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Listed below are comments made by One_Marble_Left between Thursday, 27th August 2009 and Saturday, 29th August 2009.

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Reporting Afghanistan 11:08am on 29 Aug 2009 There was a time in history when this whole piece would have been regarded as sabre-rattling by a "war correspondent". But we are not at war; there is no identifiable enemy; and our presence does not conform to UN resolutions.

We have a significant problem in that we choose to darken every member of the Taleban because of the acts of some of their number, and their (in our view) oppressive religious beliefs. And yet we are supporting an equally vicious interim government.

Those brave people who fight in Afghanistan need justification for their presence just as their loved ones do. It would be hopeless for all of us to simply put the book back on the shelf and say "sorry we were wrong". It would be a shameful defeat; but did any of us ever have a right to expect anything different?

History shows just how fast allegiances change in this region of the globe. It is a hostile territory for all those who are not flavour of the month. It was never any different, it is just that a foreign invader has had the audacity to believe it can do what no one has done before it, just as it imagined it could do in South East Asia.

So this entrenchment of face savers will remain until there is a glimmer of positivity that can blown into a "tangible benefit" and we can all breathe again. Except of course the whole matter will quickly return to square one when we have forgotten our sad mistakes.
Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes 8:53pm on 28 Aug 2009 #95 & #120 clamdip

Thank you for a very neat illustration of the deprivation caused by corporate destruction of our individual abilities. I remember one of Michael Moore's movies that depicted a woman who spent sixteen hours away from her family every working day because Walmart bought and closed the local drug store where she worked and opened a hypermarket sixty miles away to which she was moved. It was a very simple way of illustrating destructive corporate power. Of course the woman (and her children) was insignificant wasn't she?

I have noted your comments on strategic purchasing power of these latter day land barons. We have similar problems in the UK where it is apparent that ministers can be bought. There is a tacit comment on our twenty first century planet within the blog on Afghanistan which comments on the presence of Burger King. The implied significance of this is apparently lost on the journalist who wrote it (wow a BK in Afghanistan?).

I spent a while in Thailand before it got to be "touristy" and I could not believe the levels of corruption from German and Japanese would be investors. Although the Thai's despised them they couldn't ignore the money. It opened my eyes to how "power" works - there is ALWAYS a price for politicians and diplomats (if not for the principled "common man").

Corporations don't have friends - they have partners in crime.
Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes 7:52pm on 28 Aug 2009 #108 threnodio

I made no interpretation but took your comment on smokers at face value; they have been demonised through high taxation and internal smoking bans. No group (even persistent "soft but illegal" drug users) have been so toughly treated before. I offered the scenario that if that treatment were to be applied to private motor vehicle usage (because it produces similar and persistent harmful damage to others but has been largely avoided by research scientists) we would not have some of the problems we have now. Nothing controversial there?

There was no "thoughtfulness" in the blanket smoking ban. My MP advised me that the original plan (in parliament) was to obtain a split between smoking and non-smoking establishments (where the former must have a special license), but this was changed because it was felt the vote may be lost. So whips were employed (on a supposedly "free" vote) in order to save the day. My MP had planned to abstain but was "forced" to vote with the government by the whips.

As I said before we do not have governments of long term significance - all they are interested in is expedience, just as are their corporate friends. We will carry on being expedient until the moment comes when someone says the only expedient left is "to end it all now".

No prizes for guessing who will gain access to the bunkers is there?
Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes 12:22pm on 28 Aug 2009 #101 Secratariat

Firstly, I didn't mention UK public transport. I also quoted the text of threnodio (who resides in public transport bliss somewhere in mid-Europe) to establish the need for real strategy.

I, too, suffer the rigours of public transport, fighting with school kids to get on 'buses because they will not walk one hundred metres to their school (oh, the wonder of no 'bus fares for under 14s).

We have serious defects in our transport policies. Our urban roads are a nightmare; our railways are too darned expensive and inefficient; our 'buses are not run as "services" and we do not have 24/7 coverage. The UK has spent huge sums of money eradicating the high street shops so that a mega-rich corporation can build a hypermarket several miles from where a lot of people live. In doing this they assume that disposable income is more likely to come from a car owner than someone who has to use public transport. In other words these corporates are choosing their customers and to hell with the rest. Their bed fellows are leading members of successive cabinets going back a long, long way.

The problems of the climate, of over population and so on are very inconvenient blots on a landscape which is now showing signs of agricultural blight. GM crops do not have the yields predicted of them and honey bees are dying out from an unknown quantity, possibly (di)stress. We have invested in short term expedients instead of long term plans. How can we be serious about another terminal for London Heathrow when we are being warned to cut back on air travel - where is the sense in that?

The UK can have no control over its population as long as it remains in the EU. Sure we are in big trouble but we still have our NHS and people can earn more here than they can in Romania (for example). What happens if Turkey gains entry?

We really have to have serious policy in place now; do you see that in either of our two main parties? To put the policy in place is political suicide; to do nothing is national suicide.
Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes 09:13am on 28 Aug 2009 #98

So you have your electric/fusion/perpetual motion personal transportation devices. Where exactly are you going to have the room to use them when the population jumps from 61.5 million to 90 million plus?

The problem is not just about fuel burning; it concerns the exhaust gases of all people, the space they must occupy, the energy they consume in producing their food, homes, essential goods etc., and the exponential growth required to enable our economic systems to support increasing demands as the population doubles every fifty years or less.

In nature, species die out if there is insufficient food, problems in the food chain, over-population, disturbed or distressed environment, diseases etc. Species have "learned" how to avoid their own wilful self destruction but they cannot avoid extinction if they or another species behave stupidly.

Isn't this really a selfish game called "I'm Alright, Jack (As long as I am alive doing what I want to do)"?
Reporting Afghanistan 04:25am on 28 Aug 2009 Just to echo the thoughts of #17 we are talking pipelines through Afghanistan. Whether there is economic oil and gas in Afghanistan remains to be seen.

I think it is also appropriate to consider the vast number of countries that the USA imports its crude oil from including Canada, Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and well over ninety others. Obviously spreading their market place widely has an effect on price negotiation, as well as ensuring they have stockpiles in the event of the unforeseen.

It also indicates where they have "diplomatic" influence, and lobbying power. It is often said that power is not about ordering someone what to do, it is about not ordering them what to do. Strangely the US political scene has not studied history sufficiently well to know that being despised and hated are preventable by peaceful rather than warmongering or threatening means.

Afghanistan will never be changed by force. The UK lost a huge number of troops in Afghanistan in the nineteenth century to no avail - it is pity that we continue to throw young lives away in pursuit of the unattainable.
Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes 03:58am on 28 Aug 2009 I am a little appalled by the nonsense being spouted about public transport. When public transport runs it may carry just one person for a part of its journey and several people for other parts of its journey. The important point about public transport is that it is there.

The point made by threnodio at #93 (as follows)

"I have done my bit. I don't go home to the UK at all. I moved my entire life to central Europe and I don't run a car any more. I don't need one because public transport is - yes, that's right - reliable, flexible, available and - above all - affordable."

is critical to any discussion about drastically changing habits. The UK government has demonised smokers by increasing costs substantially and making it impossible to smoke almost anywhere but home. Were these same rules applied to private motor vehicles we would not have anything like the problems we do have and we may have a chance of preserving something for future generations. But that is only one facet of our difficulties and the painful solutions we must endure. Population control and movement are also crucial to our longer term survival.

Does anyone who is killing themselves slowly but surely actually worry about how much they have in their bank account (the economy)?
Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes 3:43pm on 27 Aug 2009 #80

So the National Lottery becomes "Who will have the chance to live beyond 60? Will it be you?"
Reporting Afghanistan 3:23pm on 27 Aug 2009 #10

So what you are saying is that a sovereign state has no right to conduct its affairs in whatever way it chooses? We were told lies about Saddam Hussein, and we also know that the regime change in Iraq has deprived women of hard fought for rights given to them by the late dictator. This sector of the Middle East has hardly changed in three or more centuries and does not choose to conform to westernised pigeon hole politics. It has learned how to blow with the wind. There is a strategic value for the US that concerns oil and energy pipelines which is much more relevant than regime change or training camps.

We do not know who actually was behind 9/11; there has been no criminal investigation; there are major flaws in the Commission Report which attempted to piece together the evidence of that Tuesday morning. 9/11 may superficially be the perfect reason to justify almost any action in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia or almost anywhere else in the Middle East but a more profound assessment of the past two decades may deliver a very much different strategy towards peace.
Burma: Are there signs of change? 10:30am on 27 Aug 2009 I had to smile on reading that "estimating the distance of an object" is the same as expressing opinions on matters political. If only that were true.

The fact is that BBC journalists spend an inordinate amount of time expressing opinion as "reporting events" when it is actually "estimating the distance of an object"! The fact that we never get to measure the actual distance of the object rather negates the exercise.

A statement "that things will slowly change" is superfluous in the extreme, after all they will not stand still will they! What is more important to people watching South East Asia is that military juntas are not pleasant, ever. And so Burma represents a battle of wills between the USA and China perhaps? It is shame that citizens of Burma are pawns in this "bloody" game.

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