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>> (recall thalidomide and the monarch butterfly
>> problem).
>That's why we have NCBI BLAST.
I don't know what that is.
>or US. I don't object to that research being done in
>Iraq (the way I see it - the majority of intelligent
Not if the Iraqis are for it. But I would expect there to be howls of
alarm from the US if Iraqis did the research: accusatons of developing
biological weapons. Every aspect and possibility has to be considered in
political terms, and lately the politics stink.
>thinking 'westerners' who go to Iraq end up on lists
>like this sooner or later). They will also indirectly
>help the economy over there (they've got to buy stuff
>from somewhere).
The problems come down to who is controlling the situation. The US is bad
news. The UN is better, but they (the member states) also have suspect
agendas.
>> I think who makes them (and why!) are quite
>> important.
>Considering the current humanitarian situation, I
>couldn't disagree more!
>If - as an example - the US/UK decided that it's
>trrops were at risk because of the water supply and
>sorted it out - I would be happy that it was being
>fixed (and quickly). As long as it's fixed I don't
Yes, water treatment and supply is an emergency situation which needs to
be handled by different criteria. But there is talk about privatizing
water, and even about building pipelines to sell it at a distance, and
those are not emergencies. One thing the Bushies do is lump several
distinct things into a category, as "WMD". They used suspect intelligence
and a history of using chemicals to say "Yes, we can confirm an Iraqi WMD
program", and then they link that with statements about mushroom clouds.
Now we hear about privatizing various state-based services, and if we all
concede that water is an emergency and the US must be goven a free hand,
they will expand that critical task into the other water-related issues,
citing the emergency as justification for all actions they take.
>> labeling. Science needs objectivity, and those
>> profiting from the big corporations are hardly >>objective.
>Those big corporations are doing very little research
>on the subject (lucky that). Most is being done by
>universities and released. Most research in
But here again is blurring. The universities get funding from the
corporations, and incestuous relationships develop between them, along
with government agencies. I've heard this referred to as a "revolving
door", with people moving among the three -- government, academia, and
corporations.
>universities is objective.
So, you see -- I don't it's all that objective. There are examples in
weapons research, but also in business management and political areas.
Take a look at the resumes of the neo-cons and others active in these
affairs and you see a lot of overlap. I watch the Newshour, and they have
a panel discussing the war and Mid-East policy, and see the same
universities, think tanks, and current or present government people,
often feeding off each other to develop the "story". Many of the current
crew, who planned on attacking Iraq a decade ago, are associated with
Yale Business School, and the philosopy derived from Leo Strauss, with
influence from the Krystal family, Bloomberg, et al.
>> US/UK -- an attitude of "we know best" -- which is
>> not only impractical in many areas but builds further >>resentment and
artificial dependence (and US corporate >>profits).
>This is another situation where we can put as much
>pressure on the US/UK to change their attidue but we
>cannot rely on being sucessful. We also need to try to
>push them into making the right decisions while
>they're in power (even if they make those decisions
>for the wrong reasons)
The most important thing is to keep insisting that the Iraqis be in
charge of their country, but we need to be aware of the forces opposing
that.
With GMOs for example, I expect, as part of the overall pattern (although
I haven't researched this in particular), that we can find connections
between the research people, the corporations who stand to profit (and of
course contribute to the universities), the government regulatory
agencies, Congress and the Senate (who want to satisfy the corporations
in their districts and who contribute to campaign funds), and the
idealogues who have connections with them all and want to establish an
economic, political, and military dominance in the region, beginning with
a base in Iraq. Another leg of this "spider" is the press and media,
owned by big corporations, dependent on advertising from other
corporations, and who want to be cozy with the government people who feed
their news stories and regulate their operations. There are also the
Jewish lobbies like JINSA, and various other US allies and trading
partners.
These relationships have developed over many decades -- but Iraq is not a
member of the club. This is the main idea behind the neo-cons,
neo-liberals, and globalization -- and the "third world" nations ("The
South"), who get "operated on". Neither the support given to Hussein up
to 1991 nor the recent invasion were random events, but rather a natural
outcome of the combination of these forces, motives, and regional
economic resources.
Under this model, whatever is done in Iraq will be precarious balance, as
a judgement of those on power, between how effectively they can exploit
the nation for profit and what they can get away with under the watch of
the peoples of the world and peace/justice activists. Some of this is
actual planned conspiracy, but much of it is just a congealing or
consensus of the world view of those in power (as with "the white man's
burden" or "manifest destiny"), often without full awareness of the
assumptions and prejudice they harbor, or any desire to examine their
motives too closely as long as they are making money.
When we look at all the wrong decisions which have already been made --
or simply neglected like the failure to provide sufficient human and
material resources for the post-carnage period -- then the wrong reasons
assume more importance because they lead to more crises, even if a
current crisis gets an ersatz fix. While problems like water demand a
prompt fix, even if ersatz, if the overall situation isn't addressed
further deterioration can be expected (as in Afghanistan, or Palestine).
Next year's crops need to be planted, medical facilities rebuilt: many
disasters loom in the future. Only putting the Iraqis in charge -- and
the sooner the better -- gives any hope for real recovery. This holds for
Iraq, and the rest of the world as well.
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