Cold War 2.0

http://www.hbo.com/vice/episodes/03/36-cold-war-2-0/video/ep-314-debrief.html?autoplay=true

Vice had a special about the Ukraine crisis, and how the US/NATO and Russia are inching closer to the brink (even though we might not realize it in light of the spotty media coverage).

We know that the Russian regime is corrupt and in some cases unlawful. Probably the world would be better off without Putin. But of course they see the US exactly the same, and we have committed war crimes since the fall of the USSR too. Domestic media paint things as good vs. evil in both nations. Maybe with the facts as the impartial judge, Russia has committed more transgressions than the West, but that doesn't really matter when missiles get launched.

So how did we get here?

• After the fall of the USSR, the Russian economy was in shambles, their pride was shaken, and recently freed Warsaw Pact republics were looking towards new partnerships in Europe for prosperity and security
• Russia's aging military was about all it had going for it when Putin took power (embarrassed by the Kursk sub accident, botched hostage rescues, and troubles fighting the Chechens), and his cabinet has been aggressively spending and modernizing since the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Surging energy prices due to the War on Terror and rise of Asia helped Russia's defense budget
• Former Soviet territories Czech, Poland, and Hungary joined NATO in 1999, and with US encouragement, 9 more nations followed suit from 2004-2009 (incl. all the Baltics)
• And with the War on Terror bringing US/Coalition forces to several Central Asian republics and Afghanistan, Russia saw itself militarily encircled
• Traditionally, the US feels that it controls the Americas and Pacific, and Russia's sphere of influence is Central Asia, but now where does Eastern Europe stand?
• Russia's influence was challenged in the Balkan wars, where Serbia was an important ally
• While Bosnia was a UN-approved mission, the Kosovo campaign was mostly driven by NATO, due to the Russian UN veto
• NATO decided to defy Russia and bomb Serbia without UN approval, which was seen as disrespectful aggression and a possible portent of future incursions into previously "hands off" nations in the Russian sphere
• The Orange Revolution in Ukraine failed (mostly driven by their terrible economy), and they legitimately returned a pro-Moscow leader (Yanukovich) to power
• Yanukovich was working to scrap a previous deal to bring Ukraine into the EU, which upset much of pro-European western Ukraine
• He eventually stepped down amidst protests, but Russia saw this as a US-backed coup, the Ukrainian civil war broke out, and Russia illegally annexed Crimea
• Putin also declared that Russia should control lands where Russian is spoken, which includes eastern Ukraine (Donetsk region) and some of the Baltics
• I won't go into the Ukraine war details here because it's complex and I don't know much, but it's clear that both powers do not want Ukraine to fall to the other side
• But as a result, NATO has tripled its troops presence in the Baltics/Arctic, and there are even US troops on the ground in western Ukraine
• Russia has amassed forces on the Ukraine border to levels not seen since WWII (and also moved nukes to their far western territory Kalingrad, which is 300 miles from Berlin)
• The US has been working on installing missile defense batteries in Eastern Europe since the Bush years (currently stalled but Obama has revise the plan to start construction in Poland in 2018)
• Both sides are posturing/provoking the other with large military exercises and unusual presence of air/sea forces in previously neutral areas

Who knows what mistakes or calculated risks could result in a scary escalation? So how to we pull back from the brink?

• The problem with military buildups is that the other side can't be sure if they are defensive or not
• We in the West would probably find it ridiculous that Russians think that NATO wants to attack them, but can you really blame them?
• The US/EU sanctions on Russia due to their Ukraine actions is seen as economic warfare (even though the plunging Ruble is mostly due to oil than our sanctions)
• They saw how the US/UK ignored dissenting opinions, brutally invaded and occupied Iraq, and set up new bases all over the world like imperialists
• If the US wants to be the sole superpower, obviously they need to knock down Russia a notch or two (or cage them like we do with Iran)
• But Russia also wants to seize the opportunity of a militarily distracted/weakened US in order to increase its influence and security position - maybe back to the USSR days where they were feared by all
• NATO can't just sit idly by when Crimea falls and Russia is lying about its troops and weapons pouring into Donetsk, so they feel the need to send forces east to show they mean business and deter further Russian aggression
• Barring a risky nuclear ultimatum, both sides will not back down at present course (and will match actions tit-for-tat), so a different strategy is needed
• There are no "madmen" in this situation, and both sides are acting perfectly rationally - just like the Cuban Missile Crisis. But that is the scary part: when escalation to war is the rational move (not to mention what freak accidents or irrational moves could occur), we have to change the rules of the game before it's too late.
• A stalemate and huge buildup of forces on the border is not a sustainable solution either, because a bunch of anxious troops and one false move could make things quickly unravel. We have to demilitarize Eastern Europe, and hopefully permanently.
• Why did NATO accept the Baltics and other former Warsaw Pact nations into their club? Those armies are tiny - what did NATO have to gain defensively at the risk of provoking Russia? That land is very valuable from an offensive standpoint, which is why Russia took it so seriously.
• They should be free to join the EU for prosperity and non-military cooperation, but NATO is a military org with only one purpose - a hedge against Russian invasion of WESTERN Europe (kind of irrelevant since the UK and France have nukes)
• We can kindly "expel" those nations from NATO (compensate them economically), withdraw all forces (incl. any missile defense plans), and declare those nations an unaligned buffer zone - but sign a treaty with Russia that any incursions from either side will be met with force
• That way we remove pretense that Russia uses to justify its actions against a perceived NATO threat, and if Russia does try to muscle into Eastern Europe again, they must do so fully aware that they're ushering in WWIII
• Russia should reciprocate by withdrawing from Crimea
• We just have to let Ukraine duke it out and let the chips fall as they may; the losing power has to respect the rights of the victorious side in the name of world peace
• I'm not saying any of this is easy, and some people will get screwed, but it gives a better chance to avoid nuclear war than the status quo

Cheney and the GOP criticizing Obama over Crimea

http://news.yahoo.com/cheney-putin-obama-ukraine-171405306.html

I find it ironic (but typical) that Cheney and others in the GOP (except for the Paul family libertarians) would bash Obama for being "weak" in the face of Putin's aggression in Crimea. Politicians have short memories, but I seem to recall that Bush did jack squat against Russia's overt invasion of Georgia in 2008 (and in that war, >700 people died whereas in Crimea one guy got a concussion so far). Diplomacy, not threats or military buildup, eventually led to a Russian withdrawal and UN peacekeeping mission.

Obama said that the US would issue travel restrictions and asset freezes of Russian nationals tied to the Crimea situation (that is already more than Bush did in 2008). We are giving $1B in aid to Ukraine's bankrupt transition gov't. Obama is pulling out of a future G8 summit in Sochi and will likely cut some planned joint military activities. But that's about all he can do for now. If we can't pressure Assad to change course, what do you think we can do against a top energy producer and nuclear arsenal? It remains to be seen if the EU will implement these sanctions too in order to make them more effective, but of course they have more to lose being closer proximity and dependent on Russia for gas and trade.

Previously, I was against Bush's plans to build a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe (ostensibly to counter Iran, but we know who it was meant for). I thought it was provocative to Russia, ineffective, and a handout to Lockheed. Our defense budget is tighter now, but I am reconsidering whether the missile shield would be useful as a strategic deterrent (albeit a pricey one). Russia should abandon their plans to reclaim former Soviet republics, as the West is not going to stand for it as long as the peoples of Eastern Europe are choosing Western values over Putinism.

After the Georgia War:

The [2008 EU] Report claimed that Russian citizenship, conferred to the vast part of Abkhaz and Ossetians may not be considered legally binding under international law. As a result, the interests of these people may not be used as a reason for starting military actions, in defense of Russian citizens living abroad.

The dangerous sectarian nature of the Syrian civil war

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hezbollah-launching-offensive-profoundly-change-164121898.html

I haven't brought up Syria before because I am not well versed in the details, and frankly it's just depressing. But some recent turn of events have made things even more complicated and impactful.

- The civil war is about 2 years old, almost 100K Syrians (and some famous Western journalists) have died, and about 20% of the population is internally or externally displaced.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil_war

- Israel has bombed a supposed weapons shipment to Hezbollah near the border. They may have also bombed a weapons facility in Damascus last month. We are used to thinking that Jihadi groups are also anti-government because most dictators in the Muslim World are kind of secular. But in Hezbollah's case ("The Party of God" formed to oppose the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon), they are explicit allies of Iran (a Shia theocracy and Shia majority nation) and Syria (neither of those). But Hezbollah is Shia and they support Assad against the rebels who are majority Sunni. So things are taking a nasty sectarian turn.


http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/05/world/meast/syria-violence/

- The regime or the rebels may have used chemical weapons in combat, which would violate the "red line" established by Obama as a trigger for escalation. But it's doubtful. However, America's #1 concern there is probably the containment of those WMDs. Even if Assad is toppled, who will control and distribute his stockpile?

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/05/166580524/chemical-weapons-and-the-syrian-civil-war

- We know that Iran and Russia (and China sort-of) support Assad's regime because they are strategic/trade allies, and Assad as seen as a counter to Israel and US "domination" of the region. So they have blocked stronger EU-led actions against Assad in the UN, and continue to ship high tech weapons to Damascus in spite of global condemnation.

- The EU embargo on weapons trade with Syria just expired, so the UK and France are considering arming the rebels (but which rebels is a big question). The UN has opposed this, and the US doesn't want to go down that route for obvious reasons, but has likely provided advisers and non-lethal resources to some rebels. We are trying to prop up non-Jihadi, pro-Western rebels, because unfortunately some of the most powerful and effective rebel groups like Jabhat al-Nusra are Sunni extremists who have recently allied themselves with Al Qaeda (and therefore got on the global terror list and cut off from Western aid). So clearly we don't want to arm them and help them win, but we also want Assad to fall. Of course rebel groups are fighting each other too, as we saw in Libya. The West is caught in a terrible spot: Assad is a jerk and supported by orgs and nations we don't get along with. He is slaughtering his people, but he is also keeping Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood out of power there. It's like Egypt but compounded by WMD containment fears.


http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/opinion/bergen-al-qaeda-syria/

- As if that wasn't bad enough, the top link from Yahoo describes how Hezbollah is now actively sending in fighters to Syria to defend Assad, a noteworthy escalation (Muslim fighters flocking to Syria, like Afghanistan and Iraq before). This may help Assad cling to power but turn the populace against Islamic groups, though most of them have already picked sides. The Shia Alawites are the ruling minority; wealthier, urban, and aligned with Assad. So Iran, some of Iraq, and Hezbollah obviously support that side, and Saudi, Israel, and Al Qaeda oppose them (interesting "allies" indeed). Al Qaeda leaders have also urged other Muslims to go to Syria and topple Assad. The poorer, oppressed majority are Sunnis, who want Assad out either because they are pro-reform or hate Shia/Alawites or follow Salafi-Jihadi fundamentalist Sunni Islam like Al Qaeda. As we've seen in Iraq, both sides may think of the other as heretics, and both have a history of ethnic cleansing (BTW the Syria conflict is also inflaming sectarian tension in fragile Iraq now too). So Assad and the Shia see this as an existential struggle, because they fear that if the Sunnis take over, they will be slaughtered.

- So who should the West back and arm? It's a confusing mess. Some have said we should intervene on a humanitarian basis and protect civilians. Enforce a no-fly zone maybe. A few problems with that (that completely escape folks like McCain): Syria's air defenses are much better than Libya's or Serbia's. Syria has WMDs and delivery systems for them, unlike Libya or Serbia. Syria is next door to our allies in Iraq and Israel, unlike Libya or Serbia. You get the picture. I am not sure what the "right thing to do" is, but if we intervene militarily, it's going to be ugly with a lot of consequences. What I also fear is an escalating multi-nation sectarian war. We know that various groups are financially and militarily backing or opposing the various Syrian forces. And those backers don't like each other: Iran, Saudi, Israel, the EU, Russia, China, US, and NGOs connected to Jihadi terrorism. This proxy war may eventually evolve into an overt war. And if that happens, Iraq will look tame in comparison.

European austerity has been an utter failure

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/31/187459762/e-u-eases-some-austerity-measures

NPR interviewed an economist from the AEI, and even he couldn't deny that European austerity hurt growth and what they needed instead was Keynesian stimulus.

This is no big news to those who have been following this issue, but it's good to see almost universal agreement that austerity was the main driver of Europe's double-dip and likely deeper current recession. Only head-in-the-sand EU officials are saying that austerity was necessary to "stabilize the financial markets" and give investors confidence to buy PIIGS bonds. But that is insincere, as it was likely the ECB's concurrent quantitative easing measures and "whatever it takes" declaration (after years of indecision and deliberation) that calmed the markets.

What is more tragic is a "lost generation" of productive young people in Europe who can't get work. They are talented and motivated, but austerity and other factors are literally ruining their futures. Honestly I am amazed we haven't seen a flood of European refugees (I guess it shows how much they love their homelands and families, and maybe how unwelcoming foreign immigration policies are). Some have taken menial jobs in Germany or other places within the EU with lower unemployment. But their extended exposure to these economic woes will likely have major health, psychological, and familial consequences. All because some old, rich fuckos in Berlin and Brussels hate debt and inflation. Well no one likes those things, but they are lesser evils than a lost generation.

I really hope that the EU example deters US conservatives from pushing hard for austerity here. But those folks don't exactly have great working relationships with data and reality, so we can't be sure. If they want austerity so bad, start with the defense industry and tax Wall Street more.

Whom to blame for the Greek crisis: lazy Greeks or greedy Goldman?

http://www.gregpalast.com/lazy-ouzo-swilling-olive-pit-spitting-greeksor-how-goldman-sacked-greece/

It is very ignorant and bigoted for people to knee-jerk blame the Greek crisis on the Greek people. If Greeks were somehow predisposed to be lazy, foolish, and profligate, then this crisis would have happened much earlier, and more often, to them. I don't know Greek economic history, but I doubt that is the case (and probably the boom-bust cycle has been worse on the average American since 1900). On the other hand, Argentina had a recent debt crisis, and now they are prospering (amazingly, mostly due to soybean exports to China). Industrial titans like Japan and Korea did too (and Japan still hasn't come out of its funk) - do we think of them as lazy? Despite our assumptions, even the US has defaulted in the past. Check out the below list of sovereign defaults over history - in fact the Greeks are far from being the worst culprits. It's ironic that France-Germany (who now tsk-tsk Greece as they hold the EU purse-strings) have had more defaults than Greece, probably due to their higher propensities to wage war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default

The common denominators in recent sovereign debt crises were deregulation (as a part of overall lax gov't oversight and risky growth) plus greedy-as-hell foreign investment banks. The average honest people had nothing to do with it, just like the US subprime crisis. Sure they were complicit in it and didn't have the foresight to stop it, but neither did most PhD economists, gov't ministers, and big-time investors, until it was too late. Blaming the common people is a shameful cop-out, like blaming the victims of Katrina. The ordinary Greeks will suffer unfairly and terribly from the proposed austerity measures, paying for the sins of their leaders and offering their pound of flesh to satisfy the foreign banks' bottom lines. And as we well know by now, austerity is just about the worst thing you can impose on a fragile, recessionary economy - unless you just want to restructure (read: blow up the system) and start anew with a leaner model.

Markets are getting saturated, and it's harder for these big banks to exploit inefficiencies and reap easy profits from "traditional investing", since it's become more transparent, computerized, and global. So they had to "innovate" and get into new markets like pay-day loans, student, and sovereign debt. Now aggregate student debt in the US is even larger than credit card debt! Sharks like Goldman don't ignore such untapped opportunities. For sovereign debt, the Greek crisis is only news because the risk got spread to so many key players (via CDS's) that it is threatening the EU and global economy. But "vulture funds" (and even USAID) have been raping the Third World for years, and some still are with impunity. It's really sick, and the short-sellers are making it even harder to rescue distressed nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture_funds

Also, here is an interview of Michael Lewis' new book about the Greek crisis and the "new Third World" emerging:

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/04/140948138/how-the-financial-crisis-created-a-new-third-world

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Definitely not to defend Goldman Sachs in this case (they are pretty much guilty as charged), but Greece has spent about 50% of the time since 1800 in a state of default (i.e. not repaying its debts in full). That number puts it about in banana republic territory: http://blogs.reuters.com/the-deep-end/2011/05/12/why-a-greek-default-wouldnt-be-news/

I think what this global crisis has taught us is that financial "innovation" and deregulation has allowed previously self-contained types of problems (locally overvalued housing markets, sovereign defaults of small states) to spread like wildfire as banks that would have previously had no exposure to these events are now hopelessly intertwined (and are often the same as!) with over-leveraged players making all-in bets on the outcomes of these seemingly minor economic events.

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 To add to that the link that shows the US and many other western nations defaulting was based from a paper on domestic debt.  The unique thing here is the interconnectedness of Greece's, and really, the worlds debt.  No first world nation has defaulted on its debt since about WW1 and they reduced their domestic debt.

additionally...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece#Eurozone_entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece#Taxation_and_tax_evasion

from the tax evasion link...in 2005 it was estimated that evasion was at 49%.  2012 tax revenue is expected to be 52.7 billion.  Their predicted debt in 2012 will be ~ 350 billion.  So...if there evasion is in the range of 40-50% we are talking about their annually losing the ability to pay off 10% or more of their TOTAL debt.  This is based ONLY on tax evasion.  They are certainly not lazy but they are apparently unwilling to personally pay for the government benefits they are rioting in the streets to keep. 

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 More from here: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/the-only-leader-who-understood-greeces-real-problem-is-resigning/248018/

I think M (and the article above) are basically right, that there is a broken social compact between the people and the state. I think the reasons are more complex than the article states - Greece has been beset by a long history of conflict between the extreme left and the extreme right (and foreign intervention on top of it), so there is probably less unity-we are all in this together and more of we don't trust the government/other side than in most other European countries.

However, Greece and other countries have been down this road before (see T's account of the history of sovereign defaults) - getting Greece back to sustainable debt levels requires writing off about the same amount of debt the US had to write off for the S&L scandal 20 years ago (some $100 billion dollars) - not chump change in the slightest but it should be digestible to the world financial system.

 The problem is that this time, the banks that hold the debt are so undercapitalized that writing off the debt might mean that they fail, and if BNP Paribas or some other major Euro bank were to fail, that might be the start of Lehman: Euro Edition. It's a typical story in this financial crises - banks getting bigger that their failure would be a systemic risk, yet at the same time they got bigger, they grew more heavily leveraged and *less* capitalized.

So now the question is who pays. Greece, as amply noted, can't pay it's current debt load even if it implemented the Euro Central Bank's dream austerity package. The Euro banks that hold most of the Greek notes can't afford to pay by writing off the debts. The French and German taxpayers, probably the only ones that can really afford to put up the money to cover Greek debt, definitely don't want to pay. No one can force any of the other parties to actually pay, so you have this continual kicking of the can down the road as each party slowly accepts bits of responsibility for taking the hit.

The blame here, as with the case of most of the financial crisis, is largely diffuse. Of course the Greeks shouldn't have been so profligate in their spending, but who's the bigger sucker - the irresponsible spender or the fool that lent him the money? The banks shoulder a lot of the blame, as they should be secure enough to suffer the (relatively) modest kind of hit that this default brings on. On the other hand, it's tough for a bank to be capitalized enough to survive a major world financial crisis and then a major developed European economy lying for years about its credit worthiness (i.e. Greece was lying about its debt levels for years).

Mostly, though, I think this is an indictment of the political failings of the EU as an institution. The S&L crisis forced the US taxpayer to intervene and eat a lot of bad debts, but the US did it and the financial system survived. The buck has to stop somewhere and now that the disaster has occurred you need resolute leadership that can save the system first and sort out who to prosecute/blame later. The EU lacks this, and hence why you have a major run on the other PIIGS, as investors are getting nervous that if the EU can't deal with the relatively small case of Greece, if Italy or Spain were to get in trouble you really would get a major financial meltdown in Europe.

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Thanks, Gents. I agree that Greece isn't a model of fiscal responsibility, but the mistake was the EC's lack of due diligence before granting them EU membership. The guy who bets on the Clippers to win the championship doesn't get to blame the Clippers when they predictably fall short. Not that I'm accusing you of this, but blanket blame of "the Greek people" is ridiculous (and much more negative media coverage of Greek rioters vs. their stupid creditors is a form of implicit blame I think). Sure the Greeks don't have the reputation of being efficiency freaks like the Germans or workaholics like Americans/Koreans, but they are not a bunch of freeloaders on welfare either. And even if they were, that shouldn't be enough to compromise the entire EU and send global markets reeling at the mention of a referendum vote. 

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/tax-cheats-cost-uncle-sam-3-trillion-cost-173224779.html

Yes, tax evasion is a problem - and it is a problem in many stronger economies besides Greece. Tax evasion in the US (mostly by businesses and the rich of course) costs us about $3T/year. And that is on top of the very generous and misplaced tax deductions and other perks that are 100% legal. US federal tax revenue in recent history is about 20% GDP, so if US GDP was $14.7T in 2010, that means we collected about $2.94T in taxes. So America's evasion % is similar to that of Greece! Bottom line, people will pay less if they can get away with it. Poorly structured tax laws and incentive programs have led to the behavior we're witnessing, either in the US or Greece. And like here, the majority of the Greek evasions is from the upper class parking their earnings in Swiss banks and whatnot. The people rioting in the streets are not the big culprits. So for sure, Greece is getting assaulted from outside creditors now, but their own elites have been screwing them for decades, with their dysfunctional gov't complicit most of the time. But no one held a gun to Soc Gen's head to make them loan Greece money (just like Countrywide approving a $400K mortgage to a part-time janitor). They should have known better, but the incentives and controls were all out of whack.

"[Greeks] are apparently unwilling to personally pay for the government benefits they are rioting in the streets to keep." Maybe true, but they are definitely not the only ones. Again, if the rich paid "their fair share", a lot of these problems wouldn't be as severe. But the elites and big financial institutions pushed gov't around and ultimately got their way at the expense of "the 99%". Like the Colonial Era, I find it so maddening that the big powers (used to be empires, now are financial institutions) are engaged in this global rivalry, where they don't care how many nations and peoples they destroy just to win the game. An honest Greek won't be able to retire in security, or a disabled American won't be able to get a caretaker, just because some asshole banker met his insane quarterly returns target and expects his big bonus.

Here's a Stanford study ranking nations for sov. fiscal responsibility:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/52927424/Sovereign-Fiscal-Responsibility-Index-2011

Greece is #34 of the 34 OECD+BRIC nations analyzed, while the US is #28 (if we fully implement the Fiscal Commission's debt reduction plans, we'll jump to #8 according to them). The best nations are AUS, NZ, EST, SWE, CHINA, and LUX. But those nations are not like fundamentally more budget-savvy or anything. Some of it was lucky timing. AUS, NZ, and EST all had fiscal issues a decade or two ago during a worldwide growth economy, so they restructured during generally fat years (when we didn't have a shortage of credit, capitalized banks, and economic confidence) and are now better positioned to weather the current storm. CHINA is a singular case protected by surplus from their exports. LUX is just a small, rich country filled with rich people, so they don't need much gov't spending. SWE has very high tax rates and is one of the most high-functioning societies in history. Turn back the clock and give Greece some of these favorable conditions, and maybe we'd have a much different result. And in a couple decades, this list is probably going to look very different.

But like A said, if tiny Greece is causing this much disruption to the EU, I wonder how they will handle the rest of PIIGS and their almost certain default issues in the near future. Or maybe if we're glass-half-full types, the lessons the EU learned from the Greece crisis (assuming a positive outcome) will allow them to better handle the future ones? But I worry that after the US S&L crisis, the financial players and their gov't minions took notice, and then set about to do everything they could to avoid a repeat. Their behavior only grew riskier, but now they have structurally insulated themselves from punishment (either legal or financial), in general.

Mussolini would be proud

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7500605.stm

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/07/03/gypsies-fingerprinted.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92529373

The right-wing Berlusconi government in Italy has decided to fingerprint gypsies living in Italy (just gypsies, not all Italians), even those who are Italian citizens. They claim it is a necessary measure to reduce crime and illegal immigration. But Italy has very low crime on average vs. the US, and much of that is due to Mafia-type home grown gangs (see Napoli garbage crisis), not immigrants.

Transient gypsies, known as "Roma" in Italy, have been distrusted, and in some cases, persecuted for centuries - especially during the WWII fascist period in Europe. But now there are over 150,000 Roma living in Italy, and 60% of them are citizens with supposedly equal rights and freedoms with ethnic Italians. Yes it is true that some Roma do engage in crime and other undesirable behaviors, just like any people. But where are the DATA that show convincingly that Romas are the chief cause of Italy's crime, and fingerprinting them will fix the problem? I suppose this is just another ignorant, xenophobic, knee-jerk backlash against a marginalized minority - unjustly blaming them for larger social anxieties and problems (like Latino immigrants in America).

Human rights activists also blame Italian media, of which Berlusconi is a major player, for playing the fear game and stirring up anti-Roma stereotypes. Some estimates suggest he controls over 50% of all Italian media, like the Rupert Murdoch of Italy or something (separation of powers, hello?). It's probably no coincidence that many hate crimes have been reported against Roma this year too.

The Italian Government claim that they are partially doing this to "help" the Roma children, many of whom live "off the grid" in dirty camps and may be abused by misguided parents - forced to pick pockets or engage in debauchery for money - instead of going to school. But if so, this is a really Gestapo-esque humanitarian effort. "Where are your papers!?!"

Already the EU has condemned this move and demanded that Italy rescind it (in a non-binding declaration of course). Many Italians and others see the decision as prejudiced if not blatantly racist, and some non-Romas got fingerprinted as a show of solidarity with their fellow Italians. Italy is a G8 nation for heaven's sake, and it is shameful that they would even consider such a plan, much less implement it.

Other related headlines...

All Things Considered, July 14, 2008 · Italy is moving ahead with plans to fingerprint the country's Roma, or gypsy, people. The government says the fingerprinting is necessary to fight crime, identify illegal immigrants and protect Roma children from exploitation. The plan has critics.

All Things Considered, May 31, 2008 · There has been a swell of anti-immigrant sentiment in Italy, including attacks on the Roma population. Italy's politicians and Rome's new mayor, a former neo-fascist, are helping fuel anti-immigrant feelings.

Morning Edition, May 19, 2008 · An immigration crackdown by Italian authorities has been accompanied by vigilante justice against the Roma — or gypsies — in Naples. Italian officials have been strongly criticized by the European Union and human rights groups for their treatment of the ethnic group. Now the new right-wing government wants to create a special body to deal with the Roma.

Turkey, Iraq, and the Armenian Genocide

Maybe you've heard that things are getting a little dicey with Turkey. Of course the EU has previously expressed mixed feelings over Turkey's potential future membership in the EU. There are compelling economic-political arguments from both camps. Turkey has been a trading partner and military ally of the US for some decades (a convenient, non-threatening to Israel, pseudo-secular/democratic Muslim nation situated geographically to control key waterways, like Egypt). Turkey has purchased billions of dollars worth of US military hardware over the years, and allowed us to use their airspace/land for bases and operations against Saddam's Iraq and the former USSR. We've had Turkey-based nukes pointed at Russia's underbelly for years, which probably encouraged Khruschev to do the same to us with Castro's Cuba in 1961. So as a longtime conservative ally, naturally Bush lobbied the EU to hasten Turkey's membership, despite their glaring human/civil rights and corruption problems (similar abuses that the US routinely condemns Zimbabwe, Iran, Russia, and North Korea for).

Now in Iraq, the stable and powerful Iraqi Kurdistan is a beacon of hope for oppressed Kurdish minorities in Turkey and Iran. Turkish troops have often clashed with PKK fighters (the "Kurdish Worker's Party", a resistance/separatist group that Turkey and the US have declared a terrorist organization), and probably engaged in multiple cross-border operations since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Recently over a dozen Turkish soldiers were killed in hostilities with the PKK, making it one of the bloodiest days for the Turkish military in many years.

But the situation is very delicate for us: on one hand, Iraqi Kurdistan is our best example of things "going right" in America's vision for post-Saddam Iraq. Cracking down on the PKK would outrage Iraqi Kurds and make national reconciliation/cooperation more difficult for US diplomats and the central government in Baghdad. But inaction would spurn our long-time strategic ally Turkey, and appear hypocritical considering our hard line against other Mideast "terror groups" like Hizbullah and Hamas (and possibly the Iranian Revolutionary Guards).

To make matters worse, this week Turkey publicly declared that their forces will conduct cross-border operations into Iraq to deal with the PKK (they've already fired artillery at suspected PKK camps over the border). Iraqi Kurdistan leaders have threatened Turkey with "heavy losses" if its troops dare to invade. Secretary Rice and the US government have warned Turkey against such actions, but really – what can we do about it? We depend on Turkey to base our forces, as a much more stable nation than Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or the Central Asian 'Stans. We condemned Iran for their alleged cross-border "destabilizing" activities into Iraq, so we can't condone Turkey doing the same thing on the other border.

In addition, Turkey may use Bush's own arguments against him if we denounce their military interventions. "Turkey doesn't need anyone's permission to defend itself and protect its people from threats. Turkey must preempt Kurdish separatists (or terrorists if you prefer) from launching future deadlier attacks on the homeland, and deprive them of their training bases and safe haven in northern Iraq. Any nation that harbors enemies is also an enemy." Isn't that what we told the world to justify violating Iraqi/Afghan sovereignty and toppling Saddam and the Taleban?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_kurds_8

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/12B13419-2F9C-4E2E-A124-E6D6635FCCEC.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2007/07/iraq-070705-rferl01.htm

And finally, in the worst timing ever, the Democrat-led Congress is debating a bill to declare the deaths of over a million Armenians by WWI-era Ottoman Turks a "genocide". Bush and Rice have asked Congress to rethink the matter, even though the troublemaking French already passed such legislation last year ( Turkey pulled its ambassador in protest and some EU leaders are upset about the controversy it caused).

Condi previously declared in a speech that the US would no longer sit idly by, tolerating unjust regimes in the Middle East in order to preserve "stability" (as in, it was better for the world that we intervened and deposed Saddam, instead of just tolerating his growing menace to keep the peace). Supposedly this attitude applies to other nations like Iran and Syria. But what about Turkey? Aren't the Bushies and pro-Turkey lobby hoping to censor Congress in order to preserve stability and not make waves? To me, this issue is a sideshow distraction from the real policy problems between Turkey, Iraq , and the US. But still, genocide is just a word. Either it was or it wasn't. We condemned Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust, even though our Fatah Palestinian buddy Abbas said the same. It took him a few years, but Bush also declared that the Darfur violence was genocide. Turkey claims that many Armenians "died" in the Ottoman Empire. But strong historical evidence implicates Turkish troops in the mass murders. It's not exactly and unsolved mystery of history. Even famous Turkish writers have declared the tragedy was genocide, despite heavy protest and public alienation.

Most of the world believes that Japan committed genocide and other atrocities in WWII-occupied China, despite 50 years of denials from the Tokyo government. Just because a regime says so doesn't make it fact. Do I think the US Congress or French National Assembly are the appropriate forums to discuss the proper naming of various world tragedies and war crimes? Probably not, but the Bushies shouldn't oppose them so vociferously just to cover for an ally with a very checkered track record. Bush is quick to declare Hamas, Saddam, the Burmese junta, and the Iranian government to be fascists, dictators, and mass murderers. Bosnia was genocide. Cambodia was genocide. Rwanda was genocide. Despite incomplete evidence, conflicting historical accounts, and few if any perpetrators brought to trial, we called it what it was. Yet he won't call a spade a spade on the issue of the Armenian Genocide, just because Turkey is an "ally" in the war on terror. For an administration that is so high on itself regarding human rights, freedom, and such, this is a terrible lapse in my view.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7038095.stm

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/12/europe/EU_GEN_France_Turkey_Genocide_Bill.php

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A very good summary of the Armenial Genocide controversy (that we or most other Americans know nothing about) by Economist news editor Bruce Clark:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6386625.stm

"The more foreign parliaments insist that our forebears committed crimes against humanity, the less likely anybody in Turkey is to face up to the hardest moments in history."

What such appeals reflect, of course, is an elementary fact of human psychology: the phenomenon of individual and collective defensiveness.

When people feel completely secure, and among friends, they can be very frank about misdeeds which they, or people close to them, have committed.

But hackles will go up again as soon as they become insecure, because they feel their accusers are acting in bad faith, or that accepting their accusations will have bad consequences.

Sceptics may retort that in recent years, things have been moving in the opposite direction: the revised Turkish penal code and its preamble, adopted in 2005, make even more explicit the principle that people may be prosecuted if they "insult Turkishness" - a crime which, as the preamble makes clear, includes the assertion that the Ottoman Armenians suffered genocide.

The sultan's regime was desperately trying to distance itself from the actions of the CUP, the "state within a state" which in 1915 had masterminded the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Armenians - and is alleged to have given secret "extermination" orders at the same time.

During the early months of 1919, few people in Anatolia publicly doubted that Armenians had suffered atrocities that were egregious even by the standards of a terrible war.

In April 1919 a local governor, Mehmed Kemal, was found guilty and hanged for the mass killing of Armenians in the Ankara district.

But the climate shifted rapidly after May 1919, when Greek troops were authorised by the victorious Entente powers to occupy the Aegean port of Izmir and, in another part of Anatolia, Mustafa Kemal - later known as Ataturk - began his campaign to make the Turks masters in their own land. (DAMN GREEKS!)

In 1921, the British government made a pragmatic deal to release a group of Turkish prisoners it had been holding in Malta on suspicion (among other things) of crimes against the Armenians.

They were freed in exchange for Britons being held by the Turks.

In Turkish lore, this release is held up as proof that no serious evidence against the captives existed.

The atrocities against the Armenians were committed by an Ottoman government, albeit a shadowy sub-section of that government.

There is no logical reason why a new republican administration, established in October 1923 in an act of revolutionary defiance of Ottoman power, should consider itself responsible for things done under the previous regime.

The very fact that the Turkish republic bears no formal responsibility for eliminating the Armenian presence in eastern Anatolia (for the simple reason that the republic did not exist when the atrocities occurred) has given some Turkish historians a flicker of hope: one day, the leaders of the republic will be able to face up to history's toughest questions about the Armenians, without feeling that to do so would undermine the very existence of their state.

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In the most recent Republican debate I heard one candidate claiming that he would support an official apology for slavery - so I suppose there's hope that just about any government can atone for its previous misdeeds (regardless of how closely the entity issuing the apology reflects the state of ages past).

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I couldn't agree with you more regarding your email on Turkey and the Armenian genocide. As a side, when people told Hitler that the international community would condemn Germany for slaughtering the Jews he apparently cited the international community's reaction (or nonreaction) to the Turks slaughtering the Armenians as evidence that people would forget.

Clarification--

Apparently Hitler was talking about slaughtering the Poles (even though I guess many of them were Jewish) and not specifically the Jews.

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/hitler.html

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/Education.31/current_category.118/resourceguide_detail.html

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Yeah exactly. I don't really think the US government would get all outraged and pull ambassadors if, say Estonia or Bolivia officially condemned US slavery, atomic bombing of Japan, ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, terrorism against Cuba/Nicaragua, My Lai massacre, etc. We all know basic universal rights and wrongs. I know Bush said that other nations are either "with us or against us" in the war on terror, and wouldn't give contracts to countries that didn't help us during the initial invasion of Iraq. But in terms of the more distant past, I think we are more honest with ourselves and tolerant of external criticism than many places in the world (except the occasional revisionist history lesson, like Bush saying we left Vietnam prematurely). We can peacefully coexist with other nations even if they don't approve of our actions/policies or we don't approve of theirs, to a certain point. Sure we have a long way to go to atone for past crimes. At least we gave reparations to victims of Japanese internment, and shitty land for Native Americans to build casinos. Of course we should all aspire to be as reconciliatory and sincere as postwar Germany, and I know it's hard for nations to ever publicly admit that they are less than perfect.

Americans *usually* tolerate dissenting viewpoints (right wing talk radio and cable news networks aside), and we have a Bill of Rights at least. On the other hand, nationalistic paranoid governments in Turkey, Iran, etc. may throw you in jail for "insulting" national dignity, and you could be guilty until proven innocent. It's a sign of a weak regime if they are so repressive and scared of anti-government expression that they believe undermines national security. A nation can't survive if it's more concerned with enforcing state-endorsed "truths" rather than actual constructive governance ( Burma and North Korea come to mind, as well the former Iron Curtain nations).

When threatened, people do turn all prideful and nationalistic, blinding themselves to the fact that most nations in history were dysfunctional, foolish, and sometimes criminal. When more than two humans get together, they tend to do stupid, mean stuff to each other. Neither Turkey nor America are without sin, but why do some believe that it compromises national interests to admit it? I think you come off as a STRONGER nation if you show honesty and dignity to the world community, and compassion to past victims. Otherwise you just fall into a downward spiral. Like with Japan and China, the more Japan denies/downplays its past crimes, the more enraged and insistent China becomes. The more China criticizes Japan, the more defensive and obstinate they become about their war history. And the pathetic part is that most Asian WWII criminals and victims are dead or infirmed, so there's no tangible justice to serve. The two nations are just squabbling to score petty political points at home and "defend" their national prestige abroad. The same can be said of Turkey and Armenia.

Many have said it before, including the House Foreign Affairs Committee who is sponsoring the controversial bill: the CURRENT government in Turkey bears NO responsibility for the Armenian Genocide. Why be so defensive about the past when they have so many pressing modern problems that require more attention? Bush takes the blame for Iraq, but shouldn't feel guilty for losing the War of 1812. So I have no idea why modern Turks get so defensive over war crimes that most weren't even alive to witness? Why should we be ashamed of what our grandfathers did? Is that any reflection on us today? I know present-day Turks do feel badly for what happened, and many of their ancestors were slaughtered during WWI also. But it doesn't make Turks any lower of a people by admitting that past atrocities took place. Turkey is not and should not be solely associated with the Armenian Genocide. They are a progressing nation with rich heritage and very successful people in many areas of human endeavors. America was a hive of intolerance and injustice during the slavery and Civil War years, but we redeemed ourselves in the 20 ^th Century. We passed laws to improve our society, amended our Constitution, and sacrificed dearly for the freedom of others during WWII. A nation that did wrong in the past doesn't have to be "evil' forever. In war everyone is a victim, and we all share some of the blame for the collective damage. We should only feel guilty if we continue to espouse the same hatred and ignorance that encouraged our ancestors to do harm to their fellow man (and today we have the benefit of improved education and enlightenment, so really there is no excuse).

To me it's almost another form of racism. Are the past crimes still in our genes or something? Just because Hitler was Austrian, are present-day Austrians turning themselves in to the World Criminal Court if they laugh at a Jewish joke? Of course we can't pretend that past wrongs are totally resolved, and we should be sensitive to the descendants of victims of injustice ( i.e. the Jena High white boys shouldn't have hung nooses in the tree to shoo off the blacks). I don't know; maybe people seek refuge and cling to the past (an idealized past more congruent with their biased world view) when they are unwilling or unready to face the challenges of modern reality and trepidation over an uncertain future.

So on the flipside, maybe it's not appropriate for the American Congress to call out Turkey during this sensitive period of Mideast affairs. Even if Congress means to criticize the former Ottoman Empire, they have to be cognizant of the fact that modern-day Turks may take it harshly. Apparently Congress has already passed similar resolutions during the Cold War, so why bring it up again? What good will it do? Appease Armenia and the Armenian-American community? Well, if America and Western Europe have gone to great lengths to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and vilify the perpetrators, then we must be sensitive to other mass murders in history too.

By the way, to me it's pitiful that Israel is one of a few nations that hasn't recognized the Armenian Genocide (Russia, France , and others have, America is still on the fence, but UK and Israel haven't). For a nation born from the victims of genocide, it's shameful. But they do it because Turkey is a strategic ally, of course. Which brings me to my final point (I know you're breathing a large sigh of relief!): are alliances so precious that we need to ignore basic truths and conscience to preserve them? At one time or another, the US has allied itself with major thugs (Saddam, Osama, Stalin, Pol Pot, Noriega, etc.), and sung their praises when it suited us! Then when they fall out of our good graces, they are evil vermin. It's just ridiculous. A murderer is still a murderer, whether it's your sworn enemy or your blood brother. I don't know why we need to conceal or warp the truth just so we can justify going to bed with questionable leaders and regimes.

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Turkey takes step toward Iraq operation

By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago

ANKARA, Turkey - The Turkish government will seek parliamentary approval for a military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, a government spokesman said Monday, taking action on one of two major issues straining relations with Washington.

The spokesman, Cemil Cicek, said he hoped Parliament would vote on the motion this week — passage is considered likely — but indicated that the government would still prefer a solution to the conflict that does not involve a cross-border offensive.

"Our hope is that there will be no need to use this motion," Cicek said.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government twice acquired similar authorizations from the Parliament in 2003, but did not act on them.

Cicek insisted the only target was the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK.

"We have always respected the sovereignty of Iraq, which is a friendly and brotherly country to us," Cicek said. "But the reality that everyone knows is that this terrorist organization, which has bases in the north of Iraq, is attacking the territorial integrity of Turkey and its citizens."

The statement appeared to be aimed at reassuring Iraq's central government as well as Iraqi Kurds, who run their own administration in northern Iraq.

Fighting along the border with Iraq was reported over the weekend, where Turkey's military said it "responded heavily" to attacks from northern Iraq by Kurdish fighters on Friday. Iraqi Kurds reported that Turkish artillery hit their territory.

Senior rebel commander Duran Kalkan said the Turkish military would suffer a serious blow if it launches a cross-border offensive, saying it would "be bogged down in a quagmire," the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported Monday.

Oil prices rose Monday, partly reflecting concerns over a conflict that could open up a new front in the Iraq war. Light, sweet crude for November delivery hit a new high of $85.19 a barrel before retreating in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midafternoon in Europe.

Cabinet ministers also were expected to debate retaliatory measures if the U.S. Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians as genocide.

A U.S. House panel approved the resolution last week, infuriating Turkish leaders who said ties with their NATO ally would suffer.

At issue in the resolution is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Many international historians contend the World War I-era deaths amounted to genocide, but Turkey says the mass killings and deportations were not systematic and that many Turkish Muslims died in the chaos of war.

Turkish anger over the genocide resolution has led to commentary that Turkey would be less likely to take into account U.S. opposition to a unilateral Turkish action in Iraq, which could destabilize a relatively peaceful part of the country.

Turkey's top general warned over the weekend that military ties between Turkey and the United States could be seriously damaged if the genocide resolution passes Congress.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said President Bush had no plans to intervene in the vote, although the administration has been lobbying intensely to persuade lawmakers to reject the resolution.

"There should be no question of the president's views on this issue and the damage that this resolution could do to U.S. foreign policy interests," Fratto told reporters Monday aboard Air Force One.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will schedule a vote soon on the resolution.

Fratto said the White House does not want Pelosi to bring it to the floor; should it come to a vote, he said, "We will strongly encourage members not to support it."

Turkey, a major cargo hub for U.S. forces in Iraq, has recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations and warned that there might be a cut in logistical support to the United States.

About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military there. U.S. bases also get water and other supplies carried in by Turkish truckers who cross into Iraq's northern Kurdish region.

In 1975, Washington imposed an arms embargo that lasted three years against Ankara following its invasion of Cyprus, using U.S. weapons. Turkey, a Cold War ally of the United States, responded by limiting U.S. military and intelligence activities on its soil.

Turkey has urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on PKK rebels who have been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984.

Kosovo independence

Bush praises Kosovo independence, angry Serbs torch US embassy

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/21/europe/kosovo.php

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_kosovo_2

I'm tired of foreigners just deciding on a political whim when to grant minorities a state and where to draw borders. Yeah on paper it sounds great to give the Kosovar Albanians independence and whatnot. Lord knows they have suffered enough and may do well with their homeland if given a chance. Bush is all for that kind of stuff and making a better world or whatever. But what about the thousands of ethnic Serbs suddenly finding themselves the new Kosovar minority, and militant Albanians haven't exactly been forgiving with them for the horrors of the 1990s. Serbs suffered terribly in the wars too, especially from the NATO bombings/sanctions and reprisal attacks (Albanians killed over 1,500 Serbs after the "ceasefire").

Not every Serb was a war criminal, and their people deserve to express healthy nationalism/pride just like us. It's not right to burn embassies and border crossings in protest, but they deserve to be upset. Their people voted Milosevic out of power and have tried to slowly reform to Western standards, but it is not an easy process after hateful wars. We shouldn't provoke them to regress, or give hardliners ammunition to gain traction with the mainstream. Serbia is a tiny fraction of its former Yugoslavian self, and it's most prosperous regions are now under other flags (plus those new nations don't exactly love Serbia). All they got from the partition were a bunch of tanks and angry young men, and they sure as hell used them. Very little international aid and foreign investment are coming in. They proudly hosted the Winter Olympics in the 1980s, and now some live worse than Ethiopians.

How would we Americans feel if the UN suddenly gave California back to Mexico or the plains back to the Indians? That's partly why white American settlers tried to purge the Latinos and Native Americans from the best lands, so they could become the new majority, claim sovereign rights, and lower the chance of revolt. So are we surprised that Bosnian and Kosovar Serbs attempted similar ethnic cleansing with their minorities? Sure George Custer wasn't as bad as Ratko Mladic, but the US military committed its share of criminal activity.

The UN is already a joke for creating a failed state in East Timor, and Balkanizing the former Yugoslavia with bizarre ethnic borders that make the map look like modern art gone wrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Breakup_of_Yugoslavia.gif). Did it help the groups get along any better? How about partitioning the Karen Burmese, Tamils, Basques, Tibetans, Kurds, black Darfurians, or dozens of other groups revolting for solidarity or basic human rights? Who has the right to move people around like they were chess pieces? One stroke of the pen, and thousands (if not millions) of people suddenly have their dreams come true or totally shattered. We can't just partition the entire world on tribal lines – it's not the suburbs where every family gets 0.2 acres and a fence! People can get along and form multiparty representative governments if given the proper opportunity and support (e.g. not like the US in Iraq!). We have to coexist or we will cease to exist.

"Yet for all the hostility in a country seeming to turn inward on itself, Serbian political observers and Balkan experts predicted that the despair over the loss of Kosovo would eventually subside. They said economics would overcome emotions as a majority of Serbs came to realize that mooring Serbia to the European Union was the only way the country could prosper." -NYT

Yeah I guess that's one way for the Serbs to get over it: bribe them into compliance with enticement of EU membership (but Serbia is even more backwards than Turkey). Unemployment is above 20% and the average income is under 6,000 Euros. Though I hope the lessons of Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Israel, Iraq, and many other places show us that even old, supposedly buried anger/resentment may get exploited by extremists and avenged in a sea of blood later on.

There can be no lasting peace without a just settlement.

(paraphrased from MLK)

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Just curious, but can you give us an example of where this worked?

I am coming around to the belief that democracy is just as dangerous as any other form of government when it is forced upon others (i.e. Pakistan, Hamas run Palestine, Freedom Fighters in Africa, etc.). Only nations with developed social-economic structures (i.e. non-third world nations) can survive with this methodology. America believes democracy and capitalism can be brought in and implemented successfully because it did so in war torn countries such as Germany (western) and Japan. However, those nations were booming prior to the war (probably went to war with some notion of gaining natural resources to feed to boom).

What we now see is Western dependence on achieving non-competitive pricing on resources at the price of aiding development of infrastructure and military support. I believe this is called globalisation. I don't see any other natural resource rich country using its resource revenue in building independent economic/social infrastructure. And when they do (such as Russia and Venezuela) we chastise them as being uncooperative in the war against terror.

As true capitalism works, America/West holds a majority of the cards in structuring deals which gives unfair advantages to its companies, whether by military might or technological advancement. However, what I have learned in economics is that the majority buyer/spender gets a better price due to the economies of scale. We buy more, they build more, therefore we get better pricing. Without getting too cynical, which is often the tone of our emails, I figure to offer up this question: Is there a better way to maintain our quality of life (if that is even moral) while helping out resource rich underdeveloped countries that is in every one's (human kind) best interests?

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I'm glad you decided to mention Kosovo; I think the fact that Kosovo is now an independent nation is a big thing especially when considering their relationship to the U.N. I want to hear more of what J thinks about the news regarding Kosovo which emerged this week but my impression (as a Model U.N. nerd) is that "nation building" (or independence, if you prefer) stands a much better chance when done with the cooperation of the international community.

Also, towards the ends of addressing T's question - I do think there is a better way: reshape our consumption to be not only sustainable but conscious of its global impact. You're correct in pointing out our hypocrisy in relations with respect to Russia and Venezuela, though I venture to say we could be much less concerned with their domestic affairs if our fortunes were less intertwined with access to their resources; after all, our relationship with Palastinean leadership is unabashedly two-faced (arguably as a result of a perceived lack of benefit to normalized relations). I think it's also worth considering the case of Brazil and how Brazilian leadership has channeled profits from monetization of resources into a very real energy independence; such efforts lead me to believe our support of the Brazilian economy (through consumption of exports, including energy commodities) is ultimately good for everyone (i.e. in human kind's best interests). While judgment of the morality of our consumption is (in my humble opinion) a community undertaking I know I sleep soundly knowing my footprint (both carbon and otherwise) is not only sustainable but always tending towards a more utopian ideal.

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Thanks for the comments gents. Yes it would be nice of the polsci PhD's could chime in, but I know they are busy trying to figure out how to avoid future wars, poverty, and China's domination! Yes of course I agree that nations with a tradition of functional social institutions and the rule of law are more predisposed to embrace and benefit from democracy and the free market. Germany and Japan were former world powers, so of course they would recover from WWII and embrace reforms better than say, post-Soviet Russia or post-colonial African states. Tribal cultures like Pakistan or Iraq, where in some cases there is very little notion of national identity, make democratic processes and fair nationwide elections into a major headache. But let's not forget that all is not well in the former Axis. West Germany heavily subsidizes East Germany, and Westerners dominate politics and commerce. Easterners are often treated as second-class. We can't really blame communism for that one since it's been over a decade since the wall fell. Minorities and foreigners have very little representation and rights in Japan (if any minorities are left, maybe at the tip of Okinawa?). In order to be a Japanese citizen, you have to have documented proof of some Japanese ancestry. Is that democratic? I guess there is always that tradeoff between freedom and order in Western nations, or any nation really. Order is easier to achieve in more homogeneous societies, which is one of the purposes of ethnic cleansing, a practice that Japan, China, Germany, the US, and other world powers perfected long before the Balkans wars.

H: well, I think the best recent example of multi-ethnic cooperation and bring extremists back into the political mainstream is Northern Ireland. Sirc's brother is the expert on it (and the Balkans conflict too), but from my basic understanding, Sinn Fein/IRA were in all-out war with the English for decades. All those security cameras and other surveillance in London? They were originally installed to protect against Irish terrorists, not Muslims! Thousands of people died or were displaced in the British Isles, one of the most powerful nations on the planet with a long history of civil order. But Tony Blair, a Catholic moderate English PM, was able to bring both sides together and work out a compromise settlement and legit power-sharing government (to be fair, his predecessor John Major was the one to first revive the peace talks). Heh maybe Bono helped too! I'm sure the economic boom in Ireland of the past decade, as well as the success of the EU, have contributed as well. But before peace was achieved, there was a hell of a lot of face-to-face negotiation in good faith. Sure the sides bickered and walked out on each other plenty of times. But there was a sustained dialogue, which is what we DON'T have in Iraq, Yugo, Iran/Cuba with the US, and other places. Blair coined the term "bicycle diplomacy" for dialogue that must keep going forward or it falls over. Even amidst bombings and public protest, you have to press on. That is true leadership and what gets remembered in the history books. If humans fight each other to the death through crazy hardship and long odds (see Thermopylae), why can't we be equally committed to peace? We can't just pause and restart peace talks in between bloodshed, like the Israelis and Palestinians do. "Peace when convenient" is just jerking everyone around. If all sides aren't serious about progress, than they might as well wipe each other out and save the rest of us the worry.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/peace-in-northern-ireland-may-be-blairs-greatest-legacy/2007/04/08/1175970936469.html

The Bush-Rice "cold shoulder diplomacy coupled with toothless unilateral sanctions" foreign policy strategy is absolutely counter-productive to the reconciliation process. Blair was the first UK leader to receive Sinn Fein officials since the 1920s! No wonder war ravaged on for so long! How can you stop a war if you don't talk? I guess when both sides are committed to absolute victory, it can only end badly for one side or both. If you want real peace, you have to seek a good outcome for everyone, even your enemy. Israel and the US will probably never comprehend this truism. Shared goals and threats are much more desirable than mutually exclusive objectives. Peace/appeasement/compromise is a gamble and a risk, but so are hostility and sustained conflict. I guess your economics background can appreciate that nations and peoples should strive for maximum efficiency and weigh the cost-benefit of their actions. During war, efficiency tanks and there are heavy costs. Peace is the only way to prosper, unless you work for Boeing and Halliburton.

Maybe that's why the poor peoples of the world will never stop fighting against the rich nations as you alluded to. Whether under the flag of nationalism, religion, environment, or whatever – people who are unjustly economically marginalized will not just bend over and accept it. As you said, future resource wars for oil, water, or even the means of production will get nasty. China and India can't sustain double-digit growth forever (nor can the US really sustain 5% growth), so when things slow down people are going to be pissed and desperate. In fact, can the emerging Asian nations even support a US-style middle class? We're already experiencing the global effects of sky-high oil demand and the housing bubble fallout. It's a very UNSUSTAINABLE situation if our wealth is dependent on exploitation and unfair trade with the Third World. So if rich nations could instead tamp down their greed/consumption and couple their welfare to poor nations, I think we can achieve a better balance to globalization. It's not that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, but the cumulative prosperity of global commerce should be shared and distributed fairly. Yeah I know; I must be smoking something. Globalization is not inherently evil; it's probably totally necessary and beneficial in this era. But how it is regulated and the manner it is conducted leave much to be desired in many cases.

But going back to peace among factions, it's difficult no doubt, and probably there hasn't been an archetypical example of how to do it properly. People are angry, and you have to substitute the fighting in the streets for fighting in the halls of government. Former militant leaders can become civilian leaders. They already have so much grassroots support and public trust; it makes perfect sense. Of course people like Saddam and Pol Pot may be beyond rehabilitation, but there has to be some way to incorporate former fighters into the peaceful political process. This applies for Kosovo as well as Iraq. Yes in principle it is a good idea to have a multi-ethnic representative government, but not one imposed from abroad and stacked with corrupt puppet cronies. If the US provisional coalition government under Bremer actually gave the Sunnis some legit rights and privileges, then maybe the insurgency wouldn't have flown off the handle in 2005. An independent Kosovo can work, but Kosovar Serbs have to be granted at least minimum protections and representation. There also has to be a reasonable relationship with Serbia. This is a cultural and historical necessity. Albanians already have Albania, and now they have Kosovo too? As Condi Rice even said about Western involvement in the Middle East, we sacrificed freedom for stability. We can't sacrifice justice for convenience in the Balkans. The EU doesn't like social unrest and violence on its back porch, and it craves the cheap laborers and untapped markets of Eastern Europe. But as Hen said, let's hope that the future Serb inclusion in the EU isn't just another avenue for exploitation. In general, I think the EU has behaved quite well and is a far cry from the Colonial Era. They have a genuine partnership where all are involved and all share the cost-benefits, and the EU founders do deserve to win a Nobel Peace Prize (the most war-ravaged place on Earth has now maintained 2 decades of peace and prosperity post-Cold War!). What compromise can the EU and Albanians strike to give Serbia some compensation? Economic aid, trade, treaties? It's a start, and much better than the UN just deciding one day to redraw the map.

On a semi-related note, many powerful nations have been totally INEPT at counter-insurgency, dating back to Roman times. But one example where the occupying power totally cleaned house was the communist uprising in former British Malaya after WWII. This link below or Wiki has a good synopsis. Maybe we can discuss it next week? I'm sure Bush doesn't know shit about the history, though our country could really benefit from the lessons.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-142385701.html