Comments

The following is a response to questions put to me in a debate on the Iraq War of 2003 on johnquiggin.com. This post was deleted on 25 March 2013. Another copy of this post is to be found on candobetter here.

J-D (@ #41), Ken_L (@ #42)

Thank you both for your interest. My apologies, on my part, for my slow response. I was intending to write a sizeable article to publish on my web-site (candobetter -dot- net -slash- syria) in response to your questions. Please consider the response below to be only interim:

Whilst it could seem hyperbolic to liken the crimes, committed the New World Order against Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Libya, and now Syria, with those of the Third Reich, given that the death toll of 3.3 million, so far killed since 1990 in Iraq alone, is barely an order of magnitude less than that caused by Nazi Germany and its allies in the Second World War, this likening is not unreasonable.

Given that the rulers of the New World Order have, in their hands, vastly more terrible and sophisticated weapons of war than those possessed by Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire, it is not hard to envision the death toll greatly surpassing the terrible toll of 60 million deaths in the Second World War should they triumph against Syria.

So, the whole civilised[1] world has a vital stake in the Syrian Army defeating the so-called "Free Syrian Army" and its New World Order controllers in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Israel, the Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Israel, etc.

Given the effective abolition of the rights guaranteed in the US constitution by President Barack Obama, it will only be a matter of time before democratic rights, free speech, parliamentary democracy are abolished in Western Nations, should the Syrian people be defeated.

J-D wrote:

I am confused by your questions and wonder whether you could clarify.

J-D, I was simply pointing out that the history of which Professor Quiggin has written has been repeated in Libya and now threatens to be repeated in Syria and Iran. Surely, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we need to consider whether that illegal invasion was a once-only occurrence or whether it was only one in a pattern of events which is now being repeated. If the latter, in the case of Syria, is true, then we should surely be interested in applying the terrible lessons of the Iraq war so as to prevent their repetition in Syria.

Ken_L wrote:

@malthusista, I would also appreciate clarification of exactly how you believe 'we' could stop the Syrian civil war? A little elaboration of who 'we' are would also be helpful.

Ken_L, The civil war in Syria could be ended simply if the U.S., Israel, etc., accepted the principle that any people have a right to national self-determination. It is obvious that President Bashar al-Assad and his government enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of Syrians. Those, who have waged the terrorist war against the Syrian government, comprise, at most, a small minority of Syrians. The vast majority of the FSA is comprised of sectarian Islamist extremists from countries like Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, mercenaries, the U.S. SAS, the U.K. SAS, the French Special Forces, the C.I.A., Mossad, etc.

Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel should cease giving these killers sanctuary and passage into and out of Syria.

An unprovoked attack on the armed forces of Syria or on the armed forces of any sovereign country is a crime and, even more so, the murder of unarmed civilians. Supplying weapons to those killers by the U.S. and its allies is complicity in that crime and should cease. Were that to happen, the war in Syria would be finished in days.

Early last year, the Syrian government received overwhelming support (and, I might add, far more than U.S. politicians typically get in national elections with barely 50% of the population in participating in most) from its people in a referendum proposing constitutional reform. Part of the reform was to remove from the Syrian constitution, any privilege give to the Ba'ath Socialist Party. President Assad and every member of the Syrian Parliament must now stand for re-election. Any one of them will be voted out were they not to enjoy popular support.

Were there ever to be free elections in Syria, which cannot possibly be held in the middle of the war now raging, there can be little doubt that President Assad would win overwhelmingly and that the FSA would get a miniscule vote.

The war and killing in Syria only continue because the rulers of the U.S. and their allies wish it to continue.

Footnote[s]

[1] I don't mean 'civilised' in the sense of the European colonialists claims of bringing 'civilisation' to the 'backward' people of the Third World in previous centuries.

Alan,

You have misunderstood just about everything you say is in the book and you have missed a great deal. I will insert my responses to your statements:

Alan: Newman important to anthropology, but anthopology NOT important

Newman is important to anthropology, but anthopology is NOT important to policy. If I were in the business of hiring anthopoligists, I might well hire Newman. But I have no intention of hiring any anthopologists, even if I win election and become governor, because I will be too busy hiring contraceptive nurses.

Sheila Newman: Although my book is about population, it is also about land-tenure and inheritance, which are the basis of economies and political systems. Political systems are very important for the promotion of stability or of overpopulation. Contraceptives seem ineffectual against big population systems. For instance, in Australia, where contraceptives are available and affordable, we nonetheless have massive and unsustainable population growth.
What does your theory of contraception as the only way to reduce population growth have to say about overpopulation in Australia?

My first volume analyses why this is so and identifies political qualities that help stabilise populations. These political qualities are primarily variations in inheritance of land and other assets.

This first volume of my proposed 4 volumes of Demography, Territory, Law, looks at how human and other animal populations work. It says nothing against hiring contraceptive nurses. It says nothing against contraceptives.

The populations I discuss are not all 'in the past' and not all 'in the Pacific'. However, of Pacific Islanders, plenty extant populations are stable and small. I point out that certain systems - notably the English originating ones - cause overpopulation in Pacific Islands and elsewhere. For instance, Japanese and French Pacific islands do not have the overpopulation problems of the English colonised ones

Alan: I also not how Newman only seems to be counting "legitimate" children, leaving the rest of the children to die slow, horrible deaths and I am totally unwilling to consider that kind of scenario part of my post-petroleum goal.

Sheila Newman: This is a really silly criticism that shows that the writer has not read the book carefully.
Where do I advocate for children to die slow horrible deaths as a post petroleum goal? I don't.

I am also critical of the bulk of writers in the field for placing too much emphasis on the role of infanticide. I point out on page 70 and on other pages that they fail to take into account the effect of biofeedback on genetic algorithms in reducing sexual activity and fertility via incest avoidance and the Westermarck effect.

"Infanticide, as mentioned previously, is another factor often suggested to be important for limiting births among hunter-gatherers, but rarely is it mentioned that infanticide has also been well-known in agricultural and 19th century industrial societies - which had unstable population growth rates and higher populations. Dilworth does argue that infanticide and abortion were often discouraged in agricultural societies because of the need for slaves, servants, laborers and warriors, however we know that it was still practised, albeit covertly where discouraged. Speaking of agricultural societies, Dilworth also says that up to one quarter of Chinese newborns were disposed of by infanticide (he does not give dates) and that there were also very high rates in 19th century India. It is however important when referring to such catastrophic rates of population growth and the explosion of measures to combat them to look at factors disorganizing the society, rather than assume that such high rates of violent birth control were the norm for centuries. In the case of India we know that massive overpopulation accompanied the disorganization of stable peoples and their territories through British colonialism. The beginning of China’s population explosion coincided with Portuguese colonization of Macau in 1557 and was in full swing by 1750 as the trade wars were capped by the British industrial revolution and colonial diaspora."

I did not invent the term or the condition of legitimacy. Legitimacy is a legal and anthropological term similar to 'citizenship' or membership of a group or tribe, conferring rights. Only with huge fossil fuel-based societies did it recently become economically possible to remove the stigma of illegitimacy. Whether or not Alan likes the idea, illegitimate children suffered from fewer rights of inheritance and thus fewer chances of survival prior to these heady days of lots of fossil fuel. In a post petroleum era, I am reasonably certain that automatic regulation of fertility will occur as travel between communities winds down and that infanticide will not be a frequent occurrence. Inevitably marriage [i.e. legitimacy] rules will reflect those natural patterns and citizenship/immigration rules will reflect local democratic perception of resources.

AlanI do believe strongly that the fossil fuels will run out at least as fuels, though enough MUST remain to produce synthetic contraception or we get hell on earth. Thus I am unwilling to consider old, population stable Pacific island societies as role models for the future partly because I don't believe they were that low fertility but rather that they allowed "illegitimate" children to suffer and die, which is NOT part of my future plans.

Sheila NewmanIn my book I argue carefully that, not only Pacific Island populations were stable, but most populations (human and non-human) were small and stable in usual circumstances. You, Alan, to the contrary, offer no evidence for your 'belief' that Pacific Islander populations relied mostly on infanticide. You also fail to criticise my arguments. I would suggest that you are exercising contempt prior to investigation in that you have not read my book but you are engaging in arguments based on fantasy against a book you have not actually read. In other words you are making things up for some reason of your own.

Since I am a scientist advancing several new theories, I welcome critical appraisal of those theories, since they are bound to evolve. But you need to have read them before you can help improve them.

Alan: Even reading her book would take 20 bucks, which is 20 bucks less for contraception beyond free as exemplified here: http://www.projectprevention.org/ and the same would be true if I were a mayor with a library budget.

Also, she seems to oppose migration where I support political migration of contraception supporters for the purpose of concentrating ourselves into political majorities as is taking place here http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php where restrictive land use planning is a major hindrance to concentration of forces (see military concept).

Sheila Newman Immigration has a huge role to play in increasing population growth and democratic societies with self -government regulate immigration in line with the wishes of their membership and perception of resource limits.

Alan

I WAS one of those depressed young men in the basement (or worse) for 7 years, from 18-25 and I have no intention of foisting that experience on others through regulated housing shortages.

Sheila NewmanSo, let's see. You think that by providing contraceptives you won't have to provide houses because people will have fewer children? How are you going to get people to want to use those contraceptives if they see no reason to have small families? In Australia the property developers continually build new suburbs and then import immigrants to live in them, driving up the price of housing, so there are still plenty of depressed young men in basements etc, despite oversupply of housing.

In France, where housing supply and immigration are well-regulated and where fertility has naturally been low for centuries, the housing situation is no worse but the population situation is better.

Alan
As for "Demography, Territory & Law" I can believe that some ancient societies achieved steady states. But I will not believe for a second that these steady population states were anything but horrific by modern standards, involving almost always high and lingering child mortality or in rare cased draconian sexual repression.

Sheila Newman That belief again. Just prejudice for your own culture and experience. Not based on knowledge, not citing or dismantling documented evidence.

This is the kind of attitude one finds time and again on both sides of the population debate. People who advocate big populations and people who advocate small populations live with the delusion that for thousands of years humans lived short brutish lives. Yet there is so much evidence that this is nonsense that we are coached to believe in order to remain in harness in our own miserable economies with their repressive social structures. Again, Alan, you are talking through your hat about my book. You obviously are completely unaware of the evidence I cite.

Maybe, however, your anger will ultimately lead you to investigate what actually happens rather than what you kind of assume must happen.

Alan: These societies were light years from utopic and cannot be considered goals.

Sheila Newman Not 'goals'; factual information about how human societies usually are. Our current societies are aberrant. Where do you get 'goals' from what I have written (if you had read it?)

AlanThe ONLY possible goals relating to overpopulation involve MODERN contraception, where we have little to learn from ancient civilizations.

Sheila NewmanYou seem to be completely unaware that 'modern' contraception is impractical in many societies, for reasons I cited in an earlier reply. It is fine to disseminate modern or any contraception, but it is really silly to ignore what already works. We continue to dispossess people of their land and remove them from steady state villages etc in order to 'develop' them, and then their populations explode. That's really dumb.

Alan: Though we might have a little to learn from modern continental Europe, it does not involve land use planning.

Sheila Newman How would you know? You obviously have no idea of my arguments in this because you don't cite them and you don't counter them. You just put forward an opinion that exposes your total ignorance of the subject. The system is different in Europe and the outcome is much less population growth. That should interest you if you are worried about overpopulation. Why doesn't it? Are you wearing ideological blinkers that tell you that population numbers are only affected by contraception, when a lot of other factors actully affect them hugely.

Alan: Newman's theryy basically says that if you can't mate with your cousin and you can't mate with a strange[r], then you can't mate at all and this enforces celebacy and limits population growth. Well SO WHAT?

Sheila Newman Um, well, it makes for small populations unless you have modern transport. And knowing this makes you aware of what is generating such huge population growth in modern societies in the non-continental European first world. That's a big piece of information. I also have a lot to say about social organisation and self-government emanating from intact clan systems, which can persist in modern societies and do, of course, among those with inherited wealth and influence. Also, I do advocate relocalisation, because this strengthens self-government, empowers communities, democracy, improves biofeedback to populations and enhances chances of population stability (with or without modern contraceptives).

Alan: Does she imply that we should return to such draconian sexual repression as a goal? As long a we can remember how to produce modern contraception, I'm not about to go there and neither is hardly anyone else.
-Alan

Sheila NewmanNo, I don't imply that we should 'return' to such 'draconian' sexual 'repression'. This just sounds like macho-old man talk. Consumer societies of the late 20th and 21st century are characterised by a huge emphasis on and status invested concept of sexuality. It is (once again) very clear that you have not read my book because you have completely missed the theory of automatic hormonal regulation that winds sexuality and fertility down or up depending on biofeedback to a [human and non-human] population and individuals within it from the environment. In those circumstances there is nothing 'draconian'. It is automatic. People and other animals' energies simply turn to other activities. Romance as a basis for marriage is largely a modern fashion. In a lot of societies, romance occurs outside marriage and marriage is mostly for allocating land to children in most other societies.

I must say that a few old men have reacted similarly, as if I had somehow insulted their manhood. And as if I were pushing some line of white knuckle abstinence, like the pope, but I am not. So, Alan, you are feinting at shadows and you are being dishonest about my book, which you are quite unfamiliar with.

Terrorism with a “Human Face”: The History of America’s Death Squads

by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, published on Global Research on 4 January 2103 and in Nexus Magazine.

Death Squads in Iraq and Syria. The Historical Roots of US-NATO's Covert War on Syria

The recruitment of death squads is part of a well established US military-intelligence agenda. There is a long and gruesome US history of covert funding and support of terror brigades and targeted assassinations going back to the Vietnam war.

As government forces continue to confront the self-proclaimed "Free Syrian Army" (FSA), the historical roots of the West's covert war on Syria -- which has resulted in countless atrocities -- must be fully revealed.

From the outset in March 2011, the US and its allies have supported the formation of death squads and the incursion of terrorist brigades in a carefully planned undertaking.

The recruitment and training of terror brigades in both Iraq and Syria was modeled on the "Salvador Option", a "terrorist model" of mass killings by US sponsored death squads in Central America. It was first applied in El Salvador, in the heyday of resistance against the military dictatorship, resulting in an estimated 75,000 deaths.

The formation of death squads in Syria builds upon the history and experience of US sponsored terror brigades in Iraq, under the Pentagon's "counterinsurgency" program.

...