Newsletter October 2008 #74

Table of Contents:

Editor's Remarks

This is a part of the wisdom passed down to this editor by his father. Sarcasm isn't a good parenting tool, but it must have had an effect; indecision and panic are not among my traits.

However, there has been much panic and indecision - or worse, bad decisions - on evidence in the last few months as the fallout from the Sub-Prime Mortgage crisis takes effect. There hasn't been a banking panic this profound in decades and the full impact may take a couple of years to manifest. And we haven't even got to the known crises lurking just over the horizon yet:

Dealing (or not) with Iran's nuclear program before they get the bomb;
A Left-Wing Democrat President;
A killer flu pandemic of the 1918 variety;
The dying of Pax Americana;
The effects of the Sun's current rapid cooling (anyone for a Maunder Minimum?);
The demographic implications of Islamic immigration in Europe;
New sanctuary areas in Pakistan and Africa for the Jihad movement.
Burgeoning Chinese economic imperialism and what may follow;
The consequences of over-use of agricultural chemicals on littoral ecosystems;
The fragility of our food infrastructure;
Reborn Russian truculence;

We have not yet begun to panic!

-- JT

The End of Pax Americana?

There are a lot of people who seem cheered by the weakened status of the United States at the moment. They are fools and one can only hope that if their wishes come to pass, they become the first victims of the world that emerges when the Pax Americana ends. Alas, the universe simply isn't that fair.

Peace is something whose existence we can construe from the occasional absence of war. In European history, between the creation of the modern nation state with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 (which ended the ghastly Thirty Years War) and the final downfall of Napoleon after the battle of Waterloo in 1815, there was scarcely a year without a war going on somewhere on the continent.

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The Tigers Die Hard

Since their emergence as a local terrorist group from out of a criminal sub-community in Jaffna on Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have undergone several transformations. The next one might be their most persistent - and pernicious - one yet.

The organization and discipline of the LTTE has always made them worth studying. They are very innovative, resourceful and hard-working: These characteristics would make their members a success in any more peaceful or profitable field of endeavor. Alas, for the Tamils of Sri Lanka and the other peoples of the island nation, their talents have been turned to revolt. Now, after decades of warfare, the 25-year old Tiger guerrilla force is facing defeat, and what comes next may reveal even more of the character of the movement behind them.

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The Quality of Mercy

Back in the late 1990s, there was a computer game about submarine warfare in the Second World War. It was interesting to notice that one of the consultants for the game Aces of the Deep was the German U-Boat ace, Otto Kretschmer. The top scoring submarine commander of the war (in terms of tonnage sunk), he ended up as a POW in Canada. He was repatriated to Germany in 1947, and joined the Kriegsmarine once more when it was re-constituted in 1955. He continued his naval career until his retirement as an admiral and he died after a boating accident in 1998 at 86 years of age.

Kretschmer's survival was unusual. The Second World War German U-boat crews had a hard service that few of them survived. Of 1,162 U-Boats, 790 were sunk or destroyed in battle. From 1934 until the end of the war, some 40,100 Germans became submariners. Of these, 30,246 died in the war and 5,338 were rescued as POWs from sinking boats. The cause they served was atrocious and submariners are always detested by the mariners they hunt, but it would be a mistake to doubt the valour of the U-Boat crews.

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Alexander Mackenzie's Bookshelf

Fear Hunger...

If you are one of those who normally sneer at "Think Globally, Act Locally" nostrums to complex problems, or ignores shrill alarms from environmental activists; there is one problem. You cannot always be right. There is a critical series of problems looming over the horizon with all the cheerful insouciance of an iceberg drifting into a busy shipping lane. Let us put it this way: Do you like the idea of having our food supplies healthy, cheap, available and safe?

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"As time goes on scientists know more and more about less and less while the politicians know less and less about bugger-all."

"The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal"

Notice to our Friends and Readers

Our intention to move as much of our distribution as we can to electronic means seems increasingly sound: Canada Post is promising a dramatic increase in postal rates for next year. Besides, if you received this Newsletter in the mail, you received it at least a week after those who elected to get it over the internet. There is other material in production that will probably only be available on our website or through internet distribution.

So, are these arguments compelling enough to give us your e-mail address? If so, please drop a note to mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca and let us know what you prefer. Much thanks.

The Mackenzie Institute

The Institute was formed in 1986 to provide research and comment on such diverse subjects as terrorism, organized crime, political extremism, propaganda, conflict and other such matters. It does not shy away from controversy.

The Institute holds to the proposition that our democratic institutions need to be defended and enhanced, and works to do what it can to protect the stability of Canadian society.

Those who support its purposes are invited to become Friends of the Institute, and those who contribute $60 (or more) to it, receive its publications for the next twelve months.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: institute@mackenzieinstitute.com

The Mackenzie Institute

The Institute was formed in 1986 to provide research and comment on such diverse subjects as terrorism, organized crime, political extremism, propaganda, conflict and other such matters. It does not shy away from controversy.

The Institute holds to the proposition that our democratic institutions need to be defended and enhanced, and works to do what it can to protect the stability of Canadian society.

Those who support its purposes are invited to become Friends of the Institute, and those who contribute $60 (or more) to it, receive its publications for the next twelve months.