The SCO Seeks a New Type of Geopolitics to Promote Peace

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has just completed its 5th Annual Summit held last week in Shanghai, but this important organization is receiving scant attention in the West. It is an organization consisting of Russia, China and the four Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.

In addition to the six member countries, four other neighboring countries, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, and India, have been granted observer status, and at least two, Iran and Pakistan would like very much to join. However, the SCO is unlikely to admit Iran as a member until its problem with the West involving uranium enrichment is settled. Likewise, it is reluctant to admit Pakistan unless India also joins at the same time in view of the long standing conflict the two countries have had in the Kashmir territories. All of these countries are important to the SCO efforts to deal with radical Islamic militancy in the area and the flow of illicit drugs coming out of Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan also was invited to address the conference.

The main purposes of the SCO are: " strengthening mutual trust...; developing..effective cooperation in political affairs, the economy and trade, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transportation, environmental protection and other fields; working together to maintain regional peace, security and stability; and promoting the creation of a new international political and economic order featuring democracy, justice and rationality."

The Declaration on the Fifth Anniversary of SCO Summit says: "the SCO owes its smooth growth to its consistent adherence to the "Shanghai Spirit" of "mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for multi-civilizations and pursuit of common development". . The "Shanghai Spirit" is therefore of critical importance to the international community's pursuit of a new and non-confrontational model of international relations, a model that calls for discarding the Cold War mentality and transcending ideological differences... SCO is committed to enhancing strategic stability, strengthening the international regime of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and upholding order in international law, and will contribute its share to accomplishing these important missions."

Western media seem to almost completely ignored the SCO and its just completed annual summit in Shanghai June 14-16. My search of www.cnn.com reveals not a single reference to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I did hear a TV reference to it on CNN Europe, but it referred to the SCO as a "regional security organization" without even using its name. Howard French in the New York Times, calls it the "Shagnhai Club, once obscure, now attracts wide interest", but the Times buries it quite deep in its World News.

Much of the cooperative work of SCO countries involves economic development, energy production and distribution, and building infrastructure. F. William Engdahl explains clearly how the U.S. is being outflanked in Eurasia energy politics. While the United States runs up massive deficits and becomes bogged down militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now threatens Iran in its attempt to change regimes and acquire American hegemony over the Mideast oil fields, Russia and China take a different course. Both have new wealth, Russia from sale of energy, and China from exports to the U.S. The SCO countries are expanding energy production and distribution with new pipelines throughout Eurasia. The European Commission is preparing the draft of an agreement to integrate the energy markets of Russia and the European Union. Direct oil pipelines from Kazakhstan and Russia will soon be linked directly to China.

China is investing billions of dollars to build infrastructure in the oil rich countries of Africa and Central Asia as well and many other places around the globe. These projects include roads, railroads, airports, telecommunications, schools, hospitals, cement factories, etc. While the U.S. is losing friends, China is acquiring new respect.

Many in the U.S. are apprehensive about China and Russia as possible military threats, but this is quite contrary to all that the SCO countries have done and said. True, they have conducted joint military exercises and plan more for the future, but they openly state that they do not seek confrontation with anyone, nor would they ever try to match the U.S. in its massive military might. Of course, like all countries, they will act in their perceived own interests.

In contrast, the United States spends as much on the military and its wars, as the rest of the world combined. Ralph Vartabedian reports in the Los Angeles Times on the "race" going on in the U.S. to build new nuclear bombs. The race though is between two laboratories, Livermore in California and Los Alamos in New Mexico. Congress has wisely (?) prohibited the new bombs from exceeding the power of the old ones they will replace, roughly 27 times the power of the one dropped on Hiroshima. The eager young scientist see this as a big "game", and are competing with each other to develop the best new WMD's with the latest technology.

No, the greater danger to the United States is the possibility of its own economic collapse, but the SCO does not seek this either, as it would bring down the economic system of the whole world as well. Let's just hope and pray that the U.S. and its "Willing Coalition" doesn't precipitate a nuclear war first.

The SCO seeks to cooperate with the rest of the world. I would hope that the U.S. government and the American mass media can open their eyes and begin to spread the "Shanghai Spirirt" around the world.

How Russia's Young People are getting into Politics

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

This morning Peter Finn reports in the Washington Post on an interesting and innovative project in Russia designed to involve young people in national politics. It is called "Political Factory", and is patterned after the popular Russian Television reality show "Star Factory". In April, the Supreme Council of United Russia, the ruling party of President Vladimir Putin, decided that 20% of all candidates on party lists in future elections must be between the ages of 21 and 28. Finn reports on the selection process in Lipetsk, one of the nine regions of Russia that will be holding local parliamentary elections this fall.

In Lipetsk, as a method to select suitable candidates, Young Guard, the party's youth wing, devised the reality contest "Political Factory" open to all comers. The elimination process is designed with the stated goal is to discover young people who have a strong desire to participate in government and who show qualities of leadership. Party members or those expressing favored ideologies apparently do not have an advantage. The first step is for interested persons go the local party office and fill out a lengthy questionnaire. (Copies of all the questionnaires were supplied to the Washington Post.) The candidates also make a 45 second video recording on why they want to be a member of parliament and this is followed up with a telephone interview. The 20 winners of this round were announced at a beach party where each had a chance to express his or her view of party, Russia, and democracy. During the next month, each winner will be required to obtain signatures from 500 people who will support his or her candidacy. Judges are members of Young Guard as well as other young people. From these 20 winners, 5 will be selected whose names will be added to the party's list of candidates. Three of these very likely will become members of parliament.

It will be interesting to see how this works out. It would be exciting to see such a process taking place in America, but to try to envision this is difficult, so long as party politics are so controlled at the top and with money granted the same rights of free speech as ordinary citizens. The problem with this is that the money speaks so loud the voices of the people, especially young people, cannot be heard.

War and the Quest for Energy

6/9/2006

WAR AND THE QUEST FOR ENERGY

Today is the first day of the World Cup in Germany. I have never been much of a sports fan, but since three billion other people are expected to view at least part of the series on television, I thought I might as well make it three billion and one. So last night I read up on the “Laws of the Game” on the FIFA website and this morning I tuned in to the opening ceremonies and watched the first half of the game between Germany and Costa Rica. The play by play was in Spanish, so I largely missed that, but enjoyed watching the plays, especially the physical skills and endurance of the players. I decided to be for the Latinos, but then again, I usually find myself on the side of the underdogs.

At the half-time, I went to the Internet and began reading an article in Asia Times Online, and found again that the game of international geopolitics is more fascinating to me than sports, exciting as sports can be. The Internet is such a wealth of information on any topic. For Geopolitics, my home page is BBC News, which I scan first for the latest news from all sections of the world. Then I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, because they seem to be the only papers in the U.S. which do investigating reporting anymore. I scan the Miami Herald for news from Latin America. Then I go to the Guardian in the UK, and on to the Moscow Times, Itar-Tass, and Kommorsant in Moscow, and Xinhuanet in China. I end up in Hong Kong with Asia Times, which seems to have more information, quite accurate usually, which I have not found elsewhere.

I have been reading about the quests for energy by various countries of the world and had begun to appreciate how especially Russia and China were going about it in ways quite different from the United States. While the U.S. has been running up massive debt and losing friends in its military endeavors to secure hegemony in the Middle East and Central Asian oilfields and spreading “democracy”, all in the name of the “war on terror”, Russia and China have been building up large reserves of cash, Russia cashing in on selling oil and gas, and China from selling manufactured goods to the U.S. The U.S. manufactures Dollars and sells them in the form of Treasury Notes to China and to many other countries that are willing to invest in the American people.

Russia has been paying off its debts, and this year will have paid off all the entire debt of the former Soviet Union. It is rapidly recovering from the disastrous financial chaos created by Boris Yeltsin’s “give-away” of national wealth. It is now consolidating its gas production and distribution at home and expanding into Europe, Algeria, Central Asia, Turkey, and now even Israel. Gasprom is close to being the largest corporation in the world.

I knew, of course, that China, as well as India, was seeking new sources of oil and gas in Russia, Central and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and even Canada, but F. William Engdahl describes so well in this article in Asia Times[1] how China is using its wealth of U.S. Dollars in these endeavors. For instance, China loans $2 billion to Angola to build infrastructure and in return receives a stake in oil exploration off the coast. “Chinese infrastructure projects under way in Angola include railways, roads, a fiber-optic network, schools, hospitals, offices and 5,000 units of housing developments. A new airport with direct flights from Luanda to Beijing is also planned.” He reports that China is doing the same in other oil-rich countries of Africa. I read elsewhere how the Chinese government is setting up hundreds of “Confucius Institutes” in cooperation with universities around the world, including some in the United States, where people can study the Chinese language and learn about Chinese culture. You might say that the Chinese have learned “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.

Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, who also has considerable oil wealth, is attempting to do the same in Latin America, but with his big head and loud mouth he instead is losing friends and driving people away.

So we have the Bush Administration, with most of Congress going along and no one offering an alternate course, building more nuclear weapons, the next generation of high-tech armaments, and carrying them into Space, and now, the military bogged down in Iraq, and the Taliban apparently resurging in Afghanistan. It should becoming clear to all that “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER” and that military solutions will not bring us peace, but only more people who hate us.

What IS the Answer?????

Well, before you can provide the answer to the problem, one must first define the problem. There are many problems in the world, but here I am talking about the Middle East. I believe that the majority of the people of the Middle East would say that the occupation of Palestine territory, and now the occupation of Iraq, and all the accompanying violence and deprivations are the things that they resent the most. I believe they also believe, as do we in the West, that people should be able to select and participate in their own governance, i.e. democratic process.

So let’s stop the occupations and also promote true democracy, which also means the people choosing their own value systems.

Israel has occupied all the Palestinian territories, and some of Syria, for nearly 40 years. The chef reason for this is that they had harbored the idea that they could incorporate all of it into the “Greater Israel” of Biblical times. The only problem was that there were too many Palestinian natives, so that Israel could not have them all as citizens and still have an “Israeli” democratic state. So after all this time of building settlements, the government realizes that they cannot “have it all”, but plan to keep the best parts and crowd the Palestinians into what is left. This is not justice.

The Arab League at least as long ago as 2002 said that they would accept Israel and make peace if Israel would withdraw to the 1967 borders. The U.N. Security Council long ago demanded that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders. Now, even Hamas, the new government of the Palestinian Authority, has said it would recognize Israel if it would stop the occupation and draw back to the 1967 borders.

Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, recently confirmed what I have been thinking for some time. In order to bring peace to the Middle East, all of the major problems need to be addressed at the same time.

I suggest that The Quartet, consisting of the U.S., the U.N., the E.U. and Russia, which has been trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, be expanded to include all Middle East countries, and probably China as well. The rights of all people in the region will be recognized, it will be agreed that the occupations shall end, and that the governments of Iraq, and Palestine will be supported until they can function effectively on their own, that all governments will be expected to have free and open elections and the democratic outcome will be accepted. It also will be recognized that there is a significant difference between terrorism (violence against innocent civilians) and insurgencies against occupying forces. With democratic elections, insurgencies will be expected to enter freely into the democratic process, but violence against civilians will be treated as criminal offenses. At the same time, state violence against its own citizens will be considered to be international crime.

All countries need to recognize that military force is legitimate only for the defense of the country. Minimum international standards of law and justice need to be developed and be enforced by means, also to be developed. The world is facing many other problems, poverty, health, education, environmental degradation, and global warming, but none of these can be effectively addressed as long as wars continue.

Economics is the engine that drives our world civilization, and while capitalism is recognized as an effective means of creating wealth, services, and goods, it needs to be balanced with social policies which meet the basic needs of life for all people, i.e., food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, protection, and opportunity.

Am I hoping for too much? Probably, but I had given up all hope because I could not see a way to peace. At least it is better to hope than despair.

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[1] SPEAKING FREELY
US outflanked in Eurasia energy politics
By F William Engdahl

ASIA TIMES Online

www.atimes.com

June 10, 2006