise to the executive in USA and GB, advise that is now proven to be tainted by preconception and spin, had Bush and Blair been in power in the 1960 with the perverted advisory structures that they have created in this era, I cannot be certain that the world would have escaped a nuclear war!

Being of an age to remember the palpable feeling of insecurity and the intensity of the situation in the Cuban crisis and having experienced in the public sector how a few placed individuals with executive backing can undermine and corrupt an organisation, I am left with the thought that we might not be so lucky next time. Given the way that the management of pertinent information has been manipulated, with detail obscured or ignored, one needs to watch out for anything remotely similar as political media management in the future may become more sophisticated. As identified in the Baker report there is an urgent need to recreate a civil support structure that is certainly not perverted to a dogma of spin for unprincipled egos.

There is little doubt that the civilian population of both countries do not trust politicians, that this is known will create even greater pressure on government to finds ways to ‘persuade’ their population that a future coarse of action, that results in a war, is objectivly transparent, acceptably neccessary and legitimate, and is not for “sexed up” reasons. The distruction of trust between civil society and the state makes it impossible to promote a war, suffer it or sustain it
to a point of success and places a democratic country in a position of grave weakness against
a dictatorial ideological foe. This is now the achillies heel of the west!

P1.12.06
© Renot 2006

Where Goes The Enemy?

Where Goes The Enemy?

Here we are at the beginning of the 21st century (dependant on which point in time you want to start from) and the race has started to beef up nuclear weaponry. At this time it must seem strange to many people that with the demise of USSR doctorial communism which was originally seen as the prime potential enemy of the cold war and is now a ‘friendly’ power, just what do saps need nukes for? The mythical peace dividend that was hyped in the 80s has not really materialised. There has been cosy European ties with Russia and its ex regional satellite states promoted by their importance as producer and corridors of energy but there has been no real switch of defensive resources into non destructive activities.

Today, Blair’s UK commits to renewing nukes – submarines and sub sea surface to air nuke missiles at a underestimated cost of £ 20bln +. The dispute now is what is the justification for such a decision when there is no longer an obvious state enemy and the MAD scenario against their use still applies? That the UK has an independent nuke capacity is debatable given that the keys are held by the USA, never the less having access to nukes gives clout. Why the labour party is now so pliant for nukes has nothing to do with whether they are needed or not for the defence of the UK, it is all about political credibility and the need to stay in power. Neither they nor any other party would have the strength to give all up and dismantle nuke weapon capacity, even the liberals party being always apposed to nukes would not be allowed to disarm. So the decision to renew the UK nukes store has little to do with knowing an actual potential enemy or the argument that with the future being uncertain, it cannot be known from where a threat may come from. So for now it’s about retaining the actual and public credibility of the capability to keep the country safe.

Although understandable, regrettably this is the wrong choice and in looking for a potential enemy, eyes are in the wrong place. The whole rational for nukes has changes. War may have been about asset take over or imposing different ideology, pursuable if single shot non expansive and containable weaponry is used. This usable limitation of conventional weaponry still applies now. However nukes are only really effect against whole state conflicts to slow them down and are usable where there is little asset to be lost but not so wilfully used if it destroys valuable energy assets like oil, gas, coal and other resources that are thereby made unobtainable. Essentially the mad use of nukes is no use against individual numbers or fervour where more personnel weaponry is required. It does not matter that those against nukes may think that it is inconceivable that nukes could again be used, it highly likely that unfortunately some will be used at some stage.

A few countries still play with the notion of chemical / biological war fare, ideal if it can be contained and has a time expiry limitation. The problem with these sorts of chemical weapons is that it is unpredictable and susceptible to environ parameters. It cannot be accurately targeted, there is collateral spread, relatively slow acting and of limited effective zoning. Biological weaponry is of similar limited use and is unstable, this is about to change.

The very recent discovery that the DNA genome is more complex than anticipated offers some interesting ideas to play with. It had been assumed that of the DNA strand only a small part of it had any direct relationship with what made a human, as much of it was similar to other animals. Surprisingly (not) it is a not a matter of knowing what part of the gene in DNA is responsible for say illness traits, it is also more important to know where the base pair of gene in DNA appears in the string that can dictate a traits. So it is the position of base pair in relation to all others that provide a key to identifying subtle characteristic codifiers and their effects. As each individual has unique DNA sequence they also have basic genetic racial traits, in knowing this, it will be possible to develop a genetic carrier weapon that can target a specific racial group or features. This is the beginning of a created genetics war, so we are not talking about a broad spectrum chemical / biological weapon as in anthrax, small pox or gas derived weapon that kills all it attacks but something that is much more selective and efficient.

Of course having a selective weapon may be useful against a target identifier that kills and leaves no trace or collateral damage but the pursuit of such weapons presupposes knowing who the enemy is likely to be, the drawback is that the weapon has to be either very fact reacting and or disguisable with something like HN15, haemorrhagic fevers, anthrax, smallpox, HIV etc. The idea of a genetic weapon is not a fanciful idea and is not limited to adaptation of known pathogens, it is conceivable to create new pathogens or have undetectable human carriers.
It is this that poses the potential of the greatest danger, whereas nuke activity is monitored and some element of governing pressure is applied to 'rogues', no such control is proposed or possible yet with genetic manipulation and development!

The use of any weapon would depend on the time allocation available prior to release and against what. A nuke opponent would have to be incapacitated before a genetic weapon could be used but against a non nuke opponent one could be used quite early. This is assuming one knew from where the threat derived from, something that could be difficult with a loosed genetic weapon of uncertain origin.

So having the destructive defence tool of any description is one thing, identifying the putative potential target enemy that may alter as the economics of energy changes is another but the real enemy now is saps sociological pathology reaction to conflicting ideology being driven by environment collapse


5.12.06
© Renot 2006

To Vote or Not To

To Vote or Not To.

The English are becoming an alienated people. This alienation is heightened by the attempt of insensitive muslim religious believers to promote stanisation into the UK and the surreptitious self adoption of attitudes that are undermining traditional terms. In the cause of political correctness the country is now overly anxious not to upset the recent Islamic immigrants by avoiding any doubtful critical comments or to change anything that might conceivable upset them. For example Christmas is now a “winter festival”, or “winter holiday”, some schools are trying to phase Christmas carol / celebrations out, the English (unlike the Scots, Welsh, Irish) are frowned upon to not fly the English or Union flag, some ethnics have been allowed wide liberty to express death threats on a recent protestant march, known illigals and criminals are impossible to deport, any literature, art music or jokes must avoid any caricature reference to Islamist, muslims or Mohamed et al. In all this some local authorities are leading the charge in the pervers name of equality and integration. Criticism of any sort is virulently opposed by these militant people with fatwa’s and death threats. Such attitudes are not actively counted by the state in the prime assumption that in ignoring these undermining social threads it preserves the multi culturism of everything, but at the expense of Englishness.

As each year goes by, and this may by just an age thing, I am becoming increasing perturbed at the pace of discordant change in this country in that is seems it has become a nation of cowed over sensitive apologetic non independent, narrow minded, live for today, pusillanimous citizens cowed by insidious pc creep. This fortunately is largely over ridden by the many (under threat) better aspects, so the good base nature of the culture still holds sway, just, supported by the sense (and I think there still is a sense) of lawful justice, equanimity, generosity and fair play, this is not shared by militant immigrants / economic miscreants due to the instability of the countries they escape from and whom no doubt see the UK as a soft touch. Although Britain / England is a beautiful and largely peaceful place, it is in danger of becoming not so beautiful driven by the creeping perverse political cultural change, and the miss guided belief in the so called benefits of multi culturism and high intake of economic migrants into what is a small land mass. Numbers of migrants are now so noticeable in some areas that it is affecting our social structure and adding to looming economic problems. The government tries to points to the economic benefits that large immigration brings to England (using their own calculation) even though there is no irrefutable proof for this, yet with one study using all the cost associated with immigrant, the opposite has been shown but none of this promotes a change in pc. People are concerned at the perceptive power block that unassimilated immigration has caused but the mood is ignored and not allowed to be discussed, do so and one is labelled a racist. All politicians are wary of driving a debate about immigration, seeming impassive to any pronouncements that conflict with the adopted line that immigration is good; it is left to the BNP to garner alternative opinions.

The above is an example of the disconnection between what politicians want and the practicalities of the populace that labour under the civil impact of fractured policies. Despite the obvious dissatisfaction, we have a political system that has become more unresponsive to democracy and corrupt. Corrupt because in only 1 day in 5 years do the people get to indicate which one of the 3 main parties we have in play to choose from and which policies they would prefer to have to lead the country. Unfortunately as some 40% of the electorate do not vote, this means that we often have a government that does not represent the majority of the people either numerical or by right. This might be our own fault as many are deciding not to exercise a vote due to apathy, although I prefer to think that it is a sign that many people do not like any of the parties or manifesto choices presented to them and so exercise an ineffective non-vote. As our voting system is a first past the post process, is non compulsory, does not have a no confidence element, (other than not voting) it is a political process that suits the wining party. The wining party then eventually panders to its own political whims under the illusion of a democratic mandate. In this we have had incidents in which politicians have been coerced and in ‘discrete’ cases forced to enact erroneous policies that had more to do with adhering to political ideology rather than having any measure of being for the greater good or resembling the result of common sense discussions. Rampant immigration, the Iraq debacle, id cards, creeping security strangle hold that erodes ‘rights’, genetic modified food stuffs and road pricing are current examples of issue that have not had good public input, nor are they likely to have, so long as there is a minority democratic system generating corrosive policies.

Over time the wrongness of some policies might eventually be turned around with the residual damage being financial or social. However the errors do have an impact on people perception that politicians cannot be trusted, often lie and are just in the game for them selves. Of course through this disenchantment, disillusionment with the electoral process is exacerbated. It is not hard to see that if this process continues we will fall into the land of practical dictatorship rather than the fabulous (as in fable) ‘democratic’ one we have now.

England is a small county that has always tried to punch above its weight and on a world platform it cost us a lot. Our continuous involvement in world affairs is derived from a largely historic heritage, whether we should continue to try to influence world events is debatable, as we no longer have the actual global reach of times gone by but we still retain some moral impact. The mantle of England being a world super power has long pasts, with the USA having now inherited the position and in this some concerns are raised.

With the main USA election well over and the ‘right’ person having gained the job, at least according to the majority of the people that voted, all be it with the help of ‘hanging chads’, discounted blacks, family connection and friendly judge. That the right person is in position is always open to debate especially when there is no overwhelming majority and no way of really making an impact on erroneous policies without the safety of inbuilt actionable referendums but time will tell. That this was discussed as a most important election period for decades, is a result of prime issues that concerned the worlds leading countries. At least it seem to be, with countries that are in a position to shape future events, for better or worse, polarising around social comfort factors, economy, environment, conflicts and the over played security scares.

In political terms, all political parties have to establish positions that are superficially acceptable and meet the best needs and appeal to the populace, enough to make them want to get out and vote!.
Yet the current main influential players seems to be moving to an isolated individual position of an enemy behind every door, focusing on the security mania closely followed by the foolish far right wing supporters, corporate machinations who wish is to gain ever greater economic control and ignoring the reasoned evidential arguments of none contending states and countries.

Some commentators suggest that this individualistic movement is something to be concerned about and it probably is but it is a transient concern. The individualistic isolationist stance cannot be totally ignored but since the abnormal cultural psychosis that feed this stance has to be worked through, it has to play out before a balanced renaissance is propagated. This is something that the other balanced social states must closely observe, as much as they may wish to promote their own views, there is little by way of presenting alternative opinions that could effect a change of course when minority governments hold so much proscriptive power. The problem with such deviant political ideas is in not knowing the depth and scope of the pain of the inevitable transition leading to a paradigm shift in political, cultural and corporate enlightenment. Even though there are some known actionable factors to work with, that point to mitigating obvious pressure points, some narrow political self serving interest may choose to ignore them.

It may always seem that it is the large news events that grip the headlines that are the most important,(like Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, muslim terrorist, environment etc) supported by the opportunistic politicking of those events to suit republic, democratic or sovereign needs. These conflated events are used to play to the expected outcomes that form the future political agendas. With a pre-emptive agenda built on the high profiled events, it would appear that these are the most important issue to be contended with, this is not the case. Usually it is the surreptitious little things that creep in that shape the controllable events of men, not the big bangers. With directive power residing in too few hands gained by minority politics a broader consensus is not encouraged, this limits the ability to achieve a real powerful majority or to see the direction from where clandestine developments derive from.

Great Britain has obviously had a long association and links with Europe and in many ways the social structures are comparable. Despite our lassitude in playing a European game, we more often than not, do see eye to eye even though there is a underlying uncertainty of direction in what is best for the UK, however we are geographical married to the future of Europe and are forced to develop much closer ties to it. This creates a dilemma. In many ways Great Britain has more in common with the USA than Europe and even less with Asian / African extracts. USA is the home of our American cousins, we have the same language, consider ourselves to be trustworthy allies and have a ‘kinship’ that is not yet matched with our European neighbours nor particularly supported when it gets to a point of a conflict.

So to the point of this missive, of particular interest just now is the beginning of a new race for ‘Number 10’ and the ‘White House’. It has been said that the past election were the most important of recent history with so much hanging on the out come for both countries, the forthcoming ones are now even more so. If this is the case, the judgment to be made is who is going to do the best job, in truth no one really knows but we make a best guess. Behind this guess has to be some element of desire for personal betterment and if this matches a need to have a better world – then good. I would suggest though that in making such a guess there is the perhaps unspoken desire to have a political structure that attempts to promote fairness and to help, rather than turn away, when we know others suffer.

The west is on the cusp of some dramatic changes, environmental, economic, social, population shifts and competitive geological resources. In this we are not isolated from the rest of the world. Decisions made now, for overly selfish reasons may have repercussions that we may regret when the range of diverse choice seemed so clear. What is needed is a person with a breath of experience and a vision of direction that can be adopted by the country that is clear, unambiguous and honest. So in choosing a new political ‘leader’ the best that can be done is to look behind the man or woman that is presented as a front runner, look at who are the people at their shoulder, consider what they have done and said, make a judgment call on their manifesto bearing in mind that it will be vapid and not gospel. Preferably go for the one that clearly believes and supports democracy hopefully with the possibility of public referendums or ‘soundings’ on key issues as a way to make democracy stronger or certainly make it compulsory with the ability to direct a no confidence vote.

The democratic principle is based on the freedom to vote or not, one man one vote, the trend unfortunately is for more not to vote. It is debatable if this lax position is sustainable as too many important issues are left in the hands of fewer people to dictate a direction. Democracy could well fail due to lack of interest!
For the time being it is therefore important to exercise a right to vote, with consideration for the sort of future one would want for ones self and the next generation.

It has been noted elsewhere that Great Britain has the best democracy that apathy allows and the USA the best that money can buy. I do not think that is good enough and it has to change. We start by making our vote count and to count we have to call it. The recent past presidential & prime minister elections in the USA and GB show just how wrong the political process has got and the subsequent damaged that can be done when the electorate give too much latitude to political authority and how difficult it is to hold them to task.

The USA, as the world’s current superpower, has to know that what it does can also have an effect far beyond its own borders, whether the effect will be to push the limits of economic, environmental and security to a more balanced level with higher moral fairness or propagate more uncertainty, can only be assessed in a few years. This point is important for super powers do not last and if a good example is shown, the next super power might be expected to behave in a similar manner?

Therefore the essence of this note is to encourage all pay attention to what is going on and when the time comes, vote, in the hope of obtaining a better future for us all.


131004
© Renot 2006