Nobel Peice Prize or Peace Prize ?

Year after year, the committee is goofing up with the Nobel Peace Prize. This year, it goes to the OPCW . An organization, which has hardly done anything meaningful for the world so far.  Days after Syria accepted to abandon the chemical weapons stock, the OPCW gets a Nobel Peace Prize. Nothing can be more hilarious then this.

Last year, it was EU, again when the organization is struggling against its own unification and countries already looking towards exiting EU, the organization gets a Nobel Peace Price. But still atleast , it had a point that since the world war 2, there has not been any war in Europe. However, did it merit getting Nobel Peace prize is highly debatable.

Before that in 2009 , it was Obama. The president was just commissioned and within days, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Absolutely no background or history of peace making, but gets away with a Nobel Peace Prize.

The organizations, which merited getting a Nobel Peace Prize could have been the following

1. Reporters without Frontiers
2. Internet Inventor
3. Gorbachev for dismantling communism in Europe 

History will certainly not look kindly on the committee to have not honored "Gandhi" with this award, despite being the messiah of peace .

It is about time, the committee does its home work right. Before the soul of Mr Nobel gets very disturbed with this war on peace.

Change of Guard: Iran.

How a leader can make such a big difference to any country / organization/ institution is seen from the New President Of Iran.

Overwhelming victory in elections because of voice of moderation and promising economic acceleration to the country is now showing up in words and deeds.

Within days of his commissioning , he reached out to the world and took UN by the storm. Unlike his predecessor, who had a fixed agenda of Israel obsession, Rouhani turned the tables completely. No other president in the history has made such a significant U Turn, other then Gorbachev.

What was most appealing about Rouhani was the calm, composed and saintly image against the other Pop Star Presidents at UN. He spoke with wisdom and conviction and got the whole world to his side. Though Israel still drums against Iran, however, this time, Iran ran away with the trophy. If Israel goofs up this time, there never again will come a time to have peace with Iran. What they did with Egypt many decades back needs to be replicated with Iran now. Automatically Hezbollah, Hamas and Others get neutralized.

Iran back into the global community will make a very huge difference to the economy of the world. Practically a whole new country will open up for biz with multi billion dollar prospects. The oil prices also sharply drop and a new Middle East Giant will emerge after decades of isolation.

Rouhani in Persian means, " The Soul".  Therefore, Iraninas have chosen to speak out from their Soul this time and time has come to get all sanctions out of Iran. And let Iran join the main stream nations. Iran always has been a very technologically advanced nation despite all the sanctions and now with sanctions on its way out, the country will rise and shine.

I use to tell my Swiss friend, that the most beautiful women in the world come from Iran. Infact, if Iran was to participate in the Ms Wold contest, each year, they would have been crowned with the Ms World.  I am already looking forward to that stage, when Iranian women take a lead and show their crowning glory to the world with all the new changes.

I am also looking forward to visit Iran again soon.

Syria : The War Lost.

Obama got bailed out by the Russians and the situation has changed dramatically.

For me , it is a very amusing to see , as to how the global leaders work with conflicts. Same US, which was threatening to damn Syria within 24 hours , not has taken a backfoot and not only that, it goes to weeks and months and as much as the time table shows the complete destruction of Chemical weapons by middle of 2014.

Weapons deceleration, weapons inspection, UN inspectors, destruction of weapons etc etc is all humbug of another kind. What stops Assad in moving the chemical weapons to Iran or Hizbollah or even hand it over to Al Qaida. Al Qaida only enemy in the world is one. I don't know, how all this makes sense. But for the time being Diplomacy has taken another turn.

The whole subject is about bringing about peace in Syria , it is not about people being killed by chemical weapons or conventional weapons. US really messed up. The statement which was apt was that enough the world has seen the killings of innocent Syrians and now it will not sit and watch anymore. However, it went in with Red Lines and Orange lines.

The delay in action by the world has ensured that Assad has practically won the war. Standing against the rebels for 3 years has brought up him legitimacy with whatever people are still there in Syria. The army has also shown loyalty to him and now with Russian support, it has become far more stronger then ever before. He is now in for atleast couple of more years.

The media has never been able to report as to how much of Syria is actually in hands of rebels and how much in the hands of Assad. If large part is with Assad, then any case the war is over. Rebels have no chance at all .

The initial defections of Syrian ministers did create a chance for the world to quickly act and take control, but US failed to act then.

The only way forward is to get the Rebels to now accept the Peace process with the current government and forget about the civil war. They have no chance for them to win anymore. Atleast, it will stop further killing of people and allow the millions of refugees from Jordan, Turkey, Iraq to get back to their home country.

Syria should then be entrusted with International Peace keeping force as was in Bosnia or Rwanda.

Let fresh elections take place and if Assad still succeeds in winning, then there is no choice for the world to accept that a war criminal ( as said by Ban Hi Moon) enjoys his peoples support. But let us try the election route once. Assad has already promised elections within 6 months of restoration of peace.

The Iraq experience or Libya experience are not really a happy situation, where dictators were removed and yet the country faces daily deaths with interfaith collusion's. Hence, for whatever it is worth for sometime, let the dictator continue.

Lesson to learn : Stitch in time, saves nine.

Obama : Trapped his own Red Circle.

British Parliament voted against the military action by their forces in Syria, French took a U turn and totally changed their language. Obama got caught in his own Red Circle.

After having announced that within hours, days, it was ready to strike like this> And now has gone to the Congress to take a vote for the action. Just in case, the congress disapproves it, what face will he show the world ?

The people now in US ask, what is their for US in this action. Why should it take this moral high stand, when the rest of the world is not supporting it. Is the evidence crystal clear or it is going to be another intelligence goof up.

What is limited action by the way ? It is one week, one month, hundred missiles, crippling the Syrian army or what exactly it means. Like one journalist says, what happens if the price is paid by US many years later, as was seen in the case of Afghanistan, which went through limited action.

French have already said, they are not in for it and best were the Germans, who simply kept out of it.

Obama has put himself into a very tight spot by prematurely announcing limited strike in Syria and now dillydallying on the same.

As a Nobel peace prize winner, is this the way to get peace into a conflict zone. Specially, when the UN chief is loudly crying for Diplomacy to be given a chance. Rest of the world is equally distressed with the chemical weapons horror seen on TV, but still thinks, best is to get the two warring factions to come forward and work out a peace deal.

Assad has already announced that his will go for elections within 6 months of restoring peace. Therefore, rebels, should come forward and accept the same. Only thing, which is not acceptable is Assad there. And a good solution needs to be found to ask Assad to relinquish politics for good order sake.

If US comes forward and tells Assad, that if he does not accept the peace solution , then with out without UN resolution, NATO will strike and that will be still a good choice and the world might accept it. Same as what happened in case of Libya. But only a limited strike> Nothing gets achieved, except for one more big enemy of US.

Rather then US security becoming stronger, it will have one more set of people, who will standing against it.

There are no deliverable s of limited strike. The world already knows that using these, can land them into International war crimes court and face rest of life in prison. Same should be done to Assad, if found guilty of using chemical weapons. No big stick is required to tell the world, that the same will be used against them, if another country tries the stunt.

Let the UN inspectors do their homework. Let Syrian Govt be given a chance to explain, how the chemical weapons got used and find the real culprits and let diplomacy takes its own turn.

It is already very very late of striking Syria, so let it take some more time to come to a sensible level with clear deliverable s of military action and a stand by peace keep force to immediately come into action, as Assad gets displaced. That would still be acceptable.

Red Line Crossed : Syria

Finally the world powers decide that the Red line is crossed with the usage of chemical weapons.'

Curiously for me, if people die of bombs and rockets and bullets, it is a yellow line, but if they get killed of chemical weapons, it is red line. For the last 3 years, I have been advocating for an action against Syrian forces to stop the massacare, but it was still a yellow line.

Now, when things have become so bad with Jihadis and Al Qaida and hundred other groups fighting against the Syrian army, it hardly makes sense to move further into the conflict.

Mind, it is the same Intelligence services, who said, Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and nothing was found. For this time sure the chemical weapons have been used. Of which there is no doubt. But let fair chance be given to the Syrian Govt to show that they were not the ones to use it.
If actually proven that the Syrian army used chemical weapons, they should be beaten to pulp. No mercy.

Further, the argument being used is that , the attack on Syria is not for regime change, but to stop chemical weapons being used. It should be both.

I was listening to the speech of Comrade Cameron and then a spokesman of US white house and then the  French minister, loudly talking about that UN conventions on chemical weapons and the world cannot accept this usage etc etc.

Will I ever forget in my lifetime the usage of Agent Orange, the chemical weapon by US army in Vietnam war , where 400,000 people were killed and till date people suffer. Does morally US have an argument against Syria on Chemical weapons.

Nevertheless, if it stands up today to correct the situation, I am quite in support of military intervention in Syria and I have been asking for it for years. Though, now I personally feel, it is time to move Assad out and allow the new leadership to take over. It can still be mix of the Syrian rebels and the current leadership. There is generally a fatigue with the war and both parties might accept the situation.

Let us wait and see, what further happens.

Egypt and Syria Revisited

Egypt
Islamist accept to negotiate with the military and request for stopping the crackdown. Media quietly ignores this after flashing out days of killings and protest. None of the global media tried to pose reasonable questions during the debates and interviews.  Result was 1000s of lives lost. It is no more die for Morsi,, but live for Morsi. If only this little thing could have been understood by the leadership of MB and his supporters.

If only media plays a somewhat constructive roll, then to flare up the subject, much can be saved in time. Anyway, now MB has written itself off for a very long time to come. Underground or overground, the love for MB will only dwindle as it did not show this political maturity of " Live for Morsi, against Die for Morsi".

MB should also ask itself this question, why despite its benign work for the last 70 years, the people don't trust them. Why there is so much resentment in Egypt against MB. How the world has changed the perception of religion to be a spiritual force and not a political force. Why religious agenda gets booted out in each country and secularism is accepted more sparingly without the need of commotions and purging.

In Egypt case, clearly the global media did not play a constructive roll and played a theoretical roll of supporting elected democracy, but failing to offer a viable solution in a situation of conflict. They charged up emotions and made the people believe that conflict with the army finally may pave results. What is the outcome now?

Syria

Again, the media is playing a roll same as in Egypt and creating a situation of further madness. It is already too late now for the Western powers to do anything in Syria. In some of my earlier blogs , I wrote about chicken hear-ted diplomacy in Syria and that resulted now in Syria going into the hands of Dogs. It is now no more Syria liberation from Assad, now the battle has been taken over by jihad-is and Al Qaeda .

Western powers will be very foolish to displace Assad now. It is very very late. Any removal of Assad makes the country slip into the hands of Al Qaeda.

Assad would have not been such a fool to invite the UN chemical weapons team and then bomb his own neighborhood with chemical weapons the next day. I would quite accept the Russian theory on this of attack by the rebels , specially at the time, when the UN inspectors were there.  This is certainly a war game being played out. Whatever, it is the price being paid by the innocent civilians and it is a shame to see so many die for nothing.

Assad came out to be a very shrewd politician. Iran, Russia and China supporting Syria makes it almost impossible for any western army to get into a war situation. The fact that Syrian army has resisted the conflict so long, it has reassured Assad that there is still time for him there.

Best is to have a political solution in engaging with Assad and persuading him to step down and give way to a new leadership. All it takes is removal of Assad and everything changes in Syria.

It is too late now to get into a war. More important is to avoid Syria going into the hands of Al Qaeda.

Meantime, the catastrophe of millions of refugees ,pouring into Turkey and Kurdistan continues.

Egypt on Fire

Police crackdown on the protesters and consequent of 1000s dead has left the world really remorse d. I wrote in my last blog that military should refrain from violent use of force and it made the same mistake.

They should have allowed the protesters to continue with their protest. There was very little global support for the protestors. The fact that the interim government had already laid out the time table for the next elections and installed a technocrat functional government, it was good enough for the time being. Now MB has come out of being a victimized lot and gets support from many more.

MB has shown that it does not have political maturity. Otherwise, no way, its leaders would have gone to confront the army and made claims of do or die for Morsi. The whole thing has become very messy now and MB has written itself off from the political scene of Egypt for a long time to come. The army will not allow the MB to come to power again for long time.

If MB was smart, they would have found a political way in the situation and secured their future. However its leadership threw its followers into such a bloody conflict and it still continues. The loss of dead people is the price which the individual families will pay for a long long time and MB leadership will get away with its biz as usual after some time.

Say, I was a voter in Egypt, how would I care, if Morsi is there or another president is there, even if I elected Morsi as my choice. Presidents come and go, what is the big deal. Assuming, I am a member of the party, which elected Morsi, I would still know that the party has a majority and would not shy away from elections. However, this is what is called dirty politics. Where you want to shed the blood of innocent comrades and then win sympathy of their blood and come to power again. Is this really worth ?

MB comrades have to find sense and stop this resistance and get a political solution. Any resistance will have blood shed, sometimes excessive, sometime restrained, but the outcome is still blood spilling. The leadership in MB has to address its people that enough of this has happened and they have the numbers to come to power again.

On UN security council, it should commission a team to talk to the protesters and bring semblance of order, then giving big peace and reconciliation speeches.
However, in the Egypt experience, one thing has emerged for the world that no more Democracy will be about simple winning elections. It will be about delivering results to the people. Though in this case , it is a coup, but I will be happy, if there is a system which pulls the government down with people dissonance, other then army power.

Egypt`s Dilemma

Morsi was ousted by the army as popular dissent grew against him. Whether coup or not coup is not the question.  It is certainly a coup , but something which the world will not really take as a serious threat to the people of the country. As half the country is in favor of it and another half is against it.

Algeria, Turkey, Haiti have all gone through this route in the history.

As much as the Army has appointed a civilian government of technocrats and made a time table for the the new elections. It has found some credibility in the eyes of the world.

As for MB ( Muslim Brotherhood), they have to first get experience in running a country. Largely MB has been a resistance organization and for the last 80 years, its agenda was all about fighting the Government and promoting strict Islamist rules among-st its members. But when it comes to power, not everyone has the same ideology. MB therefore was not so much being an inclusive government, but more keen in consolidating its power centers to have a tight grip on the politics of the nation.
A liberal , secular . intellectual society does not easily accept Islamist agendas and very large portion of Egypt is liberal and for them , being chained by Islamist agenda is not favorable.

MB is still in its infancy and learning the rules of Governance and hence it should not really be upset for being thrown out first time from power. They have a large follower ship and can easily come to power again. It does not make sense for them to resist the coup. They should accept that , the governance probably did not meet peoples expectation in the first phase and they were booted out, but the next time, they have to be more pragmatic and inclusive.

Further blood shed by MB of its own people is not worth. Egypt is still a nascent democracy. It has a long way to go. On one of my earlier blogs, I had written on the need of a constitution, which is designed by global experts. But at the end, it was a constitution, which was more of an Islamist Agenda, then meeting the aspiration of its people. How far would have it gone.

I will not shed a tear on Egypt's coup. But I am firmly against army using fire power against MB .

Let the Egyptians start all over again. From a state of bankruptcy to now grants, loans and aid from other countries is another welcome sign. I am only waiting , when I can take a cruise again on the Nile.

Malalas Slap on Talibans Face.

Malala shares her birthday with me.  UN celebrated her birthday with global audience of her speech on courage against violence. She spoke brilliantly and as a young little girl with her powerful words made many a man cry.

Malala goes down in history in the same league as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Badshah Khan , Martin Luther King, who stood firmly in fighting violence by non violent means.

Malala has also put Pakistan in a new light. It has restored some image of the country that , it is not all terrorist and corruption, but there are sensible people and only that their voice is generally subdued in the rattle of guns.

The best part of the speech was that she said, she will still not against Taliban and would not harm the man, who shot her. This was such a strong Slap on the face of Talibans, who go and kill innocent civilians and kill school going girls and blow themselves up routinely in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Even the American and the NATO forces have not been able to hit such a strong slap on the face of Talibans as this little girl has done. Both NATO and US forces should have long back used the power of women to fight the Talibans. There are millions of Malalas in Afghanistan, who have endured far too much in terms of whipping, stoning, killing, rape, abuse, but their voice was never made as loud as that of Malala now. Nevertheless, atleast for once, now UN realizes the importance of peace agents.

Malala should be taken as the Peace Ambassador by UN and let her show the world, that Pen will be always mightier then the sword.

As for the US agenda to start talking to Talibans, then they should simply send only Malala as their envoy for talks.

Snowden, Egypt and Aids Cure.

After a long time, I have come back to write this blog.

Snowden blows it all for US again.  Another interesting case , where privacy of life has little meaning left , no matter, you are in US or in Timbaktu.

In my post Murdoch Mad Masala,http://wildstud.blogspot.com/2011/07/murdoch-curry-masala.html I had written about an open life, where you really cannot hide anything from anyone and more and more of this is showing up routinely. Well, it is a self correcting system and how do I care, if the government wants to listen to my calls or read my blogs or check my emails. But yes, those into governance have a bigger fear as there is another Snowden, waiting to leak all there misdeeds to media.

Interestingly, it was US, which always cried foul on being cyber attacked by Chinese and now has to defend its position attacking Chinese, Europeans, Indians and whomsoever it wanted. Most hilarious was the comment of Obama, wherein he says, what is so big about it, everyone is doing on everyone else.  If I do something like this next time, I will use the same Phrase.

Actually, the one thing I love about American people is the courage they have to come out and speak against subjects which they believe undermine human freedom. Whether it is about Guantanamo Bay or it is the Officer, who leaked tons of information to wiki leaks or now Snowden. While in the eyes of strict government laws, these are legally offensive issues and the person has to pay a very high price of his own freedom, but then was it not Mandela or Gandhi or Martin Luther King, prosecuted and imprisoned   for speaking out and against the system. If Snowden has sold the classified information, it was still treason, but raise an alarm is awakening of the conscious of the person, which does not accept the system.

Whether Snowden revelation will stop countries to be a peeping tom is still doubtful. But I subtly support monitoring of crooks and bringing them to the books. Only worry is many a times, it is not the crooks, who are paying a price, but the normal weak person, who ends up being extorted or harassed for rather simple issues.  As for me, each and every single Government officer and politician should be monitored in third world and within months, we will see world free of corruption  Any why Government officers, because they have chosen to be into Public Service. And public service means a clean , humble ,selfless and supportive service to the people.  Even, if they are not monitored, they should have this fear that they could well be under electronic surveillance. Let us enjoy a cleaner world with least red tape . Did Obama not say, more risk is on him as when he leaves the president ship, the same system can infringe his privacy.

Obama should pardon Snowden and Assange , as much as he has admitted that the US security indeed infringed the  personal domain of people and countries.  Is it not that one of the CIA officer was caught red handed in Moscow trying to bribe the Russian for classified information. Well, it is all a routine game. We all know it. Only thing is that spying is not so much sophisticated anymore. Anyone with good hacking skills qualifies to be a good spy.  No government in the world can stop this personal skill of people. Let the Governments make up their minds, how for they want to go into the personal lives of people and specially, not their own citizens.

Egypt : Most classical case, where the elected Government today was thrown out by its people. For the first time, the world has realized that it is not just the ballot box , which matters, but the deliverable s to the people . When people do not see improvement in the quality of lives, they will pull down the government.  It has laid the basis of many a non functional governments to be booted out henceforth.

It has also shown that fundamentalist will have little say in modern Egypt. Well, let the events unfold and I only hope, Egypt gets a good government , which meets the aspiration of its people.

Aids Cure : Finally Aids is curable. Thanks to Bone marrow cells. Two aids patients already cured and let us hope that within a year or so, Aids is fully curable disease.

Whatever said, the world is becoming an interesting place with Internet and satellite television.