Global Connections: Guinea-Bissau

The Sixth Summit of the Americas is currently being held in Cartagena, Colombia (after a bit of alleged pre-event partying that caused 11 U.S. secret service and five U. S. military personnel who were linked to the use of prostitutes to be sent home), and one of the most attention-grabbing issues, if not on the official agenda, is a serious discussion about changing the way that the War on Drugs is being fought, including debate about some level of decriminalization. For some great analysis, check out the excellent series that InSight Crime has presented on this proverbial Gorilla in the Room.

Adrift in a Sea of Military Exportation

Rachel Maddow, via Wikipedia

In my previous post, I discovered the strange but true nature of the military mindset, that dreamy, quixotic, incurable optimism that has been perceived and discussed by such realists as Rory Stewart and Howard Zinn. What an amazing set of realizations – that it is members of the armed forces who are regularly deluding themselves about what can and cannot be, with Rory Stewart focusing on over-ambition and the failure-is-not-an-option determination, while Howard Zinn’s take pinpoints the inevitable overconfidence in the military’s ability to tame chaos and unpredictability.

The Answer for Afghanistan

Gentle Giant - Rory Stewart

Well, how is one to be hopeful about Afghanistan now, after these horrific incidences – the accidental Koran burning, and then the insanity unleashed in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar Province on a dark, disastrous night last week, supposedly by an angry, possibly drunken soldier? Sixteen innocent civilians, mostly women and children killed – this goes beyond cultural insensitivity. It reveals the cancerous mass that has taken hold of the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan like Hugo Chávez’s bald head no longer allowing his secret truth to remain hidden from the public. But, as with cancer itself, the road forward is fraught with fear, the treatment, painful, the future, uncertain.

The Nuclear Iranian Fear Factor

Astronomical Clock, Prague (image via Wikipedia)

Time, I am convinced, is not a linear dimension. Rather, I believe it is a mysterious force of cyclical motion, propelling events along the nearly imperceptible curve of reality. It is at those moments that stand out for their enduring personal impact that time’s cyclical nature reveals itself. And for me, such a time is when fears of war between the West and Iran are flamed.

Give Afghanistan Peace a Chance!



Mujahideen crossing in from Pakistan border,
Afghanistan, 1985 (image via Wikipedia)

This is another article slamming the discombobulated way that members of the United States Congress have influence over the nation’s foreign policy (see my last diatribe here), and again, Dana Rohrabacher’s name appears – which means that something untoward is afoot.

Circle Round the Sun

Harmonia Macrocosmica

As Planet Earth has once again passed the place in its orbit around the Sun that we have chosen to mark as the beginning of a new year, I am very happy to have arrived at a place in my life where I can devote time to this Connectively Speaking blog once again. As I hop back on this path that I had exited for a while just after the Austral Summer Solstice, here in the unforgiving glare of the Mendoza Sun, I am reminded of the invigorating New Year’s Day thunderstorm that I raced against a year ago in the green, green Valdivian forests of Patagonia. I spoke then of hope beginning anew because, through Eduardo Galeano, I had discovered the amazing Swedish writer, Stig Dagerman and was greatly inspired by his “visionary realism,” his concordance with my own ideas of how fear causes human beings to do strange things like accept unverifiable and inaccurate claims as truth and dispel basic respect for other human beings.

Open Letter to Mr. President of the Republic Don Sebastián Piñera, a translation

This is an Open Letter to Mr. President of the Republic Don Sebastián Piñera, concerning the approval of the HidroAysén Dam Project, on 9 May, 2011. My English translation follows the original castellano.

Thank you very much to Brian Patrick Corcoran for forwarding this to me.

CARTA ABIERTA AL SEÑOR

PRESIDENTE DE LA REPÚBLICA

DON SEBASTIÁN PIÑERA

 

Señor Presidente:

Con el respeto que me merece su  persona y su investidura, me permito en mi calidad de ciudadano libre de compromisos políticos, empresariales e institucionales,  plantearle algunas preguntas y un comentario en relación al megaproyecto Hidroaysén, próximo a ser votado en cuanto a su factibilidad.