Moment of Zen
A moment of pause today offered by a quote from the pages of the New York Times (Registration required)...
"I am only a chicken farmer in Pakistan," he protested to American military officers at Guantánamo. "My name is Abdur Sayed Rahman. Abdur Zahid Rahman was the deputy foreign minister of the Taliban."
If in fact he is only a chicken farmer, Zahid is according to Donald Rumsfeld the "worst of the worst" of the bad guys. Meanwhile, Rahmatullah Hashemi, the spokesman for the disbanded Taliban hicks in charge of Afghanistan is currently trying to obtain full time student status at Yale University.
With that bit of distortion in mind; the primary reason for my post today is to turn your attention to Syriana . Rivaled only by another stinger Lord of War, Syriana is by far the most provocative film of 2005 I have seen. It is a politically-charged film that offers a glimpse into the shpere of the modern oil industry. The film is directed by Stephen Gaghan, and is based on the memoir See no Evil of Robert Baer.
The insight of the film delves deeply into the corruption and power politics driving international affairs. What is striking is the modernity of the issues and the frankness in Gaghan's depiction of realpolitiks. For me Syriana actually affirms one of the rule of thumb hypotheses in life.
For the vast majority of citizens spanning Sayed the chicken farmer to upper echelon white collars, knowledge that is insightful to the dynamics of governance is outdated relative to what is available to those within the Government. Otherwise agencies built around, and the concept of National Security it self would be irrelevant. It is no secret that the business of Government is to craftily filter and monitor the release of information. With time this information is digested and democratically analyzed by citizens with open access to information, only then we have what I would call knowledge. Fortunately, the technology is available to shorten the timing between expiration for the Government and release to the populous.
Syriana is a realization of this process, and it is starkly modern. It deals simultaneously with the geopolitical issues revolving around depleting natural resources, and the business of capitalizing on the remainder of energy resources. All of this within the context of the ongoing war with a faceless enemy, the war on terror. Read Less Butter, More Guns to see how America is gearing up for permanent war.
Now, this is a rare Hollywood film that will get very little press and minimal public attention. Nevertheless it is a film that deals with information that is already unclassified and available to just about anyone in various forms and interpretations. It is common knowledge! The information that is not available to the people is what worries me. Because it is "classified" information available to the charlatans in Governments around the world scheming to divvy up everything according to policies based on greed. Classified information is the basis for future plans requiring mobilization of our energy, and resources. Information that is not available is also what affirms the hypothesis that Governments secretly allied and publicly foes lead their nations to ruin, by calculated information trafficking. Once it is too late to turn back it becomes public that, for example, America & Pakistan are allies in the War on Terror! Or Osama is W. Bush's distant cousin just in case the fact that their father's are business partners is not cynical enough.