International Affairs: January 2004 Archives

My brother sent me an article about this year's World Economic Forum, and here are some quotes from some attendees that interest me.

"I do not see much hope in the political domain, but a lot of hope in the technological domain," said [former Israeli Prime Minister] Shimon Peres....

This seems to be a common meme, but it's entirely baseless. Technology itself is a tool, and politics will always determine how that tool is wielded. No matter how advanced your hammer, if your building plans are flawed your house will turn our poorly. Likewise, technology alone does nothing to guarantee the future prosperity of mankind. Only those who worship technology as a religion can think otherwise.

Peres was one of many speakers who made the very Davosian point that in a world of six billion people, 80 percent of the economic activity is coming from a mere one billion, while another billion lives on less than $1 a day.

That's a meaningless statistic. There certainly are desperately poor people in the world, but $1 can buy a lot more in Zimbabwe than it can in America.

And there was energetic interest among many in Davos about using technology to improve the lot of the poor.

The thing holding poor nations down isn't a lack of technology, it's a lack of democratic institutions. As I said above, technology won't save people if they're still oppressed by politics. Actually, there is one technological advance that could be of assistance: guns. Give every person in the world an M16 and a thousand rounds and I bet things would change pretty quick.

Giving poor nations money and technology is like giving them fish, whereas giving them a democratic government is like teaching them to fish.

Another prediction: "Life expectancy will go to 150 in the next half-century."

I think that's conservative. We'll see.

There is some attention paid to the political aspect of technology, but unsurprisingly it takes the wrong tack.

Scary though it sounds, over time we will have a hard time keeping the most powerful weapons and tools out of the hands of anyone. We have to somehow create a world where that is not a threat. ...

Microsoft chief Bill Gates spoke privately to the press late Friday night, and he was full of notable thoughts that were generally as optimistic as those of Peres. ...

He also made a statement of the kind one doesn't hear often enough from global leaders: "If you ask what's the greatest divide in terms of rights and equities," he said, "it's national borders. That doesn't seem to bother people as much as I think it will."

The reason we need national borders seems blatantly obvious to me, but let me explain anyway. Despite Mr. Gate's praise for the "breakthtaking" economic situation in China ("it's capitalism at full speed"), that nation is still a Communist dictatorship, and its people are still horribly repressed. As long as the Communists want to maintain power (i.e., forever) they're never going to open their borders or allow truly free trade. Likewise, America can't afford to open its borders because the oppression in the rest of the world keeps most people poor and uneducated and unable to contribute to our modern society except as manual labor (and thugs). Until there's economic and political similarity -- even if not equality -- opening borders would be suicide.

What Gates and many at Davos realize is that it's not only charity to help the world's poor improve their lot. It's an issue of security. As Peres put it at breakfast, "Terror is the war of poor people, and suicide bombs are the weapons of poor people."

Absurd. Terror is the war of Islamic fascists. The September 11th hijackers all came from wealthy families. Most Palestinian bombers are poor, but then almost everyone in Palestine is poor because of Arafat and his cronies. Further, there are plenty of poor people in the world who don't go around committing terrorism. Basically, the only terrorists are Islamic fascists. (Some people will then point out the Irish Republican Army, but they seem to have quit, and they aren't poor; name another non-Islamofascist terrorist group.)

And then the World Economic Forum turned to more serious issues, like fighting spam.

Am I the only one who sees this as a bad trade?

The bodies of three Israeli soldiers, kidnapped in an ambush by Hizballah in October 2000, and a (living) Israeli businessman were exchanged for 435 "security prisoners" -- about 400 of them Palestinians who will return to the West Bank. In addition, Israel was handing over the bodies of 59 Lebanese fighters to Lebanon as part of the deal.

It's obviously sad that this businessman was captured, and it would be terrible for him to be killed, but how many deaths will be brought about be releasing these four hundred prisoners who are likely to return to lives of terrorism in the West Bank? It's hard for me to believe this type of trade is popular among Israelis. It boggles the mind.

Looks like Syrian banks received billions from Saddam right before the US invaded last year.

Syria's Central Bank and the Medina Bank in Lebanon are holding at least $2 billion in cash, as well as gold bullion and platinum, that was smuggled out of Iraq, according to a letter written on the stationery of the Syrian army's intelligence department.

The letter says $1.3 billion was deposited in the Syrian Central Bank in an official "presidency" account, while another $700 million was placed in the Medina Bank. The document does not state the value of the gold and platinum, although it says these are also in the Syrian Central Bank.

That money rightfully belongs to the American people, and should be immediately claimed as spoils of war and used to pay Halliburton to develop Iraq's oil fields and build a giant pipeline to Texas through the center of the earth.

France, that beacon of enlightenment, has decided to oppress it's religious minorities, and they aren't happy about it. The upcoming ban on religious attire in schools is a striking example of how weak France's democracy really is.

The protesters want to scrap a bill that will go before French lawmakers next month forbidding "conspicuous" religious signs, from Islamic head scarves to Jewish skull caps and large Christian crosses, in public schools. Easy passage is expected, and the law is to become applicable with the new school year in September. ...

Critics of the law claim it will stigmatize France's Muslims. French authorities contend the principle of secularism is meant to make everybody equal.

It's not about equality (what's unequal about people wearing different types of clothes, or being different religions?), it's about conformity. Diversity (in thought and belief) can certainly cause instability in a country, but strong democracies can absorb the waves without incurring much damage. Is France's body politic so fragile that it can't handle religious freedom anymore? Do little girls threaten the republic by wearing scarves to school?

In my previous posts about mutually assured destruction I made the point many times over that the US needs to be willing to respond with nuclear force if we're attacked with nuclear weapons. Various people have come up with various retaliation schemes, but the government hasn't made many public statements on the matter.

However, there have been some hints, and they have quite deliberately reinforced MAD -- I'm almost 100% certain that our government has delivered covert threats to many countries reminding them that if we're attacked with a nuclear weapon, they're 15 minutes behind us. For obvious reasons it's to the advantage of all parties concerned that such threats don't leak out.

Anyone who doubts that America has and will follow such a policy doesn't understand how the real world works. The government tries to protect us from a lot of information that would hurt our tender sensibilities, and often does act in our best interests even when we wouldn't recognize them. Good or bad (and many libertarians won't like it), it's the truth.

I loathe Sean Penn, and won't ever see any of his movies again if it's at all within my power. His new travel journal from Iraq may give you some insight into why. (I feel like noting there that, despite arrests for assault and drug use, Sean Penn was still granted a California permit to Carry Concealed Weapons; despite my lack of a violent criminal record, I've been denied.) The article starts idiotically enough.

Doc Birnbaum filled the last of three receptacles with my blood (he was concerned about my looming cholesterol problem and had graciously made a house call), then slid the needle out of my vein as my phone rang. I answered as the doc pressed a cotton ball onto the puncture in the crook of my arm.

What normal people have doctors that make house calls to take blood? No one. It's not surprising that this pompus monkey is so disconnected from reality and popular opinion.

It is 2 a.m. in Jordan when my flight arrives. I part ways with Medea and her delegation, pay the 10 dinars for a visa, and go through customs, where I am greeted by Sattar. Before the Gulf War, Sattar had been a well-paid civil engineer. Now he drives the perilous 12 hours into Amman and 12 hours back to Baghdad, shuttling journalists and humanitarian aides, for a mere $300 per 24- hour round trip.

Again, how many people in America make a mere $300 per day? It's not a huge amount of money (around $80,000 per year), but compared to what Sattar was likely making as a civil engineer before the war it's a fortune; plus, he's probably not paying a 40%+ marginal tax rate.

For hundreds of kilometers at a stretch, the occasional Bedouin sheepherder is the only human form in sight. As far as the eye can see, these Bedouins -- solitary robed figures traveling the desert followed by a hundred head of sheep -- appear to have neither a point of origin nor a destination. It seems their only mission is to exist as props for a National Geographic photographer. Where are they taking these sheep? And where did they come from?

It's called working for a living. Idiot.

I've quietly arranged (the less my whereabouts are known, the better) to switch cars at the Hunting Club, a private social club that traditionally hosted a who's-who of Iraqi society. Saddam Hussein's son Oday was known to pick up girls there.

By "pick up girls" he of course means that Oday (who? Uday?) kidnapped them, raped them, and often murdered them. Pshaw, minor details.

On the busy boulevard in front of the Palestine Hotel are several makeshift money-changing tables. They survive on the fluctuating exchange rate of the dinar and charge a commission for changing money, mostly U.S. dollars for Iraqi dinars. It's not really a black market, because there is no official market; it's all black, without regulation, taxes or import duty.

That's not a black market, that's a free market. Communist.

Anyway, there's a lot more drivel, but Mr. Penn can't help but note in passing that the American troops are good guys, and that many (at least) of the Iraqis are glad to have them there. He manages to highlight the various failings of the occupation, but I'm quite encouraged by what I read between the lines. He notes repeated details of Saddam's tyrannical and murderous rule, and it looks like even Sean Penn may now see (some of the reasons) why the invasion was a good thing all around.

Looks like the Palestinian Authority is running out of money. (Fortunately Arafat is still a billionaire, so maybe he can lend some of that money back.... One way to tell if you're an illegitimate head-of-state: you're average when you take office, and a billionaire when you quit/die/&c. Which we can only hope will happen to Arafat soon. Ok, this paranthetical is long enough now.)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Hit by waning support from fatigued donor nations, the Palestinian Authority has been forced to borrow from banks to pay salaries to its 125,000 employees and may be unable to meet its February payroll, the economy minister said Tuesday.

Yikes! The population of "Palestine" is around 3.3 million (sorry for the Jewish source, but I don't see why they'd be biased, and it lines up with what I'm pretty sure is right), a little more than 1% the size of the US. According to the American Federation of Government Employees, there are 1.75 million federal government employees in the United States, which means that 0.6% of Americans work for the government, while 3.8% of Palestinians work for the Palestinian Authority. No wonder they're going bankrupt!

Maybe they should try relying less on "donors" and actually -- I don't know -- build an economy of their own. Nah, that's no fun.

Bill Hobbs (at his spiffy new site) calls attention to a briefing by Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack, Jr., who says that attacks on coalition troops are down 60% since Saddam's capture. Mr. Hobbs wants to know why this hasn't been widely reported in the mainstream press, but I assume he's asking rhetorically.

The Iraqi Governing Council could petition the US for statehood, and if the media covered it they'd spend all their inches speculating on Halliburton's involvement. Besides, there's fighter jets not escorting passenger planes to report on, and Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead. Dennis Kucinich brings a pie chart to a radio debate, and the late Princess Di's gay husband wanted her dead.

Iraq is so 2003, Mr. Hobbs -- get with the program! You may as well wish for Afghanistan's new constitution to get air-time.

I've been reading various Middle East-related stories this afternoon, and I'm reminded of a little-known fact I first heard anecdotally from an Arab friend: it's very common for Arab parents to murder female newborns because males are more profitable. I'm not familiar enough with all the customs to tell you exactly why, but intuitively it makes sense. Arab women have a harder time getting educated, and aren't strong enough to do the same manual labor that men can do. Women are often treated like property in the Arab world.

Murdering your newborn daughter is monstrous, and the cumulative effect of many such murders can cripple a society. Consider Saudi Arabia, which has 1.37 males for every female aged 15-64 years old! More than a quarter of the men will never find a wife! In other Arab nations the ratio is:
- 1.13:1 in Brunei
- 1.14:1 in Jordan
- 1.42:1 in Bahrain
- 1.51:1 in Oman
- 1.65:1 in the United Arab Emirates (!)
- 1.77:1 in Kuwait (!)
- 2.36:1 in Qatar (!!)

If you look at the rest of the countries in the world you'll believe me when I say that these sex ratios are simply not seen anywhere else (in the United States and France the ratios are 1:1, for instance). Imagine how awful it would be for a poor man in Qatar with no prospects, knowing for certain that he will never be able to find a wife, because even the stupidest, ugliest, most whiny woman will have her pick of the available men. Not to mention the fact that the king/sheik/dictator/whatever will have a harem of hundreds.

It's no wonder the men from these nations are so grumpy and disaffected.

Update:
As TMLutas points out, it's unlikely that female infanticide is the primary cause of these skewed sex ratios, and I want to be clear that I'm not claiming it is -- however I do think it's a contributing factor (along with other sorts of abuse). Even absent modern medical technology, women have longer life expectancies than men do. The most significant factor may be the large number of foreign workers who immigrate to oil nations to work in oil fields.

The point of this post wasn't so much to condemn female infanticide, but rather to call attention to the gender disparity itself (hence the title).

SDB writes a bit about intelligence successes as non-events, generally making the point that when intelligence agents do their job right there isn't much of a story to tell. In addition to the intelligence non-failures he mentions, I'd like to add that there haven't been any Army Blackhawk helicopters shot down in a while. There's probably more to it than intelligence work, but I still think it's a good thing.

I hope this story about pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong doesn't fly under the New Year's Day radar. Over 100,000 people marched in Hong Kong, asking for democratic reforms now that would allow them to elect their own officials again, rather than have them appointed by the communists in China as has been done since the UK turned the city over in 1997.

What's most humorous is the reaction of Hong Kong's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa (a communist):

"Many citizens took part in the procession today. We will listen carefully to their aspirations," Tung said in a written statement. But he added, "Hong Kong is a pluralistic society, and there are differing views on the pace of constitutional development."

Ohhh! The people of Hong Kong can't have democracy because some of the people of Hong Kong don't want it! It's pretty ironic to have a communist dictatorship defending its anti-democratic policies on the basis of public will (not that this is new).

And of course, there's always this same old argument:

The city's pro-democracy opposition argues that Tung should begin drafting new election legislation now to ensure there is enough time to persuade everyone to sign on to it. But both Tung and his superiors in Beijing have shown no interest in moving quickly on the issue, while many of the city's wealthy tycoons have argued that Hong Kong people are not ready for democracy.

You don't have to be "ready" for democracy, you just have to do it. It'll work itself out over time. The argument is particularly absurd with respect to Hong Kong: the city was democratic for 100 years (or so?) until 1997.

Just another reason to dislike communists.