International Affairs: September 2005 Archives
Lest anyone think American politics is exceptionally corrupt, take a look at the vote-buying scandal undermining Brazil's ruling party.
Now, even the modestly progressive elements of these reforms have now been overshadowed by the corruption scandals that exploded in June 2005 after a revelatory TV interview by a member of congress from a small party allied to the PT, Roberto Jefferson (who has himself fallen victim to the process he unleashed). It is generally admitted that the cúpula (group at the top) of the PT bribed political parties of the right to join their parliamentary alliance and gave monthly payments to congressmen of the right to support their legislation.The corruption extended also to the PT's strategy for winning the 2002 election. This, it turns out, was based on a secret slush fund or caixa dois (literally "a second cash till") sourced by donations from businesses contracted by PT municipal governments, public companies and private companies seeking government contacts. The publicist responsible for Lula's 2002 advertising campaign admitted he had received money from these PT funds through an illegal account held by the PT in the Bahamas.
Despite the ethics problems of our representatives, if anything they may be far more honest than the politicians plaguing the rest of the world. For Brazil, corruption is a way of life that reaches back centuries.
As a result of this tradition of corruption, people in Brazil seem to have become quite lax about the problem. In fact, there are politicians who have been re-elected after many evidences of corrupt behaviour. On certain occasions it seems that corruption has even enhanced the popularity of the politician.This might be true for the case of Adhemar de Barros, the governor of São Paulo in the 1950s and 1960s. Voters knew that he liked very much to steal public money, but kept voting on Barros for considering him a 'generous' leader for themselves. Believe it or not, the slogan of Governor Barros during his political campaigns was 'Rouba Mas Faz' ("He Steals but He Makes Things Happen"). ...
In another and more recent scandal, the Workers' Party (PT) has been found paying bribes to members of other political parties in return for their votes in Congress. The case started being unveiled when a political appointee who works at the postal service was filmed telling two bogus businessmen that they could win public contracts by paying bribes to Roberto Jefferson, the parliamentary leader of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB).
In an attempt to deviate the attention of the media from himself, Jefferson ended up disclosing another and more serious scandal. On June 15, 2005, he told a congressional ethics' committee that the PT was paying a monthly allowance of US$ 12 thousand to some parliamentarians, in return for their support to government-sponsored law proposals. If the allegation is confirmed, as it has been on an almost daily basis, the PT government has built a 'de facto' parliamentary majority by means of bribery.
Fascinatingly dysfunctional.
Israeli politicians are warning the West that Iran must not obtain nuclear weapons. Their fear is pretty rational, considering that many Iranian mullahs have openly called for nuclear strikes against Israel. From 2001:
One of Iran’s most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only"."If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.
He's wrong though, of course, because the first time Muslims use nuclear weapons will also be the last.
Further, the US might be playing good-cop/bad-cop with Iran, casting Israel as the bad cop. The Muslims hate Israel more than the US already, so if someone has to take action it may as well be them. Afterwards the US can step in, protect Israel, and try to cool the situation down. This sort of strategy gets more difficult as the Islamic world starts to hate America more and more.
I'm all for citizens carrying weapons, but I don't get the idea that the sudden influx of weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip is motivated by self-defense.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Palestinian gunrunners smuggled hundreds of assault rifles and pistols across the Egyptian frontier into Gaza, dealers and border officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The influx confirmed Israeli fears about giving up border control and could further destabilize Gaza.Black market prices for weapons dropped sharply, with AK-47 assault rifles nearly cut in half to $1,300 and even steeper reductions for handguns.
News of the smuggling came as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas tried to impose order following the Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza this week. Militant groups scoffed at a new Palestinian Authority demand that they disband after parliamentary elections in January, saying they would not surrender weapons.
Without Israeli muscle, the Palestinian Authority will quickly be reduced to impotence, destroyed, or dominated by "militant" groups (i.e., terrorists like Hamas).
Abbas' top aide, Rafiq Husseini, outlined what he said was a new security plan."Our plan is that ... by the (January) election, the Palestinian street will be cleaned of militias and illegal weapons," he said.
Husseini said that starting next week, militants in the ruling
Fatah movement would be absorbed into security forces. Abbas would insist that all groups participating in the election disarm after the vote.Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar rejected that. "We will not allow for even one gun to be taken away from us," he said. "Why should we give up our weapons while Israel still threatens our borders?"
Israel will be seen to be "threatening" as long as the Jewish nation exists, no matter how many concessions they make.
My brother tells me that the recent landslide victory by Japan's Liberal Democratic Party indicates strong popular support for the United States, for a robust Japanese involvement in the War on Terror, and for economic liberty.
The LDP, which has run Japan for nearly all the past 50 years, stormed to victory Sunday, boosting its standing in the lower house by nearly 50 seats in the 480-member chamber, to 296.That success came at the painful expense of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which saw its standing plummet from 175 seats to 113. It won only one seat in Tokyo, a former stronghold.
Still, reports are that the pro-American, pro-defense actions of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi were not major campaign issues.
The funny thing about the Japanese election result was that by far the most important single issue of policy, and the one with the weightiest implications for the United States and the world, barely made any waves in the campaign.Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi won a striking re-election victory by focusing on the single issue of domestic reform in a profoundly misleading way. He was able to campaign as the 'Lionheart' radical who would modernize Japan by privatizing the massive postal bank, and skirted the way that he has far more fundamentally changed Japan`s foreign policy.
Koizumi`s opponents tried to make his newly assertive and pro-American policies into an election issue, but failed. They promised to withdraw the Japanese troops that Koizumi had sent to Iraq (in a strictly non-combat role), and to repair relations with China and South Korea, and also attacked Koizumi for his regular visits to the Yasukuni shrine for Japan`s war dead, which included some World War II military figures accused of war crimes; the visits have also provoked angry comments from Chinese and Korean officials.
So, even if the populace isn't wildly anti-American, they're pro-American enough that the Prime Minister's affiliations didn't hurt him.
The antics of the newly "liberated" "Gazans" highlight the reasons why I'm skeptical of future Palestinian self-governance.
GAZA CITY — Palestinians surged triumphantly into demolished Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip early today, torching empty synagogues and firing shots into the air, as the last Israeli soldiers withdrew after 38 years of occupation. ...Controversy over the synagogues within Israel's government crackled until the last minute, when the majority of Cabinet ministers reversed course by voting against demolition after intensive lobbying by rabbis who opposed the razing of the houses of worship. Private homes in the evacuated settlements had already been demolished. ...
The decision left the fate of the synagogues in Abbas' hands. Palestinian officials had turned down an earlier Israeli request that they act as caretakers because of concerns that they could not prevent militants from defacing the synagogues as symbols of the Israeli presence.
"It is a very unfair decision to put us in a situation where if we demolish them we will be doomed, and if we don't, we'll be doomed," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "This is the last thing we want."
Hm, isn't the definitional requirement of a government that it be able to maintain and enforce a monopoly on the use of physical force? If the Palestinians can't control their "militants", then they aren't capable of self-governance.
