Sudan: time to abrogate parental rights to privacy

"Powell and Annan See Hints of Disaster in Sudan: Government Is Warned but Still Plays Down Refugee Crisis," by Christophere Marquis and Marc Lacey, New York Times, 1 July, p. A1.

At some point in the domestic abuse case the state decides that the rights of the parents are necessarily abrogated to preserve the rights of the children to a decent life away from abuse. When the process reaches this point of state intervention, most people typically side with the kids, believing it's just plain wrong to stand by and let something truly heinous happen to innocents. They don't talk about the "sovereignty" of the household.

That's where we are with Sudan. Its state has failed to provide for its people in the worst way: the ruling government is letting genocide unfold in slow motion because it seems to fit its model of maintaining its authoritarian grip on power.

Here's what one guy whispers to Colin Powell as he rushes up to his touring entourage visting a refugee camp of 40,000 in northern Darfur:

"'We want this government out,' whispered one man, who said he had lost 14 relatives to the violence. 'They kill our families.' He disappeared as quickly as he had surfaced saying, 'They watch me,' before melting into the crowd."

When and if the U.S. finally intervenes because no one else will, tell me this one is all about establishing "American empire."

Ah yes, Sudan's "vast" oil reserves are going to draw us in against our will . . ..

Why Israel sets the standard in the Middle East

"High Court Tells Israelis To Shift Part of Barrier: Harmful to Palestinians: Judges Do See Security as Crucial but Rule Fence Cannot Hurt Arabs," by Joseph Berger, New York Times, 1 July, p. A1.

"Much at Stake In an Iraq Trial: Hussein's Case Holds Both Peril and Promise," by Somini Sengupta and John F. Burns, NYT, 1 July, p. A1.

"Al-Sadr calls for resistance; 2 Iranians arrested in thwarted attack," by Associated Press, MSNBC.com, 5 July, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5322157/

Notice how Israel actually has a supreme court that doesnít draw its authority from religion?

That's how Israel's highest court can issue a ruling that puts ordinary citizens at higher risk simply "for the sake of humanitarian considerations."

Ever remember Saddam Hussein being overridden by Iraq's supreme court? Or any other authoritarian regime in the Middle East?

That's why Saddam's trial will be so amazing. Can you ever think of a time when any government in the region (other than Israel) held its own officials accountable for any misdeeds they ever committed?

Here's a story Paul Bremer likes to tell:

"He recounted a dinner conversation with an Iraqi woman. In tears, the woman told him her younger brother had been taken away from his school by secret police agents after a 'prank' in which he had mildly criticized Mr. Hussein. The boy was never seen again, and the woman told Mr. Bremer she was so fearful of betrayal by her own family that she waited more than 20 years, until Mr. Hussein's capture by American troops last December, before telling her own children that she had a brother who was lost."

The Times article says that "Many Iraqis say that having a court composed of fellow Iraqis try the former dictator could provide a kind of catharsis that an international tribunal could not."

Let's hope they can find citizens willing to "collaborate" with the interim government, because they'll surely be risking their lives in the worst way, with rising rulers like Moqtada al-Sadr yet again issuing death warnings to any who cooperate with the "infidel government."

Success is a long way off in this endeavor to create something approaching democracy across the Middle East. When I had to make decisions about my firstborn's cancer treatments with my wife, I tried to hold in my head the image of my two-year-old daughter all grown up holding her newborn child in her arms. That, to me, signaled a real sign of successóreturning her to a life she should have had. We face a similarly long road in Iraq. A good sign of when we reach that promised land will be the first time Iraq's supreme court overrules the government's harsh treatment of some rebel like al-Sadr, citing "humanitarian concerns."

That's the sort of patience we need.

The extent of the system perturbation caused by the Iraq war (I)

"U.S. Authorizes Families to Leave Bahrain," by James Glanz, New York Times, 5 July, p. A7.

Two weeks ago I almost went to Bahrain to sub for an ill colleague in a planning conference the college conducted for Central Command. He got better, so my participation in the effort was not needed. I have to admit, though, it would have felt a little odd to be traveling to the Middle East right now with Americans being beheaded simply for the sin of being American.

Yet I would have gone with a certain amount of confidence. Why? Certainly Bahrain, one of the most stable PG countries, wasn't getting caught up in the sort of violence against Westerners that the Iraq War seems to have unleashed across the region.

That was last week, this is now. The move by U.S. authorities to move out all non-emergency personnel shows how unstable things are getting across the region as a whole. This may feel like failure to many, but in reality it simply shows how truly big the perturbation of the Iraq War has become for regimes throughout the Middle East.

The extent of the system perturbation caused by the Iraq war (II)

"Military Draft? Official Denials Leave Skeptics," by Carl Hulse, New York Times, 3 July, p. A1.

"Changes Urged As Need Grows For Reservists," by Thom Shanker, NYT, 4 July, p. A1.

More evidence that the Iraq occupationólike all occupationsówill end up changing the occupiers as much as the occupied. For the Pentagon, the occupation ends up transforming transformation, shifting its focus from the warfighting side of the ledger to the peacekeeping side.

Why? Because you cannot technologize your way out of that problem set: it simply requires significant numbers of well-trained troops. The fact that the U.S. military is so imbalanced in this regard (able to wage wars with little recourse to reserves but quickly overwhelmed by the lack of needed reserves once the peacekeeping begins) is what is fueling the speculation that the draft must inevitably return.

That notion alone will push the Pentagon toward some amazing reforms. Why? No one in this military wants to go back to the nightmares of the draft. Not because of the politics, but because of the sheer impracticality of trying to field a professional force using just anybody pulled off the street. The U.S. military has been running away from that sort of force for roughly three decades, and when push comes to shove on reservists, it'll bite the bullet on big changes before it'll ever give in to what just about everyone in its senior leadership considers a crazy idea that would ruin this military they've spent their entire careers resurrecting from the ashes of Vietnam.

The extent of the system perturbation caused by the Iraq war (III)

"Backing Bush's Mideast Vision: There is a constituency for regional democracy extending well beyond this White House," by Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, 21 June, p. A19.

"NATO Chief Says Iraq and Afghanistan Are Doomed Without World Cooperation: Sharp criticism for the Bush administration's stance toward the Atlantic alliance," by Elaine Sciolino, NYT, 3 July, p. A8.

A great op-ed from Jackson Diehl puts a larger perspective on Bush's effort to bring democracy to the Middle East:

"The Bush administration's initiative on Middle East democracy has been widely portrayed as ending with a whimper at a trio of international summits this month. Opposition from France and other European skeptics forced a watering down of the democracy initiatives by the Group of Eight and NATO; several big Arab governments, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, spurned what was left. In Washington, foreign policy 'realism' is back in fashion, thanks to the trouble in Iraq: Both the Democrats around John F. Kerry and a number of powerful Republicans are saying Bush's vision of spreading democracy is a naÔve and even dangerous illusion.

All trueóbut there's more to the story. Though Bush's mismanagement of Iraq has put his democracy advocates on the defensive, there nevertheless now exists the beginning of a broad pro-reform coalition in and outside the region. It includes a handful of people in Arab governments, but many more outside, in rapidly growing civic and human rights movements. There are European parliamentarians and policymakers in expanding numbers, especially in Germany. And in Washington, there are not only Bush's neocons but an important group of Democrats.

A lot of these people don't think much of George Bush, which is one reason why the coalition hasn't entirely coalesced. But almost all of them say that Bush's preaching on democracy over the past year, and the modest action that has come with it, has changed the terms of debate about the future of the Middle East, both in and outside the region. Bush's campaign 'frightened people,' King Abdullah of Jordan said in an interview here last week. 'But it also allowed some of us to say that if we don't come up with our own initiative, something will be forced on us. And once you say you are going to reform, you trigger a process that you can't turn back.'

Diehl goes on to say that "The next step is unlikely to come from an administration preoccupied with Iraq and the upcoming election or from Arab governments. Progress on Middle East democracy will depend on independent movements seizing on the space Bush has opened and widening it."

Will it be easy? Absolutely not. As Diehl admits, "Taken together, the voices of these pro-democracy networks are still drowned out by the nay-sayers and skeptics, in the region and even in Washington. But time, and history, are probably on their side."

But none of that "space" will remain if we do not secure the victory in Iraq by generating enough security inside its borders that a successor government can function with broadband legitimacyómeaning it isn't fighting for its life every day. To do that we'll need help, which is why Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's tough words regarding the Bush administration should be listened to. In effect, the NATO Secretary General is outlining the parameters of the hard deals that must be cut between American and Europe to garner a significantly larger effort in the security realm by our oldest allies.

Those deals should and will eventually be made. But we cannot stop there. More deals must also be made with India, Russia, China and other New Core pillars. This cannot be a West-only attempt to integrate the Middle East with the larger world. Truly global cooperation would necessarily include the entirety of the Core in this grand historical effort.

Continued reverberations from 9/11 alter life in the Core

"Rebirth Marked By Cornerstone At Ground Zero," by David W. Dunlap, New York Times, 5 July, p. A1.

"Fears Of Attack At Conventions Drive New Plans: Qaeda Warnings Persist: Local Security Is TightenedóU.S. Efforts Include Closer Visa Scrutiny," by David Johnston, NYT, 5 July, p. A1.

"Delays in Athens Raise Concern On Olympic Security Readiness," by Raymond Bonner and Anthee Carassava, New York Times, 3 July, p. A1.

Yes, we've just about completely packaged up the experience that was 9/11. Hell, even the commemorative t-shirts are starting to look faded.

But the knowledge of the altered security rule set never quite goes away. So we conduct all big events differently now, like the upcoming political conventions or the Greek Olympics. To go back to "the way things were" would be tragically naÔve, and it simply will not happen. So get ready for a summer of heightened nerves not just inside the Gap, but inside the Core as well. These two parts of the world are now understood by most to be inherently inseparable: their insecurity is now ours, our economic fate is tied up with theirs. There is no standoff worth pursuing, no containment strategy that makes sense. To truly secure the Core is to eliminate the Gap.

The military-market nexus centers on energy

"Harvard and Russian Oil Company Clash Over Shareholder Dividends," by Simon Romero, New York Times, 3 July, p. B1.

"China's Boom Brings Fear of an Electricity Breakdown: Cloud-seeding, higher thermostats and dimmed neon may lie ahead for China," by Howard W. French, New York Times, 5 July, p. A4.

Money may make the world go around, but energy fuels it. Many security analysts will look at such headlines and see only the potential for conflict, but I see far more the imperative for cooperation.

Russian needs foreign sources of capital for its energy industry to thrive, and so it has to accept new levels of transparency. It isn't easy or pursued willingly, but money needs rules to feel comfortable traveling, so if you want money to visit your neck of the woods, you have to put out the welcome wagon as defined by the market.

China's infrastructural requirements on electricity alone are enormous, numbering in the trillions of investment dollars. Expect many such articles forecasting inevitable doom in, or conflict from, China on this issue. The fear-mongering on China will never cease, but to demand a better world-historical pathway is not naÔve in the least: it simply requires that we spot the obvious overlaps between China's long-term strategic needs for stability and our own long-term strategic needs for stability. Both center around the Middle East, which is where globalization's military-market nexus is rightfully located for the next couple of decadesóor until the global marketplace moves beyond oil to something else.

India and Pakistan resettle into the "normalcy" of MAD

"India, Pakistan to Set Up Hotline: Talks End With Agreement to Maintain Moratorium on Nuclear Testing," by John Lancaster, Washington Post, 21 June, p. A12.

"India and Pakistan: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors," by Amy Waldman, New York Times, 4 July, p. A3.

Mutual-assured destruction is an inescapable logic, one that has secured the Core from great power war for six decades and counting. More and more, it secures the peace between India and Pakistan, which haven't gone to war since 1971, notwithstanding all the lobbed shells and tough talk of the past three-plus decades.

Any surprise that India is putting up its own "security fence" in the disputed Kashmir regions? No. Like the one going up between Israel and Palestine, this tried-and-true method makes just as much sense there as it did in Berlin all those decades (call it the "Line of Self-Control"). It's a crude form of risk management, but in the crudest circumstances it can work wonders, buying time for the long-term growth of economic connectivity that ultimately secures the peace.

Today's yin and yang on China

"Engineering More Sons Than Daughters: Will It Tip the Scales Toward War? (Scholars see danger in a generation with a surplus of males now coming of age)," by Felicia R. Lee, New York Times, 3 July, p. A17.

"China Is Filtering Phone Text Messages to Regular Criticism," by Joseph Kahn, NYT, 3 July, p. A3.

China must inevitably wage war on the world to rid itself of all those young men who cannot find wives thanks to years upon years of the one-child policy, so sayeth the number-crunching political scientists in their new fear-mongering book publishedóas one in my profession would expectóby MIT Press (no real political scientists there, but some amazing number crunchers). The verdict includes India as well, another country with a vast history of aggressive wars with its neighbors (let me see, that would be the India that let both Pakistan and Bangladesh actually leave their country . . ..).

No, unmarried young men in both India and China will be unable to find jobs, despite all the outsourcing of the West's manufacturing and service sectors to their economies. Nor will they emigrate to other countries. God only knows how few Indian professionals there are in America, or how few young Chinese men become desperate enough to join the swelling global ranks of illegal economic refugees crossing borders at will. No, all of them will simply wait around for the wars of aggression to begin.

But if that sarcasm doesn't do it for you, consider this: no society in human history has ever aged as rapidly as China is going to age in the coming 30 years. The one-child policy eliminated 300 million from China's population (it should be 1.6 billion today, not 1.3 billion), and that missing America-sized chunk of Chinese humanity means more than simply not enough wives to go around. It means not enough mothers to go around as well. China will not only get old before it gets rich, it will get old before it gets aggressive.

Yes, the demographic fix is in, but not in the way these fear-mongers would have you believe.

Meanwhile, yet another humorous example of China's government trying to keep millions upon millions under "mouse arrest." Here, instead of the usual story about the government's 30,000 Internet cops, we get a bit about how the government is trying to censor upwards of 300 million cell-phone users.

Why the effort? Text messages about the SARS epidemic last year went a long way to uncovering the national cover-up of mistakes made by officials. Text messages are also becoming a huge source of public expression of anger over corruption and government abuse cases. If the official media won't cover these issues well enough, Chinese people simply discuss it among themselves, thanks to the new technology.

So the government is launching a new filtering campaign, which it claims is all about stopping the flow of spam and pornographyósound familiar to anyone with email?

But, of course, even though the all-powerful Microsoft can't keep my Hotmail account from being flooded with such nonsense, those crafty Chinese bureaucrats are sure to succeed!

Yet another example of connectivity trumping political efforts at suppressing free speechóeven the crappy stuff.

Reviewing the Reviews (Soxblog)

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 1 July

The following review was posted by Dean Barnett (no relation) under his online pseudonym at Soxblog.com. He wrote a review after reading the book, then didn't think it was good enough, so he wrote a second one—presumably stronger in tone.

My commentary follows:

Posted at Soxblog.com

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

"THE PENTAGON'S NEW MAP" - THE BOOK YOU MUST READ

I have a theory about great theories: They’re characterized by a simple elegance and are usually more the result of a “eureka” moment than a rough slog through mountains of data. In other words, Thomas Edison’s mantra about it being 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration? Bunk.

Take John Rawls’ “Theory of Justice.” For centuries, philosophers had been philosophizing on how societies should be put together. In the middle of the last century Rawls came up with a simply elegant theory that can be summarized on the back of a match book. Rawls argued that a society is only as well off as its least fortunate members. Of course he went on for several hundred pages (and in countless astonishingly tedious lectures to hapless Harvard undergrads) refining that notion and dealing with its subtleties, but there you have it. A simply elegant statement that, whether you agree with it or not, it’s almost amazing that no one else thought of it before him.

Thomas P.M. Barnett’s book, “The Pentagon’s New Map,” is a similarly ground breaking tract. Barnett unveils a theory, or actually a couple of theories, so simply elegant and so obviously true once you hear them, it’s amazing that no one had thought of them before. “The Pentagon’s New Map” (PNM) attempts to do nothing less than offer a prescription for re-shaping the world for both increased prosperity and safety for all its inhabitant but especially for Americans. The subtitle of the book is “War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century” but I think a far more fitting subtitle would have been “A Future Worth Fighting For.”

Barnett’s theory essentially has two components which I will over-simplify only a little in the next two paragraphs. The first is that the world is divided into two parts, the Core which has all the economically functioning places and the Gap which has all the economic, cultural and political basket cases. The Core includes all the places where you might vacation or buy a good from; the Gap is comprised of the places you wouldn’t visit unless you were a contestant on Fear Factor. Barnett argues that in this era of increased global connectivity and more widely available weapons of mass destruction, an unstable and disconnected country/government anywhere poses a threat to the United States and our interests. Witness the way internal Afghanistan politics had a profound effect on our soil. The only way to mitigate this threat is to, over time, integrate these Gap countries into the Core.

But how do you this when those Gap countries are often run by people like Saddam Hussein who don’t want to play well with others in the global sandbox? That’s going to involve military action and that’s where the second part of Barnett’s theory comes in. Barnett suggests that the military should be broken up into two distinct pieces. One he calls the Leviathan which will basically kick the ass of the Saddam types; the other will be called the System Administrator which will build the country back up after the asses have been kicked.

Like I said up top, obvious isn’t it? Two distinct jobs, two distinct forces to do those jobs. Thinking of the situation in Iraq, you can see how this part of the theory would have an obvious impact.

Indeed, the theories are already having an impact in Iraq. Before becoming a best-selling author, Barnett was a highly rated Pentagon briefer and his ideas have come before all the big shots like Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. The domestic Iraqi forces are already being designed with the Leviathan/System Administrator distinction in mind.

But integrating the entire Gap, isn’t that a huge task? Barnett doesn’t shrink from that question. He candidly acknowledges that this will be a decades long process and that there will be no “exit strategies.” But his goal is an ambitious one: Once the entire Gap is integrated into the Core, large scale poverty will be eliminated. Along with it several other things will also be eliminated like famine and war.

Which brings me to what I love most about PNM: It’s suffused with a can-do American optimism that has been the mark of this country since its birth. Although Barnett eschews jingoism, I don’t, so indulge me a bit. Virtually every person in this country is descended from someone who decided to risk all by getting on a boat or a plane and traveling a great distance to seek out a better life. Taking great risks to accomplish great things is part of our national DNA. Many of our politicians are by nature cautious people who have spent their lives trying to avoid mistakes so that they can continue their climb to higher office. But they are not representative of the American soul. I’m convinced that if someone would bring Barnett’s positive vision before the American public, America would indeed decide that PNM’s future is worth fighting for and make the necessary sacrifices.

In his recent book “Colossus,” British historian Niall Ferguson takes a different and quite dim view of the American character in arguing why America will have difficulty being an effective player on the world stage in the years to come. Ferguson writes, “The United States has acquired an empire, but Americans themselves lack the imperial cast of mind. They would rather consume than conquer. They would rather build shopping malls than nations…It is quite conceivable that their empire could unravel as swiftly as the Soviet Union(‘s).” Ferguson thinks he knows America, but he doesn’t.

Barnett doesn’t see things Ferguson’s way. You should read this book. You should talk it up. Karl Rove should read this book and so should President Bush. And they, too, should talk it up. Americans have been desperate for a positive vision of the future. Here it is.

Responses? Thoughts? Please email them to me at soxblog@aol.com

James Frederick Dwight 6/30/2004 08:56:21 AM

COMMENTARY: Obviously I like simply because he likes the book so much. But what I really like about it is the elegance of the recitation: he describes the book both simply and accurately. Actually, it's good enough to employ as a sound bite in a media appearance. I also like the Ferguson comparison, which I think is dead-on but have never been able to come up with on my own (even as I admit that I enjoy Ferguson on TV, I find his writing a bit tedious and obvious—the guy should write more like he talks). I also like the focus on the positive vision, and the—again—elegant addressing of feasibility. All in all, as my webmaster said, it comes off as the "most authentic" review yet—meaning he seems to get inside the work to its very essence. What's so neat about this is that undeniable sense of being completely understood by the reader, and man, that feels good!