Incrementalism blocks ambition in First Nations meeting today with Crown

When CBC interviewed Shawn Atleo, Chief of the Canadian First Nations, last night and heard him say that the meeting between the Prime Minister and First Nations leaders today could be both "pragmatic and ambitious" and then played a clip of the Prime Minister speaking with Peter Mansbridge just a week ago in which the PM said there would be no big words and no big announcements from this meeting, any observer paying attention had to come away from the two video clips shaking a head at the disparity between the two sets of expectations.
And there have beeen negotiations to plan for this meeting for at least the last YEAR!
Have both parties actually been in the same room during those year-long negotiations?
Have both parties had the same interpreters using the same language in those meetings?
Have the agendas of those previous meetings not made clear the desperate and long-standing lack of trust between the federal government (the Crown) and First Nations?
Did no one negotiating for either party point out the difference between "incrementalism" (Harper's chosen approach to all files, except those he wishes to explode) and "ambition" the preferred moniker of Mr. Atleo...they are mutually exclusive, in the sense that those expecting further discussions, as the PM indicates in today's media will be satisfied merely with the occasion to meet, while those with "ambitious" motivations will seek more, much more, from the meetings.
What would re-establish trust between the Crown and the First Nations?
Would a federal government commitment to scrap the Indian Act, seen by First Nations leaders and people as a patronizing, colonizing and controlling piece of legislation that perpetually finds First Nations as "child" to the federal government's "parent", to use the Eric Berne Games People Play analogy, be enough? First Nations people, and their leaders naturally seek an "adult-to-adult- relationship with the federal government and some sign that such a relationship is even contemplated by Harper and his cabinet is not emerging from the printed or spoken words put out in advance of the meeting today.
Would a commitment to eliminate the disparity between the per-student dollar spent on non-aboriginal students and on aboriginal students begin to re-establish trust?
It was 1968 when then Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Jean Chretien, spoke eloquently about the desire of First Nations to govern their own affairs, to be treated as "adults" in the Canadian context.
That was 44 years ago. Little if anything has changed in those four decades.
Don't look for substantive changes in the next 44 years either.
This relationship is so complex, and so intractable and so deeply embedded in distrust and inaction and bafflegab that it would take a law firm of at least 1000 highly trained and even more highly skilled legal experts to untangle and to re-establish a healthy foundation for the next century, and their work would all be behind closed doors, with only a final announcement for the public on complete agreement, if and when it were achieved.

John J. Mearsheimer espouses "offensive realism" amid international anarchy

Robert D. Kaplan interviews John J. Mearsheimer, in a report in the latest The Atlantic with some starting revelations. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.
He defines "anarchy" this way: It simply means that there is no centralized authority, no night watchman or ultimate arbiter that stands above states and protects them.
The opposite of anarchy is hierarchy" which is the ordering principle of domestic politics.
For Mearsheimer then, domestic politics has an ordering principle whereas international politics does not.
In his work, The Uncertainty of Intentions, Mearsheimer writes that the leaders of one great power in this anarchis jungle of a world can never know what the leaders of a rival great power are thinking. Fear is dominant.
"that is the tragic essence of international politics" and proudly declares that it provides the basis for his theory of "offensive realism" in international relations.
Quoting from the Kaplan piece, "Offensive realism posits that status quo powers don't exist; all great powers are perpetually on the offensive, even if obstacles may arise to prevent them from expanding their territory or influence." (p.83, January February, 2012, The Atlantic.)
"And he thinks that while states rightly yearn for a values-based foreign policy, the reality of the anarchic international system forces them to behave according to their own interests. In his view, either liberal internationalism or neoconservatism is more likely than offensive realism to lead to the spilling of American blood. Indeed, because as some argue, realism in the classical sense seeks the avoidance of war through the maintenance of a balance of power, it is the most humanitarian approach possible. (In this vein, fighting Nazi Germany was essential because the Nazis were attemptin to overthrow the European balance-of-power system altogether." (p.84)
There are indeed some very enlightening concepts in Mearsheimer's thinking, as outlined in the Kaplan piece. One of the nuggets that struck this reader, is that all the talk about values we hear constantly from the political class coujld conceivably bear little if any influence when a state begins to act on the world stage. Foreign policy as an extension of national values is, according the Mearsheimer, a mere mask that those seeking and maintaining political office use to assuage public opinion. What are the essential interests of a country?
And with respect to the application of his theories, Mearsheimer points to China, where defence spending jumped from $17 billion in 2001 to $150 billion in 2009, increased its submarine fleet from 62 to 77 and "has tested a stealh fighter jet as part of a builidng also fearuring surface warships, missiles and cyber warfare" (p.86) all of this to point to the need for American political leaders to concentate on China and the evidence of her  militarizing  in order to provide perspective on their medium and long-range planning.
A mathematical genius, Mearsheimer's theories are "strutural" and not focused on the culture nor the character of any individual states, and critics have pointed to these omissions as critical to the academic acceptance of his positions.
However, should China prove his theory, over the next two or three decades, Mearsheimer could well turn out to be one of, if not the most prescient of political scientists of the 21st century.

UPDATE: Iran pushes back..EU imposes sanctions on Iranian oil purchases...diplomatically

By Stephen Castle and Alan Cowell, New York Times, January 23, 2012
 BRUSSELS — The 27 nations of the European Union on Monday increased pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by agreeing to ban oil imports.
“This has shown the resolve of the European Union on this issue and of the international community, and it is absolutely the right thing to do,” said the British foreign secretary, William Hague, who added that the details would be made public later Monday. It was, he said, “an important decision and it will be a major strengthening of the sanctions applied.”
Under the deal, the members agreed not to sign new oil contracts with Iran and to end existing ones by July 1, the ministers said in a statement.
The embargo will cover imports of crude oil, petroleum products and petrochemical products. It will also cover the export of key equipment and technology for the sector.
The assets of the Iranian central bank within the European Union will be frozen with limited exemptions to permit the continuation of legitimate trade, the statement said.
One exemption was designed to allow the execution of existing oil contracts, said one diplomat who was not authorized to speak publicly.
“Trade in gold, precious metals and diamonds with Iranian public bodies and the central bank will no more be permitted, nor will the delivery of Iranian-denominated banknotes and coinage to the Iranian central bank,” the ministers’ statement said. “A number of additional sensitive dual-use goods may no more be sold to Iran.”
The accord allows for a review, to be made before May 1, of the economic impact of the sanctions on countries, including Greece, which rely heavily on Iranian oil. Greece has sought more time to find new sources of oil to soften the impact on its debt-crippled economy.
Despite giving some flexibility for Greece, the decision was a significant escalation of the confrontation with Iran over fears that it is seeking nuclear weapons capability. In recent years, Tehran has faced an expanding catalog of economic penalties imposed by the United Nations, European nations and the United States. It was not clear what the European nations planned to do next if Iran simply rejected the latest measures.
“These tough sanctions are an essential next step in making clear that we expect Tehran to change its ways and to prove that its nuclear program is not arms related,” the Dutch foreign minister, Uri Rosenthal, said. “Now is not the time to speculate on any further measures or whether they are on the table or not.”
Iran insists that its nuclear program is for civilian uses only and has threatened to retaliate against intensifying sanctions by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic corridor for Western energy supplies.
Diplomats say there is a risk that governments in Asia, which rank among Iran’ s most important customers for its oil, will step in to fill the gap left by European buyers and the West is expected to increase efforts to persuade them not to do so.
Mr. Hague also said that the European Union was committed to a dual-track strategy and was open to negotiations with the Iranians over their nuclear program.
The meeting took place against a backdrop of growing tension between Iran and the West over the nuclear enrichment program. The standoff has promoted fears that the dispute could escalate with a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Mr. Hague said the measures undertaken by the European Union were “peaceful and legitimate measures.”
“They are not about conflict,” he said. “I hope Iran will come to its senses on this issue and agree to negotiate.”
In recent days Iran has signaled readiness to resume talks suspended a year ago in Turkey with the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain. But its terms for resuming the talks were not clear.
Reinforcing Western diplomacy with a display of military muscle, an American aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, steamed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf, the United States Navy reported on Sunday. The British Ministry of Defense said later that it was accompanied by British and French warships.
About one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies passes through the strategic strait, and Iran has in the past said it would respond to tightened sanctions by closing it.
“Any attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz would be illegal and I believe would be unsuccessful,” Mr. Hague said on Monday.
No new contracts for oil from EU countries, but the danger remains that Japan and China could and would likely continue to purchase Iran's oil, and in so doing, render these heightened sanctions somewhat irrelevant by making up the difference in oil sales/purchases.
Iran depends on the sale of oil in order to continue to operate as a country. Her nuclear ambitions, whether or not they are a ruse to provoke the West and to achieve the kind of negative attention that insecure bullies in most high schools would literally "die for," are nevertheless more than a little disturbing, especially when we have one of the Republican candidates for President, Rick Santorum, announcing that a military attack on Iran is "inevitable."
Clearly, the leaders in Europe neither want nor expect such an attack, at least not imminently, and they are very careful to portray their decision as "peaceful" and not a provocation to military action.
Rogue states, because of their "rogue status" are continually "begging for a fight" just to prove their strength and to disprove their critics. They are the bane of the schoolyard, the bane of the street gangs, the bane of the underground world of drug dealers, and yet, they are also the sandpaper against which the rest of the world must scrape, if they want to deal with the "rogue" and the rogue knows this better than anyone.
Rogue states like Iran, North Korea and formerly Libya have generated, (and two of them continue to generate), considerable tension in their attempt to discombobulate world diplomacy, the balance of nuclear weapons and the focus of countries like the U.S., especially recently over the potential blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.
Incrementalism, such as that introduced in the form of these European Union sanctions, is often not successful when confronting a "rogue" individual or a "rogue" state. Rogues do not "do" diplomacy; they think such approaches are for "wimps" and they are anything but "wimps" especially in their own eyes.
They are bent on brinkmanship; they are determined to demonstrate that their enemies will "blink" first in all circumstances, no matter how high the tensions.
Let's keep watching as this drama approaches some kind of denoument...hopefully at the negotiating table, not through the arsenals of missiles, torpedoes and bombs.
And this, from CNN website, January 27, 2012
Iran considers preempting European Union oil embargo

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Iran said its parliament would consider preemptively halting shipments of oil to Europe (WSJ) in response to a European Union embargo on Iranian oil set to come into effect in July. The EU decision to ban Iranian oil, decided earlier this week, is part of a larger international effort to sanction Iran over its nuclear program, which the West contends is for the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.
Iran's announcement, which already sent oil prices higher on Thursday, could cause significant damage to Europe's already beleaguered economies if Iran's parliament sanctions the plan on Sunday (Reuters). Iran has also called on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to prevent Saudi Arabia from filling the potential oil gap.

State of the Union: break up the big banks, Mr. President, now!

David Stockman, President Reagan's Budget Chief, appeared on Moyers and Company on PBS last night, with host Bill Moyers. Stockman bewailed the failed opportunity to break up the "too-big-to-fail" banks like City Group and the appointment of Treasury Secretary Geitner and former Treasury Secretary Summers by President Obama, two of the same people responsible for the bail-outs of the big financial institutions when THEY failed to manage themselves appropriately in 2008.
As a Republican, Stockman also bemoans his own party's participation in the deregulation of the financial services sector, started under then Treasury Secretary Rubin when Bill Clinton was President.
This slippery slope to what has to be called "financial crisis," not completely separated from two wars that were never budgeted and really never financed, and the government's failed response, could, we believe, be President Obama's Achilles Heel, when he starts to campaign "officially" tomorrow night when he delivers his State of the Union address to Congress.
In that address, according to the talking heads on Sunday morning talk shows from Washington, he is expected to propose measures to create more jobs, to significantly reduce the unemployment figures still hovering around 8+%, at the official level, but in pockets reaching up to 15% or even higher.
Certainly, the domestic scene, the unemployment, the charge from (Newt) Gingrich that Obama is the president who has presided over the greatest increase in food stamps, will hang over both the State of the Union address and the campaign generally.
However, we agree with Stockman, that the President has left unfinished, partly because of an obstinate Republican congressional cadre opposed to anything he puts forward, the business of governance and structure of those big banks. And left to their own devices, as Stockman warns, they will continue to repeat their "greed" and avarice literally without shame.
The close ties between Wall Street and the government of the United States have to be broken; the legislation that would separate the retail banking sector from the financial services sector needs to be drafted, and submitted to Congress, by the President, even if he knows, (as we all do) that it will never be passed by this class of Congressional representatives. The President, in general a quite good one on many fronts, cannot afford to face the exposure of "cronyism" in his efforts to moderate the potential impact of future Wall Street greed, especially on his base, the ordinary American voter of whatever ethnic and racial background.
Even replacing Geitner for the last year of his presidency with someone completely separated from the culture and history of Wall Street would go a long way on perceptions of the White House's being too close to the financial hands that wrought much of the economic crisis in the first place.
We all know that how Europe manages the next several months will play a significant part in determining the shape and size of the curve upwards in the American economic recovery. However, the President in not without steps that he can and must take to begin the process of cleaning up Wall Street, prior to the election.
We know that the Republican party will not move quickly and decisively on this file, even if they win the next election. So, the last best hope to begin the process, and to add to the potential re-election of the current president, is for his administration to put the needed legislation before both houses of Congress, and to tell them it is comin tomorrow night.

Pakistan, a failed state?

If Fareed Zakaria's guest on Sunday morning January 22, 2012, Imam Khan, "the most popular man in Pakistan," is right about his country, the U.S. does not have a stable, secure and competent government/country with whom to build any kind of authentic relationship.
Calling the government of his country "the most corrupt, the most incomptent and the most hated" in Pakistan's history, Khan worried by Skype, that the more the military conducts "missions" into the territory occupied by the terrorists, the more jihadists it generates, leaving the situation even more unstable, more militarily armed ("There are now at least 1,000,000 armed men in those territories!) and thereby more dangerous, without any prospect of change or improvement in the situation.
"What would he do, if he were the Prime Minister?" asked Zakaria.
"I would first of all say jihad is over, finished. It is time to put down the arms and to bring about some reasonable talks between the terrorists and the government, for the benefit of all parties. Jihad has not worked. It will not work, and an immediate ceasefire is needed.
Here is one of the first voices from Pakistan whose rhetoric does not sound duplicitous, deceptive and parked on both sides of every issue, as we in North America are accustomed to hear from Pakistani voices.
Not only is Iran, and the increasing pressure being put on her by several countries, including especially the U.S., important to the world, so is Pakistan, a nuclear armed country, in complete disarray, vulnerable to a potential collusion of the terrorists and the military, pemetrated in the belief of many by those same terrorists, and the potential release of a single nuclear weapon to those terrorists. Harbouring, or being suspected of harbouring Osama bin Laden, harbouring and secretly supplying the Taliban, harbouring and secretly arming the terrorists ....all the while using American financial largesse, demonstrably being kept out of the loop when the Americans captured and killed bin Laden because the U.S. decision-makers did/do/will not trust the Pakistan decision-makers....these are all signs of an ally whose "friendship" is potentially more dangerous than a relationship with an avowed enemy. At least with the enemy, you know where you stand. With Pakistan, apparently, the U.S. never knows, and never knew, and most likely will never know where it stands, except that the Pakistani goverment continues to reach out its had for more money.
With the economy in tatters, unemployment rising through all measures of acceptable levels, no prospects for business investment and development, not only is the military flank a serious question mark, according to Khan, buy so are the social and domestic sides of Pakistani politics off the rails.
A failed state, with nuclear weapons, in an extremely unstable region of geopolitics, cannot be a sign of confidence for the rest of the world.
And once again, there is no international forum in which the issues facing this potential  failed state, (if it has not already attained that infamous status) can be discussed, with leverage and the potential to intervene, from a gestalt that includes all of the failures and their implications both internally and externally, leaving another open and cancerous wound to pour its toxic and plentiful venom into the caldrom of global politics.
We cannot stand by and let these situations continue to have their inevitable and heinous potential to hang over the world's people.

Public acountability of health care dollars long over-due...

Editorial, New York Times, January 20, 2012
It took longer than expected, but the Obama administration is finally poised to enact badly needed regulations requiring that the manufacturers of drugs, medical devices and medical supplies disclose all payments they make to doctors or teaching hospitals. The information, which would be posted on a government Web site, will allow patients to decide whether they need to worry about any possible conflicts of interest.

 Such payments can be for legitimate research and consulting. But there is also a lot of cash being spread around to pay for doctors’ travel and entertainment or for gifts or modest meals for a prescribing doctor’s staff.
As Robert Pear reported in The (New York) Times this week, some prominent doctors and researchers receive hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year in exchange for providing advice to a company or giving lectures on its behalf. About a quarter of all doctors take some cash payments from drug or device makers and nearly two-thirds accept meals or food gifts. Analysts contend that even seemingly trivial gifts can influence doctors to prescribe expensive drugs that may not be best for a patient’s health or pocketbook.
The new rules were championed by Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican, and Senator Herb Kohl, a Democrat, and incorporated into the health care reforms enacted in 2010. The reform law required the Department of Health and Human Services to establish reporting procedures by Oct. 1, 2011, and required manufacturers to start collecting the relevant data by Jan. 1, 2012. The proposed rules were finally issued on Dec. 14 and are subject to comment until Feb. 17, after which they will be revised and issued in final form.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will publish the disclosure data on a public Web site that the law says must be searchable and understandable so that patients and advocacy groups can see which doctors are being paid and how much. Manufacturers could be fined up to $150,000 a year for failing to report payments and up to $1 million a year for “knowingly” failing to report
The new rules should give a welcome boost to otherwise spotty efforts by some companies, medical centers, scientific journals, states and ethical codes to eliminate, minimize or at least disclose financial interests that might cloud medical judgments. The existence of the Web site could deter some questionable payments. And it could help patients decide which doctors to rely on.
Not only did this legislation "take longer than expected"...it is at least 20 years late.
In Canada, one has to wonder if such legislation has even been contemplated by any jurisdiction.
There is an old adage in human affairs,"Not only must justice be done; it must be seen to be done!"
And the medical establishment, often if not usually and perhaps even always, under the protection of the legal establishment, has for too long been courted ravishly, it could be argued, by the pharmaceutical industry, and one has to assume the  medical supplies industry to use their favoured products in their treatment of patients.
Certainly, it is well established that post-graduate education, if any occurs at all, is funded by the pharmaceutical industry, "educating" the medical professional on the "benefits" and "possible side-effects" of their latest chemical creations, in the form of luxurious vacation-style seminars in the most desireable holiday locations, like Hawaii or some Caribbean Island resort, all of it paid for by the host companies.
Little wonder it might be difficult to "wean" those same doctors off their "need" to prescribe those same pills and potions whenever the opportunity presents itself. Certainly, doctors are not immune from being "influenced" in their choice of prescriptions. And with respect to the pharmaceutical industry itself, there are thousands of pharmacists whose "choice" of name-brand over generic drugs of the same quality and strength could easily reflect the favours bestowed on them by the producing companies.
And then there are the universities where medical research consumes billions of corporate dollars every year, and where do those dollars come from? Of course the companies who are the eventual beneficiaries of the research, producing precisely those products that the research says will "sell"... and oh yes, also be relatively effective.
There are too many inconspicuous cabals, unofficial and technically legal, that is within the existing laws, that depend on the unobserved, unaccounted and thereby unreported washing ashore of billions of dollars from the private sector, for what pass as "altruistic" ends, but which are really carrying considerable "self-interest" motivation and muscle.
The governments will soon have to convert themselves into ombudsmen for the citizens, if this practice is to be limited; it certainly will not be fully controlled or eliminated. And, in order to accomplish that end, the elected politicans will have to divest themselves not only of their stocks and bonds, their mutual funds and their credit defaults, but also those all-important campaign funds, coming again from the most needy corporate sources, that is needy of government "favours"....for the successful running of their corporations.
And it is long overdue for the public to demand public financing of all elections, thereby capping the tsunami of dollars "favouring" the advertising and public relations industries directly and the printing and broadcasting industries a little less directly.
If we are going to demand scrupulosity from the charitable foundations gathering cash for their research, there is no reason to stop short of the really big money bags, unless, of course, the political masters are themselves also the talking heads paid by those same money bags.
As an editorialist, on radio, in another life, I was removed from the "bully pulpit" of the microphone by a developer of a then peripheral retail shopping mall, because I was airing editorials supportive of his "downtown core" competitor, in the belief that the peripheral development would do much to erode the businesses already operating in the downtown core. "I will withdraw all future advertising dollars from your radio stations if Atkins is not taken off the air!" that developer informed the station manager, who conveyed the message to me. Clearly, the downtown developer was not coughing up as many dollars as those being threatened by the peripheral developer.
(The peripheral mall went ahead, as did the atrophy of the downtown core of a 50,000 population Northern Ontario city.)
Compared to the billions sloshing around out of sight, and thereby out of mind in the health care industry, into which some 20-30-40-50% of government budgets (at least in Canada) are directed, there is a serious need not to "tweek" the laws around the edges. The word "innovation" in the health care debate must include not only new technologies, and new methods of access, (like the "app" connecting patients with the doctors worldwide, instantly via the smart phone, for example) but also must include the monitoring of the confluences of influences that are marked with so-far unmarked cash.
The public, and that means the governments, must put their "mark" on those dollars, to avoid a drowing of the public purse in a headlong and headstrong commitment to provide "better" health care...regardless of that confluence of influences whose sources and recipients are now unnamed, unreported and undisclosed.

Where did the Singapore readers go? And why?

Dear Singapore: Your country has been a substantial supporter of this blog, for the past year. In fact, it racked up nearly 10,000 page reads, before those pagereads stopped, surprisingly, and completely the day I advocated an Entebbe-like raid on President Assad of Syria to stop the killing and maiming of innocents in the streets of that country.
There were no comments posted to object to the opinion expressed in the piece.
There was no indication that such a full stop was about to occur.
There is only a list of questions, a fairly long list, in the writer's mind about possible reasons for this change of heart and reading habits.
Was the opinion expressed to harsh, and unwarranted, according to the views of the then Singapore readers?
Was there a decision by someone in power in Singapore that this blog had become too "dangerous" or too "provocative" or to "out-of-step" with the culture and political attitudes of the people and leadership in Singapore?
Did the 10,000 pagereads constitute an assignment in current affairs, in some political science class in some college or university and that assignment come to an end?
There is some doubt generated by a "falling off the cliff" of readership without comment, complaint or recommendation(s). It leaves one first shocked, then quizzical, then perplexed, and then a little confused and somewhat assertive to discover just what is, has been and will be going on in the relationship between Singapore readers and this blog.
We would sincerely appreciate someone shedding a little light on this mystery, even if that light is not complimentary to the opinions expressed throughout the nearly 1000 postings since April 2010.
We would, of course, love to welcome back Singapore readers, including their criticisms and questions.
We would naturally appreciate any feedback that would build a better blog, a more extensive sharing of opinions and closer connections, and thereby understandings between and among the people of various countries, nearly 100 different countries, at last count.