International Affairs: January 2005 Archives

In a bizarre example of what can happen when a government gets too deep into the private realm (ha), Germany is now threatening to cut benefits to women who refuse to work as prostitutes.

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year. ...

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse. ...

Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job centre for recruits.

"Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job centre when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?" said Miss Ulyanova.

Indeed! Will some Leftist please explain to me why this isn't a desirable result?

Update:
Aw, too bad... Xrlq says this story is a hoax -- though CBS and Dan Rather aren't sure yet.

It's hard to read about the jubilation of Iraqi voters without my eyes tearing up.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Some came on crutches, others walked for miles then struggled to read the ballot, but across Iraq, millions turned out to vote Sunday, defying insurgents who threatened a bloodbath. ...

Even in Falluja, the Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a steady stream of people turned out, confounding expectations. Lines of veiled women clutching their papers waited to vote.

"We want to be like other Iraqis, we don't want to always be in opposition," said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after he voted.

Good for you, Mr. Jassim. That's the kind of spirit that's going to be required for you to rebuild your country.

In Baquba, a rebellious city northeast of Baghdad, spirited crowds clapped and cheered at one voting station. In Mosul, scene of some of the worst insurgent attacks in recent months, U.S. and local officials said turnout was surprisingly high. ...

Even in the so-called "triangle of death," a hotbed of Sunni insurgency south of Baghdad, turnout was solid, officials said. ...

Samir Hassan, 32, who lost his leg in a car bomb blast in October, was determined to vote. "I would have crawled here if I had to. I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today I am voting for peace," he said, leaning on his metal crutches, determination in his reddened eyes.

Americans, Brits, Poles, Aussies, and other foreigners aren't the only ones who have suffered and died for Iraq, despite the way many news reports portray it. Most of the blood has been shed by Iraqis themselves, and this is a great day for their country. A great success.

In Sadr City, a poor Shi'ite neighborhood of northeast Baghdad, thick lines of voters turned out, women in black abaya robes in one line, men in another.

If Sadr City sounds familiar, it's because it was the headquarters of that radical Shi'ite cleric who led a rebellion last year, funded by Iran. And now the people are voting.

One of the biggest surprises was Mosul, a mixed Sunni Arab and Kurd city in the far north. "So far it's gone very well, much better than expected," said a U.S. army officer.

Baghdad's mayor was overcome with emotion by the turnout of voters at City Hall, where he said thousands were celebrating.

"I cannot describe what I am seeing. It is incredible. This is a vote for the future, for the children, for the rule of law, for humanity, for love," Alaa al-Tamimi told Reuters.

Indeed. Americans can learn a thing or two from the Iraqis -- maybe we could get a few thousand gallons of that indelible ink that prevents people from voting more than once, for starters.

There's a particularly encouraging report from Iraq the Model:

The first thing we saw this morning on our way to the voting center was a convoy of the Iraqi army vehicles patrolling the street, the soldiers were cheering the people marching towards their voting centers then one of the soldiers chanted "vote for Allawi" less than a hundred meters, the convoy stopped and the captain in charge yelled at the soldier who did that and said: "You're a member of the military institution and you have absolutely no right to support any political entity or interfere with the people's choice. This is Iraq's army, not Allawi's". This was a good sign indeed and the young officer's statement was met by applause from the people on the street.

Hammorabi has pictures from polling stations.

Jeffrey at Iraqi Bloggers Central has a summary of blog coverage, largely by Iraqi bloggers I hadn't heard about until now.

Steven Vincent issues a stern rebuke to lefties like Marko Zuniga:

And what of our friends on the Left? I'm sorry they can't share in our joy--because there is no reason they should not. Alas, like the Muslim Scholars Association, they, too, decided to "boycott" the elections. For example, here is what the great lefty website Daily Kos had to say yesterday:

The war is long past lost. Time to pack it in, and save the lives of our men and women in uniform that will otherwise face a barrage of bullets and RPG rounds during their extended stay in the desert.

Clearly, Dean-shill Marko Zuniga has an odd perception of liberalism. On a day when millions of Iraqi citizens stood up against the specter of fascism to exercise their rights as free and dignified human beings, Zuniga claims the election is "simply an exercise in pretty pictures." Tell that to the Iraqis who danced and cried for joy at the chance to vote, Mr. Zuniga. Tell that to people who have suffered for decades under a tyrant whose crimes were brutal to the point of madness. Tell that to the men and women who died to make this day a reality.

Doesn't it bother the Left that they've positioned themselves such that today -- such a great day for Democracy -- they're inescapably grouped with losers like Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, doomed to the wrong side of history?

Hindrocket at Power Line Blog has more pictures of Iraqi's voting. Friends of Democracy has election day photos also.

DeoDuce has a perspective on the upcoming election in Iraq from her vantage point as an Iraqi American.

Not many of us know what it was like to live under Saddam Hussein. Even with all of the horror stories from friends and family members of the Hussein regime, I too am in the dark as to fully comprehend the enormity of the terror the Iraqi people suffered as I was privileged to have been born here in the United States. Thank God.

We equate Auschwitz with death (and necessarily so) and Rwanda with genocide. However, what happened to 1-6 million Iraqis who disappeared under Saddam's reign? It was an Iraqi Holocaust. It was a Kurdish Holocaust. It was a human Holocaust. Some people simply cannot seem to understand this. No amount of debate or words can lessen lack of comprehension of moral matters or matters so inherently serious as mass evil. Whatever the case, I wonder if the Iraqis can muster the strength, energy, and hope to go to the polls and reassert their pride and Right to Exist upon the Map of Human Races. We, as Americans, have helped the Iraqi people say "no more." Now it is time for the Iraqis to say "never again." Will they vote?

They'll vote, and some will die for it. As Thomas Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Iraqi patriots will shed their blood on Sunday, and we can only hope that the blood of their former tyrant will not be far behind.

JJ McCullough at Filibuster Cartoons has greated a handy pictoral chart of inaugurations from around the world. The pictures show various heads of government taking their oaths of office, and the differences are as interesting as the similarities. It's a shame they frequently don't take their promises very seriously.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the only two places in the world where Arabs have a meaningful opportunity to vote are Israel and -- soon -- Iraq?

As Steven Den Beste wrote many times, we don't gain allies by making concessions and signing treaties. Real alliances only arise due to common interests. In a comment to my previous post on international hubris, Mark started with a quote from me and wrote:

MW: "My own advice is that the irrelevant part should step lightly to ensure that they don't fall into the half that's trying to hurt us."

Oh yes... that's just what we need.... more enemies and less allies.

But neither allies nor enemies are created by methods, they are only created by our goals. We want to spread freedom, wealth, and democracy, but a significant portion of the world -- including parts of the West -- want to keep the status quo because it's more profitable and easier. That's why France, Germany, and the UN opposed the liberation of Iraq. They had and have different goals than we do, which is why they aren't our allies.

As Mr. Den Beste wrote of those two nations in February of 2003, while they were obstructing us in the UN:

For all practical purposes, both nations are now enemies. Or rather, their governments are. The people of those nations are not, and we need to keep that in mind. I have friends in Germany and they are still my friends. But their governments are not acting like "allies". They're acting like enemies.

There is no alliance, and there is no friendship. This is no longer a deep difference of opinion between friends; it is fullblown opposition. They are actively opposing us and actively supporting our enemies, and there's no other way we can consider them now except as active cobelligerents against us. Their reputations and their influence are now direct threats to us, and we will need to damage them. This is, effectively, war now between the US/UK and France/Germany.

It isn't going to be a shooting war, however; it's a war of diplomacy and propaganda and influence. So if we come upon records in Iraq, or find people there who can prove that France and Germany have been actively trafficking in forbidden goods, or that they have been collaborating in other even more damaging ways, then public revelation of it will make their positions far less strong and reduce their threat to us. It doesn't matter how French or German voters react; what will be important is how everyone else, in Europe and in America and around the world view it.

Some will smile quietly about how they'd been shafting the Americans for years. But no one would trust them, and as a practical matter their international influence would be shattered. This would also have the effect of completing the destruction of the UN if it was shown that a veto power had been actively violating trade sanctions it had voted for.

Now that the oil-for-food scandal is being thoroughly investigated, it's clear that many nations who claimed to be our allies were, in fact, trying to screw us over. Why? Because it was in their interests to do so. We do what's in our interests, and they do what's in their interests. But when those interests don't line up, there's no "alliance", no matter what any piece of paper may say.

So to Mark's point, the only way for us to gain allies is for either our goals to change or for their goals to change. I don't want ours to change; no matter how much France and Germany and the UN love tyranny and oppression, I think we should fight against it at every reasonable opportunity. I'd love to have them in agreement over that, but I don't think it's likely to happen any time soon. It certainly won't happen just because President Bush "consults" more closely with them, unless he works against our interests and does what they tell him to.

The hubris of "many world leaders" is occasionally astounding.

PARIS (Reuters) - The rest of the world will be watching with anxiety when President Bush is inaugurated Thursday for a second time, fearing the most powerful man on the planet may do more harm than good.

Many world leaders, alienated by Bush's go-it-alone foreign policy and the U.S.-led war in Iraq, would have preferred him to lose the U.S. election last November. Since his victory, they have been urging him to listen and consult more.

We wanted you to lose, but since you won we'd like it if you would listen to us more and do what we say. Here's a clue: if you want people to listen to you, you should show them that your advice helps them in some way, instead of only yourself. And no, merely getting back into your good graces does not count as "help" for us.

Mistrust also runs deep among ordinary people. Some 58 percent of people surveyed in a British Broadcasting Corporation poll in 21 countries said they believed Bush's re-election made the world a more dangerous place.

"Negative feelings about Bush are high," Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes which carried out the study, told the BBC. "This is quite a grim picture for the United States."

Grim because...? Are they going to stop buying our stuff and wearing our clothes? Not likely. The only thing slowing down their assimilation of American culture is that their economies are faltering. Are they going to refuse us help in future conflicts? Help with what militaries? France can't even deliver a single helicopter to Sumatra, what kind of help can the world offer us militarily?

Most of the world is irrelevant to us, and the rest is actively trying to hurt us. My own advice is that the irrelevant part should step lightly to ensure that they don't fall into the half that's trying to hurt us.

There is deep resentment to Bush in the Arab world, where he is accused of bias toward Israel, is criticized for his actions against Arab and Muslim states in the war on terror and faces dire warnings against any new military action in the region.

"The more Bush expands the horizon of American violence in the region, the greater the prospect of extremism and fanaticism," said Egyptian political analyst Mohamed al-Sayed.

I watched Voices of Iraq (buy it here) last week, and there appear to be a great many Arab people who are glad for what we did, as imperfect as our effort has been.

As for bias towards Israel, duh. They don't bomb buses and pizza parlors, which puts them a few notches above the Palestinians automatically. Plus, they didn't dance in the streets after 9/11. Plus, they're a democracy.

As for "the greater the prospect of extremism and fanaticism", the 1990s were full of terrorist attacks against America, and so far the 2000s have been pretty quiet. May God's grace continue to protect us.

... and it's ugly. Any of my much-appreciated French-speaking readers can watch the video and see exactly how France 2 humiliates the French Government. It must be sobering for a once-great world power to be confronted so directly with their present impotence.

The tsunami disaster is having a wholly different effect on the world than the invasion of Iraq, because unlike the people of Iraq no one can plausibly claim to be against helping the tsunami victims. Impotent "world powers" positioned themselves on Saddam's side because they didn't want to reveal that they didn't have the ability to take him out. But now their weakness becomes evident to everyone as they scramble madly to match the aid America and our armed forces are projecting halfway around the planet.

For days now, the US military has been getting favorable coverage on the French nightly news due to its response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami. But tonight's broadcast was simply astounding. At 8 minutes into the broadcast, anchor David Pujadas begins a discussion of the disaster response and introduced a report on the American deployment:

First off, here is the powerful American machinery in action. For 24 hours now, there has been a landing ["débarquement"] taking place — there is no other word — while helicopters continue the distribution [of humanitarian aid].

...

On screen, we then see a French doctor say... "As soon as our supplies gets here. No problem." Then we are treated to the image of the French begging for assistance from an Indonesian colonel! "We're expecting helicopters tomorrow," he says, asking for two trucks so they can move supplies. The colonel laughs and claps him on the shoulder. Then the French meet with some Americans. "It's been tough for us," says a French firefighter. "The Americans prove goodnatured toward the 'Frenchies,'" says the narrator. "But not much else." Then a big, impressive American Chinook helicopter arrives, empty, to pick up American journalists. French men looking dejected.

The report ends with the following summation:

... that the French army should even now be unable to provide them with a few helicopters 15 days after the fact is surprising, especially given the public outcry that the tsunami provoked. It is as though France no longer has the means even to express its emotions.

Read the whole thing, it's pretty absurd, and particularly embarrasing when French Defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie tries to explain why France is so pathetic.

Alliot-Marie, until recently a senior lecturer at the Sorbonne with degrees in law and ethnography, answers, "of course," but then engages in a wince-making attempt at damage control. "France is far from Indonesia," she says. "If there were many American helicopters on the scene, this is because the Americans were already there," she says.

You think Chirac was watching this at home? Was he in the next room with the sound on, pouring himself a drink? Did he throw a Baccarat crystal glass at the TV?

"They had an aircraft carrier with numerous helicopters that had docked at Hong Kong," she continues. "They've got a base in Guam, which is really quite close. So they arrived very quickly."

Yeah, it's called power. Maybe you've heard of it.

(HT: Glenn Reynolds.)