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anonymous

U.S. Calls On China to Rein in North Korea - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...s_calls_china_rein_north_korea

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 02 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 02 Dec 10
     
    "U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen called on Wednesday for China to "step up" its efforts in handling of the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula in a speech at the Center for American Progress. Mullen specifically dismissed China's offer to host a new round of consultations among the six parties involved in Korean peninsular affairs, saying that to do so would merely reward North Korea for its "provocative and destabilizing" behavior. His comments echoed rejections of China's offer by the South Koreans, Japanese and even the North Koreans." At StratFor on December 2, 2010.
anonymous

The Russian Swagger is Back - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...20101202_russian_swagger_back

geopolitics russia

shared by anonymous on 03 Dec 10 - Cached
  • A timeline helps to understand the statements surrounding the case, and broader U.S.-Russian relations.
  • The 10 intelligence officers, working secretly in the United States, were arrested almost simultaneously on June 28 in a major FBI operation. A quick spy swap was orchestrated by July 9; the spies were returned to Moscow.
  • a handful of these agents had been tracked for years in ongoing counterintelligence investigations, so something important triggered the sudden arrests.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • we suspect the leak occurred for one of three reasons:
  • Officials within or overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense wanted to counteract Putin’s claims of the spies’ relative innocence; second, U.S. counterintelligence investigators could be using the leak to “shake the trees” and watch for unusual communications traffic or activities by possible suspects; and this could be another move as Washington combats Russia’s push to spread its side of the story, that it is back on the world stage as a counterbalance to the United States.
  • Putin’s entire interview on Larry King was meant to remind the U.S. public that Russia still has many capabilities to challenge the United States. He spoke of the vast nuclear arsenal, regional alliances and — of course — spies. This was directed at a U.S. audience.
  • Putin identified the reality that every country “operates a foreign intelligence network.” U.S.-Russian intelligence and counterintelligence activities have changed little in decades, and no doubt is back in public view.
  • anonymous on 03 Dec 10
     
    "As the world mulls Thursday's naming of Russia as the 2018 World Cup host, as well as the Wednesday CNN interview with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin and the U.S. response, we should not overlook two new claims about the case of 10 Russian spies arrested in the United States in June. Answering a question from American high-profile interviewer Larry King, Putin said the "deep-cover agents" did not damage U.S. interests and would only have been activated in a crisis. Before the interview aired, The Washington Times journalist Bill Gertz published a report sourced to a retired intelligence official that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was undergoing a counterintelligence investigation linked to Russians who were charged with acting as undeclared agents of a foreign country. In the murky world of state espionage, both countries are playing games of deception. " At StratFor on December 3, 2010.
anonymous

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 2 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...mpirical-responsibility-2.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 03 Dec 10 - Cached
  • "The use or misuse of his cognitive faculty determines a man’s choice of values, which determine his emotions and his character. It is in this sense that man is a being of self-made soul."
  • To describe this viewpoint as controversial greatly understates its tremendous reach. Were it true, it would mean that nearly every scientist in the biological and behavorial sciences, nearly every great poet, dramatist, and novelist, and all great statemen, generals, businessmen, etc. have been wrong; for nearly everyone who has ever studied, described, bargained with, dealt with, or commanded human beings has assumed that man is not a being of self-made soul, that his "soul" (or character) is a product of many factors, and that something called "human nature" most definitely exists and can be used to make generalizations concerning how human beings are likely to react to various incentives.
  • Rand's assertion that man is a being of self-made soul goes into the very teeth of this evidence.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Rand cites no scientific experiment, no article from a reputable scientific journal, no evidence from experimental psychology.
  • It's one of their philosophy's chief presuppositions. Without it, the whole structure becomes wobbly, and threatens to fall.
  • Take away Rand's extreme self-determinism, and the old rules apply once again. The conservative (or "Tragic") vision of human nature, dramatized by Sophocles and Shakespeare, limned by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, scientifically explicated by E.O. Wilson, Steven Pinker, and other scientists, is once more vindicated.
  • anonymous on 03 Dec 10
     
    "Man is a being of self-made soul. Rand explains this assertion as follows: "The use or misuse of his cognitive faculty determines a man's choice of values, which determine his emotions and his character. It is in this sense that man is a being of self-made soul." In other words, a man's "character and emotions" are determined by how he uses (or misuses) his consciousness. Under this view, a man is responsible not merely for how he behaves, but for his personality and emotions." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature
anonymous

Wikileaks and the Long Haul - 0 views

www.shirky.com/...wikileaks-and-the-long-haul

society

shared by anonymous on 06 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 06 Dec 10
     
    "Like a lot of people, I am conflicted about Wikileaks. Citizens of a functioning democracy must be able to know what the state is saying and doing in our name, to engage in what Pierre Rosanvallon calls "counter-democracy"*, the democracy of citizens distrusting rather than legitimizing the actions of the state. Wikileaks plainly improves those abilities. On the other hand, human systems can't stand pure transparency. For negotiation to work, people's stated positions have to change, but change is seen, almost universally, as weakness. People trying to come to consensus must be able to speak frankly, and to privately voice opinions they would publicly abjure, and may later abandon. Wikileaks plainly damages those abilities. (If Aaron Bady's analysis is correct, it is the damage and not the oversight that Wikileaks is designed to create.*)"
anonymous

Geopolitics Continue Despite WikiLeaks - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ics_continue_despite_wikileaks

geopolitics stratfor wikileaks

shared by anonymous on 07 Dec 10 - Cached
  • STRATFOR sources in the United States, as well as foreign intelligence agencies and diplomatic officials, continued on Monday to speak to STRATFOR about how the leaks had a negative effect on their ability to conduct diplomatic business.
  • Repercussions of the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables therefore are serious and global, not confined to American statecraft. Diplomacy and intelligence professions may very well consider classifying eras as pre- and post-WikiLeaks. We are not sure, and it is too early to tell so close to the actual leaks.
  • Geopolitics is a set of constraints imposed primarily by geography — with demographics and technology playing roles — that limit strategic options for nations.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • One could argue that WikiLeaks introduces a new set of constraints, of open information that will limit how governments pursue their national interests.
  • It is not clear if anyone wins or loses. Power structures established by geography, demographics and technology remain unaffected.
  • Perhaps we have misread the WikiLeak thesis. Perhaps behind the idea that leaked U.S. diplomatic cables would change geopolitics is not a simple argument of new constraints and enablers emerging, but rather the assumption that the revelation of supposed cynicism and insidious scheming of U.S. diplomats would by itself create a call for change within the American — and global — society. This has not happened. In fact, the U.S. public — as well as the global public — seem to be very much aware of what their diplomats are doing and how they are going about their business. They are, as Joseph Stalin once wrote, quite aware that “sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or wooden iron.”
  • anonymous on 07 Dec 10
     
    "Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, said over the weekend: "Geopolitics will be separated into pre- and post-cablegate phases." A number of developments on Monday seemed to support his bold thesis, or at least give credence to the supposition that geopolitics will have to take note of the "post-cablegate" era. Nonetheless, STRATFOR disagrees. " At StratFor on December 7, 2010.
anonymous

How will the recession affect this optimistic, institution-trusting GenY? - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...imistic-institution-trusting-g

generations

shared by anonymous on 07 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 07 Dec 10
     
    "A second realization for those in the middle and lower-middle-class is that meritocracy is a ruse. One lower-middle-class young woman, who had once believed that if you work hard, you'll succeed, is having second thoughts as she sees coveted internships handed out to those with lower grades but the right connections--often parental connections. Instead of heading to an internship to hone her resume, she is working in a car dealership as a receptionist. That burns, she says."
anonymous

Who Fears the Russian Bear? - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0101207_who_fears_russian_bear

geopolitics russia

shared by anonymous on 08 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Rogozin was being sardonic for dramatic effect — Moscow is not actually surprised that NATO has an active war plan against it. Russia completed joint exercises — called “Zapad” (meaning west in Russian) — with Belarus at the end of 2009 that placed 13,000 troops on the borders of the Baltic states and had as its supposed aim the simulation of the liberation of Kaliningrad from NATO forces.
  • And ultimately, Western European — and specifically German — lobbying for inclusion of Russia as a “strategic partner” should be the writing on the wall for the region: Its fate was to either adopt a neutral posture and accept Russian security hegemony or keep being pressured by Moscow.
  • Poland feels spurned, especially by Washington’s decision first to pull out on the initial ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans in September 2009 and then, on a rotational basis, to deploy an unarmed Patriot missile battery to the country with a minimal contingent of 20-30 personnel, when Warsaw hoped for an armed deployment with a more robust — and more importantly, permanent — U.S. military presence.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • If we understand Tusk correctly, he essentially hints that the current public Polish-American relationship is an “illusion” and that, in reality, the U.S. security guarantees are insufficient.
  • To Americans, Poland looks like a country with no options. Sure, it feels spurned, but where will the Poles turn? As it did prior to WWII, Germany is making deals with Russia, and French and British security guarantees are unreliable. The United States, remembering its history of fighting wars to defend small allies for the sake of its credibility, would say that the Poles should know better than to doubt American guarantees.
  • Poland is not going to cease being an American ally — not considering its current geopolitical circumstances. But Polish officials also do not have the luxury of dismissing American horse-trading with the Russians over Polish security.
  • anonymous on 08 Dec 10
     
    "The global focus on Tuesday returned to the North European Plain, specifically east of the Oder and north of the Pripyat Marshes, where Russia, Poland, Belarus and the three Baltic states continue to share what is the geopolitical version of an awkward Soviet-era communal apartment. Russian envoy to NATO Dmitri Rogozin, referring to the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealing NATO plans to defend the three Baltic states from Russia, asked that the plans be formally withdrawn at the next NATO-Russia meeting. Rogozin pointed out that the recently penned NATO 2010 Strategic Concept speaks of a "true strategic partnership" - a direct quote from the mission statement - between the alliance and Russia and that the supposed "anti-Russian" military plan to defend the Baltics is incompatible with the document. Referring to the plan, Rogozin rhetorically asked, "Against who else could such a defense be intended? Against Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, against polar bears, or against the Russian bear?""
anonymous

WikiLeaks and U.S. Critical Infrastructure - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...and_us_critical_infrastructure

geopolitics wikileaks

shared by anonymous on 08 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Media interest aside, STRATFOR does not see this document as offering much value to militant groups planning attacks against U.S. targets abroad. The sites listed in the cable are either far too general, such as tin mines in China; are not high-profile enough to interest militants, such as undersea cables; or already represent well-known strategic vulnerabilities, such as the Strait of Malacca.
  • Instead of an earth-shattering list of sites vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the list leaked this week is really a more revealing look at the inner bureaucracy and daily activities of the U.S. security community and at how diplomats around the world contribute to assessing threats to U.S. interests. This does not mean listed sites will not ever be attacked, but that experienced militants do not rely on DHS studies to provide targeting guidance.
  • anonymous on 08 Dec 10
     
    "Media interest aside, STRATFOR does not see this document as offering much value to militant groups planning attacks against U.S. targets abroad. The sites listed in the cable are either far too general, such as tin mines in China; are not high-profile enough to interest militants, such as undersea cables; or already represent well-known strategic vulnerabilities, such as the Strait of Malacca. "
anonymous

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 3 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...mpirical-responsibility-3.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 10 - Cached
  • A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice.
  • Matters of fact simply cannot be determined in this way. No credible scientist would ever be taken seriously if he tried to establish some controversial matter of fact using the method Rand resorts to above.
  • Conclusion: Innate tendencies are impossible
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • If Rand and her followers want to be taken seriously on these points, they must (1) provide detailed evidence that there assertions are true; and (2) they must explain why the evidence provided on the opposite side of the issue by geneticists and evolutionary biologists is either irrelevant or false.
  • anonymous on 10 Dec 10
     
    "Human beings have no innate tendencies. Instead of providing evidence for this assertion, Rand and her followers merely provides a couple of arguments. Let's briefly examine the two arguments." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on December 9, 2010.
anonymous

Paleo-Future - Paleo-Future Blog - Driverless Car of the Future (1957) - 0 views

www.paleofuture.com/...ss-car-of-the-future-1957.html

technology predictions

shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 10 Dec 10
     
    "TVs that hang on walls? Automatic lights? Food cooked in seconds? American power companies sure had the future figured out! Except for one little thing... we're still waiting on those driverless cars. The futuristic family from this ad bares a striking resemblance to the family of Disneyland TV's 1958 episode, "Magic Highway, USA." ELECTRICITY MAY BE THE DRIVER. One day your car may speed along an electric super-highway, its speed and steering automatically controlled by electronic devices embedded in the road. Highways will be made safe -- by electricity! No traffic jam.. no collisions... no driver fatigue."
anonymous

The Love of One's Own and the Importance of Place - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...one_s_own_and_importance_place

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 10 - Cached
  • The study of geopolitics tries to identify those things that are eternal, those things that are of long duration and those things that are transitory. It does this through the prism of geography and power.
  • there is a huge gulf between the uncertainty of a prediction and the impossibility of a prediction.
  • There is no action taken that is not done with the expectation, reasonable or not, erroneous or not, of some predictable consequence.
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • Nature is the most predictable thing of all, since it lacks will and cannot make choices. Scientists who like to talk about the “hard sciences” actually have it easy.
  • First, human beings have choices as individuals. Second, and this is the most important thing, we are ourselves human. Our own wishes and prejudices inevitably color our view of how things will evolve.
  • Successful forecasting should begin by being stupid.
  • By being stupid we mean that rather than leaping toward highly sophisticated concepts and principles, we should begin by noting the obvious.
  • we should begin by noticing the obvious about human beings.
  • they are born and then they die
  • Human beings are born incapable of caring for themselves
  • Humans protect themselves and care for their young by forming families
  • Who should you ally with and where would you find them?
  • Why should you trust a relative more than a stranger?
  • The idea that romantic love should pre-empt the love of one’s own introduces a radical new dynamic to history, in which the individual and choice supersede community and obligation.
  • Which love is prior? Is it the love to which you are born — your family, your religion, your tradition — the love of one’s own? Or is it the acquired love, the one you have chosen because it pleases you as an individual?
  • one married out of love for one’s parents, and out of the sense of duty that grew out of that love.
  • Romantic love is acquired love.
  • This notion is embedded in the American Declaration of Independence, which elevates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness over obligation.
  • Ideology is an acquired value. No child can be a Jeffersonian or a Stalinist. That can only be chosen after the age of reason, along with romantically acquired spouses.
  • Tradition is superseded by reason and the old regime superseded by artificially constructed regimes forged in revolution.
  • As a citizen, you have a relationship to an artificial construct, the constitution, to which you swear your loyalty. It is a rational relationship and, ultimately, an elective relationship. Try as one might, one can never stop being an American. One can, as a matter of choice, stop being a citizen of the United States. Similarly, one can elect to become a citizen of the United States. That does not, in the fullest sense of the word, make you an American. Citizenship and alienage are built into the system.
  • Loving America is simple and natural. Loving the United States is complex and artificial.
  • For modern regimes, birth is an accident that gives no one authority.
  • In post-revolutionary society, you may know who you were but that in no way determined who you would become.
  • Traditional society was infinitely more constrained but infinitely more natural.
  • This leads us to nationalism — or, more broadly, love and obligation to the community to which you were born, be it a small band of nomads or a vast nation-state.
  • Modern liberalism and socialism do not know what to do with nationalism.
  • For economists, self-interest is a natural impulse. But if it is a natural impulse, it is an odd one, for one can see widespread examples of human beings who do not practice it. Consider the tension between the idea that the United States was created for the purpose of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and the decision of a soldier to go to war and even willingly give his life.
  • Dying for a regime dedicated to the pursuit of happiness makes no sense. Dying for the love of one’s own makes a great deal of sense. But the modern understanding of man has difficulty dealing with this idea.
  • There is an important paradox in all this. Modern liberal regimes celebrate the doctrine of national self-determination, the right of a “people” to choose its own path. Leaving apart the amazing confusion as to what to do with a nation that chooses an illiberal course, you have the puzzlement of precisely what a nation is and why it has the right to determine anything.
  • Europe had been ruled by dynasties that governed nations by right of birth. Breaking those regimes was the goal of Europe’s revolutionaries.
  • In the case of the American founders, having acted on behalf of national self-determination, they created a Bill of Rights and hoped that history would sort through the contradiction between the nation, the state and the individual.
  • Why should we love those things that we are born to simply because we are born to them? Why should Americans love America, Iranians love Iran and Chinese love China? Why, in spite of all options and the fact that there are surely many who make their lives by loving acquired things, does love of one’s own continue to drive men?
  • Wherever one chooses to go, whatever identity one chooses to claim, in the end, you cannot escape from who you are.
  • anonymous on 10 Dec 10
     
    The study of geopolitics tries to identify those things that are eternal, those things that are of long duration and those things that are transitory. It does this through the prism of geography and power. What it finds frequently runs counter to common sense. More precisely, geopolitical inquiry seeks not only to describe but to predict what will happen. Those predictions frequently - indeed, usually - fly in the face of common sense. Geopolitics is the next generation's common sense. William Shakespeare, born in 1564 - the century in which the European conquest of the world took place -- had Macbeth say that history is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If Macbeth is right, then history is merely sound and fury, devoid of meaning, devoid of order. Any attempt at forecasting the future must begin by challenging Macbeth, since if history is random it is, by definition, unpredictable. By George Friedman at StratFor on May 26, 2008.
anonymous

A Randroid Review - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...randroid-review.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 10 - Cached
  • First, they begin with the pro forma objection that the critic is "biased" against Rand, “doesn’t understand Objectivism”, doesn't respect ideas etc.
  • Invoke the Objectivist Double Standard.
  • Simply limn the piece in question for the hint of various Thought Crimes such as “determinism”, “pragmatism” or “subjectivism”, and then condemn the author's intellectual and moral standing due to their allegedly underlying commitment to one or all of the above.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Garnish each review with standardised ARI talking points about Rand's millennial intellectual and moral qualities and achievements
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 10
     
    "Edwin A. Locke is a professor of organisational psychology, with a large number of articles and books to his credit over a lengthy career. He is also, judging from his recent comments on Jennifer Burns' "Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market", a fully spec'd, boilerplated, T-1000 series Randroid." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on December 10, 2010.
anonymous

A Convenient Untruth - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...convenient-untruth.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 10 - Cached
  • The Ayn Rand Institute’s mission is not to further intellectual enquiry but instead to perpetuate the jejune cult of personality that surrounded the writer, and that Rand herself endorsed from its earliest beginnings.
  • With philosophy as the ultimate discipline, and Objectivism as the ultimate philosophy, its inventor could only be, therefore, the ultimate philosopher – and with all the intellectual, ethical, aesthetic and even sexual qualities that that entails
  • Faced with the inconvenient facts, delivered by an independent historian with no pre-existing agenda and whose evenhandedness is evident on every page, the Ayn Rand Institute and their fellow travelling True Believers' response has been to simply pretend it doesn’t exist: a state of denial Rand called a “blank out.”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • This is really The Education of Ayn Rand; where the oddball immigrant, simmering with equal parts talent, ambition, and resentment, absorbs the basic political program she was to later do so much to promote.
  • beneath a superficially clear prose style in fact Rand was a confused and contradictory thinker, who had a garbled misunderstanding of the important philosophical problems she claimed to have solved and depended on her own obscure, pseudo-intellectual jargon – not to mention her sheer chutzpah - to conceal her lack of comprehension from both her followers and herself.
  • swathes of Rand’s unpublished writing and speeches have been stealthily rewritten to banish all uncertainties and contradictory thoughts, and keep the convenient untruth of Rand's immaculate conceptions alive.
  • First, they begin with the pro forma objection that the critic is "biased" against Rand, and “doesn’t understand Objectivism”, despite the fact that it is far from clear who, if anyone, actually does understand Rand’s rambling and ramshackle construction.
  • Second, True Believer Objectivists invoke what I’ve dubbed the Objectivist Double Standard.
  • The final True Believer tactic is to simply limn the piece in question for various Thought Crimes such as “determinism”, “pragmatism” or “subjectivism” - terms so conveniently vague that it’s possible to convict just about anyone.
  • From the central darkness of Planet Peikoff itself, only a few, faint, on-the-fritz radio signals have been detected.
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 10
     
    "Jennifer Burns' new biography, Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market is a genuine event: the first independent, scholarly biography of one of the 20th century's most widely read novelists and thinkers, arriving right in the middle of her biggest revival in decades. Goddess has been acclaimed from the mainstream of Time magazine to the margins of Mises.org, and been plugged from the left of The Daily Show to the right of the Economist. But there's one place where it literally doesn't seem to exist: over at the organization Leonard Peikoff founded in 1985, three years after Rand's death, the Ayn Rand Institute. Searching their website turns up only some fine-print references to it in relation to the Ayn Rand Archives; officially the ARI has not even mentioned it, let alone promoted it."
anonymous

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 4 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...mpirical-responsibility-4.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 13 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Rand, alas, never provided any evidence for this assertion. Her chief disciple, Leonard Peikoff, did provide the following:
  • There are at least two problems with this:
  • first, it's merely an anecdote and as such cannot be regarded as decisive on this issue; but even more critically, the anecdote doesn't establish what it claims.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • the real question is not whether emotions are inexplicable or whether thinking may influence emotions, it's whether emotions are entirely the product of thinking.
  • The idea that the emotions have to be programmed by the intellect, whereas the intellect can choose values independently of any help from the emotions, suggests a hierarchical relationship between intellect and emotion, and a unidirectional picture of moral and psychological development.
  • However, if infants and young children (not to mention animals) have emotions in a pre-conceptual form -- as they surely do -- then emotions cannot be entirely dependent on the intellect.
  • Some Objectivists have claimed that evidence on behalf of Rand's theory of emotions has been compiled on behalf of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).
  • anonymous on 13 Dec 10
     
    ""Emotions are the result of your value judgments," Rand declared in her Playboy Interview; "they are caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or subconsciously, which may be right or wrong." How did Rand know this? Where is her evidence for this extraordinary assertion? Surely a theory so bold, so unconventional, so contrary to obvious facts commonly known should be supported with evidence strong enough to shift the balance of plausibility in its favor!" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on December 13, 2010.
anonymous

Taking Stock of WikiLeaks - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0101213-taking-stock-wikileaks

geopolitics wikileaks

shared by anonymous on 14 Dec 10 - Cached
  • First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?
  • the U.S. State Department documents constituted the third wave of leaks.
  • The first two consisted of battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • For someone who was watching Iraq and Afghanistan with some care over the previous years, the leaks might have provided interesting details but they would not have provided any startling distinction between the reality that was known and what was revealed.
  • Hundreds of thousands of troops have fought in Iraq, and the idea that criminal acts would be absent is absurd. What is most startling is not the presence of potentially criminal actions but their scarcity.
  • the case cited by WikiLeaks with much fanfare did not clearly show criminal actions on the part of American troops as much as it did the consequences of the insurgents violating the Geneva Conventions.
  • Only those who were not paying attention to the fact that there was a war going on, or who had no understanding of war, or who wanted to pretend to be shocked for political reasons, missed two crucial points:
  • It was the insurgents who would be held responsible for criminal acts under the Geneva Conventions for posing as non-combatants, and there were extraordinarily few cases of potential war crimes that were contained in the leaks.
  • it required a profound lack of understanding of the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf to regard U.S. diplomatic cables on the subject as surprising.
  • I am not cherry-picking the Saudi or Italian memos. The consistent reality of the leaks is that they do not reveal anything new to the informed but do provide some amusement over certain comments, such as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev being called “Batman and Robin.”
  • That’s amusing, but it isn’t significant. Amusing and interesting but almost never significant is what I come away with having read through all three waves of leaks.
  • I would argue that the leaks paint a flattering picture overall of the intellect of U.S. officials without revealing, for the most part, anything particularly embarrassing.
  • This raises the question of why diplomats can’t always simply state their minds rather than publicly mouth preposterous platitudes. It could be as simple as this: My son was a terrible pianist. He completely lacked talent. After his recitals at age 10, I would pretend to be enthralled. He knew he was awful and he knew I knew he was awful, but it was appropriate that I not admit what I knew. It is called politeness and sometimes affection. There is rarely affection among nations, but politeness calls for behaving differently when a person is in the company of certain other people than when that person is with colleagues talking about those people. This is the simplest of human rules. Not admitting what you know about others is the foundation of civilization. The same is true among diplomats and nations.
  • It would take someone who truly doesn’t understand how geopolitics really works to think that this would make a difference.
  • It may well be that the United States is hiding secrets that would reveal it to be monstrous. If so, it is not to be found in what has been released so far.
  • Nations have secrets for many reasons, from protecting a military or intelligence advantage to seeking some advantage in negotiations to, at times, hiding nefarious plans. But it is difficult to imagine a state — or a business or a church — acting without confidentiality.
  • Imagine that everything you wrote and said in an attempt to figure out a problem was made public? Every stupid idea that you discarded or clueless comment you expressed would now be pinned on you.
  • This is the contradiction at the heart of the WikiLeaks project. Given what I have read Assange saying, he seems to me to be an opponent of war and a supporter of peace. Yet what he did in leaking these documents, if the leaking did anything at all, is make diplomacy more difficult. It is not that it will lead to war by any means; it is simply that one cannot advocate negotiations and then demand that negotiators be denied confidentiality in which to conduct their negotiations. No business could do that, nor could any other institution. Note how vigorously WikiLeaks hides the inner workings of its own organization, from how it is funded to the people it employs.
  • Compartmentalization makes it hard to connect dots, but it also makes it harder to have a WikiLeaks release. The tension between intelligence and security is eternal, and there will never be a clear solution.
  • Assange cannot be guilty of treason, since he isn’t a U.S. citizen. But he could be guilty of espionage. His best defense will be that he can’t be guilty of espionage because the material that was stolen was so trivial.
  • anonymous on 14 Dec 10
     
    "Julian Assange has declared that geopolitics will be separated into pre-"Cablegate" and post-"Cablegate" eras. That was a bold claim. However, given the intense interest that the leaks produced, it is a claim that ought to be carefully considered. Several weeks have passed since the first of the diplomatic cables were released, and it is time now to address the following questions: First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?" By George Friedman at StratFor on December 14, 2010.
anonymous

The joy of celebrating a godless Christmas. - 0 views

www.slate.com/2207374

christmas

shared by anonymous on 14 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 14 Dec 10
     
    "For me, Christmas has always been a secular occasion. I grew up in an unaffiliated household. My mother is Catholic, though she didn't practice for most of my childhood. My father was raised in a devoutly Jewish home, but he always adored Christmas. My grandmother tells, half-fondly and half-sadly, of when he was 6 and asked whether he could become Christian so that Santa Claus would pay him a visit. He eventually stopped practicing Judaism, but his love of Christmas never went away." By Torie Bosch at Slate Magazine on December 23, 2008
anonymous

Next Steps for Iraq and Afghanistan - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...trategies-iraq-and-afghanistan

geopolitics stratfor

shared by anonymous on 15 Dec 10 - Cached
  • While Afghanistan is likely to continue along its current path, the fate of Iraq hangs in the balance.
  • the troops committed to the war in Afghanistan and the strategy that guides their deployment do not appear set to shift meaningfully in the year ahead.
  • the Afghan war is increasingly looking like a known quantity, even if it is an active war zone.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In a very real sense, this centuries-old ethno-sectarian struggle is barely contained inside political process. The struggle has not gone away; it has merely moved from one arena — the formation of a coalition and the distribution of power, ministry by ministry — to another: the powers that are and are not assigned to the NCSP, and the means provided to the NCSP to wield and protect those powers.
  • In Iraq, despite the outward appearance of peace, the country remains on the brink. And to understand that, the two issues at the forefront of our mind are 1) the mechanisms that the Sunni will accept as sufficient to wield and defend their share of the political pie, and 2) the understandings — or lack thereof —between Washington and Tehran about what happens next in Baghdad.
  • anonymous on 15 Dec 10
     
    "With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and al-Iraqiya List leader Iyad Allawi meeting in Baghdad Tuesday night, a governing coalition appears near. And with a review of the efficacy of the counterinsurgency-focused strategy in Afghanistan due to the White House before the end of the week, the Iraqi question appears to be settling out while Afghanistan remains as unsettled as ever. But in looking at the months ahead, the reverse is also true: While Afghanistan is likely to continue along its current path, the fate of Iraq hangs in the balance."
anonymous

Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature: Rand and Empirical Responsibility 5 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...re-not-tools-of-cognition.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 15 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Where is Rand's evidence for this view? Again, we have nothing -- merely her own say-so.
  • This, of course, is an argument ad hominem with no scientific standing whatsoever.
  • According to Sayegh, the conventional way of thinking about decision making is to banish emotion from its decisions entirely.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The somatic marker hypothesis is a very relevant theory when discussing emotions in decision making. It states that bioregulatory signals such as feelings and emotions provide the principal guide for decisions where individuals, when dealing with a judgement, will assess the severity of the outcomes, their probability of occurrence and their emotional quality to provide their decision.
  • As mentioned earlier, there is an intimate connection between emotion and cognition in practical decision making.
  • If Objectivists wish their view of the role of emotions in cognition to be taken seriously, they need to (1) provide scientific evidence on behalf of their view, and (2) explain why the evidence supporting the Somatic Marker Hypothesis is not inconsistent with Rand's assertions about emotion.
  • anonymous on 15 Dec 10
     
    ""Emotions are not tools of cognition." Where is Rand's evidence for this view? Again, we have nothing -- merely her own say-so. In Objectivism, emotions are equated with mere "whims"; to allow one's judgment to be affected by emotions is tantamount to committing the horrible crime of "whim worshipping." This, of course, is an argument ad hominem with no scientific standing whatsoever."
anonymous

China and India: Dragon vs. Elephant - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...a-and-india-dragon-vs-elephant

geopolitics china india

shared by anonymous on 16 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Two major incidents in particular have aggravated sore spots in the relationship.
  • Riots in Lhasa, Tibet, in 2008
  • Pakistan’s continued support of various militant proxies
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Beijing’s growing economic clout has led it to expand infrastructure and military installations across its western regions in an attempt to bolster its territorial claims
  • India, with no shortage of issues to keep itself occupied at home, is now finding that it is years behind China in countries that New Delhi would like to believe sit firmly within its sphere of influence.
  • China has made considerable progress in building up the necessary political, economic and military linkages into Tibet to deny the Indians opportunities to needle Beijing in critical buffer territory.
  • Beijing’s increasing boldness has become one of the chief talking points in foreign policy circles, extending beyond international hard bargaining over resources and into China’s conduct around its entire periphery and in international organizations.
  • The problem for Beijing is that it is ultimately outnumbered, and overpowered, but its attempts to prepare against threats make it appear more threatening.
  • while India senses Chinese encirclement in South Asia, Beijing senses American encirclement, of which India is only one part.
  • anonymous on 16 Dec 10
     
    "Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, a massive diplomatic entourage and a business delegation representing 100 firms arrived in India on Wednesday for a three-day visit. Wen began the visit by addressing concerns over the growing Sino-Indian rivalry, proclaiming that there need be no essential conflict between the Dragon and the Elephant and that Asia has room enough for both of them. After meeting with Indian Premier Manmohan Singh, Wen will travel to Pakistan, a staunch Chinese ally and Indian arch-foe, to emphasize where his deepest commitments lie. "
anonymous

New Nickelodeon Research Study Finds Generation Gap Closing, Reflecting Changing Attitu... - 0 views

www.redorbit.com/...index.html

generations

shared by anonymous on 20 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 20 Dec 10
     
    "NEW YORK, Nov. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Nickelodeon research study, titled "The Family GPS," reports that the generation gap is a thing of the past as today's increasingly multi-generational American families are united by an expanding set of values and converging tastes. Released today, the Nickelodeon study finds that new cultural attitudes, technology and the current economic climate are drawing today's American families closer together and changing how parents raise, and regard, their children compared to how their parents raised them. Nickelodeon's "The Family GPS" study was conducted as part of an ongoing partnership with Harris Interactive in which the companies will study the changing face and role of the family in the U.S. "As Millennials become parents and Baby Boomers become grandparents, today's families are different from what we've seen and come to expect from previous generations, in that staying together and playing together are the top priorities among everyone in the household," said Ron Geraci, Senior Vice President, Nickelodeon Research. "Instead of being divided by tastes and clashing over values and things like music and entertainment choices, today's parents, kids and grandparents are being drawn closer together by them, as well as embracing new value systems of tolerance and acceptance.""
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