Worlds Meet

They're All the Same

As NBC’s series, The Event, resumed recently, the attitude shown by presidential advisor Blake Sterling could be seen as narrow as that shown by Congressman Peter King (R-NY).

The Event’s conflict shows how two cultures struggle to find acceptance as they interact to survive. A group of humanoid beings from another world who crash-landed decades ago have been kept in prison by the United States. The humanoids are virtually human and cannot be told apart from Earth people. But as the plot evolves, both cultures face rebellions. The president is threatened by assassination from Americans, and the leader of the “others” is in danger because her son wants to use violence against human society.

One crucial scene that shows Sterling and King’s intolerance occurred when Sterling attempted to interrogate one of the imprisoned “others”. Sterling wanted to find the leader’s son who planned violence. The “other” being interrogated tried to tell Sterling that the group wished no violence against humans. Actually, the son’s actions were not endorsed by the group. Sterling could not think that members of the “others” held different ideas about violence. When asked if anything could be said to show him the nonviolent hopes by the group, Sterling answered, “I don’t think there’s anything you can say.”

That mental attitude resembles the present state of mind from Congressman King as he conducted hearings into Radical Islam. King didn’t need to bring in experts on Islam, he only needed to bring in a few people who had anecdotes of violent behavior. That was his thinking. Those revelations should have been enough to show the entire community was violent — right? The fact that terrorism has no real tie to religion passed his grasp. The history of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt renouncing violence and spurning groups that still wanted to use killing didn’t enter into his thinking. Maybe he, too, believes nothing can change his opinion. King has admitted that he is obsessed with the events that happened on 9/11. We dare to ask how any real change could ever occur if that is the foundation of his thinking.

Literature and the screen display the flaws of characters so we can learn from their mistakes. When we have so many examples of political factions that erupt with sub factions who disagree, we are educated on how we should view each faction separately. Most experts of political science or crisis management support that. However, human fears often stop us from using our knowledge. We have to learn how to see when people want to pick up the handshake instead of the gun. When Nelson Mandela took office as president of South Africa, he used some former members of the Secret Service who were White. Those White Secret Service members accepted Mandela’s offer and shook hands with their new leader. But more often we dare to ask why some real people fail to learn the lessons that jump at us from narrow characters on the screen.

- Tom Pope

The Event image courtesy of impawards.com
Peter King image courtesy of journalnow.com

Worlds Meet

TV Points Finger At Contractors

When the new FOX series Nikita premiered in September, it became the sixth series to feature the idea of a contracting industry that grows uncontrollably beyond government constraints. We dare to ask if fiction writers see this threat, why many government policy people and most media continue to ignore the problem.

In the climax of the opening episode, Nikita, a former operative of the Division rescues an African leader from an assassination attempt by her former employer. Nikita told the African leader that he was the target of a rogue department created by the government, which no longer maintained that control. The Division started as a Blackwater-like secret ops organization with specialized ninja-like rangers.

Contracting firms like Blackwater, now called Xe, are hired by the government to handle protection as bodyguards, accompany convoys of trucks and even gather intelligence from areas like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nikita became the sixth series recognizing contracting firms as a threat. The CBS series Jericho (which ran from 2006 to 2008), showed the culprit of a contracting firm called J&R that could destroy US towns in order to preserve national security. The season before it ended, 24 (FOX) presented a contracting firm that decided the national interest called for smuggling nuclear material into Washington D.C. along with a seizure of the President. Both Flash Forward (ABC) and The Unit (CBS) demonstrated the ability of those rogue corporations to subvert the FBI, CIA and national security forces. This year’s The Event (NBC) casts a president kept out of the loop by such a threat.

Yet the problem of such corporations is being ignored by most people. Blackwater was temporarily banned from working in Iraq when a series of citizen killings alienated the Iraqi government. But the ban was short lived and the company was called back because the Pentagon considered its work necessary for national security. When a key writer for The Nation detailed how Blackwater’s founder was implicated in murder in an August 4, 2009 article, the warning produced little attention. One court even suggested that the black ops people were outside of any US jurisdiction. We should dare to ask if these corporations are exerting even more unseen influence and perhaps exert power to suppress information.

Blackwater or Xe, or Blackwater Worldwide, which it was before becoming Xe, lies at the tip of a threatening iceberg. The Center for Public Integrity reported that since 1994, the Defense Department entered into 3,601 contracts worth $300 billion from 12 corporations like Xe. Arguments claim these corporations are an inevitable measure to save money. However, those comments don’t explain how paying a Xe contractor $600 a day while billing the government for $900 day compares to using standard army personnel.

A recent NPR report described the death of a Taliban leader during a strike. Oddly, the report also indicated the Taliban leader code-named White, was a black ops contractor. So when we see reports like that spotlighting our supposed enemies as those we placed to protect us, maybe departments like the Division, or Jack Bauer’s foe, might not be as fictional as we think.

The threats abound. Is the cloak of protecting the country’s national security a massive cover for deciding the course of history without giving the public a voice in the decision? Dare we ask if the average Roman worried about seeing the Praetorian Guard around his leader? Did he fear that those guards might one day seize power without regard for democracy?

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of cinemovies.fr

Worlds Meet

Let The Fear Mongering Continue...

The good folks at CNN have decided to give Republican nominee for NY governor, Rick Lazio a platform to express his views about the funding of the mosque and cultural center slated to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero. I was a bit surprised that CNN would give a political figure like Lazio, who also happens to be running for a state office, a platform to express his political views and in essence, further help his campaign to become governor of New York State. But it wasn’t just the fact that CNN allowed Lazio a pulpit from which to preach, it was what Lazio was being allowed to say that was somewhat troubling and concerning. As I was reading Lazio’s “commentary”, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fear mongering days of the Bush Jr. administration, and I wondered why a “serious” news organization like CNN would agree to promote this type of attitude.

On CNN.com, Lazio declared that he believes that the proposed mosque scheduled to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero (called Park 51) should be halted until a full investigation into the motivations of one of the project’s co-founders, an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, be looked into strictly on the pretense that he is Muslim.

Unfortunately, in Lazio’s world, all Muslims are nefarious, evil doers and Park 51 is just a front so that Rauf and his cohorts can wage their jihad against an innocent, unsuspecting public. This is somewhat humorous considering that Rauf has been outspoken in his views against terrorism and terrorist behavior.
Heaven forbid if there might be a non-radical Muslim or group of Muslims out there that doesn’t support terrorism or groups like al-Qaeda or Hamas. There may even be Muslims that support Hamas but don’t advocate violence or radical behavior against the United States or any of its allies.

What Lazio and his fellow neo-conservatives are doing is not only polarizing an ethnic group, but perpetuating the stereotype that that all Muslims are dirty, out to get us, and are ready to strap a bomb to their backs to blow up innocent women and children. I liken it to the way the Japanese were portrayed during World War II as sneaky, slanty-eyed mongrels with big buck teeth.

It’s unfortunate that after all these years, that we as a nation are still driven by the same paranoia as we were years ago and susceptible to the same internal scare tactics. It’s unfortunate that we can’t look upon the mosque that is being built next to Ground Zero as a symbol of healing rather than hate. It’s a shame that we can’t realize that many Muslims and Muslim-Americans despise terrorist groups like al-Qaeda or Hamas for what they stand for, and feel that these organizations have only made it more difficult for them to be accepted into mainstream American society.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg had a moment of clarity when he opposed Lazio’s demands by saying, “Government should never — never — be in the business of telling people how they should pray, or where they can pray. We want to make sure that everybody from around the world feels comfortable coming here, living here and praying the way they want to pray.” President Obama also weighed in with his approval but then sadly felt the need to backtrack when he felt pushback from Republicans and other opposition groups.

That’s the real message we should be supporting and pushing. Media outlets like Fox News and now CNN, have chosen to harp upon the same archaic fear mongering tactics that promote separation rather than unity and ignorance rather intelligence. If Lazio is allowed to express his opinions, why isn’t CNN allowing an opposing viewpoint to be heard? There are millions of Arab-Americans living in our country who want to be accepted into mainstream American society and want to help contribute to the United States’ success. Instead of giving a few radical fundamentalists their moment in the sun and the opportunity to further their agendas, shouldn’t we giving those Muslims who have struggled to achieve the American dream and who have played by the rules, a moment to shine?

We should, but sadly we won’t as long as “fear” sells papers and generates hits to websites.

- Hamilton Maher

Images courtesy of news.yahoo.com

Worlds Meet

The Seeker’s Nation Building

When the hero of last year’s television series, Legend of the Seeker, told his bodyguard that they had to detour from the major goal of saving the world of the living from the underworld, he thought about providing basic support for the local population. His comments could have mirrored the attempted nation building in Iraq or Afghanistan. Even if the end of the world came for the society within a day’s time, that day’s hours could be filled with suffering from hunger, roving bands of militia or torture. The Seeker’s idea focused on responsibility. Does an action only aim to counter the overwhelming obstacle, or does the action have a duty to give aid to immediate problems? The peasant about to be tortured may be one person, but his fear of death looks at the knife at his throat rather than the events of tomorrow.

Recent setbacks in Iraq have happened as the once patrolled streets in areas by local factions have stopped. The Sunni-led government has failed to pay the patrols that the US supported. In Afghanistan, US forces are seen as aiding a corrupt Kabul government. Those examples stem from a lack of nation building, or a way to build systems so local people have a say in security and progress.

Yet those issues were exactly what Richard as the Seeker saw as crucial. During a scene where the Seeker struggled to stop forces from the underworld from destroying all life, he teamed up with former enemies and discovered the aftermath of war. A former unit of the army fighting him turned to give him aid, and the fighting and torturing expert Mord’Sith — a blend of female Klingon, and ninja — became a bodyguard to protect him. But, before he resumed finding the answer to the ultimate destruction of his world, he witnessed villagers who were left without homes. Those people suffered from injuries and became filled with hate at the thought of working with anyone from another land.

The Seeker faced an option of focusing on using his new military power to claim the throne so overall destruction could have been avoided. But he told his supporters that they must first treat the locals because the results of war meant he owed a responsibility to those people.

Could that be a form of nation building? While his attempt answered a vision of being responsible, the action also set up ways to stop further chaos. Those villages would either support or oppose the future world the Seeker built. Without homes, they would live on the road, and maybe attack other villages for food or survival. Without treatment for injuries, possible plagues could threaten the area. Without trauma treatment, they might resort to a rage that stopped them from working with other villages in a common struggle.

So the Seeker was left with key tools of the military and logistical knowledge to tend to the villages. He could have used the troops just to stop creatures from preying on the villages, but that would not have solved the food shortage or calmed an anger directed at other strangers. He had other tools of logistics that allowed him to dispense justice between the villages and tools of observation about where food could be obtained. The Seeker chose to use the tools that would prolong the lives of the population over the tools of military force. The use of force is the key. Of course the Seeker swung his blade, but the purpose centered on protecting people. When a military questions whether protecting the population places its troops in danger, that military misses the real enemy. The enemy isn’t a danger to itself. The real enemy is that force that is hurting the society that the military hopes to protect.

So let’s look at the comparison. The people in Afghanistan and Iraq are struggling to regain ways to obtain food, shelter and overcome distrust. When the military is used to enforce the rules of questionable governments, disruptions often occur in the lives of the population. In Afghanistan, farmers resort to growing poppy. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, homeless people seek comfort from a warlord and the general person feels anger to the local government.

Maybe the question we dare ask is whether nation building happens only when we use the military or if it can occur by focusing on the population by making sure they have work, shelter and relief from the trauma of war.

The Seeker worried about a larger threat — that of his entire world being destroyed by the underworld. Maybe our larger threat is an underworld of terrorism and black markets.

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of beta.moviegoods.com

Worlds Meet

Know Your Enemy

The lines from Peter O’Toole, at the closing of the 1981 mini-series Masada from the world of fiction, could be used in today’s world of reality. As the Roman commander Lucius Flavius Silva, O’Toole leaned over the fallen body of Peter Strauss’ character Elazar ben Yair, the Jewish leader. Silva bemoaned the suicide of all the Jewish defenders, but most of the tragedy struck from two sides only superficially knowing the other. Silva called the suicide a “waste” because he never intended to kill or torture the defenders. After a “public demonstration” a system could have been set up that pleased Elazar.

Masada shows the conflict between the Romans and Jewish fighters who positioned themselves on the cliffs of Masada, Israel, during 73 CE. When the Romans breached the walls, the defenders committed suicide because they feared imprisonment.

Silva regretted not knowing his enemy beyond the surface. He said his timing was off. He had pushed Elazar into a corner and forced the Jewish leader to convince his people that the Romans would kill them. He said Elazar failed to know Silva — that Silva was not the same enemy as a former Roman leader. Silva had failed to know Elazar would react by opting for suicide. Silva pointed to the need to placate the Roman Senate with a semblance of a victory that would have aided the peace talks in the future. But, the Jewish people believed they could not trust that situation. Neither side fully knew the enemy.

Silva failed to gain support from the Emperor for a peace deal that could have worked with Elazar. He failed to realize local commanders would incite the frail truce. And he miscalculated the way Elazar needed to control his people.

Such a scene opens up on today’s world of disputes between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders or the factional leaders in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Examples of only knowing the enemy superficially abound. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad needs to strengthen his position against reformers. He blasts the United States. U.S. Hawks fear Ahmadinejad. Those Hawks then threaten to corner him with restrictions. The reality of the situation? Iran fears being surrounded by foreign powers and needs to flex muscles. Note that U.S. troops lie on Iran’s Western border in Iraq and on the East in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another example? Israeli leaders hear Palestinian threats. They set up more settlements. Palestinian leaders lose more support within their factions. Palestinian leaders become more vocal to gain support. Israeli leaders hear the language and increase the settlements. Whether as a sense of entitlement or a wedge in bargaining, the increase mushrooms as a result of the perception that the other side has been gaining ground.

Messages are meant for various audiences. When leaders speak, they address some issues at times because of a propaganda need. At other times, they might reach out to enemies. To misinterpret the driving force for the message means that the enemy will not be understood. Despite the background of being in a former war, people like Sen. McCain only see the surface. People who speak about negotiation or understanding a culture have often been called weak and naive. But like the Roman Silva, they fail to go deeper in seeing why conflicts arise. They have to dare to ask why the language of a message is made. Otherwise, like Elazar, they are committing suicide and wasting their efforts.

- Tom Pope

Masada image courtesy of tvshowsondvd.com

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Can’t We All Just Get Along?

After a long drawn out battle to pass health care reform, the battle has been won, but at what cost? Already fourteen states have threatened to sue the U.S. Government claiming that they don’t have the funds to pay for additional healthcare costs as mandated by President Obama’s plan within their states. Rhetoric on both the Democratic and Republican sides has reached a fever pitch so much so that shots have been fired into House Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s window and a suspicious package was delivered to Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner. I dare to ask who’s to blame for the increased hostilities and the divisiveness that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of months.

Oh, where to begin. First off, the Republicans have been doing their best to spread fear and dissension whenever they’ve chosen to speak. Whether it’s Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Steele or Mitch McConnell, these speakers have inundated the American public with the same mantras over and over. Health care reform means more government control and government control is bad. Health care reform will mean higher taxes for everyone. Health care reform will drain funds from Medicare. Health care reform is just another example of Democrats spending and spending (hmmm, anyone remember the Afghanistan and Iraq wars under the Bush administration which plunged the nation into the largest budget deficit in history?). Sadly, the Republicans have done little to expound upon these statements. These are the facts, so just deal with them, OK? That’s all you need to know, say the Republicans.

This has lead to the formation of the infamous Tea Party and similar groups. Now, I’m all for having other groups expressing their opinions, and I think the country needs more than just a Democratic and Republican voice. Unfortunately, while the Tea Party claims that they embrace both Democratic and Republican voices, it seems that they’re a group that has taken the Republican fear mongering ball and run with it. I have yet to hear them bring anything constructive to the table outside of attacking the current administration, or anything else they don’t like. In fact, many Tea Party rallies seem more like Klan or Brown Shirt meetings than anything else.

I also blame President Obama and his cabinet. Much of the venom that is currently being spewed could have been avoided if the President took more time out of his schedule to educate the American public and detractors of the plan. There were too few town hall meetings that were set up and none of them were televised to the entire nation. The President could have quelled the ire of many by presenting the benefits of his health care plan and rebutting his dissenters on prime time television and on social networking sites. It seems that President Obama was more concerned with getting health care legislation passed rather than educating the American public.

But there’s an even more insidious problem going on here and that problem involves the all-mighty dollar, lobbyists and the control that many corporations exert upon the political machine. Many Senators and House members have a vested interest in the numerous corporations that work with and are connected to the U.S. government. These corporations could be health care related, military contractors, engineering firms, you name it. If something happens to rock these corporation’s boats, like say health care reform, and changes the way they operate or make money, or if a particular Senator sees that his or her investments in said corporation might be jeopardized, then those same Senators will kick, claw and scratch to make sure their investments and lobbyists are happy.

In the end, it’s the average American that suffers, caught in a battle between two rich, spoiled adversaries. Both adversaries claim that they are fighting the good fight, but I dare to ask, are they really? Both sides need to stop catering to themselves, to special interest groups and to the big bad corporations out there. Honestly, what’s a couple of million or billion in the grand scheme of things? Until that time comes (if it ever does), we’ll continue to be treated to more games of “he said, she said”.

Image courtesy of jasonmartinmft.com

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Wag The Healthcare Dog

“You could talk a dog off a meat truck.” The words were meant as a compliment in the banter between spin master Conrad Brean and Hollywood producer Stanley Motss in the movie, Wag the Dog. Unfortunately, the words show the strength of propaganda in distracting people from the actual facts and resemble the ways the opposition speaks about healthcare reform. The political satire that was aimed at the Clinton Administration could equally hit a target with terms we have heard recently that concern the Obama Administration’s attempts at health care reform. The words of propaganda have painted a picture that healthcare reform is bad because we would have government control of the services, and the president ought to compromise. Of course, the idea that reforms will cause increased taxes is enough to scare many in the public.

However, maybe the public is being treated as though they were in, Wag the Dog. In the movie, Brean needed a threat to distract the public from the president’s sex scandal so he decided to produce a fictional war with Albania, claiming that some of their terrorists were sneaking a nuclear weapon into America. In the real world, to avoid a scandal by displaying the profits in the health insurance firms, the opposition to reform points at a threat that the government will control health care services. The misuse of propaganda in the movie stopped the public from questioning how the Albanians could acquire, fit and build a nuclear weapon. In the real world, the propaganda has the public afraid to ask how control occurs when the government would have simply been aiding those unable to pay for their coverage.

Propaganda distraction stops people from seeing the history of an event. In Wag the Dog, the promotion of the song about a lost shoe riled up crowds to storm into the face of cameras to support the poor lost American detained in Albania. That activity allowed them to forget that the president had not been honest with the people. That activity allowed them to forget that the president was facing an election. In today’s world, the opposition’s propaganda incensed Tea Party activity and spurred the action to storm the debates about the reform. Much shouting has made it possible to forget the many compromises the president has already made. The concept of universal care changed to that of using a public option. But that changed into using a partial public option, which shifted to no public option. Then the idea of having Medicare and Medicaid to pick up some people emerged. But that was also changed because votes were missing. At each step, the president has been forced to back away. Yet we keep seeing the images of crowds demanding the president should compromise.

Propaganda hides and distorts the real crime. In Brean’s case in Wag the Dog, he created a super hero of a war vet with the name Schumann to link the soldier with the lost shoe concept of the war effort against Albania. The neat package of the image hid the real facts that Schumann was a sex offender and the president also had to answer for a sex crime. With the reform issue in the real world, we only hear about the dangers of increased taxes that would happen with reform. Little mention is made about the 20 to 30 percent jump in insurance premiums that health firms charge. Little mention is made that a patient’s total costs include both taxes and healthcare premiums. Increasing taxes to lower premiums could lower the total cost for the person. But that would interfere with the dog’s tail.

Dare we ask how we can avoid the sounds of the propaganda machine? The shouts from the dog kept a group in political power, while the screams of tea goers could keep the average person enslaved to the insurance industry. But those results only came when the producer’s tale wagged. That result could also occur when the Senate’s 41 votes controls the majority or acts like a tail to wag the national dog. The propaganda machine is powerful, but maybe we should continue the grassroots activity that aided the President. If that grassroots activity showed the flaws in the propaganda, then it could be the tail to wag the tea party machinery.

Wag the Dog image courtesy of tf.org
Barack Obama image courtesy of e-hawaii.com

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Jericho's Terrorist

An episode of the Jericho television series called “One Man’s Terrorist” brings us into the mind of an average person who becomes a terrorist. The scenes in the episode also offer ideas on how we can deal with a potential terrorist threat. Often we’ve heard about the strong man approach about defeating the enemy, or the language from Republicans that we can’t appear weak to the terrorist. Too often we hear that solutions of social methods fail to understand the terrorist. We are told that supplying food and shelter or jobs have nothing to do with decreasing the ranks of the terrorist community. Maybe the real question is why a person becomes so violent.

A realistic scenario of society breaking down occurs in Jericho. The series shows how a Kansas town copes with the aftermath of such a breakdown. A series of nuclear strikes has wiped out key US cities, and isolated towns are left to fend for law and order, food and power. The show viewed the ways resources are managed to help the community. Key characters such as the mayor, medical professionals, a farmer and a store owner were focused on to show how decisions about resources could affect the entire society.

In the terrorist episode, the mayor believes he can not lead his town through the winter because the numbers on the blackboard of food rationing show the people will starve. His solution is to send a group of refugees, the town recently saved, back out on the road. The refugees were staying in a makeshift shelter. The road meant certain death because of roving outlaws, the lack of animals to hunt or existence of shelter from the cold. But the mayor could not save everyone, so at least he tried to save his town.

The terrorist point of view was shown through the eyes of the refugees. Maybe they react to unusual pressure. An incident arose when one refugee tried pleading with the mayor to reconsider the forced eviction. When the mayor pulled out a gun to show his authority, a scuffle broke out that resulted in the mayor being accidentally wounded. The police then treated the refugee as a terrorist.

But we lost the real cause of why one becomes a terrorist, as the argument shifted away from the withholding of resources to one of respect for authority. The change took away key items of fact. The refugees were not just taking from the town. They were gathering wood for fire. One was even serving as a doctor in the town clinic. The refugees were quartered in a shelter even though the town housed many empty homes of people who left before the nuclear strike, probably never to return. But that was private property so it could not be shared with the refugees. The ideas of sharing and the value of property over lives presents a special philosophical view on why terrorists face unusual pressure.

The incident also addresses how to defuse a terrorist in the making. In one particular scene, a town character cries out to a group of people to share their homes with the refugees. She prods and cajoles until many in the crowd agree. This takes place after she is threatened in her home by a refugee who waves a knife at her. When she sees how he wanted glue to close a worn-out pair of shoes rather than take a pair from her son, she sees that this is an average person who desires self respect. She realizes this person has been thrown into a desperate situation, almost as desperate as the mayor who wielded the gun.

Not all terrorists are as easily placated as those in the episode, but we were seeing the images of people in the start of the process of becoming the hardened killers who strike around the world. These were glimpses of a Palestinian, a poppy farmer in Afghanistan or a Sunni…maybe a Shi'ite whose home lies in rubble.

Maybe the difference between the terrorist and victim is who is in authority. Maybe the way to defeat the terrorist is to strike at the causes of the process. Supply food, shelter and hope and the ranks of the terrorist community shrink.

"Jericho" image courtesy of Sidereel.com

Worlds Meet

Conrad’s Heart of Afghanistan

When the outlaw leader Hernandez asks the miner Bonafacio why he supports the silver mine in Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, Bonafacio’s answer should be heard as Congress spends $10 billion in Afghanistan. We dare to ask why literature can see an answer that eludes the reality decision makers.

Bonifacio answered that the mine owner, “Senior Gould pays me very well.” Yet the policy makers in DC can’t find a similar group to pay the way they did with the Awakening in Iraq. The situation is different, they say. So the funds go to the military.

While the groups in play are very different between Iraq and Afghanistan, the presence of a group like Bonifacio’s miners does exist in Afghanistan — the poppy growers.

Conrad’s Nostromo shows the political elements in a fictional Latin American country where the English mine owner fights local groups who try to expel all foreigners. The lessons from literature demand we see certain parallels. The miners are the poppy growers. The use of force alone does not work. Respect for the local population is needed.

While it’s easy to see the importance of the miners in Nostromo, our real decision makers can’t see the crucial aspect of the poppy growers. The miners produced the wealth that drove the plot in Conrad’s book. The poppy grower’s wealth supports the Taliban. The real world of Afghanistan is filled with vying groups that seem to dilute the image of those growers in the minds of the decision makers. Control a few warlords, and maybe you can swing some support to the Kabul government…for awhile. But control the livelihood of those growers and suddenly the Taliban loses its fighting ability. Maybe the $10 billion could be used to change the growing patterns of the poppy growers.

The use of force alone doesn’t work. In Nostromo, the Gould character uses the secret police after he becomes dominant. But he still can’t stop the anger of growing resentment and an underground resistance. When he first took possession of the mine, he stopped General Montero’s brother who arrived at the mine with a small army. He stopped them because the workers remained loyal to him because of the fair treatment. Afghanistan could be seen in the same way. Extra force to control the poppy fields means nothing if farmers working those fields require money to live.

This brings us to respect for the local population. The strength of the Taliban comes from the support of the locals. Spend the money on troops or to aid the warlords, and those farmers will still have to grow poppy. They are growing poppy because certain grain fields were destroyed during the ages-long conflict. They have to survive, and poppy gives them a chance. Give them the financial support while they convert their fields to pomegranates and you take away the local support from the Taliban.

Nostromo’s characters showed a lesson for Afghanistan. The miners who supported Gould’s mine against Montero had family members who stood by and watched Gould’s father being killed by a previous revolt. Gould avoided that when he respected the miners in the beginning of the story. He saw other methods were needed than using force, and he recognized the value of the worker. Well, we have $10 billion and we have a choice of spending on the military, the warlords or the growers — hmmm.

Worlds Meet

Earth as a Space Station

When corporate head Fabio Bianco directs his science teams on the space station Trikon to investigate a worldwide biological threat, he ignores the individual desires of his European associates. Instead he breaks down the barriers between the Japanese, American and Europeans by impressing some of the leaders with a renewed view of Earth. Dare we ask whether Ben Bova’s novel The Trikon Deception could meet the real world as the global discussions about nuclear proliferation continue?

Bova’s conflict enters around a murder mystery, hardly a comparison with nuclear disaster. Yet the crime arises from group and personal fears and greed that duplicates the way nations view the select nuclear club. Bova paints a scene where the interests of an Indian engineer and British politician vie for power over the European Community. The Indian owes a debt to the British fellow from a drug habit. The drives are basic human ones, but we could also view them as examples of how the poppy farmers in one nation are linked to interests in the Iranian faction that craves power with the bomb.

Bova’s Asian research team struggles for recognition with the global effort of the station, yet the single-mindedness could be similar to how a nation like North Korea tries to assert itself. The country is flexing its muscles, wanting recognition and ignoring desires of others. The Asian team emerges within a global community where most awards ignore the Asian skills. North Korea’s fear of being encircled by the West and Japan has recently been heightened by an abandonment of China and Russia. The actions by North Korea could resemble the attempt to horde the scientific breakthrough on Trikon.

Bova contrasts the realistic images of discord with an idealistic hope. Bova’s use of real personal drives makes us look into the goals held by nations and how various groups display a fear of lack of control. However, his vision seen through the eyes of Bianco take us to view the globe below the station as the corporate head encourages the teams to work together. Bianco’s declining health doesn’t stop his enthusiastic morale boost. If the station is saved because the teams start to think about themselves as station dwellers rather than ethnic group members, then maybe the leaders who vie for nuclear power could think about the global impact of the struggle on all the world’s members.