OPEN BOUQUET (March - April)

By William Markiewicz

(As other short items may follow, I've decided to group them together.)

Today's Bombing in Tel Aviv (4/17)

Israel will be unfit to fight for survival as long as one Israeli soldier, one settler, remains on the West Bank while anybody who can afford it flees beleaguered Israel.

Leave the Imaginary Dangers to Movie Makers (4/16)

Why is there not and never was a mass-destruction danger from Iraq, Iran, and North Korea? For the same reason that the USA, Russia, China, India were not dangerous all those years: because they didn’t want to get it back. Reciprocal fear is the best guardian of peace. And what if some mad dictator...? Well, a ‘sane’ leader like Bush, who ponders using nukes to prevent others from using them is more dangerous than a madman who is quiet. So, why these constant screams, warnings about world dangers from nukes, avian flu, religious fanatics, you name it? Only birds and Iraqis were defenseless; others learned from the Carthaginians or from Iraq that either you're ready to fight back or you're a dead duck. Drunk with power or fear, or both, the Westerners either remain obedient to or follow their neo-Hitlers "to defend Western Civilization" which doesn't need defense from outside, but from inside. The problems are not political but social, and anybody who wants to fight for the West in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, fools himself and others. I read, I believe in "David Copperfield" about this old aunt who asks her servant: "What’s to be done with this boy?" He answers: "Give him something to eat." Instead of looking for far reaching answers, let's think of immediate remedies like -- stop pouring money into useless wars and use this money locally and internationally wherever it’s needed. With improving situations, explosive tendencies cool off and local politicians can start to negotiate for more.

Ignatieff (4/09)

A propos Ignatieff's rise to the political limelight, I think it's worth remembering what I wrote about him in 2004. See "Savonarola-Ignatieff, You Are Wrong!"

Russian Godfathers (4/05)

“Passionate Eye’s” (CBC TV) “Russian Godfathers”, is a sinister story that seems drawn from some anti-Semitic comedy. A bunch of Jewish billionaire fugitives who didn’t understand the game conspired all over the world against the Russian government. Putin is not a simpatico personage – far from it – but this is not the point.

The Godfathers were doomed to lose; I don’t understand how they couldn’t see that from the beginning. To win, one needs sticks and carrots and they had only carrots. If you have carrots to offer without the support of sticks, the people will take carrots and go away. The Carthaginians used foreign mercenaries; they couldn’t win against the Roman legionnaires.

IQ and Nations (4/02)

I was recently sent a list from Professor Richard Lynn's book about distribution of intelligence among nations. European nations listed in order of intelligence show German on top and Serbs at the bottom. One more revenge taken on the Serbs for choosing the "wrong side" in WW II. See "From Weak to Pariah" in this issue of Vagabond Pages.

All the Slavs in the Balkans are practically the same ethnie; so why single out the Serbs?

Afghan Party Pooper, Convert to Christianity . . . (3/25)

The imperial power wants a fundamentalist Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran also, which is not fundamentalist enough because it’s too nationalistic. Those religious regimes know how to hold their people under iron discipline and are easy to handle. They are mostly interested in the Other World and in reining on the souls of their subjects. They are ready to leave worldly things like oil, politics, economy, to the Great Western White Man’s Burden. This would work with the Shiites in Iraq; only the nationalistic Sunnis spoil the game. Afghanistan is all set for divida et impera. There are no Afghanis in Afghanistan just as there were no Yugoslavs in Yugoslavia. In Afghanistan, the ethnies, totally different from each other and governed by warlords, are constantly ready for war. Applying stick and carrot tactics, the Western Great White Man would know how to muzzle them indefinitely. This "New World Order" was already known to the Romans. Their followers like Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, tried to imitate them, but they were only precursors. The Great Superman comes now – Bush with his Little Brother - Blair. Bush doesn’t have the spectacular successes of his predecessors but he has more power than anyone in the past. Party poopers like the Iraqi Sunnis and this out-of-the-blue-sky convert to Christianity are like disturbing little pebbles. This poor convert guy in Afghanistan will probably end like Milosevic, dead from "natural causes" or simply disappear into some bureaucratic drawer. World public opinion, already heavily distracted with baseball, golf, hockey and "reality shows", will soon forget this tiny blip.

I end with the hope that this Jeremiade will not be realised.

Operation "Swarmer" (3/16)

I interpret the Spanish saying, "swim and keep your shirt dry," to mean that you express your opinion when you know the subject well. For the rest you can and should ask all the questions you desire. We hear about the joint Iraqi/American forces Operation Swarmer that is now taking place. It seems that the media has no right to witness what's going on. I have only two questions. A) Are the "Iraqi forces" composed exclusively of Shiites and Kurds? B) Is the operation taking place mostly or exclusively on Sunni territory? If the answer to both is yes, then it isn't an Iraqi army action against insurgents but American controlled civil war between Kurdish/Shiite coalition against the Sunnis. So, for the Americans, "Iraqi victory" really means Kurds/Shiites crushing the Sunnis. Is it possible to achieve an Iraq with ghettoized Sunnis or is this one more futile western dream?

Protectors? (3/03)

The warlord Gen. Hillier has declared that Canadian troops are in Afghanistan for the sake of the free world and Afghanistan. From whom does he want to defend the world, from whom, Afghanistan? From Afghans? "Public opinion" as usual shuts up. If the Afghans are archaic, it's because they choose to be so. Democracy imposed by the warlords will do no good there, it can only invite terror to Canada. Has Canada been in peace for too long? The most obvious victims of fundamentalists are women and it's up to the powerful women's organizations throughout the world, not to the warlords, to defend the rights of their sisters (See "Reviving Lysistrata")

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