More On Poppy + Afghanistan
Meanwhile, the Times –
“The people are unhappy with this eradication campaign; if it goes on they will all join the Taleban,” Dilbar, a poppy farmer in Helmand province, told The Times.
The push and pull of domestic policy intersecting with foreign –
Poppy eradication is a double-edged sword. Afghanistan provides nine out of every ten grams of heroin sold on the streets of Britain, and officials are determined to stamp out poppy growth. Yet a successful campaign would leave many unemployed as potential recruits for the Taleban.
The internal Afghani economy doesn’t help –
Farmers take huge risks to grow poppy as the market price is 20 times that of wheat. But without aid they have little choice and when the crop is destroyed they are crippled by debt, often having borrowed heavily from landlords to plant the crop. Landlords make no concessions for eradicated crops and the farmers are still expected to pay off their loans.
Britain + Afghanistan
Guardian – The British move closer to 4GW thinking –
Officials say the new tactics are to identify “Talibs who are sick of fighting” and persuade them to rejoin their tribes and benefit from the human rights laws and state structures being set up in the country. Captured fighters may also be offered alternatives to incarceration, while more deals will be sought with tribal elders.
An official familiar with British policy on Afghanistan described the difference this way: “The Taliban is not a homogenous group. It is a mixture of characters – criminals, drug dealers, people out of work. There is a wide variety of different people. The Taliban pays them to carry out these attacks so there are ways to tackle the problem, to split off the disillusioned.”
but are worried about poppy –
British officials are worried about the consequences of US proposals to eradicate Afghanistan’s opium poppy harvest, which include spraying the crops from the air, a policy it adopted in Colombia.
On Electronic Jihad
MEMRI details the fledging open source jihadist electronic warfare campaign and concludes with –
In conclusion, electronic jihad, in its current state of development, is capable of causing some moderate damage to Western economy, but there is no indication that it constitutes an immediate threat to more sensitive interests such as defense systems and other crucial infrastructure. Nevertheless, in light of the rapid evolvement of this phenomenon, especially during the recent months, the Western countries should monitor it closely in order to track the changes in its modes of operation and the steady increase in its sophistication.
Basically they are focusing on big bang style attacks but, lacking the capabilities, are unlikely to present a threat in of themselves.
The kicker: From an open source warfare perspective the lack of a real E-Jihad doesn’t actually matter all that much. The globalizing black economy offers these capabilities and is always engaged in cyberwarfare with the white globalization system.
Updated to reflect Michael Tanji’s insight
On Unity08
Been watching the Unity08 effort, and I even signed up as a representative for a short while. I am not impressed because, when you look past the rhetoric, it boils down to more of the same. Not much thinking in regards to the structure of the system they want to change. Without that focus the entire effort is superficial.
David Broder explains –
In a few weeks, they will outline provisional rules for their own nomination process, determining how candidates will qualify and how the voting will be conducted. The goal is to pick either a political independent for president or to form a ticket with both a Democrat and a Republican. Feedback will be welcomed before the rules are made final, he said.
Then comes the hard part. Thirty-nine states allow a new party to petition its way onto the presidential ballot, without having a named candidate, but the deadlines and numbers of signers required vary widely. The first test will be whether Unity08 attracts enough volunteers and money to carry out that effort.
And then comes the challenge of recruiting a candidate or candidates for Unity08 to back.
Open Source Political Party
The party is going for a seat on Boston’s City Council first and has a 10 point platform available here – but here’s the basic rundown –
- Digg-style lawmaking
- social media websites
- secure web-based voting systems
- use of open source software
- mandatory politician blogs
- collaborative writing of proposed laws
- Youtube public meeting record
- Creative Commons based patent copyright and intellectual property law
- open lines of communication (VOIP etc)
- anti-DRM.