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Date : 2/22/2017 10:35:00 π.μ.


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What's a little terrorism between dialogue partners?
The sharam at Sharm-el-Sheikh
Dr Manmohan Singh met Yusuf Raza Gilani at the sidelines of the NAM summit in Egypt and among others, agreed that "dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed." They'll continue playing dossiers-and-lawsuits.
If this was what India intended to do, it is baffling that the prime minister had to travel all the way to Egypt, meet Mr Gilani there, and declare that "dialogue is the only way forward." At least, the Indian people could have been spared the shameful spectacle of the prime minister radiating forgiveness and sympathy in the full glare of the international media.
Let's see how Dr Singh's policy might be justified. It can be reasonably argued that the Zardari-Gilani disposition is really powerless and engaging them seriously will achieve several things simultaneously. The civilians putatively in power in Islamabad will be 'strengthened', India will be able to engage Pakistan where it makes sense and international (read US) pressure can be defused by pointing to a dialogue process.
It might even lead to diplomatic and perceptional benefits arising from Pakistan admitting that it is the source of international jihadi terrorism. So even if this approach doesn't yield any advantages on containing anti-India terrorism, it will help lower political risk perceptions of international investors, and therefore, there's no harm in taking this course. Perhaps it will even dissuade jihadis from attacking India, once they learn that their actions won't amplify into an India-Pakistan standoff.
Maybe. But the problem with Dr Singh's approach is that it is too reasonable. Every political actor in Pakistan will rest assured that it can inflict damage on India in order to gain an advantage in the domestic power play. The military-jihadi complex, for instance, will be vindicated in its belief that it is strategically inexpensive to stage an attack against India to fend-off US pressure to act against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Zardari-Gilani duo will be less inclined to face down the military-jihadi complex because India has let them off the hook. Sure, the Obama administration will applaud India's restraint because it'll clear the decks for the United States to go through with the Af-Pak strategy—but there is no guarantee that it will be sensitive to India's interests in the region.
This is not to say that resuming the dialogue is a mistake. But Dr Singh gave away too much without getting anything substantial in return. There is a hint that there is some kind of a backroom deal with the Pakistani military establishment but let's face it, such deals are easily repudiated, unenforceable and won't last the next major terrorist attack. Arresting, trying and jailing leaders of jihadi groups will not stop Pakistan-sponsored jihadi terrorism against India. But India yielded before Pakistan delivered that minimum of minimums. The Indian prime minister has pulled Pakistan out of the international doghouse yet again without anything to show for it. Dr Singh, of all people, should know that this approach doesn't work—the 'joint anti-terrorism framework' announced at the NAM summit at Havana came to a nought. (See After the Havana appeasement)
Author Nitin PaiPosted on 16th July 2009 16th July 2009 Categories Foreign Affairs, SecurityTags cross-border terrorism, military-jihadi complex, Pakistan
29 thoughts on "What's a little terrorism between dialogue partners?"
AnandP says:
What other stance can the PM take? He is dealing with a weak Pakistani democracy at the brink of a civil war with a very real threat of nuclear enabled terrorists.
How can you argue that anyone, US included, will, given the present situation, take pak-backed terrorism in India lightly? From what I can see there is a general consensus that terrorism cannot be compartmentalized into regions, the taliban-pak-US war is also an India-taliban war.
What can we get in return?
AnandP
Who cares. Our Citizens never placed any premium on their countrymens life. You and I can shout all we want from these blogs. But as long as the Idiotic Indian voter develops any sort of brain and think before voting, no ruling dispensation will have any incentives to take action against terrorism. Because as long as they are alive these so called voters don't give a crap about how many people die of these bomb blasts. So why do we even act surprised if the the puppet singh and his masters decided to surrender to the Pakis. It is the easiest option for them they don't have to make any hard choices and their vote bank is intact and the people will forget it in 24 hours. And the entire MSM will do its part by spinning this as a greatest victory for peace and how We and Pakis are brothers and Hindutva is the bigger enemy of the nation and how terrorism is a non issue in politics and all that crap. And then there will be more attacks and the cycle will continue. Who cares for a few thousand dead bodies in a country of billion except if the dead is from a particular political family. I am sick and tired of this but can't do anything because we gave too many stupid people right to vote.
libertarian says:
But Dr Singh gave away too much without getting anything substantial in return.
It is the Indian Way. Pioneered by Ashoka, perfected by Akbar and taken to its logical conclusion by Gandhi. Works well in India – has poor results with folks who don't get its dynamics. We're stuck with it – might as well stop wringing our hands in despair.
Jetlag says:
We are a nation of morons to have elected such morons.
Is there no one to advise sanity?
Anantha Nageswaran says:
I agree. I was startled. Stopping condemnation of such abjectly strategy-armen (German word for poor) is not the right thing to do. It might have been started, practiced, perfected and honed over centuries. It might take centuries to displace it with something resembling self-respect and spunk. But, that is no excuse for not trying. In fact, it is logical then that efforts such as your piece above be redoubled.
Vickey Vice says:
So Baluchistan is a bilateral issue and Kashmir is not? Me likee.
Jokes aside, Our gummint probably realizes that it is talking to a sock puppet. No point in getting worked up over it.
Gaurav says:
absolutely stupid and shameful. No doubt that the US has fingered India and Pakistan into doing this, before Hillary Clinton's visit to India during which she will coo sweet nothings to the Indian press and politicos.
Who's advising Manmohan Singh?
Aryan says:
The unkil leaned on the Sardar and he caved in with the blessings of Sonia mata ofcourse. If you elect eunuchs, expect some nautanki. Paks must be glad terror wont stop dialogue, maybe the next batch of LET vultures have already landed.
Bobcat says:
Nitin,
Congrats on the Outlook article. I certainly see that as welcome progress in your journey to a full-fledged commentator on strategic issues. Kudos!
libertarian,
I am curious what Ashoka and, and especially, Akbar, did that was equivalent to Gandhi.
Manmohan still hasn't risen to Gandhi's level. He's got five more years to get there – give away parts of J&K and parts of Arunachal for the sake of peace and a prize, perhaps!
Bala says:
Looks like India has not given anything away! I think India is spinning a "joint stmt" a little to cool US 🙂 Now Rice cannot lecture Mr.Singh on dialogue with paksitan – India will point to the "joint stmt". And India is not going to start the "dialogue" either!
"Speaking to reporters later, Dr. Singh said Mr. Gilani had been keen to resume the composite dialogue "here and now." "But I said that the dialogue cannot begin unless and until the terrorist acts of Mumbai are fully accounted for and the perpetrators are brought to book." Unless this happened, he stressed, "I cannot agree and our public opinion will not agree." There was no road map for resumption yet, he said, but added: "We have an obligation to engage Pakistan."
Chandra regarding Ashoka, Akbar and Gandhi I was referring specifically to their idea of preferring peace/non-violence to war/violence. They were all great unifiers. However, extrapolating the idea of using peace-carrots to folks who can only see reason with a stick is a mistake. As the Kenny Rogers song goes "sometimes you gotta fight to be a man".
dude40000 says:
The only thing this shameful incident has achieved is that a lifelong Congress supporter like me has moved firmly into the BJP camp.
Humiliating it is, but this looks almost inevitable given our past track record. Pakistan itself has nothing much to gain from these talks except to keep the pressure off from its western allies. And western pressure was always going to diminish with time once we ruled out the military option. The fact is, US and its allies KNOW that we are sissies (or too reasonable, as Nitin puts it) and they make their diplomatic moves towards Pakistan accordingly. We can always be made to see "reason" even under the most intolerable circumstances (remember the parliament attack and operation parakram). This being the framework, keeping the communication lines open is relatively more sensible than not talking, from India's point of view. What exactly do we gain by not talking – nothing. Atleast, we will be thrown some crumbs by Pak (at the behest of the US) if we do talk.
What we really need to do is change this framework. We need to prove to the world that we take our sovereignity and our citizens lives very seriously – a seriousness befitting our military and economic might. For once, we will have to actually inflict a huge cost on the enemy (and not just talk, like MMS) – just to tell them that we will no longer allow terrorism to be a low-cost proposition. And to prove to the world that we know how to be unreasoanble.
BTW, does even MMS understand what excatly his strategy is? On the one hand, he says:
"It has been and remains our consistent position that the starting point of any meaningful dialogue with Pakistan is a fulfillment of their commitment, in letter and spirit, not to allow their territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India,"
But then he goes on to say:
"Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and therefore cannot await other developments."
Indians should die in Mumbai, so that Americans need not in NYC. Americans need the help of precious little Paks to kill anti-american Al qaeda. We'll just have to get over the mumbai massacre by the 'bad boys' of LET. We have a billion people, farmers kill themselves everyday they are so poor, whats a few hundred in a terrorist attack? Indians are expendable at the cost of Americans. Mr Singh is an 'eminent' economist, he knows.
But why blame the Americans when we have had dialogues with the jihadis for a millennium now?
"Akbar….I was referring specifically to their idea of preferring peace/non-violence to war/violence"
Akbar surely wasn't a man of peace, however one cuts it.
Udayan says:
@libertarian @chandra
Bollocks to Akbar and historical explanations! The UPA is screwing up big time and no one, not even the BJP, is hauling MMS over the coals.
Let's not lose track of the issue: we are being steered around by a surrender monkey.
@Udayan The UPA is screwing up big time and no one, not even the BJP, is hauling MMS over the coals.
We lack any credible military deterrent. So hauling MMS over hot coals is useless. The BJP would rant and menace but would be bluffing for the same reason. Till we develop the ability to create real pain for the decision-makers in Pakistan – not the average Ahmed in Karachi – we'll continue to do our best imitation of large punching bags and be the economically successful military eunuchs. That pain is not inflicted by the marching batallions to the border. It's made possibly by serious investment in intelligence and in high-value-target black ops.
@libertarian
What you are suggesting make sense. But what is the incentive for this spineless Government to work towards the policy goals you have suggested. Nothing. They know they can win election after election regardless of what they do and don't do regarding terrorism. Because most of the Indian electorate are idiots anyway they can't think beyond their own wallet. And now terrorism became an acceptable face of life for those idiots. They simply don't care.They don't understand the fact that you can't be a successful economic power without a good security framework to defend it. Ultimately they will pay the price for it both physically and economically but they are too stupid to understand that. Also the media is completely under the control of CON party loyalists they can throw some patronage their way and these Media idiots will be loyal to the Gandhi family for another 100 years. So the spineless MMS has zero incentive to take any action against Pakis because the electorate don't give a damn. Infact if he takes action then there is a chance in their mind that they will loose their vote bank so the CON party will never ever do anything you outlined on their own.At least if the BJP makes some noise about it then there is tiny 1% chance that Govt will be forced to answer some question. (Not that they will change their stance atleast it will be a lil embarrasing for the Govt.)
Arvind says:
I don't want to blame Mr. Singh alone. What were the babus and officials at the MEA doing? No, seriously, what the heck are they thinking? I don't get it. Maybe it's SO CHANAKIAN that a simpleton like me cannot get it.
Why was Baluchistan included in the "joint statement"? And with one statement, again India and Pak are BOTH victims of terror and India = Pak. Game over. We can all now forget about 26/11. Nothing is gonna be done (in case some one wishfully thought something was going to be done till now). Shameful. So India can wait for the next attack from Pak, God knows what form it will be. Sometimes I think India deserves what it gets from Pak. It is karma (interpreted as INACTION) only u see.
"We lack any credible military deterrent. So hauling MMS over hot coals is useless. The BJP would rant and menace but would be bluffing for the same reason."
This is LAZY POSTURING. No one (not even VHP or Bajrang Dal) is suggesting going to war with Pak. But that does not mean u have to keep giving concessions to Pak diplomatically. That makes India look stupid. "India and Pak are both victims of terror". My foot. Why do u need to keep saying that every time? Is this because of US pressure? If so we shouldn't care. I mean seriously what has this admin (I do think last admin by Goerge W understood Islamic terrorism directed at India from Pak and did not differentiate between AQ and Taliban and these guys but current admin is back to smoke and mirrors and Kashmir) done for India?
Now some people say words do not matter, action does. But that is not completely true. Words can force a person to take the action that u want him to take. This is what we call DIPLOMACY. Not giving stupid statements after wine and cheese parties.
"Till we develop the ability to create real pain for the decision-makers in Pakistan – not the average Ahmed in Karachi…"
Doesn't RAW have the capability to do even this? I mean, in the current "free for all" environment in Pak, is it that difficult to put out a "supari" on Hafiz Saeed? If an "intel agency" can't even do this, why have it in the first place, we can as well shut shop! Just have IB.
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Am fully expecting the next 26/11 to be 10x the last one. Pak has just confirmed it can get away, literally speaking, with anything now.
The silver lining, such as it is, is that at least the country was spared the expense of another expensive but ultimately pointless military buildup like Op Parakram after the parliament attack.
If Pak tries a Kargil now, they might even get away with the territory sans any fightback. The PM was ok with an Indian climbdown over Siachen but the MoD babus managed to stave off disaster that time.
Would be nice if India and the US exchange no more diginitaries. Their coming and going leads to more pressure which in turn leads to this kinda rut.
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Q: Running orchard CMS version (1.10) and (1.10.1) from visual studio 2015 Below is the error that I is displayed when in tried to run Orchard (1.10 and 1.10.1) source from Visual studio 2015 community version.

I know that it is somehow related with configuration settings, but I am unable to solve it.
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How to resolve this error?

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Sometime, IIS Express messes up when you try to launch a site with the same port that a previously used one.
Try to read your applicationhost.config (see IIS Express in tasks bar to get the path).
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Neil Harris' verdict on Cardiff City's mooted pursuit of Crystal Palace's Victor Camarasa and explains Gary Madine's exit
The Bluebirds have been linked with a move for the Spaniard during the January transfer window, with the player likely to leave Crystal Palace this month
Glen Williams
Neil Harris has poured cold water over Cardiff City's pursuit of Victor Camarasa (Image: Sunday Mirror)
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Neil Harris has poured cold water over Cardiff City's mooted pursuit of Crystal Palace's wantaway playmaker Victor Camarasa.
It is understood that the Spaniard, who endeared himself to Bluebirds supporters during his loan stint in the Welsh capital last season, is angling for a move away from Selhurst Park this month.
Spanish football expert Colin Millar told WalesOnline that the Bluebirds had made contact with the player's representatives ahead of the January transfer window and, while they would be facing stiff opposition from clubs in England and Spain, a return to Cardiff City Stadium was a possibility.
Harris, however, revealed that the club have not made any enquiries to bring Camarasa back.
"No, not at the moment," he said when asked if contact had been made.
"He's a player that's known here quite well. He had some good times here as well, a quality player.
"At the moment, though, there's no legs in that at all."
Harris admitted that now Gary Madine has been released by the club, as well as Armand Traore, it frees up some funds for him to use in this month's window.
Madine was let go with 18 months left still left to run on his contract, but many were left wondering why the club didn't attempt to sell him, even at cut price.
Harris, however, said he thought it was the right time for all parties to simply cut ties.
Cardiff City transfer news Live: Bluebirds leaving 'no stone unturned' in signings hunt
South Wales derby Q&A full transcript as your questions answered on team news and January transfers
"I think if the club thought there was value in selling him, they would have like to have sold," he added.
"They got to a stage where it was best for the club and Gary to part ways.
"I enjoyed working with him and he did well for me. Sometimes, time is everything and family as well.
"Gary is a North East lad and sometimes family has to come first.
"If the club could have recouped some of the money they paid they would have liked to have done, but circumstances dictated what happened.
"My support goes to Gary and it's probably the right decision all round."
Gary Madine has left the club by mutual consent (Image: Getty Images)
The City boss had originally said the club would be looking only at loan deals and free agents this month, but on Friday revealed he had sounded out a few clubs about potentially signing players for a fee.
Harris said the club are working tirelessly behind the scenes to recruit the right calibre of players and are not limiting themselves to players from only the Championship and League One.
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"No stone unturned in what we are doing. Obviously with Gary going, Armand Traore leaving away, straight away there is two positions that need maybe more strength in depth.
"We've enquired quite strongly about a couple of players and were quite close on one, but hasn't quite materialised.
"So we are working quite diligently and aggressively behind the scenes.
"Fantastic support from the board and it's trying to make sure we add to the qualities we've got.
"I'm really proud of the group I've got but sometimes you need to add a bit of impetus to it. "


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Bholanath (dewanagari भोलानाथ्, trl.: bholanāth, trk.: bholanath) – jedna z postaci hinduistycznego boga o imieniu Śiwa jak również jego epitet.

Inkarnacja Śiwy
W północnoindyjskim Kumaonie Bholanath traktowany jest jako stosunkowo niezależne bóstwo z kręgu śiwaizmu. Legendy hinduizmu ludowego tamtego rejonu wiążą pobyt Bholanatha na Ziemi z okolicami miast Almora i Champawat. W Champawacie znajduje się poświęcona mu świątynia hinduistyczna (mandir).

Epitet boga i wyznawców
Słowo Bholanath bywa stosowane jako imię męskie w Indiach, wobec hinduistycznych osób duchownych z tradycji śiwaizmu, jak również jako tytuł dla samego boga Śiwy Bhola (dewanagari: भोला, trl.: bholā, trk.: bhola) to w hindi przymiotnik o znaczeniu: prosty, niewinny. W omawianym  przypadku występuje charakterystyczne dla Bengalu, połączenie z tytułem hinduistycznym nath. Przykład z Bengalu: Mokszada Sundari Dewi, matka guru i świętej Anandamaji Ma, w 1914 nazwała tak jej męża Śri Dźagatbandhu Ćakrawartiego.

Hinduistyczne imiona guru
J.E. Śri Bhola Nathdźi Bagawan
Pandit Bhola Nathdźi z Varanasi
Baba Bhola Nath (= Ramani Mohan Ćakrawarti)

Świeckie imiona Indusów
Bholanath Koyal - aktor
Bhola Nath - jeden z porywaczy samolotu Indian Airlines (20.12.1978)

Przypisy

Śiwa

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Home » Martin Kramer on Iran/ Wikileaks revelations on Iraq
Martin Kramer on Iran/ Wikileaks revelations on Iraq
Oct 28, 2010 | AIJAC staff
Today's Update leads with some particularly perspicacious views on the strategic implications of Iran's nuclear program from Dr. Martin Kramer, one of the most insightful and knowledgeable Middle East scholars around. In an interview with peripatetic freelance journalist Michael Totten, Kramer analyses the implications of the program for the US, Israel and the states of Persian Gulf. It's filled with insights about what Iran wants, the roles of Hamas and Hezbollah, and what Israeli and Persian Gulf national leaders are thinking, but his thoughts on the notion of "linkage" between the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the Iranian nuclear file are particularly not to be missed. For all of it, CLICK HERE.
Next up is a summary of some of the less-publicised aspects of the latest Wikileaks release of documents on the Iraq war. American analyst J. E. Dyer points out that the documents released are, contrary to assertions in the media, nothing like the famous Pentagon papers because they reveal nothing new about US strategic thinking or cover ups in Washington. However, they do reveal some other interesting information: they re-confirm extensive and direct Iranian involved in supporting Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq, they somewhat contradict the dominant international understandings about WMD in Iraq (see below), and they contradict some exaggerated claims, such as those published by the Lancet magazine in 2006, about the extent of civilian casualties in the Iraq conflict. For more details about each of these aspects on the documents released, complete with links, CLICK HERE. A response to some of the media coverage of Wikileaks comes from American strategic analyst Max Boot.
Finally, we include a more extensive piece on the most surprising of the three revelations of the Wikileaks release documents noted above – the extent of the WMD located in Iraq. While the extensive program described in the lead-up to the war by the Bush Administration is not supported by the documents, the documents do contain hundreds of references to chemical and biological weapons. While many of these end up being false reports, the document show that not only were remnant chemical weapons prepared for use by insurgents, chemical weapons labs were also uncovered, chemical warfare technicians were identified, and in some cases, new chemical warfare agents were apparently created in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. For all the surprising details, CLICK HERE.
The Wikileaks material has led to considerable interest in Israel, with many commentators pointing out that there appears to be a double standards given that Israel is being accused of war crimes in Gaza for civilian casualties levels that appear no worse, and possibly better, than the US and British achieved in Iraq – see here, here, and here.
Israeli columnist Evelyn Gordon notes that the New York Times, reporting on Wikileaks, points out that the norm has been "10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century" and that by any measure, Israel's performance in Gaza in 2008-9 was much better than this.
A useful timeline of developments over the past year in Iran's nuclear program.
Iran restricts social science courses – including law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and women's studies – at its universities, saying they are incompatible with Islamic teachings.
If Iran Gets the Bomb
by Michael J. Totten
Michaeltotten.com, October 26, 2010
I sought out Martin Kramer in Jerusalem because I knew he would give me an analysis well outside the box on Iranian nuclear weapons. He's a scholar, not a politician or pundit. And while he certainly has his opinions, he doesn't conveniently fit into anyone's ideological category.
I was not disappointed, and I don't think you will be either. What he has to say is different from anything you've read from anyone in the media, including me.
MJT: I assume you read Jeffrey Goldberg's article in The Atlantic this summer. He asked dozens of Israeli decision-makers and analysts if they think Israel will strike Iran's nuclear weapons facilities, and the consensus seems to be that the odds are greater than fifty percent that it will happen before the middle of summer in 2011. What do you think?
Martin Kramer: It's in Israel's interest to convince the world that the decision-makers are leaning in that direction. The idea is to prompt somebody else to take action, in particular the Obama administration. So there's a debate about whether or not Jeffrey has been spun.
MJT: Yes, and he mentioned that himself.
Martin Kramer: The whole purpose of spinning Jeffrey Goldberg — assuming that's what happened — was to prod the United States into taking a more forward position. Americans are taking a forward position already, but the idea here would be to multiply the effect.
But I don't know. I haven't spoken to all the people Jeffrey talked to, and there are a lot of variables that we don't know yet. The timeline is open to question. The intelligence is also being debated. So while I wouldn't put a percentage on it, plans are definitely on the table. If the Unites States doesn't act, the moment will come when a decision will have to be made. We don't know what the arguments will be or in which ways the calculations will shift between now and then. Israel has the option, though, and it's on the table. I wouldn't say the odds are greater than fifty percent, but it's a credible option.
MJT: What do you think Iran would actually do with a nuclear bomb?
Martin Kramer: The Iranians have a structural interest in creating doubt and uncertainty in the Persian Gulf. They have a larger population than any other Gulf state, and they don't have the share of oil resources that Saudi Arabia has. So their first objective would be to create a climate of uncertainty.
Now, the Persian Gulf has been — since the United States took over from the British — a zone that is essentially under an American security umbrella. It is as crucial to American security as Lake Michigan. The United States doesn't use most of the oil coming out of the Gulf, but its allies do, so the stability of the Gulf has been associated with a steady flow of oil and a price that moves within a predictable range.
Iran wants to create uncertainty there because oil is the only thing it has. Iran has nothing else — some carpets and pistachio nuts, and that's it. Their population continues to grow, their needs continue to grow, and their grand ambitions continue to grow. So this, I think, is the first thing they would do with it. All it takes is to create a crisis or a succession of crises.
Iran knows it can't wrest sole hegemony in the Gulf from the United States, but it wants to create a kind of dual hegemony shared with the United States. Nobody knows where the lines would run, but they wouldn't run just five to ten miles off the coast of Iran into the waters of the Persian Gulf. Iran would like to see its share extend to both sides of the Gulf, to effectively create a kind of push and shove between the United States and Iran.
A lot of people on the Arab side of the Gulf will say they feel Iran's breath on their faces. The United States is there now, but the British were there once, too, and now they're gone. The Persians are always there and will always be there. So we'll see a lot of hedging. Iran would be perceived as the rising power and the United States a declining power.
Don't assume that in the Persian Gulf they don't hear what we say about this. Obama was famously photographed holding a copy of Fareed Zakaria's book The Post-American World during the election campaign. And don't assume they don't hear Americans talking about imperial overstretch.
MJT: You're talking about the Arabs here.
Martin Kramer: Yes, the Arabs. And this creates a dynamic where if Iran also has nuclear weapons they will increasingly hedge. Things they allow Americans now — such as basing rights for operations in the Persian Gulf and beyond — will become more and more difficult to negotiate if Iran opposes them. So we would see an erosion of the American position in the Persian Gulf.
I think Iran is a lot less interested in justice for the Palestinians than in establishing their command over the gulf they call Persian.
MJT: We call it the Persian Gulf, too.
Martin Kramer: For reasons of geographic exactitude and custom. But Americans don't mean it should be dominated by Iran.
MJT: Right.
Martin Kramer: The Iranians do. That's the longer term objective. And like I said, they're less interested in justice for the Palestinians than they are in this. They remind me a bit of Saddam Hussein. He said at one point that he would burn half of Israel, yet turned around and instead burned a lot of Kuwait. He wasn't as interested in being admired by the Palestinians as he was about controlling resources. The Gulf is always very much a resource game. So that would be the first objective of the Iranians. But, of course, Iran also wants to wage proxy wars elsewhere.
MJT: They do have interests in the Levant [the Eastern Mediterranean].
Martin Kramer: They have interests in the Levant, but there's nothing here that can solve their fundamental problems, which is the mismatch of population and resources. Their game in the Levant is to get around America's flank. They see Israel as an extension of America, but it's not their primary area of interest.
Obviously, though, they have an ideological interest here, and they're willing to fight Israel to the last Lebanese Shiite, but it's an open question how much they'd be willing to sacrifice themselves directly.
So that's why I think Iranian nuclear weapons are a world problem as much as, or even more than, they are an Israeli problem.
MJT: The Persian Gulf is certainly more of a world problem than an Israeli problem.
Martin Kramer: Israel has to take it seriously, though. After listening to Iran's discourse, Israel can't rule out the possibility that even a small faction could get their finger on the trigger.
It's a world problem, though, and the world has to ask itself if it can tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran deliberately creating uncertainty, instability, and doubt surrounding the great reservoir of the world's energy. If a coalition ever comes together to stop Iran, this will be the reason.
MJT: What do you think will happen in the Levant if Iran builds a bomb? Will wars with Hezbollah and Hamas be more or less likely, and peace with the Palestinians more or less likely?
Martin Kramer: Those are two separate issues.
MJT: Yes, but they'll both be affected.
Martin Kramer: Right. It will certainly create a situation where there would be an expectation among the supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas that Iran would act to come to their defense by using its nuclear capabilities to threaten Israel, but I'm not sure Iran wants to do that. We saw during the last Lebanon war that the timing of the crisis was not to Iran's liking. The Iranians would not have chosen the summer of 2006 to have Hezbollah in a crisis with Israel.
MJT: They were angry about it.
Martin Kramer: They view the Levant as an arena that can be integrated into their larger strategy, not so they can support a strategy that has been independently formulated by Hezbollah. Hezbollah doesn't deliberately formulate an independent strategy, but Hamas certainly does.
If Iran decides to take the route that Israel and Japan have taken—either nuclear ambiguity or being one screw away from having a bomb—it would be less subject to moral extortion by the extremists in the Levant who would act unilaterally and expect Iran to come to their aid. So an ambiguous scenario wouldn't increase the possibility of warfare, but if Iran becomes an explicit and open nuclear state, that's a different story. Even the United States and the Soviet Union went on nuclear alert over an Arab-Israeli war. But you never know. Knowing in advance that it could lead to that kind of escalation, there might be mechanisms which would kick into action before things reached that level.
I do think a nuclear Iran creates a dynamic where Israel, from a strategic point of view, is compelled to keep a tight grip on Jerusalem and a large swath of the West Bank for the simple reason that it creates a deterrent to an Iranian attack. If all our strategic assets are concentrated on the coastal plain around Tel Aviv, we're vulnerable. An Iranian ayatollah, Rafsanjani, has already noted that Israel is vulnerable to one strike. So how to we change that calculation?
A big country like the United States disperses its assets across a vast continent when facing nuclear adversaries. A small state can't do that. But within this small state is a prime Muslim holy place, the liberation of which is championed by the Iranians, and it's in Jerusalem.
So if Israel faces a real nuclear adversary that threatens its destruction and has Islamic fervor as the basis of its ideology—one that holds up Jerusalem as a symbol—it will make all the sense in the world to concentrate every strategic asset it can right next to it.
The Israeli leadership has built a duplicate command center in Jerusalem exactly like the one it has in Tel Aviv in the Ministry of Defense. So why stop at the top brass and the political leadership if you know that over the long term we'll face a hostile nuclear adversary? It makes sense to load up Jerusalem with strategic assets which would themselves serve as a deterrent to a future exchange. And it's a lot easier to do than position submarines in the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean.
So the long term effect would be to make Jerusalem central to Israel not only for political and cultural reasons, but also for strategic reasons. That doesn't mean all kinds of arrangements can't be made on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians about the day-to-day running of the city. In the past, Israel was concerned about holding the Jordan Valley as its eastern front against an invading conventional army.
The view to the east toward the Jordan Valley from Mount Scopus in Jerusalem
In a nuclear scenario the city itself would become crucial to preventing an adversary from striking a decisive blow which would render it no longer viable as a state. The idea is to persuade that adversary that even if there is a strike against Israel's concentration of population, Israel will still remain viable.
MJT: It sounds, though, like this would make resolving the conflict with the Palestinians much more difficult.
Martin Kramer: Yes.
MJT: I figured we'd agree, but can you explain why you think that's the case?
Martin Kramer: If there's a shift of Israel's assets from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the struggle over real estate up here becomes even more acute. There will be less leeway for Israeli concessions. Concessions are difficult to make in any case. Local security issues can be, in way or another, finessed, but once they play out in this mega arena of confrontation between nuclear states, flexibility diminishes quickly. It would create tremendous pressure on Israel to maintain its right to decide the future of different pieces of turf close to the city.
I took this photograph of Jerusalem from the West Bank. That's how close it is.
In the past we had the idea that in order for Israel to remain viable we had to settle the Negev Desert and the Galilee because they have large Arab populations.
Eilat, Israel, on the Red Sea at the bottom of the Negev Desert
That was never for religious reasons, it was always for strategic reasons. A nuclear Iran would create strategic calculations for Jerusalem that weren't there before. There were always other strategic calculations for Jerusalem, but this would create a powerful new one. What would the Israelis and Palestinians discuss at the table once that became a factor?
Linkage is a big issue, but there's a debate over which way linkage runs. Some say a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would make it much easier for the United States to deal with Iran. But I think the absence of a solution to the Iranian nuclear dilemma places a high premium on Israel holding if not the totality of the occupied territories, at least a sizable bit of real estate around Jerusalem as a strategic reserve.
I say this as someone who has always believed there would be some way to compromise over Jerusalem, but when I see the prospect of a nuclear Iran on the horizon threatening Israel, I say to myself that I want as many of Israel's strategic, demographic, industrial, and technological assets in and around the city as possible.
MJT: So what do you say to people who prioritize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Iranian nuclear weapons?
Martin Kramer: I'd like to know more about how this is supposed to affect Iran's calculations. I don't think it will. I think they decided long ago that they want to have a hegemonic role enhanced by nuclear capability. A resolution of the conflict here wouldn't deter them or persuade them from that ambition. On the contrary, they would believe that Israel would grow stronger and would be even more of a threat than it is today. They're going to pursue this track no matter what.
The theory is that a resolution to the conflict would make it easier to mobilize Arab support.
Martin Kramer: But how much Arab support does the United States need that it doesn't already have? Support from the Gulf Arabs is already guaranteed. They see Iran as a threat directed more at them than at anyone else.
MJT: They do.
Martin Kramer: The Arabs who could conceivably be swayed are the Arabs of Egypt and the Levant, but it's difficult to envision a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would satisfy all of them. Quite a few formulas will alienate lots of them.
And the question is: are they really necessary? Is it that important to have the so-called Arab street? It's extremely difficult to turn the Arab street into a strategic asset. Nasser tried to do it. Saddam Hussein tried to do it. Ahmadinejad is trying to do it. Erdogan is trying to do it. It's flattering, I suppose, to have your poster on walls here and there, but nobody has found a way to turn that into something they can use, and I don't think the United States has much prospect of doing so either. It's an intangible.
A nuclear Iran, on the other hand, would be tangible. So I think linkage, in fact, runs the other way.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict only has a chance of being resolved if the Levant can be disconnected from the Gulf. So we have to deal with the Iranian issue first.
Look at the history of the Middle East since the creation of Israel to the present. We have had two separate periods. The first lasted from 1948 until the late 1970s. During this period we had a war between Israel and the Arabs every decade. The Gulf region was stable. The British were there. There was always a concern that the conflict between Israel and the Arabs might create a ripple effect in the Gulf, and it finally happened in 1973 when they cut off the oil.
Then the United States changed its policy. The Americans said they were going to support Israel so staunchly that the Arabs would despair of ever achieving victory and would therefore have no choice but to sign peace agreements. And that's what happened.
Since 1973 there has been no state-to-state war in the Levant. We've had intifadas, we've had wars between Israel and non-state actors, but we haven't had the devastation of a state-to-state war. And the oil hasn't been shut off since then. The oil only gets cut off as an act of solidarity between states, not as an act of solidarity with the PLO, Hamas, or Hezbollah.
So we now have an architecture that works in the Levant, but the Gulf has experienced a succession of wars. The Gulf now destabilizes the region. It has seen the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the latest Iraq war, and who knows what's to come. And we've seen that the instability in the Persian Gulf region has a ripple effect in the Levant. It goes the other way now, and it's a consequence of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Israel is the stake that has been planted in the Levant. Because it's powerful, it puts a high premium on rationality among all those who surround it. It serves as the basis for the security architecture.
When the British left the Gulf in the early 1970s, the Americans weren't in a position to pick it up because they were busy in Vietnam. They had their dual pillars in the Gulf, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but one of them collapsed in 1979. And since that collapse, there has been no equivalent of Israel in the Gulf which the United States could use as a fulcrum around which to organize a region. So the pillar of stability has been the American deployment of its own forces again and again and again. They've put millions of boots on the ground, and it's still not enough.
So here in the Levant we're feeling the wash from the long-term destabilization of the Gulf. It is America's primary interest to keep these as two separate regions. The regional hegemon needs to make sure there is no cross-contamination between them.
The regions used to be separate. During the British time, the Levant was run from London and the Persian Gulf from India. The Levant was called the Near East, and the Gulf was called the Middle East. These were two distinct zones. We've conflated them in the meantime, and it's in the interest of the United States to disaggregate them again and to keep them disaggregated. Any attempt to project power from one into the other undermines the position of the regional hegemon. That was true when Saddam Hussein fired missiles at Israel, and it's true when Iran sends missiles to Hezbollah. It's always the radicals who do the bridging. The same was true with Nasser.
And it compels others to do the same. If Israel acts over the head of the United States against Iran, it will be just the latest example. It's something the United States can't afford. It means that every time we have a problem in the Levant, it will create problems for the United States in the Gulf, and vice versa.
MJT: How can the United States drive a wedge between the two regions?
Martin Kramer: That's easy. The U.S. just has to say that it supports its Israeli ally to keep order in its arena, and the U.S. will take responsibility for keeping order in its arena. Just effectively divide responsibility. If the U.S. flags in its resolve to do that, it will be under pressure from those who are tempted to act outside their arena.
My friend Steve Rosen at Harvard once said it would be shameful if the United States were to leave it to Israel to do what it should do in the Gulf. The Persian Gulf is an area of world interest where America plays the guarantor role.
If Israel has to act as the guarantor in the Gulf, it will be a sign that America has dodged its responsibility.
MJT: The Gulf Arab states are not-so quietly hoping Israel will do it if the U.S. does not.
Martin Kramer: They're looking for someone, anyone, to do it.
MJT: They're the ones who should be the most worried. We don't hear much about this from the Arab states in North Africa. They don't have as many reasons to be concerned.
Martin Kramer: That's a separate area altogether.
MJT: Egypt is sort of a bridge, though, isn't it? Cairo sides to a certain extent with Israel against Hamas, and we know Mubarak isn't thrilled about what's happening in Tehran.
Martin Kramer: The main problem with Egypt is that its own regional role has been so much diminished. Not only can Egypt no longer project power beyond its borders as it did in Nasser's days, it can barely control events inside its national borders as we've seen in the Sinai. Egypt clearly resents the rise of Iranian power. They don't necessarily trust anyone as a counterweight. Their approach all along has been that they don't want a nuclear Iran, but that the way to go about it is to de-nuclearize Israel as part of a grand bargain. They would achieve two goals at once. Both Iran and Israel would be cut down a peg.
MJT: Do you think that's their sincere approach? Egyptian officials will say this in public, but what do they really think?
Martin Kramer: I think there's no question they'd like the United States to play the role. They'd much rather have the U.S. take the lead than Israel. They know what everyone knows—the United States would do it much more effectively.
MJT: Of course.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University
Martin Kramer: There would be nothing worse than a botched or half-complete operation. There's a very strong preference that the U.S. take care of this, among the Gulf Arabs and the Egyptians.
MJT: And, of course, among the Israelis.
Martin Kramer: It's absolutely central to the strategy to maintain this division. And the only way to maintain it is for the United States to demonstrate tomorrow that it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons or to allow Israel to act unilaterally. The Gulf is a zone of American dominance, and the only way to assert that is to do what Carter did with the Carter Doctrine, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. He said there should be no outside power or local power that is allowed to challenge the United States in the Gulf. And a nuclear Iran clearly crosses that line.
If even Jimmy Carter was compelled to issue a doctrinal statement in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan about the Persian Gulf, one would think that Barack Obama would see the need to do something similar. Obama should especially feel compelled to do so because there's a question mark there. He should declare the Persian Gulf a nuclear-free zone. It's too much to talk about the Middle East as a nuclear-free zone at this time, but the Persian Gulf is nuclear-free now, and it's time for the United States to come out and say it should remain nuclear-free.
MJT: I have a hard time imaging Obama doing anything of the sort.
Martin Kramer: Yeah. Well.
MJT: But I suppose one never knows.
Martin Kramer: It would be an astonishing lapse if a man who promised to roll back nuclear proliferation watched proliferation develop in one of the least stable parts of the world, a place where the United States has only been able to maintain even a modicum of stability by a massive projection of its own forces. The region is of prime interest to the entire world for its energy resources. If it becomes nuclearized, it will be the one thing for which Barack Obama would always be remembered by history, and he would be remembered by history as a failure.
Martin Kramer is a fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a visiting scholar at Harvard University. He is the author of Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America.
Weak Leaks
J. E. Dyer
Commentary "Contentions" blog, 10.25.2010 – 8:05 AM
When the first batch of WikiLeaks's prize field reports was posted in July, I was underwhelmed by the strategic import of the content. This unauthorized disclosure was nothing like the "Pentagon Papers," which revealed a marked difference between the Johnson administration's public protestations about our policy in Vietnam and the policy it was actually pursuing. The significance of the Pentagon Papers leak lay in what it revealed — directly and explicitly — about the American executive.
The WikiLeaks document dumps this year have done no such thing. The leaked field reports contain no direct information about policy in Washington. The first batch of reports tended mainly to confirm that the American understanding of what was going on in the field, in Iraq and Afghanistan, was pretty accurate. The second batch of reports, which was provided to selected news outlets last week, appears to be going beyond that to vindicate key claims of the Bush administration and debunk one of the principal talking points of its critics.
The New York Times, given advance access to the new batch of documents, reported on Friday that they are full of references to Iranian involvement in the Shia insurgency in Iraq. As the Times observes, the Bush administration was strongly criticized for charging Iran with this interference, but the field reports indicate that Bush's allegations comported with what he was hearing from the field. (h/t: Legal Insurrection)
Wired's Danger Room notes that the reports are also full of references to the discovery and identification in Iraq of chemical weapons, weapons-making laboratories, and chemical-weapons experts among Iraq's insurgents and terrorists. (h/t: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air) Many of the facts surrounding these discoveries have been public for years, but as several bloggers have pointed out, this documentary validation isn't propaganda: it comes from field reports that were never intended to reach or persuade the public. Ironically, for a leak made with its particular political motives, this one validates precisely the concern with which George W. Bush went into Iraq — i.e., that the WMD components acquired by terrorism sponsors could fall into the hands of terrorists.
But there's more irony in those leaked documents. They contain civilian casualty summaries that give the lie to the wild estimates from the 2006 Lancet study of 655,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq because of the war. The casualty total reflected in the documents is 109,032 through 2009. From a humanitarian perspective, any civilian casualties are assuredly "too many." But the disingenuousness of urging the public to indignation over a particular number is thrown into strong relief when the number is revealed to have been a ridiculous and irresponsible exaggeration. As the Melbourne Herald Sun blogger observes, the Iraqi total from the WikiLeaks documents makes the civilian fatality rate from combat there lower than the murder rate in South Africa.
Glenn Reynolds points out at Instapundit that the timing of this fresh document dump is beneficial mainly to the impending release of George W. Bush's presidential memoir. That's probably an unintended consequence, too.
WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results
By Noah Shachtman
Wired – "Danger Room" – October 23, 2010
By late 2003, even the Bush White House's staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But for years afterward, WikiLeaks' newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn't reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration's most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.
In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic "blister agent" used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and "reported two positive results for blister." The chemical was then "triple-sealed and transported to a secure site" outside their base.
Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a "chemical weapons" complex. "One of the bunkers has been tampered with," they write. "The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers."
Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a "house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab." The following day, there's a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a "chemical cache."
Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells "that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. "The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance." Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, "the rounds tested positive for mustard."
In WikiLeaks' massive trove of nearly 392,000 Iraq war logs, there are hundreds of references to chemical and biological weapons. Most of those are intelligence reports or initial suspicions of WMD that don't pan out. In July 2004, for example, U.S. forces come across a Baghdad building with gas masks, gas filters, and containers with "unknown contents" inside. Later investigation revealed those contents to be vitamins.
But even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. "These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time."
A small group — mostly of the political right — has long maintained that there was more evidence of a major and modern WMD program than the American people were lead to believe. A few Congressmen and Senators gravitated to the idea, but it was largely dismissed as conspiratorial hooey.
The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.
But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that "neuroparalytic" chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.
That same month, then "chemical weapons specialists" were apprehended in Balad. These "foreigners" were there specifically "to support the chemical weapons operations." The following month, an intelligence report refers to a "chemical weapons expert" that "provided assistance with the gas weapons." What happened to that specialist, the WikiLeaked document doesn't say.
Tags: Iran
Arab and Palestinian opinions on peace
Palestinian unilateralism?/The settlements as a barrier to peace
The Mission of Gen. Herzl Halevi
Yes to reform, but not this one
The Case for the Judicial Reforms
Asia Watch: Waiting games
Noted and Quoted – February 2023


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Top Workplaces 307168791
What is it about Minnesota that makes it a top place to work?
In a survey by WorkplaceDynamics, Minnesota ranked first among 45 regions surveyed on workplace satisfaction. The survey focused on components of well-being, like relationships, positive feelings and a sense of meaning.
By Katy Read Star Tribune
June 14, 2015 — 7:21am
Video (02:56) : Dancing on desks and working out keeps employees happy.
We can't just chalk it up to Minnesota Nice.
Sure, being nice is a welcome trait in colleagues and supervisors. But niceness alone seems too simple an explanation for why Minnesota workplaces are happier than average. There's more to life (and work), including smart leadership, a sense of purpose — oh, and good old pay and benefits.
"There's not going to be just one cause," said University of Minnesota philosophy professor Valerie Tiberius, who has studied happiness. "Everything is going to be more complicated than you think it's going to be."
In a survey by WorkplaceDynamics, the research firm that partners with the Star Tribune to compile the Top Workplaces list, Minnesota ranked first among 45 regions surveyed on workplace satisfaction. The survey focused on components of well-being, like relationships, positive feelings and a sense of meaning.
"Lots of things rated more highly by Minnesotans speak to having good relationships in your workplace and feeling like what you do is worthwhile," Tiberius said.
As one commenter put it: "My ideas and thoughts are valued, we are always open to trying something new, my co-workers are like family, I am motivated and pushed to work hard to a high potential, I am not just a number and senior leaders care about my career and growth, there is always potential to grow within the company."
Video (02:33): Top workplaces video: Mono keeps door open
Minnesota employees rated their companies above the national averages in a range of factors. For example, Minnesotans were 2 to 4 percent more likely to agree with statements such as "There is not a lot of negativity at my workplace" and "I feel genuinely appreciated at this company" and "This company operates by strong values and ethics."
To find out why Minnesota employees are such a satisfied bunch, we went to the experts: professors who have studied happiness and workplaces and leaders at this year's Top Workplaces. They offered a number of possibilities:
Minnesota's economy is flourishing.
"The economy here has outperformed the rest of the country," said Myles Shaver, a professor of strategic management and entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "What does that mean? Generally there are more opportunities. If you don't like your job, there's someplace else to go" — and with employees in more demand, businesses that want to attract and keep good ones are motivated to treat them well.
Shaver noted that many of the survey statements indicate that respondents view their company's management favorably. "It's hard to answer those questions positively if your company's suffering," he said.
The number of large companies headquartered here is another advantage, said Nancy Feldman, president and CEO of UCare, a nonprofit health plan. Large companies "have the resources to do the kinds of things that create more employee engagement — not just good benefits, but a positive kind of work atmosphere."
Minnesotans like living here, and that attitude spreads to their jobs.
"There's an adage among the headhunters in town: It's really hard to get people to move to Minnesota, and it's almost impossible to get them to leave," Shaver said.
Minnesotans can find good jobs around the state — not just in the metro area, said Jeff Gau, CEO of St. Cloud-based Marco Inc., a technology services company. Those who want to live among lakes and forests can do so while working in a diversity of industries.
"A lot of people here are homers," Gau said. "They go check out other communities in other states, but they come back. There seems to be an attraction back to the lakes area, back to our four seasons."
The Twin Cities metro area would please Goldilocks.
"We're big enough to have everything you need, but not so big that you can't be connected," said Theresa M. Glomb, a professor of organizational behavior at the Carlson School of Management.
"People feel a sense of connection to their companies and connection to others in their workplaces," Glomb said. "One of the key predictors of being satisfied at work is connection with other people, at an organizational level but also a community level."
Also, a dollar goes further here, said Clay Collins, CEO of LeadPages, a Minneapolis software company. That's a big advantage in industries like his, where pay rates don't vary dramatically by geography.
"Any one of our engineers in a heartbeat could get a job in San Francisco," Collins said. "But here, you don't have to pay like four grand for a studio apartment that's across the street from a meth field."
Video (02:00): Top workplaces video: Phoenix Residence cares about employees and residents
Minnesotans have strong values.
The state is a bit old-fashioned, but in a good way, said Joel Theisen, CEO and founder of Edina-based senior care agency Lifesprk. "We may not be the coolest kids … We're a little more conservative, but it's deep and it's real and it's authentic."
Years ago, Theisen worked in Silicon Valley. "It's cool, it's awesome, and it's cutthroat. For me it didn't feel right. That's one of the reasons I came back here, to Minnesota. I felt there was a deeper sense of purpose."
It may have to do with the way Minnesotans are raised, said Tom Salonek, founder of Eagan-based Intertech, a software developer training and consulting firm. "I grew up on a family farm and watched my dad work from sunup to sundown," Salonek said. "It's sort of baked into my DNA. In the Midwest, your parents weren't strangers to hard work."
Finally (there's no getting around it), Minnesotans really are pretty nice.
Nathan Lewis, VP of operations for Werner Electric Supply in Cottage Grove, has worked on both coasts. At a national conference recently, he talked to a couple of other business leaders about the Midwest — and Minnesota specifically.
"There's definitely a feeling that there's a difference in Minnesota," Lewis said. "We're quick to trust; we're quick to love. … We seem very geared toward meeting other people's standards, making other people happy."
Employers here understand the importance of family and care about their employees' lives outside of the workplace, Lewis said.
JEFF WHEELER • jeff.wheeler@startribune.com
Shivani Khanna Stumpf of SPS Commerce, Dexter Wingfield of Pediatric Home Service, and Emily McAuliffe of Clockwork Active Media represent the employees of this year's Top Workplaces in Minnesota.
Our business culture also may be more egalitarian than elsewhere. Marit Brock, chief performance officer at Minnesota Gastroenterology, said that's the case at the St. Paul-based practice. "We've got doctors, we've got entry-level staff, but everybody contributes," she said. "Everybody's part of the team."
Katy Read is a reporter covering Carver County and western Hennepin County. She has also covered aging, workplace issues and other topics for the Star Tribune. She was previously a reporter at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, La., and the Duluth News-Tribune.
katy.read@startribune.com 612-673-4583
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For years, click-through rates, press and social impressions, and confusing amplification metrics were the gold standard for how brands quantified the success of their events and experiential campaigns. Brands routinely underutilized the right tactics and overspent. However, consumers now more than ever get to define what content they consume and can also be vocal about brand content they do not enjoy. Now, more than ever, there is a prime opportunity to capitalize on the power of experiences. For brands, this means providing audiences more compelling content to share and controlling the brand narrative by empowering the consumer. Insert The Bait Shoppe, an experiential and event based marketing agency that has helped international companies acquire brand loyalty using innovative and out of the box strategies. If you're ready to take your brand to the next level, The Bait Shoppe is the only option.
While traditional advertising campaigns have boded well for brands in years prior, it's time to change. This change must incorporate an element of interactivity through experiential marketing campaigns. These types of campaigns offer a unique advantage over going the more traditional route in that they offer your audience a chance to "feel" the elements of your brand for themselves. By doing so, you'll in turn set yourself apart from competitors who aren't aware that fostering a two-way conversation with your audience will yield the most promising results. However, empowering the consumer to tell your story means you need a team of experts to help build and share the experiences and not all agencies are created equally, warns Evan Starkman. A good agency focuses on the metrics that indicate how an immersive experience drives deeper emotional impact and shifts long-term consumer perception. In other words, how does an experience capture the audience's attention, then convert that attention into enhanced consideration, sentiment and affinity?
Who is The Bait Shoppe?
Evan Starkman's successful career in television, hosting various events and television shows, exposed him to a diverse group of clients and their story telling needs. Seeing an opportunity for brands to tell better consumer stories through integrated events, The Bait Shoppe was born in 2010. As Founder and CEO, Starkman has designed a marketing agency that embraces digital culture and highly values in-person connections between brands and consumers. The Bait Shoppe's in-house creatives challenge the future of marketing with bold interactive experiences, bringing brands to life in vivid, tech-savvy and modern ways. The Bait Shoppe treats people as the new media and tries to create impactful experiences that get shared. When relying on the consumer to tell your brand story its important that your agency can foster context, dialogue and authenticity. The Bait Shoppe has continued to bring services in house so as to better to respond to consumers and brands in the fast paced story telling landscape with strategy, creative, production, technical production, fabrication, detail drawing, architecture, 3D modeling, graphic design and more all under one roof. Ultimately when a customer shares a positive experience, its more meaningful than advertising that comes directly from a brand. As a hybrid agency of strategic thinking, client services, and seasoned production, we can handle the creation of experiences from concept and design through execution faster than anyone else.
Why choose the Bait Shoppe?
THERE ARE NO BIG WORDS AND FLUFFY IDEOLOGIES at The Bait Shoppe. Since their inception in 2011, The Bait Shoppe has turned heads, broken rules and added an impressive client roster in an effort to become an EVERYTHING agency which can keep up with the speed of today's culture and experiences. As the only agency which owns its own fabrication facility, The Bait Shoppe guarantees that they can bake a budget in less than 12 hours, can provide a proof of concept in less than 24 hours and without any pass through costs or communications will attack timelines others simply wont! The proof is in their work for major brands, such as Lyft, Old Navy, Samsung, and Sheraton. With Evan Starkman leading the team, your brand will achieve a level of success you could only dream of.


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The Jamaica Star
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Caribbean countries to benefit from new PAHO initiative piloted in Trinidad and Tobago
PAHO platform brings health monitoring of chronic diseases to remote populations (PAHO Photo)
WASHINGTON, Jan 13, CMC – The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) says it has developed a digital platform to bring telehealth services to remote populations in Latin American and Caribbean countries, making telemedicine the "new normal" for healthcare workers and patients managing chronic diseases.
It said based on Open-Source technology, PAHO's All-in-ONE Telehealth platform was developed in 2022 thanks to the financial contribution from the United States government and initially piloted in Trinidad and Tobago.
"The aim of the platform is to improve patient outreach and follow-up, with an emphasis on continuity of care for people with non-communicable diseases (NCDs)," said Sebastian Garcia Saiso, PAHO's Director, Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health.
NCDs are the leading cause of death and disability in the world, accounting for 71 per cent of all deaths globally. In the Region of the Americas, 5.5 million deaths are due to NCDs, which include cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and chronic lung disease.
PAHO said as they are chronic, they require continuous care and that worsening conditions, if left unchecked, can take a huge toll on individuals and their families.
The platform can assist diabetic or hypertensive patients in managing and monitoring their disease. It also allows health workers at remote points to create an "advance triage" to refer patients before they undertake necessary travel to a health centre.
"The health facility where I receive care called me to ask me questions. How am I feeling? Do I need medicine? When I'm ready, they have a prescription in my file and there is no need to travel to the health centre, my prescription will be sent to me," said Sue Ann Peters, a telehealth patient managing a chronic condition in Trinidad and Tobago.
"The instalment of the telehealth platform at key referral points will change the lives of patients who in the past had no access to health monitoring when they most needed it," said Marcelo D'Agostino, Senior Advisor, Information Systems and Digital Health at PAHO.
Training for health technicians and professionals, including in simulation and role-playing exercises, is also a key component of the platform. This allows authorities to offer health workers diverse learning strategies, and to best judge when to use telemedicine or hybrid care, with the patient receiving a combination of telehealth and in-person attention at a local clinic or hospital.
The platform integrates applications such as instant messaging, conversational bots (chatbots), patient medical records and digital prescriptions. It can also send an alert when a patient's test results are outside a normal range.
"The All-in-One platform is a vital component of the digital transformation in health in our region, not only in preventing and controlling major NCDs and their risk factors but improving the quality of life of patients with chronic disorders," said Garcia Saiso.
PAHO said the goal in increasing universal access to healthcare is to make the platform available as a public good, so that all countries in the region can benefit from it.
"Since the COVID 19 pandemic, both patients as well as health professionals are more eager now to engage in the use of the benefits of telemedicine," explained Erica Wheeler, the PAHO representative in Trinidad and Tobago.
This year, a rollout of the All-in-One platform is planned for The Bahamas, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Suriname, Dominica, Uruguay, Panama, and Nicaragua.
We want to hear from you! Email us at star@gleanerjm.com and follow @thejamaicastar on Instagram and on Twitter @JamaicaStar and on Facebook: @TheJamaicaStar, or on Whatsapp @ 876-550-2506.
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On November 11 1985, Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour was released on home video in the U.K. and France. The concert was filmed on May 25th, 1985 at Cobo Arena in Madonna's home town of Detroit, Michigan. The concert film was directed by Daniel Kleinman and the music was produced by Madonna & Patrick Leonard.
The live performances of Like A Virgin and Dress You Up were released as music videos on MTV to promote the live video release. Both videos were nominated for Best Choreography at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.
Though it was also released on laserdisc in some countries, to date it has sadly not been officially reissued on DVD.
That's exactly what Madonna has done for close to 35 years! Thrilling audiences with joy and sadness, happiness and sorrow! Every aspect of her live performance is there for all to see and hear! Madonna will get up again Over and Over! Madonna will go far in life and she wears her Beautiful Scars proudly! She's got the brilliance and the songs to prove it! Madonna-Raw Emotion Imported from Detroit!


Join us for another incredible evening of music featuring four local singer songwriters performing original music! Doors open at 7pm in New Morning's 2nd floor handicapped accessible Community Room. Snacks are available for purchase and donations for the performance are graciously accepted. For more info, contact Doug at 203-266-6688. Free!


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Spencer Baird Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian
ID: 2002-12179
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The Board of Regents approves Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry's nomination of Spencer Fullerton Baird as Assistant Secretary in the Department of Natural History. As "Keeper of the Cabinet," Baird will take charge of the museum and assist with publications. After his hiring, Baird would also become responsible for managing the Smithsonian's international publications exchange program. Baird, a naturalist, had previously taught at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The initial salary for his position is $1,500 per annum. Baird would become the second Secretary of the Smithsonian upon Henry's death in 1878.
Baird, Spencer Fullerton 1823-1887
Henry, Joseph 1797-1878
National Museum of Natural History (U.S.)
United States National Museum
Oehser calls Baird the "Father of the U.S. National Museum."
Rothenberg, Marc, et al, eds., The Papers of Joseph Henry: The Smithsonian Years, January 1850-December 1853, Volume 8, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996, pp. xxiv-xxvi, 67-70.
Moyer, Albert. Joseph Henry: The Rise of an American Scientist. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997, p. 270-71.
Goode, George Brown, ed. The Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1896, The History of Its First Half Century. Washington, D.C.: De Vinne Press, 1897, p. 834.
Oehser, Paul H. The Smithsonian Institution. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970, pp. 40-41.
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, volume 18, number 329. "Journals of the Proceedings of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution 1846-76, Reports of Committees, Statistics, Etc." ed. by William J. Rhees. Washington: Published by the Smithsonian Institution, 1879, p. 67.
Assistant Secretaries
New Positions
Exchanges, Literary and scientific


U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is shown here reacting during the "Chairman's Debate" at the 51st Munich Security Conference at the 'Bayerischer Hof' hotel in Munich, Germany on 8 February 2015.
John Kerry's mouth expression is that of fear ("Mouth of Fear"). No video of this moment is currently available - so it's not possible to put this in full context (although there are some hints - see below). This very probably was a very brief expression - possibly a microexpression. Notice how the corners of his mouth are pulled laterally and downwards - more so on his left. Also in this context, the wrinkling of his chin signifies that his neck muscles (his neck is minimally visible) are at least mild-moderately tightened in a concomitant "Neck of Fear". The Secretary's eye lids are also opened slightly wider than baseline along with a contraction of the entire width of his forehead. His hands are held out in front of his body in a protective configuration.
John Kerry's body language at this moment demonstrates a cluster of fear.
What else do you see in this photo that is not described here? You should be able to see a hint of another emotion - thus some emotional dissonance - which would give you a larger context for this moment.
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2454: NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman & a Subtle "Neck of Fear"


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Here's why Intega Group (ASX: ITG) can responsibly manage its debt
Warren Buffett said: "Volatility is far from synonymous with risk". So it seems like smart money knows that debt – which is usually involved in bankruptcies – is a very important factor, when you assess the level of risk of a business. Above all, Intega Group Limited (ASX: ITG) is in debt. But should shareholders be concerned about its use of debt?
Why Does Debt Bring Risk?
Debt helps a business until the business struggles to repay it, either with new capital or with free cash flow. An integral part of capitalism is the process of "creative destruction" where bankrupt companies are ruthlessly liquidated by their bankers. However, a more common (but still costly) event is when a company has to issue stock at bargain prices, constantly diluting shareholders, just to strengthen its balance sheet. Of course, many companies use debt to finance their growth without negative consequences. The first step in examining a company's debt levels is to consider its cash flow and debt together.
See our latest analysis for Intega Group
What is Intega Group's net debt?
You can click on the graph below for historical figures, but it shows that Intega Group had A $ 51.8 million in debt in June 2021, up from A $ 73.2 million a year earlier. However, he has A $ 19.6 million in cash offsetting this, leading to net debt of around A $ 32.1 million.
ASX: ITG History of debt to equity September 19, 2021
How healthy is Intega Group's balance sheet?
Zooming in on the latest balance sheet data, we can see that Intega Group had A $ 66.0 million liabilities due within 12 months and A $ 83.3 million liabilities beyond. In compensation for these obligations, it had cash of A $ 19.6 million as well as receivables valued at A $ 78.6 million maturing within 12 months. It therefore has a liability totaling AU $ 51.0 million more than its cash and short-term receivables combined.
This deficit is not that big as Intega Group is worth A $ 248.9 million, and could therefore probably raise enough capital to consolidate its balance sheet, should the need arise. But it is clear that it is absolutely necessary to take a close look at whether it can manage its debt without dilution.
We measure a company's debt load relative to its earning capacity by looking at its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and calculating how easily its earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) covers its interest costs (interest coverage). Thus, we consider debt versus earnings with and without amortization charges.
Looking at its net debt over EBITDA of 1.2 and interest coverage of 2.8 times, it seems to us that Intega Group is probably using debt in a fairly reasonable way. We therefore recommend that you keep a close eye on the impact of financing costs on the business. Notably, Intega Group's EBIT was higher than Elon Musk's, gaining a whopping 209% from last year. When analyzing debt levels, the balance sheet is the obvious starting point. But you can't look at debt in isolation; given that Intega Group will need revenue to service this debt. So, when considering debt, it is really worth looking at the profit trend. Click here for an interactive snapshot.
Finally, a business can only pay off its debts with hard cash, not with book profits. We must therefore clearly verify whether this EBIT generates a corresponding free cash flow. Fortunately for all shareholders, Intega Group has actually generated more free cash flow than EBIT over the past three years. This kind of cash conversion makes us as excited as the crowd when the pace drops at a Daft Punk concert.
Fortunately, the impressive conversion of EBIT into free cash flow for the Intega Group means that it has the upper hand over its debt. But the hard truth is that we are concerned about its coverage of interest. Zooming out, Intega Group appears to be using debt quite reasonably; and that gets the nod from us. After all, reasonable leverage can increase returns on equity. The balance sheet is clearly the area you need to focus on when analyzing debt. However, not all investment risks lie on the balance sheet – far from it. For example, we have identified 2 warning signs for Intega Group (1 is significant) you must be aware.
At the end of the day, it's often best to focus on businesses with no net debt. You can access our special list of these companies (all with a history of profit growth). It's free.
If you are looking to trade on Intega Group, open an account with the cheapest * professional approved platform, Interactive Brokers. Their clients from more than 200 countries and territories trade stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds and funds around the world from a single integrated account. Promoted
This Simply Wall St article is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts using only unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell shares and does not take into account your goals or your financial situation. Our aim is to bring you long-term, targeted analysis based on fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not take into account the latest announcements from price sensitive companies or qualitative documents. Simply Wall St has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.
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