the skeptic

2003-09-13T13:54:00.000-05:00

So long fellow bloggers. It was fun, but this blog is now retired. Of course, the links to the left will continue to work for some time, so by all means check them out... Thanks to those who have linked and commented.

the skeptic

2003-08-28T23:31:00.000-05:00

Don't know much about the number of Africans in the Middle East, but their presence has led to a confrontation between Salam Pax's family and U.S. soldiers:

Anyway so my brother and father start talking to the medic and he tells them what this is about. They have been "informed" that there are daily meetings the last five days, Sudanese people come into our house at 9am and stay till 3pm, we are a probable Ansar cell. My father is totally baffled, my brother gets it. These are not Sudanese men they are from Basra the "informer" is stupid enough to forget that there is a sizeable population in Basra who are of African origin.

2003-08-26T23:19:00.000-05:00

Think Obasanjo convinced Taylor to leave Liberia? Maybe you should guess again...

2003-08-20T03:03:00.000-05:00

Who knew?

2003-08-20T02:54:00.000-05:00

Salam Pax fears the worst

I am plunging into a fucking depression, do we have a future? is this country going to be hijacked by shit extremists who want to prove a point?
[...]
we have plunged into darkness.

2003-08-20T02:46:00.000-05:00

The Atlantic Online | Flashbacks | Our Liberian Legacy

2003-08-15T20:59:00.000-05:00

Electricity, it turns out, has destroyed friendliness.

2003-08-12T15:30:00.000-05:00

Can you guess what this story's about? Fill in the blank of this quote: "It's fairly well widespread. Lots of ______ are experiencing pain and suffering." (skeptic's emphasis)

2003-08-08T00:03:00.000-05:00

Weird to see an editor's comments in the NYT:

The manual had its beginning 100 years ago when typesetters at the University of Chicago Press wrote up a list of dos and don'ts. The first edition was published in 1906. It had some endearing advice. Page 99: 'Read everything as if you yourself were the author, and your reputation and fortune depended upon its accuracy.' On the same page: 'Don't stultify yourself and discredit the office by asking foolish questions on the proof.' (All editors take note.) [No commercials, please. Ed.]

2003-08-06T13:41:00.000-05:00

Maybe our troops aren't spread as thin as the skeptic thought...

Update: The linked picture has now been changed (lost in the land of Yahoo).

2003-08-05T11:57:00.000-05:00

The WP picks up an important connection that the skeptic made a week ago.

As the first unit of Nigerian peacekeepers touched down in Monrovia today to try to halt Liberia's civil war, human rights advocates are criticizing the legacy of the organization that sent them. These activists have urged the United States, the United Nations and African leaders to ensure that the group -- the Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States -- is held accountable if its troops commit crimes in Liberia.

During more than 13 years as the region's principal peacekeeper, the organization has helped restore an elected leader to power in Sierra Leone and provided a safe haven in Monrovia for more than 1 million people through the early 1990s. But it has also gained a reputation for ruthlessness and corruption, looting property, arming local militias and conducting summary executions. Human rights organizations have sharply criticized the group, and the United Nations and the State Department have taken notice.
[...]
In Sierra Leone, Human Rights Watch documented 180 cases of summary executions in 1999 by West African forces or by Sierra Leonean militias under their command. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and the State Department also cited reports of illegal killings by the Nigerian-led force, including a case in which West African troops killed an 8-year-old boy who was caught with a pistol and given no trial. One West African military officer, dubbed "Captain Evil Spirit" by local residents, oversaw the execution of at least 98 people on a bridge, according to a 1999 Human Rights Watch report.

"Small groups of young men were brought to the entrance to the bridge in trucks and cars, and arrived usually stripped down to their underwear and often with their hands tied," the report said. "They were then marched onto the bridge where they were executed and thrown into the bay."

On Jan. 11, 1999, West African forces executed more than 50 rebels in and around the Connaught Hospital, according to several witnesses interviewed by the New York-based rights organization. "Wounded rebels were dragged from their beds and executed within the hospital grounds, or shot directly in their beds or as they tried to flee on crutches and in wheelchairs," the report said. "Others were executed in the morgue where they were caught trying to hide among the corpses."

Nigeria's chargé d'affaires at the United Nations, Ndekhedehe Effiong Ndekhedehe, said none of the allegations against Nigerian peacekeepers has been "substantiated." "By and large our troops are well disciplined," Ndekhedehe said in an interview today. "They behave themselves. We are governed by the rules of engagement laid down in the Geneva Conventions, so our troops know what to do." (emphasis added)

2003-08-05T11:42:00.000-05:00

Slate also has a roundup of international media's take on Liberia.

2003-08-05T11:35:00.000-05:00

Slate has an interesting feature to keep up with: A week of diary entries from a Zimbabwean activist. Here's how it begins:

These days, in the early morning while lying in bed, I do a reality check.

Q. Where am I?
A. Harare, Zimbabwe.

Q. Who am I?
A. Bev Clark, activist.

Q. What am I going to do to?
A. Anything to bring Robert Mugabe down.

Also interesting:

She asks me what I think of Bush's trip to Africa. I say that I think it couldn't have come at a worse time. The great-white-hunter politician and his flying visit to dispense advice and money. His trip clashes with the African Union meeting, and this immediately raises questions about his sensitivities and his agenda. And then he wants to lecture African leaders about Mugabe's dubious re-election while his own election is shadowed by so much suspicion. But on Zimbabwean streets there are whispers of U.S. intervention and excitement about the effects of Bush's influence on Thabo Mbeki. Pro-Bush graffiti has begun to appear.

2003-08-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

An interesting way to make a denial:

It's nonsense. I don't know what they are talking about,' Powell told Radio Sawa, a U.S. government Arabic-language station. 'I serve at the pleasure of the president. The president and I have not discussed anything other than my continuing to do my job for him. (emphasis added)

By issuing his denial on Radio Sawa, it suggests that Powell is most concerned of how the Iraqis and the Middle East will view him (the WP suggests: a lame duck) if he decides to leave. But this dovetails into the skeptic's previous post--how will the rest of the world perceive Condi or Wolfi as a secretary of state? Powell was the reluctant warrior, Condi and Wolfi were hawkies from the start...

2003-08-04T02:13:00.000-05:00

Two reasons why this story is interesting:

1. This would mean a drastic shift in foreign policy politics. If your leading doves bolt, you'll just have hawks arguing against hawks. how boring.

2. What does that mean for the campaign?

2003-08-01T15:32:00.000-05:00

Scare Tactics - Why are Liberian soldiers wearing fright wigs?

2003-07-31T10:25:00.001-05:00

Liberia: Let's Hope, Part II

Kofi Annan on Liberia: "My sense is that the risks that we are concerned about may not be as great as we think they are."

Let's hope he doesn't regret that quote.

2003-07-30T00:41:00.000-05:00

Angolans Come Home to 'Negative Peace' (NYT):

The refugees return to a country where, according to the United Nations, 80 percent of people have no access to basic medical care. More than two-thirds have no running water. A whole generation of children has never opened a schoolbook. Life expectancy is less than 40 years. Three in ten children will die before reaching their fifth birthday.
[...]
"What we have in Angola now is negative peace," said Raphael Marques, a 31-year-old journalist and dissident who is the director of the Open Society Institute's Angolan office. "It is the absence of conflict, yes. But it is peace without justice, peace without opportunity, peace without democracy. This is not a peace that promises much to the Angolan people."
[...]
One British organization, Global Witness, investigated the country's finances and found at least $1 billion worth of revenues a year simply unaccounted for — a sum that is a quarter of the nation's income.

Last year an internal report by the International Monetary Fund on Angola's finances reached a similar conclusion. Angola has not been able to qualify for low-cost loans from the I.M.F. to help in the rebuilding effort. Instead the government has borrowed money from private banks at high interest rates, using its oil as collateral.

2003-07-29T02:20:00.000-05:00

Africapundit's vacation is beginning to look a lot like the skeptic's.

2003-07-29T01:57:00.000-05:00

A really good, important article on Iraqi sanctions that probably isn't getting the attention it deserves. (Of course, the skeptic's only gauge of this is IOM and Google.) Also find a good comment here, and a more sophisticated breakdown of how many Iraqis actually died as a result of sanctions here.

2003-07-29T01:10:00.000-05:00

Kristof's take on Liberia:

These are not silly arguments, but they can be addressed. Military interventions are always risky, but success looks relatively promising in Liberia. All Liberian factions say they want us on the ground, and ordinary Liberians have been pleading for Mr. Bush to send troops.

Would anybody shoot at us? Probably, but in neighboring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, local fighters melted away rather than take on European troops. The ragtag Liberian militias, bereft of popular support, would probably collapse even more quickly.

I argued against invading Iraq, but Liberia presents a much more compelling case for intervention. The difference is not that Saddam slaughtered at most 1 percent of his population over the last 14 years, while Liberian warfare has killed more than 6 percent of its population so far. Nor is it that rescuing Liberia would bolster our international stature rather than devastate it.

No, the crucial differences lie elsewhere. First, Liberia has an urgency to it that Iraq did not: people are being hacked apart daily in Liberia, and if we do nothing, the conflict may spread across West Africa. Second, success can be more easily accomplished in Liberia, using just 1 or 2 percent of the number of troops we have in Iraq, mostly because Liberians desperately want us to intervene.

Liberia's warfare has already infected Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast, costing perhaps a half-million lives in all since Charles Taylor grabbed Liberia in 1989. Just as the Rwandan crisis (and Mr. Clinton's failure to respond decisively) led to a catastrophe across central Africa that has cost more than four million lives so far, Liberia's civil war could lead to upheaval across West Africa.

The Economist's excellent story on Liberia (July 3):

West Africa's civil wars are usually reported as tragedies befalling individual states. This month, the spotlight is on Liberia. A couple of months ago, the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire received more attention. Before that, it was Guinea, and before that, Sierra Leone. In fact, all these wars are intertwined, and it is impossible to understand one without reference to the others.

If one thinks of Liberia as an isolated calamity, the case for American military intervention is weak. Granted, America has old links to the country—it was founded in 1847 by freed American slaves—but Liberia has no strategic or economic significance. Its people are suffering, but a cynic might point out that there are only 3m of them. If, however, one sees Liberia as a flaming match in a petrol-drenched neighbourhood, the case for extinguishing that flame is much stronger.

It's the best background the skeptic has seen on Liberia.

Also, it's worth noting Robert Kaplan's piece about how the U.S. should manage the world (pay to play):

RULE NO. 8
THE MISSION IS EVERYTHING
No mission should ever be compromised by diplomatic punctilio. That sounds obvious, and at the same time is often impossible to implement. But here is what happens when this rule is broken.

In the late 1990s Nigerian soldiers deputized by the international community were in Sierra Leone, not only to keep the peace but also, if truth be told, in some cases to steal alluvial diamonds. Like other African peacekeeping contingents in Sierra Leone, the Nigerians weren't always paid by their own government, even though the government was getting money from the international community to provide peacekeeping. Some of these contingents were openly incompetent; the Zarnbians, for instance, were a battalion of mechanics, cooks, and clerks. But the United Nations said little about any of this; instead it officially accepted the obvious falsehood that all national armies are roughly equal Diplomatic nicety had completely compromised the mission. The result: the peacekeeping effort nearly collapsed as demoralized and incompetent peacekeepers surrendered without a fight to murderous teenage paramilitaries, who closed in on the capital of Freetown. Order was restored only after the British government dispatched commandos to Sierra Leone. Mounted on rooftops at the airport, a contingent of those commandos shot and killed any rebel who emerged from the bush. For the British, only the mission mattered.

Let us hope that the ECOWAS troops headed from Sierra Leone to Nigeria aren't the grossly incompetent ones.

2003-07-26T02:02:00.000-05:00

Creepy: "A Swedish ecologist and entrepreneur called Susanne Wiigh-Masak has started a movement and a company to promote the use of human remains as compost: corpses will be freeze-dried and then pounded by ultrasound waves into little compost-sized chunks that can be used to fertilise memorial rose bushes as well as commercial crops. "

2003-07-24T13:38:00.000-05:00

A WP article shows how post-war planners missed the mark:

In addition to believing that Iraqi soldiers and police officers would help secure the country, they thought that Iraqis would embrace the American invaders and a future marked by representative government, civil liberties and a free-market economy, and that Iraqi bureaucrats, minus a top layer of Baath Party figures who would quit or be fired, would stay on the job.

Does anyone else find these assumptions a little, the skeptic doesn't know, pie-in-the-sky?

2003-07-24T00:58:00.000-05:00

So, quick comment: the skeptic likes Slate's new redesign for the top half of the page. But he thinks the links under "Inside Slate" are too small, and the days too easily flow into each other (this probably was the point).

Second comment: take a look at Wednesday's page. See the "cover story" (if that's what you call it) about subletting summer houses? That story's from 1997! Yes, it's evergreen, but it seems dishonest to give it the flashy graphic if it's an old story. Right?

2003-07-23T16:22:00.000-05:00

An interesting glimpse of how African politics mix with the war on terror:

The Kenyan arrested in Malawi last month by American agents for suspected terrorist links is in Zimbabwe.
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials and Malawian security forces arrested Mr Khalif Abdi Hussein, interrogated him and deported him to neighbouring Zimbabwe.
Foreign Affairs assistant minister Moses Wetangula yesterday said after investigating the issue through diplomatic channels, the government had been informed that Mr Hussein was released in Zimbabwe after the FBI and Malawi police concluded that he had no links with terrorists.

2003-07-23T02:40:00.000-05:00

Why Trade Matters

2003-07-21T13:53:00.000-05:00

An African 'Big Brother' Unites and Delights (washingtonpost.com):

Forget Africa's civil wars, its brutal dictators and its worries about trade, genetically modified food and free and fair elections. Africa has a new obsession in an unlikely form: a reality television show called 'Big Brother Africa.'

The real-time, voyeuristic, 24-hour program is the highest-rated show in the history of African television. It has farmers and financial workers alike racing to television sets at home, in bars or restaurants -- or even at the rural health clinic -- to watch, especially the daily 6 p.m. highlights.

The show began by confining a dozen English-speaking Africans in their twenties, from 12 countries, in one big house in South Africa. Each week, a housemate is voted out by viewers; the last one to remain after 106 days will win $100,000.

The show is the talk of the continent. It's been praised for getting Africans to question national stereotypes and criticized for 'shower hour,' as well as scenes of cuddling and kissing in bed that seem to condone casual sex in the midst of Africa's AIDS pandemic. Some viewers say it has done more to unite them than independence, the Cold War or the pan-African movement. The producers say 30 million people are watching.

"It's great for Africa," Alan Nsubuga, 31, shouted over the booming television broadcast at the Venue bar in Kampala. "There is so much tribalism and stereotypes that we Africans have about each other. This show is changing all that. We have never had a chance to get to know each other, since most of us don't travel. And if we do, it's only to the West. It's so nice to have this."
[...]
The show is so popular in Uganda that it has replaced the state news on the set in the parliament's cafeteria.

On a recent day, a viewer's text message flashed across the bottom of the screen. It said, "Since BBA I see Africa in a whole new light. One Nation. One People. No Borders."

2003-07-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

A humorous photograph... (via Slate's Suellentrop)

2003-07-11T16:09:00.000-05:00

TNR's Ryan Lizza catches the Taylor-Terrorist Connection meme:

Name the following despot: In 1991, he invaded a neighboring country, where his men committed wholesale looting and massive atrocities. In 1998, he personally met with a senior Al Qaeda operative now listed as one of the FBI's 25 "Most Wanted" terrorists. He is the single greatest threat to the stability of one of the most important oil-producing regions in the world. Saddam Hussein? No, Charles Taylor of Liberia.
[...]
Liberia's links to Al Qaeda, in other words, are far more well-documented than Iraq's. And, yet, they have never been cited by anyone in the Bush administration.

Update: Whoops, here's the link.

2003-07-11T16:07:00.000-05:00

Dean and foreign policy:

Furthermore, Dean's opposition on Iraq does not mean he is opposed to the overseas deployment of U.S. forces. He has been refreshingly candid in advocating a more active nation-building role for the United States, and has advocated sending more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan for that purpose. This week he strongly supported the deployment of U.S. peacekeeping forces to Liberia as part of a multilateral intervention.
[...]
The second distinction is that Dean sounds more protectionist than most of his rivals on international economic issues. In November 2002 he argued that "our free trade policies have also had the effect of hollowing out our industrial capacity, and most worrisome, undermining our own middle class." Ignoring for the moment whether or not the statement is true (it's not), linking domestic hardships to the global economy is classic populism--the kind of stance that should sound familiar to Gephardt supporters. Dean likewise echoes Gephardt in expressing fears of a race to the bottom in labor and environmental standards. In his official announcement speech he spoke of a "profound fear and distrust of multinational corporations."

Well, you take the good with the bad, right?

2003-07-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

Nothing to see here, move along.

2003-07-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

African newspapers take on Bush. Not as good or bad as you might expect.

2003-07-08T15:10:00.000-05:00

On Liberia

The Head Heeb chimes in:

In addition to fomenting unrest all over West Africa, there are credible reports that Taylor has laundered money and sheltered terrorists for al Qaeda. Not to mention that if Liberia falls into Somali-style anarchy, terrorists will be able to hide there exactly as they do in Somalia. The United States certainly does have an interest in Liberian stability - enough of one, I think, to justify intervention even absent humanitarian grounds.

The Neocon Vision of Humanitarian Intervention?

Here's the important grafs:

The following words are from the mouth of Rumsfeld himself, as first reported in the Los Angeles Times: "I am interested in the idea of our leading, or contributing to in some way, a cadre of people in the world who would like to participate in peacekeeping or peacemaking."
[...]
A global peacekeeping force led by the United States might be the perfect way to reconcile neocon rhetoric and reality.
[...]
[T]he problem up until now is not that the United States hasn't dictated too much, but that it hasn't dictated enough. Afghanistan, where the absence of a robust stabilization force has undermined Hamid Karzai's control of Kabul (to say nothing of the rest of the country) is perhaps the best-known example. Likewise, it's tough to argue that places like the Liberia and Congo, where the United States has dragged its feet endlessly or preferred not to get involved at all, wouldn't be better off after an American-led intervention.
[...]
According to the Los Angeles Times report, the proposed force would be under American leadership and separate from the NATO command structure. It wouldn't be under the auspices of the United Nations either, so a French veto couldn't prevent the force from being deployed.
[...]
Rumseld's proposal would have all the advantages of a truly multilateral peacekeeping force. Its multinational composition would create foreign troops trained in civil-military relations and human-rights norms appropriate to a democratic state. One can easily imagine the troops who've served in a prestigious global peacekeeping force going on to influential positions in the militaries, and perhaps the governments, of their home countries. But it confers additional advantages. For example, one wing of the force could, as the Hoover Institution's Peter Schweizer has suggested, be reserved for foreigners who eventually hope to become U.S. citizens, much like the French Foreign Legion. The U.S. military could thus gain the critical foreign language skills it needs on the cheap.

Right now, this all probably sounds utopian--a little like a U.N. standing army, a notion that's now about as quaint as Esperanto. Rumsfeld is apparently thinking of a force of 10,000 or 20,000 troops, which sounds small in light of the outsized ambitions outlined here. Still, it's a start. It would be the clearest demonstration yet that Wolfowitzian idealists put their money where their mouth is.

Interesting idea... but, the skeptic doubts it will ever happen.

2003-07-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

Wow, the new blogger certainly looks much cooler behind the scenes. Hope it works well.

Anyway, the skeptic been gone for a month now, and needs to apologize to readers. The summer has kept him much more busy than he had hoped.

One of the primary issues has been his recent acceptance of an opportunity to teach in Kenya with the Peace Corps. This has meant that the skeptic finds himself taking care of many loose ends. the skeptic departs on Sept. 14th, and blogging between now and then will be more than spotty.

Another distraction has been a lack of regular Internet access, as well as a desire to do much reading. Right now, the skeptic is charging through Samantha Power's book: A Problem From Hell.

It is a very interesting book that has made the skeptic think a great deal about America's obligation to intervene abroad. the skeptic will post an extensive review of the book here sometime in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile....

U.S. troops are going to be sent to Liberia. (The NYT reports: "A decision in principle to go has been made," said the military official. "There are some people pushing back on the record, saying there's been no final decision by the president, and that's true. But at this point, it's a decision about what it's going to look like.")

TNR has an interesting take:

In short, the world is waiting to see if two things will happen: First, whether the United States will flex its muscle in the service of moral principle when U.S. economic and security interests are not directly at stake; and, second, whether concerted international outcries can spur the United States into multilateral action it would not otherwise take. If the Bush administration meets the test, it could find itself with something it doesn't have much of right now political capital to call upon the next time the United States seeks to address a security threat the world would rather ignore--say, in Iran or North Korea. Leaving aside the compelling human rights issues at stake, that would be quite a bargain for the 2,000 U.S. peacekeepers that ECOWAS is requesting.

Africapundit makes a security claim for U.S. intervention:

The US has plenty of reasons to want Taylor removed from power: Taylor cooperates with terrorists (domestic, regional, and international); Taylor spreads instability in the region and threatens his neighbors; Taylor has been indicted for war crimes by the UN court in Freetown. Besides freeing Liberia, Taylor's removal would improve security throughout West Africa, particularly in neighboring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. In addition, it would give the US an opportunity to reevaluate a rather uneasy alliance with Guinea and could create the conditions for democratic reform in that country.

The much-loathed NRO isn't buying it:

There is not even a peripheral, much less a vital, U.S. interest at stake in Liberia. It might be possible to find a country that is less relevant than Liberia to America's security and well-being, but it would take a major effort.

Writer Irving Kristol had it right more than a decade ago during a previous civil war in Liberia when he observed that the only issue at stake seemed to be a mundane fight between then-dictator Samuel K. Doe and would-be dictator Charles Taylor. Today, the mundane struggle is between Taylor and rebels who would likely replace his odious regime with an equally odious one. America does not have a dog in that fight.
[...]
There is suffering going on in numerous places around the world. Indeed, the scale of human misery is far greater in such places as the Congo, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan than it is in Liberia. From a moral standpoint, how can the Bush administration justify intervening in Liberia while declining to use force in those other cases? Yet if the United States intends to intervene everywhere bad things happen, our military will be busy in perpetuity. Humanitarian intervention is, therefore, an impractical, bankrupt policy.

Even some advocates of intervention in Liberia seem to shy away from the logical implications of their policies. Typically, their arguments include a disclaimer that the United States cannot intervene everywhere, or that America cannot be the world's policeman. But then they blithely go on to suggest making Liberia an exception.

The problem with that approach is that the list of potential exceptions is as numerous as the advocates of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. In the early 1990s, proponents made Somalia an exception. A few years later it was Haiti, then Bosnia, and then Kosovo. Now, advocates of intervention in Liberia compete with those who believe America should take action to end the suffering in the Congo or Myanmar.
[...]
It is unsound strategically to send our military personnel in harm's way when there is no vital security interest at stake. Even worse, it is immoral to risk their lives in such ventures. Being a superpower means that the United States has the luxury to say "no" as well as "yes" to suggestions that it engage in military interventions. Liberia is a case where U.S. leaders should have said "no" early and often. (emphasis added)

As much of a fan the skeptic is about trying to bring peace to West Africa--which is in dire need of peace--he can't help but partially agree with this logic. Why should the U.S. intervene in Liberia and not the Congo?

Furthermore, the skeptic can't help but wonder if the military is being overstretched. Would it be better for the additional resources to be sent to Afghanistan (two recent opinions in the NYT: 1 and 2)?

In other news...

Zimbabwe has shown an ability to make friends under the worst of circumstances....

Bush is off to Africa for a bit of a trip, and his speech last week was interesting. Made the skeptic wonder just how involved the U.S. is behind the scenes. Africa policy advocates, by the by, don't seem too pleased.

Random

Umm... no comment.

The Michael Moore of the right...

Update: The White House will provide regular updates on Bush's trip here. The site could use a bit of work.... (it's fixed now)

2003-06-02T11:14:00.000-05:00

Sincere apologies to readers, but this week has turned out a bit differently than expected: including vacation time (for why this is bad, see previous post). As such your humble blogger is taking the rest of the week off, and will return on Sunday. Hopefully last week's frenzy will partially tide readers over. After all, as one occasional reader reminds me, you have to look up from the publications from time to time...

2003-05-31T18:59:00.000-05:00

Reason to Love the Internet, Number 6:

weblogs do not make money. Some bloggers earn commissions on items bought through a link from their weblog, or receive donations from charitable readers. But even Mr Sullivan says his weblog brings in only about $6,000 a month from such sources. Most bloggers do not blog for money.

Only $72,000/year? Jesus....

And you can be sure that number's going up... Meanwhile, the skeptic needs to get to real work.......

2003-05-31T00:34:00.000-05:00

Reason to Love the Internet, Number 3: Expressing frustration in a creative way, with less confrontation--making it sooo much easier to laugh off as absurd. (via The Storm)

Reason to Love the Internet, Numbers 4 and 5: Reminds you how much you hated being a teenager. (Via "Fresh Blogs" on Blogger)

2003-05-30T22:25:00.000-05:00

The Congo As a Platform?

The Filibuster chimes in with a really good point about intervention in the Congo:

Perhaps more significantly, the Congo could also represent the first opportunity for some Democrats to try and form a coherent and reasonable interventionist position for the party, one that could be easily contrasted with the two-faced policies of the current administration. Of course none of this is likely to happen since the one thing we've learned over the past few decades is that American politicians rarely give a damn about what happens in Africa.

the skeptic looks forward to more installments of this "new recurring feature."

2003-05-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

Rights and Wrongs

The White House does something right: "The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites), under pressure from the White House, is planning to require companies to list the amount of the harmful fat in their products." (emphasis added)

And then the White House does something very wrong:

President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war.

As Fred Kaplan writes:

The report concedes that U.S. officials found no traces of any bioweapons agent inside the trailers. "We suspect," it states, "that the Iraqis thoroughly decontaminated the vehicle to remove evidence." That's possible.

The report also notes that, in order to produce biological weapons, each trailer would have to be accompanied by a second and possibly a third trailer, specially designed to grow, process, sterilize, and dry the bacteria. Such trailers would "have equipment such as mixing tanks, centrifuges, and spray dryers"—none of which were spotted in the trailers that were found. The problem, the CIA acknowledges, is that "we have not yet found" these post-production trailers. Question: Is it that they haven't been found—or that they don't exist?

It could well be that the CIA is right about its inferences. Either way, these trailers—simply by being capable of producing biotoxins—constituted violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions barring such technology. However, we're beyond U.N. resolutions at this point. We're looking for evidence that Iraq actually did produce such weapons. From what we know so far, the trailers constitute less than airtight proof. (his hyperlink)

2003-05-30T19:59:00.000-05:00

African AIDS, Part 7

AfricaPundit questions the recently passed African AIDS bill, and he is right to be skeptical.

What makes the whole business so confusing is how it has blatantly bypassed the Global Fund. Why bypass what's meant to coordinate efforts and improve overall effectiveness?

Does the administration want to create direct ties to these governments (ugh) or implement their own conditionalities on how the aid is used above and beyond the UN's restrictions?

Neither is a good deal for Africans, though the news media seem pretty convinced that it's the latter. Too bad more reporters didn't push the administration or congress on this issue, and remained largely silent until the PR deal was wrapped up and ready to go.

(For previous skeptic posts on this, see 5/28, 5/16, 5/3, 4/30, 4/3, and 3/2.)

2003-05-30T19:33:00.000-05:00

Restoring the Credibility Gap

Slate has a new column out.... and the skeptic doesn't hesitate to make the connection to the Blair-ization of the news industry....

On the NYT side of things, Clymer asks to move on, calling the Burns-Miller fiasco an "embarrassing set of e-mails."

Certainly, but the skeptic is glad to finally know where Miller's ludicrous stories have been coming from. And continues to track Chalabi with disgust.

2003-05-30T16:46:00.000-05:00

The Congo Disaster

The Economist has a harrowing look at the conflict in the Congo (via Andrew Sullivan):

IN THE chocolate waters of the Congo river, a mutilated corpse rolls by. The rebels' “minister for children” shivers. How is he going to explain this to the horrified UN peace envoys from the capital, Kinshasa, who are at that moment stepping on to the quay to meet him? Not by telling the truth, obviously, which was that his rebel group had slaughtered 150 people in the town of Kisangani on May 14th-15th, then pitched their disembowelled bodies into the river with stones crammed into their bellies. Instead, he smiles, accepts the envoys' offerings of food aid, and talks chummily of other things.
[...]
Simply finding out what is happening in Congo is a challenge, as your correspondent discovered while accompanying militiamen on patrol by the shore of Lake Kivu last week, when he was forced to hide in a bush to avoid 200 hostile Rwandan soldiers passing by.

It is an essential read... (note that the piece is old--7/4/2002, but it could have been written last week)

Also, note that the UN is sending more troops. It's unclear if they'll expand their mandate beyond protecting UN infrastructure and "monitoring" the peace to enforcing the peace and protecting civilians. (The Beeb says they are attempting to "restore order" and "halt the ethnic fighting.")

Update: Congrats to Matthew Yglesias (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and Gary Farber (1, 2, 3) for their numerous posts devoted to raising attention to the Congo situation, as well as Andrew Sullivan, kausfiles and Instapundit. What the Old Grey Lady takes days to do, the blogosphere does in a matter of hours....

Update 2: First John Cole reflects on it some more. Then he breaks it all down. And goes back to pounding the pavement...

Update 3: Keep an eye on Europunditry... with that old familiar template... And The Storm is gathering...

2003-05-30T15:10:00.000-05:00

More Times Turmoil

Sorry for the non-stop NYT-ing, but this is just ridiculous.

Things must be getting really tough at the Times, considering that they've no longer allowed full access to old articles and have instead set up this stupid thing where you can pay $20/year to get "10 customized alerts," "breaking news alerts", "dedicated customer service", and an "improved interface"! Rah, rah. Well worth the $20 (act now, it's a "special limited time introductory offer"!).

And the best part, you get "your own 90-day personal archive"! Ninety days, that's it? Suck. And, lest you think that entitles you to access any NYT article from the past ninety days, that archive is limited to stories that match "your News Tracker topics." Because if an interesting story breaks, that you would like to be able to access at a future date, you should have already had that topic tracked!!!

Right.

2003-05-30T14:12:00.000-05:00

Raed puts the smackdown on his critics... whose criticisms have been borderline absurd, thus not warranting a link on this site...

2003-05-30T14:01:00.000-05:00

How long until Blogger stops freaking out?

2003-05-29T22:41:00.000-05:00

Another NYT writer...

Judith Miller gets burned, bad. the skeptic already noted her latest transgression, but is somewhat surprised at the extent of the damage Shafer so gleefully notes.

Not that she'll lose her job over it or anything....

Joanne Jacobs takes Michael Winerip to task...

This is really just out of control. Will it ever end? Which reporter is next exposed for shoddy reporting?

Charles Murtaugh picks up on "perhaps a sign of newfound journalistic propriety" in Bob Herbert's latest column.

2003-05-29T14:32:00.000-05:00

Interesting to contrast this story with this one. Who says our priorities aren't in the right place?

2003-05-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

More Lynch

A good summary of the "myths, misconceptions and unanswered questions about the war in Iraq." (link via Instapundit, who takes issue with some of the conclusions) But one things is certain, the great drama of the original story has certainly been brought down to size.

2003-05-29T11:27:00.000-05:00

Things are really reaching a point...

Two things on kausfiles latest posts (and why there is no permalink is beyond the skeptic...)

1) Africapundit says "Things are really reaching a crisis point when these kinds of ideas can be expressed openly in the NY Times..." Very true. But things are also reaching a crisis point when kausfiles steps away from a hot, blogger-ific NYT scandal to note "Not enough troops in the Congo, where hundreds have been slaughtered. I agree that this is more important than Howell Raines' future. ..." (kf's hyperlinks and emphasis)

2) kausfiles keeps the heat on the NYT scandal with quite some intrigue, concluding:

But it seems clear that a) the NYT policy is a lot more permissive than readers ever knew; b) the NYT rules are unclear, which makes them easy to stretch; and c) the paper is less willing to give credit (which would have the effect of discouraging stringer abuse) than other news organizations.

Is Dowd next?

2003-05-29T10:59:00.000-05:00

Starve the Government, and Cruise the Nation

Tapped breaks down the "bankrupt the government" method of the tax-cut crazy GOP. Sure, it's a little conspiracy theory-ish... but that doesn't mean it's not true!

And this, by the way, is too good!

2003-05-29T10:37:00.000-05:00

Compassionate conservatism at its not-so-finest...

2003-05-28T10:58:00.000-05:00

Bush & Africa: the Best Prez Since Kennedy?

Instapundit notes Bob Geldof, in his people-are-starving tour, praising the Bush administration's approach to Africa: "'You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy,' Geldof told the Guardian."

Maybe he is the best, but that's not saying much....

Update: The Beeb follows up with the signing of the AIDS plan. In its report, however, it says

The plan has come under fire from some quarters in Washington angry that a third of the money spent on prevention must be used for projects promoting abstinence rather than safer sex.

the skeptic, whose access to "some quarters in Washington" is limited, has followed the AIDS bill through the chambers and hasn't found much opposition to the promotion of abstinence, but rather to the promotion of abstinence that requires suppressing sexual education.

Update 2: The Post has a much more cynical piece that is well worth reading for the right amount of skepticism.

2003-05-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

Book Reviews and Baseball

the Literary Saloon (posted on an excellent site for all book readers: www.complete-review.com) fumes about the over-abundance of book reviews dedicated to baseball.

2003-05-28T10:34:00.000-05:00

New Yorker goes to Africa

The New Yorker makes a quick go of Africa in its latest issue. There's a very excellent Gourevitch piece on how the real test of the international system is the Congo. (A point yours truly has made from time-to-time.)

Adam Hochschild pans a recent book on Livingstone and Stanley--worth reading for the succinct history lesson. But he goes off on a tangent at the end:

Why is a book like Dugard’s appearing today? Like everything else, books reflect the spirit in the air. And we are living at a time in history when, with startling suddenness, people are talking proudly about the American empire. Those in power in Washington see the world as a clash of civilizations, and are convinced that their civilization has every right to use force to prevail, just as Stanley was convinced that he had every right to burn down African villages that impeded his progress. Perhaps, at this imperial moment, it is not surprising that someone like him is viewed in such a friendly light. Hollywood is already giving us sympathetic and glamorous portrayals of C.I.A. agents in the TV series “The Agency” and in films like “The Recruit.” Stanley and Livingstone may be next.

Maybe, maybe not. the skeptic isn't convinced. Writing a book takes a long time--even if you do a mediocre job at it. And the love of American "empire" seems to be a more recent phenomenon.

More likely, the book is hyped the way it is because of the prevailing wisdom. If this book were released three years ago, it would probably have attracted scant attention.

Finally, John Updike trashes a new novel set in Botswana, noting that the main character "is perhaps the most annoying hero this reviewer has ever spent seven hundred pages with."

Update: the skeptic fears he must take back his earlier suggestion that "If this book were released three years ago..." statement. A quick google scan for Dugard's "Into Africa" reveals numerous glowing reviews from people who don't bother to question the author's work.

I have a feeling Hochschild might agree with this line: "This book is a worthy monument to both men", though not quite in the way its author intended...

2003-05-28T10:03:00.000-05:00

Slate on NPR

The NPR-Slate deal is interesting not only because of what it means for the online news outlet.

"But, Kindel added, 'Day to Day' also raises a question: If it succeeds, will NPR seek out more collaborations with for-profit media? 'Is public radio very public if what we're looking at is new partnerships with entities like Slate?' he asked."

A very good question. Not that the skeptic particularly cares for NPR's "non-profit" status, made possible by commercial sponsors.

2003-05-27T19:36:00.000-05:00

Respite

the Head Heeb has stopped blogging for a week... now it's time to play catch-up...

2003-05-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

Idol-izing American Politics

What can American politics learn from American Idol? Paskoff has some suggestions, not all of which are absurd...

2003-05-27T19:22:00.000-05:00

No Peace (Corps) in Morocco

An interesting article on the limits of free speech for peace corps volunteers, makes this aside:

"Meanwhile, the Peace Corps is feeling the fallout from Bush Administration policies. On April 3 the agency withdrew all volunteers from Morocco in the wake of widespread antiwar protests and rising anti-Americanism."

While the Peace Corps does cite the war with Iraq as sparking their decision (read the press release), it isn't quite clear that fears of terrorism would have been avoided otherwise.

After all, if the ties for the bombing do indeed turn out to be linked to Al Qaeda, would that threat have been absent without the war? the skeptic isn't so sure.

2003-05-27T13:27:00.000-05:00

Kristof warns of the African holocaust.

2003-05-27T13:26:00.001-05:00

Chalabi Watch, Day 56

The pentagon's favorite exile been frustrated with the slow transition to democracy in Iraq. But, more interestingly, he's also been behind many of Judy Miller's NYT "scoops" on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons searches. This man is everywhere.

(Follow the watch: 4/2, 4/3, 4/4, 4/17, and 5/3.)

2003-05-27T13:26:00.000-05:00

the skeptic hates to say it, but he thinks Krugman is more right than he is wrong in his latest column.

2003-05-23T12:38:00.000-05:00

Whitman's Resignation

A naive assessment by Tapped:

But in truth, it won't really matter whom the White House picks to replace Whitman, for the very same reason Whitman resigned: With few exceptions, senior appointees at the cabinet departments and agencies have little role in forming policy anymore. The Bush administration, more than any in recent memory, has shifted decision-making away from senior appointees and towards K Street lobbyists; most big policy packages are put together behind closed doors, in meetings between senior White House personnel, industry officials, and the congressional leadership. For the most part, committee chairs, citizens groups, and senior appointees are have been frozen out.

Yes, senior appointees may have little affect in "big policy packages," but how many decisions are made on a daily basis that aren't micromanaged by the WH? the skeptic doesn't claim to know, but is willing to venture it's a more-than-insignificant amount.

Also, Tapped charges "Whitman found herself overruled early and often by the White House." Sure, but raising those objections may have the effect of moderating impending policy choices--or at least slowing them down.

2003-05-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, science is just beautiful: "There could be a big blue elephant sitting not a millimeter away in another dimension, but we wouldn't know it's there because everything we use to 'see' is stuck to our brane."

2003-05-23T11:45:00.000-05:00

Posner writes:

Plagiarism of work in the public domain is more common than otherwise. Consider a few examples: "West Side Story" is a thinly veiled copy (with music added) of "Romeo and Juliet," which in turn plagiarized Arthur Brooke's "The Tragicall Historye of Romeo and Juliet," published in 1562, which in turn copied from several earlier Romeo and Juliets, all of which were copies of Ovid's story of Pyramus and Thisbe.

"Paradise Lost" plagiarizes the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Classical musicians plagiarize folk melodies (think only of Dvorak, Bartok, and Copland) and often "quote" (as musicians say) from earlier classical works. Edouard Manet's most famous painting, "Dejeuner sur l'herbe," copies earlier paintings by Raphael, Titian, and Courbet, and "My Fair Lady" plagiarized Shaw's play "Pygmalion," while Woody Allen's movie "Play It Again, Sam" "quotes" a famous scene from "Casablanca." Countless movies are based on books, such as "The Thirty-Nine Steps" on John Buchan's novel of that name or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" on Hemingway's novel.

Many of these "plagiarisms" were authorized, and perhaps none was deceptive; they are what Christopher Ricks in his excellent book "Allusions to the Poets" helpfully terms "allusion" rather than "plagiarism." But what they show is that copying with variations is an important form of creativity, and this should make us prudent and measured in our condemnations of plagiarism.

Especially when the term is extended from literal copying to the copying of ideas. Another phrase for copying an idea, as distinct from the form in which it is expressed, is dissemination of ideas. If one needs a license to repeat another person's idea, or if one risks ostracism by one's professional community for failing to credit an idea to its originator, who may be forgotten or unknown, the dissemination of ideas is impeded.

Sure, blogging allows for insta-footnoting, but it also impedes the skeptic's ability to disseminate ideas!

2003-05-22T12:38:00.000-05:00

Random Links, Part II

1. Terror in Morocco means no filming in Morocco.

2. Cohen blames the Post for the Lynch fiasco.

3. Blair's interview makes him sounds like a paranoid...

4. Wondering how the Democratic Primary is shaping up? TNR's got the standings. Who's doing the best? Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman. the skeptic thinks he's going to be sick.

5. Salam Pax documents first hand the importance of NGOs in Iraq. Also, he writes, "Why does it feel like they are using the [lets-try-this-lets-try-that] strategy? Trial and error on a whole country?" (sic)

The UN had experience in rebuilding countries after war. It seems reasonable to assume they would have had the experience and capacity to better handle the reconstruction. Wonder what the cost of that would have been...

6. The Beeb: "African cinema also came up with its own version of James Bond last month - the Cameroonian film Engagement Critique (Critical Assignment), starring an African action hero called Michael Power."

Interesting...

2003-05-22T11:22:00.000-05:00

Fighting Terror with Policy

Greene says the recent terror attacks in Saudi Arabia prove that American foreign policy isn't the root of terrorism. After all, we have ended our sanctions on Iraqi civilians, pulled our troops from Saudi Arabia and made an effort to restart the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. And what thanks do we get? Terrorism attacks in Saudi Arabia.

His conclusion is that "The real issue, as Bernard Lewis has argued, is that Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers are in permanent and furious denial of the state of the contemporary Muslim world."

There's something to this, but perhaps it's oversimplified somewhat. Removing "legitimate" grievances may undermine support for terrorist groups. Launching preventive wars may increase support for terrorist groups. How does one gauge these things?

If you thought terrorism would stop if only the U.S. changed some of its policies, you've got a tough argument to make. But don't fool yourself into thinking that American policies don't foster an environment that encourages terrorism.

2003-05-16T18:07:00.000-05:00

Lefty: Lefty Mag Ain't Lefty Enough

The Nation prints a boring article about The New Yorker's war coverage. Blah, blah, blah. Lazare's real beef with the mag is that it doesn't square with his view of the war:

Just as the magazine helped middle-class opinion to coalesce against US intervention in Vietnam, it might well have served a similar function today by clarifying what is at stake in the Middle East. ... Instead of encouraging opposition, it helped defuse it. From shocking the bourgeoisie, it has moved on to placating it at a time when it has rarely been more dangerous and bellicose. (emphasis added)

2003-05-16T15:46:00.000-05:00

The Planned Lynch Pinch Cinch?

The Beeb says the Dog Was Wagged. Prescient headline?

the skeptic also drew attention to a Post story that deflated the Lynch hoopla. (Too bad it was like fighting a forest fire with a bucket of water.)

P.S. This quote seems pretty ridiculous, doesn't it?

"This story is Mission: Impossible, but it's real," an [NBC] official told [Variety]. "It's uplifting, heroic, compelling and dramatic.

"You see this sort of thing in spy movies and wonder if it's really true. Now we know it is true."

2003-05-15T22:25:00.000-05:00

An author of the new Iraqi constitution suggests that democracy in the Middle East will help quash violent anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment. Let's hope he's right...

2003-05-15T22:22:00.000-05:00

Oh, Le Monde!

From the FT:

The Hidden Face accuses Le Monde of everything from trafficking influence, running secret campaigns for favoured politicians and harassing businessmen for commercial gain to publishing anti-French propaganda, stifling internal debate and misrepresenting the group's sales figures and financial results.

2003-05-15T21:16:00.000-05:00

An Africa Round-Up

Hold on to your seats, it's a quick tour...

1) Good news for the AIDS bill. It looks like the Senate's going to pass this pretty quick. But the Global Fund will only play a marginal role. That's bad, because the problem with most aid programs is that they're uncoordinated, which leads to an inefficient distribution of resources (nod to Lancaster). Though, word is that the Global Fund is a mess in and of itself. Who knows?

2) Where are the protesters? This is the important question that the Village Voice's Hentoff poses to the American left.

Hentoff notes apoplectically, "If you were to imagine the convening of a Human Rights Commission in Hades, it would consist of Cuba, Syria, Sudan, China, and Saudi Arabia. Libya would be the chair. But I have actually named the real-life members of that United Nations body—the hope of the tortured of the world. Even Mugabe's Zimbabwe sits there!"

Major props to Hentoff for continuously hounding Mugabe (here, here, and here).

Also, Cathy Buckle seethes in her May 10th letter: "It was with deep shock and disgust that Zimbabwe learned this week that our police commissioner Augustine Chihuri has been appointed the Honorary Vice President of Interpol. The double standards shown by European countries to the horrific state of our daily lives in Zimbabwe leaves me just spitting with rage."

And she predicts, post-Mbeki, et al. meeting, Things Will Fall Apart: "Things are getting quieter and tenser by the day and as I sat researching facts for this letter yesterday an air force helicopter circled our little town three times. The end is near."

Finally, rah-rah story of the day: South Africa and Britain pledged to cooperate on bringing "independence, freedom, peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of Zimbabwe." (Contain your laughter-disbelief-skepticism)

3) Fighting rages on in the Congo. "The withdrawal of foreign African troops from the province nine days ago opened the way for a bloody power struggle between the rival Lendu and Hema peoples. More than 100 have been confirmed dead, including scores killed at a parish church where they had sought refuge." Duh-lesson of the year: Power vacuums are dangerous & deadly.

The above article notes the UN has already raised fears of genocide. The Voice of America adds this somber news:

However, the United States says it has no plans to get involved in DRC. A Pentagon spokesman said Thursday U.S. defense officials have not been asked by the Bush administration to determine whether any American military resources could be made available.

If the U.S. were serious about stopping genocide, it would at least be looking into the matter....

Besides, is this really something we want to let the French (who have already "offered to contribute soldiers") handle?

Also, the VOA adds, "A U.N. monitoring force of more than 600 soldiers is already in place in the region. But it does not have the mandate or equipment to stop the fighting."

The insanity of it all!!!

4) After reports that a terrorist attack in Kenya was imminent, British plane flights were cancelled. The apparent presence of an Al Qaeda suspect sent off warning signals. Would that the Saudis were as considerate.... Update: AfP has more...

5) The Swazis bid for democracy continues to stall. A constitutional draft was expected to be completed a couple of years ago, but has slowed to snail's pace as the ruling monarchy seems to be trying to hold on. The EU gave up on funding the costly venture in 1999, but the US & UK continue to nurse along the process in hopes of some change.

Well, at least the women can stay topless...

6) Gays continue to be scapegoated in Southern Africa. HRW charges that African leaders are complicit in the violence directed toward gays.

2003-05-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

If only we were as good at finding NBC weapons as we are $$$....

2003-05-15T19:55:00.000-05:00

A confidential e-mail!

the skeptic knows he shouldn't say anything, but he's recently entered into an ever-so lucrative deal with Elmann Mustapha, a personal aide to the Iraqi Minister of Education. Though this technically violates the agreement, the skeptic wants his readers to know that he's working on a serious fund-raising project of the utmost importance.

From : "EL .Mustapha"
Reply-To : el_mustapha@starmail.com
Subject : re: dilemma / assistance
Date : Wed, 14 May 2003 06:33:35 -0700

Dear Sir,

I have made this contact to you with the hope that you can help me out in this my dilemma / problem. I was the personal aide to the Iraqi minister of education and research. Dr Abd Al-khaliq Gafar. That died in the war. Before the war, we had traveled to France to negotiate a contract payment deal on behalf of the Iraqi government on procurement and payment of educational materials and components for the ministry, which entailed him to pay off our customers by cash for onward delivery of the goods via Turkey. Because of international / UN monetary restrictions /sanction on Iraqi. Since our entire operating bank accounts had been frozen.

In gust of this he had cleverly diverted this sum ($28.5m) for himself and secured it properly with a security vault in Spain for safekeeping. As he had kept these documents in hidden and secret with my knowledge. Now that he is Dead and I was able to escape to Egypt for safety on political asylum with this document with me now. Hence I am left with these problems of how to recover and collect this fund for re-invest in a viable venture in your country with your assistance and cooperation. Because of oblivious traveling restricts and sanctions as an Iraqi.

I would really want us to do this deal together if only you can be trusted with this information and project. For more details do reach me via my direct email : mustapha_el@mail2guard.com for further instructions and details. I most remind you that my entire life depends on this fund so please do not relay this top secret to a third party if you are not interested.

I await you immediate response.

Remain Blessed.

Regards
El - Mustapha

Maybe if you send Mustapha an e-mail, you too can get in on the deal of a lifetime.

2003-05-15T17:50:00.000-05:00

More Blair

This Blair scandal really is something. The kid plagarized or fabricated parts of 36 stories. Was able to do it because he maintained a good rapport with top editors, despite warnings from one editor that "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now." The NYT wrote a lengthy apology.

The best, and least noted part about the NYT's sprawling coverage:

Mr. Blair said he had lost a cousin in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, and provided the name of his dead relative to a high-ranking editor at The Times. He cited his loss as a reason to be excused from writing the 'Portraits of Grief' vignettes of the victims.

Reached by telephone last week, the father of his supposed cousin said Mr. Blair was not related to the family.

Why has no one talked about this? Is it a cheap shot? Or were such deceptions commonplace in the aftermath of 9/11?

At any rate, some in-house damage control was in order. The NYT held a "town-hall-style meeting" for its staff to gripe about Blair & Raines. The Post has the best quotes:

Sulzberger, the company's CEO, made no attempt to minimize the damage, saying: "If we had done this right, we wouldn't be here today. We didn't do this right. We regret that deeply. We feel it deeply. It sucks."
...
The most difficult exchanges came when the metro desk's Sexton asked why no action was taken after the strong challenges to Blair's reporting in the sniper case -- including from the paper's own Washington bureau. The U.S. attorney in Maryland disputed a Blair article that said suspect John Muhammad's interrogation was cut short just as he was about to confess, and a Fairfax County prosecutor called a news conference to denounce a second piece as "dead wrong."

Raines and his team "did nothing" to verify "the authenticity or quality of his reporting," Sexton said. Why, he asked, did no senior editor demand to know the identities of Blair's unnamed sources?

Raines said it was his failure not to ask about the sources. He said he had "a political reporter's DNA," not "a police reporter's DNA." But he also said that after examining Blair's story and a Washington Post account, he believed the story about the truncated interrogation was at least partially true.

Boyd said the Fairfax prosecutor, Robert Horan, had told the Times that he didn't have a problem with Blair or the newspaper but with whatever sources were providing inaccurate information.
...
One staffer asked yesterday about the departure of Sack and other seasoned reporters, who are widely seen as having been driven out by Raines. The executive editor said he had to do a better job of retaining talent.

Raines was also asked whether other Times reporters were getting a pass for sloppy or inaccurate reporting. He said it "would be wrong to start cannibalizing those achievers on our staff."
...
Separately, a Times spokeswoman confirmed earlier this week that Blair has a relationship with a clerk at the paper who is a friend of Raines's wife. The New York Daily News reported that the woman, Zuza Glowacka, has worked in the Times photo department -- an important fact because the Times says Blair faked some details in his stories by gaining access to the paper's computerized photo archives.

What a firestorm...

P.S. This could be a major story waiting to break... (If the Times probes deeper into its own staff, will other papers feel compelled to probe theirs?)

P.P.S. Or, as reader JR notes in an e-mail, write your own!

2003-05-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

"Boredom in baseball is like Israel's nuclear bomb: everyone knows it exists, and everyone agrees to pretend it doesn't."

Okay, it's not a summary of the article, but damn if it ain't a good quote....

2003-05-13T20:59:00.000-05:00

A glance at the WP:

Lots of bad news from the Iraq front, as the security situation is still unbelievably fragile, NBC weapons have yet to be found, etc. Same with the Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda front.

So, any good news? Syria.

1. school students no longer have to wear military uniforms. Now it's vests and blouses.

2. the border with Iraq is sealed; some Iraqi regime officials have been handed over to the U.S.

3. toned down anti-American rhetoric; promised not to "meddle in Iraq's internal affairs" or undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

4. licensed three private banks

5. approved "two new private universities and four private radio stations"

6. considering an end to compulsory military training, and forced political affiliations

7. possibly allowing an opposition party to hold a spot as prime minister

Why? "'When your neighbor shaves, you start to wet your cheeks,' said Nabil Jabi, a political strategist in Damascus, citing an Arabic proverb."

Will it last? Who knows? But it's a good start.

2003-05-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

One way that the war on/with/against Iraq is helping the fight against terrorism....

2003-05-07T21:26:00.000-05:00

Random Links

1. Think the Iraqi museum lost 170,000 artifacts? Think the oil ministry was protected while the others were looted? Guess again... (Busted!)

2. NYT circ is down considerably.

3. More than you ever wanted to know about the inside baseball between the WP and NYT about Jayson Blair. (via Instapundit) Though, not more than the skeptic would care to know...

4. READ ME: The most important blog on the web is back. So, the only real question now is how much will he get paid to turn his blog into a memoir and get published?

5. Here's an excellent idea on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Too bad it's not at all realistic......

6. Awards. the skeptic will deliver more specific props another time...

2003-05-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

Bush & African Intervention

TNR's Notebook (3/24/2003):

During the 2000 campaign, candidate Bush, fresh from his foreign policy tutorials with Rice, repeatedly stated that, had he been president in 1994, he would not have intervened in Rwanda--except under U.N. auspices!
...
He elaborated in a February 2000 interview with Jim Lehrer: "[W]hile Africa may be important, it doesn't fit into the national strategic interests, as far as I can see them. Now, that doesn't mean that we couldn't have rallied folks such as the United Nations to go help keep warring parties apart in Rwanda." (skeptic's emphasis)

the skeptic highlights this since it touches on his earlier post about whether Bush would act to stop a genocide.

Of course, as the security environment has changed since 9/11, Bush's perspective on Africa has changed as well. Has his overwhelming humanitarian rhetoric virtually committed him to act in the face of another genocide? Maybe, maybe not...

2003-05-06T20:08:00.000-05:00

Hersh Watch, Day 55: Shafer trashes Hersh. Now, Hersh has been right on in some ways. Follow the watch:

2003-05-06T19:18:00.000-05:00

Mitchell Daniels: "a teetotaler riding shotgun in a car driven by a drunk." His downfall? Hmm...

2003-05-06T19:06:00.001-05:00

The best essay the skeptic has seen about globalization. the skeptic began excerpting it, but the portions were so large that he felt guilty doing so. Here's the link. Read it.

2003-05-05T19:50:00.000-05:00

Keep Looking; Not that the skeptic Cares

Interesting:

Saddam Hussein appears to have shut down or destroyed large parts of his unconventional weapons programmes before the war in Iraq, a senior Bush administration official who has been closely involved in the quest to purge Iraq of weapons of mass destruction said this week.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he would be "amazed if we found weapons-grade plutonium or uranium" and it was unlikely large volumes of biological or chemical material would be discovered. He suggested that the sanctions and UN inspections probably prompted Mr Hussein to dispose of much of his stockpile.
...
However, the senior administration official insisted the US never expected to find a huge arsenal. He said the US was more concerned by Mr Hussein's team of 1,000 scientists, whom he termed "nuclear mujahadeen". These scientists, he argued, could have restarted Iraq's weapons programme once the crisis passed. A primary concern was dual-use "factories and breweries" which could be converted into weapons plants but were allowed under UN sanctions.

"He kept them together in the expectation that one day the sanctions would disappear and the inspections would disappear and he would fire up that nuclear capability," the official said.

How important is it now to find NBC programs? Especially with a new government forming in Iraq? the skeptic is starting to think it's not that big of a deal anymore....

2003-05-05T18:42:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it takes a Nixon to go to China

And sometimes, it takes a Bush to green the environment: "'Mitch Daniels,' one liberal enviro says, 'is why God invented conservative Republicans.'"

As Saletan puts it, "Are the Bushies motivated by genuine concern for the environment? Or are they just trying to save some money? Who cares?" Let's hope this continues...

Update: Not for long...

2003-05-05T14:14:00.000-05:00

Bad Blair

kausfiles has an interesting look (The Blair crash) at affirmative action in journalism, spurred by the recent Jayson Blair catastrophe.

Embarrasing Blair quotes: "You need to rely on and trust the people you work with." and "We, as journalists, give the police a voice and reveal details and information that most people might never hear otherwise," Blair says. (skeptic's emphasis)

Note: Until 2001, the NYT intern program "was aimed at members of minority groups who, because of race or ethnicity, had been historically excluded from opportunities in America’s newspaper industry." Now anyone can apply, but the program "remains as an integral part of The Times' enduring commitment to recruit and hire as diverse and as highly qualified a staff as possible."

2003-05-05T13:56:00.001-05:00

Let Them Get Nukes?

An interesting suggestion from TNR's etc.:

At this point, wouldn't the far better strategy be to announce that we have no intention whatsoever of attacking the North, but that we will assume that any nuclear attack on the United States (or an American target abroad) originated with North Korean nuclear material and retaliate accordingly? That would have the benefit of reassuring the North of our generally peaceful intentions, which might ease along a negotiated end to the country's nuclear program. But it would have a chilling effect on North Korean nuclear weapons sales, since the country could never be sure that the material it sold wouldn't end up being used against Americans, which could trigger a massive nuclear-retaliatory response. (skeptic's emphasis)

Quick question (Marmot, help me out here), isn't this essentially where the dialogue currently stands? By fingering N.K. as part of the axis of evil, shouldn't all of this already be in place? Slate steps in and sees the latest moves as a good bargaining ploy, but bad long-term policy.

2003-05-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

War on Terror, Politics of Peace

AfP follows the latest with the War on Terror: Africa (a.k.a. the war hardly noted in American media). Here's the gist: U.S. deployment in the Horn has led to catures of Al Qaeda operatives and promotes security.

Even Nato might head over to African trouble spots. As AfP quotes:

Nato Supreme Commander General James Jones, an American four-star general, suggested in barely noticed remarks that the United States plans to boost its troop presence in Africa, where there are "large ungoverned areas... that are clearly the new routes of narco-trafficking, terrorists' training and hotbeds of instability."
...
But if the organization does have a future, said General Jones, expect Africa to be of greater importance to both Nato and the United States. "The carrier battle groups of the future and the expeditionary strike groups of the future may not spend six months in the Med[iterranean Sea] but I'll bet they'll spend half the time going down the West Coast of Africa."

This news is even more interesting since West Africa is essentially France's backyard. Remembering the protests against France in the Cote d'Ivoire, one can't help but speculate as to whether the U.S. will come to hold considerable sway--especially if they are able to stabilize such an unstable area.

It would seem that this would be a great area for NATO, the U.S. has its interests threated, so do the French (unless the French thrive on the lawlessness there--a very real possibility). But will hubris keep the two from cooperating? West Africa certainly will be an interesting case study for the extent to which the U.S. and France continue their battle for hegemony.

P.S.This last point brings up an otherwise decent Krugman column that blasts the U.S. for vetoing a move to send peacekeepers to Cote d'Ivoire, charging that it was done only to spite the French.

This, unsurprisingly, simplifies reality. PK, the skeptic is sure, seized onto this after the WP reported on it just days before. While the WP does suggest that the incident "has raised concern" that the refusal to approve the mission was done to "exact revenge," PK takes it as writ. First, let's go to the Bushies' defense:

U.S. officials said their decision was motivated by concerns for costs, a quarter of which would have to be shouldered by the United States, not revenge. They said the task could be achieved with a much smaller contingent of about 40 U.N. officials. And they asked the U.N. peacekeeping department to present a less ambitious proposal for the mission.
...
David M. Malone, an expert on the United Nations at the International Peace Academy, said France has been pressing for greater U.N. involvement in Ivory Coast to ease its own withdrawal from the country. "I think the French from the outset of the crisis were hoping the U.N. could play a role similar to that which unfolded in the Central African Republic in the late 1990s, where a French-led coalition of the willing retreated under cover of a small U.N. peacekeeping mission," Malone said.

He said the Bush administration is "making it clear that it will not support a U.N. peacekeeping operation which could elegantly cover a French military retreat from Ivory Coast, where large numbers of paratroopers are pinned down."

This is not unrealistic. After all, similar motivations kept the UN out of Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.

The more the skeptic reads about the Rwandan genocide, the less convinced he is that the international community would actually move to stop the next one....

P.P.S. It would be nice to see a piece done on current UN peacekeeping in Africa. Where are the troops, and how successful are they at ensuring peace?

2003-05-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

think everyone in Iraq is beginning to hate the U.S.? Reading some of the papers, and watching some Newshour, one gets that impression. But read these two posts from Instapundit.

2003-05-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

NYT Mag notes: "In most mammals, the gene for lactose tolerance switches off once an animal matures beyond the weaning years. Humans shared that fate as well -- until a mutation in the DNA of an isolated population of Northern Europeans around 10,000 years ago introduced an adaptive tolerance for nutrient-rich milk." So, the lactose-intolerant are simply the mature, non-mutant ones?

Update: AfP notes lactose intolerance in Africans (it's apparently common, so dairy plays a small role in the traditional diet). Good news for those who are lactose-intolerant and interested in heading to Africa for some time--the skeptic, for example.

2003-05-03T12:06:00.000-05:00

Chalabi Watch, Day 32

Doing a Chalabi watch has been quite difficult, considering the widespread antipathy he seems to have generated. (Follow the watch: 4/2, 4/3, 4/4, and 4/17.) So, before moving on to the latest update, let's pause for a defense of Chalabi, by none other than Christopher Hitchens. First up, Hitchens questions that Chalabi hasn't been in the country since 1958.

This contradicts my own memory and that of several other better-qualified witnesses. They recall him in northern Iraq many times and for long periods in the 1990s, helping to organize opposition conferences and to broker an agreement between the opposing Kurdish factions. He frequently risked his life in this enterprise; indeed it was for criticizing the CIA's own ham-fisted efforts in Kurdistan at the time that he incurred the lasting hatred of the agency.

Perhaps Chalabi has been in Iraq a few times since 1958 (I don't imagine anyone contests that), but has he truly lived there? Outside of Kurdistan? Can he legitimately claim to represent Iraqis if he has only visited the country a number of times, in a small area, with much secrecy, over the past 45 years? Of course, Chalabi denies that he has or will make such a claim, but his adamant supporters seem to believe that he does....

Yasser Arafat hasn't been in Jerusalem for some considerable time, after all, and before his disastrous return to Gaza, he hadn't been on Palestinian soil for decades. The Dalai Lama hasn't been in Tibet since the 1950s. Perhaps these leaders should be criticized more for being out of touch.

Umm... Weren't Arafat and the Dalai Lama widely respected by their people? Seen as national icons? Thus quashing the relevance of this analogy.... At any rate, let us move on. The NYT catches up on the latest Chalabisms:

Since his return to Iraq last month, the behavior of his entourage has outraged many Iraqis, and even some Americans.

"What we have done is import mafias into Baghdad," said one American official, who insisted on anonymity.

The official was referring to the takeover of many of Baghdad's best houses by groups of men claiming to have formed new political parties. Kurdish parties have taken over a Baath Party headquarters and the engineering building of Mr. Hussein's office. Some have set up roadblocks and established militias, sometimes saying they are operating with the authority of the American military.

An early expropriator was Mr. Chalabi, whose supporters seized the elite Hunting Club, apparently with the permission of American soldiers. Various groups associated with him took over other expensive houses in the same area.

Last weekend, General Garner appeared to give tacit approval by dining with Mr. Chalabi at the club. All that, critics here say, has only encouraged other groups to go house-taking.

"What right does Chalabi have to take over these clubs?" asked Saif Hikmet al-Dujaili, a 25-year-old pharmacist who was thrown out of the Hunting Club.

General Garner emphasized last week that Mr. Chalabi was "not my candidate, not the candidate of the coalition."

Well regardless of whose candidate he was, he certainly does seem to be getting favorable treatment....

2003-05-03T10:48:00.000-05:00

America-AIDS, Part 4

daudi links to a S.F. Chronicle article that suggests the unexpansion of the Mexico policy is being circumvented in another way. (For previous skeptic posts, see 4/30, 4/3, and 3/2.) From the Chronicle:

If this legislation passes through Congress unchanged, poor and rural communities that have only one clinic would have to build a new one in order to separate their AIDS work from their family-planning work -- an unlikely development, given the depressed economies in the targeted African and Caribbean countries. Or they would have to shut down their family-planning clinic altogether in order to qualify for the AIDS money. (skeptic's emphasis throughout)

The Center for Reproductive Rights offers similar analysis:

The trend in providing integrated services did not take hold by accident, but through the agreement of the international community and health experts that this is most effective way to provide reproductive and sexual health services to women.

Not that Bush ever cared for the international community.... Also, Kim Krisberg writes in Nation's Health (April 2003):

According to the Global AIDS Alliance, many African clinics combine HIV/AIDS, family planning and reproductive health services because doing so is cost-effective and is the best way to cater to women's needs. According to Hall-Martinez, an HIV-positive status or simply taking an HIV test carries a significant stigma in many countries, so separating HIV services from the rest of a clinic could undermine confidentiality.

So privacy and cost efficiency are being tossed out the door in the name of an ideological cause? Well, that's not really much of a surprise.

After all, Bush's initial proposal was to reallocate money from child health to pay for it. Perhaps it was budgetary tomfoolery, but is that any excuse? From a 2/17/2003 NYT editorial:

Mr. Bush has also found part of the money for his AIDS programs by cutting nearly $500 million from child health, including vaccine programs. Child survival is the biggest loser in the foreign aid budget -- a scandalous way to finance AIDS initiatives. With the budget dominated by defense spending and huge tax cuts for the wealthy, the White House should not be forcing the babies of Africa to pay for their parents' AIDS drugs.

Bonus: In doing some research, the skeptic stumbled across an interesting note that partially answered his question about whether the Global Fund could be more effectively managed. A 2/1/2003 NYT editorial notes:

Congress should also direct the bulk of Washington's contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the organization that the international community has established. Yesterday Health Secretary Tommy Thompson was elected chairman of the Global Fund's board. Mr. Bush wants to channel only $1 billion of the $10 billion through the organization. That would be a serious blow to the fund, which has more good proposals from countries than it can finance, and would eliminate the chance to raise matching funds from other nations.

The Bush administration's preference for unilateral solutions is likely to lead to a far less efficient use of the money. American conduits, such as the Agency for International Development, are not in a position to administer the funds, and it is counterproductive to build a parallel bureaucracy when an existing organization of proven efficiency and an identical mission desperately needs financing.

If the bureaucracy is as terrible as Thomas Coburn, a Republican member of the Presidential Advisory Council on H.I.V./AIDS, sees it, certainly Thompson can and should work to shore up that org's lack of accountability.

2003-05-02T15:18:00.000-05:00

A Dem in 2004?

Maybe Dems do stand a chance for 2004: Ruy Teixeira, whose book The Emerging Democratic Majority had the misfortune of arriving two months before Republicans swept both houses of Congress, writes an article in the Washington Monthly that seems to be chock-full of interesting analysis. Why? Here's five interesting points....

1. the 9/11 Myth: The 2002 election was much closer than the overall picture made it look. "As nonpartisan analyst Charlie Cook has pointed out, 'A swing of 94,000 votes out of 75,723,756 cast nationally would have resulted in the Democrats capturing control of the House and retaining a majority in the Senate on Nov. 5.'"

2. White voters: "As Matthew Dowd, polling director at the Republican National Committee, has pointed out, if minorities and whites vote in 2004 as they did in the 2000 election, Democrats will win by 3 million votes" since "Republicans' core constituencies among white voters--those in rural areas, married men, married homemakers, and so forth--are also shrinking relative to other voter groups."

3. the role of "exurbs" ("those fast-growing edge counties on the fringes of large metropolitan areas that tend to vote Republican") is overstated: "exurban counties are generally too small to outweigh pro-Democratic developments elsewhere in large metropolitan areas, and also because as exurban counties become bigger, denser, and more diverse, they generally become less--not more--Republican."

4. the mobilization effort: "the GOP was clearly the turnout party in 2002. But it's unlikely to be able to repeat this. To begin with, Democrats won't be caught napping again." How? Various turnout initiatives, the end of the 9/11 effect (will there be an Iraq effect?), actual proposals for domestic and foreign policy, and anger from democrats about Bush's partisianship.

5. bad policy: there's a notable lack of enthusiasm over Bush's tax cut proposal--polls suggest that More people now think the amount of federal income tax they pay is "about right" (50 percent) than think it is "too high" (47 percent). (Even Greenspan is siding against the administration's proposal.)

2003-05-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

Has the Hitch become a full-fledged right-winger? He's being published in the Weekly Standard. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

2003-05-01T19:35:00.000-05:00

Finally, conclusive proof that racism no longer exists in America:

Juniors are in charge of planning the prom each year and last year they decided to have just one dance — the first integrated prom in 31 years in the rural Georgia county 150 miles south of Atlanta.

Until then, parents and students organized separate proms for whites and blacks after school officials stopped sponsoring dances, in part because they wanted to avoid problems arising from interracial dating.

This year, a small number of white juniors decided they wanted a separate prom.

Who's going to be the one to tell those Southerners that it won't be long before whites start seeing a bit more pigmentation in their skin....

2003-04-30T22:44:00.000-05:00

Latest update to the U.S.'s AIDS contribution

Bush gave a speech Tuesday to urge Congress to pass his emergency AIDS bill before Memorial Day (transcript). Which makes it sound like it's going to happen.

The NYT, via the IHT, has the story:

Bush "threw his support behind a proposed bill — a version of which has cleared a House committee — to provide $15 billion over five years for worldwide AIDS prevention and treatment. A portion of the money would be used, as well, to combat tuberculosis and malaria."

The end result seems to be a recognition that "abstinence alone was not the answer." (NYT's words)

Some conservative critics of the bill lament the fact that United States money will go to international groups that consider abortion a valid family-planning approach. That, they say, would violate a rule put in place by President Ronald Reagan to bar such use of American money.

That ban, known as the Mexico City rule for the place Mr. Reagan announced it, was suspended under President Bill Clinton but reimposed by Mr. Bush shortly after he took office.

The administration now says it has found a compromise: organizations that perform or promote abortions can receive AIDS money, but they must not use it for abortion-related activities, and must provide strict accounting to confirm as much.

Though conservatives had insisted in the past that this sort of funding could free up other funds for those groups to use to promote abortions, Mr. Fleischer insisted today that "we are not expanding the Mexico City policy."

Under the Hyde bill, $14 billion would go directly to other countries and $1 billion — five times what the Bush administration sought — to the Global Fund to Combat AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a public-private group based in Switzerland.

Thomas Coburn, a Republican member of the Presidential Advisory Council on H.I.V./AIDS, told the congressional newsletter The Hill that the Global AIDS Fund is a "bureaucratic nightmare" with "no clear-cut accountability."

Some conservatives see Mr. Bush's support of the bill as an attempt to curry favor with the moderate swing voters who could hold crucial sway in the 2004 presidential elections. (skeptic's emphasis)

It's nice to see Bush in the right side on this matter. But, if the Global Fund is such a bureaucratic nightmare, can anything be done to improve it?

The NYT/IHT cynically notes: "Some conservatives see Mr. Bush's support of the bill as an attempt to curry favor with the moderate swing voters who could hold crucial sway in the 2004 presidential elections."

Unresearched suggestion: "one of the things we may want to do is to convert some of our Peace Corps to helping people in Africa who have got AIDS." The way Bush says and delivers this line, it seems like he thinks this is a novel idea. But it's already being done. Though expanding it probably isn't a bad idea.

2003-04-30T22:38:00.000-05:00

A much-needed pespective on the SARS hysteria

"Your chances of visiting Hong Kong without getting infected are close to 100 percent—even if you don't take special precautions."

Yet, the author suggests that the hysteria has all been quite worth it: "On the one hand, the level of attention given to SARS seems wildly disproportionate to the scale of the problem itself; on the other hand, had it not been for this exaggerated sense of fear, we might have a truly frightening situation on our hands.... It appears that fear can be a useful tool for the public good."

Quick observation: isn't this the same logic environmentalists use for hyping dangerous scenarios as being nearly inevitable? Does that make it right? What is the ethical thing for observers and activists to do in finding the balance between hysteria, and reasoned caution?

2003-04-29T17:47:00.000-05:00

Mugabe May Not Resign

It was all just an attempt to spark national debate about his successor, not to draw into question whether he would retire. The IRIN reprints portions of the Zimbabwe government's recent statement:

"For all the self-serving, biased coverage, the people of Zimbabwe have not expressed a wish to withdraw the mandate they gave to the present government. Nor have they indicated a wish to transit to another dispensation, whether constitutional or political, shaped and defined by processes which exclude them, and are largely called by foreign interests.

"On the same score, President Mugabe has not indicated a wish to leave office now, or at any other time before the expiry of his term (in 2008). All the president did in the recent interview marking the twenty-third anniversary of independence, was to invite national debate on a range of national questions, including that of succession," the statement continued.

Of course, even if Mugabe was planning on leaving, the government would well have an interest in dampening expectations to quell whatever chaos may ensue.

Though, as daudi blogs, "When similar stories were floated a few months ago, Mugabe basically said, 'Over my dead body'. 'It would be absolutely counter-revolutionary and foolhardy for me to step down,' he announced (illustrating what I meant about African leaders thinking they're revolutionaries)." (daudi's emphasis)

Either way, it's hard to be optimistic about Zimbabwe's future.

2003-04-29T15:52:00.000-05:00

Notable: Another good N. Korea article in Foreign Policy, brings calm, reasoned analysis where it is especially needed. Any good critiques of it?

Also Notable: The Marmot's Hole has some long analysis on North Korea, and makes for a good read. Let's see him take on the FP article point-by-point (hint, hint).

2003-04-29T15:01:00.000-05:00

No Way to Win Elections

An interesting note on the TNR blog, etc. about the Santorum controversy.

The real problem posed by the comments is for the Republican Party. After all, if you think of the national electorate as consisting of more or less equal parts social liberals, social conservatives, and people who have some socially conservative impulses but are basically tolerant and turned off by bigotry, then Santorum's comments have just cost the party that important middle third of the country's voters. Now normally, as was the case with Trent Lott's bigoted comments, you'd try to get some of that moderate third back by having the offending party apologize and, if that doesn't work, resign. The problem in this case is that, unlike overt racism, which has no constituency in either party (though covert racist appeals still have something of a home in the Republican Party), overt homophobia has a big, powerful constituency in the Republican Party. That means that trying to get that moderate third back by forcing Santorum to apologize will only do more harm than good, by alienating your conservative base.

It looks like the GOP leadership is defending Santorum, which will supposedly threaten the "middle third" of the country. (Is one-third a reasonable assessment?)

At any rate, two points: etc. sides with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Barney Frank in asserting that Santorum probably dove head-first into this issue to fire up his conservative base--which is to say that he's just trying to get elected by demonstrating his willingness to stand out.

Yet, Dems will obviously try to capitalize on this and the Lott mess to lure voters. But suggesting that the skeletons haven't quite left Republicans' closets is no future for Democrats. Dems should be trying to get people to vote for them, not to vote against Repubs. 'Cuz, the skeptic believes, Repubs will try to move away from their association with homophobia (though homophilia probably isn't in the offing). And once that happens, why vote Dem?

P.S. the skeptic generally doesn't care for the National Review. It too often spouts party-line rhetoric that fails to be interesting. But Stanley Kurtz has some interesting thoughts on a coming culture war over the legality of gay marriages.

Once Massachusetts legalizes gay marriage, it will be a domestic culture-war story like no other. Gay couples will flood into Massachusetts from around the country to get married. Returning to their homes, these gay couples will initiate a series of lawsuits attempting to force recognition of their marriages onto their respective states. The suits will rest on constitutional grounds of equal protection, full faith and credit — and any other grounds the plaintiffs can think of. ...

For months — perhaps years — every public official in the country will be forced to take a stand on gay marriage. Democrats and Republicans alike will have to pronounce on this ultimate hot-button issue, at the almost certain cost of alienating large numbers of their constituents. And public officials who have absolutely no interest in, or facility for, discussions about sexuality will be making gaffs right and left. If you thought Sen. Santorum's remarks were clumsy or confusing, just wait.

Sounds eerily reminiscent like all those culture wars that we supposedly waged in the 90s. But it will be interesting to see how much of this analysis holds true.

On an Unrelated Note: etc. notes a story that everyone should read about how the U.S. inexcusably failed to secure Baghdad's nuclear material facility 12 miles south of the capital.

2003-04-28T21:12:00.000-05:00

Mugabe May Resign

Proposed Deal Unlikely to Bring Meaningful Change

As the Sunday Times (Johannesburg)and Daily News (Harare) have now reported, it seems that Robert Mugabe's increasingly brutal reign is coming to a close. the skeptic predicted a week ago that things were reaching unsustainable levels, though was hesitant to say how soon change would come.

It seems the leaders of South Africa, Nigeria and Malawi are coaxing Mugabe into leaving. The Times reports that in a broadcast with Zimbabwe's state TV, Mugabe "said there was nothing wrong with people openly debating succession." The Times sees a scramble for power among a military leader, a party leader, and an administration figure.

The Daily News follows up with news that Mugabe "has called for a constitutional amendment that will allow an interim President to be appointed by his Zanu PF party and pave the way for fresh elections for a new government."

The paper adds that Mugabe apparently wants to cede power to "his long-time personal aide, Emmerson Mnangagwa... ." An old Daily News story sees Mnangagwa as embodying all that is wrong with the Mugabe regime. (An earlier report in the Beeb noted that he "is named by the UN as a prime mover in illicit trading out of Congo.")

Onto the analysis. First up, a sobering assessment by AfricaPundit:

Mugabe's resignation would be a step in the right direction, but only if the rest of the ZANU terror apparatus is dismantled and democracy and the rule of law are restored. Replacing Mugabe with another ZANU thug would simply be a whitewash job and wouldn't do much to address the grievances of the MDC, or the majority of Zimbabweans for that matter. Any deal negotiated by Mbeki and Obasanjo will likely be favorable to the ZANU establishment -- probably including an attempt to legitimize last year's elections. (skeptic's emphasis unless otherwise noted)

the skeptic would have to agree with AfP. Getting rid of Mugabe will be a cosmetic change at best. It seems unlikely that the current regime in Zimbabwe is like a set of dominos; if Mugabe falls, it will not set off a chain reaction. Instead, there is an apparatus that will prevent a power vacuum.

Furthermore, the cost of such a deal (the way it's being portrayed now) is that Mugabe would skate free for the atrocities committed during his 23-year reign. Justice needs to be served. Until it is, Zimbabweans have little reason to place their faith in any ruling authority.

Why Democracy Won't Cut It

Recent articles about Iraq by Slate's David Plotz and Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria offer good reasons why the preceding development offers little hope.

First up, analysis based on a recent Zakaria essay:

1. New elections may replicate democracy, but that hardly accounts for progress. Progress would be a political system with free elections, "the rule of law, the separation of powers, and basic human rights, including private property, free speech and religious tolerance."

Even if elections were held, and the rival party would win, the skeptic doubts progress is likely in the near future. Would a transition from Zanu PF to the MDC actually be smooth? No. Would a drastic change in rule follow such a shaky transition? No. It will take an immense amount of international and regional involvement (read: pressure) for real action to take place.

But considering how long it has taken for real pressure to reach Mugabe (in 1998, the Beeb suggested that his power seemed to be slipping; five years later...), this isn't a very promising thought.

2. "Order, then liberty. In Iraq (the skeptic substitutes Zimbabwe here) today, first establish a stable security environment and create the institutions of limited government--a constitution with a bill of rights, an independent judiciary, a sound central bank. Then and only then, move to full-fledged democracy."

the skeptic doesn't know about Zimbabwe's constitution, but it is far from currently possessing an independent judiciary and a sound central bank. Not to mention that creating a new constitution would at least have significant PR purposes for signifying a real break from the past and establishing norms that would calm fears of a Mugabe Redux.

A smooth transition of power, as advocated by Mbeki, et al. would certainly prevent this from occurring.

3. "The next few years are crucial, because it is during this same period that a constitution must be written, power sharing must begin, courts must be established and important policy decisions about oil and rebuilding must be taken. The United States will have to get involved in these decisions to ensure that they are not hijacked by one group or another in Iraq."

Substitute oil for minerals, Zimbabwe for Iraq, and its still a pretty similar assessment. Yet it's easier to be optimistic about Iraq (which has to do these things) than Zimbabwe (which needs to voluntarily do these things). Besides, would anyone (international/regional orgs? South Africa?) step forward to substitute the U.S.?

Now for Plotz:

1. "a fledgling democracy should delay elections until new associations—business ties, social and professional networks, new political parties not based on tribal or religious affiliation—have time to develop and compete with identity politics."

While worries of tribal and religious affiliation may not apply to Zimbabwe, there will be a need to reform political parties--moving away from the de facto one-party system, to a true competitive democracy. This will be difficult, and unlikely under the appointment of a Mugabe henchman.

2. Let civil society check the government. "Independent electoral commissions set election rules, monitor fraud, and give new parties a chance to compete fairly. ... In Thailand and elsewhere, independent anti-corruption commissions publicize and punish graft, bribery, and other sleaziness by elected officials. In nations where leaders have traditionally raided the state without consequence, such commissions restore faith in government. They also teach elected officials that their job is public service, not profiteering."

This is quite unlikely considering that Mugabe's regime thrived on fraudulent elections and corruption. As long as the regime stays in tact, so does profiteering.

While the skeptic hopes to see Mugabe gone, the alternative doesn't at all seem satisfactory.

Would-You-Believe quote: "Using troops trained by North Koreans, he crushed his major political opponent, Joshua Nkomo, killing over 20,000 Zimbabweans and torturing thousands more in the process." (from a State Department report)

P.S. AfP links to this Daily News editorial that outlines 10 possible solutions (though the skeptic counts nine). If you're holding out for optimism, it's not here either....