Up In Arms, But Not Nuclear Arms... yet

Some interesting banter on the last post so I though I would flow with it. It seems that the pro-nuclear camp is really really into nuclear power. It is not just on forms of media that I mentioned in the last post, but on blogs as well.
I was wondering why certain people were pushing nuclear so hard. Then I came across some of the profit driven facts of the “new” nuclear age….

Profit.

Under recent federal legislation, the nuclear industry has been handed $13 billion in subsidies and tax breaks to build a new generation of nuclear plants. How is this corporate welfare letting the market decide? How is it allowing for fair competition for other forms of energy production? In addition, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry lobby, has hired the former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to try to “greenwash” nuclear power’s dirty and dangerous image. This has been seen on the cover of Time magazine as well as the Economist.

The Pitch
Under the The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is the Bush Administration’s plan for expanding the nuclear power industry in the U.S. and around the globe. If President Bush’s plan works as advertised, it would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, improve the environment by reducing CO2 emissions, encourage clean development around the world and reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation.

More Profit
To achieve this President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would include: a new generation of nuclear plants in the U.S., the reprocessing of nuclear waste and a fast reactor demonstration project that would use the reprocessed waste as fuel. Under GNEP, nuclear nations would sell non nuclear countries reactors and provide the nuclear fuel and then accept the radioactive waste back for reprocessing and eventually disposal. Profit selling, profit receiving and I’m sure there would be profit in maintenance as well.

Reduce Dependence On Foreign Oil How?
Expanding the use of nuclear power will have little or no impact on the U.S. addiction to foreign oil. Nuclear power plants generate two things: electricity and the radioactive materials to produce nuclear weapons. Since less than 3 percent of U.S. electricity is generated by oil, nuclear power’s role in addressing U.S. oil addiction is extremely limited.
The U.S. Department of Energy expects that percentage to drop to 1.68 percent by 2025.

Where Are The Miraculous Cost Savings?
General Electric (GE) promised to construct its new Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) in Japan for 1500/kw. The actual cost for the first reactor was $3,282/kw, more than twice what GE promised more than twice what the nuclear corporations’ claim that they can afford. Areva’s Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor (EPR) has not yet received approval in the U.S. However, construction of the EPR in Finland, only begun in 2005, is already a year over schedule. Due to major construction problems with the Finish reactor, Areva was expected to lose as much as $922 million of income in 2006.

From 1966 to 1972, Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) operated a commercial reprocessing facility in West Valley, NY. After a four-year shutdown, NFS determined that it was too expensive to bring the facility up to regulatory standards and so abandoned the site. The Department of Energy (DOE) originally estimated that the cleanup effort at the site could be completed by about 1990. However, in May 2001, the US General Accounting Office, (GAO) determined that clean up was not nearly complete and would take up to forty years to finish. GAO calculated that the West Valley cleanup costs would total about $4.5 billion.

Oh but wait there is miracle new technology…

FAST REACTORS
According the President Bush’s GNEP scheme, after the radioactive wastes are reprocessed they would be converted in reactor fuel for use in Advancer Burner Reactors (ABR). While these reactors do not even exist they are conceptually similar to fast breeder reactors without the uranium blanket for “breeding” plutonium. However, the experience with “fast breeder” reactors in the U.S. and elsewhere has shown that they are expensive and dangerous.

In November 1955, the first U.S. “power reactor” ever to produce electricity, the EBR-1, (experimental breeder reactor) melted down during testing. The public was not made aware of this meltdown until Lewis Strauss, head of the Atomic Energy Commission and the man who claimed nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter” was confronted by the Wall Street Journal and had to admit his ignorance of the accident.

Not to be dissuaded by the meltdown of the EBR-1, The Power Reactor Development Corporation, a consortium of 35 utilities headed by Detroit Edison forged ahead with the first commercial fast breeder reactor. The Fermi reactor was to be a scaled up version of the EBR-1. On October 6, 1966 the Fermi reactor also melted down. Oh, but those who push nukes say you can’t use examples from the past.

Things have changed. Really?

The U.S. is not the only country to experience accidents with fast breeder reactors. Even the highly touted French nuclear program proved incapable of making the technology work safely and economically. France’s “Superphenix” was permanently shut down in 1987 after leaking 20 tons of sodium coolant. The $10 billion dollar reactor only operated for 278 days in its 11-year history.

Japan has had no better luck with its fast breeder program. The Japanese “Monju” fast breeder reactor was shutdown in 1995 after three tons of sodium leaked causing reactor to over heat and burning holes in cooling pipes.

In addition to these major costs, there is also the uncalculated cost of maintenance, refurbishing, and then dismantling these very large facilities. Who do you think is paying for all of this and the corporate handouts and the guaranteed loans? Sorry, it’s you, the taxpayer. And no it can’t be built into the consumer cost, because then it couldn’t compete with oil, coal and current electric power.

The Danger
In his 2003 State of the Union Address President Bush claimed that “ the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.” Unfortunately, Mr. Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would only increase this danger. Dirty bombs are a dangerous threat in the hands of our enemies. What are dirty bombs made of? How much nuclear waste is transported via,: rail, highway, and waterway that is susceptible to falling into the hands of those who threaten our nation?

There is a direct correlation between nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs. In 2004, a report from Jane’s Intelligence Review concluded that an increase in the number of nuclear power plants worldwide would directly increase the risks associated with nuclear weapons proliferation. For India to create their nuclear weapon, they used reprocessed plutonium from radioactive fuel.

Then There Is Chernobyl
This caused enormous damage to the economy, environment, wildlife and humans. To whitewash this is to ignore the human suffering that resulted. These are real lives, real people. Not just statistics and an anomaly. The problem we call Chernobyl is not a thing of the past. Plans are now being made to export large amounts of highly radioactive waste to sites of nuclear accidents like Mayak, Semipalatinsk and even to Chernobyl. These plans are supported by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. I seem to remember these guys being used as a source by someone in the last post's comments, sounds like they have peoples' best interest in mind?!?! But not to be dissuaded, I'm sure those in favor of nuclear energy have no problems ignoring these problematic implications and are happy to push forward with their embrace of nuclear energy, ignoring the facts and concerns of others (and being deeply suspicious of the integrity and intellectual ability of experts in the field who have concerns) but for those who are interested in learning more, I have linked to some interesting articles below.

Further Reading

Mirage and Oasis

An American Chernobyl

The Economics of Nuclear Power

Nuclear Fact Sheet

High Level Radioactive Fact Sheet

No Such Thing As A Safe Dose Of Radiation

Is Nuclear The Answer?

Going Nuclear?

In my recent perusal of talk radio, sites and newspapers (of a certain ideological perspective) I was surprised to see the promotion of nuclear power as a way of meeting our future energy needs. Maybe it is just because I lived through the end of the Cold War and witnessed the destruction of Chernobyl, but nuclear energy just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Therefore, I was quite surprised to find out that going nuclear (outside of Iran of course) is quite in vogue. When dealing with this form of energy, there remain some serious issues that need to be addressed and thought through. The article below goes into more detail.

Just Say No
Nuclear power is complicated, dangerous, and definitely not the answer
BY STEVEN COHEN
08 Aug 2006

If the media and the New York Times editorial page are any guide, nuclear power is the new green-energy option being embraced by environmentalists. This is not a new idea. The first mainstream statement of the "nuclear option" came from a 2003 report by MIT professors John Deutch and Ernest Moniz, "The Future of Nuclear Power."

As the duo's press release put it: "The nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power ... Taking nuclear power off the table as a viable alternative will prevent the global community from achieving long-term gains in the control of carbon dioxide emissions."

While I share their alarm at our failure to address the problem of overabundant greenhouse-gas emissions, I am equally alarmed by their willingness to accept this dangerous, complicated, and politically controversial technology as a fix for our looming climate crisis.

Let's begin with dangerous, setting aside the obvious problems raised by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. In the past few years, we have seen the horror that suicide bombers set loose in restaurants from Tel Aviv to Baghdad, and the danger of jets flying into skyscrapers. Do we really want to see what happens if a terrorist attacks a nuclear power plant? Are we so arrogant as to believe that these facilities are not already tempting, and vulnerable, targets?

Let's move on to complicated. The primary waste product of nuclear power, spent fuel rods, remains toxic for thousands of years. We do not yet know how to detoxify these waste products and, despite 20-some years of trying, we have not yet been able to establish a long-term repository anywhere in the United States.

Money is not the issue. We have the resources to build a nuclear-waste storage facility -- under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, customers of nuclear-generated electricity have been paying a $0.001 per kilowatt-hour fee on their electric bills since 1983. Utilities pass the money into an account that has generated $24 billion over the years. Despite assurances that the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will last longer than the waste will be toxic, serious failings in storage technology and the risks of transportation have resulted in widespread opposition. Today, our nuclear waste goes into "spent fuel pools" at nuclear power plants like the one at Indian Point, just 35 miles north of New York City.

If the problem of detoxifying waste is beyond current technology -- which is why we need to store it for thousands of years -- what about the technology of power generation? The MIT study acknowledges that no power plant can be made risk-free. In reality, all technology carries risks. When we drive on an interstate highway, we face the risk of a crash. We accept the risk because it is relatively low, and because the effect of the risk is localized. A mistake in a nuclear power plant, however, can cause long-standing, widespread damage to people and ecosystems. Just ask the people who survived Chernobyl. The risk may be low, but the potential impact is high.

That leads to the politics. No one wants to host the nuclear-waste repository. No one wants a nuclear power plant next door. This is not an engineering or economic issue, but one of politics. In an increasingly crowded and interdependent world, people have grown more sensitive about questions of land-use development. Environmental justice has also reached the political stage, because the rich are better able to defend themselves against environmental insults than the poor. In the United States, local politics in many places has become the politics of land use and development. If we can't site Wal-Marts without a lengthy battle, why does anyone seriously think that we will be able to site the hundreds of new nuclear power plants that may be necessary to meet our energy needs without increasing greenhouse-gas emissions?

Moreover, why waste our time and effort on a so-called solution to climate change and high oil prices that has no real chance of gaining political traction? The largest impacts of global warming lie in the future, and are global in scope. But the problem of a nuclear accident would be comparatively local, and would potentially last for decades or centuries. The American political process is designed to respond to intense, local issues -- that is why constructing even one nuclear power plant is a non-starter.

I agree that the answer to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and reducing energy costs is to develop new technology. I agree that the need for a technological fix is urgent. The problem of energy prices and global climate change is real, and reaching crisis proportions. The American government should start a major research and development effort to create new power sources that are small-scale, decentralized, environmentally safe, and feasible in the political climate of the U.S. in the first decade of the 21st century.

Despite the promises of a previous generation, nuclear power never became "too cheap to meter." Rather, it became a discredited, mid-20th century mistake. Raising this issue is a distraction from the real work we need to undertake. We need to put our brain power to work on a way of reducing energy prices and emissions that can actually be implemented here in the United States -- and very, very soon.

Some relevant links:
The Dangers of Nuclear Power

Nuclear power isn't clean, it's dangerous

Nuclear Energy Fact Sheet

Majora Carter - Green is the New Black

In an emotionally charged talk, Majora Carter explains her fight for environmental justice in the South Bronx. This MacArthur-winning activist shows how minority neighborhoods have suffered most from flawed urban policy, and energetically shares her grassroots efforts to "green the ghetto." Her talk from the heart drew a spontaneous standing ovation at TED, and has proved equally moving online. As blogger Mike Maupuia records: "So I'm sitting at my desk at work, earplugs inserted, and tears running down my face. I'm watching this video of Majora Carter's presentation at TED, and thinking ... I love this woman! But don't listen to me ... go listen to her!"

Hillary Part 2

John Edwards is having a hayday with these videos, and I must say, I do enjoy them...

Iranian dissidents freed from 'perverse' ban

By Christopher Booker

In a street off London's Chancery Lane on Friday 400 Iranians celebrated a court victory that has left the British Government in a deep double embarassment. Not only were ministers found to have acted illegally in outlawing the chief Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI), as a terrorist organisation; they now face searching questions from their EU colleagues as to why they have twice incited the European Council to a unique act of defiance by ignoring a ruling from the European Court of Justice.

At the heart of this shameful story lies one of the most baffling riddles of contemporary politics: why should our Government have repeatedly acted in breach of the law, to appease the murderous regime in Teheran, which has played a key part in arming the insurgents who are killing British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?

This murky tale goes back to 2001 when Jack Straw, as home secretary, branded the PMOI, alongside al-Qa'eda, as a terrorist organisation. As Straw himself admitted in 2006, he did this "at the behest of the Teheran regime". The PMOI is part of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), backed by millions of Iranians who want to see their country transformed into a democratic, secular state, freed from the tyranny of the mullahs and the murder squads of their Revolutionary Guards, who have shot, mutilated or hanged more than 100,000 supporters of the NCRI since 1979.

In 2002, at British instigation, the EU added the PMOI to its own list of terrorist groups, a decision that last December was finally ruled "unlawful" by the ECJ. Unprecedentedly, in January, again at British instigation, the Council of the European Union agreed to defy the ruling of its own court, a decision it confirmed last June - even though by then the Foreign Office admitted the Revolutionary Guards were actively aiding the insurgents fighting British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In August, 35 MPs and peers, led by former ministers, including Lord Waddington, a former home secretary, asked the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Committee, a branch of the High Court, to rule that the proscription of the PMOI was unlawful. Their lawyers produced a mass of evidence to show that the PMOI was not a terrorist organisation. The Home Office could produce no evidence to show that it was anything other than a non-violent movement campaigning for democracy.

On Friday all three judges ruled in the PMOI's favour, finding that the Home Office had ignored important facts, misunderstood the law and reached a "perverse" decision. It told the Home Secretary to lay an order before Parliament removing the PMOI from its list. Home Officer minister Tom McNulty weakly responded that the Government would seek leave to appeal.
The ruling deepens Britain's embarrassment in Europe, where it has twice successfully incited the EU to defy the verdict of its own court. In June, when Britain persuaded the Council to uphold its earlier decision, this was against the wishes of more than 1,000 politicians of all parties across the EU, including 234 MEPs and the Italian and Danish parliaments.

The fact that our Government has been shown to have acted illegally all along, to appease a regime which glories in hanging its political opponents in public, should persuade the rest of the EU finally to recognise how grotesquely it has been misled by British ministers, and to reverse its shameful action in line with the robust ruling of a British court. A good day for British justice, but one that leaves Mr Straw and his colleagues with some very uncomfortable questions to answer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/02/nbook102.xml

Government ordered to end 'perverse' terror listing of Iran opposition

The Guardian
Clare Dyer, legal editor

The government has been ordered to remove the main Iranian opposition organisation from a list of banned terrorist groups by a panel that called the decision to list the group "perverse".

The Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) ruled yesterday that the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, acted illegally in refusing to take the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) off the proscribed terrorist blacklist drawn up under the 2000 Terrorist Act.

Courts rarely call government decisions perverse, and the panel, chaired by former high court judge Sir Harry Ognall and cleared to see secret material, said: "We recognise that a finding of perversity is uncommon." It added: "We believe, however, that this commission is in the (perhaps unusual) position of having before it all of the material that is relevant to this decision."

The Home Office minister Tony McNulty said he was disappointed by the decision. "We don't accept it and we intend to appeal.

"The government adopted a cautious approach in relation to the de-proscription of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran. I remain convinced that where terrorism is concerned the rights of the law-abiding majority and the overriding need to protect the public...must lead us to take such a cautious approach."

The case was taken to POAC by 35 cross-party senior MPs and peers including a former home secretary, Lord Waddington, former solicitor general, Lord Archer, and a retired law lord, Lord Slynn.

In a 144-page judgment, the commission ruled that in deciding to maintain the ban the Home Office had misunderstood the law, ignored important facts and reached a "perverse" decision.

The panel concluded that action by the PMOI against Iranian military and security targets had effectively ended in 2001, that the organisation maintained no military structure, that it had disarmed in 2003, and that it had not attempted to re-arm.

The organisation, which campaigns for the replacement of the Iranian regime by a secular democracy, drew the world's attention to Iran's nuclear programme in 2002.

Lord Corbett, chairman of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, said after the ruling: "I now invite the former home secretary and foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to apologise for the hurt and harm he has done to the Iranian resistance by his supine agreement to the demands of the mullahs.

"Today's decision signals that the Iranian resistance - demonised, vilified, unjustly labelled terrorist - wants no more than to help the people of Iran to rid themselves of the misrule of the mullahs."

Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes PMOI, described the ruling as "a magnificent victory for justice". She added: "We have always said the fundamental solution to the Iranian crisis is neither foreign military intervention nor appeasement. The solution is democratic change by the Iranian people and resistance."

Coal

An inspiring look (spoof) at what makes our country run.

ONE-ON-ONE WITH IRAN'S OPPOSITION

(I thought this is a good recent article on the Iranian Resistance's leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. Since some of you have expressed interest to know more about the Iranian Resistance, I'll write more on the topic in the near future. This piece was published in the Christian Science Monitor on November 7th.)

A noted dissident says Iran is closer to a nuclear bomb than we think.

By John Hughes November 7, 2007 PROVO, UTAH - The head of the Iranian opposition group in exile that supplied early intelligence on Iran's clandestine nuclear program says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has engineered a clever disinformation campaign to convince foreign experts that Iran is eight to 10 years away from developing a nuclear bomb. But in fact, she says, the regime is less than two years away from producing such a weapon, as part of its plan to "create an Iranian empire" in the Middle East.

In a wide-ranging weekend telephone conversation from her base of exile in Paris, Maryam Rajavi told me that Mr. Ahmadinejad has purged between 40 and 50 senior military officers who are in disagreement with his plans. She also explained that the resignation of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, followed dispute between Mr. Larijani and Ahmadinejad over "incentives" Larijani had been prepared to offer his interlocutors in the West. Ms. Rajavi heads the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), whose military arm is the People's Mujahideen of Iran. The Mujahideen are listed as a terrorist organization by the US for its violent tactics. (The group allegedly supported the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.) But in a bizarre twist, some 3,800 Mujahideen fighters who later conducted operations against the Iranian regime from Iraqi territory during the reign of Saddam Hussein are currently being held in benign custody in Iraq by US forces as "protected" persons. The current Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to prosecute or deport them.

Rajavi says this is at the behest of Iran. Both the NCRI and the People's Mujahideen claim to have substantial underground support in Iran. Though the information of exiled groups about events in their tyrannized homelands has come under acute scrutiny since Iraqi exiles produced questionable data about events in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the NCRI is credited by US sources with accurately identifying clandestine Iranian nuclear facilities early on. By interesting coincidence, The Times (London) recently cited Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa as the first Arab leader to directly accuse Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons.

"While they don't have the bomb yet, they are developing it, or the capability for it," The Times quotes the crown prince as saying, adding that this is the first time one of Iran's Gulf neighbors has "effectively accused [Iran] of lying about its nuclear programme." In her weekend conversation, Rajavi was adamant that "military intervention" in Iran by the US or others is not desirable. However, she praised the Bush administration for its recent branding of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. The IRGC, she said, holds key positions in government, dominates much of the economy, controls the nuclear program, and has a major role in drug trafficking.

The US government's action against it, she says, is a "clear testament and an indispensable prelude to democratic change in Iran." Her own program for change in Iran is a combination of accelerated sanctions and political pressure from without and upheaval arising from discontent within.

Getting rid of her own organization's "terrorist" label, she argues, would help energize internal critics of the regime. She says support for this is growing among both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. She is heartened by recent efforts of British parliamentarians to persuade the European Union to lift restrictions on Iranian opposition groups and blacklist Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The Guards, she says, are responsible for the torture and execution of many Iranians and are the "center of all the disasters" of the Iranian people. They are also key to Iran's military role in Iraq. According to Rajavi, they use the "Ramezan" garrison and four tactical bases near the Iran-Iraq border to send arms and explosives to Iraq. NCRI has exposed three factories in a very secure area in Tehran that are making roadside bombs to send to Iraq, she adds.

In a previous conversation with Rajavi a little more than two years ago, she spoke in Persian, translated into English through an interpreter. On this occasion she spoke in heavily accented English. "I studied English in high school," she said, "but I have been practicing it more." She also speaks French. As we began our conversation, she reminded me that "everything I warned you about two years ago about Ahmadinejad has come true. He has declared war [on his perceived enemies]."

John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is a professor of communications at Brigham Young University.

Soft Power

There was an interesting discussion in class today around the topic of knowledge being the new gold, figuratively speaking. We went on to discuss Joseph Nye and his theories on soft power and knowledge. Here is an excerpt of the full text.

"Soft power" is the ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion. It works by convincing others to follow, or getting them to agree to, norms and institutions that produce the desired behavior. Soft power can rest on the appeal of one's ideas or the ability to set the agenda in ways that shape the preferences of others. If a state can make its power legitimate in the perception of others and establish international institutions that encourage them to channel or limit their activities, it may not need to expend as many of its costly traditional economic or military resources.

The Power Resource of the Future
Knowledge, more than ever before, is power. The one country that can best lead the information revolution will be more powerful than any other. For the foreseeable future, that country is the United States. America has apparent strength in military power and economic production. Yet its more subtle comparative advantage is its ability to collect, process, act upon, and disseminate information, an edge that will almost certainly grow over the next decade. This advantage stems from Cold War investments and America's open society, thanks to which it dominates important communications and information processing technologies--space-based surveillance, direct broadcasting, high-speed computers--and has an unparalleled ability to integrate complex information systems.

This information advantage can help deter or defeat traditional military threats at relatively low cost. In a world in which the meaning of containment, the nuclear umbrella, and conventional deterrence have changed, the information advantage can strengthen the intellectual link between U.S. foreign policy and military power and offer new ways of maintaining leadership in alliances and ad hoc coalitions.

The information edge is equally important as a force multiplier of American diplomacy, including "soft power"--the attraction of American democracy and free markets. The United States can use its information resources to engage China, Russia, and other powerful states in security dialogues to prevent them from becoming hostile. At the same time, its information edge can help prevent states like Iran and Iraq, already hostile, from becoming powerful. Moreover, it can bolster new democracies and communicate directly with those living under undemocratic regimes. This advantage is also important in efforts to prevent and resolve regional conflicts and deal with prominent post--Cold War dangers, including international crime, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and damage to the global environment.

Yet two conceptual problems prevent the United States from realizing its potential. The first is that outmoded thinking clouds the appreciation of information as power. Traditional measures of military force, gross national product, population, energy, land, and minerals have continued to dominate discussions of the balance of power. These power resources still matter, and American leadership continues to depend on them as well as on the information edge. But these measures failed to anticipate the demise of the Soviet Union, and they are an equally poor means of forecasting for the exercise of American leadership into the next century.

In assessing power in the information age, the importance of technology, education, and institutional flexibility has risen, whereas that of geography, population, and raw materials has fallen. Japan adapted to these changes through growth in the 1980s far better than by pursuing territorial conquest in the 1930s. In neglecting information, traditional measures of the balance of power have failed to anticipate the key developments of the last decade: the Soviet Union's fall, Japan's rise, and the continuing prominence of the United States.

The second conceptual problem has been a failure to grasp the nature of information. It is easy to trace and forecast the growth of capabilities to process and exchange information. The information revolution, for example, clearly is in its formative stages, but one can foresee that the next step will involve the convergence of key technologies, such as digitization, computers, telephones, televisions, and precise global positioning. But to capture the implications of growing information capabilities, particularly the interactions among them, is far more difficult. Information power is also hard to categorize because it cuts across all other military, economic, social, and political power resources, in some cases diminishing their strength, in others multiplying it.

The United States must adjust its defense and foreign policy strategy to reflect its growing comparative advantage in information resources. Part of this adjustment will entail purging conceptual vestiges. Some of the lingering Cold War inhibitions on sharing intelligence, for example, keep the United States from seizing new opportunities. Some of the adjustment will require innovation in existing institutions. Information agencies need not remain Cold War relics, as some in Congress describe them, but should be used as instruments that can be more powerful, cost effective, and flexible than ever before. Likewise, the artificially sharp distinction between military and political assets has kept the United States from suppressing hate propaganda that has incited ethnic conflicts.

Interesting thoughts, what do you think?

Say one thing ... say another

This was just to priceless not to post. When will the double-speak (aka lying) end?

Habeas Corpus

HT Spork in the Drawer for the photo.
Habeas Corpus is defined as:

In common law countries, habeas corpus (/ˈheɪbiəs ˈkɔɹpəs/) (Latin: [We command that] you have the body) is the name of a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of themselves or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

Also known as "The Great Writ," a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a prisoner be brought before the court so that the court can determine whether that person is serving a lawful sentence or should be released from custody. The prisoner, or some other person on his behalf (for example, where the prisoner is being held incommunicado), may petition the court or an individual judge for a writ of habeas corpus.

So why is this so instrumental? Why is this to fundamental? And why should we be
familiarized and concerned with this cornerstone of our democracy and society?

This law is instrumental in maintaining a legal barrier between the government and civil society. This barrier protects people from arbitrary arrest and detention by a government agency. This is fundamental because it serves to maintain an area of accountability whereby the government cannot do as it pleases with civilians, it must, in essence, answer to the judicial authorities, why they have arrested or detained this person or people. We should know about this law and the importance of it being a bed stone of our democracy because its importance in protecting your legal rights and freedom, but also because it is being taken away. While we speak there are hundreds of detainees in Guantanamo Bay as well as unknown numbers more who have been "renditioned" to overseas prisons to be held and interrogated without due process. Keep in mind, I am not advocating the release of all of these people, I am strongly advocating that they be accorded habeas corpus and legal rights.

What about terrorism?
This is the first and strongest objection to legal rights. This is a convenient argument since it places the person who answers in a lose/lose situation. ie if you want habeas corpus, then the terrorists plans cannot be found out quick enough and we will die. Or if you agree to the removal of habeas corpus then the government just has to use the word 'terrorist' and your legal rights are gone. Of course this doesn't scare you, you are a law abiding citizen, what do you have to be afraid of?
Don't forget to learn the lessons of history. Don't forget to learn from those who had to learn the hard way. This is a poem written by a Christian pastor in Nazi Germany.

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

~Pastor Martin Niemöller~


Why should this be important to Christians?
This is absolutely essential for Christians. The bible warned us to take care in where we stand, lest we fall. And that they hated Jesus, they will hate us. Many think that this could never happen in America. True it is hard to imagine, isn't it. Once again, let's look to history to glean valuable lessons. Picture if you will a nation that claimed 90+ percent Christian population. This nation was large and strong. This nation was Czarist Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution. It effectively took a small group of Bolsheviks 7 days to close down all of the churches and remove all of the Christian leaders. 7 days.

With the removal of habeas corpus, our right to legal council, due process and unwarranted government assault is gone. If a leader were in place who so chose to persecute believers, the way would be paved for this to be accomplished at an expedited pace.


The higher standard? (Love costs something)
It is true that having habeas corpus may slow down the war on terrorism, but habeas corpus is the law that we have set as a standard of righteousness and justice in our democracy. It costs something to have laws, it means we agree as a society to not break them. We agree to not steal, even if that is easier. We agree to not kill, even if we may become really angry. And we agree to afford every person the right to be innocent until legally proven guilty. We have agreed to not let the government wage war on its population through coercive measures, they must be accountable to an independent judiciary. Even, yes even if the bad guy gets off sometimes. So why should we pay such a high price? We should pay it because that is the cost of equal rights, that is the cost of freedom for all, and that is the price that Jesus paid on the cross. He died for all of us and it cost Him something. Even if we have slandered Him, betrayed Him or rebelled against Him, He still loves us all and died for us all and affords us all the same rights and opportunities taking all things into account.

For more information on the current suspension of habeas corpus click on the title of this post, and/or google: REAL id 2008, be prepared to "show your papers." Where else have I heard that before???

Child Labour and the Gap

Gap has, once again, been exposed for poor labour practices. Gap has been plagued with questionable labour practices since the 1990s when they were first exposed for using sweatshop workers who were paid 30 cents an hour to make Gap clothing. More recently Gap has come under fire when the Observer newspaper from England exposed the Gap for using child slave labour. The Observer reported on a child slave who had been working for four months without pay and would not be allowed to leave the job until the fee his family had received was repaid. Another boy of 12 said children were beaten if bosses thought they were not working hard enough. The Gap just can't resist cheap labour in order to increase profits. When will companies wake up to the marketing of fair business practices? These negative reports continue to have detrimental effects on Gap stock.

Gap, which has made commitments not to use child labour, said that only one item - a girl's smock blouse - was involved. The Gap responded to the revelation by saying that the smock blouse will not be offered for sale in the company's 3,000 stores around the world, Gap said, and instead will be destroyed.

I find it shocking that Gap's response to the use of child labour in India is to destroy the items that were produced by these workers. It would be nice to see a response that is more proactive and less wasteful of this opportunity. Perhaps Gap could use the opportunity to bring attention to the plight of indentured child labourers and promote itself as an advocate working towards solutions to address indentured child labour.

Since these products have already been produced, why not sell them with 100% of the proceeds going toward the payment required for securing these children's release from their indentured status. Obviously, Gap would thereafter end its working relationship with the factory/factories involved.

I just think that Gap should think beyond 'saving face' by destroying the garments (seems like such a waste, and doesn't really help the children), and try to think in terms of turning a bad situation into a positive opportunity. I'm sure there is some legal reason stopping such action, but wouldn't it be nice to see?

New Iran Sanctions

On Thursday (Oct. 25) the US slapped new sanctions on the Iranian regime’s elite military force, referred to as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). They are said to be the harshest against the country in the past 30 years, and it is the first time the US has imposed sanctions on a military unit of another state. Aside from the historical and legal significance of the move, 3 full days have gone by in Iran, and the Iranian regime has been so psychologically astounded that it has banned public comments on the sanctions until further notice.

Here at home, two types of reactions have resulted from the sanctions. One argues that the sanctions are a prelude to military conflict. But, this is a hasty conclusion and it mostly takes historical parallels as its evidence. But, even if the American administration wanted to attack Iran, in the medium-to-long-term it simply cannot wage another full-scale attack. And, there is a lot of debate still raging in Washington regarding the effectiveness of small-scale strikes on the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities.

The other type of reaction is more sophisticated. It says that although it’s late, it’s nonetheless necessary, but not at all sufficient.

It’s late because for the past two-and-a-half decades, the IRGC has been known to carry out terrorist activities all over the world, from Argentina to the Balkans, and from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia and the Horn of Africa.

The move is necessary because the IRGC is a significant actor (economically, politically, socially) in Iran. And, this stems from its role within the state. Its mandate is to safeguard the rule of the mullahs, by suppressing opposition at home and exporting their fundamentalist ideology abroad. In the economic sphere, the IRGC is reported to control more than half of the country’s exports and imports, netting multi-billion dollar profits each year, in order to fund the nuclear weapons program and the regime’s nefarious activities especially in Iraq and Palestine.

Moreover, the IRGC has been taking an increasingly dominant political role. The regime’s madcap president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a former member of the IRGC, and so were/are the nuclear negotiators, Ali Larijani (who was recently fired – not resigned) and Saeed Jalili (the current negotiator).

But, although the recent designations and sanctions are necessary in order to hamper Iranian efforts to export and consolidate Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Mideast, they are scantly sufficient. The US should convince its allies, especially, the EU to follow suit. The Americans should also designate the entire IRGC as a terrorist organization. Such policies strengthen diplomacy, and must therefore be broadened to include tougher sanctions at the UNSC.

But, far more importantly, married to such firm policies, the Americans should support the Iranian people’s aspirations for a free and democratic Iran. Let’s not forget that the Iranian people have been waging a steadfast fight to bring down the mullahs, sacrificing 120,000 of their sons and daughters to this end. It's time to have a dialogue with the Iranian people, not with those who murder them.

Pro Life... Pro Choice???

So the Council of Europe held their first anti-death penalty day a couple of weeks ago. Interesting day to celebrate, I guess they feel bad about the things done in the past. For those who are unaware, in order to join the EU, a state must change their internal laws in order to prohibit the death penalty. This anti-death penalty day was held in conjunction with the global anti-death penalty day, which is led by the Global Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

The only dissenting voice in the EU was Poland. Their argument was, the EU cannot justify being pro-life for convicted prisoners and pro-choice for euthanasia and abortion. Poland was the only member state to oppose an EU-sponsored European Day Against the Death Penalty, with Deputy Justice Minister Andrzej Duda saying the EU "should approach the subject in a broader way and debate the protection of all life".

The Council for Europe secretary said, "We know that there are many people in Europe who continue to support the death penalty... We need to go out and explain to people why the death penalty is wrong." Interesting that they want to enlighten people on this subject, but when Poland or other Christian groups want to tell people about abortion or euthanasia, they are labeled "right-wing" radicals.

Our Favorite Show 24

I love 24. It is really entertaining, and always keeps me guessing. But I've also wondered about some of the subtle (or not so subtle) messages conveyed by the show. After all, Jack Bauer did actually saw someone's head off in one episode (I don't remember the season, and obviously they didn't show it visually, but this was part of the storyline). Call me crazy, but that's a bit extreme for American television.

The show is definitely part of an American media phenomenon I like to call "All Terror, All the Time". I remember a visit to the states (my home country) three years after 9/11 and being surprised that Fox News only seemed to ever discuss terrorism. As if nothing else was really relevant, or worth talking about. I think it's calmed down a bit, but as far as Fox is concerned, there are still security threats at every turn, behind every bush. "All Terror, All the Time." Fear is a powerful social tool. It works in Islam, it worked in the Communist world, and it can work against us too if we are not careful.

I found this article called "The Orwellian Ideology of 24" to be of interest.

Hey Big Spender

The BBC posed an excellent question concerning the 2008 presidential race, "The eye-popping sums raised by the 2008 US presidential contenders surely raise the question: what are they spending it on?" Did you know that contenders have already spent $80.6 million dollars? And this is pre-2008, when the campaigning normally begins! Don't worry about them running out of cash though, contenders still have plenty to spend (unless you are John McCain, who ran out of cash this summer):

Hillary Clinton (D) - $35m
Barack Obama (D) - $32m
John Edwards (D) - $12.4m
Rudolph Giuliani (R) - $11.6m
Mitt Romney (R) - $9.2m
Fred Thompson (R) - $7.1m

It causes one to wonder, if they spend like this now, how will they be when they get into office? Does this seem a little over the top to anyone else? Where are they getting all of this money and what conditions are tied to it?

A Deeper and Broader Morality

Sojourners magazine sent me this article. The author writes,

"I'm preparing for a dialogue with Richard Land at the FRC Action's Values Voter Summit tomorrow. This has caused me to reflect on how the definition of "moral values" has changed. Evangelical activism to protect God's creation is now publicly visible in a new way, including Christian concern over global warming. A host of other issues are now part of a broadened and deepened evangelical agenda—most connected to poverty, human rights, and social justice. Even American military and foreign policy has begun to come under critique by Christian scholars (including evangelicals), who focus on the ethics of war and the dubious morality of the U.S. response to terrorism. Slowly, even the media is reporting on the widening evangelical concern over human life and dignity."

I found the article interesting as it is reporting on a phenomenon that I identify with. It describes my journey of discovering the heart of God in new ways. I used to be very limited regarding which issues qualified as my "family values" and which did not make the list. But that has been changing. God has been showing me how important caring for the poor and protecting vulnerable members of society (both nationally and globally) is to Him. Social justice, fair wages, equality, dignity, respect for life. These are family values too.

How Will the 'Christian Right' Vote in 2008?

If it ends up being a choice between Rudy and Hillary, then that leaves Christian conservatives in a quandry. I'm a Christian and am pretty conservative in my values and ethics. These values I hold dear also mean that I'm more social-justice oriented in my ideas on regulation and restraint in a capitalist system. Jesus had a lot to say about caring for the poor, and the Bible in general has a lot to say about protecting the vulnerable. So, neither of these candidates are appealing to me.

What would draw me to vote Republican (values) is not evident in Rudy. Let's see, he's pro-choice, married 3 times, numerous extra-marital affairs, and famously lived with a homosexual couple. Not exactly a poster boy for family values. What would draw me to vote Democrat (social justice) is not evident in Hillary. She acts more like a neo-con than some Republicans in the way she votes in the Senate. Her big-money backing outdoes most Republicans who are always accused of being in bed with big business.

Seriously, this is going to be a bizarre election if these two end up on the ticket. Perhaps a third-party candidate or an independent will begin to look much more appealing...