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	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-Jan-2010
24-Jan-10 News - Arms sales to India and Pakistan, UK threat level

Web Log - January, 2010

24-Jan-10 News - Arms sales to India and Pakistan, UK threat level

Theologians ask: Why did God punish the Haitians with an earthquake?

Gates explains strategy of arms sales to India and Pakistan

American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is confronting a nominal contradiction in American foreign policy, according to an analysis in the Los Angeles Times: How could the US be selling military weapons to both Pakistan and India, especially when the US is concerned about a possible war between the two countries?

According to the article, the strategy is as follows:

They're going to buy weapons from somewhere, so it might as well be from America.

Military cooperation will build trust in the American administration.

The Pentagon is careful not to alter the military balance between the two countries. Thus, a Pentagon official says: "Another squadron of F-16s means they [Pakistan] will lose the next war with India a little slower. They are not going to defeat India because we gave them a squadron of F-16s. The military overmatch India enjoys is just too great."

However, Generational Dynamics predicts that India and Pakistan are headed for a new war re-fighting the massive war that began after Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan.

Why did UK raise its terror threat level to 'Severe'?

We mentioned this briefly yesterday, but few details were known beyond the fact that it means that chance of a terrorist attack is now "highly likely," instead of merely being "substantial."

It turns out to be a consequence of the attempted jetliner bombing over Detroit on Christmas day, according to an analysis by The Telegraph.

Recall that the attempt was perpetrated by an "underwear bomber," someone who hid bomb incredients in his underwear, but failed to explode them at his intended time.

The attempted Detroit attack demonstrated a "new methodology," according to the article, leading to fears that al-Qaeda is planning "a wave of attacks."

Why did God punish the Haitians with an earthquake?

Francis X. Clooney, A Jesuit scholar, writing for The National Catholic Weekly analyzes Pat Robertson's recent remarks that God punished the Haitians because they made a deal with the Devil. He dislikes Robertson's statements, but he wonders what the correct answer is, if Robertson is wrong.

Michael Johnson, writing in The NY Times, quotes Voltaire as asking the same question about a devastating earthquake in Lisbon in 1755:

    Would you say, seeing this heap of victims,
    That God is avenged, that their death is payment for their crimes?
    What crimes, what bad things have been committed by these children,
    Lying on the breasts of their mothers, flattened and bloody?
    Lisbon is a city no longer. Did it have more vices
    Than London, than Paris, given to doubtful delights?

I'm not a religious person, but I like religion, and it plays an important part in Generational Dynamics theory. (See "Book review review: Christopher Hitchens: 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'.")

The question that I ask of religious theorists is this: For millennia, the population rate has grown faster than man's ability to grow food, and this has been the root cause of thousands of genocidal wars. How, according to religious theory, could God allow this to happen?

I've asked may religious people this question, and have never gotten a credible answer. I should also mention that neither Clooney nor Johnson provide answers to why God might have punished Haitians with such devastation.

Additional Links

At the Global Economic Trend Analysis blog, Michael "Mish" Shedlock explains in detail why California is headed for bankruptcy. The short answer: California has some of the highest tax rates, but is being strangled by public service unions.

Gu Yan's China News blog quotes Chinese news sources as saying that Pakistan is buying 36 Chinese J-16 fighters, in addition to America's F-16 fighters described above.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Jan-10 News - Arms sales to India and Pakistan, UK threat level thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (24-Jan-2010) Permanent Link
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