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Tuesday, March 02, 2004 |
 Bloomberg reports that opium production in Afghanistan is at record levels. It employs 1.7 m Afghans. This cash-flow will serve to reinforce the demonstrate the economic value of failed states for terrorist organizations. State failure = New sources of funding.
10:18:56 AM 
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Caught in the middle. Attacks on Shiites mount in an effort to create unrest (Baghdad, Karbala, and Pakistan). Shiites are blaming the US because of its close relationship with Saudi Arabian (home of Wahhabi fundamentalism) and its failure to provide rapid elections in Iraq. Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia (and by extension Al Qaeda) claim a plot by the US to conspire with Shiites to grab control of Saudi Arabia's and Iraq's oil. Here is an example of the Neo-Wahhabi mindset:
Isaac Hasson, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has identified what he calls a "neo-Wahhabi campaign against the Shi`ites, which aims to demonize them by comparing them to the Jews." Traditional Wahhabi teachings, for example, include the medieval Sunni myth that it was actually a Jewish convert to Islam, Abdullah bin Saba, who invented Shi`ism. This means Shi`ism has a kind of Jewish dna flowing through it. New attributes borrowed from modern antisemitism, such as the notion of a Jewish plot for world domination, have been grafted onto this charge. In the neo-Wahhabi campaign that Hasson has identified, therefore, Shi`ism is simultaneously an offshoot of Judaism, the natural ally of Zio-Crusaderism, and an inveterate generator of grand plots to destroy Sunni Islam.
10:05:41 AM
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Miguel Octavio is keeping us up to date with the mounting chaos in Venezuela.
9:50:28 AM
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Doug Kaye has some great audio interviews on his IT Conversations weblog.
9:14:45 AM
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If you want to get a sense of what Haiti and other small developing nations are up against with the IMF and World Bank, rent "Life and Debt." The system, as practiced by the IMF and World Bank, creates a crisis of legitimacy in participating governments that makes them easy targets.
9:11:46 AM
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John Ikenberry does a round-up of five American "Empire" books for Foreign Affairs.
9:05:24 AM
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Robert Kaplan turns his focus to the newly emerging American warrior diplomat (again, a back to the future moment), with a profile of the US military advisor to Mongolia (this has to be one of the best jobs in the world). He's working to hold the country together in the face of Chinese and terrorist encrouchment. An example of his work is his plans for border enforcement:
Wilhelm's plan for policing the border was a mobile force that would mix fast ponies and Bactrian camels with light, high-tech communications gear.
A little flavor of the job and the man:
Having swallowed a glass of blood and eaten the animal's testicles and eyeballs, Wilhelm turned to me. "Like I said," he announced, "this is better than rush-hour traffic on 395 en route to the Pentagon." He never tired, never stopped laughing and slapping his fellow officers on the back. Major Altankhuu confided to me at one point, "Colonel Wilhelm is a great man. He makes us like America so much."
More:
The victorious army had a handful of T-72 tanks with stereo speakers blasting Jimmy Buffett's "Last Mango in Paris." That, Wilhelm told me, was "postmodern war, or whatever you want to call it."
BTW: Mongolia sent 175 troops to Baghdad to help the US. This is the first time since the Mongol empire killed 1 m people in and around Baghdad, by hand, nearly 800 years ago.
8:51:13 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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