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Foreign Affairs presents some the most insightful analysis of the geopolitical picture of any magazine. I frequently spend hours browsing its archive to find some incredible nuggets like Condoleezza Rice’s Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest. Once again Foreign Affairs has a piece that is a must read: Saddam’s Delusions: The View from the Inside.

It presents an inner view based on interviews with the key people and on what was found on the ground in Iraq.

Some highlights:

According to Aziz, Saddam’s confidence was firmly rooted in his belief in the nexus between the economic interests of France and Russia and his own strategic goals: "France and Russia each secured millions of dollars worth of trade and service contracts in Iraq, with the implied understanding that their political posture with regard to sanctions on Iraq would be pro-Iraqi. In addition, the French wanted sanctions lifted to safeguard their trade and service contracts in Iraq. Moreover, they wanted to prove their importance in the world as members of the Security Council — that they could use their veto to show they still had power."

Wow, talk about powerful and thought-provoking. Perhaps that gives new insight into what has happened the past few years with our "allies". It is unconscionable that there hasn’t been more discussion on this in traditional news media.

A question I have often wondered about is why so much of the infrastructure was not destroyed by the Iraqi army, now the answer is clear:

Even with U.S. tanks crossing the Iraqi border, an internal revolt remained Saddam’s biggest fear. In order to quell any postwar revolt, he would need the bridges to remain intact and the land in the south to remain unflooded. On this basis, Saddam planned his moves.

Another gems indeed. How is this for believing your own bs:

Americans may have listened with amusement to the seemingly obvious fabrications of Muhammad Said al-Sahaf, Iraq’s information minister (nicknamed "Baghdad Bob" by the media). But the evidence now clearly shows that Saddam and those around him believed virtually every word issued by their own propaganda machine.

Why wasn’t Saddam more forthcoming on WMDs? The author’s cite two primary reasons, Saddam had a fear that Israel would attack if they knew that he definitively didn’t have WMD, and secondly, the notion that Iraq *may* have WMDs played very well in the Arab street. America was also duped, after a "decade of deceit" when Saddam came clean and tried to comply America wouldn’t believe him.

How is it possible Saddam believed so strongly that he could win against the onslaught of the United States military? Saddam was blatantly lied to by his most trusted advisors about the true state of the Iraqi military. Saddam’s brutality was to be the source of his eventual downfall as his advisors so strongly feared for their lives that they couldn’t tell him the truth.

Saddam had a particularly interesting way of selecting the "leaders" in his regime. He wanted them to be as closely related to him as possible, too stupid to ever come up with a plan to overthrow him, and finally too cowardly to ever participate in such a plot.

Did Saddam purposefully lay the foundation for the insurgents that plague American forces now? The article doesn’t really make a case for it.

A highly recommended read…

“Then, in August, Li Erliang proposed a point system for awarding bonuses to the paper’s staff members. Reporters would receive 100 points if their articles were praised by provincial officials, 120 if praised by the propaganda department and 300 if praised by a member of the Politburo. Points would be deducted if officials criticized articles. Just one report that upset a party leader could mean loss of a month’s salary.”

Applying complexity theory to current & future affairs. Fascinating stuff, E. O. Wilson gives the keynote. Check it out at Comdig Webcast-Podcast: Illuminating the Shadow of the Future

Occasionally humanity is graced with certain special souls, Hamilton Naki was one of those very special souls. I was so moved by the deeds of such a humble yet great man that I have retained his obituary for reading when things get tough or inspiration is needed. When reading about his life in the Economist one is puzzled why his passing didn’t make front page news in more newspapers. Perhaps because Mr Naki is a hero from another time, a time most people would prefer to forget.

For those who may not want to spend the time to read about Mr Naki let me briefly summarize who he was and what he did. Mr Naki was born a poor black man in the little town of Ngcangane in apartheid South Africa. He left school at 14 when his family could no longer afford it. Through a series of jobs he found himself tending to the gardens of the Cape Town Medical School. One day the head of an animal research lab asked him to hold down a giraffe while it was being dissected. Mr Naki complied and was later asked to do more and more to help the lab with constant transplant operations on pigs and dogs. All these operations helped train you surgeons in the budding young field of transplant surgery. Throughout Mr Naki “stole with his eyes” and learned the techniques with no formal training. He became so good he was an expert in the extremely complex liver transplant operations which are more difficult than heart transplants. Eventually he was teaching liver transplantation techniques to young surgeons, albeit “un-officially”.

On December 3rd, 1967 Christiaan Barnard had Hamilton Naki remove the heart of a white woman for the first human heart transplant. Dr. Barnard could have chosen anyone, he requested Hamilton Naki. Christiaan Barnard would later (in 2001 before his death) admit that Mr Naki was probably more technically adept than him. Naki appears in some photos of the surgical team after the historic operation, although his presence is explained away as a gardener or technician who snuck in. If the world only knew his true contribution.

This (http://www.lnreview.co.uk/news/005167.php) letter to the London Times says it perfectly. London is a great city, and the Brits a great people, we stand with you.

Let’s face it, TV is dying. That morass of crap is slowly but surely becoming irrelevant, good riddance I say. I recently heard a statistic that soap operas are experiencing an amazing drop in viewer-ship and the entire tv industry was puzzled. That’s right, they are puzzled why they are losing viewers and are befuddled how to deal with it.

Slowly but surely I can honestly say I watch nearly no traditional TV today, I urge you to do the same, its not hard at all, try it for a week. I also make frequent use of my netflix account and always have some sort of theme going (right now I’m obsessing over 70’s film noir).

That said, Frontline continues to be the best thing around. Much like the BBC, the public broadcast corporations are taking the lead in creating quality programming for the thinking man. Here is a smattering of recent Frontlines:

A Jew among the Germans

The New Asylums

Death of a Princess

I was stunned at the quality and depth of these reports. PBS also posts the reports online, sidestepping the entire copyright debate and focusing on the viewer. That’s right you can view a frontline whenever you have a moment. Go enjoy classics like “The Farmer’s Wife” or “Memory of the Camps”, be amazed at the true power that media can have. Somewhat different than reality crap they try to spoon feed us these days.

PBS is not alone; the BBC has done an amazing job in opening up its archives to a viewing public online.

These institutions should be applauded for daring to tread where modern corporations refuse.