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March 27, 2008
Neglecting Afghanistan, Part II
Sometimes you have to wonder if the Bush administration is intentionally trying to botch the rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it's hard to fathom how so many people can be so collectively incompetent.
For example, why would you give a $300 million contract for supplying arms to Afghanistan to a "fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur?" According to the New York Times, the U.S. has relied on just such a company, AEY Inc., since last year as the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan's army and police forces.
Why might it be a bad idea to give that task to a 22-year-old? Look at the results:
The company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.
Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.
Recovery in Afghanistan depends on success in two areas: Rebuilding the country's infrastructure--I wrote yesterday about how this aid has been neglected by the international community--and establishing an Afghan security force that can prevent the Taliban from retaking control. It's been more than six years, and little progress has been made on either front.
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March 26, 2008
Neglecting Afghanistan
While Colon Powell's "we broke it, we bought it" argument has convinced many of the need to stay in Iraq—including myself until recently—that sense of responsibility for post-war recovery has been noticeably absent from our involvement in Afghanistan.
From the minute the Taliban fell and the U.S. turned its attention to Iraq, the government, the international community, and the American public has essentially neglected the rebuilding process and the Afghan people. Maybe the country was deemed beyond repair by some, or maybe they were just compelled by the bigger, sexier war in Iraq.
Whatever the reason, Afghanistan hasn't seen about $10 billion of the aid it was promised to help rebuild, and 40% of the money that has been delivered has been spent on "corporate profits and consultancy fees," according to the BBC:
The report by Acbar, an alliance of international aid agencies working in the country, including Oxfam, Christian Aid, Islamic Relief and Save the Children, says the international community has pledged $25bn to Afghanistan since 2001 but only $15bn has been delivered.The US is the biggest donor to Afghanistan but is also responsible for one of the biggest shortfalls. The US delivered only half of the $10.4bn it committed between 2002 and 2008, according to the Afghan government, today's report says.
Over the same period the European commission and Germany distributed less than two-thirds of their respective $1.7bn and $1.2bn commitments while the World Bank distributed just over half of the $1.6bn it committed. Britain pledged $1.45bn and distributed almost all, $1.3bn.
The report estimated that 40% of the aid money spent in Afghanistan has found its way back to rich donor countries such as the US through corporate profits, consultants' salaries and other costs, significantly inflating the cost of projects.
Afghanistan's biggest donor, USAid, allocates nearly half its funds to five big contractors. The US government has awarded major contracts, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to KBR, the Louis Berger group, Chemonics International, Bearing Point, and Dyncorp International, according to a study by the US-based Centre for Public Integrity quoted in today's report.
I've tried to explain before why rebuilding Afghanistan matters. The country was neglected after the after the Soviets and U.S-backed mujahadeen spent several years fighting and destroying the nation's infrastructure, and this neglect facilitated the rise of the Taliban. One could argue that if the foreign policy at the time hadn't been so short sighted, if Afghanistan had been rebuilt and stabilized, Bin Laden wouldn't have had a refuge in the years leading up to 9/11. Who knows what that could have prevented?
Now, the Taliban is resurging in some areas, and 2007 was the deadliest year for the U.S. since the 2001 invasion. History repeats itself.
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March 21, 2008
"I'm not sure America's ready for a smart president"
H/T: Prose Before Hos
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March 20, 2008
The aftermath of "A More Perfect Union"
The New York Times took a look today how some groups are responding to Barack Obama's Tuesday speech on race:
While commentators and politicians debated its political success Wednesday, some around the country were responding to Mr. Obama’s call for a national conversation about race.Religious groups and academic bodies, already receptive to Mr. Obama’s plea for such a dialogue, seemed especially enthusiastic. Universities were moving to incorporate the issues Mr. Obama raised into classroom discussions and course work, and churches were trying to find ways to do the same in sermons and Bible studies.
The article goes on to highlight examples of discussions sparked by the speech and notes that the video of has been viewed 1.6 million times on YouTube and has been widely e-mailed.
Maybe we're ready to grow up after all.
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March 19, 2008
It's been five years
I don't know what else to say.
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March 18, 2008
"Not this time"
Over the past two days and nights, ending sometime around 2 a.m., Barack Obama worked on today's speech addressing race in America. He supposedly authored most of "A More Perfect Union" alone, showing it only to a few top advisers.
I'm not going to attempt a summary or offer much of an analysis. That's been done, and even the best don't do the speech justice. But his closing argument was a familiar one to his campaign: "We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle...or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina, or as fodder for the nightly news...That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'"
Here's the problem: The damage done to Obama's campaign by a few seconds of video can't be undone by an equally short rebuttal. Knowing this, he took more than 30 minutes to carefully explore the issue and make the case that he was in a unique position to lead both black and white Americans past the old racial divisions. How that message will translate politically remains to be seen. The speech isn't easily digestible into a 10-second sound clip or a scrolling headline, and that's how many Americans are accustomed to receiving their news.
In a way, Obama's candidacy, and this speech in particular, will test our collective maturity level. Obama took the stage and essentially said: "It's time to sit down and have an adult conversation about race in America."
Are we ready for that conversation? Are we ready to even have adult conversations about politics? That would require a media that focuses on issues rather than sensationalized personal attacks and the day-to-day horse race. Considering some of the headlines immediately following the speech that narrowly focused on Obama's line that the constitution was stained by slavery, I'm not sure we're there yet.
It would also require a little more effort and serious participation from voters, many of whom dedicate more time to picking the American Idol winner or filling out March Madness brackets than to deciding who will head the executive branch for the next four years. How many people will take the half hour to watch the speech in its entirety? I guess we'll find out in the coming weeks.
You can watch the full speech below, or read the text here.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 6:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2008
3,987 dead and no one knows
I borrowed this catchy title from the Huffington Post's characterization of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. The findings: Only 28% of adults are able to approximate the number of Americans that have died in the Iraq war. Most guessed below the correct answer of "about 4,000."
Pew explains:
The drop in awareness comes as press attention to the war has waned. According to the News Content Index conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the percentage of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined since last year, dropping from an average of 15% of the newshole in July to just 3% in February.As news coverage of the war has diminished, so too has public interest in news about Iraq. According to Pew's News Interest Index survey, Iraq was the public's most closely followed news story in all but five weeks during the first half of 2007; however, it was a much less dominant story between July 2007 and February 2008. Notably, the Iraq war has not been the public's top weekly story since mid-October.
These are American soldiers we're talking about. If the question were expanded to include Iraqi civilians who have died in this five-year war, I'm guessing a much smaller percentage would be able to guess the number dead. Not that there's an accurate count, but a conservative estimate puts the number of dead civilians at around 82,000. Others put the total combined death count at over 1,000,000.
Now that's a title: One million dead, and no one cares.
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March 11, 2008
Ferarro gets free pass on racist comment
Compare this quote by Clinton surrogate and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferarro:
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
with this one by former Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power:
“[Clinton] is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything. You just look at her and think ‘Ergh.’”
The media pounced on Power's comment, citing it as evidence of Obama's inability to run a tight, disciplined organization, and she resigned to quell the controversy. Ferarro on the other hand has gotten a free pass on her statement (thanks in part to the Spitzer scandal).
Personally, I don't think the Power comment was that bad. Take out the term "monster," and she's simply describing the kitchen sink strategy that the Clinton team publicly boasts about. But I'll accept that in this tight race even the smallest gaffe is going to prove costly, as long as it holds true for both campaigns.
Ferarro's comment was much more offensive and derogatory than Power's. It's downright racist. So why isn't this evidence of Clinton's inability to run a tight, disciplined organization? Ferarro is on Clinton's finance committee; why isn't she being asked to step down?
UPDATE: The Obama campaign is hitting back.
"When you wink and nod, you're sending a signal to your supporters that anything goes," Obama chief strategist David Axelrod said, referring to the Clinton campaign's tepid response. Noting that Ferraro was a member of Clinton's campaign finance committee and had raised money for her presidential campaign, Axelrod said she "ought to be removed from those positions."Axelrod said Ferrarro's comments were part of a "pattern" of negative attacks aimed at Obama. He pointed to Clinton's former New Hampshire co-chairman Bill Shaheen, who questioned whether Obama ever sold drugs; supporter Rober Johnsen, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who raised the specter of Obama's past drug use; and Clinton's own "unwillingness" to "definitively" shoot down rumors that Obama was Muslim in an interview this month.
This is going to get ugly.
UPDATE II: Ferarro has responded. Apparently, she's the victim here:
"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"
Again, I want to point out that my issue here is not so much what was said but how the media, and the two campaigns, have handled these incidents. The Clinton campaign tried to score a few cheap political points with the Power comment, and now they deserve to reap what they've sewn.
UPDATE III: Ferarro apparently has a history of making these comments. From 1988:
Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."
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March 10, 2008
Older Americans more likely to read political blogs
Most Americans have the good sense to stay away from political blogs, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll. The findings: Only 22% of Americans read political blogs regularly (i.e., a few times a month or more), and 56% say they never read a blog that discusses politics. Nothing too surprising there.
Here's what I found interesting: Political blog readership increases with age. Only 19% of people between 18 and 31, and 17% of those 32 to 43, regularly read a political blog. But 23% of those ages 44 to 62 read them, and the generation most likely to read such blogs are those 63 or older, coming in at 26%.
I'm not sure what's going on with these numbers, but here's my wild guess. Most people assume that the Internet, and blogs in particular, are young people's domain. I'd bet that previous surveys would have reflected that notion, revealing greater blog readership rates among the young, simply because younger generations more quickly established an online presence. As more older Americans "catch up" in terms of Internet usage, their higher political participation rates are reflected in blog readership.
But who knows? Maybe the young folks are just moving on to social networking and other online attention grabbers. Maybe they just aren't reading the right political blogs (hint, hint).
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 4, 2008
The race may go on
A week ago I would have predicted the Democratic race would end after today. Momentum has consistently been on Obama's side, and it looked like, given his superior ground game and the time he had to prepare, he would come away with a clear win in Texas and a very close outcome in Ohio. A lot has changed in a week.
Whether it was the fear-mongering 3 a.m. ad, the Farrakhan question during the debate, Hillary's Saturday Night Live appearance (and Tina Fey's on-air endorsement), more intense media scrutiny of Obama, or something else entirely, momentum has shifted her way in the last couple of days.
My prediction: Obama takes Vermont; Rhode Island is very close but breaks Hillary's way. I think she'll have a double-digit win in Ohio, which she'll point to as a major victory. Texas will determine whether the race really is just getting started or if it's time for the Democratic party to unite behind Obama. Whatever happens, he'll walk away from the state with more delegates (even if she wins the popular vote during the primary), and there's almost no way for her to catch him before the convention when it comes to pledged delegates.
It's been an exciting and historical race, but the longer it goes on, the less the candidates, the media, and the voters focus on the big picture and actual issues. The tone has become more poisonous lately, the pundits have become more intolerable, and the I'm ready for this to end. Let's hope my predictions are wrong.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 3, 2008
Westerners, Easterners think differently
You are asked to select one of five pens; four are red, one is green. Which one do you choose?
The answer may depend on where in the world you're from, according to brain researchers. Scientists administered cognitive tests to East Asians and Americans while monitoring their brain activity. Their findings: Western culture conditions people to think of themselves as highly independent entities. In contrast, East Asian cultures stress interdependence.
That leads Westerners to choose the green pen (the one that stands out from the others) more often than not, and Easterners to choose the red one. The two groups follow a similar pattern when looking at photographs:
When looking at scenes, Westerners tend to focus on central objects more than on their surroundings. When Easterners take in a scene, they tend to focus more on the context as well as the object: the whole block, say, rather than the BMW parked in the foreground.To use a camera analogy, "the Americans are more zoom and the East Asians are more panoramic," said Dr. Denise Park of the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas in Dallas. "The Easterner probably sees more, and the Westerner probably sees less, but in more detail."
The researchers attributed these differences to cultural learning. "Culture can affect not just language and custom, but how people experience the world at stunningly basic levels - what they see when they look at a city street, for example, or even how they perceive a simple line in a square."
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