Like a Falling Star.

Conditions: Appropriately Overcast.


Shine On.

The big news this week was the controversial progress of the Olympic Torch, winding it's gloomy way across the various big cities of the world, shining it's light in order to draw attention to the upcoming Beijing round of the Olympics. Not because it's a noble tradition or even a nice change from the regular news, but because of the constant opportunity for high profile protests!

Clashes between pro-Tibet protesters and the British police have led to 37 arrests, as the Olympic torch made its way through London.

Protests over China's human rights record began soon after the relay started at the British capital's Wembley Stadium, and prompted an increasing police presence through the city.

One protester tried to snatch the torch from former children's television host Konnie Huq -- one of the torch bearers in Sunday's chaotic relay.

Another demonstrator tried to snuff the flame with a spray of white powder from a fire extinguisher. Others threw themselves in the torch's path with the police tackling or dragging them off. Authorities said 37 people were arrested.

- Presstv.ir

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PARIS — The Olympic torch relay in Paris was cut short yesterday amid rowdy protests against China's human rights record and its crackdown in Tibet that forced police to temporarily extinguish the flames several times during its 17½ mile journey across the French capital.

Some 500 demonstrators brandishing Tibetan flags were massed at Trocadero Square across from the Eiffel Tower, where the relay began shortly after midday, guarded by 3,000 French police who followed the flame"s path on roller blades, bikes and police cars.
[..]

Security officials were also forced to temporarily put out the flame three times and put the torch on a bus for safety during its journey across the city.

- Washingtontimes.com

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Democracy took a dive in San Francisco yesterday.

Earlier this week, the International Olympic Committee was considering scrapping the entire Olympic torch run due to the controversy and protests surrounding it. Apparently, PR-value and face-saving prevailed over common sense, and rather than cancel the contentious run, the IOC, the City of San Francisco, and the Chinese government collaborated to make the run happen in the only way possible -- they transformed the City into Beijing for a day.

At first I watched with mild amusement as police officers, secret service, and Chinese officials went to comical lengths to disguise the torch route and prevent protesters from approaching. Like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, the torch was hurriedly moved from one mode of transportation to the next, from boat to van to ... Duck Truck? However, my amusement soon gave way to anger, as the charade developed into an ugly display of first amendment violations and thuggish police tactics, and everything the City of San Francisco stands for was trampled on. People's Armed Police -- the same force implicated in the shootings of unarmed Tibetans on the Tibet-Nepal border -- roamed freely through the streets. Tibetans with flags were forced to vacate public gathering spaces while Chinese nationals were allowed to remain. A phalanx of riot cops -- five deep -- guarded the torch at every step, shoving protesters out of the way.
- Alternet.org

And the official response to these protests by the Chinese?

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Beijing insisted Tuesday that the international Olympic torch relay would go on, despite calls to cut it short amid chaotic anti-China protests.

Chinese officials on Tuesday issued a "strong condemnation to the deliberate disruption" by the pro-Tibet protesters along the relay route in London and Paris, but they said while their "despicable activities" may "tarnish the lofty Olympic spirit," the tour will not be stopped.

The reaction from China came as International Olympic Committee members were meeting in Beijing to discuss the growing discord over the international leg of the Olympic torch relay.

As the Olympic torch flew to San Francisco on Tuesday, a member of the IOC said protests that disrupted the Olympic torch relay in London and Paris may make 2008 the last time such an ambitious global torch relay is attempted.

- CNN.com

A little research tells us that the Olympic flame represents "The light of knowledge, life and spirit and symbolises the handing down from generation to generation". Originally first introduced for the 1936 Berlin games, the torch relay itself is all about spreading the Olympic principles ('faster, higher, stronger') which are the basis for sport, all around the world. And one of the major aims of Olympism is "to improve the human race, not only physically, but to give it a greater nobility of spirit, and to strengthen understanding and friendship amongst peoples."

Therefore it seems to me that protesting the illegal occupation of Tibet should be in the finest traditions of the principles of the Olympic Torch relay. The opportunity to use a global event to shine a light upon something that deserves attention. And yet instead of honoring the spirit of the relay, the authorities arrest anyone who gets close to it, even snuffing the torch out on occasion in order to smuggle it past demonstrators. And they're the ones who are in charge of the Olympics? Shouldn't the protesters be the ones carrying the torch? Waving it wildly back and forth while shouting 'Free Tibet' at the top of their lungs as they jog through London, Paris and San Fransisco?

If I wasn't so cynical of the International Olympic Committee I might suspect that they awarded the games to China for this very purpose. But no, of course not. It's just old-fashioned incompetence. But even old-fashioned incompetence can sometimes illuminate important things.

The IOC has indicated that the rest of the international torch run will go through as planned. They are meeting in Beijing today to discuss whether to continue with plans to run the torch through TIbet. I'm not sure if the 'apolitical' IOC fully grasps that they are on the verge of creating an international political crisis. People around the world have shown little tolerance for China's torch run in free nations; the international community will not easily stomach the sight of the torch being paraded through downtown Lhasa accompanied by tanks and PLA army squads. The Governor of the Tibet said yesterday that anyone attempting to disrupt the torch would be dealt with "harshly and with no leniency." Activists groups have indicated that they will hold the IOC responsible for any Tibetan detentions or deaths that occur.

- Alternet.org

This could just become the most important Olympics ever.



Surge Without End.

General Maximus Petraeus visited Washington this week to talk about the military situation in Iraq. This is the man who, ages ago, argued for the surge that presumably would be a temporary increase in troop numbers that would pacify Iraqi neighborhoods. So, how's that going?

Both Petraeus and Crocker, praised extravagantly for their service to their country, had to admit that the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki ordered an assault on Shiite militias in Basra, instigating more violence, without consulting them.

They had to confess that they have no timetable to offer on when U.S. men and women will stop dying and being injured in Iraq or even when soldiers will no longer face repeated tours to Iraq.

They had to admit that billions of dollars' worth of training and five years of effort have not made Iraqi forces capable of defending their own country. They all but ignored the political benchmarks the Iraqis were supposed to have met by now but have not.

They could not explain why Iraqis greeted the president of Iran, a pariah in most western countries who wants nuclear weapons and hates Israel, with huzzahs and kisses while Bush, their liberator, has to be secretly flown in and out of the Iraq.

Petraeus at one point said about prospects for withdrawing from Iraq, "The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible."

That is the grim reality that Petraeus and Crocker forced us all to face. Having gone into Iraq with naive beliefs and expectations and for all the wrong reasons, we are now stuck there. We eventually will leave, but it will take years. And we will be dealing with the chaos in the Middle East that we helped cause for decades more.

- Scrippsnews.com

So no change there, then.



The Moderator Of My Enemy Is My Enemy.

So, that whole Basra al-Sadr attack thing from last week, how did that work out?

A little war within a war erupted last week in Iraq, and then ended rather quickly in what many are calling a stalemate between rival Shia parties and militias. Said war in Basra ended, according to almost every reliable news source, because of Iranian intervention.

Iran, extremely close to all the Shia politicians and militia leaders in post-Saddam Iraq, brokered a cease-fire between Iraqi security forces and the Mahdi Army, headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, who is currently residing in Iran (commuting between Tehran and Qom to complete his religious studies at the seminaries there), and some reports have suggested that the commander of the Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Qasem Soleimani, a terrorist in charge of a terrorist organization by U.S. definition, and someone close to both Sadr and to SIIC (formerly SCIRI) leader Hakim (both of whom his organization supported during the Saddam era) played a, if not the, key role.

However, our man in Baghdad and the top-ranking U.S. civilian in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, on Thursday this week claimed that he was "not aware of what role, if any, Iran had played in Sadr's decision" (to call for a cease-fire). Gee, that should make everyone feel good. From the Bush administration apparently being caught unaware of the impending clash, to John McCain's "surprise" at the intensity of it, and now to our ambassador unaware of how the fighting ended, the sheer incompetence of the administration (and those who supported the surge) in its Iraq adventure would be the stuff of comedy, were it not so tragic.

- Huffingtonpost.com

Now, obviously Iran working to keep the peace in Iraq will further it's own interests. But seriously, a) what's wrong with that? and b) isn't that what America has been doing, or trying to do, for itself since 2003? Isn't it waaay past time for Iran to be included in the Great American Plan, rather than treated like an adversary?



Everything Old New Again.

At the end of the cold war, the world breathed a collective sigh as we imagined a future that wasn't dedicated to tanks and ships, submarines and missile systems. A world that could put away stupid things and concentrate our resources on the important things like the environment, health care and t-shirts with cool sayings. Well, the problem with a bloodless war is that all the old soldiers just sit around waiting to warm everything up again. So it shouldn't be much of a shock to hear that since 9/11 the U.S Defense department has been spending like a squadron of drunken sailors.

This is not about the waste of taxpayer dollars -- already pushing a trillion -- in funding the Iraq war, which, while reprehensible enough, pales in comparison to the big-ticket military systems purchased in the wake of 9/11. In the horror of that moment, the floodgates were lifted and the peace dividend promised with the end of the Cold War was washed away by a doubling of spending on ultra-complex military equipment originally designed to defeat a Soviet enemy that no longer exists, equipment that has no plausible connection with fighting stateless terrorists. Example: the $81-billion submarine pushed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, presumably to fight al-Qaida's navy.

That's the huge scandal the media and politicians from both parties have studiously avoided. But as the GAO's authoritative audit details, the costs are astronomical. The explosion of spending on expensive weaponry after 9/11 had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of that day. The high-tech planes and ships commissioned for trillions of dollars to defeat an enemy with no navy, air force or army, and using $3 knives as its weapons arsenal, were gifts to the military-industrial complex that will go on giving for decades to come.

The Iraq war may end someday, but rest assured that major weapons systems, once commissioned, have a life-support system unmatched in any other sector of public spending. Rarely does the plug get pulled on even the most irrelevant and expensive war toy. Not while both Democratic and Republican politicians feed at the same trough, and when so much is at stake in the way of jobs and profit.

- Alternet.org

Does anyone else get the impression that the U.S is starting to look like the solitary kid sitting at one end of a seesaw? But a seesaw, that's capable of destroying the entire playground, somehow. i dunno, maybe the beam is actually a missile, or something.



Peace out.