M. Shahidul Islam

Bangladesh now stands at a very critical juncture of history amidst gradually-built anti-Indian feelings reaching the extreme point, while the Government's passive, meek and subservient attitudes towards 'Indian wish lists' are making things even worse.

Not only policies must be changed to save the nation from an impending spasm, the evolving geopolitical snapshots must be viewed from historical perspectives to unearth the plausible reasons of why so much of Indian influence is pervading into our national affairs.

As Delhi strives desperately to anchor its destiny on geographic hegemony, gaining an upper hand on water resources is the course India is set to pursue to optimize its gains. The Tipaimukh dam construction project is one of such major steps.

In the ancient world, water despotism was established in the fertile river valleys of Egypt, China, and Mesopotamia. In China, during the so-called Warring- States- Era, the Qin State created the Chengkuo Canal for geopolitical advantage over its local rivals. In Eurasia, successor state hegemonies were established in the Middle East by using the Sea -- successively or simultaneously -- by the Greek, Persian and Ottoman powers.

Later, Portugal, Spain, France, and Britain established their hegemonic centres around the Atlantic Ocean to shape global history and civilization by controlling geography.

Yet, despite geography having determined the long and short term objectives of hegemony since time immemorial, collective human spirit managed to overcome subservience and brought end to such dominations of one particular nation or group by the other. The demise of ancient China's Pax Sinica and Europe's Pax Romana are no different than the termination of Pax Britania and Pax Americana in modern times.

Regionally, the power wielded by the Mongol Empire and Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere too ended tragically.

Like human beings, all hegemony is mortal and transient.

Hegemony and subservience

One of the most discernible symptoms of hegemony is the naked subservience of the sub-cultural entities, or their representatives. It is, therefore, is of little surprise that our Water Resources Minister, Ramesh Chandra Sen, said on July 6 that the 'Tipaimukh Dam will be beneficial for Bangladesh.' Surprising it may not, but it does provoke our angst and makes us more concerned about the nation's present and future.

Ironically, during the same briefing, the concerned Minister said he did not see the information reportedly handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Indian authorities. That too he need not; none knows better than him that it's a fait accompli.

Power hungry nations do not abide by law, more often than not. For decades, Delhi had pursued a nuclear policy without showing any regard for international conventions relating to the matter. Likewise, defying international laws has become official Indian policies in many fields.

For example, in a letter on February 1, 2001, (Letter No.2/WCD/2001/DT (PR) Vol.-III) prepared by Indian Water Resource Ministry in response to the final report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), the Ministry informed the WCD, "The guidelines for development suggested by WCD in the Final report are wholly incompatible with our development imperatives. Having made impressive strides since independence in developing our water resources, India proposes to continue with its programme of dam construction."

Order from without

That is why we feel disgusted that the sycophancy of Awami League (AL) government's Water Resource Minister Ramesh Sen has dwarfed the puppetry of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, or his cabinet colleagues. Even the fractured Afghan nation and its puppet regime do not dare to vouch for the USA as doggedly as did Bangladesh's Water Resource Minister Sen for India. For politicians, public interest is what matters.

Interestingly, not only did the Water Resource Minister fail to study the technical papers and information to reach at such a definitive conclusion about the impact of the Tipaimukh Dam on our people, he has also blatantly gathered audacity to pull the heavy Indian cart by saying in public that the Dam will be beneficial for Bangladesh. This proves that our ministers have no qualm left for what in politics is known as 'concern for vote bank.'

Police attack

It's not also a coincidence that the minister's comments came within hours of a grisly attack on peaceful demonstrators in front of the Indian High Commission. There is intense synchronization of actions in many fronts to render such an assertion invalid. Had that not been the case, why then, in that peaceful student demonstration of July 5, our own police force unleashed one of the most ferocious attacks on them and injured dozens.

Lest one thinks that was an act to preempt any perceived malign intent of the students against foreign diplomats, it was not.

The true intent of our police force got exposed when two Indian High Commission officials lurched themselves out of the mission's compound onto the street, called police officials on duty, and ordered them in the Hindi language to disperse the protestors immediately by any means.

Thus the second phase of the attack started, at the behest of Indian officials, which led to over 100 injuries -- 5 seriously -- and two arrests. Worst still, the concerned judge refused to grant bail to the detainees.

Heightened concerns

These developments prove few things incontrovertibly while our concerns intensify further due to such occurrences transcending the border of tolerance and civility; both at the diplomatic and human levels.

Our first concern is about our own Minister speaking for India, not for us. Not an expert of hydrology or seismology by any account - or of any other allied disciplines - the water resource Minister should not make definitive assertion about the Tipaimukh Dam being good for our country; that to, by his own admission, without bothering to study with minute detail the technical data provided by the Indian authorities, let alone after having them examined scrupulously by experts who should have briefed him on the matter in a competent and professional manner before his, so to speak, pronunciation of public support for India.

Our second concern is about police taking orders from Indian officials. The demonstrators were at safe distance from the diplomatic premise; did not cause any untowardly or embarrassing incidents by throwing stones at the embassy; did not carry any weapons or weapon-like substances to provoke any security alarm. Yet, they were beaten once by our police to affect dispersion, and, a brutal offensive was conducted against them for the second time at the behest of Indian High Commission officials.

Orders from diplomats

While we must empathize that our police have a responsibility to protect diplomats, their missions and materials - which they have been doing well so far - we must also be mindful that they have no mandate whatsoever to take orders from foreign diplomats.

In the same vein, our Ministers are oath-bound to protect and preserve our national interests. Yet, defying a myriad of expert opinions -- including opinions from Indian experts -- our own Minister shall not venture into vouching for India; that too without even being familiar first with whatever technical data have reportedly been provided by the Indian Government to our foreign office mandarins.

Our third concern is about the lack of coordination between various organs of the Government. If the Foreign Ministry had received technical data from the Indian Government on the Tipaimukh project -- which Foreign Minister Dipu Moni claimed to have received over four weeks ago -- why copy of that has not yet reached the Water Resource Ministry and the other concerned segments of the state apparatuses?

Gone wild?

Now look at things from a different prism which is comparable to a bull entering a china shop. Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakroborty has been behaving in quite an unruly manner in recent weeks.

On July 3, he had disparagingly termed Bangladeshi water resources specialists as "so-called experts" at a seminar on regional connectivity in which our Foreign Minister ensconced herself on the stage beside the Indian envoy. We wonder what took our Foreign Minister three long weeks to say, "Maybe the Indian High Commissioner crossed the diplomatic limits."

Before that, while addressing the issue of Bangladesh's concern over the Tipaimukh dam construction, Indian Water Resource Minister said in late May, "After Construction of the dam, we will decide what to do." All these indicate Delhi gives a damn to Bangladesh's concerns.

Choice for people

Now that we know India would not stop building the Tipaimukh dam unless legal actions are initiated sooner, Dhaka has little time to act. And, coming following the BDR rebellion and the consequent fallout within the national security establishments of the nation, all these dangers are posing like hungry vultures over the sovereignty of our nation.

That is why our main concern is about the priority of the Government with respect to the issues in hand. A content analysis of various cabinet meetings indicates those priorities being in the spheres of personal agenda, not the national and regional exigencies per se.

¶ 7/11/2009 07:46:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

His book, described by the Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm last week in a seven part series, is far more important than the much-discussed "recantations" and "revisions" of former jihadist intellectuals such as Dr. Fadl (Sayid Imam) and the leaders of the Gama'a Islamiya. The internal revisions by ex-jihadists (which Qaradawi praises) may influence that tiny group of extremists, and demonstrate cracks in their intellectual foundations. But for the most part, the mass Arab public has never heard of and doesn't care about them. And unlike the Gamaa leaders or Dr. Fadl, Qaradawi did not produce his revisions from an Egyptian prison cell (hence Ayman Zawahiri's cutting rejoinder to Dr. Fadl, that Egyptian prisons hadn't had fax machines back in his day).

Qaradawi is different. Qaradawi, an intensely controversial figure in the West, appears on a weekly al-Jazeera program and is probably the single most influential Sunni Islamist figure in the Arab world. The Egyptian-born Qaradawi is closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood (he reportedly turned down an invitation to become its Supreme Guide because he felt he had more influence from his base in Doha). He is a populist whose views generally reflect widespread attitudes in the region -- he strongly endorses democracy, for instance, while also supporting Hamas attacks against Israelis. Whether he leads or follows popular opinion is a difficult and fascinating question -- but either way, he is quite a useful barometer.

His criticism of al Qaeda is not new -- he condemned 9/11 and has engaged in a number of public polemics with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and with the leaders of al Qaeda. But the timing of this book merits attention. His views generally closely mirror trends within wider mass public opinion will reach a far wider swathe of the Arab mainstream and will likely have far greater impact than did the internal revisions which received such attention in the West. His intervention strengthens the impression that al Qaeda's extreme form of salafi-jihadism is on the wane in the Arab world, but political Islam and the spirit of muqawama (resistance) remains strong.

Qaradawi's text deserves lengthy discussion, but a brief summary here will have to suffice. Fiqh al-Jihad stakes out the centrist (wasatiyya) ground where Qaradawi has always comfortably resided (he has authored dozens of books about wasatiyya concept). He rejects two trends: those who seek to eliminate jihad completely from the Muslim world, stripping it of its power and its ability to resist (which is how he sees the project of much of so-called moderate Islam or secularists); and those who apply it indiscriminately in a mad campaign of killing of all with whom they disagree (like al-Qaeda). Straw men, yes. But very effectively allowing Qaradawi to distinguish between al Qaeda's excesses and the legitimacy of resistance to occupation and to Israel.

Qaradawi also offers an intriguing broadening of the concept of jihad, away from violence to the realm of ideas, media, and communication -- which he calls the "jihad of the age." The weapons of this jihad should be TV, the internet, email and the like rather than guns. Persuading Muslims of the message of Islam and the importance of this jihad in the path of God should be the first priority, he argues: "the jihad of the age, a great jihad, and a long jihad." He also goes into great detail about the different forms of jihad, the need for pragmatism, and the diverse nature of possible relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

There is much more to Qaradawi's text worth discussing, including his views on international law (he deploys Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to depressing effect), his form of argumentation, his categories of jihad, his conceptions of Muslim relations with non-Muslims, and much more. Parts of it are deeply problematic, others are surprisingly forthcoming. But for now, I mainly want to signal the appearance of this important text, which deserves close attention from all those interested in such matters.

¶ 7/10/2009 11:38:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands

By Chalmers Johnson

The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.

Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.

Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in our already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is designed to be a true embassy -- a place, that is, where local people come for visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers, intelligence officials, and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large contingent of Marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick get-aways.

While it may be comforting for State Department employees working in dangerous places to know that they have some physical protection, it must also be obvious to them, as well as the people in the countries where they serve, that they will now be visibly part of an in-your-face American imperial presence. We shouldn't be surprised when militants attacking the U.S. find one of our base-like embassies, however heavily guarded, an easier target than a large military base.

And what is being done about those military bases anyway -- now close to 800 of them dotted across the globe in other people's countries? Even as Congress and the Obama administration wrangle over the cost of bank bailouts, a new health plan, pollution controls, and other much needed domestic expenditures, no one suggests that closing some of these unpopular, expensive imperial enclaves might be a good way to save some money.

Instead, they are evidently about to become even more expensive. On June 23rd, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic which, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the U.S. military out of Manas Air Base (used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), has been persuaded to let us stay. But here's the catch: In return for doing us that favor, the annual rent Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to $60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is convinced it needs this base to store and trans-ship supplies to Afghanistan.

I suspect this development will not go unnoticed in other countries where Americans are also unpopular occupiers. For example, the Ecuadorians have told us to leave Manta Air Base by this November. Of course, they have their pride to consider, not to speak of the fact that they don't like American soldiers mucking about in Colombia and Peru. Nonetheless, they could probably use a spot more money.

And what about the Japanese who, for more than 57 years, have been paying big bucks to host American bases on their soil? Recently, they reached a deal with Washington to move some American Marines from bases on Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam. In the process, however, they were forced to shell out not only for the cost of the Marines' removal, but also to build new facilities on Guam for their arrival. Is it possible that they will now take a cue from the government of Kyrgyzstan and just tell the Americans to get out and pay for it themselves? Or might they at least stop funding the same American military personnel who regularly rape Japanese women (at the rate of about two per month) and make life miserable for whoever lives near the 38 U.S. bases on Okinawa. This is certainly what the Okinawans have been hoping and praying for ever since we arrived in 1945.

In fact, I have a suggestion for other countries that are getting a bit weary of the American military presence on their soil: cash in now, before it's too late. Either up the ante or tell the Americans to go home. I encourage this behavior because I'm convinced that the U.S. Empire of Bases will soon enough bankrupt our country, and so -- on the analogy of a financial bubble or a pyramid scheme -- if you're an investor, it's better to get your money out while you still can.

This is, of course, something that has occurred to the Chinese and other financiers of the American national debt. Only they're cashing in quietly and slowly in order not to tank the dollar while they're still holding onto such a bundle of them. Make no mistake, though: whether we're being bled rapidly or slowly, we are bleeding; and hanging onto our military empire and all the bases that go with it will ultimately spell the end of the United States as we know it.

Count on this, future generations of Americans traveling abroad decades from now won't find the landscape dotted with near-billion-dollar "embassies."

¶ 7/03/2009 12:17:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

In the 1920s the auto titan strove to export his empire to the Amazon rain forest. Have you read a parable lately?

By Greg Grandin

Jun. 26, 2009 |

The empire ends with a pullout. Not, as many supposed, a few years ago, from Iraq. But from Detroit.

Of course, the real evacuation of the Motor City began decades ago, when Ford, General Motors and Chrysler started to move more of their operations to harder-to-unionize rural areas and suburbs, and, finally, overseas. Even as the economy boomed in the 1950s and 1960s, nearly 50 Detroit residents a day were packing up and leaving their city. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Detroit could count tens of thousands of empty lots and over 15,000 abandoned homes. Stunning Beaux Arts and modernist buildings were left deserted to return to nature, their floors and roofs covered by switch grass. They now serve as ornate birdhouses.

Still, in mythological terms, Detroit remains the ancestral birthplace of American capitalism. In years to come, the sudden disintegration of the Big Three will be seen as a blow to American power comparable to the end of the Raj, Britain's loss of India, that jewel in the imperial crown, in 1948. Forget the possession of a colony or the bomb, in the second half of the 20th century, the real marker of a world power was the ability to make a precision V-8.

There have been many dissections of what went wrong with the U.S. auto industry, as well as fond reminiscences about Detroit's salad days, about outsize tailfins and double-barrel carburetors. Last year, the iconic Clint Eastwood put the iconic white autoworker to rest in "Gran Torino." But few of these postmortems have conveyed how crucial Detroit was to U.S. foreign policy -- not just as the anchor of America's high-tech, high-profit export economy, but as confirmation of ourselves as the world's premier power. (In linking Detroit's demise to the blowback from President Nixon's illegal war in Laos, Eastwood came closer than most).

Detroit supplied a continual stream of symbols of America's cultural power. It also offered the organizational know-how to run a vast industrial enterprise like a car company -- or an empire. Pundits love to quote G.M. president "Engine" Charlie Wilson, who once famously said that what was good for America "was good for General Motors, and vice versa." It's rarely noted that Wilson made his remark at his Senate confirmation hearings to be Dwight D. Eisenhower's secretary of defense. At the Pentagon, Wilson would impose G.M.'s corporate bureaucratic model on the armed forces, modernizing them to fight the Cold War.

After G.M., it was Ford's turn to take the reins. John F. Kennedy tapped Ford president Robert McNamara and his "whiz kids" to ready American troops for a "long twilight struggle, year in and year out." McNamara used Ford's integrated "systems management" approach to wage "mechanized, dehumanizing slaughter," as historian Gabriel Kolko once put it, from the skies over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Perhaps, then, we should think of the ruins of Detroit as our Roman Forum. Just as Rome's triumphal arches still remind us of its bygone imperial victories in Mesopotamia, Persia and elsewhere, so Motown's dilapidated buildings invoke America's slipping supremacy.

Among the most imposing is Henry Ford's Highland Park factory, shuttered since the late 1950s. Dubbed the Crystal Palace for its floor-to-ceiling glass walls, it was here that Ford perfected assembly-line production, building up to 9,000 Model Ts a day -- a million by 1915 -- catapulting the United States light-years ahead of industrial Europe.

It was also here that Ford first paid his workers $5 a day, creating one of the most prosperous working-class neighborhoods in America, filled with fine arts-and-crafts style homes. Today Highland Park looks like a war zone, its streets covered with shattered glass and lined with burned-out houses. More than 30 percent of its population lives in poverty and you don't want to know the unemployment numbers (more than 20 percent) or the median yearly income (less than $20,000). There is one reminder it wasn't always so. A small plaque outside the Ford factory reads: "Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th Century living."

To grasp how far America has fallen from the heights of industrial grandeur -- and to understand how that grandeur led to stupendous acts of folly -- you could tour another set of ruins. But these ruins don't lie in the Rust Belt but in the deep Brazilian Amazon rain forest. There, overrun by tropical vines, sits Henry Ford's testament to the belief that the American Way of Life could easily be exported, even to one of the wildest places on the planet.

Ford owned forests in Michigan and mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. He had control over every natural resource needed to make a car except rubber. In 1927, he obtained an Amazonian land grant the size of a small American state. Ford could have set up a purchasing office and bought rubber from local producers, as other rubber exporters did. But he had more grandiose ideas. He felt compelled to cultivate "rubber but the rubber gatherers as well." He set out to overlay Americana on Amazonia. He had his managers build Cape Cod-style shingled houses for the Brazilian workforce. He urged them to tend flower and vegetable gardens and eat whole wheat bread, unpolished rice, canned Michigan peaches and oatmeal. With suitable pride, he dubbed his jungle town "Fordlandia."

It was the 1920s and his managers enforced alcohol prohibition, or at least tried to, even though it wasn't a Brazilian law. On weekends, the company organized square dances and recitations of the poetry of Henry Longfellow. The hospital offered free healthcare for workers and visitors alike. It was designed by Albert Kahn, the renowned architect who built a number of Detroit's most famous buildings, including the Crystal Palace. Fordlandia had a central square, sidewalks, indoor plumbing, manicured lawns, a movie theater, shoe stores, ice cream and perfume shops, swimming pools, tennis courts, a golf course and, of course, Model Ts rolling down its paved streets.

The clash between Henry Ford -- the industrial giant who produced identical products, the first indistinguishable from the millionth -- and the Amazon, the world's most complex and diverse ecosystem, was Chaplinesque in its absurdity, producing a parade of mishaps straight out of a Hollywood movie. Think "Modern Times" meets "Fitzcarraldo." Brazilian workers rebelled against Ford's Puritanism and nature rebelled against his industrial regimentation. Run by incompetent managers who knew little about rubber planting, much less social engineering, Fordlandia was plagued by vice, knife fights and riots. The place seemed less "Our Town" than Deadwood, as brothels and bars sprawled around its edges.

Ford managed to wrest control over his namesake fiefdom. But because he insisted his managers plant rubber trees in tight rows -- back in his Detroit factories, Ford famously crowded machines close together to reduce movement -- he created conditions for the explosive growth of bugs and blight that feed off rubber, which laid waste to the plantation. Over the course of nearly two decades, Ford sank millions into making his jungle utopia work the American way, yet not one drop of Fordlandia latex made its way into a Ford car.

Today, the ruins of Fordlandia look like those in Highland Park and other Rust Belt towns, where life centered on a factory has been abandoned to weeds. There is an eerie resemblance between Fordlandia's rusting water tower, broken-glassed sawmill, and empty power plant and the husks of the same structures in Iron Mountain, a depressed industrial city on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, which also used to be a Ford town.

In the Amazon, Kahn's hospital has collapsed and the jungle has reclaimed the golf course and tennis courts. Bats have taken up residence in houses where American managers once lived, covering their plaster walls with a glaze of guano. No commemorative plaque marks its place in history, but Fordlandia, no less than the wreck of Detroit, is a monument to the titans of American capital -- none more titanic than Ford -- who believed the United States offered a universal model for humanity.

It would be easy to read the story of Fordlandia as a parable of arrogance. With a surety of purpose and incuriosity about the world that seems all too familiar, Ford rejected expert advice and set out to turn the Amazon into the Midwest of his imagination. The more the project failed on its own terms -- to grow rubber -- the more Ford company officials defended it as a civilizational mission. Yet Fordlandia cuts deeper into the marrow of the American experience.

Over 50 years ago, Harvard historian Perry Miller gave a famous lecture titled "Errand Into the Wilderness." He tried to explain why English Puritans lit out for the New World, as opposed to, say, Holland. They went, Miller suggested, not just to escape the corruptions of the Church of England, but to complete the Protestant reformation of Christendom that had stalled in Europe. The Puritans sought to give the faithful back in England a "working model" of a purer community. Put another way, central to American expansion was "deep disquietude," a feeling that "something had gone wrong" at home. With the Massachusetts Bay Colony just a few decades old, a dissatisfied Cotton Mather began to learn Spanish, thinking that a better "New Jerusalem" could be raised in Mexico.

The founding of Fordlandia was driven by a similar restlessness, a chafing sense, even in the best of times, that "something had gone wrong" in America. When Ford embarked on his Amazon adventure, he had already spent the greater part of two decades, and a large part of his enormous fortune, trying to reform American society. His frustrations and discontents with domestic politics and culture were legion. War, unions, Wall Street, energy monopolies, Jews, modern dance, cow's milk, both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, cigarettes and alcohol were among his many targets and complaints. Yet churning beneath all these imagined annoyances was the fact that the force of industrial capitalism that he had helped unleash was undermining the world he hoped to restore.

Ford preached with a pastor's confidence his one true idea: Ever-increasing productivity combined with ever-increasing pay would relieve human drudgery and create prosperous working-class communities, with corporate profits rising on the continual expansion of consumer demand. "High wages," as Ford put it, to create "large markets." By the late 1920s, Fordism -- as this idea came to be called -- was synonymous with Americanism, and was envied the world over for having apparently humanized industrial capitalism.

But Fordism contained the seeds of its own undoing. Breaking down the assembly process into smaller and smaller tasks, combined with rapid advances in transportation and communication, made it easier for manufacturers to break out of the dependent relationship established by Ford between high wages and large markets. Goods could be made in one place and sold somewhere else, removing the incentive employers had to pay workers enough to buy the products they made.

Ford sensed this unraveling and tried to slow it in ever more eccentric ways. He established a series of decentralized "village-industries" in Michigan. The villages were designed to balance farm and factory work and rescue small-town America. Yet his pastoral communes were no match for the raw power of the changes he had played such a large part in engendering. So he turned to the Amazon to raise his City on a Hill, or in this case, a city in a tropical river valley, pulling together the many strains of his utopianism in one last desperate bid for success.

Nearly a century ago, journalist Walter Lippmann remarked that Henry Ford's drive to make the world anew represented a common strain of "primitive Americanism," reinforced by a confidence born of unparalleled achievement. Lippmann followed with a question meant to be sarcastic, but was, in fact, all too prophetic: "Why shouldn't success in Detroit assure success in front of Baghdad?" We have seen the ruination that befell Detroit. Whither Baghdad? Whither America?

¶ 6/26/2009 10:26:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Is climate change beyond our control? Respected geo-researchers have presented a new prognosis for the global increase in temperature. Yesterday's worst-case scenario is becoming today's reality.

Two degrees -- that value has long been the guideline for international climate policy. Were the increase in average global temperatures held below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), then drastic climate change and long-term irreversible damage -- like the melting of Greenland's glaciers -- could still be avoided. Or so it was thought.

But a new study by an international research team has determined that the two-degree goal is no longer achievable.

Even today's atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are high enough to cause a global increase in temperature of between 2 and 2.4 degrees Celsius. "Drastic and immediate" emissions reductions would be "impossible," the paper, which was presented in Brussels on Thursday, argues. The concentration of these gases will thus continue to increase in upcoming decades. The researchers write: "An overshoot of the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations needed to constrain global warming to 2 degrees Celsius is thus inevitable."

The paper is 39 pages long and includes among its 12 authors Nicolas Stern, a London-based environmental economist, and Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The "Synthesis Report" summarizes the results of the Climate Change Congress that took place in Copenhagen in March -- an event which included roughly 2,500 participants and over 1,400 papers.

The authors write that the report was peer reviewed a second time before publication. It reflects the current stage of climate research and will provide the basis for discussions at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December regarding a new climate protection regime to take over once the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Essentially, it is an update of the Fourth Assessment Report from 2007, which was written by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That report evaluated papers that are now four years old or older.

The new report doesn't just address the issue of carbon dioxide but also nitrous oxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere as well. Climate researchers calculate their warming effects in "CO2 equivalents" so that they are able to operate with a standardized unit. The amount of greenhouse gases are measured in ppm or "parts per million." The concentration of such gases in the atmosphere was over 460 ppm CO2 equivalents in 2007. At 450 ppm, there is only a 50 percent chance that the temperature increase would stay under 2 degrees Celsius, according to the Copenhagen report, citing a recent study.

Humanity Should Settle on a Four Degree Increase

The global average temperature rose just under 0.8 degrees Celsius from 1850 to 2005. The current warming trend is 0.13 to 0.16 degrees per decade. In 2007, the IPCC assumed that the earth's average temperature could increase anywhere from 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius by the end of this century -- depending on which strategy the international community adopts and by how much greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

According to the current findings, the world is currently on track for the worst-case scenario -- the dynamics of climate change are already larger than feared.

To be on the safe side, people should adjust for a three, four or even five degrees of warming, PIK head Schellnhuber recommended in March at the Copenhagen congress. Should he be right, extreme weather resulting from rising global temperatures could be even more dramatic than assumed up until now.

In the past, the IPCC prepared an entire spectrum of possible emissions scenarios for this century. According to the new report, "some climate indicators are changing near the upper end of the range indicated by the projections or, as in the case of sea level rise, at even greater rates than indicated by IPCC projections." The report continues, "current estimates indicate that ocean warming is about 50 percent greater than had been previously reported by the IPCC."

Konrad Steffen, professor for Environmental Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder, explains what that means. "The forecast for the year 2100 probably needs to be revised at least by a meter or more," he says.

Schellnhuber, who is also a climate consultant for the German government, says he is worried "that we still aren't seeing a large portion of the unavoidable global warming." Dirt particles in the atmosphere, especially sulphate aerosols, have created a certain cooling effect and has prevented a stronger temperature increase at the moment. "If we were to ever install sulphur filters all over the world, then we would already be at 2.5 degree warming," the physicist said.

The new report paints a picture of rising sea levels -- fueled by rapidly melting polar ice caps -- for centuries. "Thus, the changes current generations initiate in the climate will directly influence our descendents long into the future. In fact, global average surface temperature will hardly drop in the first thousand years after greenhouse gas emissions are cut to zero."

¶ 6/19/2009 09:43:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Frank Procida

FRANK PROCIDA is National Intelligence Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The verdict is in: an Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would be disastrous for the Middle East and the world. Last month, President Barack Obama described this prospect as "profoundly destabilizing" and "extraordinarily dangerous." The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, agreed, arguing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a nuclear Iran would generate "neighbors who feel exposed, deficient and then [would] develop or buy the capability for themselves."

This view is not new, however: the Obama administration's rhetoric is almost identical to that of the Bush administration. Alarmists inside the U.S. government, among U.S. allies, and throughout the nonproliferation community argue that the messianic nature of the Islamic Republic and the extremely provocative rhetoric emanating from its current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, make Iran's acquisition of a nuclear capability too grave a danger to condone.

In addition, Iran has a long record of assisting terrorist groups and even using them to do its bidding -- most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon -- raising concerns about the support Tehran might provide such groups after acquiring a weapons capability.

A final oft-repeated worry is the possibility that Iran might feel emboldened by possession of a bomb. A nuclear Iran, this argument goes, would change the balance of power in the region and allow it to increase its training and material support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and various militias in Iraq. Some fear Iran would even seek to strengthen Shiite groups in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

It would be irresponsible to be apathetic about the ramifications of a nuclear Iran. However, twentieth-century history, the character and limitations of nuclear weapons, and the Iranian regime's behavior should temper concerns that an Iranian bomb undoubtedly would, in the words of Admiral Mullen, have "tragic and drastic" consequences.

Since the advent of the nuclear age, scientists, activists, academics, and politicians have feared that the spread of atomic weapons would prove unstoppable. The rhetoric one hears today regarding the probable reaction of Middle Eastern countries to a nuclear Iran echoes concerns put forth by experts when the Soviet Union, China, and even France got the bomb. Yet the worst-case scenarios rarely came to pass -- Germany and Japan, for instance, remained nonnuclear despite expectations -- and there is no reason to suspect that the Middle East will buck this historical trend.

Analysts are particularly concerned about the reactions of countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to an Iranian nuclear program. What they seem to forget is that the Arab world already has been living with a nuclear neighbor, Israel -- a state against which many Arab countries have fought wars and still do not recognize. Still, the Arab world has been unable or unwilling to respond in kind. An Iranian nuclear capability would not threaten these states more, or even as much as, an Israeli weapon. And in terms of prestige and influence, a Persian bomb should not be any more significant to these states than a Jewish one.

Furthermore, developing a nuclear weapon is not as simple as flipping a switch. Libya spent close to two decades trying to acquire a nuclear weapon before giving up its program in 2003. Technology has never been the region's strong suit, and even with A. Q. Khan-supplied centrifuge drawings readily available, it would be foolish to expect a rash of nuclear successes in the near future.

Fears that Iran actually plans to use nuclear weapons in an attempt to spread its Islamic revolution or to support fellow Muslims in Palestine are also exaggerated. Iran's governing elite is just as preoccupied with self-preservation as any other regime. Leaders in Tehran understand that Israel would react to a nuclear attack -- or the genuine threat of one -- with devastating force. By most media accounts, Israel has upward of 200 nuclear weapons deployable via aircraft, ballistic missiles, and submarine, ensuring it the ability to respond quickly and decisively to any Iranian provocation. A credible threat to use a nuclear bomb would mean the end of a theocratically ruled Iran because of Israel's formidable preemptive capability.

Ahmadinejad's hyperbole aside, Iran's actions in the past and recent public commentary by its clerics suggest that Iran would not risk facing such a devastating response. Iran's foreign policy has been fairly risk-averse since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Khomeini's successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, peppers his speeches with the usual condemnation of the United States and Israel, but he has also stressed that "Islam condemns the massacre of defenseless people, whether Muslim or Christian or others, anywhere and by any means." It might be safe to conclude that he is less concerned with the fate of the "others," but it is, of course, a fact that a nuclear attack against Israel would kill thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Muslims.

The prospect of Iran deciding to give Hezbollah nuclear material is extremely remote, as it is hard to think of a scenario in which Iran would benefit from a terrorist client possessing a bomb. Unlike Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets, nuclear weapons are not malfunctioning devices that travel less than ten miles and rarely kill anyone. Israel would certainly know where to retaliate if Hezbollah brandished a nuclear weapon, and Tehran would be reckless to cede control of such a prized asset to an ally such as Hezbollah, thereby tying its own fate to that group's decision-making.

The most worrisome concern regarding an Iranian nuclear capability is that nuclear weapons would give it a free hand to pursue its regional ambitions, whether taking a more dominant role in Iraq's internal politics or increasing material and logistical support to groups such as Hezbollah. But a nuclear weapon would not change Iran's basic calculation of what it can pull off without incurring an unacceptable response. A crude nuclear capability would not necessarily preclude either the United States or Israel from responding to an Iranian act of aggression -- and Iran would have the most to lose from an escalating crisis.

In fact, once Iran is known to have the bomb, it would become imperative for the regime to avoid actions that could lead to escalation. If anything, Iran might find that possession of a nuclear weapon actually diminishes its options in the Middle East and forces it to act with greater restraint. Actions against superior powers that in the past might have been viewed as simple irritants -- such as assenting to Katyusha launches against Israel and providing rudimentary explosives to groups challenging U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan -- suddenly would seem, even with a limited nuclear capability, far more ominous and almost invite an overwhelming response.

This, then, begs the question: If Iran does not plan on using a nuclear weapon, if the regime would never give a bomb to a terrorist group, and if a nuclear capability would not provide Iran cover to pursue its interests more aggressively, why are the mullahs challenging the West and enduring sanctions in order to acquire one?

Iran might feel that a nuclear weapon, with all of its inherent risk, would at least rule out any serious talk of regime change. Certain hard-line elements within Iran may view a small weapons capability necessary to prevent Washington from considering any operation designed to topple the regime. That said, it is not entirely clear that the regime is seeking an actual weapon. Enriching uranium to fuel nuclear power plants that do not yet exist might not make sense economically or otherwise, but that has never stopped seemingly rational countries from making similar decisions in the past. Moreover, Iran might be content to stop short of producing an actual weapon and settle for a latent capability. The regime may believe the ability to produce fissile material alone is enough of a deterrent, making the pain and cost of producing an actual bomb unnecessary. As noted above, U.S. policymakers have shown no hesitation in giving the impression that a nuclear Iran would change the region irrevocably. It is certainly not lost on Iran that Washington talks as if it already has been deterred by a country that has done nothing more than enrich a small amount of uranium and launch missiles that could hit the United States only after catching a 4,000-mile-per-hour tailwind.

This is not to say that a nuclear-armed Iran poses no threat to the region or to the world. Deterrence at first glance worked well in the last century, but Tehran could miscalculate and take action that invites preemption, causing devastation to its population. Groups with disparate agendas in Iran could succeed in providing nuclear technology to a terrorist group for financial or ideological reasons; Iran, like every other state in the world, is far from unitary. In this sense, the international community should oppose Iran going nuclear as much as it should any other country doing so.

But the tenor of today's debate has lost all sense of proportion. A nuclear-armed Iran would increase risk, but ironically it is Iranian civilians and the Islamic Republic's own leaders who would bear the brunt of it.

¶ 6/15/2009 10:07:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

INTRODUCTION

South Asia is known for many wonderful and beautiful things such as its varied cultures, languages, religions, landscapes and peoples but above all it is known for its volatility and sudden outbreaks of violence and often brutal and destructive conflicts. The Indian subcontinent, as it was once known, was partitioned on the basis of religion in 1947 according to the concept of the two-nation theory. Since then several wars have been fought over territory, sovereignty and in one case for independence which eventually led to the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 as an independent nation-state. As things now stand the next war in the South Asia region could well be over water. This appears almost inevitable unless India adopts a more accommodative attitude towards its neighbour’s claims for reasonable and equitable water sharing rights. Recent history has, however, suggested quite the opposite with New Delhi ignoring the just demands of Bangladesh which as the lower riparian nation is wholly dependant for its survival on the regular and sustained flow of water coming through India from the Himalayas.

Since 1971 Bangladesh has generally adopted a defensive attitude in its relations with its large neighbour in recognition of the economic and military might of India. However, if New Delhi continues with its policy of draining the life blood of Bangladesh it is more than likely that this small but populous nation would be forced to take on a more assertive role in its relations with India and in realizing its just demands for water, as well as in addition to other contentious bilateral issues, could ultimately lead to conflict in the coming decade. Policy makers in Bangladesh are yet to wake up to this reality but as a new generation of leaders emerge faced with the calamitous consequences of the large scale withdrawal and diversion of water by India they may have few choices but to confront New Delhi in a more aggressive and confrontational manner. This may appear at first glance to be highly unlikely but with millions displaced by desertification and the numerous other adverse effects (some of which has wrongly been attributed to climate change to distract world attention to the actual causes of environmental damage in Bangladesh) of the Indian water withdrawal policy such a scenario cannot be easily dismissed. Fueling this growing animosity would be decades of mistrust caused by an arrogant and duplicitous policy devised and practiced by India’s politicians and diplomats in their dealings with Bangladesh.

BACKGROUND TO WATER SHARING DISPUTES

The very geographical location of Bangladesh makes it the lowest riparian country of more than 50 trans-boundary rivers. The waters of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and other trans-boundary rivers have been sustaining the life and living of millions of Bangladeshis. Without these waters, the livelihood of millions of Bangladeshis would come under severe stress. Unfortunately, since independence, Bangladesh has been observing with great concern, the gradual reduction of the dry season flows of the Ganges, Teesta and many other trans-boundary rivers due to anthropogenic interventions across the borders – primarily by India. Since its independence in 1947, India has made intensive efforts to harness and develop the water resources in the Ganges basin. The data indicates that India now has several dozen large barrages and other diversionary structures operating in the basin which are capable of diverting 100,000 cusec flows from the Ganges and its different tributaries. Moreover, India has constructed more than 400 major, medium and small storage dams in the basin area. Of these, the major storage reservoirs have a total capacity of 2221 billion cubic feet or 63 billion cubic meters (BCM). Bangladesh itself could not embark upon any such major development of the waters of the trans-boundary rivers including the Ganges in the face of uncertainties of its dry season availability from across the border. Moreover, the flat terrain of Bangladesh does not allow any storage of excess monsoon waters for use during the dry season and such projects would in any case be extortionately exorbitant for the country at its present stage of development and with its limited financial resources.

The consequences for Bangladesh of India’s policy of diversion and withdrawal of water have been both dramatic and devastating. Upstream diversion of the precious dry season flows of the Ganges has adversely affected the hydrology, river morphology, agriculture, domestic and municipal water supply, fishery, forestry, wildlife, industry, navigation, public health and biodiversity in large areas of Bangladesh dependent on the Ganges water. Western analysts have been duped into believing that these negative environmental affects are caused by climate change that will in a few decades result in the rise of sea waters that will inundate large areas of the country. However, the actual cause of increased salinity in the south-western region of Bangladesh has been India’s diversion and withdrawal of water which allows ingress of sea water from the Bay of Bengal due to the reduced natural fresh water flows in the opposite direction during the dry season. Another extremely serious but indirect consequence of this water diversion policy is the contamination of ground water with arsenic. With the reduction of water from India millions in Bangladesh are now forced to access ground water which if pumped continuously over a prolonged period assists a chemical reaction that oxidizes naturally occurring arseno-pyrites deep in the soil resulting in the release of arsenic into the water – a process which may properly described as almost akin to mass poisoning. This consequential alarming degradation of the environment and water supply in south-western Bangladesh has already forced thousands to leave in quest of survival elsewhere. In the face of deteriorating human health, reduced economic productivity and loss of amenities, life and living in this part of Bangladesh people are becoming increasingly vulnerable, insecure and resentful. These are probably the prime causes of conflict between states if history is to be any guide.

THE FARAKKA BARRAGE PROJECT AND

DIVERSION OF THE GANGES WATER

If we leave aside the period between 1947-1971 when Bangladesh was called East Pakistan and considered by India as a hostile entity the likelihood of agreement on water sharing was obviously limited. However, it was during this period that Indian diplomacy became a byword for duplicity and this approach was to continue in its relations with Bangladesh after it obtained independence from Pakistan with the help of the Indian military - which in hindsight had very little to do with altruism or kind hearted generosity and more to do with Indian geo-strategic imperatives. In any case, it was on October 29, 1951 that the then Pakistan government drew the attention of the Indian authorities to the report of a scheme for diverting large amounts of dry season flow of the Ganges. Four months later, on 8 March, 1952 India replied that the project was only under preliminary investigation and described Pakistan’s concern over probable effects as purely hypothetical. Again on May 22, 1953 India reassured Pakistan that the Farraka and Gandak projects (a tributary of the Ganges) were still being investigated and India would appreciate cooperative development of the water resources of the Ganges. Nine years after the issue was first mooted the Government of India announced that it was going ahead with the plan to build a barrage across the River Ganges at Farraka[i] and Pakistan was formally informed. Talks took place occasionally between 1961 and 1970 but real negotiation and consultations did not. By 1970 India completed construction of the Farraka Barrage. The 24 mile feeder canal was, however, not yet ready.

While the Indian government’s behaviour towards Pakistan during this 19 year period (1951-1970) is explicable on the grounds that both nations were inherently inimical towards each other having just fought two wars within just thirty years it is still not explainable why India would adopt the same negotiating tactics towards the new nation of Bangladesh which it had recently assisted in its liberation war? I have provided my own theory in my book ‘The India Doctrine’ where I draw attention to India’s policy of domination over South Asia and an underlying resentment over the 1947 partition which seemingly allows Indian policy makers to ignore the just grievances of its smaller neighbours and not merely in the area of water sharing but including the whole array of bilateral issues that now bedevil interstate relations in the region.

After Bangladesh gained independence in 1971 relations with India gradually deteriorated and this was reflected in negotiations between the countries over water sharing rights. The Governments of India and Bangladesh decided in March 1972 to set up the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission (JRC). One of the major functions of the JRC was to maintain liaison between the participating countries in order to ensure the most effective joint efforts in maximizing the benefits from common river systems to both the countries. The question of sharing the water of the Ganges was, however, kept out of the purview of the JRC, to be settled at the level of Prime Ministers. In this regard, many in Bangladesh felt at the time that the Awami League government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was too compliant and would easily buckle to Indian demands which actually turned out to be the case. The Prime Minister of India and Bangladesh met in New Delhi in May 1974 and discussed amongst other things, the Ganges issue. Following this meeting, there was a Joint Declaration on May 16, 1974, wherein they observed that during the periods of minimum flow in the Ganges, there might not be enough water and, therefore, the fair weather (dry season) flow of the Ganges in the lean months would have to be augmented to meet the needs of Calcutta port and to fulfill requirement of Bangladesh. They also agreed that the best means of augmentation through optimum utilization of the water resources of the region available to the two countries should be studied by the Joint Rivers Commission. The two sides expressed their determination that before the Farakka project is commissioned; they would arrive at a mutually acceptable allocation of the water available during the periods of minimum flow in the Ganges. The JRC accordingly took up the issue of augmentation of the Ganges flows but was unable to reach any agreement.

At a subsequent minister level meeting in April 1975 the Indian side proposed a test-run of the feeder canal of the Farakka Barrage for a limited period during that dry season. On good faith, Bangladesh agreed to India’s request and allowed it to operate the feeder canal with varying discharges in ten-day periods from April 21 to May 31, 1975, ensuring the continuance of the remaining flows to Bangladesh. Although India was supposed to divert limited quantities of water from the Ganges for the said test-run up to May 31, 1975, it continued withdrawals from Farakka to the full capacity of the feeder canal during the dry season of 1976 without entering into any understanding or agreement on sharing the flows despite Bangladesh’s repeated requests. The consequences of India’s actions had been tragic. The unilateral Indian withdrawals throughout the dry seasons of 1976 caused a marked reduction in the dry season Ganges flows in Bangladesh. This sudden change in the flow pattern caused an alarming situation in the south western region of Bangladesh.

To cut a long story short, Bangladesh repeatedly requested India to stop the unilateral withdrawals but this bore little fruit. Bangladesh then took the issue to the United Nations in 1976 and the General Assembly urged both sides to seek an immediate solution. Between 1977 and 1988 Bangladesh and India signed several temporary agreements but no permanent understanding could be reached. Between 1988 and 1996 there was no instrument for sharing the dry season Ganges flows between the two countries. In the absence of any agreement, India again started unilateral withdrawals from Farakka. It was not until the Awami League returned to power in 1996 in Bangladesh under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina (daughter of the slain leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) that a treaty between the countries was signed on the sharing of the Ganges Water at Farakka. This treaty has not been viewed favourably in Bangladesh as it was felt to be a subservient arrangement without the usual safeguards and guarantees and contrary to norms of international law. It appears these apprehensions were well founded as recent reports suggest that the quantity of water flowing down from the Farakka point has been declining due to the withdrawal of water by India through various canals in violation of the water sharing agreement.

The treaty is now under legal challenge in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh on the following grounds amongst others –

1. That Bangladesh has been receiving lesser amounts of flows at Farakka as its share compared to the quanta it should be receiving as agreed between the contracting parties set out in the schedule contained in Annexure II of the Treaty.
2. The instruments signed by Bangladesh and India do not provide entitlement to the former to participate or to become party to negotiations on any water course or in any consultations thereof e.g. Bangladesh cannot participate in the bilateral negotiation between India and Nepal which aim to implement projects on major tributaries of the Ganges river emanating from the Nepalese territory like the Pancheswar and Saptkosi High Dam Projects.
3. Over the last three decades the Bangladesh government has repeatedly requested India for upstream hydro-meteorological data of the Ganges, Brahamputra and other rivers. The Indian side has declined to supply or exchange such upstream data and information. The 1996 treaty and other Indo-Bangladesh agreements are totally silent about the provisioning of this information.
4. India either unilaterally or bilaterally with Nepal and Bhutan are undertaking planned measures for harnessing and regulating water resources of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and some of their tributaries without informing or providing notification to the downstream riparian country of those rivers which is Bangladesh.
5. The 1996 Treaty and other Indo-Bangladesh do not provide for any third-party arbitration on settlement of disputes.

These are only a few of the grounds that are claimed by the petitioner to be in contravention of customary international law and in particular the provisions of the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses and the Berlin Rules on Water Resources[ii] which both contain internationally accepted safeguards and guarantees that were omitted from the 1996 treaty. In particular, India’s withdrawal of waters in an unreasonable and inequitable manner and the terms of the 1996 treaty appear to be in violation of Articles 7,8,13,17,29,56,57,58,59,60,68,72 and 73 of the Berlin Rules but most importantly and significantly Article 12 which states –

1. Basin States shall in their respective territories manage the waters of an international drainage basin in an equitable and reasonable manner having due regard for the obligation not to cause significant harm to other basin States.

2. In particular, basin States shall develop and use the waters of the basin in order to attain the optimal and sustainable use thereof and benefits therefrom, taking into account the interests of other basin States, consistent with adequate protection of the waters.

And Article 16 which provides –

Basin States, in managing the waters of an international drainage basin, shall refrain from and prevent acts or omissions within their territory that cause significant harm to another basin State having due regard for the right of each basin State to make equitable and reasonable use of the waters.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, relations between Bangladesh and India are likely to deteriorate as agreement on water sharing in an equitable and reasonable manner appear a distant and forlorn prospect making conflict a more likely scenario. In some respects, a low level conflict has already begun as there are frequent and bloody skirmishes between the two countries border security forces and occasionally fighting has occurred over construction of groins and spurs on the Indian side intended to divert the course of rivers so that they encroach further into Bangladesh territory while supplementing the Indian side.

RIVER LINKING PROJECT

If the Farakka Barrage dispute had been the only bone of contention between the two countries then some minimum resolution to the dispute may have been forthcoming but with India (in total disregard of the environmental harm that would be sustained by Bangladesh) now undertaking the massive River Linking Project (RLP) a further serious deterioration in relations is inevitable. Quite astonishingly, the RLP concept was conceived not by an expert committee or by the relevant government department but instead by the Indian Supreme Court which ruled (in relation to a Public Interest Litigation hearing) that there should be interlinking of rivers to offset drought and flooding in various parts of the country. Justice Kirpal set a 10 year deadline for implementation of the project. A brief six-page order passed on October 31, 2002 formed the basis on which the Indian government set up a high powered task force which devised a Perspective Plan comprising two components -

1. Peninsular Rivers Development; and

2. Himalayan Rivers Development

The Peninsular Rivers Component envisages the inter-linking of several major rivers at several different points along their course. The Himalayan Rivers Component which poses more serious difficulties for Bangladesh envisages construction of storages on the principal tributaries of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra in India, Nepal and Bhutan. Also, canal systems are to be inter-linked to transfer surplus flows of the eastern tributaries of the Ganges to the West apart from linking the (main) Brahmaputra and its tributaries with the Ganges and the Ganges with Mahanadi.

The effect of the RLP on Bangladesh has been variously described as devastating, catastrophic and also causing incalculable and irreparable damage to the country’s environment and ecological balance. This unfortunately is not mere exaggeration since the Brahmaputra and the Ganges provides more than 85% of the total surface water available in Bangladesh during the dry season. Of the two, the Brahmaputra provides 67% of the water. The diversion and withdrawal of these waters under the RLP would constitute a similar proposition to Bangladesh as the Iraqi WMD program did (under the Saddam Hussain regime) for the United States and the United Kingdom. In the present context the threat to Bangladesh is not hypothetical.

In the face of this looming crisis the Government of Bangladesh has already lodged protests to the Government of India expressing serious concern over the RLP and has urged India to refrain from implementation of the plan. The Government has also communicated Bangladesh’s serious concern over the Indian plan to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and requested them to desist from providing any support to India relating to this plan. The matter was also raised during several meetings of the JRC where India was urged to desist from such a move without the consent of Bangladesh. It appears, however, that the Indian political leadership is committed to go ahead with this plan at the cost of its neighbours. The feeling is intensifying in the minds of the general public in Bangladesh against the Indian plan and their voice of protest is growing louder with the passage of time.

Considering that the Farraka Barrage and the RLP are only two of the many projects being undertaken by the Indian Government to divert and withdraw waters from the common rivers indicates that water sharing disputes with Bangladesh will progressively increase and naturally lead to growing tensions between the countries. The other major disputes on water sharing now include the Teesta, Feni, Meghna, Mahananda, Monu, Khowai, Gumti, Muhuri and Kodla Rivers and also construction of the Tipaimukh Dam in Manipur district of India. This last mentioned project has had the effect of eroding a large portion of Sylhet district in Bangladesh with almost 5000 acres drifting towards the Indian side following erosion of the riverbanks due to an artificial change in the course of the rivers Surma and Kushiara. All these water sharing disputes and the continued disregard for the concerns expressed by Bangladesh about these projects and the continuation of diversion and withdrawal of water in an unreasonable and inequitable manner is being viewed as an attack on the sovereignty of the country which if not restrained and outstanding issues settled amicably could lead to conflict in the coming decades.

THIS PAPER WAS WRITTEN AS A SPEECH AND HEAVY RELIANCE WAS MADE ON CERTAIN EXPERT PAPERS THAT WERE NOT NOTED AT THE TIME OF WRITING. THE NOTES AND REFERENCES BELOW IS THEREFORE PARTIAL AND IF ANYONE RECOGNISES ANY ELEMENT OF THEIR WORK IN THIS PAPER PLEASE INFORM THE WRITER SO INCLUSION MAY BE MADE IN THE REFERENCE SECTION. ANY OMISSION ON THE PART OF THE WRITER WAS COMPLETELY INADVERTANT. THE PAPER IS BEING RELEASED MERELY FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES AND NOT FOR PROFIT.

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NOTES

¶ 6/09/2009 08:03:00 AM 1 Comments Links to this post

We are used to nice words and many, in the Muslim majority countries as well as Western Muslims, have ended up not trusting the United States when it comes to political discourse. They want actions and they are right. This is indeed what our world needs. Yet, President Obama, who is very eloquent and good at using symbols, has provided us with his speech in Cairo with something that is more than simple words. It is altogether an attitude, a mindset, a vision.

In order to avoid shaping a binary vision of the world, Barack Obama referred to “America”, “Islam”, “the Muslims” and “the Muslim majority countries”: he never fell into the trap of speaking about “us” as different or opposed to “them” and he was quick to refer Islam as being an American reality, and to the American Muslims as being an asset to his own society. Talking about his own life, he went from personal to universal stating that he knows by experience that Islam is a religion whose message is about openness and tolerance. Both the wording and the substance of his speech were important and new: he managed to be humble, self-critical, open and demanding at the same time in a message targeting all of “us”, understood as “partners”.

The seven areas he highlighted are critical. One might disagree with President Obama’s reading and interpretation of what is happening in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Palestine (and the US role in these conflicts), but he has clearly avoided shying away from addressing these issues and has called all the parties to take their share of responsibility by putting an end to violence and promoting respect and justice. He clearly acknowledged the suffering of the Palestinians and their rights to get a viable and independent State. It is a first necessary step: the future will tell us if the new President has the means to be strong and consistent when dealing with the Israeli government. He left opened some channels as to the dialogue with both the Palestinian authority (calling for unity without sidelining Hamas) and Iran. These were and remain critical issues and there will be no future without addressing them with consistency and courage. Expectations are immense and the Barack Obama has still to show his true practical commitment to justice and peace.

President Obama made an important distinction between the democratic principles and the political models. Rule of law, free choice of the people, duty of transparency are universal principals while the political models are depending on historical and cultural factors to be taken into account. We hope the Obama administration would put this vision into practice by both promoting democratisation everywhere and scrupulously respecting the choice of the people: it would be good to start with Iraq and Afghanistan. As to the undisputable principals of democracy, this is a good reminder to be uttered... in Egypt, to the Egyptian Government, where the President was delivering his speech.

Barack Obama mentioned seven issues to be addressed. He started by the more political issues and quite intelligently ended with the critical areas of “women” and “education”. This is where, he recalled, we all have to do much better. In these two areas he came with practical solutions and presented future interesting projects. Facing economic crisis, doubts, fears, and global threats, the world needs the women to be more involved and education to be promoted everywhere. These commons challenges helped the President, once again, to talk about an inclusive us, a “new we” so to say, where we are partners sharing the same concerns, facing up to te similar challenges, exposed to common enemies.

This speech is not only directed to the Muslims around the world. The West and the non Muslims should listen. Barack Obama spoke about acknowledging the historical Islamic contribution to sciences, development and thought. He wants his fellow American citizens to learn more about Islam, to be more humble and he expects from all the “liberals” not to impose their views on the practising Muslims, men and women. No one can impose a way of dressing or a way of thinking and we should learn from one another: the implicit reference to the French controversy around the headscarf was indeed quite explicit. He quoted religious texts that were coming from the three monotheistic faiths, everyone of them delivering a universal message. As if true universalism is about educating one’s self, listening to and respecting the other. Two days before his speech in Cairo, Obama surprisingly stated that America was a great “Islamic country”: it was a way for him to remind the Americans, as well as all the Westerners, that the Muslims are their fellow citizens and Islam is a religion which is part of their common national narrative.

A powerful speech which was not only " a speech": it embodies a vision both positive and demanding. Something has surely changed. As Barack went from personal to universal principles, we are waiting for him to go from ideal to practical. He is young, he is new, he is intelligent and smart: has he the means of being courageous? For it is all about presidential courage as one wonders if it is possible for the United States to be simply consistent with its own values. Could one man tackles and reforms this extraordinary tension that inhabits the contemporary American mindset : on the one hand, promoting universal values and diversity while on the other nurturing a spirit that still has some features of imperial attitude (intellectually, politically and economically). He will not be able to achieve it alone and maybe his greatest challengers so far are more Indian and Chinese than the Muslims. Yet, it remains critical to acknowledge the positive sides of a speech announcing "a new beginning": it is imperative for the Muslims to take Obama at his word and, instead of adopting either a passive attitude or a victim mentality to contribute to a better world by being self–critical and critical, humble and ambitious, consistent and open. The best way to push Barack Obama to face up to his responsibility in America, in the Middle East or elsewhere is for the Muslims to start by facing up to their own without blindly demonising America or the West or naively idealising a charismatic African-American US President.

P.S.: A personal note : President Barack Obama wanted us “to speak the truth”. It happens that once I spoke the truth as regard to the illegal American invasion of Iraq and the blind unilateral support of America towards Israel. I have been banned from the States and still remain. It may be one of these inconsistencies that make some of us still doubt the very meaning of political words. Once again a question of consistency.

¶ 6/06/2009 09:02:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

By P. W. Singer

This is important stuff that necessitates a debate in the here and now. But in our world, it is often pop culture that reigns supreme. So Slate has asked me, a guy with a Harvard Ph.D. in security studies and who helped write the new president's defense policy agenda, to answer whether Terminator's robot revolt could ever come true. Fortunately, I am also an admitted sci-fi geek, so I am somewhat well-equipped to wrestle with the question of whether the metal ones might come for you.

Essentially, four conditions would have to be met before a Skynet-like entity could take over the world.

First, the machines would have to have some sort of survival instinct or will to power. In the Terminator movies, for instance, Skynet decides to launch a nuclear holocaust against humans in self-defense after the frightened generals attempt to take it offline. Yet most of the focus in military robotics today is to use technology as a substitute for human risk and loss. We use the Packbot in Iraq because, as one U.S. military officer tells, "When a robot dies, you don't have to write a letter to its mother." It would serve the very opposite goal to give our robots any survival instinct.

Second, the machines would have to be more intelligent than humans but have no positive human qualities (such as empathy or ethics). This kind of intellectual advancement may be possible—eventually—given the multiplicative rate at which computer technology progresses. But an explosion of artificial intelligence that surpasses humanity (sometimes referred to as the Singularity) is by no means certain. My Roomba vacuum, for example, still can't reason its way out of being stuck under my sofa, let alone plot my demise. There's also an entire field, called "social robotics," devoted to giving thinking machines the sort of positive human qualities that would undermine an evil-robot scenario. Researchers at Hanson Robotics, for example, describe how their mission is to build robots that "will evolve into socially intelligent beings, capable of love and earning a place in the extended human family."

Finally, a robot invasion could only succeed if humans had no useful fail-safes or ways to control the machines' decision-making. We would have to have lost any ability to override, intervene, or even shape the actions of the robots. Yet one has to hope that a generation that grew up on a diet of Terminator movies would see the utility of fail-safe mechanisms. Plus, there's the possibility that shoddy programming by humans will become our best line of defense: As many roboticists joke, just when the robots are poised to take over, their Microsoft software programs will probably freeze up and crash.

The counter to all of this, of course, is that a superintelligent machine would figure out a way around each of these barriers. In the Terminator story line, for example, the Skynet computer is able to manipulate and blackmail humans into doing the sorts of things it needs. It's also able to rewrite its own software, a scenario that may be not so far-fetched. There is much work today on "evolutionary" or self-educating artificial intelligence that can even begin to take on its own identity. Just as humanity ended up with both Gandhi and Hitler, there is no guarantee that our machines will evolve to feel only love and compassion.

Most importantly, we rarely take heed of the lessons of science fiction. The military routinely carries out research into systems against which writers and filmmakers have long warned. Indeed, the scientists are often directly inspired by those cautionary tales. For instance, H.G. Wells' dark fantasy of what he called an "atomic bomb" in the 1913 anti-war story The World Set Free actually helped guide the thinkers behind the Manhattan Project. In my book, I mention how one robotics firm was asked a few years ago by the military whether it could design a robot that looked like the "Hunter-Killer robot of Terminator." (It wasn't such a silly request. The design would be quite useful for the sort of fights we face now in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

In my final judgment, however, The Terminator may not be the best guide for how a machine takeover might take place in the real world. Instead, another science fiction series, The Matrix, may be more useful. By this I don't mean that we can look forward to a future of humans living in jelly bubbles and Keanu Reeves' avatar running about in leather pants. Rather, the films give us a valuable metaphor for the technologic matrix in which we increasingly find ourselves enmeshed but barely notice. For all our pop-culture-stoked fears of living in a world where robots rule with an iron (or digital) fist, we already live in a world of technology that few of us even understand. It increasingly dominates how we live, work, communicate, and now even fight.

Why would machines ever need to plot a takeover when we already can't do anything important without them?

¶ 5/27/2009 09:06:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post