Category: International Relations

New blog has been set up by a bloke who dropped me a mail to inform me.

I watched Hilary Andersson’s report on BBC news tonight, and was pretty shell shocked after it. I’m not an aid worker, I’m not a doctor, and I’m definately not well off. So what can I do to help?

I can write. I really have to do something, anything. None of the major news sites that I can find are giving the issue any significant amount of coverage, despite the sheer scale of the problem. Only the BBC gives it major billing, while it is completely neglected on all the major US TV news channel websites.

In 10 years time will we look back, like we did on Rwanda this year, and ask why we didn’t do anything to help?

Can we really let this happen?

My post on the arms to EU article that appeared in the IHT, caused a bit of a stir.

Peter responds here.
Dick responds here.
Eoin reponds here.
DC responds here.

It makes me a neocon to say this? I’m not sure if I would agree with that. Perhaps Niall Ferguson just did a good job of scaring me about apolarity.

Israel never signed the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel produces plutonium at Dimona in the Negev desert. This site is off limits to inspectors. Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in Osirak in 1981.

Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold nuclear wares to Iran, Libya and North Korea. He may have sold nuclear material to other countries.

Saudi Arabia is suspected as it has the money and desire, it also bought Chinese CSS-2 missiles, capable of hitting anywhere in the Middle East or beyond.

Syria already has chemical and biological weapons. It may have a covert uranium enrichment capability. It is also seeking to build a nuclear desalination plant.

Iran is the biggest problem. Israel is very worried about Iran getting their hands on nuclear weapons, and may resort to strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Israel has warned Russia that if it delivers fuel to the Iranian reactor at Bushehr, it would consider conventional strikes on Iran.

What effect would such strikes have on the region? Would Arab nations retaliate? What would be the Iraqi position? How would Israel strike?

Yglesias also has an ongoing discussion about whether WW1 was a preventive war, or not. David Adesnik of Oxblog weighed in and Matthew replied:

On the other hand, David says “Germany attacked Russia because the German leadership wanted to divert the working class’ attention away from domestic politics” which sounds like it’s either a joke or else a Michael Moore documentary.

Not sure which side I will take just yet.

Frank Fukuyama is on Newsnight as I write, it should be available in the BBC archive later tonight.

I spotted this story on Slashdot last week, intersting for the oil debate going on for the last few weeks.

Alberta sits atop the biggest petroleum deposit outside the Arabian peninsula – as many as 300 billion recoverable barrels and another trillion-plus barrels that could one day be within reach using new retrieval methods. (By contrast, the entire Middle East holds an estimated 685 billion barrels that are recoverable.) But there’s a catch. Alberta’s black gold isn’t the stuff that geysered up from Jed Clampett’s backyard. It’s more like a mix of Silly Putty and coffee grounds – think of the tar patties that stick to the bottom of your sandals at the beach – and it’s trapped beneath hundreds of feet of clay and rock.

Back to this subject again Peter, Frank. Kevin Drum is talking about it again, and I just have to link to it.

He pointed to an article in the WP by one Paul Roberts author of “The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World.”

Drum agrees with Roberts, noting:

My guess is that 50 years from now Gulf War I and Gulf War II will be considered merely the opening salvos in a single, longrunning conflict: the first of the large, modern wars fought primarily to protect the oil supplies of the West.

Our interest in oil is neither surprising nor reprehensible: without a steady supply of oil the world economy would collapse, bringing untold misery to billions. What is reprehensible is that even after 9/11 made our oil vulnerability as stunningly clear as 3,000 dead can make it, we still have no national effort in place to try and reduce our oil dependency. Literally nothing.

The only thing I’m not sure about is what this says about the Bush administration. Are they so cluelessly ideological that they simply never even consider non-market/non-military solutions to energy security? Or are they really so venal that they’re not willing to consider any other solution?

Responses will be forwarded to Mr Drum himself.

Update: There is also an interview with Roberts in Mother Jones.

Foreign Policy popped through the letterbox today, and what a great read it is. Niall Ferguson has the cover story, it is usual Ferguson, interesting nonetheless.

Other articles are good too, more on that later.

Nicholas Kristoff with another stirring article on the situation in Sudan. Go read it.

Perhaps Americans truly don’t care about the hundreds of thousands of lives at stake – we have other problems, and Darfur is far away. But my hunch is that if we could just meet the victims, we would not be willing to acquiesce in genocide.

Peter is having a great time having a bash at George Monbiot and his book, the Age of Consent.

He concludes, with some mirth I imagine:

That doesn’t alter the fact that Monbiot has written something directly contradicting his sources. At least Jayson Blair could blame booze and coke and Philip Glass had a vivid imagination, but why should this bullshit be published? I suppose that a profession willing to give Andrew Gilligan a second chance doesn’t hold itself to very high ethical standards. Or maybe it’s just another British craft industry like coal-mining or ship-building where the workers won’t take any responsibility for their output.

Watch out Monbiot, Peter is watching you.