Eric Margolis on the Manley Report

There's a number of areas where I disagree with Eric Margolis, but when he talks about Afghanistan, I tend to believe that his personal experience in the region gives him the credibility that merits me paying attention. What does he think about the Manley report? I'll put it mildly by saying he's not impressed. Read his reaction here.

Eric Margolis on Burma

This is an interesting piece on the ethnic division and other complexities in Burma. Though you wouldn't know it from most news reports, Margolis says getting rid of the junta may be more difficult than we in the west might envision:

"Burma indeed is a nasty police state. Its generals have plundered resources and kept this magnificent nation in direst poverty. Myanmar is often called a `jewel’ and `unspoiled Asia of 1940’s.’ True enough. But that’s because the junta and its predecessor, mad dictator, Gen. Ne Win, turned Burma into a weird hermit kingdom and one of the world’s poorest countries.

But extreme caution is advised in dealing with Myanmar. If things go wrong there, it could turn into an Southeast Asian version of Iraq, Yugoslavia or Afghanistan."

Read the whole thing. It seems as though the choice in all too many places is between a bunch of Very Bad Men (mostly men at least) repressing people or an all-out civil war.

Eric Margolis asks a question

This stood out to me:

"Blaming every violent incident on the shadowy al-Qaida is a handy excuse for avoiding reality and responsibility. But it won’t change the fact that a good 20% of the world’s population is increasingly enraged at the US, Britain, Australia and, most lately, Canada. How can we hector the Muslim World to cease its acts of violence when we westerners continue to intensify our own?"

This is though one of those cases where the whole article is worth reading. Actually I've been meaning to pick up Margolis' War at the Top of the World, if it's anything like his columns, it's probably worth reading.

Blame the Soviets?!

According to Eric Margolis the Soviets deliberately caused a panic in Cairo and Damascus with doctored intelligence and that led to the military build-up that caused Israel to... Well, you know the rest of the story.

Margolis posits a couple reasons why the Soviets might have done this:

• They actually believed that Egypt and Syria could win this type of conflict,
  
• They were setting up the Arabs for failure to drive them further into Moscow's arms,
• Pro-Israeli KGB agents were acting on their own.

Any other ideas? I really recommend the whole article. It also touches on the curious saga of the USS Liberty.

The Case for The EU

While acknowledging it faults (bureaucracy, et cetera), Eric Margolis reminds us what the EU has achieved in 50 years:

"The greatest miracle I have ever seen is today’s French-German border. Nothing now demarcates this long-disputed frontier, over which so many fought and died. This blood-drenched border that evoked such madness and violence has almost vanished. You only know you’ve crossed the border by seeing billboards in French or German."

On the eve of the commemorations at Vimy, I think it's safe to say that three generations ago hardly anyone conceived of this happening.

What would you do with US$2300?

That's what the Iraq & Afghanistan conflicts will have cost every single American by 2008. The rest of Eric Margolis' column basically documents how badly that money was spent. I have to admit that I skimmed, because it's just too depressing to read in detail. Considering that things are going so badly in Iraq, maybe Bush would have been better off just lighting cigars with $1000 bills or something.