There has been widespread domestic and international criticism (including by yours truly) of the United States because of its foreign policy. And while American foreign policy has always had some objectionable elements, criticism of it has reached unprecedented levels under the present administration.
But while I don't have numbers in front of me, I believe the US is the most generous donor of humanitarian emergency aid and one of the most generous donors of international development aid in the world.
I read yesterday that the US government pledged $92 million to food relief efforts in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa. That represents almost 30 percent of the World Food Program's appeal for the region where it estimates over 6 million East Africans will need food assistance. A single country filling almost 1/3 of the appeal.
And unlike in Iraq where our money is being used to clean up the mess
While the Iraq aggression will be rightly excoriated in the international press, will this pledge to fund the feeding of almost TWO MILLION PEOPLE merit even a blurb? Basic fairness dictates it should be at least briefly mentioned, but I'd be shocked if it were even a tiny blip on the radar.
The pledge is even more timely since it came the same week as UN Humanitarian Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland's complaint about how international appeals are consistently and grossly underfunded... especially if there are no western television crews in the affected areas.
In some cases, US aid comes with such onerous strings attached as to make it pointless or even counterproductive, as does aid from most donor countries. However, in many cases, the aid saves the lives of thousands or millions of real people.
Generous American aid does not absolve the US government of guilt for its active malfeasance or the US citizenry for going along with it (usually passively; sometimes actively, such as in Iraq). Nor should it be used as an excuse to sweep under the rug broad structural deficiences in the international system defended by the US and other western countries that perpetuate poverty in the first place. However, basic fairness dictates that stuff like this not be ignored as part of the equation
Friday, April 07, 2006
Suggestions
It's easy to get into a bit of a rut commenting on breaking news stories. However, at some point probably this month I am going to take a week-long break from this daily grind and offer a broader look at a handful of big issues that are having a serious impact on millions of people around the world. A few that I already have in mind are:
-The small arms trade
-Child soldiers
-Humanitarian workers and civilians as intentional targets in 'modern' wars
The first two are definite. The third is a possibility.
However, I'd like to do six or seven in that week. So if any readers have issues they'd like to suggest I study and write about, please leave a comment for me to take into consideration. Bear in mind I'm looking for issues to explore, not a particular conflict to focus on.
Thanks.
-The small arms trade
-Child soldiers
-Humanitarian workers and civilians as intentional targets in 'modern' wars
The first two are definite. The third is a possibility.
However, I'd like to do six or seven in that week. So if any readers have issues they'd like to suggest I study and write about, please leave a comment for me to take into consideration. Bear in mind I'm looking for issues to explore, not a particular conflict to focus on.
Thanks.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
When 'Never Again' happened again
Though I normally only post one article a day, I would be remiss if I let this pass by without mention.
Today is the 12th anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide during which at least 800,000 people were murdered. It was one of the world's worst atrocities of the century and certainly the worst to be covered during the age of cable news television. It occured a year, almost to the week, after politicians and dignitaries in Washington solemnly promised 'Never again' while inaugurating the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In 2004, I wrote a long series of essays on the occasion of the 10th anniversary which gave a lot of information and background about the genocide.
They are as follows (yes, I know the images do not work):
-Ten years later (an intro)
-Pre-genocide history
-How the genocide unfolded
-Myths and realities about the genocide (Part 1)
-Myths and realities about the genocide (Part 2)
-The genocide's orphans
-Hate media and their role in the genocide
-International law and American law on genocide
-Post-genocide justice
-The post-genocide government
-Lessons and conclusions
Today is the 12th anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide during which at least 800,000 people were murdered. It was one of the world's worst atrocities of the century and certainly the worst to be covered during the age of cable news television. It occured a year, almost to the week, after politicians and dignitaries in Washington solemnly promised 'Never again' while inaugurating the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In 2004, I wrote a long series of essays on the occasion of the 10th anniversary which gave a lot of information and background about the genocide.
They are as follows (yes, I know the images do not work):
-Ten years later (an intro)
-Pre-genocide history
-How the genocide unfolded
-Myths and realities about the genocide (Part 1)
-Myths and realities about the genocide (Part 2)
-The genocide's orphans
-Hate media and their role in the genocide
-International law and American law on genocide
-Post-genocide justice
-The post-genocide government
-Lessons and conclusions
What conflict is three times more deadly for civilians than Iraq?
While much of the North American and European left is (rightly) outraged over the US aggression against Iraq and the chaos it's provoked, spare a few thoughts for a conflict whose violent death rate is THREE TIMES higher than that of Iraq.
No, it's not Palestine or Chechnya or Tibet or any conflict more fashionable with the European literati or Hollywood glitterati. It's the long, brutal war in northern Uganda.
As The East African weekly reported:
A report issued by a coalition of over 50 leading non-governmental organisations, Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU), reveals new facts and figures showing the brutal impact of the conflict on the civilian population between government forces and those of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
The report describes northern Uganda as a catastrophe fuelled by terrible acts of war and violence and by a shameful litany of failure. It also shows the continuing failure of the LRA to cease its brutal campaign of violence against civilians, and the failure of both the government and the international community to uphold their legal obligations to secure the protection, security, and peace of the civilians of northern Uganda.
The northern Ugandan rebels was one of the first groups to systematically employ child soldiers as a conscious 'military' tactic. (And by 'child,' I don't mean 16 and 17 year olds but kids who are often 12 or younger)
As if to demonstrate why peace and security and prerequisites to any serious economic development:
The report, Counting the Cost: 20 years of war in northern Uganda, estimates the devastating economic cost of the war at $1.7 billion over the course of the past two decades. This is equivalent to the total US aid to Uganda between 1994 and 2002.
No, it's not Palestine or Chechnya or Tibet or any conflict more fashionable with the European literati or Hollywood glitterati. It's the long, brutal war in northern Uganda.
As The East African weekly reported:
A report issued by a coalition of over 50 leading non-governmental organisations, Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU), reveals new facts and figures showing the brutal impact of the conflict on the civilian population between government forces and those of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
The report describes northern Uganda as a catastrophe fuelled by terrible acts of war and violence and by a shameful litany of failure. It also shows the continuing failure of the LRA to cease its brutal campaign of violence against civilians, and the failure of both the government and the international community to uphold their legal obligations to secure the protection, security, and peace of the civilians of northern Uganda.
The northern Ugandan rebels was one of the first groups to systematically employ child soldiers as a conscious 'military' tactic. (And by 'child,' I don't mean 16 and 17 year olds but kids who are often 12 or younger)
As if to demonstrate why peace and security and prerequisites to any serious economic development:
The report, Counting the Cost: 20 years of war in northern Uganda, estimates the devastating economic cost of the war at $1.7 billion over the course of the past two decades. This is equivalent to the total US aid to Uganda between 1994 and 2002.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
A history of regime change
I heard a great interview on the NPR show Fresh Air with Stephen Kinzer, author of the book Overthrow : America's Century Of Regime Change From Hawaii To Iraq. Kinzer notes that the US policy of regime change to advance the economic interests of American corporations did not begin with the recent aggression against Iraq.
It started back in the early 1893, when a US-backed coup overthrow the monarchy of the sovereign Kingdom of Hawaii. The queen was replaced by a regime backed by US sugar interests who wanted Hawaii integrated into the United States so as to avoid having to face American tariffs on their exports. Hawaii was annexed in 1898.
1898 was the same year as the conflict considered by most to America's first true imperial excursion: the Spanish-American War. Though argue that such tendencies date further back to the various conflicts with Mexico and even as far back as the Barbary Wars of the late 1790s. (Thus the beginning of the Marine hymn, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.")
Knizer notes that in the last 110 years, the US has used force to impose 14 separate 'regime changes' in various parts of the world. Almost all for primarily economic reasons, even if ideological and pseudo-moral pretexts were offered as a smokescreen. And most of them turned out badly, both for the country in question and for America's prestige and security.
Not surprisingly, he points out that these interventions are remembered much more vividly in the affected countries than in this country. (Do you think 5 percent of Americans could tell you who Mossadegh was?) This lack of institutional memory is why different US administrations continue to make the same errors repeatedly even though previous regime changes have a miserable history.
He also brings up a point I've mentioned before. So often, especially during the Cold War, paranoid American officials were consistently unable to (or refused to) distinguish between nationalism and communism.
The US government has consistently been unable to countenance democratic governments who act in their countries' interests instead of ours. (The whole definition of 'national interests' is another topic). Thus, the French are 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' and now the Iraqis have become 'ingrates.'
One of the most infamous examples involved the most mythologized of African fathers of independence: Congo's Patrice Lumumba. He opposed foreign domination, be it by the Belgians, Americans, French or Soviets. But because he wouldn't kowtow to American or western wishes, he was labelled a communist. The CIA engineered a coup to overthrow him and he was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
There was one little problem: Lumumba was not a communist. It's not just me or his mythologizers who say this. In her excellent book In The Footsteps Of Mr Kurtz, journalist Michela Wrong interviewed the CIA station chief in the Congolese capital (then called Leopoldville). Even the CIA station chief admitted that Lumumba was not a communist. His nationalist rhetoric had just unleashed forces beyond his control.
Then there was the case of another African independence leader: Ghana's Kwame N'Krumah. N'Krumah, too, was a nationalist not a communist. He originally appealed to the US and Britain for help in developing his poor country. They hesitated and hemmed and hawwed. So, he asked the Soviet Union and they eagerly filled the void. Thus, N'Krumah quickly became labelled a 'communist.' N'Krumah was British educated and of a temperment predisposed to staying within the western sphere of influence. But as a nationalist, he wanted to improve his country. The US and Britain wouldn't help him do that; the Soviets did. The choice was simple for him. He was overthrown in a 1966 coup which many believe had the CIA's fingerprints on (in fairness, by then, he'd become an isolated cult-of-personality dictator ruling by arbitrary decree).
Some ostriches delude themselves into believing that anti-Americanism must rise out of nothing and that hostility toward the US government never has any basis in historical or current fact. Any grievances against US foreign policy are always illegitimate and must have been formulated by agitators and troublemakers. In some cases, that's true; in most cases, it's not. This should be a concern to all Americans because it is not poverty, but resentment that fuels terrorism.
It's thus no coindence that whenever the US meddles in a region of the world, anti-Americanism erupts. Such sentiment has always been hot in Latin America since that's where the US has meddled most. It was hottest in the 1970s and 80s as US interference has reached its zenith. The sentiment has exploded in the Middle East in the last few years, coinciding with the aggression against Iraq. By contrast, West Africa has been largely immune from US chest-beating and America is generally well-regarded there.
Whether the CIA was actually involved and to what degree in the overthrows of Lumumba and N'Krumah is a matter of much historical debate. That CIA complicity in these two coups is almost universally accepted amongst Africans is a testament to the corrosive impact of a belligerent foreign policy on America's international prestige. Even when the US government may not be guilty of meddling and interference, it is widely assumed that it is.
It started back in the early 1893, when a US-backed coup overthrow the monarchy of the sovereign Kingdom of Hawaii. The queen was replaced by a regime backed by US sugar interests who wanted Hawaii integrated into the United States so as to avoid having to face American tariffs on their exports. Hawaii was annexed in 1898.
1898 was the same year as the conflict considered by most to America's first true imperial excursion: the Spanish-American War. Though argue that such tendencies date further back to the various conflicts with Mexico and even as far back as the Barbary Wars of the late 1790s. (Thus the beginning of the Marine hymn, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.")
Knizer notes that in the last 110 years, the US has used force to impose 14 separate 'regime changes' in various parts of the world. Almost all for primarily economic reasons, even if ideological and pseudo-moral pretexts were offered as a smokescreen. And most of them turned out badly, both for the country in question and for America's prestige and security.
Not surprisingly, he points out that these interventions are remembered much more vividly in the affected countries than in this country. (Do you think 5 percent of Americans could tell you who Mossadegh was?) This lack of institutional memory is why different US administrations continue to make the same errors repeatedly even though previous regime changes have a miserable history.
He also brings up a point I've mentioned before. So often, especially during the Cold War, paranoid American officials were consistently unable to (or refused to) distinguish between nationalism and communism.
The US government has consistently been unable to countenance democratic governments who act in their countries' interests instead of ours. (The whole definition of 'national interests' is another topic). Thus, the French are 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' and now the Iraqis have become 'ingrates.'
One of the most infamous examples involved the most mythologized of African fathers of independence: Congo's Patrice Lumumba. He opposed foreign domination, be it by the Belgians, Americans, French or Soviets. But because he wouldn't kowtow to American or western wishes, he was labelled a communist. The CIA engineered a coup to overthrow him and he was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
There was one little problem: Lumumba was not a communist. It's not just me or his mythologizers who say this. In her excellent book In The Footsteps Of Mr Kurtz, journalist Michela Wrong interviewed the CIA station chief in the Congolese capital (then called Leopoldville). Even the CIA station chief admitted that Lumumba was not a communist. His nationalist rhetoric had just unleashed forces beyond his control.
Then there was the case of another African independence leader: Ghana's Kwame N'Krumah. N'Krumah, too, was a nationalist not a communist. He originally appealed to the US and Britain for help in developing his poor country. They hesitated and hemmed and hawwed. So, he asked the Soviet Union and they eagerly filled the void. Thus, N'Krumah quickly became labelled a 'communist.' N'Krumah was British educated and of a temperment predisposed to staying within the western sphere of influence. But as a nationalist, he wanted to improve his country. The US and Britain wouldn't help him do that; the Soviets did. The choice was simple for him. He was overthrown in a 1966 coup which many believe had the CIA's fingerprints on (in fairness, by then, he'd become an isolated cult-of-personality dictator ruling by arbitrary decree).
Some ostriches delude themselves into believing that anti-Americanism must rise out of nothing and that hostility toward the US government never has any basis in historical or current fact. Any grievances against US foreign policy are always illegitimate and must have been formulated by agitators and troublemakers. In some cases, that's true; in most cases, it's not. This should be a concern to all Americans because it is not poverty, but resentment that fuels terrorism.
It's thus no coindence that whenever the US meddles in a region of the world, anti-Americanism erupts. Such sentiment has always been hot in Latin America since that's where the US has meddled most. It was hottest in the 1970s and 80s as US interference has reached its zenith. The sentiment has exploded in the Middle East in the last few years, coinciding with the aggression against Iraq. By contrast, West Africa has been largely immune from US chest-beating and America is generally well-regarded there.
Whether the CIA was actually involved and to what degree in the overthrows of Lumumba and N'Krumah is a matter of much historical debate. That CIA complicity in these two coups is almost universally accepted amongst Africans is a testament to the corrosive impact of a belligerent foreign policy on America's international prestige. Even when the US government may not be guilty of meddling and interference, it is widely assumed that it is.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Concrete benefits of debt cancellation
This essay is part of a (more or less) weekly feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel and Iraq.
I've always argued in favor of debt cancellation for African countries. I had no problem with the proviso that any country receiving such a cancellation should not be offered future loans, at least for a certain period of time. The money spent on repaying the debt and interest being repaid to the International Monetary Fund would be better served on improving such things as education, health care and infrastructure construction (and importantly, infrastructure maintenance), perhaps even microcredit projects.
Some argued that any such debt cancellation would be a waste of money because all African governments are irredeemably corrupt. They did so even though provisions could be quite easily added to the debt cancellation agreement between the country and the IMF so as to ensure that such savings were used for legitimate and dually agreed purposes. It's important not to take everything at face value. But there's an enormous difference between healthy skepticism and corrosive cynicism.
Most of these debts were granted to dictatorships. It's important to give to emerging African democracies the benefit of the doubt, even as you limit their room for future screwups. If the regimes steal the money or fall victim to cronyism, just shut off the tap immediately. If this had been done during the Cold War to the Mobutu regime or other dictatorships, these countries would never had accrued such enormous debts in the first place.
Cheap cycnism about debt cancellation is quite easy, but trying to improve things requires a little more persistence. Oxfam reports on how things can unfold if given the chance.
User fees were introduced in Zambia under IMF and World Bank pressure in the early 1990s, back when the two institutions were pressuring every country it could to adopt homogeneous neoliberal economic policies conceived in Washington and London without any regard for local specificities. Fortunately, the Zambian government finally reversed this disaster after the G8 countries erased about 40 percent of its debt.
The government of Zambia [last week] introduced free health care for people living in rural areas, scrapping fees which for years had made health care inaccessible for millions.
The move was made possible using money from the debt cancellation and aid increases agreed at the G8 in Gleneagles [Britain] last July, when Zambia received $4 billion of debt relief; money it is now investing in health and education.
[...]
Until today the average trip to a clinic would have cost more than double that amount, the equivalent of [an American worker having to pay $210] just to visit a clinic.
Zambia's national income is only $900 per person per year.
Zambia's per capita debt (before the debt relief) was $913 per person per year.
Bravo to the Zambian government! But imagine what the country could do for its people if most or all of the other 60 percent were forgiven.
I've always argued in favor of debt cancellation for African countries. I had no problem with the proviso that any country receiving such a cancellation should not be offered future loans, at least for a certain period of time. The money spent on repaying the debt and interest being repaid to the International Monetary Fund would be better served on improving such things as education, health care and infrastructure construction (and importantly, infrastructure maintenance), perhaps even microcredit projects.
Some argued that any such debt cancellation would be a waste of money because all African governments are irredeemably corrupt. They did so even though provisions could be quite easily added to the debt cancellation agreement between the country and the IMF so as to ensure that such savings were used for legitimate and dually agreed purposes. It's important not to take everything at face value. But there's an enormous difference between healthy skepticism and corrosive cynicism.
Most of these debts were granted to dictatorships. It's important to give to emerging African democracies the benefit of the doubt, even as you limit their room for future screwups. If the regimes steal the money or fall victim to cronyism, just shut off the tap immediately. If this had been done during the Cold War to the Mobutu regime or other dictatorships, these countries would never had accrued such enormous debts in the first place.
Cheap cycnism about debt cancellation is quite easy, but trying to improve things requires a little more persistence. Oxfam reports on how things can unfold if given the chance.
User fees were introduced in Zambia under IMF and World Bank pressure in the early 1990s, back when the two institutions were pressuring every country it could to adopt homogeneous neoliberal economic policies conceived in Washington and London without any regard for local specificities. Fortunately, the Zambian government finally reversed this disaster after the G8 countries erased about 40 percent of its debt.
The government of Zambia [last week] introduced free health care for people living in rural areas, scrapping fees which for years had made health care inaccessible for millions.
The move was made possible using money from the debt cancellation and aid increases agreed at the G8 in Gleneagles [Britain] last July, when Zambia received $4 billion of debt relief; money it is now investing in health and education.
[...]
Until today the average trip to a clinic would have cost more than double that amount, the equivalent of [an American worker having to pay $210] just to visit a clinic.
Zambia's national income is only $900 per person per year.
Zambia's per capita debt (before the debt relief) was $913 per person per year.
Bravo to the Zambian government! But imagine what the country could do for its people if most or all of the other 60 percent were forgiven.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Unlike his victims, Taylor gets his day in court
Today, vile scum Charles Taylor will appear before the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone to answer his indictments for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
(Regular readers of this blog will know that I've taken a special interest in this case because I personally have friends and aquaintances who lost relatives, homes and liveliehoods because of Taylor's terrorists. So when I call him 'vile scum,' I make no apologies for the ad hominem)
The BBC reports that the charges against him are as follows:
(abbreviations: WC=war crimes; CAH=crimes against humanity; VIHL=other serious violations of international humanitarian law)
Terrorising the civilian population and collective punishments
1 Acts of terrorism (WC)
Unlawful killings
2 Murder (CAH)
3 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder (WC)
Sexual violence
4 Rape (CAH)
5 Sexual slavery and any other form of sexual violence (CAH)
6 Outrages upon personal dignity (WC)
Physical violence
7 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular cruel treatment (WC)
8 Other inhumane acts (CAH)
Use of child soldiers
9 Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities (VIHL)
Abductions and forced labour
10 Enslavement (CAH)
Looting
11 Pillage (WC)
Some are upset about suggestions that the Taylor trial be moved to The Hague. Some blame this on 'western interference.' However, it was the president of Liberia herself, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, that made that request, calling the Dutch-based court 'more conducive.'
Some people would've preferred Taylor be allowed to remain in exile and impunity in Nigeria so as to 'ensure the peace' of Liberia. This was a false choice. Pres. Sirleaf said that the decision to extradite Taylor was a 'hard decision which ensures the long-term safety of the Liberian people and the security of the state.'
As if to underscore the CONTINUING menace represented by Taylor to the nation he once terrorized more directly, Liberian state security arrested a number of former Taylor generals following reports (admittedly by a one-time rival of Taylor) of an alleged plan to destabilize the government.
Some complain that Pres. Sirleaf was forced into calling for Taylor's extradition only because of pressure from the Bush administration, saying that future badly needed development aid was linked to justice for Taylor. Some argue that while Taylor's extradition was a good thing, the way in which it was forced upon her was tawdry. I tend to see a different view.
As rarely as I agree with the Bush administration, they were right on this one (it was bound to happen eventually). I suspect that Pres. Sirleaf wanted to extradite Taylor from the beginning. After all, she and her supporters were long harassed by Dictator Taylor; in fact, she might well have won the presidency back in 1997 had Taylor not blackmailed the country into choosing him ('vote for me or I'll take the country back to war'). I suspect she wanted to extradite Taylor anyway because of this and because of the continuing threat he represented to the country but she couldn't because Taylor still had strong influence on the Liberian political scene. My guess is that she secretly appreciated the public pressure from the Bush administration because it deflected a lot of the heat that would otherwise have been directed at the new president of a fragile government.
Some complain that the big, bad international community (ie: the evil west who is responsible for 110 percent of Africa's problems) is picking on the former Liberian saint. Why are they picking on poor, innocent Taylor when there are so many other people who did bad things during those wars? For one thing, a court can not prosecute everybody at once. And it makes only sense to start with the most culpable, with the leaders.
Some complain that the Special Court is going after only Taylor, and thus it amounts to 'victors' justice.' This is simply not true. The Special Court has 11 people; 2 of whom are now dead, 1 of whom is still at large and the rest of whom are in custody. Victors' justice? The first person to stand trial was not a rebel, but Sam Hinga Norman, the leader of a PRO-government Sierra Leone militia. His trial is controversial since many in Sierra Leone see him as a patriot and a war hero for combatting the hideous RUF rebels.
And just what exactly did Taylor do to become the world's worst war criminal? The Associated Press' West Africa correspondent during the early 1990s offers her memories. This is but a mere sample of the madness provoked by Taylor's megalomania.
This article from TIME magazine's archive's offers another perspective.
Update: A Liberian woman writing in The New York Times offers her memories of when Taylor's homicidal goons kidnapped her sister. The title of the piece says it all: A Story in Which Only the Happy Ending Is Unusual .
(Regular readers of this blog will know that I've taken a special interest in this case because I personally have friends and aquaintances who lost relatives, homes and liveliehoods because of Taylor's terrorists. So when I call him 'vile scum,' I make no apologies for the ad hominem)
The BBC reports that the charges against him are as follows:
(abbreviations: WC=war crimes; CAH=crimes against humanity; VIHL=other serious violations of international humanitarian law)
Terrorising the civilian population and collective punishments
1 Acts of terrorism (WC)
Unlawful killings
2 Murder (CAH)
3 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder (WC)
Sexual violence
4 Rape (CAH)
5 Sexual slavery and any other form of sexual violence (CAH)
6 Outrages upon personal dignity (WC)
Physical violence
7 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular cruel treatment (WC)
8 Other inhumane acts (CAH)
Use of child soldiers
9 Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities (VIHL)
Abductions and forced labour
10 Enslavement (CAH)
Looting
11 Pillage (WC)
Some are upset about suggestions that the Taylor trial be moved to The Hague. Some blame this on 'western interference.' However, it was the president of Liberia herself, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, that made that request, calling the Dutch-based court 'more conducive.'
Some people would've preferred Taylor be allowed to remain in exile and impunity in Nigeria so as to 'ensure the peace' of Liberia. This was a false choice. Pres. Sirleaf said that the decision to extradite Taylor was a 'hard decision which ensures the long-term safety of the Liberian people and the security of the state.'
As if to underscore the CONTINUING menace represented by Taylor to the nation he once terrorized more directly, Liberian state security arrested a number of former Taylor generals following reports (admittedly by a one-time rival of Taylor) of an alleged plan to destabilize the government.
Some complain that Pres. Sirleaf was forced into calling for Taylor's extradition only because of pressure from the Bush administration, saying that future badly needed development aid was linked to justice for Taylor. Some argue that while Taylor's extradition was a good thing, the way in which it was forced upon her was tawdry. I tend to see a different view.
As rarely as I agree with the Bush administration, they were right on this one (it was bound to happen eventually). I suspect that Pres. Sirleaf wanted to extradite Taylor from the beginning. After all, she and her supporters were long harassed by Dictator Taylor; in fact, she might well have won the presidency back in 1997 had Taylor not blackmailed the country into choosing him ('vote for me or I'll take the country back to war'). I suspect she wanted to extradite Taylor anyway because of this and because of the continuing threat he represented to the country but she couldn't because Taylor still had strong influence on the Liberian political scene. My guess is that she secretly appreciated the public pressure from the Bush administration because it deflected a lot of the heat that would otherwise have been directed at the new president of a fragile government.
Some complain that the big, bad international community (ie: the evil west who is responsible for 110 percent of Africa's problems) is picking on the former Liberian saint. Why are they picking on poor, innocent Taylor when there are so many other people who did bad things during those wars? For one thing, a court can not prosecute everybody at once. And it makes only sense to start with the most culpable, with the leaders.
Some complain that the Special Court is going after only Taylor, and thus it amounts to 'victors' justice.' This is simply not true. The Special Court has 11 people; 2 of whom are now dead, 1 of whom is still at large and the rest of whom are in custody. Victors' justice? The first person to stand trial was not a rebel, but Sam Hinga Norman, the leader of a PRO-government Sierra Leone militia. His trial is controversial since many in Sierra Leone see him as a patriot and a war hero for combatting the hideous RUF rebels.
And just what exactly did Taylor do to become the world's worst war criminal? The Associated Press' West Africa correspondent during the early 1990s offers her memories. This is but a mere sample of the madness provoked by Taylor's megalomania.
This article from TIME magazine's archive's offers another perspective.
Update: A Liberian woman writing in The New York Times offers her memories of when Taylor's homicidal goons kidnapped her sister. The title of the piece says it all: A Story in Which Only the Happy Ending Is Unusual .
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Bits and pieces
The Internet's great. Enjoy it while it lasts.
The Nation has a very alarming story on potential end of the Internet. I heard a similar story on Radio New Zealand. The idea of the Internet as a neutral platform where you could seek whatever you wanted would be eliminated. Now, we're not talking about individual websites but the neutrality of the Internet Service Providers.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Adding that...
As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"
Free?
That's odd. As someone with a math degree, I can categorically state that $44.99 a month does not qualify as free! That $540 a year (per person) has to pay for something!
***
A commentary on Alternet wonders: If students during the '60s had been saddled with the debts our present-day young people carry, there might not have been a civil rights movement.
Of course, some would've preferred that blacks, women and gays returned to the place they occupied before the evil 60s. That is, the fields, the kitchen and the closet respectively. But the piece makes you wonder which social advances aren't being agitated for because of this.
***
Another Alternet piece declares quite plainly: There is no immigration crisis -- other than the one created by a small but vocal stripe of opportunist politicians, media demagogues and freelance xenophobes.
The situation is hardly new.
The Script is as old as the Mayflower: A false alarm is sounded that the values, wages and safety of the current roster of credentialed Americans are jeopardized by the "flood" or "tidal wave" or "river" sneaking across our porous borders -- be they Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Russian, Mexican or even the freed slaves seeking to earn an honest living in Northern cities after the Civil War. Any and all manner of societal problems are to be laid on these scapegoats, and the same simplistic solution offered: Find and deport them, and don't let any more in.
***
Three years ago, the high court in Massachussetts ruled that gay marriage must be legalized, according to the commonwealth's constitution. A feature on Minnesota Public Radio looks at how the decision has changed the Bay State. The answer, sure to disappoint ideologues, is shockingly little. The sky hasn't fallen. Gay parents aren't 'converting' their children. Families aren't disintegrating any faster. In fact, families are being strengthed because now, both of a child's de facto parents have that legal status.
Echoing the most common anti-gay marriage arguments, one legislator opposes gay marriage because he believes heterosexual marriage is the glue that holds society together. He says the sole purpose of marriage is for the creation of children. He also insists that gay marriage and civil unions will erode the standard of marriage and says the children of gay and lesbian parents will be "unhealthy."
Totally ignoring the absurd last part of his argument, the middle part interests me.
If the sole purpose of marriage is for pro-creation, then why doesn't he introduce a law requiring that when a man and woman want to marry, they must sign an oath promising to have at least one child? Maybe a couple shouldn't be allowed to divorce before having children because failing to procreate would be a breach of their public obligation to add to the population.
Yeah, that's 'healthy.'
***
Every winter, you hear a lot about a mythical 'war on Christmas.' It usually involves anecdotes or urban legends about a town not letting someone put up a manger scene in a public park (even though they could put the mangers in their front lawns), schools holding 'holiday' parties instead of 'Christmas' parties or some other atrocity probably defended by ACLU Nazis. These incidents are passed off as proof of the impending genocide against continually oppressed American Christians.
There is real religious persecution in the world, but it's been trivialized by such non-issues like that.
Take the Afghan man to be prosecuted for being a Christian.
In the Afghanistan 'liberated' from Taliban theocracy by American dollars and blood, it is a crime to abandon Islam, a crime punishable by death.
Fortunately, the man was granted asylum in Italy by his fellow Christian Silvio of Nazareth.
So the next you think someone saying 'Happy Holidays' is a sign of Christian Armageddon, remember this case and get a clue.
***
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told a British audience that her government has no desire to be "the world's jailer."
(Pause for laughter to die down)
She added, "We want the terrorists that we capture to stand trial for their crimes."
Perhaps she could start with the kidnapees held at Guantanamo Bay for years in a legality-free vacuum.
Trials in open court of these folks should be a propaganda coup for the Bush administration. The evidence presented would prove to the world beyond any shadow of a doubt that the reactionaires really are trying to kill us. It would present in great detail exactly how they intended to do harm. That the Bush administration refuses to try these guys in open court, thus denying them the rule of law, due process and fairness that democracies are supposed to embody, it makes the rest of the world (and millions of Americans) wonder what the administration has to hide.
***
In the aftermath of the arrest of the world's worst war criminal, this piece from TIME magazine's archives reminds us just why Charles Taylor deserves that title.
How bad was the carnage? Over 10,000 lives had been lost when this 1990 article was printed, after only ten months of conflict. The two civil wars involving Taylor's forces lasted a combined nine years.
Both Liberian civil wars started in order to overthrow terrible dictators. But the carnage was far worse than anything either autocratic regime perpetrated on its own. And the country will take years (decades) to recover from teh trauma.
As in so many other wars, the law of unintended consequences took over and the dictatorship of a despot was replaced with the dictatorship of chaos. The Liberia disaster demonstrates why war should always be an absolute last resort.
The Nation has a very alarming story on potential end of the Internet. I heard a similar story on Radio New Zealand. The idea of the Internet as a neutral platform where you could seek whatever you wanted would be eliminated. Now, we're not talking about individual websites but the neutrality of the Internet Service Providers.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Adding that...
As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"
Free?
That's odd. As someone with a math degree, I can categorically state that $44.99 a month does not qualify as free! That $540 a year (per person) has to pay for something!
***
A commentary on Alternet wonders: If students during the '60s had been saddled with the debts our present-day young people carry, there might not have been a civil rights movement.
Of course, some would've preferred that blacks, women and gays returned to the place they occupied before the evil 60s. That is, the fields, the kitchen and the closet respectively. But the piece makes you wonder which social advances aren't being agitated for because of this.
***
Another Alternet piece declares quite plainly: There is no immigration crisis -- other than the one created by a small but vocal stripe of opportunist politicians, media demagogues and freelance xenophobes.
The situation is hardly new.
The Script is as old as the Mayflower: A false alarm is sounded that the values, wages and safety of the current roster of credentialed Americans are jeopardized by the "flood" or "tidal wave" or "river" sneaking across our porous borders -- be they Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Russian, Mexican or even the freed slaves seeking to earn an honest living in Northern cities after the Civil War. Any and all manner of societal problems are to be laid on these scapegoats, and the same simplistic solution offered: Find and deport them, and don't let any more in.
***
Three years ago, the high court in Massachussetts ruled that gay marriage must be legalized, according to the commonwealth's constitution. A feature on Minnesota Public Radio looks at how the decision has changed the Bay State. The answer, sure to disappoint ideologues, is shockingly little. The sky hasn't fallen. Gay parents aren't 'converting' their children. Families aren't disintegrating any faster. In fact, families are being strengthed because now, both of a child's de facto parents have that legal status.
Echoing the most common anti-gay marriage arguments, one legislator opposes gay marriage because he believes heterosexual marriage is the glue that holds society together. He says the sole purpose of marriage is for the creation of children. He also insists that gay marriage and civil unions will erode the standard of marriage and says the children of gay and lesbian parents will be "unhealthy."
Totally ignoring the absurd last part of his argument, the middle part interests me.
If the sole purpose of marriage is for pro-creation, then why doesn't he introduce a law requiring that when a man and woman want to marry, they must sign an oath promising to have at least one child? Maybe a couple shouldn't be allowed to divorce before having children because failing to procreate would be a breach of their public obligation to add to the population.
Yeah, that's 'healthy.'
***
Every winter, you hear a lot about a mythical 'war on Christmas.' It usually involves anecdotes or urban legends about a town not letting someone put up a manger scene in a public park (even though they could put the mangers in their front lawns), schools holding 'holiday' parties instead of 'Christmas' parties or some other atrocity probably defended by ACLU Nazis. These incidents are passed off as proof of the impending genocide against continually oppressed American Christians.
There is real religious persecution in the world, but it's been trivialized by such non-issues like that.
Take the Afghan man to be prosecuted for being a Christian.
In the Afghanistan 'liberated' from Taliban theocracy by American dollars and blood, it is a crime to abandon Islam, a crime punishable by death.
Fortunately, the man was granted asylum in Italy by his fellow Christian Silvio of Nazareth.
So the next you think someone saying 'Happy Holidays' is a sign of Christian Armageddon, remember this case and get a clue.
***
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told a British audience that her government has no desire to be "the world's jailer."
(Pause for laughter to die down)
She added, "We want the terrorists that we capture to stand trial for their crimes."
Perhaps she could start with the kidnapees held at Guantanamo Bay for years in a legality-free vacuum.
Trials in open court of these folks should be a propaganda coup for the Bush administration. The evidence presented would prove to the world beyond any shadow of a doubt that the reactionaires really are trying to kill us. It would present in great detail exactly how they intended to do harm. That the Bush administration refuses to try these guys in open court, thus denying them the rule of law, due process and fairness that democracies are supposed to embody, it makes the rest of the world (and millions of Americans) wonder what the administration has to hide.
***
In the aftermath of the arrest of the world's worst war criminal, this piece from TIME magazine's archives reminds us just why Charles Taylor deserves that title.
How bad was the carnage? Over 10,000 lives had been lost when this 1990 article was printed, after only ten months of conflict. The two civil wars involving Taylor's forces lasted a combined nine years.
Both Liberian civil wars started in order to overthrow terrible dictators. But the carnage was far worse than anything either autocratic regime perpetrated on its own. And the country will take years (decades) to recover from teh trauma.
As in so many other wars, the law of unintended consequences took over and the dictatorship of a despot was replaced with the dictatorship of chaos. The Liberia disaster demonstrates why war should always be an absolute last resort.
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