US: TERROR POLITICS?

Why Osama will be...!
Alive! There are reasons to kill Osama, and there are reasons to keep him alive; Pakistan, and the US, look decisively tilted towards the latter

May 11, 2010: In context with the failed attempt of the Times Square bombing, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warns that Pakistan would face “severe consequences” if a future terrorist attack on US soil was traced back to Pakistan and said, “…Pak officials know where bin Laden, al Qaeda, Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban leadership are.” A few days later, she reiterates her warning (albeit in a relatively softer tone) and said, “There is more that Pakistan must do to face what is now a common enemy…” May 12, 2010: The US Defence Secretary Robert Gates bellows, “The relationship between the two anti-terror allies [aka, USA and Pakistan] has improved significantly over the last two years.”

In the two statements above, which are obviously contradictory, the usage of word “ally” does raise critical concerns. When one juxtaposes this with the latest leakage of thousands of secret US military records by a whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks, which proves Pakistan’s deep complicity in terrorist activities, US pro-Pak political intentions suddenly become suspiciously dangerous, as the US and especially Barack Obama ostensibly are still not convinced enough to declare Pakistan as a terrorist state, amazingly turning a blind eye to what seems crystal clear to the rest of the world!

But wait! Barack’s bent clearly must be a put-on, in his efforts to get Pakistan’s assistance to catch Osama bin Laden, right? At least initially, it seemed so. But of late, Barack’s double entendres just can’t be ignored. While Barack announced that his administration would stick with pulling out US troops from Iraq (down from a peak 150,000 to 50,000 by the end of this month), he has concurrently increased the deployment of US soldiers in Afghanistan (up from 68,000 to 100,000). With a shrewd redeployment, it’s quite clear that the US is simply gaining avenues to increase its influence over Central Asia. Without the excuse of hunting down Osama bin Laden and Taliban, the US would surely have faced global admonition on troop deployment.

On the other side of the coin, the presence of Osama and the controlled nurturing of Taliban and anti-India elements allows Pakistan to keep receiving spectacularly humungous aid from the US, most of the moneys going to the personal pockets of local bureaucrats and politicians in Pakistan, a handful of who – by some accounts – are now close to becoming billionaires. Pre-Osama, from 1991 till 2000, Pakistan received $434.2 million as economic and military assistance aid from the US. Post Osama (9/11), from 2001 till 2009, Pakistan has received a shocking $15 billion from the US; and Obama had deftly announced another hollering $7.5 billion in October 2009! 

Newsweek reported late last year that officials at the US embassy in Islamabad alleged that “Pakistan misspent some 70% of the US funds!” Pakistan is also accused of “running a double game with the money, keeping the Taliban at bay just enough to persuade American benefactors to keep their wallets open.” Not that this was a State secret; but the benign nature of Barack Obama’s response – or lack of it – is astounding! On August 2, 2010, Obama commented that Pakistan is beginning to “take the fight to violent extremists within its borders.” That sounds as far from the truth as possible.

Thomas Friedman writes in this week’s issue of The Sunday Indian, “The 9/11 attack was basically planned, executed and funded by radical Pakistanis and Saudis.” Fareed Zakaria confirms, “70 percent of the terror plots uncovered in the past decade can be traced back to Pakistan,” a country which, Zakaria adds, is “the epicentre of Islamic terrorism!”

Is Barack Obama blind or are we plain nutty? The practice of keeping anti-social elements alive for political and economic benefits is not just a western phenomenon. In the Asian continent, the most famous case was of a forest brigand cum smuggler in Southern India, called Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, who – in spite of being charged of murdering 184 people, poaching around 200 elephants, smuggling ivory and sandalwood worth $24,600,000, kidnapping the who’s who of the political and entertainment world – never saw the local government ordering swift action against the criminal, mainly because a considerable amount of money flowed into the territory due to his staying alive and in action.

Similar is the case with bin Laden. His living means more to Pakistan than to any other entity. Barack’s refusal to call a spade what it is, will go down in history as perhaps the worst two-faced moves ever made. Friedman quotes, “If you are in a poker game and you don’t know who the sucker is, it’s probably you!” Obama, ever wondered why Chelsea never invited you for her wedding?

Barack Obama’s one year report card

One out of every five!

Obama made several promises during his campaign days, but precious few seem to have been realised. Will America and the world cherish his presidency the same way they had welcomed it? For that to happen, Obama will have to live up to expectations that could be well beyond his reach.

It is quite normal for elected candidates to bear the burden of expectations. What makes Obama peculiar is the scale and magnitude of expectations that he carries. That has in part to do with the symbolism of his election. But that’s a small part, as a majority has to do with all the promises of change he made. Contrary to the expectations of 75,000 supporters and 365 electoral votes, the P.O.T.U.S [President of the United States] Barack Obama has not delivered the change that they could believe in.

Ironically, a person whose campaign was all about “Yes, we can,” hasn’t accomplished much of what he promised. His stimulus package creditably prevented a probable catastrophic financial crash. Yes, it hasn’t nudged the unemployment figures by much, something Obama accepts now. Obama’s flagship agenda of the health care bill is still awaiting its time in the sun. The same goes for his much hyped climate change bill. In his recent State-of-the-Union speech on 27 January, 2010, Obama promised something that is quite the opposite of what he had stood for in his campaign days. Instead of talking about green jobs and climate change policy, he discussed his plans on nuclear power, oil, gas, coal and bio-fuels! That’s change indeed!

The major blows for his supporters so far has been his failure in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison and also in providing relief for illegal immigrants, which he promised and initiated in the initial period of his presidency. Even after a year, Gitmo is active and no concrete policy has been designed for illegal migrants. What is most surprising is that his promises of closing Gitmo and solving other human rights issues were part of the parcel that won him the coveted Nobel Peace Prize. The leading entity PolitiFact found that Obama has kept around 91 of his promises... out of 500!

But Obama’s fall from grace is perfectly well in line with his predecessors. History bears testimony to the fact that not one President of the United States has been able to meet any kind of unrealistic deadlines or unrealistic promises. Quoting from one of our previous surveys, take for instance Woodrow Wilson who promised to keep the US out of World War I and ended up pushing the US into the same war. Then came Herbert Hoover in 1928, who, in his presidency speech, pledged to end poverty and promised “a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage”– but eventually gifted the US ‘The Great Depression’ and gave many chickens a new lease of life! By the end of 1932, the unemployment figure touched the 24.9% mark with around 5,000 banks failing. Following the trend, Franklin D. Roosevelt graciously ‘un’met his 1932 pledge to maintain balanced budgets and to keep the US out of World War II. He bombed Japan and his government’s spending increased from 8.0% of GNP to 10.2%. The national debt, in turn, doubled from 16% to 33.6%. Richard Nixon promised resolutely in 1968 to ‘quickly’ resolve the Vietnam War. He didn’t! George H.W. Bush Senior promised in 1988, “Read my lips: No new taxes!” For records, he increased taxes and strangely parted with exclusions for high-income taxpayers. It seems that Obama, is on his way to keeping the spirit of freedom alive and kicking.

Nothing can indicate this more than Obama’s southward moving rating graph. His approval rating has dropped from 67% in 2009 to 50% today, the lowest ever rating at the end of a president’s first year term. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were the only other presidents polled who, like Obama, started their second years as president in the 50s (percentage wise), earning 55% and 54%, respectively. Then there’s more. A YouGov Polimetrix poll for The Economist found that 51% people think Obama says what people want to hear and not what he believes in. The same poll further reveals that a huge percentage disapproves the way Barack Obama is handling the Iraq issue (43% disapproval), the economy (47%), immigration (47%), terrorism (42%), health care (45%), social security (43%) and the Afghan war (49%).

Obama’s sycophantic speeches haven’t helped his cause post election so far. And beyond any apprehension, the second year will be even tougher. With Obama losing support (and majority) at the Senate, passing health care bills, moving his immigration policy further and ensuring more green jobs will become harder. But then as his campaign showed, Obama is known to be at his best with his back to the wall, at least when it comes to giving off his spiel against countries like India and China and the business threats they pose to the future of America. Irrespective of his spiel, there would be five simian issues that Obama would find hard to get off his back in the coming year. The IIPM Think Tank provides its analysis of the list.  

Obama promise: healthcare

Every time he promised to negotiate healthcare reforms in public during his two year long campaign, Obama won applause all around. His campaign rhetoric went thus, “We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies – they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair... That approach, I think, is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.”

Studies by the Department of Health and Human Services estimate that health spending will grow an average of 6.2% a year in the coming decade, to $4.4 trillion in 2018, which makes the whole issue about healthcare insurance more pertinent. The healthcare bill, if passed, would have required all US citizens’ to have a health insurance and would subsidise premiums for many. This would enable families to cut their medical costs by around $2,500 a year. But the bill has faced many hurdles, especially from lawmakers & an already burdened Treasury.

The malaise in health insurance currently is too deep and malignant, and it all is expounded in the face of some clearly nonchalant insurance plans. For example, in some private plans, women are charged up to 48% more than men for exactly the same medical service. Even a Caesarean section is considered a pre-existing condition. In fact, some plans even consider a victim of domestic abuse as having a pre-existing condition (and thus deny insurance). As per a few studies, lack of health insurance is responsible for more than 48,000 deaths every year in the US. Critics say that the whole industry is now like an organised mafia. If one plays to the hooters gallery, then it’s easy to see that while the private insurance industry is more concerned about (ensuring?) healthcare denial, the CEOs in this sector were pretty well looked after – CEO packages of ten large insurance companies averaged around $11 million in 2008.

So it’s not only about providing American’s with better medical service but also about breaking the existing mafia by private insurance companies. And Obama is clearly fighting a losing battle. 

END OF THE WORLD

From Mayan to ‘Obama’yan

Yes, we can’t (duh) 

Perhaps it’s already too late to save the world of its various ills; a primer

“State of Fear”. That is the name of a book where the late Michael Crichton talks about eco-terrorists who are attempting to create a ‘state of fear’ to press forward their point-of-view regarding global warming. There have been several prophecies from almost all civilizations pointing toward the end of the world. Be it the Mayan 2012 prediction or the Chinese oracle of the I Ching or the internet bot software program – ‘Web-Bot Project’ (which predicted that a reversion of the earth’s magnetic poles will devastate the world in 2012) – all forecasts have boiled down to a specific date of the end of the global society to peddle their postulation.
Surprisingly, we are not questioning the credibility of these oracles; instead; we are forwarding the premise that perhaps all these oracles who did get it right (their forecasts, that is) for all the wrong reasons (of course, the dates were all kooky) dug up a bigger problem – and that was that all the ‘other’ forecasts which were positively more pertinent and had a better chance of seeing the light – or dark – of the day were also relegated to the standard bin of ‘end of the world’ theories. To contribute our mite to the weight of the bin, is this issue’s section of Scrutiny, in which we pretend to be the first ones to be predicting how and why the end of the world is nearer than you thought and why Obama might end up being able to do nothing about it.
At least geo-politically, what we are seeing around is surely nothing less than steps towards the end of the world – the rising tension in Middle East, strategic moves by Russia, emergence of China and South Asia in making themselves potently loaded with nuclear weapons... Economists who support the growth of nuclear arsenal (yes, they are there!) forward the hypothesis that in the modern era, weak countries are arming themselves not with an intention to attack, but with an objective to dissuade other stronger countries from attacking them. The theorem does hold credibility – when Pakistan attacked India’s borders, India was constrained in its response due to Pakistan’s visible atomic base.
However, those are not democratic and sane governments that rule all countries across the world. Studies have shown, but obviously, that even a limited nuclear war would devastate the world. And the day an autocratic or military ruler decides push has come to shove and the time to decimate the opponent is now, many more than the two of us would wish we were living near the Thames in London.
What the world today requires is a foolproof non-proliferation policy. Comprehending the vibes, Obama has already amended his policy to protect the world from nuclear terrorism. During his April 2009 speech in Prague, he delineated his arms control and non-proliferation agendas and promised a US-led international effort to secure “all vulnerable nuclear materials” within the next four years. That is the most far reaching agenda any US President – for that matter, any premier across the world – has announced in history. To start it up diplomatically, in the recent G8 Summit in Italy, he announced a Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 to combat nuclear smuggling and prevent nuclear terrorism.
Obama knows his priorities too well – the US considers climate emissions control its last priority on the ‘save the world’ list; the December Copenhagen summit will be proof enough. We aren’t complaining about that...

Alpha (decay) male

Alpha males that we all are, none of us believes a nuke attack will ever happen in our lifetimes – so we write this treatise to the alpha female

With around 2000 nuclear weapons on high alert and ready for launch, the nuclear Armageddon is just waiting for its reincarnation. We provide some ‘what if’ details.
There are currently more than 30,000 nuclear weapons of which 8,000 are currently operational. In 1977, the US Department of Defense predicted 265 million casualties from a full-scale US-Soviet nuclear war. United Nations Disarmament Committee states there are more than 16,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons ready for deployment and another 14,000 in storage. With regional tension intensifying, especially among nuclear-rich countries, the probability of nuclear war can’t be denied.
Around 50 nuclear weapons are reportedly deployed against each other by India and Pakistan, targeting their megacities. An incident involving Israel and a neighbour (particularly Syria and Lebanon and to some extent the Palestinian areas) may stimulate the Arab nations to fight. Even the nuclear tensions in Iran and North Korea are increasing. Iran’s nuclear program and North Korea’s nuclear testing spree adds to the complexity. Factoring in nuclear terrorism creates a creepy new dimension with enhanced risk. A nuclear country with a terrorist presence could trigger a nuclear war easily. After the US attempt to push Russia’s neighbours into NATO and the EU, the probability of a US-Russia flash war, though feeble, still can’t be done away with. NATO has stationed around 500 nuclear weapons in Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Turkey. When it comes to the mightiest, the US and Russia keep hundreds of missiles armed with thousands of nuclear warheads on high-alert, 24 hours a day, that reach their targets in less than 30 minutes.
So what if a ‘mild’ nuclear bomb detonates, say in the subcontinent (ten times the power of Little Boy)? In the 30 million subsequent deaths, NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council) calculated that almost 22.1 million people (in India and Pakistan) would be exposed to lethal radiation doses of 600 rem (units that measure the effects of ionizing radiation on humans) in the first two days after the attack. Add to this, 8 million people would be affected by 100 to 600 rem. In general, besides the local destructions, any nuclear war in any part of the world would result in a ripple effect. A study on the ‘Atmospheric chemistry of regional nuclear war’ suggests that the hot smoke from a burning city would tear holes in the ozone layer. Research by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder proves that the increased ultraviolet radiation (from the ozone loss) would double the DNA damage along with increasing the cancer rates manifold. This would also reduce crop yields and starve hundreds of millions the world-over.
It is now clear that even a limited and local nuclear war involving less than 100 low-yield weapons, apart from killing a minimum of 20-25 million people, would activate a decade of cold climate titled the ‘nuclear winter’ (report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science). This limited war would also generate 1 to 5 million tonnes of carbonaceous smoke particles, darkening the sky. NASA predicts that 40% of this smoke would stay in the stratosphere for 10 years. The Journal of Geophysical Research concludes through climate model simulations that even a small nuclear conflict would cause mayhem on the atmosphere by “cooling it twice as much as it has heated over the last century.” The journal reports that on an average, global surface cooling of –7°C to –8°C would remain for years – this could well make global temperatures colder than they were 18,000 years ago.
Like we mentioned, it is much easier (and faster) to die from the effects of a nuclear disaster than from those of global warming. Black humour aside, the world in general should gather behind Obama to support his effort to make the world free of nuclear weapons. What would work against him is the fact that the US has extremely less moral authority on this issue. Well, they’ve carried out 1050 plus known nuclear tests till date..

Rahm Emanuel

Obama’s secret weapon!

Countries like Iran and India have strangely not realised the importance of Rahm Emanuel; it is time...

Rahm Emanuel is a name that irritates many more than it intended to in the first place; some say because the man shoots first and doesn’t even ask later. That Obama is using Rahm to straighten numerous issues in America’s foreign policy – be it for Afghanistan or Israel or Arabs – is now well known, but what might not be known is that it was William Daroff (who directs the Washington office of the United Jewish Communities or the UJC) who first called Rahm Emanuel “Obama’s secret weapon.”
For the uninitiated, ‘Rahmbo’ Emanuel began his political career raising money for several Democratic campaigns and later in 1991, became a fund-raiser for Bill Clinton’s Presidential bid. A few years later, in 2006, he was central in devising the Democratic takeover of Congress. Currently, Rahm is Obama’s Chief-of-Staff – a position widely accepted to be the second most powerful in the US government – and although Obama may not like the inference, Emanuel is believed to be the cerebral force and pusher behind Obama’s ‘do-everything-at-once’ strategy. From supporting and promoting Obama’s stimulus package plan, to helping overhaul the healthcare bill and getting it passed, Rahm has worked fanatically for most of Obama’s initiatives, lobbied with numerous research groups, fought for the bailout, the budget bill and much more, not just for the sake of the nation, but as Obama states, for a friend.
Both Obama and Emanuel’s political legacy can be found in Chicago. They have known each other since their early political career. But the truth behind their personal friendship perhaps became starkly clear to the world only after Obama’s official speech, which he gave after inviting Rahm to be the Chief of Staff this year, “I am pleased to announce that my good friend, Congressman Rahm Emanuel, has agreed to serve as my White House Chief of Staff... In just six years in Congress, he has risen to leadership, helping to craft myriad important pieces of legislation and guide them to passage... The son of an Israeli immigrant, Rahm shares a passionate love for this country, and has devoted much of his life to its cause... I appreciate his friendship. And I, and all Americans, should be grateful that Rahm is once again answering his country’s call.” It has been unprecedented for any past President of the United States to publicly accept his personal closeness at such levels to such a high member of the cabinet, and this at the danger of being accused of being nepotistic.
And the biggest advantaged entity we guess is Israel. Rahm is a Jew, has served as a civilian volunteer in the Israeli defense force, and is expected to be the leading think tank behind Obama’s strategy on Israel (Benjamin Emanuel, father of Rahm, said, “Obviously he [Rahm] will influence the President to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”). Recently, Obama cancelled his planned visit to the UJC/Jewish Federation of North America conference. It would have been Obama’s first major address to a Jewish American group since he became President. No prizes for guessing who’s going in Obama’s place.
It would do well for nations at the wrong end of Obama’s different sticks – for examples Iran, India – to instead try and convince Rahm Emanuel on many conflicting issues. Think about it, how many times has an Indian or Iranian government head invited/talked to/met or even mentioned Emanuel’s policy on India? There, you have the answer!
 

Abortion (to allow it. . . or not to)

Birth rights of sperms & eggs

The debate on abortion has moved away from the empowerment of women to cutting religious propaganda

Of course, all this is not happening for the first time. Since time immemorial, a woman’s body has been the theoretical and unembellished territory for societal and political war. From the theoretical, scientific and religious end, there are numerous logical stages that define the starting point where ‘human life’ begins. Many schools of thoughts believe that sperms and eggs have life; and put them at par with humans, thus considering them as preconceived life. Many don’t! But almost all blocks ranging from political to religious are in some or the other form discussing the issue of abortion – or as the critics call it, immoral killing of a life.

So what is the debate all about? That’s simple, as that rests on the analysis of the options a woman with unwanted pregnancy has, and those are: one, she can put up the child for adoption; two, she can accept the child; and three, she can abort the unborn child. And that is where the whole debate on abortion starts, with opposing philosophies promoted by two schools of thought: Pro-choice campaigners (who demand a mother be allowed to choose whichever of the three options she might wish to undertake), as opposed by pro-life campaigners (who generally argue in terms of foetal rights rather than reproductive rights). The pro-choice group believes that “a woman should have complete control over her fertility and the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy,” and demand that a woman is given ‘the guarantee’ of reproductive rights – access to sexual education, fertility treatments, contraception, to safe and legal abortion, and even legal protection from forced abortion. The pro-life group’s philosophy revolves around the argument that “…human foetuses and embryos are persons, and therefore they have a right to live.” Thus, the movement is characterised by extreme wingers opposing sale and use of contraception, practise of death penalty, euthanasia, cloning, embryonic stem cell research et cetera.

Philosophers and writers have been key in this debate, saddling further complicated arguments. Mary Anne Warren, noted American writer and philosophy professor (cited in major publications like Peter Singer’s ‘The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature’ and Bernard Gert’s ‘Bioethics: A Systematic Approach’) concludes that the foetus “satisfies only one criterion: consciousness (and this, only after it becomes susceptible to pain); the foetus is not a person and abortion is therefore morally permissible.” Using a scientific angle, a former President of the British Academy and current President of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, the well known Anthony J P Kenny believes that since division of the zygote into twins through the process of monozygotic twinning can occur until the 14th day of pregnancy, abortion should not be permissible after two weeks! Again, noted American moral philosopher and metaphysician Judith J Thomson states that even if the foetus has a right to life, abortion is still morally permissible because a woman has a right to control her own body. The concepts of pro-life versus prochoice are in general visible across the world, leading to starkly distanced abortion laws across the world – for example, if in Canada abortion is available ‘on demand’, then in a country like Nicaragua, abortions are illegal.

In history, under Roman law, abortion did occur and was allowed, though only sometimes. Under the common law in England and in the US, abortion was illegal after the movements of the foetus could first be felt by the mother to be. In the 19th century, many western countries began to use statutes to codify abortion.

Under Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union legalised all abortions in 1920, but this was fully reversed in 1936 by Stalin in order to increase population growth. Between 1930 to 1960, several countries like Poland, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and Mexico legalised abortion in some special cases. This was followed by legalisation of abortion in Japan, Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Canada, United States, France, Austria, New Zealand, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. Since the last few decades, as per reports published by Guttmacher Institute, most of the decline in abortion rates occurred in countries where abortion had long been legal. Contemporarily, the highest rates of abortion have shifted to developing countries, which often have some of the most restrictive abortion laws. In countries like Thailand and Iran, after abortion restrictions were eased around 1997, unsafe abortions have slipped from 15 to 14 per 1,000 women, a big drop when seen demographically, given the fact that around 70,000 women – mostly in developing countries – die each year from unsafe abortions. Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Malta and Vatican City ban the procedure entirely, but in Canada and the US, as we mentioned before, there are no restrictions on the provision of abortion. In the US, almost half of all pregnancies are unintended and thus four in ten of these end in abortions. The Bush administration had placed a ban on federal funding for international family planning programs that provide abortion information to clients. Obama, within a week of being sworn in, lifted the Bush administration’s ban. Obama further passed an executive order officially scrapping the Mexico City Policy (that ‘protected’ – or rather, restricted – taxpayers from involvement in overseas abortions for eight years). Kenya, India, Bangladesh, Spain, Mexico, all are nations where abortion is illegal (sometimes, after a few weeks of conception; like in India) but the governments are not able to control or deliberately overlook the illegal abortions (Mexico has over 900,000 illegal abortions every year). And this point is where religious groups, especially the Catholic communities, are lobbying very hard to stop abortions globally. In general, a majority of Catholic Christians are considered to be pro-life. We repeat, in general! While pro-life believers use scripture references to propagate their views, Roman Catholics in particular recognise that conception is the definitive start of what we know as human life; and therefore, abortion at any stage is immoral.

While Barack is now giving millions of dollars to groups that aggressively promote the pro-choice concept on a worldwide scale, he has been highly condemned by the Vatican along with pro-life leaders on this move. In the Dominican Republic, after the Dominican Catholic Church lobbied, the present laws ban abortion in all circumstances, even in cases of rape; in fact, even when the mother’s life is in danger. Abortion is banned in Catholic heavy Ireland, except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. In Spain, though abortion is illegal, with the passage of gay rights the ban was expected to be removed. However, the Catholic Church has launched strong campaigns to prevent the reform from being passed. It’s clear that the issue of abortion can never escape the bloodying conflict between the political and religious spheres. The politician who attempts to go against the existing religious paradigm could well end up losing a huge base of voters – Obama knew that and still won. But then, is abortion right or wrong?

That, we truly believe, is for a nation and its people to decide. If the democratically elected legislature of a country – which promotes equal women’s rights – believes abortions should be allowed or banned, in whatever form or reason, then be that as it may! Unfortunately, not only is the majority of most global legislative assemblies almost always made up of men, these nations also suffer what we now know as the Roe Effect, which says that pro-choice parents have generally ended up having more abortions and hence fewer children over decades than the pro-life population; thus support for legal abortions has declined over time, and will decline further in the future. That, sadly, might be the way of things to be in the future...

 

 

United States of America: Transition history

A brief history of character!

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the President of the United States; a commentary...

With tectonic shifts in the US politics power play, the longstanding question of US competence seems to be resurfacing. Let us clarify. That Bush was incompetent is not a Nobel Prize winning theory. But will US be seen again as an intellectually social nation, is the question! Not only Americans, but the whole world is waiting for Democrats to come to true power and refurbish America’s tainted image. Let’s be honest, US, through decades, has built its reputation on genuine achievements that took years of some prim and somewhat improper planning. In contemporary history, it all started from the first nuclear weapon US gave to the world, through what is now known as the Manhattan project. Then came their Marshall plan in 1947 [officially the European Recovery Programme], which focussed on fortifying a stronger foundation for Western Europe, and warding off communism after the second World War. Beside these two war-oriented initiatives, the US also proved its competence in the field of science, technology and arts. This is evident by the number of Nobel Prizes that Americans grabbed – a jaw dropping 309 since 1906 [an average of 3 prizes per year] making it the top contestant in the race. America also developed remarkable institutions of higher learning [Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale] giving depth to what ivy league defined. Perchance the most appreciable move was the development of a society that redefined the meaning of melting pot. From the criminally racist days of Cassius Clay, most of US transformed uniquely to welcome all ethnic groups, religions and races. Today, however, the scenario seems different and of course bleak, and the growing acceptance is that nonfeasance is a major risk to America’s global image. The last ten years have been enough to vividly showcase the scars America has received and encouraged. The Iraq war and the much publicised absence of mass destructive weapons was the key. From the American initiative to use private security companies to protect Iraq’s oil infrastructure to the much hyped Iraq reconstruction projects [The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported frauds in the initiative and led to conviction of many top officials]; from the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, where the prisoners were subjected to unspeakable torture [Amnesty International’s 2005 report confirmed the same], to Sergeant Samuel Provance [who reported the sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl by two interrogators]; from US Attorney Alberto Gonzalez [under his regime, the Justice Department and the FBI have illegally used the US Patriot Act to uncover personal information about US citizens] to Bernard Madoff [arrested oncharges of the biggest accounting fraud in history that led to investors losing $50 billion]; from all this to much more, US hasleft much to answer for its ‘achievements’ in the last eight years, be it the response to Hurricane Katrina, or Saddam Hussein’s structured execution, or America’s conspiratorial and deliberate support to promoting the recession, or the Wall Street melt down, and of course, Bush’s failure to capture Osama bin laden! But perhaps Bush is playing to the past, where previous Presidents have mirrored his lack of commitment to promises.

Woodrow Wilson promised to keep the US out of World War I; and ended up pushing the US into the same war. Then came Herbert Hoover’s 1928 famed pledge to end poverty – he gifted US ‘The Great Depression’. Franklin D. Roosevelt met with aplomb his 1932 pledge to maintain balanced budgets and to keep the US out of World War II. He ‘atom’ bombed Japan and his government’s spending increased from 8.0% of GNP to10.2%. The national debt doubled from 16% to 33.6%. Nixon promised resolutely in 1968 to ‘quickly’ resolve the Vietnam War. If not the war, he at least ended the drought of box office hits in Hollywood where innumerable movies kept on crapping about US heroism in Vietnam.

George H.W. Bush Senior promised in 1988, “Read my lips: No new taxes!” For records, he increased taxes and strangely parted with exclusions for high-income taxpayers. If John F. Kennedy had only Marilyn Monroe for company in history books, Ronald Reagan had Parkinson’s and Star Wars. Yes, William Jefferson Clinton is the most successful President in recent history on almost all parameters– economic [US deficits fell], social [crime rates fell too], global security [Arabs loved him; their wives too]. That he will be known more for Monica than for any of his achievements is the irony of the factor that Americans have lost almost completely, a factor called character.

One man caught on to the remnants of this almost dead factor in the deep emotions of Americans; one man who believed that if hope lived in Harriet Beecher Stowe, then character could live again in Americans; one man who beseeched America to change, radically, dramatically, emphatically to nurture back the character of a nation that once believed in humanity. Till now, he is only known for the colour of his skin. Somewhere in the future, when America redeems the depth in its character, and the character in its promises, this man will be known more for his achievements... “When his children will one day live in a nation, where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.” That is the dream... That is the dream...

 

 

Rio de Janeiro: Olympic Bid

Olympian samba in ‘Lula’land

Brazil is on track to host the 2016 Olympics, but it must also focus on developing more world class athletes

“Yes we créu!”, may sound like a cliché – especially to all those North Americans who have been pre-occupied with the razzmatazz of “Yes, we can”. But this was one occasion they couldn’t; make Chicago win the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, that is. And this happened despite Barack Obama himself staking his reputation behind Chicago’s bid. 

Anyways, the more interesting development has been w.r.t. to the winner – Rio de Janeiro, a city famous for sun and sin, which got chosen ahead of Chicago and Tokyo. Even more shocking was Madrid’s lost of 32-66 in a direct contest between the two in the final round of voting. It’s for the first time that any Latin American country will be hosting Olympic games. The IOC’s choice of Rio de Janeiro makes the emergence
of this “backyard of the United States” quite evident.

What came as an added advantage for Rio was the ongoing preparation for 2014 FIFA World Cup in the country. Brazil has always been over-enthusiastic about football. And this has acted as amajor shot in the arm for its bid for the Olympic games. Since most of Brazil’s infrastructure and games venues are under a major overhaul for the FIFA World Cup, the city seems pseudo-ready for Olympics.

But it seems that this “backyard of the United States” was also preparing itself quite well “behind the veil.” To win the 2016 games for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil spent almost $50 million. Rio will spend an estimated $11.1 billion to build the facilities and infrastructure for the Olympic venues. So much so that Brazilian president Lula da Silva spent two days in Copenhagen and also wrote personal letters to the 106 voting members. He had each letter hand-delivered by an ambassador. Obama’s effort was quite measured in comparison, as he made a special appearance at the last moment. Along with Lula, soccer legend Pele and Olympic champion swimmer Cesar Cielo were also there to urge IOC members. Lula da Silva said in his appeal to IOC delegates, “It’s not possible that it be in England in 2012 and in another European country in 2016 ... It’s not fair that Brazil, one of the 10 biggest economies in the world for 30 years; that Brazil, one of the world’s industrialized countries, a nation that has demonstrated its love for sports; it’s not fair that Brazil not be chosen.”

Europe has already hosted 30 Olympic games, while Asia has five. Oceania has hosted two and North America has bagged 12, including eight in the US alone. Rio also hosted the Pan American Games in 2007, which has led to a lot of positive change in the city. Even the local public support was higher for Rio as per the IOC poll. Around 67% locally supported Chicago, 56% locally supported the Tokyo and 85% locally supported the Games in Rio and Madrid.

Lula knows that along with a huge games infrastructure, Rio needs a complete re-fabrication of its transportation system. To ease the chaotic traffic of the city, Rio is planning to make roadways through granite mountains (from Ipanema to Barra da Tijuca). Rio also plans to upgrade its bus rapid transit or BRT systems. With the poverty graph moving southwards and offshore oil deals paying off the county well, things are indeed looking up for the company. Out of the total planned investment of $14.4 billion, around $11.5 billion will be spent on building/upgrading infrastructure. As per Brazil’s sports ministry, the games are expected to rake in 120,000 jobs each year across Brazil until 2016 and an additional 130,000 jobs per year for the following 10 years. 

 The biggest predicament for this nation now is preparing its athletes, especially in the country that is known as Holy Grail of football, but not so much for other sports. China spend millions on development of its athletes, while UK is doing the same for the London Olympics in 2012. Just like China, Brazil will want to showcase its growing might to the world in every possible way through these Olympic games. And an inspired performance by its own athletes may just be the icing on the cake it needs.

US & Canada: healthcare dissimilarities

Rich dad, poor dad

Barack just needs to look to his neighbours to understand health policies

That America has not done as well in supporting health issues over the years is a given fact. But how bad is ‘not done as well’? The answer is pretty bad. Not many would know that in the US, the incidence of cancer among males and females is 562.3 and 417.3 per 1,00,000 respectively (American Cancer Society, Surveillance and Health Policy Research, 2009), life expectancy is 77.8 years, infant mortality rate is 6.9 deaths per 1,000
live births (CNN once reported that the US has the second worst newborn death  rate in the modern world), mortality rate under the age of five years for males and females is 9 and 7 per 1,000 live births respectively, only 2.7 acute care beds per 1,000 people are available (5th worst amongst all OECD nations), 2.8 physicians per 1,000 and ranks 72nd by overall level of health on WHO parameters!

Perhaps today, the biggest issue in the US is the failure of its healthcare system, especially given the debate on Obama’s policy decisions. Though Obama is not labelled a failure, yet when it comes to healthcare reforms, it might not take too long for his 300+ million supporters to ‘change’ their point-of-view. One need not travel miles to prove what ails the States. Their next door neighbour – Canada – is a case in point, or rather, against the point. Canada has a healthcare model that is better; because it works!

Even after having a US-like healthcare model, Canada has successfully achieved better results in its healthcare report card. Healthcare spending in Canada is around $160 billion or 10.1% of its GDP in 2007, which is one percentage point higher than the average spending by OECD countries. But very interestingly, it is far lower than the US allocation, which is 16% of GDP. Canada also spends lesser on a per capita basis compared to the US. Canada’s total healthcare per capita spending was around $3,895, which is lower than the $7,290 per capita spending of the US. The critical reason why the system, despite spending less, works better in Canada is that while the public sector is the main source of funding for Canadian healthcare, the US system is dependent on private source funding.

In the year 2007, 70% of healthcare spending in Canada was through public sources (which, though, has decreased from 74.5% in 1990), while in the US, the same was 45% (the lowest among all OECD countries). Unbelievably, this happens despite the fact that the Canadian government spends a lesser amount (16.7% of its revenue) on its citizens’ health than the US government (which spent 18.5% of its revenues last year). Surprisingly, in spite of such gigantic healthcare spending in the US, a whopping 40% of the US citizens lack adequate accessibility to the country’s healthcare system (24% of the US population remained under-insured, according to the Consumer Reports Study, 2007), while with relatively lower investments, only 5% of Canadians are outside the system.

It is also astounding to observe that simply having more doctors, physicians and nurses doesn’t ensure a high quality of health service. Canada has fewer physicians per capita than in most other OECD countries (In 2007, it had just 2.2 practicing physicians per 1,000 people, lesser than the 2.8 physicians per 1,000 population in the US). Canada has 9 nurses per 1,000 people, while the US has 10.6 nurses per 1,000. Canada also ranks as worse as the US in the number of acute care beds per 1000 people (2.7). Look at where that has brought Canada. Canadians have an average life expectancy of 80.4 years according to the Canadian Institute of Health Information (US: 77.8). Infant mortality rate also has come down drastically to 5 deaths per 1,000 live births (US: 6.9). Adult smokers consuming tobacco products has gone down from 34% in 1980 to 18% in 2007 through an effective public awareness campaign, advertising ban and taxation moves. In Canada, 15% of its population is obese, far below the US, which has 34.3% of its population afflicted by obesity (OECD health data). Experts comment that patented drug prices are 35% to 45% lower in Canada than in the US. Some US citizens now even purchase prescription drugs from Canada (many using online transactions) than from their home country – this cross-border purchasing has been estimated at $1 billion.

Where’s the learning in all this? A key concept that the US government could start with is that the Canadian government centrally sets the guidelines for healthcare and ensures they are uniform throughout the country. Moreover, the government ensures that the system is non-discriminatory, both qualitatively – in terms of treatment – and quantitatively – in terms of pricing. According to a recent news analysis by Financial Times, a heart bypass operation that would cost some $1,30,000 in the US costs $24,600 at Bumrungrad at Bangkok – and even when airfares and a two-week holiday/recuperation period are factored in, it is still almost 80% cheaper.

Barack Obama might do well to read a relatively newer study published in The American Journal of Medicine, which says that medical debt is the principal cause of personal bankruptcy in the US, and its impact on weakening the whole economy should not come as a surprise.

The Presidential Tracking Poll published by The Rasmussen Reports shows how now, “the number who Strongly Approve [of Obama] has fallen from 43% in January to 30% in August. During that same time frame, the number who Strongly Disapprove has grown from 20% to 39%. Those numbers translate to a Presidential Approval Index that has declined from +23 in January to -9 in August 2009.” That’s the lowest ever recorded for Barack Obama, once considered and talked of in the same breath as Lincoln and Roosevelt. But those ratings are still better than Bush’s, who – in the final month of his job – had only 13% saying they ‘Strongly Approved’ of him, and 43% saying they ‘Strongly Disapproved’ (Bush ended up getting a negative Presidential rating of -30).

This is not to say his health policy commentaries are wrong, but to say that clearly, Barack Obama does have an incredible lot of distance to cover on healthcare. Some mention the distance is 498 miles... from Washington to Ottawa.

us: racial profiling

Uncle Tom’s cabin!

Obama’s concerns over racism in US are well researched and well read

It was a debate of yesterday. It is still a debate of today and would remain so, even for tomorrow, cans of beer guzzled down the throat or not! Now, it’s not at all about the “stupid” act of Cambridge police in arresting Professor Henry Gates, but about Obama’s lateral comment (extremely intelligently put, we should say), “...there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.” Many Americans ostensibly were shocked by the statement; but they have very less justification.

For Obama was voted to power backed by his commitment to righting this disparity (We quote from his speech in the Congressional Caucus Democratic debate, “In our criminal justice system, African-Americans... [as compared to whites], for the same crime... are arrested/convicted at very different rates. That is something that we have to talk about.”). America has a long deep-rooted history of discrimination. It is a land where women witnessed discrimination and were not allowed to vote till 1920 (they were allowed only after the passage of the 19th Amendment to the constitution). The struggle of blacks for their rights is no more a jaw-dropping story. Going by Department of Justice data, by the mid of 2008, 4,777 black male inmates per 100,000 black males were held in prisons, compared to 727 white male inmates per 100,000 white males – this despite the fact that blacks make up only 13.4% of the US population.

Blacks experience disproportionate burden of health diseases, injury and death. Researches show that in 2002, HIV deaths amongst blacks were approximately 11 times more amongst whites. National Urban League’s 2006 annual report revealed that out of 580,000 blacks who are serving sentence in prison, a mere 6.89% males had a bachelor’s degree. Nearly 70% blacks in prison never completed their schooling. Likewise, in a 1994 Department of Justice survey of felony, it was found that blacks were in general more likely to receive prison sentences than whites. Between 1995-2000, out of 682 defendants facing death penalty, 48% were blacks, 29% were Hispanics, and 20% were whites. Following this, a study by Wake County found African Americans had bail set 18% higher than whites charged with similar crimes.

Even in terms of earnings, researches show that in 1964, African Americans’ income was 58% of white people’s income. In 1991, African Americans’ income was just 57% of income of whites. And in the US army, as per the recent data, while 62.7% are whites, 20% are blacks. At the commissioned officer level, the ratio is 12.4% blacks vs 73% whites.

The recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 27% of Americans think Professor Gates is more at fault for getting arrested than Sergeant Crowley! If you think that that percentage is fortunate for a change, don’t be hasty in passing the baton of goodness. Wrong judgements and hasty ‘Rodney King’ decisions by police force are not new phenomena. Some cutting cases – Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant, was shot dead in 1999 by police officers who mistook his taking out a wallet for a gun; he was shot 41 times. For a similar reason, Sean Bell was shot to death by NYPD in 2006 – shot 50 times. Omar Edwards, May 2009 – same result! The list is long...

The customary approach of whites on blacks clearly makes the case against James Crowley and in favour of Dr. Louis Henry Gates. President Obama is unquestionably right with his comments against Crowley. They’re damn well timed, and he must be gloating at the amount of media coverage his statements got. It was not always like this.

Take for instance, the 100th anniversary of the NAACP’s founding. In his concluding words, Obama frustratingly comments, “…I’ve noticed that when I talk about personal responsibility in the African American community, that gets highlighted… But then the whole other half of the speech, where I talked about government’s responsibility [towards it] ...that somehow doesn’t make news.” And working towards government’s responsibility is what Obama has done fanatically. While in power in Illinois, he introduced a bill that not only made it compulsory for officers to record the racial background of each person they stopped on the roads, but brilliantly, also forced police to video tape all criminal interrogations (to reduce forced confessions, torture and deaths in police custody).

Everybody in the police department opposed it tooth and nail. The governor came on record to oppose it. Obama faced a scenario of being defeated massively in the 58 seat state assembly. But with conviction, and with the audacity of hope, Obama worked on getting people to his side. When the bill was finally introduced, it was passed 58-0!

We quote from Obama’s iconic Audacity of Hope, from an excerpt where he describes a particular incident sometime after he was trounced badly in the 2000 Congressional elections – “A year and a half later, the scars of that loss sufficiently healed, I had lunch with a media consultant who had been encouraging me for some time to run for statewide office... “You realize, don’t you, that the political dynamics have changed,” he [the media consultant] said as he picked at his salad.

“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing fully well what he meant. We both looked down at the newspaper beside him. There, on the front page, was Osama bin Laden.

“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” he said, shaking his head. “Really bad luck. You can’t change your name, of course. Voters are suspicious of that kind of thing. Maybe if you were at the start of your career, you know, you could use a nickname or something. But now...” His voice trailed off and he shrugged apologetically before signalling the waiter to bring us the check.

I suspected he was right, and that realization ate away at me...”

Obama always knew that in white America, white Americans will never vote in majority for a black President... On November 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama won the US Presidential elections – 95% blacks voted for him; only 43% whites did...     

Genocide: double standards

Thank you, Dick!

Does Obama have it in him to accuse Bush and Cheney of genocide?

While the June 4, 2009, Cairo speech of Barack Obama came in for much praise within global audiences, what escaped attention was a supposedly inconsequential meeting of the former Vice President of United States, Richard Cheney, on June 1, 2009, with the press in Washington. While most of the meeting had Cheney spawning of forgettable anecdotes, what grabbed our attention was a series of statements, which started with the scandalous comment, “I do not believe and have never seen evidence to confirm that [Saddam] Hussein was involved in 9/11.”

As is fabled, Bush and Cheney had decided to go to war with Iraq post 9/11 accusing Iraq of being connected in some way with the 9/11 attacks and also of owning Weapons of Mass Destruction, which ergo gave Bush an excuse to preemptively strike Iraq – and specifically “Islamic terrorists” – under the US National Security Strategy. Not that any reason could be justification for causing such invasion, but the fact remains that while Bush’s Iraqi WMD spin had been proven horribly wrong some years back, the latest comments by Cheney seal the argumentative debate on the fact that all in all, the Bush-Cheney combine really had no justification to invade Iraq. And so we come to our Hugo Chavez spin, which is a question on why isn’t Obama’s administration now stepping up the policy ladder and accusing Bush and Cheney of deliberate genocide in Iraq? For records, the United Nations defines genocide as “Any of the [many] acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

Many across the world have been accused, convicted and executed by international courts for such genocidal acts. For appropriate example, as BBC reported on December 30, 2006, “Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein is hanged for crimes against humanity... after a year-long trial over the killings of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail in the 1980s.” If Saddam could be hanged for 148 deaths, allow us to examine the civilian deaths caused due to the Iraq war. Though the figures have been disputed, but even the disputed figures range from between 150,000 (Iraq Family Health Survey) to 650,000 (Lancet Survey) to more than 10,00,000 (Opinion Research Business Survey).

The resemblance between the Iraq war and Darfur civil wars (which the US government accepts is a strong case of genocide) are astonishingly strong. In both the cases, the number of casualties (especially of innocent civilians) runs into hundreds of thousands. In both the case, the perpetrators are the same – paramilitaries. In both the cases, the target victims are groups of people from the same “ethnical, racial or religious group.” In Iraq, Bush and Cheney went one step further. They formalised a quasi-genocidal force while setting up the Iraqi forces, where strangely – or perhaps not so strangely – the forces were clearly dominated by Shiite Muslims and ethnic Kurds, indiscriminately writing a swashbuckling tale of terror against Sunni communities. But while Darfur is termed a genocide, the Iraq war is called a ‘counter-insurgency initiative’.

The present US government (and to a large extent, the previous one too) advocated pulling out of troops and decreasing the size of military from Iraq. But when it comes to Darfur what US does is rather declares trial of Omar Bashir for war crimes. Does this sound like genocide? For them it was just ‘War on Terror’

Cut to Darfur case. Sudanese troops and a pro-government militia known as the Janjaweed killed hundreds of thousands of people to suppress an uprising among the region’s ethnic African against the Arab-dominated regime of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. On September 9, 2004, President Bush, EU Parliament, labelled the atrocities in Darfur as genocide. Even John Kerry and senators Joseph Lieberman, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton labelled the Darfur mayhem a genocide. But none of the names in this esteemed list have ever given even passing references of any genocide when it came to discussing the Iraq war.

Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Russia, none have raised any ‘genocidal’ debate on the Iraq issue and have remained silent. Although it would sound too clichéd to repeat that the Iraq war was fought by Bush purely for control over its oil reserves, what assumes important context is the fact that the same reason comes to prominence when the US accuses Sudan’s sitting President Omar Bashir of genocide and the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant against Omar in March 2009.

Why is US so invigorated about giving “justice” to Sudanese people? Like Iraq, Sudan is also a supremely oil-rich and gas-rich nation, despite being largely unexplored (for example, while in 2006, its total oil reserves equalled around 560 million barrels, one year later the same had jumped to 6,600 million barrels, 0.53% of world reserves; similar is the case with gas). However, in its case, all the major oil deals are undertaken with China, which is trying to build its political and economic influence in Africa. This whole power build-up operation is seen as a threat by both US and Europe. And what about Omar? League of Arab States, Russia and China, all opposed ICC’s decision; it’s no surprise all of them are the largest players in the oil industry. Then why is the US silent in the clear case of genocide in Sri Lanka? Isn’t China a growing influence there too (Sri Lanka signed a $37.6 million deal to buy Chinese ammunition and is building a $1 billion port that can protect China’s supplies of Saudi oil)? Heck, the answer is simple; they have no oil Johny boy! And we won’t even touch the subject of US ally, Israel’s genocidal attacks on Palestinian civilians for the past many years (UN complained in June 2009 how an arrogantly confident Israel flatly refused access to UN’s investigative teams into Gaza).

So on one hand while we thank Dick for being so forthcoming in Washington, on the other, we ask whether Obama will have the wherewithal to go against historic rote to charge Bush and Cheney with genocide? In his Cairo speech, to wide applause, Obama eloquently beseeched, “As the Holy Koran tells us, be conscious of God and speak always the truth...” Tell us Obama, will you?