Spot the loonie

‘You imposed a group of terrorists ... on the region…It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow…. Today, with the grace of God, the efforts to establish this fake regime have failed totally.’ Ahmadinejad, as reported in Ha’aretz.

‘Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.  From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime… this is the world's fight.  This is civilization's fight.  This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom… The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain.  Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.’  George W Bush

Ha’aretz, in the same article, after reiterating the discredited ‘face of the map’ remark, reports ‘Iran is accused of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.’  Accused of seeking to develop – now that’s something that demands that tens of millions of Iranians must suffer.

And while on the topic of loonies, check out who won the Nobel Peace Prize. Alex Cockburn writes:

As the economist Robert Pollin put it pithily when I asked him what he thought of the award to Younus , "Bangladesh and Bolivia are two countries widely recognized for having the most successful micro credit programs in the world. They also remain two of the poorest countries in the world."…

P. Sainath, author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought and India's most outstanding journalist on rural destitution and the consequences of economic policy,…points out that …"They are paying between 24 and 36 per cent on loans for productive expenditures while an upper class person can finance the purchase of a Mercedes at 6 to 8 per cent from the banking system."

The average loan of the Grameen bank is $130 in Bangladesh, lower in India. Now, the basic problem of the poor in both countries is landlessness, lack of assets. In the Indian province of Andhra Pradesh, where there are thousands of microloan groups, land costs 100,000 rupees an acre, poor land maybe 60,000 rupees--over $2000. $130 doesn't buy you the ranch, not even a good cow or buffalo.

If capitalism could solve the problems it creates, it would have done so by now, wouldn’t it?

As for the Nobel Peace Prize, in case some have forgotten, here is a partial list of some of those so honoured for their contribution to world peace: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Henry A. Kissinger, Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat, Menachem Begin, Elie Wiesel, Óscar Arias Sánchez, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Frederik Willem de Klerk, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, The United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter.