Hospitals & Asylums
By Tony Sanders
If the USA would execute several much needed reforms we
could win the War against Terror and the imperial President could leave our
children with peace of mind. While
there is no guarantee that these reforms will save the national economy from
recession, the threat of recession highlights the need for the nation to
negotiate for fair oil prices and a stronger dollar with the EU, and we can
make the federal government a safer and more beautiful place for Americans and
foreign dignitaries, at little cost that would be quickly offset by improved
efficiency. The
US made great progress with the foundation of African Command on October 1,
2007. After four years of lobbying, and
several months of high casualties, the US completed the regional command
structure of the Department of Defense, US casualties in Iraq immediately
subsided from over a hundred to less than two score, a month. The
regional combatant command was created with utmost respect for the diplomatic
mission, more diplomatic work is however needed to protect our troops and the
civilians living in the combat zone and bring an end to the international armed
conflict in Iraq. Economic war with Europe on the currency front, with
OPEC on oil prices and the “housing correction” on the treacherous and
torturous home front undefended by tort law, pose a serious threat to the US
economy that the nation must confront with the good faith of liberal democracy to
win back the respect of our friends and allies. Therefore three options for diplomatic reform from the
Constitution of Hospitals & Asylums Non Governmental Economics (CHANGE) of President’s Day
2008 and an Act of Congress that would democratically bring an end to the
colonial occupation of Iraq are presented to replace the Cold War political
psychological weapons of insanity, fear and violence with a rule of law that is
fair, free, peaceful and democratic.
The reforms are:
1. Divide the USAID Asia and Near
East (ANE) Bureau into
a. the Bureau for the Middle East
and Central Asia (MECA) including Indonesia and North Africa
b. the Bureau for South East Asia
(SEA)
2. Change the name of Title 22
Foreign Relations and Intercourse (a-FRaI-d) to just Foreign Relations (FR-ee)
3. Change the name of the
Department of Defense (DoD) to the Military Department (MD)
4. Pass H. Con. Res. 110 Expressing the sense of Congress that Iraq should vote to approve or disapprove the continued deployment of United States Armed Forces to Iraq and, unless Iraq votes to approve such continued deployment, the President of the United States should commence the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq within 60 days of the Iraqi vote.
There is no question that the 110th
Congress must pass H. Con. Res. 110 immediately or the US government will be rebuffed
and ridiculed at every turn, risking economic recession, because the Congress
is so blatantly dissolute that they are not taken seriously as anything but a
colonial threat. Of the other tasks, at
this time, it would be easiest to divide the “ANE Asylum”. Unlike the
other proposals, it would not require any legislation for the President to
conquer hate. The USAID Administrator could do it today by reorganizing
their website. More than half of the
world's population lives in South East Asia, they have complex cultures,
ancient histories and very foreign languages and alphabets. It is absurd; one could say
"insane", to attempt to study the East, in conjunction with
the also alien Islamic cultures of the Middle East, with whom we are
having so much strife, these days. The
ANE Asylum is a Cold War relic where every US war since WWII has been
fought. It is time this US government
psychological warfare operation is ended so that our peoples could begin a new
era of better understanding and peace.
Among the many wonderful teachings of the Hindu religion there is one
particular prayer from the Atharva Vedas that has come down from thousands of
years ago. Its English translation from Sanskrit goes like this: “We are
birds of the same nest, we may wear different skins, we may speak different
languages, we may believe in different religions, we may belong to different
cultures, yet, we share the same home: our Earth”. If our world order is to succeed we must not attempt to dominate
half the world’s population through discrimination and aggression, as if they
live in an insane asylum. We must
instead seek justice of the peace as 42-year-old
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, pledged at his inauguration on May 7,
2008 to bolster the country's economic development and civil rights and combat
endemic corruption, saying,
”Civil rights, human rights and freedoms are deemed of the highest value for
our society and they determine the meaning and content of all state
activity. I'm going to pay special
attention to the fundamental role of the law. We must achieve a true respect in
law, overcome the legal nihilism which is hampering modern development".
Strife between the United States of America and Russia ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is not unreasonable that relations with Islamic peoples could be similarly improved if the ANE Asylum, even larger, more populated and more culturally diverse than the former Soviet Union, albeit of much lesser merit, would be dissolved. The breakup of the Soviet Union, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany after forty-five years of stalemate, in less than a year, caught everyone by surprise. Détente had begun with the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin signed on September 3, 1971 that ushered in the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) that opened consistent contact between the United States and the USSR. On December 15, 1978 the historic development of normalized diplomatic relations between the United States and China was announced at 9:00 pm. Deng Xiaoping visited the White House on January 29-31, 1979. For most of history China had the world’s largest economy and by repairing relations with the capitalist west the most populous nation in the world set the stage for a comeback as a peaceful mercantile power to be reckoned with, that it is today. On August 19, 1991 the Soviet Union ended, Latvia declared total independence on August 21, Ukraine on August 24 and most of the other republics in quick succession. The Congress of People’s Deputies met on September 2, 1991 and acknowledged that the state structure of the Soviet Union had disintegrated. On October 28, 1991 Russia formally took control of the institutions of the old central government. Would the USA not stop the underlying psychological fear and demonization of the West by Islamic peoples that manifests in suicide attacks and un-winnable insurgencies if the discriminatory and militarily abusive ANE Asylum were dissolved so the religious self-rule of Islamic and Israeli peoples would be respected by a USAID Bureau for the Middle East and Central Asia (MECA)?
In his book Why Nuclear Disarmament Matter published by MIT Press in 2008 Hans Blix, the UN Nuclear Inspector who found no prohibited weapons of mass destruction in the Iraqi arsenal before the US assault on March 19, 2003, tells his story. The Cold War lasted nearly 45 years. It would be wrong to say that no progress was made during this period: trade and communications skyrocketed; science and technology leapt forward; human rights became a universal global concern; scores of countries won their independence; the gap between rich and poor countries became unacceptable; UN organizations developed into instruments of global cooperation; and a fair amount of arms control was achieved in spite of everything. However the threat of more than 50,000 nuclear warheads capable of destroying human civilization hung over the world. The end of the Cold War raised hopes for a new era of global cooperation but after some initial success we have been disappointed. The 1968 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty is under strain, Libya and Iraq were found to be in violation and brought back into observance and North Korea and Iran are not in compliance. Although reductions are taking place in overstocked nuclear arsenals, these are still estimated to number some 27,000 weapons. Even worse, the commitments to further disarmament by nuclear weapons states in 1995 are being ignored and the 2005 review of the NPT ended with many non nuclear weapons states feeling as though they had been cheated. Meanwhile about $1.3 trillion goes into the world’s military expenses annually; about half of this from the world’s last remaining superpower, the United States.
It is an impediment that nuclear weapons states no longer take their commitment to disarmament seriously. Unhappy about the drift to military action in Iraq the European Union found that the best solution to the problem of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is that countries should no longer feel that they need them and that violators should be encouraged to walk back and rejoin the international community. These policies stressed the need for a cooperative approach to collective security and a rule-based international order. They highlighted the role of international verification and effective multilateralism. They also supported, as a last resort, coercive measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter preferring the peaceful settlement under Chapter VI of disputes the continuation of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security. The UN Charter authors who emerged from WWII were not pacifists. They were also not trigger-happy. Not only successes in the vital work to prevent proliferation and terrorism but also progress in other areas could transform the current gloom into hope. While the years 2006 and 2007 will not go down in history as the years of disarmament but perhaps as the years when it was realized that achieving disarmament by war and democracy by occupation is difficult. After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism the security situation changed dramatically. The most important UN action taken in the new political climate was, the authorization of the Security Council for the broad alliance by President George H. W. Bush to intervene in 1991 to stop Iraq’s naked aggression against and occupation of Kuwait. President Bush spoke of a “new world order”. In 2003, however a number of states, led by his son, launched the war in Iraq without the authorization of the Security Council. The political justification was that Iraq retained or was developing weapons of mass destruction. As we know, the evidence was faulty. The states launched the war ignoring the reports of UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commissions (UNMOVIC) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The armed invasion of Iraq has generally been considered a violation of the UN Charter rules on the use of force.
After Iraq there is a growing understanding that military power and pressures may not be the best way to enforce non-proliferation. The USA should agree to take their nuclear weapons off hair trigger alert and should create a joint commission to facilitate this goal of reducing the number of strategic submarines at sea, storing nuclear bombs and cruise missiles separately from relevant airfields and storing nose cones and warheads separately to reduce their readiness. Russia and the USA should negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty to reduce their deployment of strategic forces allowed under the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions by at least half. Russia and the USA should publish their aggregate holdings of nuclear weapons on active and reserve status as a basis for future disarmament efforts. The USA should implement the commitments they made in 1991 to eliminate specific types of non-strategic nuclear weapons, such as demolition munitions, artillery shells and warhead for short range ballistic missiles that should be withdrawn to central storage pending their eventual elimination. Every state that possesses nuclear weapons should make a commitment not to deploy any nuclear weapons, of any type on foreign soil. Any state contemplating replacing or modernizing its nuclear weapons must consider such action in light of all relevant treaty obligations and its duty to contribute to the nuclear disarmament process. All state possessing nuclear weapons should place their fissile material under IAEA safeguards. The United States must unconditionally sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. All state with nuclear weapons should begin planning for security without nuclear weapons.
In his book From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War by Robert Gates, now Secretary of Defense, published by Simon & Schuster, in 1996 recounts how human rights and the market economy prevailed. The struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States was the greatest armed contest the world had ever seen. The destructive power assembled dwarfed that of any previous arms race or war. The rivalry pushed into every corner of the globe. It was a struggle of irreconcilable ideas as well as arms, a competition of opposing philosophies rooted in no less a concept than the nature of man and the relationship between citizen and government. While the two sides might coexist militarily, they could never do so politically. Military power has four dimensions, quantitative – the numbers of men, weapons, equipment and resources; technological – the effectiveness and sophistication of weapons and equipment; organizational – the coherence, discipline, training and morale of the troops and the effectiveness of command and control relationships; and societal – the ability and willingness of the society to apply military force effectively. The danger of nuclear apocalypse prevented all out war between the two principal adversaries, either by strategic nuclear attack on each other’s homeland or by war on the soil of their respective allies in Europe. Thus the conflict was channeled into two arenas (1) a strategic competition in which each side expanded the size of its strategic arsenal exponentially even as it sought scientific breakthrough that would give it some usable military advantage. (2) a struggle for political and economic influence and control in the Third World, an area where direct military confrontation, and the associated risk of global conflagration, could be avoided. Conflicts fought in the Third World were notoriously ineffective and routinely failed to achieve the objectives of the first world sponsors of terrorism and tended to undermine political progress.
Cold War weapons systems are an
expensive burden and eliminating them is considered a diplomatic gesture that
would save the US money and improve its standing. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Lawrence Korb proposed
in his Korb Report: A Realistic Defense published by Sensible Priorities
for America in 2006 that a Military budget of $400
billion could be achieved after a $60 billion reduction in superfluous Cold War
armament and weapons maintenance. In the 2007 defense budget: $111 billion (about 25 percent) was
spent on the pay and benefits of 1.4 million active duty and 800,000 selected
or ready reserve military personnel.
The Pentagon spent $154 billion or 33 percent of its budget on routine
operating and maintenance costs for its 21 Army and Marine active and reserve
ground divisions, 11 Navy Carrier battle groups, and 31 Air Force, Navy and
Marine air wings. Included in this are pay and benefits for the 700,000
civilians employed by the Department of Defense. Another $174 billion or 38 percent
of the budget goes for new investment. This is broken down into $84 billion for
buying new planes and ships and tanks; $73 billion for doing research and
developing and testing new weapons; and $17 billion for building the facilities
for the troops and equipment. The vast majority of the final 5 percent or $24
billion is spent by the Department of Energy on maintaining and safeguarding
the 10,000 nuclear weapons in our inventory. This is the six times more than
either China or Russia spends on defense and almost as much as the rest of the
world combined. The Plan:
a. About $14 billion would be saved by reducing the nuclear
arsenal to no more than 1,000 warheads, more than enough to maintain nuclear
deterrence.
b. About $8 billion would be saved by cutting most of the
National Missile Defense program, retaining only a basic research program to
determine if this attractive idea, which has proven to be an utter failure in
actual tests, could ever work in the real world.
c. About $28 billion would be saved by scaling back or
stopping the research, development, and construction of weapons that are
useless to combat modern threats. Many of the weapons involved, like the F/A-22
fighter jet and the Virginia Class Submarine, were designed to fight threats
from a bygone era.
d. Another $5 billion would be saved by eliminating forces,
including two active Air Force wings and one carrier group, which are not
needed in the current geopolitical environment.
e.
And about $5 billion would be saved if the giant Pentagon bureaucracy simply
functioned in a more efficient manner and eliminated the earmarks in the
defense budget.
The USA reduced their military spending in the 1970s and 1990s, when the USSR ceased to pose a military threat. The USSR’s economic weakness and ultimate political collapse in the late 1980s and early 1990s have clouded the memories of many people of the Soviet military buildup from 1962 until 1987. The mammoth investment the country had made in the military and the leader’s decision to sustain that level of investment even as the economy plunged into crisis. In contrast the US defense spending in 1977 had been declining for nearly a decade, even setting aside Vietnam operational costs. Carter wrote in his memoirs that the defense budget, not counting inflation, had declined 35 percent over the preceding eight years even as the Soviet budget had been growing at about 4 percent per year. The precipitous reductions in Russian military capabilities stimulated a slower but significant decline in Western military spending, forces and capabilities. Under the plans of the Bush and Clinton administrations, US military spending was due to drop by 35 percent from $342.3 billion in 1990 to $222.3 in 1998. The force structure that year would be half to two-thirds what it was at the end of the Cold War. Total military personnel would go down from 2.1 million to 1.4 million. Many major weapons programs have been and are being cancelled. Between 1985 and 1995 annual purchases of major weapons went down from 29 to 6 ships, 943 to 127 aircraft, 720 to 0 tanks, and 48 to 18 strategic missiles. Beginning in the late 1980s Britain, Germany and to a lesser degree, France, went through similar reductions in defense spending and military capabilities. In the mid 1990s the German armed forces were scheduled to decline from 370,000 to 340,000 and probably 320,000; the French army was to drop from its strength of 290,000 in 1990 to 225,000 in 1997. British military personnel went down from 377,100 in 1985 to 274,800 in 1993.
At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the United States had a very large advantage over the Soviet Union in both land and sea based intercontinental ballistic missiles. The USA had a four to one lead in ICBMs, over four hundred to the Soviet’s seventy-eighty or so, a significant lead in submarine launched ballistic missiles and a huge advantage in strategic bombers, some 1,300 to less than 200. Humiliation in Cuba galvanized the Soviets into action. The USSR proceeded to undertake the largest military buildup in history over a twenty-five year period. The Soviets increased the number of their ICBMS from fewer than a hundred to more than 850 by 1968 and to more than 1,500 by 1972, while the US number remained constant at 1,054. American military strength and international prestige had been in decline for more than a decade. Reagan was convince that the United States and the West could bring serious economic pressure to bear on the Soviet Union that would adversely affect their ability to keep the system going while maintaining their ambitious military programs. “The Russians could never win the arms race, we could outspend them forever.” Reagan’s first priority was to increase significantly the resources for defense and to make clear to the Soviets and Americans alike that expanding military power was at the top of his agenda. For the first time since the Soviets began their huge military buildup in the mid 1960s an American military juggernaut was getting under way. After the Iran-Contra scandal US Soviet diplomatic relations were intensified under a four part agenda - human rights, arms control, regional issues and bilateral relations – that would guide US policy for the remainder of the Cold War.
After both Andropov on February 9, 1984 and Chernenko on March 10, 1985, sickened and died the Soviet Union began to make progress and Mikhail Gorbachev acceded to power in March 1985. Spreading economic crisis was generating social and potentially political crisis as well. Andropov had become convinced of the need to combine firmness toward the population with significant changes in the economic mechanism, however would not consider dismantling the command economy and replacing it with market socialism. Chernenko consistently defended détente and argued for more resources for the domestic economy. The burden of Soviet military spending was probably far greater than the 14-16 percent of the GDP the CIA was saying, perhaps somewhere between 25 and 40 percent. Since 1976 there had been little growth in military spending. Gorbachev was prepared to make tough decisions. During his first three and a half years in power Gorbachev did little to challenge the inertia of huge military programs and imperialist foreign policy and cold wars in Angola and Afghanistan smoldered on. The costs of supporting the Soviet empire had become exorbitant by the 1980s. CIA estimated that Soviet costs between 1981 and 1986 to support their clients in Afghanistan, Angola and Nicaragua alone were about $13 billion. By the mid-1980s the Soviets were subsidizing Castro’s Cuba $5-7 billion annually. On February 28, 1987 Gorbachev announced the Soviets were willing to untie progress in arms control on certain objectives and adopt a defensive doctrine, even planning to withdraw from Afghanistan. On February 15, 1989 Soviet troops left Afghanistan. The nation however remained reliant upon US and USSR support for warring factions and the government fell four months after the superpowers discontinued their support on December 31, 1991.
Gorbachev was an innovative, dynamic communist, not a revolutionary. He had chaired various study commissions for Andropov on needed changes and reforms in the economy and society. In domestic affairs Gorbachev was a communities believer. He believed that the state created by Lenin was fundamentally distorted and perverted by Stalin and his successors, and that with the right political approach, it could all be fixed within the framework of the communist state. He wanted to change the system but he initially didn’t intend to go so far. Domestically he began by democratizing the party and promoting glasnost, openness, and perestroika, reform. The priority was to weaken the Communist Party. Beginning in 1985 Gorbachev began signaling that Moscow would no longer use force to hold its empire in Eastern Europe. In 1989 a bloodless revolution, the “Velvet Revolution”, swept Eastern Europe. Denied resort to the Soviet army every communist government, save Albania was forced from power by the anger of its own citizenry. The Soviet empire collapsed the twinkling of an eye. The lack of bloodshed in these revolutions were due to the leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev. The first Congress of People’s Deputies met from May 25 through June 9, 1989. Its proceedings were televised at Gorbachev’s direction. George H. W. Bush took the oath of office on January 30, 1989. Gorbachev wanted to be the first leader to congratulate him and they made plans to meet. They had agreed to bilateral reductions in forces deployed abroad, to 275,000 per side. Bush endorsed German reunification based on four principles – (1) pursuit of self-determination without prejudice to the outcome (2) unification in the context of Germany’s continued commitment to NATO and the European Community (3) unification as a peaceful, gradual and step-by-step process and (4) on the question of borders, support for the principles of the Helsinki Final Act.
1979 was significant turning point in the last half of the Cold War, while relations with the Chinese improve the Soviets became intractable. Soviet actions in Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, Central America, the Caribbean and finally the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, got the attention of Congress. On Christmas 1979 some 85,000 Soviet troops poured into Afghanistan, dressed in Afghan uniforms a special team attacked the presidential palace and shot Amin and his mistress in a bar on the top floor. Carter approved creation of the Rapid Deployment Force, a strengthened successor to Strike Command and the forerunner of Central Command, the military organization that commanded and fought the Gulf War a decade later. In his state of the Union Address on January 23, 1980 Carter asserted, “Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” Despite his realistic assessment of Soviet military strength and capabilities the arms reductions and budget cuts in Carters’ approach is generally considered weak on defense, keeping Afghan operations covert. The distinguished Moroccan scholar Mahdi Elmandjra called the Gulf War “La premiere guerre civilisationnelle” as it was being fought. In fact it was the second. The first was the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989. Both wars began as straightforward invasions of one country by another but were transformed into and in large part redefined as civilization wars. They were, in effect, transition wars from a Cold War between superpowers to an era dominated by ethnic conflict and fault line wars between groups from different civilizations. Wars between clans, tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities, and nations have been prevalent in every era and in every civilization because they are rooted in the identities of people. Fault line conflicts and communal conflicts between states or groups from different civilizations have flared up in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia and the USA, the last remaining superpower, and NATO have become embroiled in conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. A violent divide has clearly developed between the West and the Islamic worlds while relations with African and Asian cultures progress.
Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order published by Simon & Schuster in 1996 explains that the concept of universal civilization is a distinctive product of Western civilization. It is assumed that the collapse of Soviet communism meant a universal victory of liberal democracy. Increased interaction among people in trade, investment, tourism, media, electronic communication generally is creating a common world culture. The War on Terror however shows the world is indeed anarchical, rife with tribal, religious and nationality conflicts, and the conflicts remain great dangers for stability between groups of states from different civilizations. One must therefore take a new view of human history as the history of civilizations. It is impossible to think of the development of humanity in any other terms. Throughout history civilizations have provided the broadest identifications for people. As a result, the causes, emergence, rise, interactions, achievements, decline and fall of civilizations have been explored at length by distinguished historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. While civilizations endure, they also evolve. They are dynamic; they rise and they fall; they merge and divide; and as any student of history knows, they also disappear and are buried in the sands of time, like the USSR. When civilizations first emerge, their people are usually vigorous, dynamic, brutal, mobile and expansionist. They are relatively uncivilized. As the civilization evolves it becomes more settled and develops the techniques and skills that make it more civilized. As the competition among its constituent elements tapers off and a universal state emerges, the civilization reaches its highest level of civilization, its “golden age” with a flowering of morality, art, literature, philosophy, technology and martial, economic and political competence. As it goes into decay, its level of civilization declines until it disappears under the onslaught of a different surging civilization with a lower level of civilization. Sources of conflict in international politics are:
A map of the post Cold War derived from what is often called the “realist” theory of international relations reveals that according to this theory states are the primary, indeed, the only important actors in world affairs, the relation among states is one of anarchy and hence to insure their survival and security, states invariably attempt to maximize their power. If one state sees another state increasing its power and thereby becoming a potential threat, it attempts to protect its own security by strengthening its power and/or by allying itself with other states. The interest and actions of the more or less 184 states of the post-Cold War world can be predicted from these assumptions. Nation states are and will remain the most important actors in world affairs, but their interests, associations, and conflicts are increasingly shaped by cultural and civilizational factors. The world is in some sense two, us and them, but the central distinction is between the West as the hitherto dominant civilization and all the others, African, Islamic and Oriental, who have recently overthrown the mantle of Western colonialism and now seek their way forward. Africa is struggling with extreme poverty and internal strife. The Islamic world is at odds with the infidels of the West and fundamentalists have used their religion to justify terrorist attacks leading to retaliation against and overthrow of the Islamic state sponsor by Western imperialist powers that set the stage for a war of colonial occupation. The Orient is a story of steady economic progress and it is expected that by the middle of the 21st century Asia will be the global economic and political decision-maker for the democratic reason that the majority of the human population live and works there and through hard work their per capita incomes have sufficiently caught up with the West so that their total wealth will be greater.
The West obviously differs from all other civilizations that have ever existed in that it has had an overwhelming impact on all other civilizations that have existed since 1500. Western civilization gradually began to take shape between AD 370 and 750 through mixing of elements of Classical, Semitic, Saracen and barbarian cultures. Its period of gestation lasting from the middle of the eighth century to the end of the tenth century was followed by movement, unusual among civilizations, back and forth between phases of expansion and phases of conflict. In 1490 Western societies controlled most of the European peninsula outside the Balkans or perhaps 1.5 million square miles out of a global land area, apart from Antarctica of 52.5 million square miles. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, renewed Western imperialism extended Western rule over almost all of Africa, consolidated Western control in the Subcontinent and elsewhere in Asia, and by the early twentieth century subjected virtually the entire Middle East except Turkey to direct or indirect Western control. Europeans or former European colonies, in the Americas, controlled 35 percent of the Earth’s land surface in 1800, 67 percent in 1878 and 84 percent in 1914. By 1920 the percentage was still higher as the Ottoman Empire was divided up among Britain, France and Italy. In 1800 the British Empire consisted of 1.5 million square miles and 20 million people. By 1900 the Victorian empire upon which the sun never set included 11 million square miles and 390 million people. At the peak of its territorial expansion in 1920, the West directly rule about 25.5 million square miles or close to half of the earth’s earth. By 1993 this territorial control had been cut in half to about 12.7 million square miles. The West is back to its original European core plus its spacious settler-populated lands in North America, Australia and New Zealand.
The
end of colonialism saw the territory of independent Islamic societies rise from
1.8 million square miles in 1920 to over 11 million square miles in 1993. The percentage of Christians in the world
peaked at about 30 percent in the 1980s, leveled off, is now declining and will
probably approximate about 25 percent of the world population by 2025. As a result of their extremely high rates of
population growth, the proportion of Muslims in the world will continue to
increase dramatically, amounting to 20 percent of the world’s population about
the turn of the century, surpassing the number of Christians some years later,
and probably accounting for about 30 percent of the world’s population by 2025.
"For the first time in history,
we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor
Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore
Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook. He said that Catholics accounted
for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims
were at 19.2 percent. "It is true that while Muslim families, as is well
known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend
to have fewer and fewer”. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales delivered a speech
at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford that is truly remarkable for its
interfaith encouragement and vision. In one excerpt from that great speech, he
said:
“These two worlds, the
Islamic and the Western, are at something of a crossroads in their relations.
We must not let them stand apart. I do not accept the argument that they are on
course to clash in a new era of antagonism. I am utterly convinced that our two
worlds have much to offer each other. We have much to do together. I am
delighted that the dialogue has begun, both in Britain and elsewhere. But we
shall need to work harder to understand each other, to drain out any poison
between us, and to lay the ghost of suspicion and fear. The further down that
road we can travel, the better the world that we shall create for our children
and for future generations”.
In his book The Road to Democracy in
Iran published by MIT Press in 2008 Akbar Ganji explains that Islam and the
West have had a long, complicated and abiguous relationship. Both sides have innumerable facets, and
extensive interactions often characterised by ignorance and confusion. To facilitate discussion four
distinguishing aspects between Islam and the West are introduced. First, the West is by and large Christian
however in modern society secularism is one of the most important
characteristics of the West. Islam is a
religion and offers its followers an infallable map of existence, a book of
laws, and a balm for psychological and spiritual pain. Second, the West was the birthplace of
modernity and even now that it has spread throughout the world modernity
remains deeper and more expansive in the West.
Islam began a gradual decline against the West at the time of the
Renaissance and is now in defensive mode, ie. Less developed. Third, the West enjoys material superiority,
economic relations, production, distribution, consumption, agriculture,
industsry, transportation and communication are all more developed in the West
and Westerners enjoy a higher level of material welfare and military might than
peoples in rest of the world. Fourth,
the West respects, at least officially, human rights, liberalism, pluralism,
tolerance and democracy.
Among the many interpretations of Islam
today, three are the most salient, modernist, fundamentalist and
traditionalist. Fundamentalist Islam
subordinates the rational mind to the teachings of the Koran or the hadith, the
words or deeds attributed to the prophet Mohammed and his progeny. Fundamentalists considers religiosity to
consist, more than anything else, in following the dictates of Shari’ah that
are unchanging and beyond reproach. Religious
pluralism is not accepted and fundamentalists harbor an animosity to the West. Modernist islam considers the rational mind
a tool for finding the truth in the holy book and in hadith but also for
apprehending other sorts of knowledge.
Modernists do not attempt to enforce Shari’ah as it was fourteen hundred
years ago but to render these dictates compatible with human rights and
univeral morality. Traditionalist Islam
combines elements of fundamanetal and modernist Islam with its own unique
aspects. Like fundamentalism it
considers the rational mind only a tool for understanding the holy book and
hadith, not for any other purpose.
Traditionalist Islam is not preoccupied with estaliblishing a society
dominated by Shari’ah and fegh but focuses its energy on promoting morality and
ethics. It is not dismayed by the
separation of religion and politics and believes in pluralism. Traditionalists are critical of Western
decadence but consider Muslims not foreigners reponsible for the deplorable
conditions found in Islamic societies.
The West must not use its material and
civlizational dominance to consolidate its cultural hegemony. The values of Western culture exert
sufficient appeal that the West need not use force to promote them. The West must cease using its military to
advance Western expansionism in the Muslim world. Such acts only diminish the moral standing of the West. Democracy cannot be spread by bombs or
missiles. In dealing the Muslim world
the West must avoid policies that betray a double standard, for instance,
ignoring Israel’s nuclear bombs while insisting that Iran does not even have
the right to enrich uranium for nuclear power.
Unconditional support for Israel coupled with indifference to the plight
of the Palestinian people is another example.
If despotism and oppression are bad they must be considered bad
everywhere. For its part the Islamic
world must cease to define the West only through its conflict with Islam. Instead the Islamic world must see itself as
a partner in developing a new spiritual and moral world order. Together Islam and the West must free
themselves from the shackles of their historical memories. They must not allow their future to be held
hostage to a violent past.
A democratic political system must be the
goal of every country. Religious and
political fundamentalism pose the biggest obstacles to this ideal. The precondition for peace is tolerance and
the precondition for tolerance is that the pious of all faiths must accept
religious pluralism and give up the conviction that their faith is
superior. Jews, Christians and Muslims
must join forces and show that peace and brotherhood of all faiths are the
fundamental message of Abrahamic religions and strive to move religion away
from the power of the state. It is the
common experience of pain that is the foundation for human rights, any human
being who has the capacity to suffer is entitled to certain rights. At the top of the hierarchy of human rights
stand the rights to well being free of suffering and the autonomy to shape
their own fate. It is in respect for
human rights that the way forward can be found.
Mark Engler explains in his book How to
Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy published by
Nation Books in 2008 that by 1999 the United States had reached an unparalleled
level of power and prosperity. A decade
earlier it had emerged from the Cold War triumphant. Then, in the 1990s it embarked on the longest sustained economic
expansion in its history. Its military
and economic supremacy were matched only by its cultural influence. Yet despite this affluence and acclaim many
conservatives were unhappy.
Notwithstanding the economy’s success and CEOs skyrocketing pay, they
were dismayed by what they viewed as a critical missed opportunity: America’s
hard power was only sparingly deployed.
The nation’s all-powerful military, they lamented, was going to
waste. What’s the point of being the
greatest, most powerful nation in the world and not having an imperial
role. Clinton helped advance corporate
globalization. Just a few years later
Bush launched the War on Terror. During
the Bush years the neoconservative produced a war that has inflamed resentment
and damaged US credibility across the globe.
In the next decade US administration, CEOs trying to do business in the
global marketplace and citizens promoting a more democratic global order will
have to contend wit this bitter legacy.
The neoliberal policies however have failed for more than two decades
and trickle down economics is losing credibility as it become more clear that
neoliberal policies creats economies that are unstable, slow growing and rife
with socioeconomic inequalities. In the
broad picture the US is living beyond its means. The government is relying on foreign investors to pay for its
excessive military spending. Textbook economics holds that upon seeing such
signs of economic weakness investors will shy away from the country, its
currency would fall, consumers would no longer be able to afford as many
foreign goods and the economy would undergo a necessary, if painful,
correction.
Throughout history dominant world powers doomed themselves by engaging in imperial overstretch. Worries about troop levels are a first sign. The United States officially maintains 737 bases worldwide, worth more than $127 billion and covering at least 687,347 acres in some 130 foreign countries. Formerly you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting its colonies, America’s version of the colony is the military base. The purpose the bases is force projection and the maintenance of American military hegemony over the rest of the world. They facilitate policing of the globe and ensure that no other nation, friendly or hostile can ever challenge us militarily. The hard costs of militarism will eventually lead the United States into bankruptcy. Direct military expenses are too narrow to reveal the true price of trying to remain an unchallenged hegemon. The real economic cost of Bush’s empire building is twofold: It diverts attention from pressing economic problems at home and it sets the United States on a long-term imperial path that is economically ruinous. Any commitment to maintaing military superiority despite evidence of overextension will limit US prospects of escaping long term industrial decline. The dominant power concentrates, to its detriment, on the military, while the candidate for successor concentrates on the economy. The latter has always paid off handsomely. Imperial globalists contend that without US military strength decisively projected abroad, the forces of evil will sweep the globe. Meanwhile corporate globalists persist in their belief that in the post Cold War world, we have no choice but to embrace the continual advance of the free market. The disastrous war in Iraq has nullified the neo-cons’ argument that preemptive war can create security. People fostering a democratic globalization today share much in common with movements against the colonialists and robber barons of old. It is difficult to understand the politics of the global economy in the past ten years without appreciating the divide between corporate and imperial approaches to globalization. Both corporate and imperial models of globalization have failed to create real peace or prosperity for the majority of people on the planet. The system of neo-liberalism that has dominated for twenty-five years is losing its grip on international economics.
During the Clinton years the WTO was on the rise. The US acceded to the organization in 1994. The WTO embodied the corporate globalizers’ dream of a cooperative, rules-based multilateral system that would benefit all participating countries. Under Bush the rhetoric became part of the administrations promise to spread its particular brand of freedom throughout the world and multilateral free trade agreements have fallen on hard times. The United States and European countries have made few sacrifices for the global South and continue to maintain massive subsidies for their agricultural markets. Many observers have noted that the average cow in Europe receives a subsidy of more than $2 a day while some 3 billion people live on less. Investor protections and intellectual property rights have been chief matters of concern at WTO talks, whereas discussion of worker’s rights and environmental protections has taken place as an afterthought. A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research reported that in 2000, the richest 1 percent of adults worldwide owned 40 percent of the world’s wealth, and the richest 10 percent possessed a full 85 percent. The bottom half, on the other hand, owns scarcely 1 percent of global wealth. In terms of income, those at the top are raking in a far greater share than before neo-liberalism. While the income inequality between the top and bottom tenth of the human population is staggering 320:1, the wealth inequality is nine times greater still. In 2000 the bottom 50 percent of the world’s adults together had 1.1 percent of global wealth with the bottom 10 percent having only 0.03 percent, while the top 10 percent had 85.1 percent and the top 1 percent had 39.9 percent. These inequalities are increasing. Real incomes of the poorest 5 percent of world population declined 20 percent in the 1988-93 period and another 23 percent during 1993-98 while real global per capita income increased by 5.2 percent and 4.8 percent respectively. For the 1988-98 period the Gini measure of inequality among persons worldwide increased from 62.2 to 64.1 and the Theil from 72.7 to 78.9.
In 1980, the average CEO in the United States earned 42 times the salary of his average worker. By 2001, the average CEO made 411 times as much. Hedge funds are elite, largely unregulated, private investment pools that handle money for extremely wealthy individuals. Their managers are among the highest paid individuals in the United States. In 2006, the top twenty-five hedge fund managers in the country made in excess of $240 million each. This means they each pulled in, on average, $27,000 per hour, twenty-four hours per day, whether waking or sleeping, whether at the office or teeing off on the ninth hole at the country club. Real wages for working people in the United States have been largely stagnant since the early 1970s, while the number of working hours have skyrocketed. When compared with workers in Western Europe, the average American works 350 hours more per year, the equivalent of nine extra weeks. A study by the International Labor Organization reported that in 2000 the average US worker put in 199 more hours than in 1973. Dramatizing such realities a group of union and nonprofit activists now observe “Take Back Your Time Day” every October 24. On that day, if the US workload were on par with the rest of the industrialized world, Americans would have the rest of the year off.
Although the World Bank and Internatioanl
Monetary Funds are largely controlled by the United States these Bretton Woods
institutions fell out of favor with the Bush White House. The 2004-2009 Strategic Plan produced by the
State Department and USAID defines security as the main goal of US foreign
assistance. The plan aims to align
dipomacy and development assistance with the president’s National Security
Strategy of September 2002 that lays out the case for preventive war and for
bulding the capcity ofr global militayr intervention. In early 2006 the administration reduced USAIDs formal
independence and more closely aligned its operations with the overall aims of
the State Department. Oxfam America
identified USAID reorganization as a further step in a drastic shift of US
foreign assistance since the attacks of 9/11 that has blurred the lines
traditionally separating development and humanitarian aid from political and
military action. Under Bush significant
increases in US foreign aid were channeled not through the World Bank but
rather through go it alone American initiatives, such as the Millennium
Challenge Account. The appointment of
war planner Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank was an all time low for the
institution but Robert Zoellick is restoring credibility. The Bretton Woods
institutions have taken this time to shift their assistance from loans to
grants, the IMFs loan portfolio has shrunken from nearly $100 billion in 2004
to less than $20 billion in 2007.
How to rule the world? Fifteen years ago we were told to expect the emergence of a transnational capitalist elite that would manage the world economy. Indeed globalization became the “grant strategy” of the Clinton administration, which envisioned the US elite being the primus inter pares – first among equals – of a global coalition leading the way to the new, benign world order. Today, this project lies in shambles. During the reign of George W. Bush, the nationalist faction has overwhelmed the transnational faction of the economic elite. These nationalism inflected states are now competing sharply with one another, seeking to beggar one another’s economies. As we enter the post-Bush era, we need more than an “Iraq Syndrome” to temporarily hold war-planners in check. We need to engage in a deeper reflection on the price the country pays for its empire and to initiate a process of redefining America’s role in the world. Ultimately the internal disputes between the presidents and CEOS will not be the engines of transformation. The powerful will abandon their strategies of control only when it grows too costly for them to do otherwise. It is the concerted efforts of people coming together in local communities and in movements spanning borders that will raise the costs. Empire becomes unsustainable – it becomes bad business – when the people of the world resist. And democracy triumphs over privilege and exploitation when we make it a practice that is too alive for money to contain.
Laws Ending Colonial Oppression
President George W. Bush’s imperialist
regime and his War on Terror are characterized by contempt for human rights and
a categorical rejection of the International Criminal Court, the Geneva
Conventions and the Convention against Torture, Degrading and Inhuman
Punishment or Treatment in regards to the treatment of suspected enemy
combatants who are taken prisoners of war.
By denying non-state actors the protection of the law the Bush
administration has essentially stooped to the level of lawlessness exhibited by
the “persons struggling against colonialism” recognized in Art. 1 of the
Declaration on Territorial Asylum 2312 (XXII)(1967),
whom he imprisons. This lack of respect
for international law, as well as the continuing military occupation of Iraq,
raises serious legal and ethical concerns that can only be redressed under the
human rights treaties that brought an end to colonialism in the 1960s. To reaffirm faith in fundamental human
rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of
men and women and of nations large and small and to promote social progress and
better standards of life in larger freedom, conscious of the need for the
creation of conditions of stability and well-being and peaceful and friendly
relations based on respect for the principles of equal rights and
self-determination of all peoples, and of universal respect for, and observance
of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to
race, sex, language or religion, recognizing the passionate yearning for
freedom in all dependent peoples and the decisive role of such peoples in the
attainment of their independence and recognizing that the peoples of the world
ardently desire the end of colonialism in all its manifestations the
Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples 1514 (XV) A/4684
(1961) provides,
1. The subjection of peoples to alien
subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental
human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an
impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.
2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development, fully enjoying Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, 1803 (XVII) A/5217 (1962)
3. Inadequacy of political, economic,
social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying
independence.
There is a bill before the US Congress, H. Con. Res. 110 Expressing the sense of Congress that Iraq should vote to approve or disapprove the continued deployment of United States Armed Forces to Iraq and, unless Iraq votes to approve such continued deployment, the President of the United States should commence the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq within 60 days of the Iraqi vote, that would allow the USA to fulfill its duty to end colonialism through exercise of the right of all peoples to self-determination. Mr. SHAYS submitted the concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned, in the House of Representatives on March 29, 2007. The Concurrent Resolution reads in its entirety, Expressing the sense of Congress that Iraq should vote to approve or disapprove the continued deployment of United States Armed Forces to Iraq and, unless Iraq votes to approve such continued deployment, the President of the United States should commence the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq within 60 days of the Iraqi vote. Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that— 1. the Government of Iraq should hold a vote in the Iraqi Council of Representatives or among the Iraqi; and 2. unless 60 percent of the members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives or the Iraqi general voting public vote to approve the continued deployment of United States Armed Forces to Iraq, the President of the United States should commence the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces to Iraq, the President of the United States should commence the phased redeployment of the United States Armed Forces from Iraq within 60 days of the Iraqi vote.
The US Congress must not refuse
to recognize the fundamental right of the Iraqi people to self-determination in
regards to the continued presence of US Armed Forces. Art. 5 of the Declaration
on the Right to Development, 41/128 A/41/53 (1986)
requires, “States shall take resolute steps to eliminate the massive and
flagrant violations of the human rights of peoples and human beings affected by
situations such as those resulting from apartheid, all forms of racism and
racial discrimination, colonialism, foreign domination and occupation,
aggression, foreign interference and threats against national sovereignty,
national unity and territorial integrity, threats of war and refusal to
recognize the fundamental right of peoples to self-determination”. The USA must not use Iraqi military or
judicial preparedness as a pretext for delaying independence. Failing to pass H. Con. Res. 110 the 110th
Congress faces an identity crisis that undermines the nation’s economic
recovery because of the government’s ineffectiveness to defend against the
economic warfare the nation has come unto fire from the EU and OPEC primarily
as the result of its unpopular policies in Iraq, although no demands or
allegations are made, by the extortionists.
The UN World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008
places the blame for the slump in global economic growth from 3.8 percent in
2007 to a predicted 1.8 percent in 2008 that is expected to improve to an only
slightly higher rate of 2.1 percent in 2009, squarely on the deterioration in
the US housing and financial sectors.
OPEC explains the financial
problems in the US, particularly the sustained slump in the value of the dollar
against other major currencies, is fuelling the triple-digit oil prices seen on
international markets, not any shortage of crude supply. Price is being driven by factors other than
supply and demand, primarily investors leaving the stock markets after the fall
of the US dollar and investing in commodities such as oil. We must work on geo-political issues
affecting price other than supply and demand, particularly making peace with
Iraq who is one of the founding members of OPEC and would surely be able to cut
the US a fair deal on oil in exchange for the sovereign right to expel foreign
occupying forces.
In his speech on The
Federal Funds Rate in Extraordinary Times at the Exchequer Club Luncheon,
Washington, D.C. Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh lamented; this may
be the most pronounced time of testing for central banks in a generation.
Let me recount just a few of our challenges: significant market turmoil,
unsatisfactory economic growth, historic housing price declines, dramatic
commodity price run-ups, risk of a secular reversal of global inflation trends,
sharp changes in exchange rates, uneven and unprecedented contours of economic
growth--and policy responses--across major trading partners, and significant
domestic debate regarding optimal economic and regulatory policies. Most of all inflation has been elevated for
some time and prices of commodities are surging. Concerns about price stability and concerns about the real
economy may conflict with one another in the short run. These short-run
tensions arise, for example, if shocks to energy prices hit the economy,
boosting overall inflation while simultaneously weakening output and
employment. In the medium and long run,
investment, productivity, and real economic growth fare best in an environment
of low and stable inflation. The
inflation news since last summer offers little solace. Oil prices are near
record levels, as a result food and electricity prices have risen rapidly,
prices for a wide range of commodities are up, and dollar depreciation is among
the causes pushing up import prices. Some indicators of expected long-run
inflation have also risen. We should be
reminded that a country's macro-economy is established by the microeconomic
decisions of millions of individuals on the front lines of real business and
consumption. Successful economies must
be dynamic and flexible. The USA and
Iraq must negotiate to eliminate all forms of foreign economic exploitation,
particularly that practiced by international monopolies, of the armed forces,
foreign contractors or OPEC, in order to enable the people of every country to
enjoy in full the benefits of their national resources under Art. 12 (c) of the
Declaration on Social Progress and Development 2542 (XXIV) (1969).
For centuries moral reflection on international relations was focused on matters of war and peace. These issues are still important but since WWII world poverty has overtaken war as the greatest source of avoidable human misery. More people, some 300 million, have died from hunger and remediable diseases in peacetime in the seventeen years since the end of the Cold War than have perished from wars, civil wars and government repression over the entire twentieth century. Some 830 million human beings are chronically undernourished, 1.1 billion lack access to safe water, 2.6 billion lack access to basic sanitation, 2 billion lack access to essential drugs, 1 billion lack adequate shelter, and 2 billion lack electricity, 774 million adults are illiterate and 218 million children between five and seventeen do wage work outside of the household. The great catastrophe of human poverty is ongoing, as is the annual toll of 18 million. We face victims of natural calamities, victims of historical or contemporary wrongs such as colonialism, slavery and genocide, some committed by our own country, and victims of domestic injustice associated with race, gender, ethnic identity, religion or social class. We confront global threats and dangers such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, climate change, new infectious diseases as well as personal responsibilities towards our family, friends, and professional associates. Justice concerns the moral assessment of social institutions, and the moral responsibilities of individuals, governments and other agents with respect to such institutions, while ethics concerns the other moral responsibilities of such agents, taking the institutional background as given. Negotiating for lower oil prices would greatly help people around the world, especially in developing countries, who have been hard hit by rising food prices.
At the Knesset in May of 2008
President Bush said, "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the
terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they
have been wrong all along”. While it is true, one cannot negotiate with
terrorists, it is also true that States and international organizations have
certain treaty obligations that they must fulfill if they wish for the economy
to flourish. In the War against Terror
the onus to reform is exclusively upon the States. Terrorists and insurgents can be expected to cease their
hostilities when the fight against colonial oppression has ended however
because there is no guarantee that these radicals adhere to the rule of law we
cannot be sure that they will not continue to attempt to achieve their
political objectives through violent means.
The mere presence of a terrorist threat does not relieve the State of
their duty to perform. The USA has been
asked in this essay for relief from the political machinery of colonial
oppression from the Cold War and War against Terror. Are these provisions enforceable under the law of treaties pertaining
to the ending of colonialism cited in this article? The answer is yes. Should
the global community, including OPEC and currency exchange negotiators, reward
the USA for complying these demands?
Once again the answer is yes. As
scholars know, it is true doing good work is its own reward, however for a
global economic system to perform effectively there must be an appropriate
system of rewards. The global community
must reassure the USA that in modern society it is more than okay to take off the
frightening costumes used to frighten off the evil spirits of bygone
generations, it is required under Art.
5 of the Declaration on the Right to Development, 41/128 A/41/53 (1986)
that, “States shall take resolute steps to eliminate the massive and flagrant
violations of the human rights of peoples and human beings affected by
situations such as those resulting from apartheid, racism and racial
discrimination, colonialism, foreign domination and occupation, aggression,
foreign interference and threats against national sovereignty, national unity
and territorial integrity, threats of war and refusal to recognize the
fundamental right of peoples to self-determination”.
In conclusion let us make the case for change under Art. I Section 8 Clause 18 of the US Constitution:
First, it is necessary to divide the USAID Bureau for Asia and Near East (ANE) into the Bureau for the Middle East and Central Asia (MECA) including Indonesia and North Africa and the Bureau for South East Asia (SEA) because it is racially discriminatory to insult the intelligence of more than half of the world’s population. The only inference one can make from the acronym ANE is that it is insane. The fact that all major US wars since WWII were fought in the Area of Responsibility of this diplomatic bureau(s) reinforces the suggestion that ANE is not only insane, but violently so. On a purely rational basis ANE is too large and culturally diverse for the diplomat to master. Most of all ANE detracts from the beauty of the Bureaus of MECA and the SEA, which USAID must not refuse to recognize.
Second, it is necessary to change the name of Title 22 Foreign Relations and Intercourse (a-FRaI-d) to just Foreign Relations (FR-ee) because the acronym is a subliminal attempt to instill xenophobia of foreigners in practitioners of the US law and of US citizens who are distrusted when they go abroad and suffer so much mental illness that a Chapter 9 on the Hospitalization of Mentally Ill Nationals Returned from Foreign Countries at 24USC(9)§321-329 has been promulgated by Congress for publication in Hospitals & Asylums Title 24 of the US Code. The acronym is indicative of the disregard and contempt for human rights that have resulted in barbarous acts, including sexual indecency, which have outraged the conscience of mankind. It is the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want that has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 217 A (III) 1948
Third, it is necessary to change the name of the Department of Defense (DoD) to the Military Department (MD) because it flaunts the Geneva Conventions for two reasons. DoD was founded in the Secretary of Defense Transfer Order No. 40 of July 22, 1949 before the Geneva Convention April 21 to August 12, 1949 was finalized and the decision could be reviewed in light of the new laws of war. DoD’s morbid acronym mocks Common Art. 3 of the Geneva Conventions that guarantees noncombatants and those laying down their arms, hors de combat, shall be treated humanely wherefore the order to kill all combatants is prohibited. DoD seems to issue such an order. Change is needed to instill respect for humanitarian law and human rigths. Much of the statute has already been amended to make reference to the “military departments” so that all that is really needed is for the Department of Defense (DoD) to change its name on its website, signs and letterheads and refer to the Department as the Military Department (MD) in the future.
Fourth, H. Con. Res. 110 Expressing the sense of Congress that Iraq should vote to approve or disapprove the continued deployment of United States Armed Forces to Iraq and, unless Iraq votes to approve such continued deployment, the President of the United States should commence the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq within 60 days of the Iraqi vote; is very important to our current economic predicament and our standing in the world. Unless the 110th Congress passes H. Con. Res. 110 they will be considered dissolute and the USA will suffer from the disrespect and outright contempt of Congress that undermines efforts to negotiate relief from the economic recession. Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence. There is no more reliable judge of the readiness of Iraqi security forces to defend the nation, than the Iraqi people who must live, or die, with their decision. OPEC would certainly approve of this decision. In a political community, such as the United States or United Nations, Member States have rights and those rights may be transferred through freely given consent such as the right of the Iraqi people to vote to redeploy US troops if H. Con. Res. 110 were passed by Congress or the right of OPEC nations to reduce the price of oil in exchange for the passage of the Concurrent Resolution.
The doctrine of sovereignty maintains that the each state, according to international law, has a duty of nonintervention into the affairs of other states. Indeed this includes not just military intervention, but any dictatorial interference in the sense of action amounting to the denial of the independence of a State. The reforms above appeal directly to a sense of moral sovereignty of the federal laws and agencies of the Foreign and Armed Services of the USA as they relate to its citizens and foreign relations. The fact that these uncorrected errors of psychological warfare and colonial oppression were made by the sovereign government of the USA implies that they are engaged, or at least tolerating, a theory of just war, jus ad bellum, against the people of the USA, the Republic of Iraq, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania and everyone in the world in general. The theory of jus ad bellum equates just war with the defense of socially basic human rights or self defense against an unjust war that is defined by aggression and violations of state sovereignty and human rights. This butchery of the English language cannot be construed as just. Americans are entitled not just to the moral rights of physical security and basic subsistence, but as this essay makes clear they are justified to demand - peace of mind – once achieved it is presumed that physical and economic security will follow. However, if the rights of States are derived from the rights and consent of the of the humans governed then the USA should really look into enacting these reforms. An illegitimate state is one that governs without the consent of the governed and an illegitimate and tyrannical state cannot derive sovereign right of its own oppressed citizens, when it is itself denying them those same rights. While the USA cannot be construed as an illegitimate State these four issues of illegitimacy within the administration and legislature have been raised and Americans now have the opportunity exercise their democratic right vote and choose whether they consent to be governed by fear or wish to create a more peace-loving foreign policy.
3.
Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva. 12 August 1949
12. Haylins, Jerry. Financial Turmoil at the Heart of $100 / b Price
Spike. OPEC Bulletin March-April
2008
17. Luban, David. Just War and Human Rights. Philosophy and Public Affairs. 9:2 (Winter 1980): 160-81. Global Ethics: Seminal Essay: Global Responsibilities. Volume II. Edited by Thomas Pogge and Keith Horton. Paragon Issues in Philosophy. Paragon House. St. Paul, Minnesota. 2008. 29-50 18. Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, 1803 (XVII) A/5217 (1962)
19. Pogge, Thomas; Horton, Keith. Global Ethics: Seminal Essays” Global Responsibilities. Volume II. Paragon Issues in Philosophy. Paragon House. Saint Paul, Minnesota. 2008
20. Rep. Shays. Expressing the sense of Congress that Iraq should vote to approve or disapprove the continued deployment of United States
Armed Forces to Iraq and, unless Iraq votes to approve such continued deployment, the President of the United States should commence the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq within 60 days of the Iraqi vote. H. Con. Res. 110. March 29, 2007
21. Rizzo, Alessandra. Muslim’s Outnumber World’s Catholics. AP. March 31, 2008