Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects on the two billion people (from the North China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend on the river systems — the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya and Tarim — that arise in these mountains isn’t much of an antidote to malaise either.
If you focus on those Himalayan highlands, a deep sense of loss creeps over you — the kind that comes from contemplating the possible end of something once imagined as immovable, immutable, eternal, something that has unexpectedly become vulnerable and perishable as it has slipped into irreversible decline. Those magnificent glaciers, known as the Third Pole because they contain the most ice in the world short of the two polar regions, are now wasting away on an overheated planet and no one knows what to do about it.
To stand next to one of those leviathans of ice, those Moby Dicks of the mountains, is to feel in the most poignant form the magnificence of the creator’s work. It’s also to regain an ancient sense, largely lost to us, of our relative smallness on this planet and to be forcibly reminded that we have passed a tipping point. The days when the natural world was demonstrably ascendant over even the quite modest collective strength of humankind are over. The power — largely to set an agenda of destruction — has irrevocably shifted from nature to us.
Another tipping point has also been on my mind lately and it’s left me no less melancholy. In this case, the Moby Dick in question is my own country, the United States of America. We Americans, too, seem to have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya, long familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to feel as if they were, in a sense, melting away. [continued…]
Hmmm. You think it’s a coincidence? Costa Rica is one of the very few countries to have abolished its army, and it’s also arguably the happiest nation on earth.
There are several ways of measuring happiness in countries, all inexact, but this pearl of Central America does stunningly well by whatever system is used. For example, the World Database of Happiness, compiled by a Dutch sociologist on the basis of answers to surveys by Gallup and others, lists Costa Rica in the top spot out of 148 nations.
That’s because Costa Ricans, asked to rate their own happiness on a 10-point scale, average 8.5. Denmark is next at 8.3, the United States ranks 20th at 7.4 and Togo and Tanzania bring up the caboose at 2.6. [continued…]
[Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel’s] opposition to Turkey’s bid for EU membership is explained by what a columnist in the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet accurately described as “basic facts not pronounced openly” on Monday. “Turkey is a Muslim country,” Mehmet Ali Birand wrote. “And Europe is not ready yet to accept a Muslim country in the EU.”
This anti-Turkish bias is tantamount to racism. Even though the EU institutions officially claim to cherish diversity, there is a tacit agreement among some of their most powerful leaders that the union must remain predominantly Christian. Herman Van Rompuy, the EU’s new president, is one of the few to have voiced this desire in a public forum (and that was long before his recent elevation in status). “The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey,” he told a meeting at the Belgian parliament in 2004. [continued…]
Although it’s very slow moving, vehicles in the Viva Palestina aid convoy have finally started entering Gaza:
The Viva Palestina aid convoy entered Gaza Wednesday, after it received the approval of Egyptian authorities to bring into the besieged, impoverished coastal sliver several tons of humanitarian supplies.
The activists entered Gaza through Rafah border crossing. More than 500 international activists accompany the convoy organized by the British-based group Viva Palestina, a Press TV correspondent reported. — Press TV
V slowly we r moving out 2 Rafah. Many still at port, but first vehicles 2 leave r already in #Gaza. It’s finally happening! #vivapalestina — joti2gaza
An Egyptian soldier has been killed and at least eight Palestinians hurt in clashes at the Egypt-Gaza border. — BBC News
After a battle between Egyptian riot police and convoy members in Al-Arish last night, the convoy finally started out on the last leg of its journey a couple of hours ago:
“Vehicles very slowly exiting port gates now, heading to Rafah, insyaAllah.” – juanajaafar
An Egyptian border guard was shot dead Wednesday and about 55 people were injured late Tuesday in clashes between Egyptian police and pro-Palestinian activists trying to get a relief convoy into the Gaza Strip, militants, medics and officials said.
Some 520 activists belonging to the convoy – led by charismatic and outspoken British MP George Galloway – broke down the gate at El-Arish to protest an Egyptian decision to ship some of the goods through Israel.
They blocked the two entrances to the Sinai port with vehicles, and clashed with police. Forty militants were injured, a source close to them said, while medical sources said 15 policemen were also hurt.
An Egyptian official said Wednesday that the border guard was shot dead by a Palestinian sniper while Gazan youths hurled stones across the border at the Egyptian security forces.
The protests were sparked by an Egyptian decision to allow 139 vehicles to enter Gaza through the Rafah bordering crossing, about 45 kilometers from El-Arish, but requiring a remaining 59 vehicles to pass via Israel. Talks in which Galloway and a delegation of Turkish MPs sought to change the Egyptian’s minds proved unsuccessful. — Hurriyet Daily News
At the beginning, it was a peaceful protest, singing and making noise. The Egyptians were there to be provoked, no doubt, but they needed a reason. This went on for about 1 hour 30 mins, and then all hell broke loose. I don’t know who threw the first stone but the Egyptians seemed to have prepared stones to be thrown. A running battle went on for about 30 minutes, mainly the Egyptians hurtling stones at us. Some people fought back with stones and sticks against the riot police with batons. Five seasoned Derry men stood at the back. Ole hands at these riots.
The end result was up to 20 people injured, head injuries and even worse it appears. There was news that the Turks had captured 3 Egyptians police as hostages but they were later released. There was a deadly atmosphere amongst the compound. This wasn’t the way it was suppose to work out, we should of been heading for Gaza. At this point, it’s too early to see where the blame lies.
Galloway made his way onto the stage, looking very shaken and holding prayer beads, he recalled the progression of events that I have just told, and once again, encouraged people to protest throughout the world against the Egyptians. He said we wouldn’t be going anywhere soon’. We went to bed after that.
So another massive change of events, and I think the whole thing has had a negative rather than positive effect on proceedings. A lot of people think this way and I could see a lot of people going home. — Derry to Gaza
“Galloway challenged in open convoy mtg to resign leadership!” — zhat
Jordan’s Islamic Action Front (IAF) on Wednesday condemned Egypt’s alleged assault on members of the Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy in the Egyptian port of El Arish.
“The attack by the Egyptian authorities on the Viva Palestina convoy late Tuesday is heinous and cruel. We condemn the assault on the convoy members who seek to break the siege imposed on Gaza and such behaviors do not reflect the history of Egypt,” the IAF, the political arm of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, said in a statement posted on its website. — Xinhua
In Istanbul, thousands of protesters staged a demonstration to condemn the Egyptian police crackdown on the Gaza-bound aid convoy. The protestors marched towards the Egyptian Consulate in the Turkish capital and held a picture of assassinated Hezbollah commander Imad Mugniyah and a picture titled “the picture of betrayal”, showing Egyptian President Hosni Muabark shaking hands with former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
Tuesday’s demonstration joined a wave of protests against Mubarak across the Arab world. The Hamas organization in Gaza called on Palestinians on Wednesday morning to stage protests calling on the Egyptian authorities to allow the entry of the foreign activists. — Ynet
An Egyptian soldier was killed and four Palestinians were wounded in a gunbattle on Wednesday during a protest against an anti-smuggling wall Cairo is building on the Gaza border. — Reuters
The following tweets cover key moments from the last two hours in Al-Arish where Joti says: “All quiet for now. Six arrested, lots of head wounds as cops started the rock throwing. One serious injury stretchered out.” (It’s currently 6.35PM US Eastern Tuesday, 1.35AM Wednesday in Egypt and the tweets below appear in chronological order):
Riot cops have moved their barriers and look to be gearing up 4 a fight. Our boys preparing to defend the port. #vivapalestina – joti2gaza
Full-on battles between convoy boys and Egyptian riot cops. Tear gas, water cannons, rocks throwing. #vivapalestina – joti2gaza
For Gaza siege. We have bend over backwards to come to Elarish cause EGY said we’d be welcomed here, instead welcomed with violence – juanajaafar
Galloway here with TUR MPs to negotiate movement of convoy since 530pm local time. EGY asked for 59 of our vehicles to give to Israel. – juanajaafar
59 vehicles = 25% of our convoy which includes 2 big trucks from GBR and TUR. This contradicts written agreement EGY gave to TURs in Aqaba – juanajaafar
Galloway says Viva has video taken from meeting room to show special police starting violence. Police then threw stones at meeting room – juanajaafar
RT @Irish4Palestine: ppl were attacked by outsiders who came with stick and stones and entered compound, this was a set up #vivapalestin – peter2gaza
RT @viva_palestina: RT @juanajaafar: Arrested are from GRB, USA, Msia and Kuwaiti. (via @Stand4Liberty) – peter2gaza
All quiet for now. Six arrested, lots of head wounds as cops started the rock throwing. One serious injury stretchered out. #vivapalestina – joti2gaza
Our situation is now at a crisis point! Riot has broken out in the port of Al- Arish.
This late afternoon we were negotiating with a senior official from Cairo who left negotiations some two hours ago and did not return. Our negotiations with the official was regarding taking our aid vehicles into Gaza.
He left two hours ago and did not come back. Egyptian authorities called over 2,000 riot police who then moved towards our camp at the port.
We have now blocked the entrance to the port and we are now faced with riot police and water cannons and are determined to defend our vehicles and aid.
The Egyptian authorities have by their stubbornness and hostility towards the convoy, brought us to a crisis point.
We are now calling upon all friends of palestine to mount protests in person where possible, but by any means available to Egyptian representatives, consulates and Embassy’s and demand that the convoy are allowed a safe passage into Gaza tomorrow!
Kevin Ovenden
Viva Palestina Convoy Leader
———————
Alice Howard
Viva Palestina UK – Administration Manager
Tel: 07944 512 469
Email: alice@vivapalestina.org
Website: http://www.vivapalestina.org/
So, apparently the CIA suffered a fatal strike by an al Qaeda blogger last week. And if you’re wondering how bad it’s got for American soldiers in Afghanistan: they say they can get more useful information from USA Today than they get from reading intelligence reports.
Is this David Letterman’s assessment? No. It comes from Major General Michael Flynn, deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Afghanistan for the US military and its NATO allies.
OK, he didn’t refer specifically to USA Today, but in a newly-published report he did say: “Some battalion S-2 officers say they acquire more information that is helpful by reading US newspapers than through reviewing regional command intelligence summaries.”
This is not a testimony to the quality of American journalism.
“I don’t want to say we’re clueless, but we are. We’re no more than fingernail deep in our understanding of the environment,” the operations officer of one US task force told Flynn.
The United States has now been conducting military operations in Afghanistan for over eight years.
The former official said that the fact that militants could carry out a successful attack using a double agent showed their strength even after a steady barrage of missile strikes fired by C.I.A. drone aircraft.
“Double agent operations are really complex,” he said. “The fact that they can pull this off shows that they are not really on the run. They have the ability to kick back and think about these things.”
The death of the Jordanian intelligence officer, Capt. Sharif Ali bin Zeid, was reported in recent days by Jordanian officials, but they did not confirm exactly where he was killed or what he was doing in Afghanistan.
Jordanian intelligence officials were deeply embarrassed by the attacks because they had taken the informant to the Americans, said one American government official briefed on the events.
The official said that the Jordanians had such a good reputation with American intelligence officials that the informant was not screened before entering the compound.
Jarret Brachman, author of “Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice” and a consultant to the United States government about terrorism, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Mohammed had used the online persona Abu Dujana al-Khorasani and was an influential jihadi voice on the Web.
“He’s one of the most revered authors on the jihadists’ forums,” Mr. Brachman said.
“He’s in the top five jihadists. He’s one of the biggest guns out there.” [continued…]
He ran a blog, http://abudujanakharasani.maktoobblog.com/, on which he posted calls for jihad — holy war — and martyrdom, that the Jordanian authorities presumably regarded as cover for the role of double agent.
The blog was still available on Monday but was inaccessible on Tuesday.
“He spent months travelling between Afghanistan and Pakistan and fed the Americans the information that the Mujahedeen (jihadists) wanted them to receive,” the Ana Muslim (“I am a Muslim” in Arabic) website boasted.
“Every time that the reports which he gave proved accurate, their confidence in Abu Dujana rose.”
Balawi was taken to the CIA base in Khost because he claimed to have urgent information about Zawahiri, the website said.
He was not searched as he went in because a CIA agent boasted: “He is our man, so there is no need,” the website claimed.
The bomber then pretended to detail plans for a mooted operation on a piece of paper and asked the intelligence agents to gather round to look before blowing himself up, the website said. [continued…]
Ever since 1945, the US has regarded itself as the leader of the “free world”. But the Obama administration is facing an unexpected and unwelcome development in global politics. Four of the biggest and most strategically important democracies in the developing world – Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey – are increasingly at odds with American foreign policy. Rather than siding with the US on the big international issues, they are just as likely to line up with authoritarian powers such as China and Iran.
The US has been slow to pick up on this development, perhaps because it seems so surprising and unnatural. Most Americans assume that fellow democracies will share their values and opinions on international affairs. During the last presidential election campaign, John McCain, the Republican candidate, called for the formation of a global alliance of democracies to push back against authoritarian powers. Some of President Barack Obama’s senior advisers have also written enthusiastically about an international league of democracies.
But the assumption that the world’s democracies will naturally stick together is proving unfounded. The latest example came during the Copenhagen climate summit. On the last day of the talks, the Americans tried to fix up one-to-one meetings between Mr Obama and the leaders of South Africa, Brazil and India – but failed each time. The Indians even said that their prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had already left for the airport. [continued…]
After a year with President Barack Obama at the helm of U.S. foreign policy, an observer could be forgiven for concluding that the presidency is more like taking over the controls of a train than getting behind the wheel of a car. That’s because you can’t steer a train; you can only determine its speed. So far, the menu of foreign policy challenges, and the Administration’s response to each, is remarkably similar at the close of 2009 to what it was at the close of 2008.
Obama’s promises of outreach to adversaries and consultation and coordination with allies certainly cleared away some of the negative atmospherics left by the Bush Administration. However, his substantial policy positions have proven to be remarkably similar to those of the second-term, chastened-by-reality George W. Bush. Indeed, anti-war Democrats groaned when the President, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, referred to “evil in the world” and hailed America’s willingness to use force abroad over the past six decades as an essential component of global security. The neoconservatives cheered.
The reality is far more complex than that snapshot, of course, but a survey of Obama’s handling of the main strategic challenges appears to affirm the old Cold War dictum that domestic political partisanship ends at the water’s edge. [continued…]
Concerned about the “regional and global threat” from terrorists in Yemen, Gordon Brown is to host an emergency summit in London later this month. Yemen, at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, is a country that tends to be off the radar except when something untoward happens affecting foreigners – when it gets a brief period of attention before it’s forgotten again.
The current wave of attention results from the attempt to blow up flight 253 last month, the Fort Hood shootings in November and, to a lesser extent, the attempted assassination of the Saudi deputy interior minister last August – all of which had a Yemeni connection.
Though the fears these incidents arouse internationally are very real, they are not fears that Yemenis themselves necessarily share. Alongside the country’s other problems, al-Qaida and like-minded types are little more than a persistent nuisance. In the meantime, there’s a war in the north with the Shia Houthi rebels that has cost thousands of lives and, in the last few months, has made well over 100,000 homeless. There is also agitation and occasional violence by secessionists in the south, plus widespread disaffection with the government in other parts. The economy is in dire straits and corruption is rampant.
Looming on the horizon is drought and overpopulation. Yemen has the highest birth rate in the Middle East – at any given time 16% of Yemeni women are pregnant – along with a steady and growing influx of refugees from the Horn of Africa. It’s also running out of water as wells are drilled deeper and deeper. [continued…]
In 2004, the CIA sent a team from the private security firm Blackwater, now Xe, to Hamburg to kill an alleged al Qaeda financier who was investigated for years by German authorities on suspicion of links to al Qaeda, according to a little-highlighted element in a Vanity Fair article to be published this month.
The report cited a source familiar with the program as saying the mission had been kept secret from the German government.
“Among the team’s targets, according to a source familiar with the program, was Mamoun Darkazanli, an al Qaeda financier living in Hamburg who had been on the agency’s radar for years because of his ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to operatives convicted of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa,” writes Vanity Fair’s Adam Ciralsky. [continued…]
The German government said on Monday it knew nothing about a magazine report that the CIA had planned a secret operation to kill a German-Syrian in Hamburg linked to the September 11 attacks on U.S. targets.
The U.S. magazine Vanity Fair had reported that the CIA had in 2004 sent a team from the private security firm Blackwater, now Xe, to Hamburg to kill Mamoun Darkazanli, who was investigated for years by German authorities on suspicion of links to al Qaeda. [continued…]
Five Turkish MPs will on Monday join an international aid convoy that has reached Egyptian port one-week later after the date that they initially hoped to reach Gaza Strip on the first anniversary of Israel’s 22-day offensive.
Viva Palestina Convoy is now at the Egyptian port of El-Arish with Turkish ship ULUSOY-6, which carried the convoy from the Syrian port of Lattakia to Egypt.
The aid volunteers who stay at Lattakia will fly in the day in 3 separate flights to Al-Arish to join the convoy. After everyone arrives at the Al- Arish port, the convoy will make an hour-drive to the Rafah border.
It is expected that the convoy will enter Gaza on Tuesday evening. It will be able to stay in Gaza for 24 hours only. During this time, all aid, drugs and medical tools will be delivered to the Gazan authorities. After 24 hours, all volunteers who travel with the convoy will go to Egypt and then fly back to their own countries. [continued…]
This is change: we’ve gone from change we can believe in, to a change in the mood music.
If Dick Cheney was the éminence grise behind George Bush, one could now be forgiven for thinking that George Bush himself has quietly taken on the same role for Barack Obama. And if this administration — like the one before — can be accused of losing touch with reality, there is no more compelling piece of evidence than this: Obama regards his speech in Cairo last summer as one of the most important things he’s done in the fight against terrorism.
The New York Times — reporting as always from “inside” the administration, reveals in, “Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism”:
perhaps the biggest change Obama has made is what one former adviser calls the “mood music” — choice of language, outreach to Muslims, rhetorical fidelity to the rule of law and a shift in tone from the all-or-nothing days of the Bush administration. He is committed to taking aggressive actions to disrupt terrorist cells, aides said, but he also considers his speech in Cairo to the Islamic world in June central to his efforts to combat terrorism. “If you asked him what are the most important things he’s done to fight terrorism in his first year, he would put Cairo in the top three,” Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, told me.
Really? There might have been good reason for Obama to have thought that at the time and for a few weeks afterwards, but by the time Washington caved under Israeli pressure by supporting a bogus settlement freeze, it became clear that the Cairo speech would be remembered across the Middle East as a bitter harbinger of disappointment.
As for Obama’s campaign promise that he would not only end the war in Iraq but end the mindset that took the US to war, it now turns out that as president he is quite content to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor:
A half-dozen former senior Bush officials involved in counterterrorism told me before the Christmas Day incident that for the most part, they were comfortable with Obama’s policies, although they were reluctant to say so on the record. Some worried they would draw the ire of Cheney’s circle if they did, while others calculated that calling attention to the similarities to Bush would only make it harder for Obama to stay the course. And they generally resent Obama’s anti-Bush rhetoric and are unwilling to give him political cover by defending him.
Michael Hayden, the last C.I.A. director under Bush, was willing to say publicly what others would not. “There is a continuum from the Bush administration, particularly as it changed in the second administration as circumstances changed, and the Obama administration,” Hayden told me. James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security expert at the Heritage Foundation, was blunter. “I don’t think it’s even fair to call it Bush Lite,” he said. “It’s Bush. It’s really, really hard to find a difference that’s meaningful and not atmospheric. You see a lot of straining on things trying to make things look repackaged, but they’re really not that different.”
Hours after last week’s deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan, a revision was made in official accounts of the number of intelligence operatives killed in the suicide bombing. Instead of eight deaths, as initially reported, the CIA acknowledged only seven.
The eighth victim resurfaced over the weekend when his flag-draped coffin arrived in his native country, Jordan. The man, a captain in the Jordanian intelligence service, was given full military honors at a ceremony that referred only to his “humanitarian work” in war-torn Afghanistan.
In fact, the man’s death offered a rare window into a partnership that U.S. officials describe as crucial to their counterterrorism strategy. Although its participation is rarely acknowledged publicly, Jordan is playing an increasingly vital role in the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, sometimes in countries far beyond the Middle East, according to current and former government officials from both countries.
Traditionally close ties between the CIA and the Jordanian spy agency — known as the General Intelligence Department — strengthened after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, occasionally prompting allegations by human rights groups that Jordan was serving as a surrogate jailer and interrogator for the U.S. intelligence agency. In the past two years, in the face of new threats in Afghanistan and Yemen, the United States has again called on its ally for help, current and former officials from both countries said. [continued…]
Editor’s Comment — When the war on terrorism began, George Bush spoke in a language that ten-year olds would understand: America had been attacked by some bad guys and we would now hunt them down.
Those ten-year olds are now entering adulthood yet government officials and journalists still insist in talking like children.
In describing the reason a Jordanian intelligence officer was working alongside CIA officers in Afghanistan as all fell victim to a suicide attack last week, Jamie Smith, a former CIA officer who worked in the border region in the years immediately after the US-led invasion, told The Washington Post: “They know the bad guy’s . . . culture, his associates, and more [than anyone] about the network to which he belongs.”
In this narrative, there’s reason to be unsure about the status of the Jordanians. Are they “good guys” like us? They’ve shown themselves as being indispensable to the United States — as sources of intelligence (who sometimes were not listened to when they should have been, such as when they forewarned the US about 9/11) and as interrogators, which is to say, torturers.
Of course, good guys don’t torture — they have someone else do it for them. And good guys don’t suppress democracy, but the Jordanians are loyal friends to America so I guess in this instance we shouldn’t be too particular about how we assign moral status.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the most striking thing about the attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman was not that it was a devastating event for the CIA — it was the inescapable degree of equivalence in the conflict.
Two groups of combatants, neither of whom wear uniforms are slugging it out on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Each group has identified what it regards as high-value targets and each are using their own available means to hit these targets. The Taliban/Qaeda are using suicide bombers while the CIA is using Hellfire missiles.
When the Taliban struck last week, as far as the reports indicate, there doesn’t appear to have been a single civilian casualty. According to Pakistani reports, on the other hand, Predator strikes have so far resulted in 140 innocent civilians killed for each al Qaeda or Taliban target hit.
So, on the basis of considering who’s killing who, there seems to be sufficient reason to set aside the term “bad guys” and the implied “good guys”. The crucial difference between the two sides does not hinge on who can make the more credible claim of virtue. It comes from the contest between the indigenous and the foreign — a contest in which the advantage of the indigenous is inherent and insurmountable.
However long Americans reside in Afghanistan, it will never become home; their departure is inevitable. All that remains unknown is when we will leave.
A teacher and his 9-year-old son were killed Sunday night by a suspected U.S. drone, a Pakistani administration official and an intelligence official told CNN.
The incident occurred in the village of Musaki in the North Waziristan district. The suspected U.S. drone fired two guided missiles at the compound of local resident Sadiq Noor, the officials said. There were reports Noor’s home was used by local and foreign militants. [continued…]
U.S. missiles flattened an extremist hideout in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt Sunday, killing five militants in the latest strike in a recent spike in drone attacks, Pakistani officials said.
The attack targeted a house in Mosakki village, about 25 kilometres (16 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, and was the third suspected US missile attack in the tribal district in less than a week. [continued…]
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Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects on the two billion people (from the North China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend on the river systems — the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya and Tarim — that arise in these mountains isn’t much of an antidote to malaise either.
