Latin America: US involvement a decade too late....

So, Bush wraps up a 5-day tour in Latin America, but brings back nothing with him.

This tour has come too late at a moment when US diplomacy is at its weakest in decades, even in recent weeks of renewed diplomatic talks with countries in the Middle East and China, and only thanks to Rice, who has been eargely making the rounds, in a move to clear up and wash out the Bush Administration's lack of foreign diplomatic overtures.

Latin America, with all its complexities and problems, seems to be hanging tough, as they have waited years to see trade agreements finalized, economic aid disembursed, and political commitments materialized. South America has for now found their guy in Venezuela's Chavez, who is more than willing to fill in the vacuum and which has plenty of cash and free advice to give.

This is exactly the danger and the frivolity of territorial politics, and the Bush Administration never seemed to capitalize on it. As Lebanon fell to Hizballah when Syria pulled out, everyone seemed too busy with the 'terrorists' and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the US.

Now, it is too late for US deals and cheap talk; China has moved in to provide trade and aid and Chavez has continued to engulf South America and Central America with his populist rethoric. Today, Venuezuela's political and economic influence in the region is proportioned to Russia's oil supply to China's economy. China is always shopping for oil suppliers and has found a loyal one in Venezuela, which only helps to fuel Chavez's regional agenda.

I say this to Bush: go back to your drawing board and come up with a new set of economic and political policies that can efficiently compete with Chavez's own.

How US Incompentence has created a civil war

It's been almost 4 years since the US invansion, and the Bush Administration has told us many incompetent lies about why we are still in Iraq. The excuses sounded so believable at the time (at least to Bush supporters): "we are fighting there so we don't have to fight them here",
" Saddan Hussein's trial we'll move Iraq forward", "national elections will free Iraquis", etc. Not even the capture of the No. 2 Al-Qaeda guy has yielded positive results. We are in a mess. A mess, nonetheless created by the same Administration that has vowed that this war is still winneable.

The truth is that the US is fighting a war on terror and the Iraquis are fighting a civil war. How can the US expect the Iraqui government to actually remedy the situation when the situation is not emendable by this Iraqui government. Iraq is so divided and the situation is so stark that the Kurds have been called in to manage troops deployments and to help secure Shiite dominated areas.

Even the manner in which Saddam's execution has been reverbated simply shows the state of affairs in Iraq's civil war-torn society.

The first consideration for the Bush team should have been the fact that the expectations for the Iraqui government to disarm militias were not realistic. The present Shiite administration is hanging on a threat, their leverage with the ongoing conflict is poor and their motives are unclear.

And now a surge of 21,000 troops has been called for by Bush. But the truth is logistically, this is a poor number, because even if Badghad shows signs of relative calm, other cities or towns will pick up the tab.

More poor policies ahead... will keep you posted.

Political Islam at a crossroads

Political Islam explained

Almost every modern religion has faced a clash of ideologies of some sort. However, none is so far-reaching and momentous than the challenges facing the Islamic religion today. Ever since 9/11, Islam has become the epitome of extremism and radicalism in the religious divergence.

The effects of Islamic extremism in the world have been substantial and influential. Muslim radicals have managed to hijacked airplanes and used them as weapons of mass destruction, rallied entire villages and factions against US and foreign troops, kidnapped, attacked and invaded sovereign nationals and territories, and managed to influence political and religious discourse in the Middle East, temporarily unifying at least, other Muslims to rally behind their cause.

However, we keep asking ourselves, where are the moderate Muslims? Why have not they come forward by publicly condemning this wing of Islamic radicalism. Moderate countries lost a very good opportunity to come forward during the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbollah. The situation is very complex. Muslims are a very traditionalist culture. Many nations are plagued with sectarianism even under the skirts of ‘democracy’ and the religion itself has many branches of ideology from very moderate to very orthodox. Nevertheless, the Islamic religion is in a historical crossroad; change won’t come easily, but it is worth the try, and many are already doing so.

The real thing Muslims have to acknowledge is which faction of Islam will get them to form better, peaceful societies with strong foundation of governance and democracy and which allows them to be full participants in world affairs. Unfortunately, the message being carried by the radicals is: “you will never accomplish anything without violence”. Communication between different Islamic factions is at a low and it is up to moderate Muslims in the region to commit themselves to bringing peaceful discourse and negotiation. The clergy can also provide a dash of wisdom as they still are a strong, staunch voice in Islamic politics.

ONE.org Video

Bush confesses....

Bush has finally admitted to the existence of CIA secret prisons abroad, after 5 years of silence. According to him, these detention centers have deterred possible attacks on US soil. Please! The intelligence we have gathered from having these detention centers is so inconsequential that most of our efforts to extract better and more sophisticated intelligence are currently being diverted by overstepping our timeline in Iraq. After Bush leaves office, we will be left with no diplomatic influence in the world, a poor and battered military, no significant breakthroughs in intelligence gathering and so indebted that our intelligence infrastructure will resemble Russia’s in the 1990’s. We have wasted precious resources with the war in Iraq, our counterparts fighting the war on terror seem to be in the right track when it comes to intelligence gathering, like Britain. Wake up Bush, let’s stop fighting this useless war and concentrate all of our brains and pockets finding better intelligence solutions to fighting terrorism, because guess what? Acts of terror are here to stay.