We talk. We blog. But when will we do anything about it?
In the January/February Issue of Foreign Affairs, Tony Blair writes about the fact that we are in a
A Battle for Global Values in a very convincing way:
In my view, the situation we face is indeed war, but of a completely unconventional kind, one that cannot be won in a conventional way. We will not win the battle against global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as that of force. We can win only by showing that our values are stronger, better, and more just than the alternative. That also means showing the world that we are evenhanded and fair in our application of those values. We will never get real support for the tough actions that may well be essential to safeguarding our way of life unless we also attack global poverty, environmental degradation, and injustice with equal vigor.
However...
Chris Floyd, a truthout hire, has a delightfully action-packed expose of Mr. Blairs actions - that completely contradict the British PM's glowing and insightful rhetoric, in Radar Love: Robbing the Cradle to Pay War Profiteers:
Last week, investigators with the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) unearthed new evidence of a $12 million slush fund allegedly used to bribe officials in Tanzania into approving a $50 million purchase of a military air traffic control system from Britain's biggest arms merchant, BAE Systems, in 2002. Tanzania, which has a grand total of eight military airplanes and one of the most crushing loads of national debt in the world, had to borrow even more money to finance the sale. The money came, naturally, from another of Britain's most august and politically wired institutions, Barclays Bank. Tanzania repaid this loan with money that Blair's government had given it, ostensibly to support public education.
In other words, public money earmarked to help lift Tanzania's children out of poverty was instead laundered into the coffers of BAE and Barclays, with Tony Blair acting as bagman. Again, Blair had to override the objections of [his] own cabinet - and protests from the World Bank, which rarely sees a sweetheart deal for Western interests it doesn't like - in order to foist an extravagant, useless white elephant on the people of Tanzania. In that nation, as the Guardian notes, "life expectancy is only 43 years, the poorest third of the population live on less than a dollar a day, and 45 percent of public spending is provided by Western donors."
"[Blair] insisted on letting this go ahead, when it stank," former cabinet minister Clare Short told the Guardian. "It was always obvious that this useless project was corrupt." Short, who resigned from the cabinet in protest after the invasion of Iraq, said that Chancellor Gordon Brown, who will almost certainly become prime minister this year, had also opposed the sale. But Blair had forced through the license for the deal, she said. When BAE calls, Tony comes running.
snip
Down in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, a "climate of fear" lingers over those with any knowledge of the BAE deal, the Guardian reports:
"One government contractor says: 'Our position here is too vulnerable to be seen talking.' A European from an NGO says: 'They'll throw me out if I go public.' And one knowledgeable journalist claims: 'If I put my name on the radar story, I could be killed.'"
Back in propaganda/think-tank land, Blair hopes to offset any ill-conceived mis-perceptions:
On 9/11, 3,000 people were murdered. But this terrorism did not begin on the streets of New York. Many more had already died, not just in acts of terrorism against Western interests but in political insurrection and turmoil around the world. Its victims are to be found in the recent history of many lands: India, Indonesia, Kenya, Libya, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and countless more. More than 100,000 died in Algeria. In Chechnya and Kashmir, political causes that could have been resolved became brutally incapable of resolution under the pressure of terrorism. Today, in 30 or 40 countries, terrorists are plotting action loosely linked with this ideology. Although the active cadres of terrorists are relatively small, they exploit a far wider sense of alienation in the Arab and Muslim world.
...a far wider sense of alienation in the Arab and Muslim world...
I cannot imagine why?