Hi Thread Fellows, Yes, I mean you DJ, Elmat, CB, TM, the many others, from many countries, and of course, our new and very vocal American Spirit.
This event complexity, epicenter-ed on the WTC event singularity, can end well or badly, for the financial markets, the economies, and the world, encompassing all matters worthwhile that we have ever known. It all depends on the politicians of the world now, led by Bush, and on us individually.
In a twisted manner, we have a unique opportunity, as we did back during the original Desert Storm War, the first video war. The 1991 opportunity was not fully taken advantage of, not because of incompetence, but because of inexperience in dealing with the new challenges of a post-Cold War world, directly or indirectly resulting in what happened to WTC and all the innocent souls that perished horribly.
What needs to happen now?
Each of us will have to think for ourselves, and even if we believe we have no way to influence events, we then must observe, and act in reaction, for ourselves, by ourselves. I do not believe we have no way to influence events. The least we can do, the thing we must do, is to speak out, speak our mind, regardless of correctness as interpreted conventionally. We are not in conventional times.
I do not have answers, only feelings. The territory is uncharted for all. Each of us will have to come up with our own answers.
The following are my thoughts, and I am ready to change my mind, because I just do not know. Having admitted, “I do not know”, I then am as capable of analyzing a geo-political-socio-economic situation in cold or warm blood as the next person. Here I go.
What situation are we facing?
We are facing a war against organized society, the existing order, the “what we have now, for every group and sub-group”. Terror is a variant of asymmetric warfare, declared or not, by the weak group against the strong.
I am a relatively fortunate person comfortable within my immediate surroundings, generally at a state of contentment within my immediate world of cares, associations, activities, and possessions. I am happy with the existing order, I am OK with the current state, and I have every intention of keeping what I have worked for.
A war against me, as a contented person, necessarily requires, as in any war against me, suppression, and needs to happen now, with conviction, on a worldwide multilateral basis, on a cost-does-not-matter basis.
What is the nature of this war?
We are facing a global guerrilla war, where all extreme measures are OK, and all extreme counter-measures are all right. We are stepping into a landscape of truly uncharted territory.
Can this borderless guerrilla war be won against the guerrilla fighters by conventional forces on the basis of sheer conventional force?
I do not know. I am not aware of any guerilla war being won on the basis of sheer force alone. If suppression is carried out by sheer force, with no concomitant political, economic, and social initiatives to address legitimate grievances and redress genuine injustices that gave rise to the fight, victory will only be momentary, of a battle, until the next time. Declared war and announced threats; measures and counter measures; actions and reactions; terror and counter-terror. We have been here before, so very many times.
Such a borderless war will, from the beginning to the end, benefit no family, group, nation, economy, and above all, no conscience. Such a war will be merely a fractal scale-up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, fought on a much wider geography, engulfing all, allowing no bystanders, and taking no prisoners; because prisoners, when released, will fight again. Such a war is generally and historically termed a World War.
The war will involve aircraft carriers and smart bombs on the side of organized states, and entail containers, cargo ships, trucks, passenger planes, and whatever devices, toxins, and bugs that can be bought, seized and carried or targeted by these vehicles of modern transport.
The war will see the use of media and uniformed soldiers on one side, and witness the seemingly insane wish to die by the other side, a group of folks without fear, not only of dying, but simply without fear, period, without a stake in this very real, beautiful, and the only world, without a wish to see tomorrow, without hope to be heard, and with only the anticipation to be known for what they have done.
The war will see the end of organized society in the Arabian deserts, friends and foe, democratic and monarchical, enlightened and dictatorial, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
There is no need to discuss the right and wrong in the context of trying to decide the financial implication of such a war. Such a war is not bullish. Such a war will in fact be extremely bearish.
Did the war start on September 11th?
No. The war started a long time ago, and it was started by unreasonable people insanely willing to see god at an earlier date, and taking non-believers along. These people are willing to hijack passenger planes and crash them into buildings full of non-combatants. These people are willing to crash a Boeing into a nuclear reactor. These people are willing to do the unthinkable. And they are willing to do all this because they do not like Friends, the TV show, and they do not care for McDonalds, the restaurant. Or was it because they want a particular strip of land holding some significance.
If the picture is right, the solution must then be final.
What is wrong with this picture?
What? You do not have the stomach for such bloodletting? You are not patriotic to the system that enabled your comfort?
Think about it for a moment. What would have happened had one of the planes crashed into a nuclear power station? These people must be stopped, now, and for good.
What is wrong with this picture?
I am watching ordinary folks and politicians on TV and Internet, talking about a “qualitative difference in retaliation” and “sustained suppression”, of the perpetrators, the sympathizers of the perpetrators, and, if unavoidable, the political acceptance of collateral damage to bystanders.
I do not hear the word “kill”.
There are the beginnings of talk about the nature and acceptable parameters of a “final solution”.
Except, I do not see the words, “final” and “solution” together.
In the International Herald Tribune dated September 12th, I see the horror on the front page, of a WTC in flames. Somewhere on the inside pages are two photos, side by side, one of an Israeli tank, another of a Palestinian man holding his small daughter up, surveying what used to be their home, now a pile of rubble, left by an Israeli bulldozer. I did not see the mother.
The entire newspaper, amongst all its pages, did not mention any connection between the two sets of images, of a giant NY building in flames, and of a small pile of rubble still smoldering, worlds apart.
Again, just one more time, what is wrong with this picture? Lives, innocent lives, lives everywhere in the world, depend on the answer.
There are more questions, with thankfully easier answers.
Is there a right and a wrong in the event complexity? Yes, of course.
Is all the right on one side, and all the wrong on the other? No, of course not.
Which side is more right, and which more wrong? Once more I do not know and again I have no answers.
Where have I seen this picture before?
In the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Hong Kong, there are many famous photographs on the walls, many dealing with the Vietnam War, a war that went on for hundreds of years, first against the Chinese, then the French, Japanese, French again, followed by the Americans, then the Chinese yet again. What made old ladies clutching the little grand daughter and pull the pin of a grenade in a crowded bar? What part of the message of history is not clear to all? What was it that we all did not understand what the Vietnamese wanted?
Was the old lady with the grenade crazy too?
In any case, the answers do not matter. The global war against global guerrilla will not see the end to terror nor the uninterrupted flow of petroleum.
A generalized state of retaliation and suppression may be the seed for a bad future. We saw the script play out in the Middle East, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and we have seen the sequel as well. We simply never saw the conclusion, because there were none, zero, zilch, naught, and nothing. I do not need to go into deep analysis and expound on the reasons. You know the arguments and are already familiar with the reasons.
Maybe the answer, to work, has to be a combination of surgical response against the likes of thug like Iraqi tyrant, within context of broad consensus, followed by sustained global economic and political development and progression to the better for all groups. Maybe. The resolution is extremely difficult to implement; and more so because of the global economic environment. True leadership is needed, and true leadership must already be in place.
I do not know how events will play out. I will feel easier if a quick video witnessed knockout punch can be delivered against the enemy to my life style, so that I do not have to think about these very complicated issues that until September 11th, have not inconvenience my life. For reasons as yet not clear to me, I feel uneasy with the picture I am looking at. Something does not add up. In the age of Internet enabled enlightenment, where do all the petroleum dollars go? For the number of folks living in the Middle East, why are there so many without a stake in the existing order of systems and rules?
Anyway, my mind is not made up. I do not know why I am putting thoughts to screen at 2:45am about events so far away.
My wife said at least one of her Harvard MBA 1998 cohort is missing. Her classmates had organized a scheme to have all of the class reporting in, as so many had worked at an address now famous but is no longer on line.
Our lives are changed, plan assumptions are altered, things are different, the SI threads are transformed, and we may even have to change the name of our thread.
The reasons, as verbalized, are all legitimate reasons. I am OK with the change of name. I will participate with my cyber pals the way I always had, speaking my mind. My mood will improve in time and I will regain my cheer, I hope.
And yet, I feel uneasy, because when I was born, my names were Chen Jay, and a/k/a Jay Acham. At one time, before we were sent to the Chinese country side, we were told the Acham must go, because it was not Chinese. My English Jewish half-brother, 17 years my senior, at the age of 27, was sent to prison in Fushuen near Shenyang. His crime? Because of “li tung wai guo”, translated to simply mean his inside is connected to a foreign country. I could change my name, but he could not change his look.
I simply do not know, and have no answers, even at 3:17am.
In the meantime, life must go on, and I bought some shares today, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (hk.5) at HKD 79.75, and Furukawa Electric (jp.5801) at JPY 643, sold long ago, respectively, at HKD 101, and JPY 3300.
Best, Jay |
