Nigeria: West African Hell-Hole

Africa is full of fake countries. Lines drawn on a map of the continent in 1884 which traversed rivers, mountains, jungles and peoples. Nigeria one of those fucked up messes of 150 million people or so which will probably fuck up humanity's future visions of happiness and prosperity in the new century....sorta like Pakistan. Nigeria's differing religions, ethnic diversity, oil and retarded leaders will ensure that West Africa will see no long-term stability much like the Horn of Africa except Nigeria has no true enemies like Ethiopia. Only economic rivals like Ghana. Imagine that, tiny Ghana competes with Nigeria for influence. Nigerians were pissed off when Obama went there instead of Nigeria. Then again, who'd want to go to Lagos? I wouldn't.

The project of "Nigeria" was taken up by the British imperialists the same way the project of "India" was. A commercial company, the Royal Niger Company gained a charter to run the north of the Niger Delta. A certain Mr George Goldie wanted to emulate the British East India company's style and take over Nigeria via a fake company and transfer it over to the British government after he had conquered all he wanted. After small wars against Yoruba and Igbo kingdoms he was ready to take on the Sokoto Caliphate in the North of Nigeria run by people who's entire culture was alien to those in the Southern part of the Niger river (except Yorubas who'd recently suffered through a jihad). By 1899, the company's charter was revoked and bought by the British government for £850,000. Local chiefs were bought by the new colonialists to keep the peace and help run their populous bit of Empire in West Africa. Indirect rule was the way to go among the numerous polities that had existed before "Nigeria" was created. No such organism had even existed in the land of the Niger river before. Still, it took a while to pacify everybody in "Nigeria", campaigns against the Igbo and the Hausa-Fulani in Northern Nigeria lasted until 1907.

It's not like "Nigerians" are the complete victims in this whole era. I'm sure if the Yoruba had developed the way the English did they'd be applying the same harsh cruelties on other peoples. In fact, they tried to compete with Britain but were crushed accordingly in their city states of Benin, Oyo, Illorin, Ibadan etc. like the Ashanti were. These were innocent little pagans however, they contributed the mass enslavement of Africans which were sent to the Americas who numbered in the tens of millions. Tens of millions of people who could've helped solidify strong African states in West Africa to their detriment.

After the slave trade was banned in Britain, the UK took to the seas to enforce this legislation. As a result, West African kingdoms like Dahomey and Ashanti etc were forced to switch to palm oil to make beauty products and grease machinery for the Industrial Revolution. So instead of marching these slaves to the coast to be sold, they had to carry large jars of palm oil and maintain the palm plantations. African chiefs lost a lot of money this way, they had to feed and maintain these slaves. There were no horses that could survive in the tropical coast. Soon, wars were being fought for land instead of slaves using slaves armies! After all, this business wasn't cheap... Kings were forced to sign free-trade agreements and if they didn't the British would intervene and make them as they did in 1830 when they created the Gold Coast. It was the same way regarding Nigeria.

So in this way, Nigeria was conquered. Worst to come in 1914 when Northern and Southern Nigeria were amalgamated into one "Nigeria" to save money on the Imperial budget. They slammed together hundreds of years of Islamic Jihad and hundreds of years of Southern tribal practises. Little did the British know, this would cause future misery.. if they did they most likely didn't care. Most of the new military recruits for this new "country" were Muslims while Southerners made up most of the new bureaucrats since they were the first to be educated and become Christians. So the Muslims stayed up North and poor in the hinterlands while the Yoruba and Igbo became Christian and became bitches for the Brits.

After World War II, Britain was a bankrupt ramshackle mess and it decided to dump the 30 million people which was then "Nigeria". Too bad the British liked the most uneducated, the most backwards people of the whole colony. Affinity for riding horses and serving your ruler doesn't mean they're also the best people to run Nigeria and this applied entirely, this misguided belief was fully entrenched by the time Queen Elizabeth had come to Black Africa to see a Durbar, the kind her grandparents enjoyed in India. The only time the people of Nigeria enjoyed some sense of pride was when independance came on October 1st, 1960 and even that was fleeting.

In 1966, a coup sponsored by the Igbo occurred and it killed the mainly Muslim officers in the Nigerian army. As a response a counter coup was hatched and carried out and 30,000 Igbo in Northern Nigeria were slaughtered making millions flee back to the already overcrowded south east of Nigera where the Igbos lived. To add this chaotic atmosphere, the discovery of oil in that region of Nigeria meant that if that region were to secede they could be able to support a new Republic seperate from Nigeria and this is what happened. In 1967, a the Igbo dominated Republic of Biafra was formed and the Nigerian Civil War was on.

Like in the American Civil War, the Biafrans won tactically and even pushed onto the City of Benin and but they were grinded down attritionally and starved by a Nigerian blockade which made millions of Igbos starve. The first time the West saw starving African children was during the Biafran War. Artillery and Soviet MiGs bombed the hell out of Biafra. After an offensive that took away the coastline completely, 120,000 Nigerian troops invaded the center of Biafra and in 1970...Nigeria surrendered. 2 million people died in this war including 1 million Biafran civilians. As a result, the Biafrans were frozen out of the oil profits which would from that moment onward flow mostly to the North of the country which contributed little economically besides peanuts and cotton.

Nigeria had a massive oil boom after the war and believe it or not billions were stolen by corrupt generals, bureaucrats, bankers etc. Since independance, Nigeria has lost $500 Billion dollars due to corruption. Such an amount if unthinkable as the rest of the countries infrastructure decayed under the tropical heat. Harsh dictatorships came and went with little change in the standard of living of the Nigerian people, in fact it decreased in the 1980s.

Armed rebellion is now the byword in Nigeria as is kidnapping as militans in the Niger Delta try and claim what is their resource - oil. The government recently brokered a deal with the militants but I doubt that's going to last. Corruption is just too endemic in Nigeria and nothing is going to change that. Now, radical Muslim groups in the North by the name of Boko Haram plan a jihad on the Nigerian government. They were brutally crushed earlier this year but I doubt the fundamentalist beliefs which created them are going to die and the Igbo still yearn for a Biafra in certain segments of their society. Nigeria is a mess and a major US supplier of oil. It's in American's interest to maintain it's "stability" meaning it has to back every dictator that waltzes into power and every corrupt President that's elected "fairly". Nigeria is such a mess. Why even bother with it at all?

The French Revolution: Or Why You Have to Thank Every Frenchman for your Freedom (If you live in the Americas)

This man freed the Americas, Deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, invented a legal code AND
Canned Food

The French Revolution or also known as the Great French War. I'm sure many of you have gone over this in high school. You basically know the story right? It's a modern narrative too. A country tries to rule the world - and fails. A rich nation exhausts its resources, its people, its credit and its prestige. A nation in which citizens rise up to toss out the old order of things and bring in a new age of universal equality and tried to spread its 'ideals' everywhere and performs that task only for its own self-gain. Hmm, I wonder what nation resembles that.... it reminds me of an article I posted which notes the similaraties between France and the US. The world was a different place back then if Marx is right about history repeating itself, we're bound to see it happen again right?

The world was a different place back then. After the Atlantic European's world scramble for colonies, trade and gold the clear winner was Great Britain. The Netherlands couldn't keep up with Britain because of its small population, France had fallen into Imperial malaise, Spain was poor, Sweden was a military powerhouse and Germany still had a zillion little princes. But Britain was kind of frustrated too.... I mean the Dutch still had the East Indies and France still had rich sugar colonies in the Carribbean and most of England's North American colonies had gone American. Spain (and Portugal) still controlled everything south of Mexico. Russia stretched from Poland to North America. The Ottomans still controlled the Eastern Mediterreanean. India still had the Mughal Emperor and China was rich due to it;s mercantilist policies regarding silver. The British made profits in Africa but other European did business there and the Portuguese had Angola and Mozambique.

All of this began to change when the British started plundering India with its British East Indian Company using its sepoy army to kill Maharajah's all over the sub-continent and take their treasure like Tipu Sultan of Mysore or Siraj Ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal. However, the company could never turn a profit because of the palaces, barracks, bungalows, uniforms, weapons, armies, forts, servants that helped the company run its business. Besides this, Britain also dominated the Atlantic slave trade by buying from African dealers on the coast who rained the hinterland for slaves. Despite modern beliefs, it wasn't kingdoms like Britain or Portugal who took most of the slaves from West Africa. It was kingdoms like Dahomey and Ashanti in West Africa who sold other West Africans for cloth, cowrie shells and muskets. West African societies were pressured to the breaking point and it was a time of chaos in West Africa. Secret societies like Voodoo societies formed to protect themselves from slavers. Nonetheless, millions were sold to go to Brazil, America, the Carribean etc.

East Asia was in a good position despite the Manchu invasion which ended the last indigenous Chinese dynasty to ever rule the Middle Kingdom. The new Manchu overlords forced the Chinese to adopt the famous ponytail you always see in old Chinese movies but otherwise they let the Chinese run the bureaucracy. They weren't hardasses like the Mongols. After some openess by Emperor Kangxi, the Manchu Emperor Yongzheng closed up China because he saw Christianity as an alien cult with a hidden agenda. He let the port of Guangzhou stay open, after all China needed to maintain it's trade imbalance with the West in its favour, and so China was at peace. Japan was the hot ghetto mess of the region, until the Shogun Oda Nobunga unified Japan and kicked out Europeans (except the Dutch) from Japan.

By 1789, France's premier colony in it's America happens to be both the richest and the poorest cash cow of all time. 80% of its population are African slaves who barely live on anything and are forced to cut sugar cane while the other 20% are free Blacks, mixed race people and French colonists who're having a good time on the expense of their slaves. Most of that money winded up in France where the decadent French monarch drained the treasury which had already been strained by its bad credit and the fact it financed the American Revolution.

So the French revolution rolls along any many rich people lose their heads. The situation was far more interesting in Haiti. A civil war had broken out between the free mixed race people of Haiti and the White establishment on the western half of the island of Hispaniola and this chaos spread as the slaves revolted on August 21st, 1791 killing their masters and making the whole island smell like barbecue. The French Revolution spread to Haiti when a mixed race man at the National Assembly in Paris named Vincent Oge believed that mixed race people should be French citizens too. He was of course thrown out of the Assembly but he brought his ideas to Haiti and that's what made Haiti engulf into an inferno of burning sugar plantations and Caucasian flesh.

The War continues in Europe as France invades Holland and soon all of Europe (especially Austria, Prussia and Great Britain) declare war on France. They barely manage to hold back these European armies and the France is declared a republic. Also King Louis loses his head to a wonderful device called the Guillotine. Much better than having someone whack at your neck a couple times before it comes off. 600,000 young Frenchmen are sent off to war on masse creating the largest European army ever and the Great Terror of Robespierre takes over killing 'enemies of the Republic' but soon even Robespierre is seen as an enemy. He loses his head too. The meritocracy of the French Army produces great soldiers and officers like Napoleon Bonaparte who kicks Austrian ass in Italy and manages to invade Egypt too because he sends back enough pillaged treasure to Paris. Unfortunately for him, his British naval counterpart Horatio Nelson sinks his fleet in Egypt and he's forced to return to Europe and to become the dictator of France. Unfortunately, some problems just don't go away like France's messed financial situation and Haiti wasn't helping...

Haiti was mired in a 3 way racial war between whites, their former slaves and the mixed race product of the two. The French National Assembly decided to aid the Gens du Couleur faction in this civil war because these people needed France to maintain their rights as French citizens which were granted in 1792. With the help of the diplomat Leger Sonthonax, these mulatto warriors had control of most of Haiti. But when the Revolution killed Louis XVI (and brought on a British invasion) the Gens du Couleur turned on the new French government. Sonthonax now aimed to get support from the slaves by abolishing slavery in 1793 and one commander Toussaint L'Ouverture came over to Sonthonax the following year. By 1798 the war between the Gens du Couleur's and the Blacks grew too atrocious and the Blacks grew too powerful in Haiti. By 1801 Sonthonax had left after losing everything whilst L'Ouverture had conquered the island of Hispaniola and made himself governor for life.

By this time Napoleon was the dictator of France and as First Consul he didn't like to see someone else, especially a former slave be able to declare himself dictator of Haiti without his permission. Haiti also sold sugar to Britain and was acting if it was its' own independant state. Imagine that! Napoleon decided to invade Haiti and re-enslave its Black populace. 12,000 French invaded and in due time captured L'Ouverture by trickery. This was all part of Napoleon's grand plan. You see, Napoleon was a strategical dreamer like Hitler. Just as Napoleon thought conquering Egypt would allow him to put of all British India at risk, he thought by re-enslaving Haiti he could feed them with grain from French Louisiana and use the sugar to make more money thus helping curb France's increasing deficits and even maybe lower the national debt instead of looting some European principality for once. But as strategical dreamers usually do, he decided to invade Britain in 1803 and abandoned a French army thousands of miles away from France (for a second time). He also sold Louisiana to the young United States which doubled in size. Haiti was guaranteed independance and even had an Emperor or two before European/American interventions ended that pipe-dream. Haiti was also a haven for Latin American revolutionaries too...

This was only the start of the impact that the Napoleonic wars had on the Americas. Haiti became the first Black Republic and the United States was soon able to save itself from British invasion and expand further and further west due to the bloody European conflict.

I mean c'mon! If there was a 'Luckiest Nation on Earth' category it would obviously go to the United States. I mean, the greatest threat they had after independance was some Shawnee Confederacy oh and the British Navy. In the War of 1812, the Brits and the Yanks were at it again because Britain boarded American vessels to replace their losses from fighting Napoleon. Britain invaded, torched Washington. America invaded, torched York (now Toronto). Even as America sort of 'lost' that war it still one Indiana, Illinois and Michigan and managed to drive the Brits out of the port of New Orleans. Britain could not stop America from its western expansion. It was America's national goal to reach the Pacific and woe betide any Creek, Iroquois, Shawnee or Sioux that stood in its way. All of this was coupled by the Lousiana Purchase in which Napoleon sold that territory because he no longer needed it seeing that the richest colony France had in the hemisphere (Haiti) was now a free Black Republic. After the purchase, the US doubled in size overnight just for 15 million dollars.

The United States was only able to do this because thousands of British troops were already fighting the 340,000 French in the Iberian peninsula. Whilst 250,000 British soldiers and sailors were fighting elsewhere around the world. The British only started decisively impacting the war after Napoleon was sent to Elba in 1814. The naval blockade the Brits put on the Yanks plus the burning of Washington must've scared the hell of out the US. However, even as the US 'lost' the native allies of Britain such as the Shawnee lost even more. They lost Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and parts of the South due to the Creek rebellion. Insult upon injury, the rich port of New Orleans. America's western expansion could not be checked by Britain anymore, despite Britain's Indian allies like the Iroquois helping Britain prevent Canada to falling into American hands they got very little in return. Except for Joseph Brant who got a parcel of land in Southern Ontario. Thanks to the Napoleonic Wars interfering with Britain being able to check America, the native peoples of the America were at the mercy of land hungry settlers.

And yet the Napoleonic war raged on. Napoleon's luck (and demography) turned against him after the Russian campaign, he was starting to run out of young men to join his imperial army. Austria, Prussia, Spain and others advanced and the Emperor gave up and the first and possibly last time Russian troops were in Paris. However, he escaped and was crushed at Waterloo and sent to the Island of Saint Helena. Far, far away from Europe.

Meanwhile in Latin America, King Fernando VII reinstituted the old ways of doing things and this pissed off the colonials he had in South America. In his mind, they were subjects not citizens. Since 1810, people like Francisco de Miranda have been agitating for independance. Soon a rebel army led by Simon Bolivar had taken Caracas and was on his way to conquer Colombia. Further south, Jose de San Martin led an Argentine rebel army he had a plan to invade Chile and attack Peru, the control center of the Spanish American empire. Both generals fought mountainous campaigns and by 1821 San Martin was in Lima.

By the time Bolivar even got close to Peru, the two conquerors had agreed to meet in Guayaquil, Ecuador to decide the fate of South America. They had a closed door meeting between just the two of them and after the meeting San Martin decided to quit South America forever! Bolivar kept fighting in Peru until 1825 when they declared him Peru's dictator. He wished to unite South America in the Republic of Grand Colombia but he declared himself dictator of that union too, by 1830 he realized San Martin had the right idea and decided to quit in 1830 and retire to Europe but he died before he could leave the wretched continent.And like that, South America was freed but also broken and divided into differing juntas, dictators and prone to coups. Something's just dont change!

The Americas became truly free because of the Napoleonic Wars/French Revolution. Revolutionary ideas about mankind allowed Haitians to kill enough of each other and the French to be free...but not from dictators. This war allowed America to expand while fighting off the British Empire which was overcommitted in Europe and India too, while allowing to expand to the west in genocidal fury. Finally, South America kicked Spain's ass all over the place in order to become citizens....under differing juntas and dictatorships. Everyone wanted to be Napoleon I guess. Who wouldn't?

Balkanization Or Why You Have to Blame Every Turk for Europe's World Wars

This article sort of reminds me of the Manzikert one in which I think the Turks for aiding the discovery of the New World by destroying Byzantium and making Europe panic into finding other routes to China and India. This one is about how the weakness of the Turks destroyed the Concert of Europe and pushed Europe towards the path of destruction in the World Wars which pretty much lead to the Rise of the USA and USSR. It wasn't really their fault of course but how would Russia react to a decaying Empire to her south which bordered the Mediterreanean. It was a logical move to seize Ottoman territory despite Anglo-Franco protests

I'm not even sure why many Europeans don't think Turks aren't Europeans. They certainly are, they're just Muslims Europeans like 5% of the French population or the Albanians-Kosovars. I mean, they think Russia maybe slightly European though 15% of Russia is now Muslim. Europeans just have to accept the fact that the Ottomans have had a part to play in the development of Europe since they roared onto the Anatolian plan close to 1000 years ago. If the Turks hadn't entered Europe who knows what might've happened. Maybe there'd be more Greeks or the Anatolian Greeks might be Muslim or the Byzantine Empire might still exist to this very day and taken the place of the Ottomans. Who knows?Might as well start where I left off around the end of the 11th century

In the 1070s the Byzantines were in a shit-hole of a position. The Seljuk Turks were knocking at the gates of Constantinople, the Normans had seized Bari in Italy and parts of Greece, the Serbs, Bulgars, Hungarians and Pechenegs were on the way to take the Balkans. Quite the shitty situation indeed. In 1081, a new Emperor Alexius Comnenus seized power after putting out someone's eyeballs and managed to hire enough mercenaries to kill thousands of Normans, Serbs and Pechenegs but they were still tons of Turks in Anatolia. The Turks started fighting amongst each other when another Turkish tribe entered Anatolia and Alexius saw his chance.

He had an audience with some visitors from the Pope and basically told them that he was the thin purple line (since Purple was seen as an Imperial colour by these pseudo-Romans) against these Muslims invaders. Also, the Turks now controlled Jerusalem and according to Peter the Hermit they persecuted Christians. For these reasons, Pope Urban II called for a crusade. The first among many. The Crusaders pushed back the Turks and took back cities and finally reached Jerusalem after killing most of the Jews and Muslims living there. Killing Christians wasn't new in the Middle East but the killing of Muslims on a massive scale was new, the Mongols hadn't hit Baghdad yet.

By the 1100s the entire Middle East has changed. The Byzantines seemed confident under Emperor Manuel, Zengi of Mosul wanted to recapture Jerusalem and the Seljuk Turks were right between the Byzantines and the Zengi of Mosul. After Zengi had captured cities in Armeania a new Crusade was called but without Byzantine support because a peace treaty had been signed between the Seljuks and "Rome". The Turks totally destroyed them. Then the Manuel broke the peace treaty and hit the Seljuks hard. Then... the Seljuks attack the Byzantines after the Zengi of Mosul dies and Greece and the Balkans are carved up by Hungarians and Sicilians whilst in the East Saladin rises and conqueres Jerusalem. A Third Crusade is called but that fails and the Fourth one in the 1200s is a money grab to destroy all the remaining splendor of Byzantium and ruining the Empire forever. You would at least expect the Turks to do them in this way but no, it had to be some blind Venetian Doge who'd screw the Byzantines over.

Fortunately for the Crusaders, the Mongols come and kill millions of Muslims in the heartland of the Middle East but unfortunately for the Byzantines they spare the Seljuks only asking for protection money. If things couldn't get worse..they do. The Black Death kills more than half the people in Constantinople in 1347 after a Byzantine Civil War and the Turks cross into Europe. Even worse, an earthquake allowed even more Turks to move into Europe in 1354. These Ottomans Turks slowly expanded against Serbs, Albanians, Macedonians, Greeks, Bulgars, Italians and Franks especially at the Battle of Kosovo. They allowed traditional cultures to exist while taking their sons to become Janissaries. The Byzantines got a break when Tamerlane pretty much wrecked Ottoman Turkey but in 1453, the time to end the Byzantine Empire had come. An Empire that had lasted almost 1000 years was destroyed by cannon as it blasted the famous wall of the city. Not much could stop the Turks after this, not even Vlad the Impaler. Though he was a scary motherfucker, the Turks would kill anyone who stood in their way at this time. In their mind, they were the Muslim inheritors of the Caliphate, the Mongol Empire and Rome.

By 1492, The Turks were the big 300 pound Muslim gorilla in the room that was bashing Hungary (the frontline against the Turks) as it controlled the Balkans. The Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517 and conquered Mesopotamia by the 1530s controlling most trade to China and Europe. The Portuguese found a way around this by making the Indian Ocean it's "Lake" by conquered cities and outposts around the rim of it, while the Spanish tried to go to China by the other way and bumped into two continents and the 50 or so million people that lived on both of them by the time the Spanish arrived. Luckily for the Spanish, if they arrived in Ming dynasty China and started proclaiming that the King of Spain was sovereign over them, they would've been killed. Saying such stuff to neolithic Amerindians in Cuba is so much easier.

By the 1520s, Europe had changed. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth who ruled pershaps a quater of Europe and Francis I of France were fighting each other across the continent and while in capitivity the King of France urged the Ottomans to attack. Turkish forces invaded Hungary and Austria would've fallen if Francis hadn't paid to leave capitivity so Carlos V would have enough money to fight the Turks. It must be hard to pay the mortgage on so many countries. Due to the reformation, German Lutheran princes were rich due to all the Church property and gold they took but no, they couldn't fight the Catholics now because The Turks had besieged Vienna and they had to pledge to leave Catholics alone to fight Muslims. The Turks came back against in 1533 and Carlos V had to resolve not to destroy the Protestants because he needed them to fight the Turks and save Vienna. The Turks were saving Protestants everywhere! As long as the Turks were a threat, the Europeans would unite despite religion. But not in 1545 because the Turks and Persians had gone to war. Carlos the V invaded Lutheran Germany and was on the verge of winning but the Pope who was afraid of his power pulled his troops out of Germany where he was once supporting the anti-protestant war and Lutheran-French forces drove him from Germany. In the end, thanks to France, the Pope and Ottomans Protesant Churches would survive and a greater conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the 30 years war over Bohemia which led to the French rise to European dominance which would plague Europe until 1870.

The Spanish crown passed to Felipe II and he had his problems too. He no longer had the Holy Roman Empire but he did have the Netherlands, all of Iberia and Latin America. However, silver from the mines of Potosi weren't coming, the port of Antwerp had slumped, he had to maintain an expensive army in the Netherlands, worry about French protestants and of course the Turks. The Ottoman navy pretty much controlled the Eastern Mediterreanean and threatned Spanish interests. The Habspurgs all over Europe united against thsi threat and won a naval battle against the Turks. No worry, the Ottomans could rebuild at that point. They were technically a superpower as was Spain but that power was waning. More and more trade volume went across the Atlantic to places like the Philippines to trade with China and the Portuguese had trade routes to India by other routes too, they even controlled the City of Goa. This was not good for the Turks as time did tell. Other Mediterreanean powers like Venice shrank to nothing and the Hanseatic league collapsed too. Only Atlantic powers would call the global shots from now on. So, the Ottomans came back to Vienna in 1683 and failed, the farthest they'd extend to Europe. The Croissant was inveted to commemorate it. This is how low the Turks had sunken, they invented a pastry to show how deep they've gone into imperial malaise...it was bad enough that the Poles had to clear them from the battlefield but a pastry. Just awful.

Fast forward a century and the Ottoman Empire is in decay. Ripe, open decay. The Beys or lords of provinces such as Morrocco are nearly independant. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Concert of Europe meetings sought a way to prevent further war so that power would be balances and that they'd work cooperatively for peace. This was not meant to be. The Great Powers present were Spain, France, Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia but not the Ottoman Turks. The denial of the Ottoman Turks at the negotiation table would cause a century of turmoil and nationalism. Can't blame the Europeans though, the Ottomans were the "Sick Man of Europe" at this point. Formerly, a Sultans only became sultans when they had cruelly strangled all their brothers but by the 1700s the princes were raised in the harem far away from politics, finance and war. New sultans had no clue about how to run a government. Unsurprising, this may have caused the decline.

After the Napoleonic Wars the Russians helped the Serbs form a country in 1817, then the Brits helped Greece form a state by 1833. France seized Algeria by 1830. Soon ethnic states were being formed in the Balkans and this set off a chain reaction which threatned the nearby multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary. For instance, what if all the Germans got together? Nationalism became a force due to Ottoman collapse. Also, European cooperation ended too due to Ottoman collapse in the Crimean War when France, Britain and the Ottomans fought in the Crimean peninsula for three years. The idea of nationalism gave Germany the idea to band together under Prussian leadership, Italy too. You could even argue it spurred Japanese modernization. All from the Turks. Guess what, Austria-Hungarian empire began picking up pieces of Turkish provinces like Bosnia just so it get can some access to the sea while their German cousins became a world power through trade in East Asia and a railroad to Baghdad through Ottoman Anatolia. A coup in 1908 by the Young Turks made Turke think it could gain back the Balkans. Wrong of course but all this lead to an escalation where in 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed over Bosnia, a tiny former Ottoman province.World War erupted of course which ultimately led to World War II. The problems of the modern Middle East such as Palestine and the formation of Iraq were once Ottoman problems but at least they knew how handle Arab villagers and Kurds...and 1 million dead Armenians.

Even though Turks did bring about the modern world, they did bring about the nationalism which nearly destroyed Europe in the 20th century. Of course, you can't blame a Turk for all these things but their place in Europe is of course undeniable. The Turks are European in the sense that they changed European history for the better. It took more than 50 million dead Europeans to realize that European Cooperation is the best way to compete with the world. I think the Turks should at least be included in that. To exclude the Turks from European history is an awful mistake because so much of modern Europe stems from Turkish conquests, defeats and meddling from other European powers as well.

The Heroin Wars

Today, the United States of America faces a crisis which none but the smartest of Empires have successfully defeated. A growing trade-imbalance with China. It's nothing new of course. Spain stupidly was handed the crisis and stupidly did nothing to correct it. Medieval Castilians weren't too big on economics unlike their Dutch vassals. However the British solved their problem quite intelligently, can America do the same?

So around the mid 16th century Spain is finally getting down to work with its colonies in the New World and is gazing in one direction. West, towards Asia. The original goal of Columbus' explorations and the place where the Portuguese were getting all their spice from. From that time period onward, New Spain (Mexico) sent fleets into the Pacific. One conquered the Philippines archipelago and finally had a depot to trade with China. There was one problem though. The Ming Dynasty were Mercantalist to the core. They didn't welcome foreign goods into their nation. But they did welcome Spanish silver from Peru and Mexico to trade for porcelain, silk, spices etc. Soon, so much silver was flowing to China that the country had to cut the Manila trade to two ships each year but these ships soon became gigantic Spanish galleons.

This loss of silver contributed to to economic downfall of Spain which bankrupted itself with wars with France, the Ottomans, the United Provinces of the Netherlands and England.

How did Britain approach this problem? The British, being protestants loved trade and the free market (as long as it worked towards their advantage) and in the case of China before the Opium Wars.. it didn't. The Chinese sent tea, porcelain,silk,rhubarb etc to the British who traded silver for it. The Chinese were loaded and on top of that, the largest untapped market in the world! It was the East India Company's wet dream. In order to make that dream come to fruition. The Company began growing tea itself at cut-throat prices to Britain to undercut Chinese competition and finally it planeted poppies to sell opium to the Chinese and make sure their population would be addicted and customers for a long time to Britain. The Chinese were using the very same silver they got when they getting silver for tea. It was mercantalism gone wrong. When the Manchu government saw that their population were being ensnared by this narcotic of course they fought back, but the industrial revolution the Chinese had forsaken for Confucian harmony destroyed their junks. This warfare culminated in the burning and looting of the Summer Palace and the seizure of Hong Kong. The most beautiful of all Manchu palatial homes in the Celestial Empire. After this, China and its territory were reduced to a rump-state that was all but controlled by Western and Japanese companies. Even Manchuria where the dynasty had hailed from had been taken by the Russians!

All i'm saying, is that worse comes to worse in the next 50 years...America should legalize all

drugs and sell them right here at home. Of course, we'd have to sell it, and who do we sell it to? The biggest market on Earth. Also, think of all the money America could make by forcing Afghan peasants instead of warlords to grow opium. We'd be starving the Taliban of an essential source of funding and getting that money by shipping heroin to the Chinese. Of course it won't be easy. The Chinese aren't relying on war-drums and monkey bombs as they did back in the 1850s. Still, I'm guessing that American weaponry by 2050 will be more powerful than anything the Chinese will have by then. Another unfortunate fact is that the Chinese knows what happened to them back in the 19th century but if the US is smart and grows some cojones it will find a way to sell drugs to the Chinese. Think about it, it'll make the British and French proud.

Obama's Nobel Shock and Awe

Written by Elijah Williams

My brothers and sisters, today is a sad today in the history of the American Republic! We may
congregate and deliberate on whether brother Obama really deserved his Nobel win but I say
that my main man, Obama did NOT deserve to win that prestigious award.

As my granmammy back in Norfolk, VA used to say "You ain't deserve nothin' till you sho' done
sumthin' " and I must say with all honesty Barack Obama has said a whole lot of somethin' and
done squat-diddly regarding the primary issues which is supposed to have won the boy this
prize, these issues being: Nuclear Proliferation, ending Middle East Peace treaty stagnation and
possessing determination about American diplomacy and international fraternation!

When Obama says something, the whole planet swoons as if Cab Calloway or Chuck Berry was
singing personally to them. In fact, i'm dang stumped by this to be honest. How can a pseudo-
Midwestern accent appeal to 300 million plus American froms New Jersey to Alaska. I mean
it's as if a Southern Belle from Georgia (who shall god-willing win the Presidency) made every
Californian democrat fall in love with her everytime she said "Oh lord! The Union is coming!
Atlanta must not burn!". Anywho, by merely saying he wants to get rid of nukes..the one thing
that kept the Cold War out of my fair Virginny and in every Third World backwater on earth
from Hue to Herat makes my heart sink. Nukes were the only thing that kept the ol' USSR from
waging a gigantic Kursk like battle in Central Kraut-land (not that I wouldn't of minded, god
bless 'em). The only that kept those Kimchi eaters from going after South Kimchi land all over
again and making another generation of the Williams clan war veterans.

Another thang I don't get is his Middle East peace thang. I mean, what is he doing over yonder?
The man flew over to Cairo to make a speech and badang! The whole of Arabia wants four more
years of Obamamania. George Mitchell maybe flying all over the goddamn sands of Arabia whilst the Jew and the Arab kill each other for hills in the Levant. While Persia is getting close to those
nukes and while Arabia proper, espcially Yemen is going to the dogs. And don't get me started on ol' Iraq or Irak however you spell it. We'll be in Iraq forever due to its central location in the
wannabe Caliphate and trust me, either we'll leave Afghanistan in 2011 but if we do, we'll be
having punitive actions over yonder every 20 years like our British friends. Can'ttrust a Pathan
with gold as much as you can't trust an Apache with a rifle and sheep! Maybe minus the sheep,
they ain't Welshman or Basque!

Anywho, saying that you're gonna start talking to the Taliban and the Hezbollah and the
AlQaeda and the Persians and the Kimchi Eaters and the Grand Mufti of Mos-cow ain't gonna
win us the damn war of global influence. It reminds me of this boy in my old neighbourhood
named Jacob Washington. He was the biggest boy in the 'hood. Best athlete and he was the ]
richest boy in my neighbourhood. But he was so damn nice he couldn't manipulate anyone,
especially after his smart friend Howard Cohen moved out to Tel Aviv. Anyways, everybody
used and abused him until he wound up dead in a street corner in Richmond.

I don't want America becoming Jacob Washington. I want America to become William Pitt the
Older's America. Ya know, the America that keeps China and those damn Portuguesies in Brazil
in check! Now that's progress... I think

I'm Quite Sure the British Know a Thing or Two About Afghanistan

Everybody Needs a Gurkha

Urgh. I really do hate these comparisons in which the British Empire's activities in Afghanistan are related to those undertaken today by the American Empire. It annoys me. I saw this cartoon from Time Magazine which depicted a python which had two lumps in its body named "The British Empire" and the "Soviet Union". A caricature of Uncle Sam was about to be enveloped by Afghanistan too. The British Empire was hardly brought down by a few troublesome Pashtun. To say or allude to such is sheer ignorance of history.

The circumstances which brought Britain and The United States to Afghanistan is much different albeit the purposes may vicariously be similiar. Britain got involved in that Central Asian country due to the fact that Russia and Britain both competed for influence in Persia (Iran) and Afghanistan. Britain wished to protect India while Russia wished to expand her territory to more pleasant climes. I can't blame the British though. Every major conquerer of India came from the North-West. The greatest fear of the British Foreign Office was that one day, cossacks would come down unto Northern India like the White Huns, Mongols, Mughals and Aryans before it.

And so - the British invaded attempting to place a puppet leader, Shah Suja to replace the current ruler of Afghanistan Dost Mohammed. Soon the British were off retreating to Jalalabad where they were massacred to almost a man. The British people were scared that their Empire which had so benefited their lives and made some of them rich was in peril. British India had to accept the rule of Dost Mohammed. It gets better for the British though...

Nearly 40 years later Anglo-Saxon and Pathan are at it again. A punitive expedition to Afghanistan was arranged because the Afghans didn't want to accept British rule over their foreign relations also in 1879 they murdered a British envoy and his staff. It seems to the observer of British history that anytime Britain is fighting in Afghanistan, it's always fighting somewhere else too. In the first Anglo-Afghan war Britain had it's navy battling Chinese junks and it's army in Bengal was invading the Burmese kingdom. This time, it was fighting the Zulu at Isandlwana. Anyways, this time the British defeated the Afghans and placed their own ruler as the head of the country and controlled it's foreign relations. It just goes to show, you can defeat the Afghans.

In the Third Angl0-Afghan war, Britain was beset with problems. It was intervening in the Russian Civil War, British Somaliland was rebelling, Persia had officially left it's sphere of influence, it nearly went to war with Turkey in support of Greece and it's client in Arabia was defeated by the Saud clan. What's Afghanistan to controlling the rich oil fields of Basra? It was up to the Gurkha's and Sikhs again aided by British bombers to beat back the Afghans.

The British had to protect India. That's the only reason they gave a goddamn about Afghanistan. Now the Americans are only in there to prevent the Taliban and Al Qaeda agents from taking over. They're fighting a war in Afghanistan which needs to be one in Pakistan and in the hearts and minds of the Middle East. Even their strategy is non-sensical. America has to play the strategic game. It has to think like a cold-hearted foreign office employee who's helping to direct strategy to sepoy generals. If the US was actually the British Army it would....

a) Hire Iraqis, South Koreans, Japanese and all other members of the American Empire to engage Afghans in combat. Even Gurkhas!

b) After destroying the countryside, driving out the population and killing most tribal leaders it would have to buy off certain warlords to ensure that Pakistan would not be threatned by a Taliban take over

c) It would have to make it's North-West Frontier Force to limit weapons and personnel smuggling in the Hindu Kush region

d)Control the foreign relations and make Afghanistan a vassal state for years to come

America would also have to realize that controlling Afghanistan to even the greatest degree possible takes time. Perhaps 40 years of off and on fighting, invasions and counter invasions and the occasional massacre. America has to get real about its Empire and crack open a British Military History book.

Celebrate the People's Revolution!

60 years ago, a dynamic force came to pass in which China became a Police State with a dash of State Property civics. All hail the People's Republic of China!

Time really flies doesn't it. 20th century has managed to change everything! Now, China instead of it being carved up into economic zones is carving up Africa, Latin America and the barren deserts of Australia into economic zones. The same Australia which would not let the Chinese immigrate 100 years ago due to fear of diseases and the 'Yellow Peril' in general. Now, China is pulling Australia out of the Great Recession. The new China has managed to lift 200 million people out of poverty and is now the creditor of the United States. I guess the Chinese people have "Stood Up" to paraphrase Chariman Mao.

But what is China today? Is it what Mao wanted? Yes and no. Mao wanted China to be a peasant/worker paradise whilst being heavily industrialized and a world power. You can't have your cake and eat it too I suppose. China is a Free Market economy with some Mercantilist tendencies which is directed by the state. It's the workshop of the world. A large population of its people still happen to be peasant farmers but everyone has a family member who moved east from say Sichuan or Yunnan to get a job in the big city. Whether it's Chongqing or Shanghai.

One thing that hasn't changed is the fact that China is still a Police State. That would've made Mao happy. However, Communist officials are murmuring about having "limited democracy" to keep up with the newly educated, somewhat globally aware middle class that is slowly being created in the New China. Still 100 million migrant workers and their family are suffering because of the Great Recession, and the disparity between rich capitalists and poor peasants is growing. Such is always the case in Chinese history. However, Chinese power is threatned by it's neighbour to the South....India.

India is 200 million people short than China, but it's economy is growing very quickly compared to the decade before. The two nations fought a war in 1962 but that resolved nothing. Disputes over things such as borders and Tibet raise nationalist fervour. The Indian Ocean, once thought as the Indian Navy's playground is being moved in on by Chinese bases in places like Gwadar in Pakistan and a new naval base in Sri Lanka. It's hard to imagine two economies which were so highly linked going to war but who knows. Maybe India will go the route of China with all the Maoists running around Orissa.

I say celebrate the revolution! The reason being, China has made all our lives cheaper by being willing to make our clothes for Wal-Mart and Target. For giving the US government money allowing lower taxes and more money for the American citizen to spend on Chinese clothes or more debt for that new house up the road. Where would we be without a communist China? Bored, more taxed and wearing the same clothes for $10 more. Let the revolution roll on!

Welcome to Slavic Arabia

Once again, the Caucasus rumble with the barking of Georgian and Russian arms. Ukraine stands defiant against Russian sabre-rattling. This is life in the old Russian Empire of course! One which is slowly rebuilding through snake-like oil pipelines which are slithering it's way into Europe.

Russia controls over a quater of the world's natural gas and 6-10% of the world's oil and Europe's 700+ million people are in dire need of energy resources. Russia can comply with them however putting too much trust in Russia puts the continent in peril and hobbles it's long-term goals in relation to Russia. In fact, Prime Minister Putin wrote a thesis about using energy as a tool for foreign policy. This is something that countries like Ukraine have experienced when Russia levies gas embargoes against it.

One can easily blame Russia as a vengeful power and it has a reason to be. When the USSR fell the economy collapsed and crooks took over it from the shadows of the Black Market. Death rates for infants and young adults the same time Chechens fought a guerilla war against the Russian Federation. The demographic tumble that Russia is facing is close to unprecedented. Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Alcoholism cause close to 1 million Russians die without being replaced in their population per year and that's not a problem that Gazprom can fix.

Russian grievances against the West, particularily NATO augment when anti-missile defence systems, the Serbian War, US troops in Central Asia, the Iraq War, Colour Revolutions and the independance of Kosovo are remembered. I'm not saying that Russia is right about these issues, it's not wrong about any of them either. It's just that Russians feel when they were weak under the control of a drunk (Boris Yeltsin) they were abused and taken advantage of (which is quite right). All these problems exacerbate when the Caucasian powder-keg especially Georgia is recalled.

Although Russia was successful, it's economy almost 'tanked' on it and old problems didn't disappear such as US encroachment unto the Russian near-abroad. Russia's one trick pony isn't a wonder drug to the Russian illness of stagnation considering that domestic consumption with oil will compete with European demands, European diversification of Energy and possible energy demand from the People's Republic of China. With it's only commodity being energy, Russia could soon find itself being the Slavic Arabia of Eurasia. It might be wealthy, but only the autocratic elites who right now are building Swiss bank accounts with help from the Kremlin will benefit. It's young people will be unemployed since the resource curse shall take hold and its demographic decline coupled with the rise of minorites (especially Muslims in Russia) will force Russia's hand and further weaken the state.

The fifth Russian Empire doesn't look to prosperous to me. The first fell to the Mongols, the second was ravaged by Ivan the Terrible, the Third was shocked by war with the Japanese and the German, the Fourth was bankrupted by the Free-Market, the Fifth will enslave itself and fall victim to its own avarice. Welcome to Slavic Arabia.

France Is America and America Is France

Something has just occurred to me about the nature of the French Republic and that of the American Republic. They seem to be very, very similiar in their ethos. This strikes as fascinating because many Americans, American Francophiles and Frenchmen can remember when hating France was the popular thing to do in the United States. From mocking it's military history to naming French Fries, "Freedom Fries" the toxic relation between Bush and Jacques Chirac became Nationalist fodder, especially for the Fox News crowd within the United States. I wonder what's the French equivalent? Whatever Jean-Marie Le Pen happens to watch in Brittany I suppose. Let's take a look at the United States and France.

The United States was forged from wars against the tyranny Britain to be an independant nation of rugged individualism for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness against the threats of British Imperialism and the Natives. American ingenuity and good luck forged a global empire which is the most powerful nation which has ever existed following victory in the Second World War.

Modern France was forged from revolutionary wars against the tyranny of the Bourbons to be an independant nation for liberty, fraternity and equality against the threats of Britain, Austria, Prussia and a whole bunch of European nations whom it deemed as "despotic savages". French elan and shrewdness formed a global empire which collapsed following the Second World War.

You want more evidence of the similarity?

French always try and pin themselves to be anti-globalist and anti-American and pro-French when their policies and economy (not to mention the zest of the nation seems to be pseudo-American or very French; more on this further down). French business is good business for Europe. The Fifth French Republic has a bigger economy than the UK and when coupled with that of Germany it forms the Economic Heart of Europe just like how the United States and Canada are the economic heart of North America. (Interesting considering how the US and France has invaded both Germany and Canada. Not to mention their other neighbours). If French trailer trash had a main shopping destination it'd be Carrefour, the second biggest retailer in the world after Wal-Mart and they'd probably eat at McDonald's too considering that the McDonald's franchise in France is one of the most profitable in the World. Both Carrefour and Wal-Mart have been accused of undermining Capitalism, such is hypershopping.

The rhetorical nonsense that both nations spew is nearly identical. Both view themselves as a beacon to civilization and view their accomplisments whether it be in the arts or in technology as the ultimate contribution to humanity. To paraphrase a certain French foreign minister "Both France and the United States in the face of history before mankind". I guess fighting Muslims whether they be in Algeria or Iraq pays.

Look at the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and then take a look at parts of Lebanon, Senegal and French Polynesia. Both have left their colonial markings. It seems that burgers and croissants do fill bellies just as easily as anything else.

Comparisons aside, the national psyche of both these nations comes off as arrogant. To the point annoyance, which is why it's extremely humourous to hear diplomatic shouting matches from Paris and Washington. If the United States is France, then what lessons can it gleem from the Fifth French Republic. After all, both were at the apex of power (and third largest population behind the same two nations who are number one and two today). The United States could learn to avoid messy revolutions, class warfare and wars against a perceived national enemy whom you could squeeze money out of rather then squeeze blood and your own national treasure in the process. The United States could learn that sometimes giving up is the best thing to do when a future Chinese Army of 1 million troops lands on the Western Seabord, or if you're fighting a protracted war in Iran for nearly 20 years (my future scenarios sounds awful don't they?). Realizing that if you're a Super or Hyperpower now, it's most likely you're still going to be a "Power" 200 years from now is a good step in the right direction.

Hopefully, the United States of America concentrates on it's current Republic. Five seems too many.

Cannibalism - A Most Human Thing To Do

Humans like to do a lot of things to our enemies when we've vanquished them. Such as desecrating their bodies like how Achilles pulled Hectors body using a chariot. Eating their dead foes like what's going on in the Congo today. Raping the vulnerable members of the enemy society or taking their young so they can culture-washed. One of the most endearing things people like to do to each other is eat each other. I'm sure there's lots of reasons for consuming the flesh of another human being. Necessity for survival, cultural practises and of course the favourite - insanity. I'm more interested in cultural necessity. What causes society to adopt Cannibalism as a major part of their culture? What made the Aztecs of Central Mexico, Papua New Guineans and Maoris eat their enemies?

For starters, these societies were highly belligerent. The Aztecs conquered most of their neigbhours and had "Flower Wars" with those they'd already conquered to keep their stock of human blood fresh. Papua New Guineans couldn't start an upward trend in their demography until they stopped waging tribal warfare and Maoris ate other Maoris especially during their musket wars and any European sailor that happened to end up their captive. In fact, when they committed genocide on the Chatham Islands upon the Moriori's, they ate them on masse.

These societies are also littered with taboos and are highly religious. The only reason why the Aztecs sacrificed so many people was because they thought by doing so they'd keep the sun alive for another 52 years. The Papua New Guineans were also strongly attached to their cultural beliefs and even made new ones such as Cargo-Cults when Europeans arrived. The Maoris lived from infancy to old age according to tapu (or sacred taboos) while respecting the mana of their chiefs.

It seems that endemic warfare with the powerful addition of religion can allow Cannibalism to become entrenched in a society. With, or without disastrous consequences. Aztec flower wars brought them enemies which the Spanish utilized, Papua New Guineans began dying of brain diseases via eating human brains. Maoris shot and ate one another during the Musket Wars which nearly destroyed them.

I highly doubt in today's world that Congolese would adopt Cannibalism as the way to go. Guerrilla cults have brought it in as a way to sow terror and to have "spiritual acceptance" to the crimes they commit daily in Central Africa. Besides, one of the greatest fears of an African is to be eaten alive. When slavery hit a peak in the 18th century, inland West Africans believed Europeans took slaves to eat them. Humans are a strange species, we're the only Planetary Predator that also kills one another for cultural reasons. This is what happens when you're a thinking ape.... a killing ape.

A Long Summer....Requiem for White America

This summer of 2009 has been among the most bigoted in recent memory. I think it started off with inner city kids who wished to use a pool and were denied access because they were children, poor and black. Never a good combination in the US where black children are at risk at serious developmental issues just for being darker in skin tone. I quote what one of these unfortunate children said:

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child," (Source - NBC News Philadelphia)

This white backlash was not only against African Americans. Oh no, it wouldn't be fun unless the Hispanics of the US who are viewed as the Germanic Tribes against a New Rome were also targeted in this race war. President Obama wished to add Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and backlash was not founded upon her ability, just the fact she was hispanic! Granted, her choice of language when describing the situation of minorities was terrible yet she was trying to say that a minority would be more empathetic in a case towards a fellow minority than a WASP. This is fact. However, Republicans under Gingrich call her a racist for alluding to the fact that white people are sometimes racist. They certaintly weren't racist when they shot a black man execution style in a subway in California, or during Rodney King or even when they lynched black people for 'crimes' they committed against the pure virginal White women of Dixie.

The reason why some top Republicans are labelling Obama's associates racists is merely to alienate Obama from white voters. The overwhemingly middle class voters who brought him to victory last year. It's working too. His poll numbers are dropping and have been dropping since May, which is when this fracas over Sotomayor began. Calling Obama a terrorist-Muslim/Marxist who also happens to be a socialist didn't work. Did I mention they tried to call him a crypto-Arab though his ancestors are Luo (a Nilotic tribe in Kenya) and French-Irish? Strange. The whole Republic strategy is aided when Glenn Beck calls him a "racist". This word is thrown around too much.

I'm going to define racism. Racism is:

1. A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. A policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. A hatred or intolerance of another race or other races

Obama is so racist he has a rainbow coalition in his cabinet...or maybe he's so wily that he's hiding it from everyone. That explains that Rev. Wright business! Sadly, I don't have time to venture into Black Nationalism today, it's a hard concept to swallow and so is Obama being a racist. Now, wandering into the wilderness which is the Henry Louis Gates Jr. debacle. I must say, I liked his programs on PBS but the whole situation between him, Officer Crowley who arrested him and Obama is blown way out of proportion. It was race-profiling but it's only significant because Gates is a bourgeoise black man. If he and Obama didn't share that trait, no one would know. Race profiling happens every day for various reasons. Whites towards inability to dance and utter lack of 'cool'. Asians with academic achievements and a desire for economic conquest via the People's Republic of China. Finally, Blacks regarding athletics and crime. Did Gates jr create a crime? No. But he made all black people realize they're at risk for racial profiling and that has every rich black person indignant. They should be. They don't need to know that Lil Wayne's new minstrel song "Whip It Like a Slave" applies to them too.

One would think in a normal nation, the classes are based on wealth. In the US, they are of course but race is a sinister thing which no one can escape. It's a social construct which seems to trap millions in relative poverty to the rest. Fear not, White America is ending and it will end by around 2050 as minority groups reach 50% of the population. Demography is the future, no one can change that.

Adventures While Playing Civilization IV

I've found a new addiction. A game called Civilization IV. Basically, you get to create and run your own country/empire/civilization and compete with other ones to win through points gained, building a spaceship to Alpha Centauri, destroying all the other civs, dominating the planet population and land-wise or just being elected a diplomatic victory through the UN.

I played as the Romans, there's a number of interesting Civs in the game such as Ethiopia, the Aztecs but for the Romans. It was easy to make war and re-create the Roman Empire. As soon as I was able to get the Iron-Working technology and produce Praetorians I conquered France since it was the easiest kill and also because they only possessed one city. It was an easy campaign. Then I used those forces against Iberia conquereing Spain much the same. After these conquests I took my army back to Rome, added catapults to the group and used a Great General ( a unit used to rally troops sort of) to wage war against Greece. A tough campaign but easily ended. I used the troops from the Greek campaign and landed them in Egypt using galleys to conquer the Nile River valley while settling North Africa at the same time. In this way, I managed to conquer France, Iberia, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, North Africa and Egypt rapidly. It was time to rest, rebuild and get ready for the next round of conquests. I had noticed I was missing two important territories in my Empire. Palestine (controlled by the Arabs) and the British Isles (controlled by England).

The Middle Ages was not a dark time. It was a time of rapid technological advancement as my libraries and strong culture made my Empire top dog. China, India and Russia were my lessers but still strong. Germany was a threat too. It controlled Northern Europe including Scandinavia. I also remembered that these Germanics were the fall of Rome. I mustered a medieval army of Knights, Maceman, Trebuchets and even some Praetorians to conquer Berlin. I failed. Their longbowmen were too strong and they even retook an earlier reconquest of Munich ( Austria in our world). I was disappointed but not discouraged. I realized I had the most power military in that Digital World. It was time to slaughter some digital people. I massed another army using another Great General to take Damascus (the modern day Levant). I took the city but then to my dismay Persia declared war on me too. I soon lost an army in the Middle East and worst. Damascus. I even tried to invade England, Norman style. I failed at that too. I vowed that it would one day be mine. I just needed to rebuild another Army and wait for the right technologies to come along even though at this point, my opponents were close to technological parity.

I doubled my research efforts building things in my cities which would increase my rate of research and it worked. By the 1600s I had musketmen, cuirassier and was on the verge of riflemen. Other civilizations like the Egyptians (whom survived my conquest in East Africa) and the Malinese became my vassals and now lived to serve me and my imperial discretion. My population rapidly increased too. In the game, it was around some 15 million but if it was real. I'm sure it'd be around 150 million or so. Only the Chinese had more people. Not surprised there. In the map I was playing with, the editor had given the Chinese tons and tons of food resources. Europe had a lot but if it had been divided, individual countries would get scant food. Africa had a few cows but only Egypt and North Africa had enough. It mirrored reality. My caravels also found the New World. The Aztecs controlled ALL of North America and I realized they'd be a powerhouse in a few centuries. The Aztec leader Montezuma was a right old grump too. Not willing to share maps or food resources. The Inca were more compliant, and much weaker. Did I mention I did all this killing, while being Buddhist? The Buddhist religion founded in Mecca ( I know, I love this game) had half of the world's people as adherents. The New World was largely Jewish. I founded a few religions myself (Islam, Confucianism, Taoism). Other civilizations had found Hinduism and Christianity.

By this time I was ready for war. A bit more closer to home though. I possessed rifleman, cavalry, airships, cannon and was working towards getting the railroad technology. It was a 19th century army waging war on a medieval Germany. In rapid succession, I had conquered modern day Germany, Austria, Poland and the Baltic states. Germany had Scandinavia to take refuge in and I had blockaded them. I also raised their new capital to have terratorial control of Denmark (their culture was choking my new empire). They sued for peace and became my vassal. From this war, I had gained a massive army. I also used my Great General to increase the production of units in future wars by settling them in cities to build war academies. I built even more cannons, rifleman and had access to machine guns. I would need them to defend my conquest from Arabs and Persians. Little did I know, this war would put me at peril to losing everything.

Since I surrounded Palestine in two directions. I sent two armies. One from Africa, which I was settling, particularily in South Africa where I had to send troops to fight the Germans who had already settled there. Also, Nigeria and the Northern Congo. Nigeria had oil and the Northern Congo had rivers which I could use to farm to get a large population and to build cottages and watermills to get much production and gold. My European army came from Anatolia. I declared war on the Arabs and conquered Damascus quickly. I settled both my armies in the cities and prepared for a large siege. The Persians, Chinese, Mongols declared war on me soon thereafter. A Persian Army of what I estimate to be 250-300,000 troops was on the march. The Mongols had taken Munich in central Europe and a small Chinese contingent was there too. I destroyed the Chinese first and sent a spy unit to their homeland to cause unrest. I took back Munich which took away any reserves in case of an another attack on Europe and by this time I had the tech to get infantry. I was industralizing by building factories and was building a mighty Military-Industrial-Complex to fight this First World War. I upgraded all my rifleman to infantry and withstood thousands of Persians and Arabs destroying their armies.

I made peace with the Arabs who feared further attacks, as well as the Mongols and Chinese but the Persians would not yield. It did not matter. They didnt have an army anymore. There army lay dead on the plains of Armageddon. Then, the unthinkable happened. The Russians declared war on me and a massive army, larger than the Persian one had taken Munich and was on the verge of breaking out of it to take my European empire. I took drastic measures. I drafted millions into my Army. Spend thousands of tons of gold (basically millions of dollars to requip an European army) and forced march my Middle Eastern Army to Central Europe to stop the Russians while leaving a sizeable garrison to take on any Persian attackers. It was a reverse Stalingrad. I lost thousands to weaken the Russian army and stop their advance. Millions more were drafted to block their escape from the Alps. It worked because my Infantry Army arrived and destroyed the Russians to a man. The army then invaded Russia, destroyed St Petersburg (what is Kiev) and threatned Moscow. The Russians begged for peace and I gave it to them while forcing them to pay me millions in reparations.

The war was costly. I estimated I killed 4 million Russians but the effect on me was greater. I went from a population of 25 million to 18 million and had to pay for a massive army. Russia became a Chinese vassal as did Mongolia and the Indians and Chinese were battling for Asian supremacy. As the two superpowers in Asia fought on, it gave me breathing space to rebuild, get back my population and get tanks, bombers, fighters and artillery to get my revenge on the Arabs and Persians who probably brought Russia to wage war on me. It was a mad pace for this for construction to manufacture this new model army. I put up to (an estimate) 300,000 + troops in Damascus. I didn't need huge armies because I was still more technologically adept than the Persians who were using rifleman. Did I mention it was the year 1913 when declared war on the Persians. The Second World War in the time period of the First World War. I had a different strategy though. One of tactical defensive and strategic offense. It was simple. I knew the Persians loved making big armies and so I realized one would march on Damascus. It was huge of course (larger than the last one) but it was primitive. Rifles against machine guns, bombers and tanks. They kept attacking for what seemed forever ( I took a nap, Civ IV is turned based so i had to watch them attack and attack for 20 min). They Persians even tried attacking Corinth ( my city in Central Anatolia which was great for producing tanks). The Arabs just tried to distract me. This time, the Chinese were distracted by the Indians so they couldn't assist the homeland of their faith.

I conquered the Middle East after killing some 500,000+ Persians and Arabs troops and destroyed Persepolis. Persia was so broken, it became my vassal. The Arabian peninsula was a slower campaign and soon the Arabs relocated to Brazil and became vassals to Montezuma (drat!). Still, I had control over most of the world's oil. My Roman Empire was missing Britain though. That would soon change. Russia broke free of China and became my vassal too. It was time to invade England. I realized how difficult it is to do so. Kudos to the Normans. It was an island fortress. The English nearly had a tech parity with me, they just lacked tanks and airplanes and they had a modern navy. I had to have a sneaky invasion.

I created a HUGE Marine Corps and put them in transports, well before the invasion. Also, I put many tanks in transports too. I brought in paratroopers which would be key in the conquests and infantry to garrison my newly captured territories. Submarines, battleships and destroyers would defeat the English navy while my airplanes based in France and Norway (courtesy of the Germans) would bomb and strafe them as well as English cities. England was weakened by the time I invaded too. A influenza pandemic had reduced them to 5 million people from a high of 12 million. Sucks to be English. It helps to build hospitals. The war began in 1940 with me bombing London senseless and landing paratroopers on the outskirts of the city for a special reason; to distract any troops wishing to reconquer London. The British had a Great General attached to an infantry corps so I had the paratroopers as well as my other troops promoted to be strong against gun units like the English infantry. After the bombing and airdrops, I had my navy mop up the English and my marines invaded the city. I lost half of my marines right there but my tank army settled in after the conquest and would be used to conquer the last city on the isle of Britain called Hastings (at the neck of where the Scottish Lowlands begin). I also prepared my remaining transports to land troops in Ireland and Iceland (yes, the British controlled Iceland).

Compared to the other games I played. Every bit of land of Earth was occupied by someone. Whether they be Chinese, Indian, Roman, Egyptian whatever. Furthermore, most of my wars consisted of sieges but the AI actually attacked me full frontally during battles. Like the one I had against the Persians in the first Romano-Arab/Persian War aka World War I. The conquest of England was easy. I waged an exercise of blitzkrieg to be honest with a little bit of island-hopping. The English population dropped to 3 million but that's life in video-game I guess. Now, my Roman Empire was complete. I also realized another problem. How was I going to win this game, I had the most points but I didn't want a weak points victory. Another option was domination. How was I going to invade India and China who had near tech parity again? Or even the Aztecs who were now fighting the Indians for control of Australia? Impossible. So was domination. I had 33% of the world's population and that was quickly dropping due to Aztec, Chinese and Russian babies. A quarter of the Earth's land but that wasn't enough. Diplomatic victory, everyone hated me (or was jealous of my power). I had to build a spaceship to another galaxy. It was a weak win but I had to do it.

I build laboratories, forges, ironworks and wonders such as Rock and Roll, Spaceship Elevator, Apollo Program (built in 1933) and all sorts of other things to increase my power culturally and scientifically such as the Sid's Sushi Corporation which gave me tons and tons of wealth. So much so, I ended the tech tree by discovering fusion! I converted all my money from science into culture and espionage. Internationally, worse things happened. India began losing another war with the Aztecs and a more important one with China. In each war with China, the Chinese got closer to the subcontinent and now they were taking its cities using massive infantry armies, artillery etc. The Indians had run out of troops. Though this was bad, it still distracted my enemies. Some 20 years late, I was still working on my ship when the Aztecs declared war on the Chinese to finish their job in Australia and other Pacific isles. I wondered who would fight over Australia though, it had few food resouces...mostly minerals and it primarily desert except for some costal areas but maybe the Aztecs need it more than the Sino-Indians did. I gave those barbarians technologies to fight the Chinese better. It didn't matter. I was going to be out of this galaxy in like 20 years. The war ended but now the Chinese had tanks and planes. Things were going to get ugly unless I left this miserable rock. Then I built the Manhattan project and began to feel better. Much better.

2 turns away from winning a Space Race victory and I had built 22 nuclear ICBMS and a Missile Defence Shield against any Chinese attack if they had the technology, but luckily the Chinese hadn't had access to uranium but they did adopt State Property as a Economic Civic which made me hate them more and think of a plan. A turn away from victory. I declared war on the Chinese. I had a bigger population than them by 20 or 200 million in real life, though I trailed them in the 16th-20th centuries. Chinese opposition had always stymied me by sending spies/terrorists to raise insurrections or to blow up temples and hydro plants. That was going to end, now. I launched all of my nuclear missiles. All of them on the largest Chinese cities. Irradiated every Chinese person alive and some Indians too. The Chinese population dropped from 58 million to something like 20 million. The Aztecs took their spot of having the second largest population. They begged for peace, but it didn't matter. I was way richer than them anyways and I had built 2 more nukes the following turn. I clicked the end turn button to find myself winning a respectable victory in 1983.

I looked back on what destruction I had wrought and smiled. It was a damn good game.

The Obama Doctrine - Kills Bugs Dead

Lately, my mind has been preoccupied by the Af-Pak War. The stakes are getting worse. While progress seems to be made in Pakistan, the war gets worse in Afghanistan. Even with the insertion of thousands of US Marines battling along side British troops the Taliban just fled into the mountains to fight another way. I would expect the Pakistani Taliban to do the same and return to Swat valley secretly after the refugees have returned to wage terror again. The whole war is just depressing.

As Obama pours in more troops, more civilians are bound to die. Why can't they realize that Pashtun zeal is ignited against the foreign invader. They revel in fighting the conqueror. Especially if that conqueror is non-Muslim. This is the Pashtun as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. The other ethnic groups (like the Tajiks/Uzbeks) wait anxiously to see how long the US will stay in Afghanistan. Not long in my opinion.

President Obama is not a president who even likes dealing with foreign leaders. To him, change must happen at home. Woe betide the outside world who took his message to heart for it was not meant for you, it was meant for the American people. The American people are of course his prime focus. So much so, it reeks of isolationism but not the type we remember from history. The type in which engagement is largely rhetorical to keep up prestige instead of actual and meaningful. For instance, the Palestinian Problem. Mr Obama says he wishes to achieve the final solution for it yet all he's been doing is shuttling his envoy Mr. Mitchell back and forth. Netanyahu may now believe it is more popular for him in Israel to defy Obama than to listen to his statements on stopping the construction of new settlements. To Netanyahu, building those settlements is the manifest destiny of the Jewish state. To the Palestinians, it's ethnic cleansing. Slow, methodical and deliberate. And it's working.

Like the fly that Obama swatted, he views the Middle East in this way. Merely a distraction from getting Universal Healthcare and other socialist ideals that the US cannot maintain for long anyway. Another aspect of Obama which struck me was his relationship with Africa. He went to Ghana, a decent West African nation which is trying to reshape its image and economy to preach to Africans. Africans do not wish to be preached to anymore. It was this same preaching which caused the economic conundrums which doomed African economies in the 70s and 80s and which are just started to recover now while dealing with healthcare problems of their own (maybe Obama might look into that). You see, in Post-Independance Africa when it came to the economy the Big Men of Africa were lost. Which way should they follow; the Free Market Path or the State Property Path. Either way, they both were fucked.

Those who become capitalists watched corporations take billions through useless economic schemes like a certain dam project in Ghana or watched minerals get hauled away with little economic benefit to the people of the nation. Dictators teamed up with corporations to protect their mutual interest: Money. Those who followed the State Property path watched millions go into programs which made little sense and were sucked into the ideological struggle between the two economic systems caused millions to die across the continent. Huge projects with nothing to maintain them but Soviet aid were erected to the dismay of the people who were clearly not going to benefit from them. How could the Workers of the World unite when most of them are peasants farmers? Skip ahead 20-30 years to Obama's speech and you could hear uncomfortable groans when Obama spoke about graft. Isn't there corruption in the US too?

Besides the needless rhetoric we all agree that building stable societies and political systems are a must to have a successful nation, something which still doesn't exist in Iraq. Militarily, the Surge worked. This is a fact but politically it failed to reconcile the nation as analysts like Thomas Ricks are saying. Shi'ia vs Sunni vs Kurd vs Turkey could soon erupt when the US retreats from Mesopotamia. Life is like that a couple hundred miles up the World's Asshole. The US could NOT build a stable society in a few years what it did to Japan in decades. Same with Germany and South Korea. Then again, Germany was Western and Japan was Westernized. Iraq is the Yugoslavia of West Asia. We could see the whole thing unravel post 2011. Great.

The other flies Obama has to swat or at least ignore is Iran, North Korea and Russia. With Russia he's tried rapproachment. He realized Russia is not his enemy. Just a bit annoying when it feels threatned by missile shields and the Blob which constitutes NATO swallowing each ex-Soviet Republic in its path. I'd be scared if I was a Kremlin bureaucratnik too. Obama reassuring Russia isn't reassuring enough hence exercises with the crumbling Russian army in the Caucasus just after NATO and Georgia finish theirs. North Korea is just totally lost right now. Politically they know they're dead so sabre-rattling every month is the only option left. It sure is scaring South Korea and Japan though. Their missile couldn't even get halfway to Hawaii so the US, not so much. Iran now fears the power of Obama. Global populism shaked the foundation of the Islamic Republic but instead of pressing forward, Pres. Obama has just left the Iranians to pick up the pieces. Letting them recover from this onslaught of unrest and the elephant in the room is China. The People's Republic is bankrolling you. How things have changed!

The Chinese realize they're not getting any of their loans back (they're clearly retarded) as the US budget expands and expands gobbling up any money it can possibly consume. They want a new currency, threatning the dollar isn't wise. If they did that, China and Wal-Mart might not be peas in a pod anymore.

Obama's doctrine isn't formalized but after a few months in office we're starting to see the non-interventionist rhetorical style in which it functions. However, his populist message is effect enough to galvanize people across the world. If only it could galvanize policies that could CHANGE the world. That would be change we could all believe in.

That Good Old-Fashioned Voodoo

The more I keep reading about the History of Haiti, the more I can't help but feel sorry for that country. They have the absolute worst luck I think compared to their neighbours like the Dominican Republic, Cuba etc.

Haiti was the first independant nation in Latin America. The second independant nation in the Americas right after the United States of America. The first Black republic created by former slaves. Finally, it spread revolution to other Latin American nations and inspired leaders like Simon Bolivar. The Haiti we know today pales in comparison to its glorious past. Constant political dysfunction, environmental degradation (there are very few trees left in Haiti. Trees!) which cause mudslides due to their being no roots to support soil, AIDS is a major killer and so is famine (people are forced to eat mud on the worst occasions and they share with their neighbours) and finally pretty bad tropical storms. It is the poorest country in its hemisphere. The history of Haiti has always been gruesome though.

Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, the Arawak Aboriginals lived there. Basically having a chill time living life on a Carribbean island until Columbus raped them, gave them Old World diseases, enslaved them etc. By the end of the century, there were very few Arawaks left. Not to worry, a new source of slaves was found. Though it was very far away, the slaves were numerous and were hardy. These slaves were West Africans of course. Millions of them were shipped to the Carribbean and hundreds of thousands were constantly shipped to Haiti because they were worked so hard the slaves couldn't sustain their population due to mortality rates. Haiti went from being Spanish, to being French as just as terrible.

European powers were heavily interested in the Carribbean at this time because of the commodity of sugar. It made Europeans fatter, more energetic and it helped their teeth rot faster with or without the aid of the breads they already consumed. Also, it made their puddings a bit sweeter and their bellies even more distended. France was willing to trade the colony of New France (modern day Quebec) to keep Guadeloupe. Sugar was money. All that money *ahem* sugar needed people to grow it. It's not easy to cut sugar cane, the shaft is tough. Extremely hard to break, you need a machete to cut it easily and this is well before Industrialization. Haitians didn't have it as tough as the Zanj or East African slaves in Southern Iraq but what they had to deal with was pretty bad nonetheless.

From sunrise to sundown, while getting verbally abused and beaten. Surviving on maize, beans and whatever scraps of meat they were able to find. This was the life of the Carribbean slave. Insurrections were common and escaped slaves would form maroon colonies in the hills of mountainous Haiti yet Haiti or Saint-Dominigue as it was called by the French produced most of the world's sugar and coffee by the mid 18th century.

Compared to the other slave colonies in the Carribbean such as Jamaica, Barbados etc. The Haitians managed to keep a form of African religion chiefly from Benin called Vodou or Voodoo. Because of the nature of slavery, most Haitians slaves were born in Africa so they managed to keep their religion alive contrasted with the natural increase of English slaves in the Carribbean. Also, the English separated slaves who spoke the same language to stop insurrection. Another interesting aspect of Haiti was the population of mixed-race inhabitants. The English abhorred such a practise and besides English ladies were more willing to relocate in the Carribbean and US South but French, Spanish and Portuguese ladies were not. They became the middling class because they were able to own land and were born free.

The French Revolution changed the lives of Haiti's 500,000 blacks and 30,000 whites forever for a lot of reasons. Some of the most important reasons are that the Declaration of the Rights of Man also applied to the free mixed-race people of Haiti and free blacks too. The slaves were the biggest pawn in this game and they chose to act first by rebelling on masse, setting fire to plantations, killing slave-owners, forming armed militias under leaders like Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Britain soon invaded to attempt to seize the rich colony (although 90% of its people were dirt poor). The British army of 60,000 were soon defeated.

Things in France rapidly changed as the Jacobins who endorsed freedom were replaced by Napoleon who wished to keep the status quo. His troops were defeated not without the loss of the supreme Haitiian leader Toussaint. Though Haiti would not be prosperous ever again, it's former riches were being hounded by the French who demanded reparations for the right to be independant and their eyes. Also, sugar plantations could not be re-instated without near-slavery conditions and Haiti was a republic founded upon liberty. Dessalines declared himself the First Emperor of Haiti. The first leader of a tropical republic which was quickly losing economic status as rich whites fled the country. Another leader tried to introduce feudalism to keep the plantations running but that failed. Haiti was unstable ever after having too many Emperors for the Black half of Hispaniola.

Today, Haiti is nearly the same. Of course it's former Emperors like Papa Doc Duvalier would never call themselves that but that's what they were. Who knows if Haiti has a chance. I doubt it. Of course I like to be the optimist but Haiti's people need too many things to have a shot at development. Starting with a political system that actually functions for one thing. But when one really looks at the history of Haiti. They never had a shot in the first place. Their agricultural system was going to never allow them to transition easily to the Industrial period. They had only one commodity resource unlike Brazil and they had destroyed their political and moneyed elites (Whites). It's a 19th Century Zimbabwe and a 21st Century tragedy.