The geopolitical genius of China's satellite kill

By Victor Mallet

China's successful launch of a ballistic missile this month to destroy a satellite in orbit has been variously portrayed by defense analysts and commentators as a damaging blow to Beijing's relations with Washington, a sign that China has overreached itself and just "a big mistake".

These conclusions suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of how Chinese leaders have behaved in the past, how they will behave in the future and how they will probably continue to get the better of their western counterparts in the chess game of international diplomacy.

On this occasion, as before, China has put into practice a ruthless, rational and legally defensible strategy that exploits a key weakness of the world's biggest economy and sole military superpower.

For years - a period coinciding with the rise of China - the US has failed to provide moral or political leadership in tackling the big challenges facing humankind, whether they concern global warming or the peaceful use of space. Crucially, the US has been reluctant to subsume its national interests into multinational efforts to benefit the wider world.

Sure of its ground, the Chinese government - after a test whose only aim was to prove it could obliterate enemy satellites in low earth orbit - even had the gall to declare that "China has never, and will never, participate in any form of space arms race". This was no more truthful than President George W. Bush's insistence that "we do not torture" detainees.

There are at least three areas in which China is happy to ride on America's coattails and the first is human rights. Until the US began detaining people without trial at Guantánamo Bay five years ago, it was possible for US politicians, without hypocrisy, to criticize Chinese Communist leaders for jailing their political opponents. The US could exert real influence on Chinese behavior. Exchanges of presidential visits between the two countries were in those days preceded by the ritual release of Chinese dissidents into US care; today such visits are more likely to be marked by the ritual purchase of Boeing aircraft as part of China's efforts to reduce the US trade deficit.

The second issue is economic nationalism. China, along with several other Asian nations, is rightly accused of using dubious stratagems - including peculiar product standards and health and safety scares - to protect its domestic market from foreign competitors. Yet whenever this issue is raised, China has only to recall a two-year-old dispute that still rankles with Chinese officials: CNOOC, the state-controlled oil group, was stopped from buying Unocal, the US oil company, on spurious national security grounds.

Third is the environment. True, air pollution from China has been detected on the US side of the Pacific and Chinese industrialization threatens the global environment. But why should China take action when the US, still the world's biggest contributor to global warming, has refused to adopt the Kyoto protocol on climate change and has barely begun to take the matter seriously?

If China is to be held to account for its actions - whether in polluting the world, persecuting its dissidents, supporting dictators or disturbing the peace in space by blowing up satellites - the US must re-arm itself with credibility, moral conviction and a willingness to help craft and then submit to international law.

China is not the only nation to have taken advantage of the plight of the US since it became obsessed by Iraq and Islamic fundamentalism. Authoritarians everywhere - from Russia to Venezuela - have done the same. This month's satellite kill, however, is another sign that no big nation has learned to play the game of geopolitics as skillfully as China.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

I must admit, if you change "England" and "British" to "America" and "American", I'd agree with this in a heartbeat. Please keep in mind that all the teachers in San Francisco together will not make what Barry Zito makes, each year for the next 7 years.  And goodness knows we could use some "community cohesion"!

From the BBC News: 

Schools in England should teach "core British values" alongside cultural diversity, a report says.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson has said schools should "play a leading role in creating community cohesion". 

He commissioned the review in the wake of the London bombings. Ministers see schools as a key place to promote understanding between communities and to combat intolerance and religious extremism.

He said youngsters should be encouraged to think critically about issues of race, ethnicity and religion with "an explicit link" to current political debates, the news and a sense of British values.

"I believe that schools can and should play a leading role in creating greater community cohesion. The values our children learn at school will shape the kind of country Britain becomes."

Sir Keith Ajegbo, a former head teacher of a London school and Home Office adviser, was asked to look at how "citizenship" and "diversity" was being taught in schools.

Sir Keith said: "Britain is committed to the values of free speech, the rule of law, mutual tolerance and respect for equal rights. They are things that are fundamental to our society."

He said: "It is the duty of all schools to address issues of `how we live together' and `dealing with difference', however difficult or controversial they may seem".

The link to the entire article:

From the San Jose Mercury News, 21 January 2007, written by Robert Kaiser, Associate Editor of the Washington Post:

For a gray-haired journalist whose career included 18 months covering the Vietnam War for the Washington Post, it is amazing that my country has done this again. We twice took a huge risk in the hope that we could predict and dominate events in a nation whose history we did not know, whose language few of us spoke, whose rivalries we didn't understand, whose expectations for life, politics and economics were all foreign to many Americans.

Both times, we put our fate in the hands of local politicians who would not follow U.S. orders, who did not see their country's fate the way we did and who could not muster the support of enough of their countrymen to produce the outcome Washington wanted. In Vietnam as in Iraq, U.S. military power alone proved unable to achieve the desired political objectives.

How did this happen again? After all, we're Americans -- practical, common-sense people who know how to get things done. Or so we'd like to think. In truth, we are ethnocentric to a fault, certain of our own superiority, convinced that others see us as we do, blithely indifferent to cultural, political and historical realities far different than our own. These failings -- more than any tactical or strategic errors -- help explain the U.S. catastrophes in Vietnam and Iraq.

a link to the entire article:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/16512593.htm

China wants Taiwan. And why not? China is awakening to its consumer hunger, and where better to get the expertise to run mass consumer production than Taiwan? And oh by the way, doesn’t China really feel like Taiwan belongs to them already? And aren’t the Chinese people beginning to splinter into haves and have-nots, like America 50 years ago?

And who will stop them from taking Taiwan? Anyone besides the U.S is out of the question, and did you hear the thundering silence in the days following the latest demonstration of Chinese military prowess? Either the US government failed to detect the launch, or this is tacit consent from a government that knows it cannot afford to piss off China. The U.S. economy is so dependant on China’s buying of our national debt, and the import of cheap Chinese goods, that if we were to be embargoed by China things would get a lot worse than anyone dreams. This economy would shred in months, weeks, if we were forced to deal with the paper we are printing to fund the War in Iraq. And how aggressive would you want our Navy to be, preventing a Chinese takeover of Taiwan? Probably not as aggressive today as you were last week, given our inability to detect a missile launch!

I dont' remember much about the story, except for the premise. The society described, tested every new born and would give that child something that would crate an artificial handicap so that the child couldn't be better than anyone else. A fast runner, for instance, might get weights attached to his ankles to slow him down. A fast reader, might have to wear glasses that distorted the print on the page, so they couldn't read so fast. But I never thought I'd see the day....

From the San Jose Mercury News, 17 January 2007, by Patty Fisher (pfisher@mercurynews.com):

"Back in 1995, some vocal Palo Alto parents were clamoring for the school district to offer foreign-language classes in elementary schools so that children could compete in the global economy. Faced with budget cuts and overcrowded schools, the school district couldn't afford to offer language classes to every child, so it proposed something cheaper but flashier: a language immersion program that would turn a handful of kids into bilingual learners. The district promised that someday, when there was enough money, foreign languages would be offered to everyone.

Here we are, 12 years later, and Palo Alto parents are again demanding language classes in elementary school. But the district still can't afford a widespread foreign-language program. So the administration is yet again recommending a small-scale language immersion program as the cheaper option. Only this time, it's Mandarin immersion instead of Spanish -- and it appears to be doomed.

Why? What has changed in Palo Alto since 1995?

That's what I was wondering Jan. 9 as a seemingly endless parade of speakers presented the pros and cons of starting a Mandarin immersion program to the school board. At the meeting, parents from both sides of the debate praised immersion as a great way to learn a foreign language. They acknowledged the success of the Spanish immersion program, which now has more than 250 students in kindergarten through middle school.

But the opponents seemed to think that offering Mandarin next year to just 40 kindergartners and first-graders would somehow hurt all the rest of the kids in the district.

Better to do nothing, apparently, than to run the risk of treating anyone unfairly."

here's the link to the entire article:

This image claims to be the most remote view of Earth ever published:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17524

I’ve wanted to write about Guantanamo Bay prison camp all day. This is the 5 year anniversary of it’s opening. I just can’t think of how to write anything about my feelings of disgust that Americans have anything to do with this without calling it’s supporters bad names.

So when (if) I can ever get calm enough to carry on a civil dialog about a very uncivil act, I’ll write about this again.

As there is less greed, less fear, less ignorance in our minds, we naturally live with more kindness and compassion.

From “One Dharma” by J. Goldstein

I awoke this morning and remembered my first anti-war demonstration. It was one of the last rallies before the end of the Vietnam War, in Golden Gate Park. Some of the moments I recall center around the Elvin Bishop Band, who played for 30 minutes or so at the very end of the rally, but I also recall there were a long list of speakers who were saying the same thing…..war is wrong, there are ways to settle our differences with other ideologies that do not involve invasion, we must adhere to Golden Rule.

Sure, we were young and didn’t understand that there are bad people in our world.  We were idealistic then. We thought that love could change the world. We felt that if only we thought good thoughts, if only we spread our faith about loving everyone, if only we could explain to the whole world that we are all connected on this tiny planet and that every action affects everyone else, then surely we could all do the right thing, and live peacefully together. “Think Globally, Act Locally” was a popular saying for many years, is it that wrong?

The United Nations reports that 40 billion dollars would feed, clothe, shelter and educate everyone who is lacking these basic needs today. The Pentagon reports that the war proposed in Iraq will cost over 100 billion dollars, with no estimate on the costs of the occupation and rehabilitation the Administration touts as the conclusion of their efforts.

Over 1200 people were detained in the first months following September 11, 2001 without access to lawyers, phone calls or charges. We’ve given up our rights and freedoms in return for an attempt to stay safe. We’re willing to pay any price for revenge. Better our dollars for high tech weaponry than American blood spilled in the sands of the Middle East? But can we find and destroy every last one of the enemy? And if we don’t, it only takes  one……and our safety is lost forever. Even Israel, with 55 years of high-alert security practice, can’t stop a lone suicide bomber.

We are shocked that anyone could hate us….yet our media has not kept us informed of how our nation’s policies have impacted other nations and peoples in the world, or how much those policies have widened the rich-to-poor gap. When the US asks for support of unpopular policies from Arab governments, their response is often to increase the repression within their own borders, of their own people, to stifle dissent before it can occur.  The Arab world is not a collection of democracies. A poll of six Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and United Arab Emirates, Feb 19 – March 11, 2003 by Zogby International) shows that over 80% of these Arab countries’ population feels the US led invasion of Iraq is motivated by the Western desire for oil. It also shows that these countries have come to view the UN as an instrument of American power in recent years. A UN sanction would do little in their eyes to justify an invasion of an Arab state.  “The irony here is that if America fails to gain support at the UN for a war in Iraq, many Americans will see the organization as being increasingly irrelevant; in the Middle East, most Arabs would see UN defiance as an emergence of it relevance.” Shibley Telhami

Nationalism is the sense that one’s self and neighbors are uniquely virtuous. This feeling led to September 11, 2001. Yet, what gives Americans the perspective to make a decision about the quality of life for a people on the other side of the planet? Who are we, to say how they should live? That they require democracy? That they will be happier with 500 channels available on TV? Why must they act like us? And most importantly, why must they give us what we want?

“The secretaries and file clerks and young executives in the two Towers and the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters on the 4 planes would not have been the target of hatred, had we Americans better expressed our highest values throughout the world….had our government expressed in all it’s actions the fairness and generosity that characterizes our people.  That disconnection between our people and our government does not excuse the cold mass-murders committed by terrorists, but it helps explain it, and we cannot stop it if we do not understand it."  Doris Haddock

UN Food and Agricultural Organization:  35,000 children died of starvation on September 11, 2001. They died without news headlines….without telethons raising millions of dollars for their families….without UN resolutions calling on their government to feed them….

National Defense hasn’t been “defense” for decades.

“Those who died on September 11, 2001 represent the best that is in us, the calling of our highest selves. We owe them anger, we owe them grieving, we owe them justice. But everything we do now must reflect the best, not the lowest, of our humanity. We pay those precious souls their rightful tribute only be leveling a wise justice, only by exhibiting a tender righteousness. We pay them tribute only by understanding what brought about their deaths, and hewing to those principles that call us to a more abundant life.”  William F. Schulz

Our bombs and gunships are destabilizing volatile (and nuclear) regions, blowing up innocents, putting millions into starvation. We ignore past evil in favor of aid today for our objectives, ensuring a market for our goods and access to oil. At least most of the time.  We don’t seem to be handling Cuba this way….we’re just letting Cubans starve because of past evil…..but then Cuba is close enough to strike back at us, while the other countries we destabilize must rely on terrorist attacks to hit back at us. And we act like it’s an unprovoked attack, when we are struck….

“Why are Americans deeply reluctant to accept heavy loss of life for military ends? Could it be, sir, because the nation has come to believe that each individual’s life is sacred? Does that belief have moral meanings? Should we extend those moral meanings to our enemies?”  James McKinnon

“…like putting out a fire with gasoline…”  that’s what attacking Iraq may turn out to be.  An ironic statement, since it’s possibly the oil resources motivating this attack….  Because of our “blockade” of Iraq, Americans have not been using Iraqi oil, but other countries have. But what would happen to our economy if all the Arab states were angry enough with us, to cut off all Middle Eastern oil? You think $2.25 is too much for gas now? You think our current “high” energy prices are what’s holding the economic recovery back? Without the Middle Eastern oil, these prices will seem cheap!

We cannot target only military objectives. Civilians are at risk through the disruption of the infrastructure. Who, who watched the towers fall, can wish for innocents to die for a political statement? Remember the news videos of people walking the streets of Manhattan, holding out pictures of missing loved ones? Is that what you want to happen to fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers outside the US in 2003?

“We can choose whether the bin Ladens are seen as heroes or pathetic nut cases, whether they are joined by dozens or millions. Without …. peace, we are outnumbered, defenseless, doomed, condemned to the sort of slow defeat-through-mosquito-bites that happens with “asymmetrical”  wars against an

un-bombable, unquenchable foe. Or worse, the kind of global conflagration in which everyone loses. The only alternative is a peace that will propel us into a new world, a world of six billion family members……In a war in which “everyone must choose”, the best way to defeat our potential enemies is to tear down the walls and befriend them.”    Geov Parrish

The true Axis of Evil is Poverty, Racism and War.

This invasion will not address poverty. Despite the rhetoric of “rebuilding” and “reparations”, the Iraqi people will be set further behind the world’s standard of living because of our actions, because of our destruction of their infrastructure, communications and transportation facilities. It will be decades before they have a better quality of life than today. This invasion will not end racism. It will be viewed around the world as Christian vs. Muslim, American vs. Arab. We’ve seen some hate crimes here at home, because of the racial hatred fed to us by our leaders, the us vs. them mentality, the creation of an enemy where there was none before. And no matter the training, the high tech gear, the amount of money you allow the military to spend, the pride you have in “our men” or the expectation of victory (and disbelief in the possibility of defeat!), war is still hell on earth, and innocents die in war.

You ask for solutions? Multilateral disarmament. Address hunger, homelessness, unemployment, on a worldwide scale. What if, instead of bombing Iraq, we lined up convoys on the Iraqi border….convoys of food and medicines…….and began to drive into the country and delivery these goods. Would the Iraqi army really fire on us to prevent this food distribution? To prevent their own children from receiving medicine? What if our only weapon usage was in self-defense while delivering food? Would there be a war? Would Saddam remain in power? Saddam sees his future as the leader who unites the Arab world. Don’t you think he sees this invasion as playing into his hand? Isn’t the Arab world ripe to unite against the USA? Have we begun to address the reasons why we are unsuccessful in aligning ours goals with theirs? Don’t we ultimately want the same things? Security? Peace? Food to eat? Let’s build bridges, not bomb them.

Let’s transport food and medicine to Iraq, not bombs and infantry divisions. Let’s put some of our military R & D into hydrogen fuel for cars, not hydrogen bomb testing. Let’s be the good neighbor, not the town bully. Achieving a new kind of peace will require refusing to have an enemy…….

“If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the dividing line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”  Carl Sagan

here's the link explaining the first picture (above) of the Sun taken by STEREO:

Fight only the war that needs fighting

By Harold Holzer

President Bush has often cited Lincolnian resolve to justify staying the course in Iraq. He takes inspiration from the knowledge that Abraham Lincoln too endured failure, frustration and dissent, not to mention more American casualties on a single day at Antietam than we've lost in all four years in Iraq.

Such comparisons are not all inapt. But Lincoln did not seek pre-emptive war; it sought him. ``You can have no conflict,'' he said at his first inaugural, ``without being yourselves the aggressors.'' But when war came, Lincoln proved far nimbler than Bush, quickly shifting course when necessary. When the first 75,000 Union volunteers proved inadequate, he called for 300,000 more. When 90-day recruits went home, he ordered three-year service. And when even this vast army could not restore the Union, Lincoln imposed the nation's first military draft.

Unlike Bush, who waited six years to remove Donald Rumsfeld, Lincoln jettisoned his first, failed secretary of war in just 10 months. He elevated and dismissed generals rapidly, even ruthlessly, until he found the right one in Ulysses S. Grant.

Most important, Lincoln understood that, as he put it, ``public sentiment is everything.'' He was not only decider in chief but communicator in chief. In his brilliant speeches defining the nature of democracy and sacrifice -- all widely published -- Lincoln kept Americans informed and inspired.

So what might Lincoln do today?

First, focus on the real enemy: terrorists. When advisers suggested he start a war with England merely to woo patriotic Southerners back into the Union, Lincoln replied: ``One war at a time.'' Today Lincoln would fight only the war that needs fighting.

Second, embrace flexibility. Seek the right generals, strategies and troop levels, and be willing to change course and personnel swiftly.

Third, communicate objectives with frequency, passion and precision. No one can match Lincoln's eloquence, but no president should abandon Lincoln's commitment to engage the public.

Fourth, spend more time at the front. Lincoln visited the troops often, absorbing their pain and boosting their morale. Maybe his case was better, but his manner of symbolizing it was best.

Finally, abandon the notion of divine will to justify war. Even the pious Lincoln came to realize it was fruitless, even sacrilegious, to invoke God as his ally. ``In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God,'' he lamented. ``Both may be, and one must be, wrong.''

Certain brain areas are active when we think about the future

Brain scans have given US scientists a clue about how we create a mental image of our own future.

The Washington University team say that specific areas of the brain are active when thinking about upcoming events.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study could help doctors trying to understand damage inflicted by strokes, injuries or diseases.

The findings tally with damage spotted in the brains of patients who have lost the ability to 'think ahead'.

Much of our everyday thought depends on our ability to see ourselves partaking in future events Washington University Researchers

The brain remains the most poorly understood organ of the body, but the use of MRI scans to examine the way they work has taken off in recent years.

When patients or volunteers are placed in the functional MRI scanner and asked to think or move in a particular way, specific areas of the brain 'light up' on the scan image, corresponding with increased electrical activity in those regions.

The technique has developed to the extent that scientists can almost know what patients are thinking about simply by looking at the brain areas they are using.

here's the link to the entire article: 

I've heard there is no definitive answer to the following question:

Do you get less wet by running through the rain, or walking?

For years, I thought that you would be equally wet no matter your speed of transportation, because you would be occupying the same amount of space as you progressed through your journey and thus would collect the same amount of water. But yesterday, as I rode my bike to work through the rain, I realized this is wrong. In the same way that a slow moving storm has a better chance of causing flash floods because all of it's water is concetrated on the same land, a slow moving body is exposed to water at the same rate as a fast moving one, but for a longer period of time. Thus the runner would collect less water than the walker.

Of course, I'm right, right? 

I’ve had pneumonia twice in my life. The second time, as soon as I heard myself making that very deep, distinctive cough, I was able to self-diagnose my condition and get myself to a doctor straight-away. But even with such prompt response, by the time I returned home from the doctor’s office, I could barely walk the short distance from the car to the bedroom without running out of breath. I took the medications as prescribed and promptly went to sleep. This was early afternoon, and the next thing I knew it was 7 am the next morning. I felt much better, the drugs were doing their job as intended.

So imagine my chagrin, when upon picking up the morning newspaper, I discover that during the late evening while I lay dreaming, the local hometown had experienced one of it’s largest conflagrations. As a member of the volunteer fire department, I had missed the premier event of my generation because I was ‘sick’. To this day, I regret the ill-timing that caused me to miss helping what turned out to be a large neighborhood of folks who were dealing with spot roof and grass fires caused by the large flames spewing debris high into the air. It’s amazing, the lift a fire can generate, and the distance that embers will travel before falling onto flammable substances.

I was reminded yet again of my misfortune, when I saw the news about the Santa Clara apartment fire yesterday. Oh, to be back in the fire department!