"The 'New Middle East' Bush Is Resisting"

As promised, here is the text to the opinion article I mentioned in today's earlier post:

The 'New Middle East' Bush Is Resisting
By Saad Eddin Ibrahim
The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 23, 2006; Page A15

"President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be quite right about a new Middle East being born. In fact, their policies in support of the actions of their closest regional ally, Israel, have helped midwife the newborn. But it will not be exactly the baby they have longed for. For one thing, it will be neither secular nor friendly to the United States. For another, it is going to be a rough birth.

What is happening in the broader Middle East and North Africa can be seen as a boomerang effect that has been playing out slowly since the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001. In the immediate aftermath of those attacks, there was worldwide sympathy for the United States and support for its declared "war on terrorism," including the invasion of Afghanistan. Then the cynical exploitation of this universal goodwill by so-called neoconservatives to advance hegemonic designs was confirmed by the war in Iraq. The Bush administration's dishonest statements about "weapons of mass destruction" diminished whatever credibility the United States might have had as liberator, while disastrous mismanagement of Iraqi affairs after the invasion led to the squandering of a conventional military victory. The country slid into bloody sectarian violence, while official Washington stonewalled and refused to admit mistakes. No wonder the world has progressively turned against America.

Against this declining moral standing, President Bush made something of a comeback in the first year of his second term. He shifted his foreign policy rhetoric from a "war on terrorism" to a war of ideas and a struggle for liberty and democracy. Through much of 2005 it looked as if the Middle East might finally have its long-overdue spring of freedom. Lebanon forged a Cedar Revolution, triggered by the assassination of its popular former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Egypt held its first multi-candidate presidential election in 50 years. So did Palestine and Iraq, despite harsh conditions of occupation. Qatar and Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf continued their steady evolution into constitutional monarchies. Even Saudi Arabia held its first municipal elections.

But there was more. Hamas mobilized candidates and popular campaigns to win a plurality in Palestinian legislative elections and form a new government. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt achieved similar electoral successes. And with these developments, a sudden chill fell over Washington and other Western capitals.

Instead of welcoming these particular elected officials into the newly emerging democratic fold, Washington began a cold war on Muslim democrats. Even the tepid pressure on autocratic allies of the United States to democratize in 2005 had all but disappeared by 2006. In fact, tottering Arab autocrats felt they had a new lease on life with the West conveniently cowed by an emerging Islamist political force.
Now the cold war on Islamists has escalated into a shooting war, first against Hamas in Gaza and then against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel is perceived in the region, rightly or wrongly, to be an agent acting on behalf of U.S. interests. Some will admit that there was provocation for Israel to strike at Hamas and Hezbollah following the abduction of three soldiers and attacks on military and civilian targets. But destroying Lebanon with an overkill approach born of a desire for vengeance cannot be morally tolerated or politically justified -- and it will not work.

On July 30 Arab, Muslim and world outrage reached an unprecedented level with the Israeli bombing of a residential building in the Lebanese village of Qana, which killed dozens and wounded hundreds of civilians, most of them children. A similar massacre in Qana in 1996, which Arabs remember painfully well, proved to be the political undoing of then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres. It is too early to predict whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will survive Qana II and the recent war. But Hezbollah will survive, just as it has already outlasted five Israeli prime ministers and three American presidents.

Born in the thick of an earlier Israeli invasion, in 1982, Hezbollah is at once a resistance movement against foreign occupation, a social service provider for the needy of the rural south and the slum-dwellers of Beirut, and a model actor in Lebanese and Middle Eastern politics. Despite access to millions of dollars in resources from within and from regional allies Syria and Iran, its three successive leaders have projected an image of clean governance and a pious personal lifestyle.
In more than four weeks of fighting against the strongest military machine in the region, Hezbollah held its own and won the admiration of millions of Arabs and Muslims. People in the region have compared its steadfastness with the swift defeat of three large Arab armies in the Six-Day War of 1967. Hasan Nasrallah, its current leader, spoke several times to a wide regional audience through his own al-Manar network as well as the more popular al-Jazeera. Nasrallah has become a household name in my own country, Egypt.

According to the preliminary results of a recent public opinion survey of 1,700 Egyptians by the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldun Center, Hezbollah's action garnered 75 percent approval, and Nasrallah led a list of 30 regional public figures ranked by perceived importance. He appears on 82 percent of responses, followed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (73 percent), Khaled Meshal of Hamas (60 percent), Osama bin Laden (52 percent) and Mohammed Mahdi Akef of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (45 percent).

The pattern here is clear, and it is Islamic. And among the few secular public figures who made it into the top 10 are Palestinian Marwan Barghouti (31 percent) and Egypt's Ayman Nour (29 percent), both of whom are prisoners of conscience in Israeli and Egyptian jails, respectively.

None of the current heads of Arab states made the list of the 10 most popular public figures. While subject to future fluctuations, these Egyptian findings suggest the direction in which the region is moving. The Arab people do not respect the ruling regimes, perceiving them to be autocratic, corrupt and inept. They are, at best, ambivalent about the fanatical Islamists of the bin Laden variety. More mainstream Islamists with broad support, developed civic dispositions and services to provide are the most likely actors in building a new Middle East. In fact, they are already doing so through the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, the similarly named PJD in Morocco, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine and, yes, Hezbollah in Lebanon.

These groups, parties and movements are not inimical to democracy. They have accepted electoral systems and practiced electoral politics, probably too well for Washington's taste. Whether we like it or not, these are the facts. The rest of the Western world must come to grips with the new reality, even if the U.S. president and his secretary of state continue to reject the new offspring of their own policies.

The writer is an Egyptian democracy activist, professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo, and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies.

Correction to This Article
An earlier version of this op-ed that appeared in the print edition incorrectly identified the writer's credentials. Saad Eddin Ibrahim is no longer at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars."

Pundita has been thinking, thinking, thinking

If you have not yet read Norman Podhoretz's Is the Bush Doctrine Dead? all you need do is Google the essay to get an idea of how much discussion it's touched off in US foreign policy circles and the blogosphere. As Powerline's Paul Mirengoff observes:

Mr. Podhoretz does a great job of exposing a number of myths -- from nearly all positions on the political spectrum -- about the Bush Doctrine and the extent of its author's adherence thereto.

To expose the myths Podhoretz makes short work of the embalmed thinking represented by William F. Buckley Jr. and George Will, the gargoyles still guarding the Council on Foreign Relations, and a host of chipmunks posing as learned commentators.

But the essay does more than dispute; it also proposes. In particular it reviews the "four pillars" that Norman Podhoretz has proposed as the foundation for the Bush Democracy Doctrine. It is the four pillars that plunged Pundita into deep thought. I note that Paul Mirengoff's brow is also furrowed in thought:

In the end, I agree that the Bush Doctrine is not dead. However, I fear that the Doctrine may have a fever due to a serious tension between two of its primary elements.

It is important not to get lost in the thicket: there are Bush's statements, and there are Mr. Podhoretz's pillars, which are not necessarily a seamlessly correct interpretation of the doctrine. But let us not beat around the bush; Mirengoff targets a conflict between incidents on the ground and the belief that democracy is the best antidote to terrorism. Then he takes a side in the conflict that might be called irrational but only if you're not in the crosshairs of a terrorist attack.

So now you have some idea of why Pundita has been lost in thought for days. If you've not yet had the fun of reading Podhoretz's long but beautifully written essay I suggest you settle down with it before turning to Mirengoff's pithy commentary.

I also point you to Saad Eddin Ibrahim's very important editorial for Wednesday's Washington Post titled The 'New Middle East' Bush is Resisting. His comments zero in on the very question Mirengoff raises and are a wonderful summary of the US compromises between short-term strategic interests in the Middle East and the aim of the Democracy Doctrine.*

Norman Podhoretz musters a defense of the compromises: the US had to make many compromises while fighting the Cold War and one should be grown up about the compromises needed to fell this century's global enemy. Although the defense is comforting I am not sure it stands up to brute logic.

If you complain I haven't given you enough reading for the week, you might wish to read or review We had to destroy this democracy to save it, which I published in November 2005. Note that no one in Washington has gotten around to tackling the sly question Pundita posed: "What is the difference between a market economy and a democracy?"

That is enough musing out loud. I return now to pondering those four pillars. Ready or not I will post on the status of my cogitations by noon Saturday. Until then, I hope you will join me in thinking on Podhoretz's many challenging points.

* As of this writing, the editorial is not yet available online without registering at the Post; if it's not available Thursday by 4:00 PM Eastern time I will post the entire writing at that time for readers who hate registering at websites.

Whack-a-mole: How US fights when funding dries up

Sunday's Meet the Press program focused on the current situation in Iraq. Kudos to moderator David Gregory for sticking with the Iraqi troop deployment issue long enough to elicit pinpoint replies from Senator John McCain and General Barry McCaffrey.

I've moved around parts of the exchanges and considerably shortened the transcript, so I suggest it is time well spent if you read the entire discussion (both half hours), which is a good snapshot of where things stand now in Iraq for the US effort. Here I concentrate on what I consider the most illuminating and alarming observations; namely:

> We've been told for years that if commanders on the ground in Iraq need more troops they just need ask. Yet according to Senator McCain the decision is supposed to come from the Pentagon, not the commanders on the ground. He describes the issue as one of leadership from Washington.

> McCain asserts that more US troops are needed in Iraq. But the discussion is beside the point because the Army doesn't have enough funds to support more troops and even if they had more troops their equipment is falling apart.

The big question is the same one that's been debated for years: whether more troops in Iraq would be a solution. I have always left this question to the military bloggers. But the simple truth is that while the type of violence in Iraq has changed over the years the violence has not abated. So I think it's time to follow the counsel of Senator McCain, on the theory that we've tried everything else.

However, General McCaffrey's comments call into question whether the US is capable of getting additional troops to Iraq in enough time to halt the slide toward civil war. McCain seems to think there is enough time if the decision makers act quickly.

DAVID GREGORY: Do you think [US] military commanders on the ground [in Iraq] are asking for more troops?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I know that military commanders on the ground need more troops, whether they’re asking for them or not. But see, this is kind of a false argument. It’s not up to the commanders on the ground, it’s up to the leaders who assess the entire battlefield situation to decide whether they need. I’ve known very few commanders in the field who say, “I need help.”

So it’s up to the assessment made at the Pentagon level. And from the beginning, we didn’t have enough in the [Iraq] invasion, the initial invasion itself.

MR. GREGORY: But this is an important point because if there’s no clear commitment for more troops and a firm belief by you and others that more troops are needed, what’s standing in the way? Why aren’t military leaders asking, and is there politics involved that’s keeping troops from being deployed?

SEN. McCAIN: I think it’s got to do with the decisions that are made in the Pentagon. And I think that’s the sum total of it, and the advice that the president gets from the people that are on his team. And I don’t think it’s good advice. But I know that the president’s committed to win. I know that he will do what’s necessary. Many times he has said we will do whatever is necessary and I believe him. [...]

MR. GREGORY: General Barry McCaffrey [...] Our troops are not trained to referee a civil war. From a military point of view, as you come up with strategies, how do you navigate this current reality in Iraq?

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: [...] the battle of Baghdad won’t be solved by the United States Army. We’ve had 22,000 killed and wounded; two-thirds of our brigades, the ones that aren’t deployed, in the United States Army National Guard now, are not ready to fight. So the surge capability to deal with this from a military perspective is not there.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think more troops are needed at this point?

GEN. McCAFFREY: I’m not sure it’s the right question. First of all, they’re not available. The National Guard brigades—you know, we just had Lieutenant General Blum testifying, we had the chief staff of the Army testifying. The Army is $23 billion short, our equipment’s coming apart, we’re drafting 42-year-old grandmothers to be privates in the Army. I shouldn’t have said draft; asking for volunteers. So I don’t think the combat power is there in the Army and the Marine Corps to solve this problem militarily. We are a safety valve, we’re a peacekeeping mechanism, but the Iraqi security forces are going to have to pull this one together [...]

MR GREGORY: [President Bush] has said repeatedly that he has a strategy to win, that if his commanders want more forces [in Iraq], they will get them. Should more troops be sent?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I think it’s been well documented now that we didn’t have enough there from the beginning, that we allowed the looting, that we did not have control, particularly, of areas, such [as] in the Sunni Triangle, which led to us paying a very heavy price. We make mistakes in every war, and serious mistakes were made here. The question is, are we going to be able to bring the situation under control now? I still believe we can. I think part of it has to do with the Mahdi Army and Sadr. Sadr has got to be taken out of this equation and his militia has got to be addressed forcefully.

MR. GREGORY: But to do that, do you need more U.S. soldiers on the ground now?

SEN. McCAIN: I think so. We took troops from places like Ramadi, which are still not under control, to put them into Baghdad. We’ve had to send in additional troops as they are. All along, we have not had enough troops on the ground to control the situation. Many, many people knew that and we’re paying a very heavy price for it. But I want to emphasize that we cannot lose this. It will cause chaos in Iraq and in the region, and it’s -- I still believe that we must prevail. [...]

MR. GREGORY: Well, let’s talk about the movement of troops throughout the country. Earlier this month, you said the following about U.S. forces going back into Iraq, some 7,000 troops. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, August 3, 2006):

SEN. McCAIN: And what I worry about is we’re playing a game of Whack A Mole here. We move troops -- it flares up, we move troops there. (End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Whack A Mole. What are you talking about? What’s the concern?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, there’s the old arcade game where the head [appears], and you bang it down, and another head pops up someplace else, and that’s basically what I was talking about, is that we have never had sufficient number of troops to clear and hold.

The, what we call the oil spot strategy, which everybody knows is the successful way to combat an insurgency. So we’ve had to move our troops around from one place to another.

Fallujah was allowed for a period of a couple of years to become the center for terrorist operations through an insurgency throughout Iraq. We had to go in there, and these brave Marines and Army people, I mean, that was one of the historic battles in Marine and Army history. Eighty-six killed, 1,000 wounded because we didn’t have enough troops to control Fallujah to start with. That’s the object lesson. So then we had to move to Ramadi. Now, of course, Baghdad is the center of our attention now.

But I want to emphasize again, there are good things happening. We did have a free election, we do have a functioning government. Where—there are some parts of the country, particularly in the north, that things are good. It’s not all bad news. But it is a serious situation.

MR. GREGORY: But in the most dangerous parts of the country, you see this Whack-A-Mole approach. So what’s the consequence of that?

SEN. McCAIN: The consequences are is that we go in and we control an area for a short period of time and then we leave and then the insurgents filter back in.

MR. GREGORY: It’s not the right strategy, as far as you’re concerned?

SEN. McCAIN: It’s never been the right strategy as far as I’m concerned, since the beginning when I came back from my first trip to Iraq after every military person, including the British, told me that we didn’t have sufficient troops to control the situation. [...]

Fighting with empty hands

"Pundita,
I think the frustration is that many feel if we would only make up our minds to use force against elements like Hezbollah, we would experience no more anti-US feeling than we do now and, once defeated, there may actually be an ability to move forward with the populations.

We have decided the new warfare is not to defeat opponents, but to play games and wait until we "convert" them. That may be fine fifty years from now. In the meantime, we have to live with the terror threat every day.

What do you make of Iran's Aug. 22nd timing to respond to the UN?
Dan Riehl
Riehl World View "

Dear Dan:
The frustration you speak about tends to ignore the objective of war, so it overlooks much that the US has accomplished since 9/11. The question I always put to myself when I get frustrated is, "Do you want to win with blood or do you want to win?"

If you want to win with blood then we shouldn't have accepted Muammar al-Gaddafi's capitulation, which happened without a US shot fired at Libya.

If you want to win with blood then we should have upbraided whichever of the two zillion Arab factions who put out a contract on Yasser Arafat when they saw that Palestinian elections and Israeli disengagement from Gaza were going forward.

If you want to win with blood then we shouldn't have given Fouad Siniora's government an opportunity to use a lull in the Hezbollah-Israel conflict to cast Syria as the real villain of the piece.

If you want to win with blood then we should have refused to assassinate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi when Iran's military ratted out his location to their US counterpart.

All you need is to look at the devolution of the type of violence in Iraq to realize that the Iraqis are winning the peace with help from US muscle. At the end of the first year, Iraq was in the throes of a Baathist-led insurgency. At the end of the second year, Iraq was under attack from foreign-led forces. As we near the end of the third year, Baghdad is drowning in bloodshed from sectarian rivalries and warring gangs. Not pretty but it is huge progress and in less than three years.

President Bush said at the outset of this war that it would be fought on many fronts in many ways -- ways that the public couldn't always see. The war has so many fronts simply because it is a globally fought war that is generating the multiple fronts at the same time. And most of the battles are fought according to 4GW principles.

Yet I venture the people who are frustrated with the course of this war are looking at the Battle of Fallujah as the standard for how the US should fight. The catch is that the US military had to level the blinkin' town, and was saddled with the post-conflict stabilization phase.

So, much as I generally can't miss by blaming the State Department for everything that goes wrong, State is not playing fast and loose with America's life in the war on terror; neither is the Pentagon. There is a saying that you fight at the level you see. State and Pentagon see a great deal more than the public. This allows them to scramble to keep up with events that unfold with dizzying speed. Here's an example:

Because Iran's military uses a clunky Soviet era playbook for their meddling guidelines, they were blind to how Lebanon's government would react to the war they engineered with Israel on Lebanese soil.

Lebanon was angry at Israel but beside themselves with fury that Iran would use their country as a battering ram. They got back at Iran in a very telling way -- by turning blame on Syria!

Maybe State was blind at first but as soon as they realized what was going on, they scrambled to throw together any kind of cease fire. They saw that it didn't matter for US and Israel interests whether Israel thrashed around in Lebanon or had a clear victory; either way Lebanon's government had been landed a big pile of lemons and proceeded to make lemonade with them.

All that put Hassan Nasrallah, who is famously an Iranian puppet, in a terrible position. He really had no choice but to accept the cease fire if he didn't want to appear as trampling on Lebanon's sovereignty -- which Hezbollah is supposed to defend!

But for the large part the American public has been blind to what's really going on because they are focused on keeping score between Israel and Hezbollah and totting up Israel's mistakes in the conflict! They are not looking at things from the viewpoint of Lebanon's government.

I am afraid that such blindness is very typical in this fast-moving war if one isn't privy to classified intel reports! So the frustration you describe is understandable. Yet it's based on the view that either we act quickly to destroy the governments that sponsor terror, or terrorist acts of catastrophic scale will force the US to such destruction.

To intuit the flaw with such reasoning one only has to study the US post-conflict stabilization phase in just one town in Iraq -- Fallujah. The phase includes rebuilding and insuring that the enemy doesn't retake the town.

Governments the US can topple, and there's probably not a country in this world that the US military couldn't conquer. But it wouldn't be long into the conquests before the US would face the same problems that Genghis Khan and the Romans faced. It's those pesky post-conflict stabilization phases that are the bane of conquerors.

The only real solution is one the Romans used on Carthage. In other words, the way to quickly stop the terrorist threat is to practice genocide then render entire lands to dust. That's what the frustrated sentiment inadvertently asks for. Yet the Carthage solution is out of the question unless one wants to lose all the gains civilization made since the Enlightenment.

And we don't have enough Americans, let alone US troops, to manage the post-conflict stabilization phases if we toppled the 60 or so governments in the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia that we'd need to dispense with if we wanted to take the terrorist threat off the table. If we relied on the UN or coalitions of the willing to make up the shortfall, we'd be back in the same soup we've found in post-invasion Iraq.

However, the choice is not the Carthage Solution or nothing. The choice is to bog ourselves down in Cold War strategies or fight with 'empty hands' -- adjust on a dime to fast-moving situations so we can make the best use of them. This means making use of deadly force sometimes, and other times racing to the negotiation table to take advantage of a mistake by the enemy.

With regard to the significance of the timing of Tehran's announcement, I make the same of it that Beijing makes of it. I don't give a rat's hindquarters what Tehran says; I'm watching their actions.

We have to factor in China's relationship with Iran. Iran's ruling class got spoiled by the way Western diplomats and intellectuals pandered to their behavior since Iran's revolution. But the Chinese don't believe in pandering to grown people who act like homicidal juvenile delinquents on LSD.

According to what John Loftus told John Batchelor's audience on Friday, the Chinese want Tehran to knock off the mystic jibber jabber and start acting like businesspeople.

If Iran doesn't listen to China's money? Beijing will scotch trade deals with Tehran and get behind economic sanctions against Iran.

The price: China's military does want to be assured that the US won't cut and run from the Middle East anytime soon.

"Pundita, you forget Reagan's passing interest in Gaddafi, as when missiles passed over his head. And ultimately, I doubt he would have caved if he didn't see what was happening in Iraq.

I'm not suggesting going to war with everyone, but not shying away from it in some cases where it can expedite the process.
Dan Riehl"

Dan --
I have not forgotten, and I couldn't agree with you more about Gaddafi. And I think it's reasonable for Americans to worry that pressure from NATO allies and congressionals on both sides of the aisle could cause the US to draw back from a necessary military confrontation.

Yet up to this point I can't see where the US has backed away from lethal force where necessary in the war. What I have seen is the tendency by the public, journalists, pundits, and congressionals to react to very fluid events as if they were witnessing a final result, and from there assume that the US is losing the war. Americans need to sit hard on the tendency because the enemy can profit from it as much as from overconfidence.

War Boogie

At my age it's unseemly to hop onto an armchair and bounce up and down while yowling "Boogie oogie oogie!" But war events can sometimes bring out the seven year old in the most sedate people.

This happened last night while I listened to John Loftus report to John Batchelor that contrary to fast-gathering opinion, the Israelis had scored a rather stunning victory: just that night Hezbollah had quietly agreed to turn over their arms to the Lebanese army in a face-saving, under the table way.

Loftus also reported that the French government had read the riot act to Lebanon's government about their cowardly approach to dealing with Hezbollah, which prodded Beirut to action.

Readers who heard the ensuing exchange know that Batchelor was incredulous about Loftus' intel, which contradicted the intel from Batchelor's sources. In Batchelor's view, Israel had been soundly thrashed, Hezbollah was going to hold onto their arms, and Beirut was still hiding under the bed.

Loftus owlishly observed that maybe the truth was somewhere between the differing views, but he stood firmly behind his own sources (probably CENTCOM).

The good news that Loftus brought was so at odds with the conventional view of the status of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict that it's a reminder that events, not punditry, are in the saddle. It's also a reminder not to be swayed by early reports on how events are shaking out.

I'll allow myself one comment on Loftus' intel: if it's correct, Hezbollah's agreement to disarm is far worse than a fart in Iran's direction. It suggests that Hezbollah is thinking in nationalist terms; i.e., as an organization dedicated to Lebanon's best interests.

That can happen when a government throws off control by a foreign power (Syria, in this instance) and establishes political avenues for protest. Once the avenues open, why should Lebanon be Iran's poodle?

If Hassan Nasrallah is thinking in this way it's another sign that Iran's meddling has backfired, as it's backfiring in Iraq.

Okay, that's enough pondering. I just want to enjoy good news while I can, which I've learned to do during war. Boogie, anyone?

If you're thinkin' you're too cool to boogie
Boy oh boy have I got news for you!
Everybody here tonight must boogie
Let me tell ya' you are no exception to the rule!

Get on up on the floor!
Cuz we're gonna boogie oogie oogie
Till you just can't boogie no more . . . *

Taste of Honey's Boogie Oogie Oogie

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launches MassMurdererMediaBlogs

Iran's president has started his own blog at
www.ahmadinejad.ir

The English translation needs a little work, but Maddy manages to convey his plan to compete with Pajamas Media:

"First we start Big Bosses Blog Carnival with Kim Jong-il, Robert Mugabe, Hu Jintao, Omar el-Bashir, Bashir Assad. First theme of the blog submissions is, "Time I most personally enjoyed ordering murderers of my political enemies."

GRAND PRIZE: Framed Portrait of Joseph Stalin shaking hands with Harry Truman and Winston Churchill.

Uh oh. Uppity puppet farts at puppeteer.

"Dear Pundita,
I hope you listened to Yossef Bodansky's report last night [on the John Batchelor show]. He said that Tehran is upset that [Hassan] Nasrallah has become a superstar in the region and throughout the Muslim world because of his stand against Israel's military! I thought of your Uppity Puppet essay and I started laughing.

If Iran indeed pushed Nasrallah to war in order to take him down a peg then it seems their plan backfired, although Bodansky doesn't think that was their reason for telling Nasrallah to instigate war with Israel.

However, it seems you were right in that Tehran fears the power that Nasrallah and Hezbollah have gained since the Syrians were thrown out of Lebanon.

I won't ask how you came up with that idea but can you tell what you see happening next? Do you think the truce will hold?
Jan in Reston"

Dear Jan:
Remember that Seffy is an intelligence gatherer; he reports not on what he thinks but on what he has learned about what the enemy is saying and doing, which makes him a very valuable source.

Feel free to ask how I came up with the idea. I didn't know why Tehran told Hezbollah to start a war but I asked, "Why now?" When I looked at the landscape I saw Hasan Nasrallah towering over his traditional competition in Lebanon, which was the Syrian government. So then I asked myself, "If I were an Iranian general, how would I perceive that situation?"

I've noted before that American analysts need to find ways to think outside the American viewpoint when asking why the enemy does things. I seem to recall dedicating a post to a discussion of what I call Common Sense Reasoning, which is trying to place yourself in another's shoes and thinking things through from that vantage point.

CSR isn't always right, of course; if you've never been in someone else's position it's unlikely you'll hit a bull's eye. But there are always shared elements of experience in any situation because we're all the same species. By following the thread of something about the situation you can emotionally connect with, you can sometimes get into the ballpark about why another does things.

CSR is no substitute for informed analysis but engaging in the exercise can break up ossified ways of looking at a situation and reveal angles that one was blind to before.

I can't think like an Iranian general but I do know how I react when I'm facing uncertainty everywhere I look. Under such circumstances I do what most humans do, which is attempt to assert control over any kind of situation.

That's why in the midst of grief over loss of a spouse the surviving member of the couple can do things that seem out of context to the situation, such as deciding to repaint the entire house. That's why a sales manager can develop an obsession for golf in the face of tanking sales numbers.

The US push for democracy in the Middle East, when met with the repressed aspirations for democracy in the region and the US toppling of Saddam's regime, created a high level of uncertainty for the Iranian regime and its military.

Before then Iran's military could predict and control to a great degree the actions of the key players in Lebanon; the Palestinian Authority; Syria; and the militant organizations they controlled, such as Hezbollah.

Then came the assassination of Rafik Hariri, which led to the Lebanese demand that Syria quit Lebanon, and Israel's disengagement from Gaza, which unleashed the full power of the Uncertainty Principle.

The militant organizations controlled by Iran saw avenues to power open that had been closed to them. Being human and all, they could allow themselves to wonder for the first time what they needed Tehran for.

So put yourself in the place of an Iranian general. In all that uncertainty was there some avenue of action over which they could exert great control, and which could produce predictable results?

They could still exert great control over Nasrallah so he didn't go getting the uppity idea that the power vacuum left by Syria meant he could run Lebanon if he cut enough deals with France.

If you observe that there was no way the Iranians could predict the outcome if they instigated an all-out military confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah -- well, you can't improve your sales figures by improving your golf swing, nor can you bring back the dead by refurbishing the house. But there is no reasoning with human nature when it seizes on a way to bash uncertainty back over the line.

As to whether the truce will hold -- according to what Seffy said last night, it seems Tehran wants to see it broken. But the question now is what Nasrallah wants. Seffy also said Tehran is angry that Nasrallah accepted the cease fire proposal, so another question is how far they'll push Hezbollah to break the truce.

Kleptocrats beware! But where will the United Nations go?

Last week President Bush presented the National Strategy To Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy. All well and good, but I see from the accompanying fact sheet that the strategy is based on the January 2004 presidential proclamation to "To Generally Deny Entry Into The United States Of Persons Engaged In Or Benefiting From Corruption. "

So now that the strategy has become official, just how does the US execute the proclamation without shutting down more than half the embassies in the US and barring the United Nations from US shores?

President's Statement on Kleptocracy
For too long, the culture of corruption has undercut development and good governance and bred criminality and mistrust around the world. High-level corruption by senior government officials, or kleptocracy, is a grave and corrosive abuse of power and represents the most invidious type of public corruption. It threatens our national interest and violates our values. It impedes our efforts to promote freedom and democracy, end poverty, and combat international crime and terrorism. Kleptocracy is an obstacle to democratic progress, undermines faith in government institutions, and steals prosperity from the people. Promoting transparent, accountable governance is a critical component of our freedom agenda.

At this year's G-8 meeting in St Petersburg, my colleagues joined me in calling for strengthened international efforts to deny kleptocrats access to our financial systems and safe haven in our countries; stronger efforts to combat fraud, corruption, and misuse of public resources; and increased capacity internationally to prevent opportunities for high-level public corruption. Today, I am announcing a new element in my Administration's plan to fight kleptocracy, The National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts against Kleptocracy, which sets forth a framework to deter, prevent, and address high-level, public corruption. It identifies critical tools to detect and prosecute corrupt officials around the world, so that the promise of economic assistance and growth reaches the people.

Our objective is to defeat high-level public corruption in all its forms and to deny corrupt officials access to the international financial system as a means of defrauding their people and hiding their ill-gotten gains. Given the nature of our open, accessible international financial system, our success in fighting kleptocracy will depend upon the participation and accountability of our partner nations, the international financial community, and regional and multilateral development institutions. Together, we can confront kleptocracy and help create the conditions necessary for people everywhere to enjoy the full benefits of honest, just, and accountable governance.

From the fact sheet, here are the key anti-kleptocrat initiatives embraced by the strategy:

> Launch A Coalition Of International Financial Centers Committed To Denying Access And Financial Safe Haven To Kleptocrats.
The United States Government will enhance its work with international financial partners, in the public and private sectors, to pinpoint best practices for identifying, tracing, freezing, and recovering assets illicitly acquired through kleptocracy. The U.S. will also work bilaterally and multilaterally to immobilize kleptocratic foreign public officials using financial and economic sanctions against them and their network of cronies.

> Vigorously Prosecute Foreign Corruption Offenses and Seize Illicitly Acquired Assets. In its continuing efforts against bribery of foreign officials, the United States Government will expand its capacity to investigate and prosecute criminal violations associated with high-level foreign official corruption and related money laundering, as well as to seize the proceeds of such crimes.

> Deny Physical Safe Haven. We will work closely with international partners to identify kleptocrats and those who corrupt them, and deny such persons entry and safe haven.

> Strengthen Multilateral Action Against Bribery. The United States will work with international partners to more vigorously investigate and prosecute those who pay or promise to pay bribes to public officials; to strengthen multilateral and national disciplines to stop bribery of foreign public officials; and to halt bribery of foreign political parties, party officials, and candidates for office.

> Facilitate And Reinforce Responsible Repatriation And Use. We will also work with our partners to develop and promote mechanisms that capture and dispose of recovered assets for the benefit of the citizens of countries victimized by high-level public corruption.

> Target And Internationalize Enhanced Capacity.The United States will target technical assistance and focus international attention on building capacity to detect, prosecute, and recover the proceeds of high-level public corruption, while helping build strong systems to promote responsible, accountable, and honest governance.

If it all sounds like a bunch of words on paper -- no, it's gone beyond that stage but getting it down on paper with international backing for the initiatives was the hardest part.

If this is to be Liberty's Century, all freedom loving nations must fight high-level corruption as if the fate of civilization hangs in the balance.

Fighting a war the Time Magazine way: first we get a really big sieve, then we empty the ocean with it

Ordinarily Pundita has more interesting things to do than critique monumentally stupid advice. Yesterday, for example, we spent a suspenseful 15 minutes watching to see if a squirrel would break his neck harvesting tomatoes in our garden. The squirrel didn't want just any old tomato; they had to be not too red and not too green and these delectables hung at the end of tall spindly vines twisted around flimsy metal supports.

But yesterday also found Pundita in the dentist's waiting room, which is the only place I can muster the focus to read Time Magazine editorials. Thus, I came across Lisa Beyer's August 7 effort titled, Why the Middle East Crisis Isn't Really About Terrorism. Beyer is an assistant managing editor at Time and before that she was Time's bureau chief in Jerusalem. Clearly Ms. Beyer thinks the President of the United States micromanages CENTCOM and that President Bush should cherry pick which terrorists the US fights based on her idea of a threat to the US.

Enunciating a new security doctrine nine days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush declared that the war on terrorism would be fought not just against al-Qaeda but also against "every terrorist group of global reach." Hizballah can certainly be said to fit in that category. However grand it may be to fight all global terrorists, though, the simple fact is that we can't: we don't have the troops, the money or the political will. That means it may make sense to limit our hit list to the groups that actually threaten us. Hizballah does not now do that. Nor does the other group currently in the spotlight, the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas.

I think it's a military advantage if one can do serious damage to militant organizations created and overseen by the enemy, especially if the organizations are directed at attacking one's allies. This rule takes on even greater importance when the enemy relies on 'asymmetrical' (e.g., terrorist) battle tactics.

Perhaps the stumbling block to comprehension is the idea that "global" terrorists are operating as individuals. This is a popular notion among journalists and policy advisors who slept through President Bush's Axis of Evil speech.

The term "global (or transnational) terrorism" is not descriptive when interpreted to mean militant organizations independent of state assistance. Virtually all globally-acting militant organizations that deploy terror tactics are state sponsored, which was the point of Bush's speech.

Of course the sponsorship may not be total (i.e., the organization can raise funds and receive training from private sources) but the militants who today operate globally owe their existence to government support, even if they have some autonomy in their battle planning.

Would it be a help if Bush renamed the War on Terror so that it more clearly reflects the nature of the enemy? Yes, on the day that Iran and every other country covertly making war on the US openly declares war. Until then, we must stick with naming nonsense, which makes the war we're in no less real.

Trade Pacts: bilateral is In, multilateral is Out

After the obligatory wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about the collapsed Doha Round and dire warnings about what this means for the world's poorest countries, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations gets down to brass tacks. Writing in yesterday's Washington Post, Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) notes that so many bilateral trade negotiations are now in the works that Congress needs to give the U.S. trade representative more staff.

Kolbe also advises that the Senate should sign off on the House-passed Trade Capacity Enhancement Fund, "a $522 million initiative to help developing countries prepare and implement free-trade agreements with the United States."

So, it's more or less official: even if Doha isn't deader than a doornail, nobody should waste time trying to breathe more life into the WTO's multilateral approach to trade negotiations and the Trade Aid idea promoted by Doha.

Bilateral talks are sprouting everywhere you look:

With Doha negotiations in the deep freeze, the United States needs to embrace an ambitious bilateral trade agenda. Of course, bilateral agreements are no substitute for multilateral ones; multilateral agreements propel the world toward economic openness faster. But without a multilateral round on the horizon, the United States cannot afford to remain idle.

Negotiations with South Korea are a good starting point. No other country the United States is negotiating with has an economy the size of South Korea's. Sealing a deal with that country could revive prospects for broader trade talks encompassing a number of developing nations. We would further increase the momentum for a new round by targeting even larger economies, Japan's foremost among them. A U.S.-Japan agreement would have the added virtue of deepening our most important Asian alliance in the face of threats by North Korea.

America's own neighborhood offers more reason for optimism. Along the Pacific coast, from Mexico into Central America and all the way down to Chile, every country except Ecuador is either negotiating a free-trade agreement with the United States or already has one. On the Atlantic, Doha's failure gives us the green light to initiate talks with Brazil, the largest economy in South America.

The future of free trade hinges on writing these agreements one by one. [...]

Click here for the rest of Kolbe's advice. As to how the World Trade Organization will be impacted by nobody pretending anymore to support multilateral trade pacts -- maybe in the way that the United Nations has been impacted by the Bush Preemption Doctrine. A tremendous amount of ink and energy will be funneled into declaring the emperor is not naked.

Nation Building in America's Age of Instant Gratification

...despite [California Disneyland] park's success, Disney remained unsettled about the one element he could not control. Drawn by the millions of Disney customers, non-Disney hotels, hamburger stands and -- worst of all -- tawdry nightclubs and strip-joints sprang up on the park's border. The outside development, Disney thought, choked the magic illusion and threatened the artistic and commercial essence of the park. He would not make the same mistake again. From the start, the project in central Florida dwarfed its predecessor in scale.

...What makes the Walt Disney World theme park so interesting is not so much the park itself ... but all the amazing aspects of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the government set up by Disney (which continues to this day) that was originally intended to govern EPCOT (the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) and give it the ability to live out Disney's dream of a perfect society. ...

Of course, Disney's charm ... is the feel of the place, its cleanliness, efficiency, and safety. Undesirables are kept outside the gates and, if they slip through, are monitored by security guards camouflaged as ordinary cast members or as tourists. For many visitors, this controlled community offers a freedom from the fear and distrust they feel outside. ...*

Hello? Am I speaking with a Disney World Customer Care Consultant? It's nice to make your acquaintance, too, Muffy. My name is General John Abizaid -- no, I'm active duty. Thank you, I appreciate the prayers.

No, I am not interested in renting conference facilities. I am the commander of the US Central Command, which includes Iraq. I am calling on behalf of Iraq's Prime Minister, who is acting on the instruction -- advice -- of a group of US senators. I am trying to contact Disney's Office of Imagineers.

Basically, the senators are requesting that Disney's Imagineers do the same for Iraq that they did for 27,000 acres in Orlando only in less time. Yes, basically, we're offering to cut a deal with Disney to turn Iraq into a theme park in exchange for Disney getting the country on its feet before October 2007.

I can't speak that, Muffy; I think they'd have to work out film rights with Iraq's government.

* Walt Disney World as a government

Paul Wolfowitz talks about good governance and the World Bank's anti-corruption efforts

Below are excerpts from an important speech that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz delivered in April of this year in Indonesia. If his talk sounds as if the Bank is finally putting teeth in their anti-corruption efforts -- they are, and they're enjoining other multilateral development banks to do the same.

The emphasis throughout is mine. I have omitted several passages that relate specifically to Indonesia; readers interested in that region should read the entire speech. Of course the general comments I've included about Indonesia's development problems are mirrored throughout countries in the developing world.

I love Wolfy's use of the word "steal" instead of a sanitized abstract term to refer to stealing. He is somewhat more circumspect in his language when he speaks about his upcoming meeting with representatives of the world's leading Muslim organizations. But I think he manages to convey that while he is at the helm the World Bank will no longer tolerate siphoning of Bank funds to Muslim terrorist organizations.

Before you jump for joy, be advised that with every successful anti-corruption move at the Bank the bad guys turn more to other development banks and cook up ever more creative schemes for fleecing private donors and lifting development funds from commercial banks.

Yet the tide is turning against corruption in every developing country where the middle class is emerging as a political force. And that is cause for hope when combined with the tough anti-corruption measures deployed by the World Bank. Before, people railed at corruption but the action paths were not established to fight corruption and win. Now the paths are laid down.

"Good Governance and Development: A Time for Action
[. . . ] In the 10 months since I joined the World Bank, I have traveled to developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, in South Asia, in East Asia, and in Latin America. I have met with people from all walks of life. Across remarkably different continents I have heard the same thing: people want opportunities, they want a better future for their children. But without a government that can deliver on its promises, without a government that listens and treats its citizens fairly, those hopes and dreams cannot be realized. To put it more plainly: people need government that works.

In the last half-century we have developed a better understanding of what helps governments function effectively and achieve economic progress. In the development community, we have a phrase for it. We call it good governance. It is essentially the combination of transparent and accountable institutions, strong skills and competence, and a fundamental willingness to do the right thing. Those are the things that enable a government to deliver services to its people efficiently.

An independent judiciary, a free press, and a vibrant civil society and important components of good governance. They balance the power of governments, and they hold them accountable for delivering better services, creating jobs, and improving living standards. Some countries can achieve growth for many years without all of those factors. Indeed, Indonesia's history in the 1970s and 1980s is an illustration of that. But the devastating economic crisis that followed here shows how fragile growth can be when institutions that keep governments accountable, transparent, and responsible, are systematically weakened.

What the Asian crisis of some 8 years ago shows, and nowhere more clearly than here in Indonesia, is that corruption is often at the very root of why governments do not work. Today one of the biggest threats to development in many countries, including I think here, is corruption. It weakens fundamental systems, it distorts markets, and it encourages people to apply their skills and energies in nonproductive ways. In the end, governments and citizens will pay a price, a price in lower incomes, in lower investment, and in more volatile economic fluctuations. That is a lesson Indonesia learned the hard way. Corruption contributed significantly to the economic collapse of 1997-1998. It now looms as a major obstacle to achieving the development successes that I believe this country is capable of, and which the Indonesian people deserve.

Corruption not only undermines the ability of governments to function properly, it also stifles the growth of the private sector. We hear it from investors, domestic and foreign, investors who worry that where corruption is rampant, contracts are unenforceable, competition is skewed, and the costs of doing business becomes stifling. When investors see that, they take their money somewhere else.

To give you an idea, in Indonesia, a survey of firms said that 56 percent of them, a majority, were willing to pay more taxes, in fact, half were willing to pay up to 5 percent of their revenues, if corruption could be eliminated. When businessmen offer to pay more taxes to solve a problem, you know it is a real problem.

Corruption thrives in countries where private investors face cumbersome procedures and excessive regulations. When extra licenses are needed to start a business, when extra signatures are required to import goods, that creates opportunities for abuse of authority and for corruption.

One of the most interesting and useful products of the World Bank Group is something we started a few years ago called the Doing Business report which looks at the investment climate in 155 different countries around the world and ranks them in various categories according to ease of doing business. That kind of analysis is already, I think, having a useful impact here in Indonesia. When the new government learned in 2004 that it took 151 days to launch a business here, three times the average for the world, your President announced that this would be reduced to 30 days. Our estimates show that the time to start a business has already fallen to below 80 days, and we are hopeful the government will reach its target. That would be a wonderful success story.

But the government faces many challenges ahead. It costs Indonesian entrepreneurs the equivalent of one year's income to register a business, and more than three-and-a-half times their annual income to obtain all the necessary licenses and permits.

But perhaps the most important challenge lies in the enforcement of contracts. On this front, Indonesia ranks amongst the lowest in the world, 145 out of 155. In fact, investors' lack of trust in the legal system is one of the problems that have brought investment levels down to half of those of your fast-growing neighbors.

Indonesia has already begun to confront some of these difficult challenges. President Yudhoyono has launched a tough anti-corruption drive that is holding public officials accountable across all levels of government.

New institutions like the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Anti-Corruption Court, the Judicial Commission and Timtastipikor are up and running and producing results. And institutions like the Supreme Audit Commission and the Attorney General's Office are showing newfound strength.

Even more important are the measures taken to reduce opportunities and incentives for corruption, led by an impressive economic team. [. . .]

I am pleased that the World Bank Group has been providing help in this area, and I am meeting with the government on this visit to see how we can do more.

We know that when governments don't work, the development assistance we provide to governments doesn't work either.

It means that children are denied the education they need - mothers are denied the health care they deserve - and countries are denied the institutions needed to deliver real results.

But when governments do work-when they confront corruption and improve their rule of law-they can raise their national incomes by as much as four times in the long run.

The World Bank first acknowledged corruption as a major impediment to development only ten years ago. But since then, it has been leading the development community in coming to grips with this very serious, but long-ignored problem.

We have pioneered research to better understand the root causes of corruption. We are learning from the experiences of countries worldwide and integrating anticorruption measures into our operations, our research, and our dialogue with partner countries, but we, too, need to do more. Fighting corruption is a long-term commitment, and results will not come overnight.

What we can work for is steady progress toward building transparent and accountable institutions. That is why fighting corruption requires a long-term strategy that systematically and progressively attacks the problem, and that is why any strategy for solving the problem requires the commitment and participation of governments, private citizens, and private businesses alike.

There has been some attention in the newspapers recently to a number of actions that we have taken to suspend lending in existing projects where corruption concerns have emerged. That has to be an important part of any World Bank strategy for dealing with the problem, but it is only a part, and not even the most important part. Suspending loans on problem projects by itself does not deliver results for the poor. Much more is needed.

Today we are stepping up our governance and anticorruption efforts along three different fronts, and let me describe them. First is the country approach. We are working to significantly expand our anticorruption work at the country level so that our partner countries receive the support they need in carrying out reforms. This will include in investing in professional expertise to address corruption, and backing our teams in the field with governance specialists. I will be asking my staff in high-risk countries to develop a strategy to mobilize all World Bank instruments, loans, grants, research, technical assistance, and private-sector investment, to strengthen and fight corruption. We will increase our investments in such key areas as judicial reform, civil service reform, the media, and freedom of information and decentralization of public service delivery. [. . .]

Second, we are implementing a new system for minimizing the risk of corruption in World Bank funded projects. Many of the elements of this new system were developed right here in Indonesia, and we are eager to bring them to other countries.

We will deploy anticorruption teams in many Country Offices to work with local institutions like government audit units, and anticorruption commissions, to protect our projects and strengthen public procurement.

We also are changing the way we design our projects so that they address the incentives and opportunities to fight corruption right from the start.

During this short visit, I have seen tsunami survivors in Aceh managing their own reconstruction projects, I have seen widows using microfinance to improve their families' lives, and I have talked to local villagers in Sulawesi who have been deciding which development projects to pursue. In all of these projects, the communities determine where the investments are made. They control the funds and monitor the results of the projects. The result has been more value for each rupiah spent, and demonstrable reductions in the levels of corruption.

We are developing anticorruption strategies for World Bank projects and we are publishing them on the Web so that our stakeholders can see what steps are being taken to ensure that resources are not diverted. [. . .]

And third, we are committed to expanding our partnerships with a wide range of groups that have a stake in improving governance. One of the most important partners is the private sector worldwide. While there are individual firms that may take advantage of weak governance to alter the competitive playing field, the private sector as a whole stands to lose when corruption is pervasive and the rule of law is undermined. That loss in turn hurts society in lost growth and in lost job creation. We will work more closely with firms and individuals to identify misuse of funds in World Bank financed private-sector projects.

The multilateral development banks are another important partner, and the heads of those banks met several weeks ago and we agreed to develop a common approach to the problem. For the first time, I think, it was identified by all of us as a major obstacle to poverty reduction, and we are working on a common strategy to blacklist firms that engage in corruption on our projects, and to share information on these firms so that if you [steal] from one of us, you cannot go on to steal from the next. I believe it would be good if all development institutions would publicly blacklist firms and individuals that engage in bribery in projects, as the World Bank already does.

Corruption is not just a problem for developing countries to deal with. The developed countries have an enormous responsibility. Indeed, every corrupt transaction has, unfortunately, at least two parties, and often more, and very often the bribe givers are from developed countries. They need to do more to police that.

And they also need to do more to prevent stolen cash from being moved to foreign bank accounts, and to hold private firms accountable if they export corruption to emerging economies.

Civil society everywhere is one of our most important partners. We will work with civil society groups because they are a key to holding governments accountable. Tomorrow I will be meeting with the heads of what I guess are the largest Muslim organizations in the world that represent millions of members across Indonesia. One of the subjects will be to explore how the World Bank can engage with these large and important civil society organizations to help ensure that aid dollars flow to the communities that they are intended to go to.

To conclude, enforcement alone will not cure corruption. How much we do and how much progress we make depends on the desire of both governments and civil society to create the right setting for sound, strong, sustainable development.

The greatest changes come when people's ideas change, and in many countries, people are no longer as tolerant of corruption as they were in the past. A growing middle-class that is independent of government increasingly demands better performance from government. Expanding social safety nets can make even poor citizens less dependent on traditional powerful patrons. [. . .]"

Doha Round collapse crystal ball gazing: Ian Fraser sees spaghetti, Walden Bello sees death of a myth

The dust of the collapsed Geneva talks has settled enough to allow a fix on the opposing views, so it's time to examine the major pro and con arguments. Pundita admits it's unfair to pit Fraser against Bello because the former is a reporter whereas Bellow is an economist who has been fighting the WTO Doha Round since its launch.

But Fraser's report fairly summarizes the thinking of major trading governments and big transnational business. Their fears that the collapse of Doha can set back globalization are not unjustfied, although I think it's a stretch to worry that WTO is in danger of extinction.

Bello, on the other hand, argues in narrower terms: he is focused on the rationale for the Doha Round, which was a stated attempt to transform the WTO mechanism into a massive aid scheme for the world's poorest countries.

Bello's jargon-free arguments are also important to follow because they are a window on the saner elements of the antiglobalization movement.

The legacy of Doha: spaghetti bowl trade
by Ian Fraser
Sunday Herald (Scotland)
July 30

"[...] With little prospect of a final Doha agreement – or even of the so-called “Doha-lite” agreement that would fail to give US farmers the significant new access to export markets they are demanding – being reached before the end of this year, there is a real danger that countries will turn their backs on the WTO and enter a confused mass of bilateral and regional trade agreements.

Such a “spaghetti bowl” of one-on-one bilateral trade agreements is likely to harm future global prosperity and give rise to protectionism and “beggar thy neighbour” trade policies.

Furthermore, such deals tend to benefit the stronger trading nations, which have greater resources to negotiate more favourable terms for themselves.

The risk is that poorer nations will find themselves being bullied into signing deals that they cannot afford to deliver. And of course a spaghetti bowl – with a chaotic web of alliances – also makes life a whole lot more complicated for exporters and multinational corporations.

[Iain McMillan, director of CBI Scotland] says: “A confusion of overlapping trade regimes, of varying scope and with differing rules and standards, would undermine the whole world trade system."

But that may well be where we are headed. Several emerging economies have already stated they will seek to capitalise on Doha’s collapse by pursuing bilateralism. India’s trade and commerce minister Kamal Nath last week said his country is already pursuing bilateral deals with the EU and Japan.

And Taiwan detects a “window of opportunity” to establish a free trade agreement with the US. With Doha in abeyance, it believes many of the US’s army of trade negotiators will have time on their hands. Taiwan’s deputy economic affairs minister Steve Chen last week said: “We feel both countries can take this opportunity to carefully examine the benefits of a Free Trade Agreement and seek to take advantage of this golden opportunity to initiate this process”.

However, Bernard K Gordon, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, warns that such arrangements are fraught with danger for weaker nations.

“[Such deals] prove a Faustian bargain for the developing nations, because they cannot negotiate effectively with the larger richer and thoroughly staffed global giants. Even savvy economies such as Australia and Singapore, in FTA dealings with the US, provide ample warning. They accepted distasteful conditions as the price of an agreement,” says Gordon.

An additional risk is that otherwise innocent product categories get “caught in the cross-fire” of future trade spats in such an environment. The SCDI’s McTaggart warns there could be a repeat of the way in which the US imposed quotas on imports of Scottish cashmere during the “banana wars” of 1999.

“When states fall out, they sometimes arbitrarily target particular industries,” he says.

A more serious danger is that the Doha collapse could jeopardise the very future of the World Trade Organisation. In its 11-year life the Geneva-based organisation is seen as having done a creditable job of settling global trade disputes and creating a framework for free trade and globalisation.

British-born Philippe Legrain, a former Economist journalist and author of Open World: The Truth About Globalisation, says: “The WTO now risks going the way of the League of Nations in the 1930s and becoming an ineffective sideshow.”

And we all know what that led to.

So, let us hope that Mandelson is right when he says: “Doha will remain a central priority of European trade policy. We will work to bring it back to life.”

Why Today’s Collapse of the Doha Round Negotiations is the Best Outcome for Developing Countries
by Walden Bello
Bangkok, July 24

"[...] In the past two weeks, in anticipation of the July 27-28 meeting of the World Trade Organization’s General Council, a major rescue effort was mounted to save the “Doha Round” of global trade negotiations from collapse. The most prominent of these efforts took place at the Group of Eight Summit in St. Petersburg, where the leaders of the world’s most powerful economies called for a successful conclusion to the round, painting it as a “historic opportunity to generate economic growth, create potential for development, and raise living standards across the world.”

This was pure myth. The idea that the Doha Round is a “development round” could not be farther from the truth.

At the very outset of the Doha negotiations in November 2001, the developed country governments rejected the demand of the majority of countries that the talks focus on the hard task of implementing past commitments and avoid initiating a new round of trade liberalization. From the very start, the aim of the developed countries was to push for greater market openings from the developing countries while making minimal concessions on their part. Invoking development was simply a cynical ploy to make the process less unpalatable.

Lopsided Negotiations in Agriculture
The state of the agricultural negotiations before today’s unraveling was reflective of this. Even if the United States had conceded to the terms of WTO Director General’s compromise on cutting its domestic support, this would still have left it with a massive $20 billion worth of allowable subsidies. Even with the European Union agreeing to phase out its export subsidies, this would still have left it with 55 billion euros in other forms of export support. In return for such minimal concessions, the US, EU, and other developed countries wanted radically reduced tariffs for their agricultural exports in developing country markets.

Indeed, even at a very late stage in the negotiations, the US appeared determined to eliminate any protection for developing country farmers. US Trade Representative Susan Schwab attacked the provisions for “special products” and “special safeguard mechanisms” already institutionalized in the December 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial declaration. Admittedly imperfect, these mechanisms would nevertheless allow governments to slow down the erosion of local agriculture by exempting some products from tariff cuts and raising tariffs on subsidized imports.

The WTO negotiations, if brought to a conclusion on such lopsided terms, would result in the slashing of poor countries’ farm tariffs while preventing them from maintaining food security. This is a recipe for massively expanded hunger and threatens to further impoverish hundreds of millions of the poor worldwide. The consequences for the South were perhaps best summed up by a Philippine government negotiator before the WTO Agriculture Committee:

“Our agricultural sectors that are strategic to food security and rural employment have already been destabilized as our small producers are being slaughtered by the gross unfairness of the international trading environment. Even as I speak, our small producers are being slaughtered in our own markets, [and] even the more resilient and efficient are in distress.”

The Specter of Deindustrialization
But the developed countries not only want radically reduced agricultural tariffs from developing countries. They also want maximum entry to southern markets for their industrial and other non-agricultural goods. In the NAMA (Non-Agricultural Market Access) negotiations, they have demanded that the industrializing economies of the South cut their non-agricultural tariffs by 60-70 per cent while offering to cut theirs by only 20-30 per cent. This not only violates the GATT-WTO principle of less-than-full-reciprocity. It is absurdly inequitable. The South African government reflected the frustrations of most of the global South about the Doha process when it stated that "developing countries will not agree to destroy their domestic industry on the basis of unreasonable and irrational demands placed on them by the developed countries."

The extinction of agriculture and deindustrialization is not the only price that developing countries are being asked to pay for a successful conclusion to the Doha Round. In addition, under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotiations in the WTO, they are being asked to allow foreign corporations more rights to buy and control public services in developing countries, at the expense of guaranteeing essential public services for the poor.

The Cost-Benefit Equation
It is no longer just the developing countries or global civil society that is warning that WTO-managed liberalization will be detrimental to the interests of the developing world. Even the most pro-liberalization agencies are now admitting that the benefits of the Doha Round to the poor have been greatly inflated. According to a fall 2005 study by the World Bank, in a “likely Doha scenario” of reforms, developing countries would gain a mere $16 billion in ten years. That’s a miniscule 0.16 percent of developing-country gross domestic product, or less than a penny a day per capita. The poorest billion people are projected to increase incomes by a mere $2 per year. That’s why it is so heartbreaking to see “the poor” being invoked to sell the project of massive corporate expansion of the Doha agenda.

Yet the 2005 World Bank study, though less unrealistic than that agency’s previous studies, is extremely inadequate, for it does not factor in many costs that the WTO regime imposes on developing countries. It fails to account, for instance, for the negative impact of corporate patent monopolies under the WTO’s “Trade-Related Intellectual Property” agreement, which force the poor to pay vastly increased prices for access to life-saving medicines.

Some estimate that these costs to developing countries are far greater than any alleged gains from liberalization. For example, a recent United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) study predicts that the losses in tariff income for developing countries under Doha could range between $32 billion and $63 billion annually. This loss in government revenues – the source of developing-country health care, education, water provision, and sanitation budgets – is two to four times the mere $16 billion in benefits projected by the World Bank.

Africa, the least developed region, will be one of the most prominent victims should the round be concluded successfully. Summing up the findings of other recent research from the Carnegie Endowment, the European Commission, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Aileen Kwa of Focus on the Global South points out that “the majority in Africa will be faced with losses in both agriculture and industrial goods liberalization. Even if agricultural export markets were open to Africa, the majority of African farmers – subsistence farmers – will not be in a position to compete. In addition, they will lose through having to open their domestic markets in the negotiations. The poorest countries in Africa will be worst hit – many are LDC countries in Sub-Saharan or East Africa.”

Breaking out of the WTO Paradigm
In sum, not only do the economic costs of a potential Doha conclusion clearly outweigh any projected benefits to the poor; the loss of policy space for developing countries – to create jobs through industrialization, guarantee public services, and protect farmers and food security – would be tantamount to kicking away the ladder of development, to use the image of Cambridge University economist Ha Joon Chang, and prevent developing nations from using the very tools used by developed nations to pull themselves out of poverty.

So clearly detrimental to development is free trade that a recent study of the United Nations Developing Program (UNDP) advised poor Asian countries to do what Japan and South Korea did successfully: protect key industries with tariffs before exposing them to foreign competition. To promote development and reduce poverty, governments should be encouraged to increase spending on health care, education, access to water, and other essential services, not pressured to sell them off to foreign corporations for private profit.

Trade can be a medium of development. Unfortunately, the WTO framework subordinates development to corporate-driven free trade and marginalizes developing countries even further. It is time to cease entertaining illusions about the alleged beneficial effects on development of the Doha Round. The collapse of the Doha Round will be good for the poor. [...] "

The Vodka Revolution

After all that backstabbing and bribery, after all that meddling by State in Ukraine's affairs, after all that mess --

Yushchenko Picks Arch-Rival as Ukrainian Prime Minister
By Lisa McAdams
Washington
03 August 2006
Voice of America News

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has joined forces with his arch-rival, pro-Russia Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych, in the first sign of a break in the more than four month political stalemate.

In a nationally-televised address overnight, President Yushchenko said the country could not withstand months more political conflict, but rather needed political compromise.

In an ironic reversal of fortune, he announced that he had decided to approve Viktor Yanukovych's nomination as prime minister.

That is the post his rival gave up in order to run against him in the widely flawed and much disputed presidential election of 2004, which led to the massive streets protests that swept Mr. Yushchenko to power.

Mr. Yushchenko said he takes comfort in the fact that Yanukovych has just signed his national unity pact, which commits him to agree to keep Ukraine on the pro-Western reform course favored by the president.

Full details of the pact have not been officially revealed. But it is also widely believed to support Ukraines bid for NATO membership, as well as call for equal status for both the Russian and Ukrainian languages.

Yanukovych earlier balked at the idea of signing the pact, saying it would mean a disavowal of his partys fundamental principles. But, in the end, it would appear his desire to return to the post of prime minister won out.

Had an agreement not been reached in the 11th hour, President Yushchenko had said he would dissolve parliament and call new elections, a costly move reportedly opposed by more than 50 percent of Ukraines population.

But society's apparent apathy at this point, and worries that Mr.Yushchenko's party would fare even worse in a new poll than it did just three months ago, appear to have led the president to team up with his former arch-rival.

Due to new Constitutional changes agreed to during the Orange Revolution, Mr. Yanukovych will assume the post with stronger powers than ever before, powers once held by President Yushchenko.

President Yushchenko also said he hopes to see the other parties of the new coalition sign the unity pact on Thursday, therein setting Ukraine on the road to a new government nearly five months after the elections.

Meanwhile, hundreds of special troops and police are ringing the streets of Kiev overnight, surrounding parliament and Independence Square, in a bid to control any possible protests following the presidents decision.

Do you think the US Department of State has learned their lesson about the perils of meddling in Ukraine's affairs? Do cows fly?

I don't know about you but I'm going to go get drunk. Pass the vodka.

Aw, Thomas Ricks can go sit on a tack

I was irritated last night to hear Larry Kudlow caterwauling on John Batchelor's show that Iraq is a debacle and that unless the Bush administration does something fast to fix the situation the sun will fall from the sky. Then again, if Kudlow caterwauls about something he's not picking it from thin air.

Kudlow was reacting in part to an interview he heard on C-SPAN with Thomas Ricks, whose book on Iraq has just been published with a splash. To get you in the ballpark if you haven't kept up with Ricks' Iraq reports for The Washington Post:

Iraq `Fiasco': New Books Target Dumb Ideas, Corporate Greed by Edward Nawotka.

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Publishers are releasing an unprecedented number of books that cast a critical eye on the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq.

The most scathing critique yet comes from Thomas E. Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post. In "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" (Penguin Press, 482 pages, $27.95), he writes that the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 "ultimately may come to be seen as one of the most profligate actions in the history of American foreign policy." Not only was it "based on perhaps the worst war plan in American history," but it "confused removing Iraq's regime with the far more difficult task of changing the entire country."

Though Ricks covers some of the same ground as earlier books, notably ``Cobra II'' by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor (his counterparts at the New York Times), this account -- based on hundreds of interviews and the review of 37,000 documents -- is insightful on the origins of the deadly insurgency and failure of the reconstruction.

Ricks argues that U.S. policies and tactics, especially Paul Bremer's de-Baathification order and disbanding of the Iraqi army -- which put half a million armed and skilled men out of work -- provided the insurgency with all the capable recruits it would ever need.

Few are spared the author's criticism. Congress is rebuked for being too passive: ``In previous wars, Congress had been populated by hawks and doves,'' Ricks writes. Now ``it seemed to consist mainly of lambs who hardly made a peep.'' In a chapter entitled ``The Corrections,'' journalists, including former Times correspondent Judith Miller, are held equally accountable.

Read the rest of the review for other recently released books critical of the US handling of the Iraq invasion and occupation.

In 2005, maybe three years before it will be fashionable to do so, Thomas P.M. Barnett (The Pentagon's New Map) made short work of the Iraq invasion naysayers in his Blueprint for Action:

The Big Bang strategy [in the Middle East] was never about decreasing international terrorism but about localizing it right where it belongs. [...] In the end, it was almost impossible for the Iraq occupation to go too badly, because the worse it became, the more it transformed the region.

If Congress bleated like lamb in response to the Bush war plan it was because they had ceded leadership of their country to the European Union during the decade running up to 9/11. If they don't like the Bush plan, which was thrown together within days, they can join Thomas Ricks in sitting on a tack.

Of course there were many mistakes -- and worse than mistakes, a cynical decision on the part of the US Department of State to allow Iraq to fall apart until President Bush woke up and read the riot act to Paul Bremer and his puppeteers at State. But the invasion of Iraq was not a goal in itself; it was a campaign in a larger war and part of a grand strategy to carry the war to the enemy's home ground.

From that point of view the Iraq invasion and occupation carry a cheap price tag in terms of dollars, and the nearly countless gains from the Big Bang strategy overwhelm the mistakes.

John Batchelor has warned many times that there is no good news during war; as with his dictum that the first three reports in war are wrong, it should be taken to heart. Yet when resolve weakens in the face of bad news it helps to step back far enough to view the changes in the region since the Iraq invasion. Thomas Barnett pointed to a small but telling part of the big picture in his 2005 book when he analyzed the problem of huge numbers of unemployed Muslim youth in the Middle East:

[. . .] there's no reason to assume that the only outcomes to such pressures are either increased authoritarianism or failed states leading to large-scale instability. [ . . .]

Another logical response to the Middle Eastern youth bulge is actually facilitated by the U.S. decision to invade and occupy Iraq: job creation. [. . .] foreign direct investment flows into the region since the invasion are close to doubling in volume, and a significant inflow of previously expatriated capital has begun. Stock markets grew significantly across the region in 2004, rising over 30 percent and adding almost half a trillion dollars in capitalization.

Why have not only regional but also global investors become so suddenly bullish on the Middle East? Investors are willing to take risks so long as they see major powers such as the United States being committed to regional security -- and despite the difficulties [. . .] America's firm commitment to following through on its takedown of Saddam Hussein's regime sent exactly that signal.

Maybe this war would be easier to understand for the naysayers (the sincere ones among them) if they thought in terms of Pick Up Sticks rather than the game of Chess. Pick Up Sticks is a terribly frustrating game for players with shaky resolve.

Note

Five posts plus two notes since Saturday. Pundita is on a mini-vacation the rest of this week. The next post will be on Thursday.

Best regards to all.

Twenty million rays of hope for democracy in Congo

"So much is riding on the poll that some have called it the most significant on the continent since the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.

High turnout as Congo goes to the polls
> Voting goes smoothly in largest UN-run election
> Hope for future as fears of violence prove unfounded

Xan Rice, east Africa correspondent
Monday July 31, 2006
The Guardian

Up to 20 million people turned out to vote yesterday in the Democratic Republic of Congo's first multiparty elections for four decades.

Watched by 17,600 UN peacekeepers, 80,000 local police officers and 1,000 EU troops, people queued before dawn at 50,000 poll stations. On huge ballot papers - six broadsheet-size pages each - they voted for a president, a parliament and a future free of the war, corruption and misrule that have plagued the country since independence.

"We've only had coups d'etat and dictators in this country: phantom governments," Emmanuel Kiye, a 48-year-old mechanic told Associated Press in the capital, Kinshasa. "Now we'll have a government of the people."

Joseph Kabila, the 35-year-old incumbent who took power when his father, Laurent, was assassinated in 2001, is the clear favourite to win the presidential vote. Among the 32 other candidates, his closest challengers are expected to be the former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and Dr Oscar Kashala, a Harvard-educated cancer researcher who returned from the US to contest the poll.

Congo's 25 million registered voters, who were frisked for weapons before dipping their right thumb in purple ink, were also asked to choose from 9,700 candidates vying for 500 seats in the national assembly.

The election, which was repeatedly postponed because of insecurity and logistical problems, was boycotted by some leading figures including the veteran politician Etienne Tshisekedi, who said the poll was rigged.

There was also a strong feeling among some opposition supporters that Mr Kabila is being unfairly backed by the west, particularly the EU.

But most Congolese have embraced the electoral campaign that saw candidates handing out T-shirts, caps and even money - one millionaire candidate apparently dropped banknotes from his helicopter.

Fears of widespread violence during the voting proved unfounded. While one polling station in the diamond-mining town of Mbuji-Mayi, a stronghold of Mr Tshisekedi, was torched by youths, there were no reports of deaths or widespread intimidation.

Observers said turnout appeared high, and could match the 80% achieved during last year's constitutional referendum.

Speaking from Lubumbashi in the south-east of the country yesterday, British MEP Richard Howitt, one of 1,200 foreign election observers in the Congo, said: "People are voting very enthusiastically. This does seem to be a well-contested election."

Results of the presidential race are not expected for three weeks. If no candidate achieves 50% of the vote, the top two will face a run-off, possibly in November.

So much is riding on the poll that some have called it the most significant on the continent since the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.After enduring 32 years of plunder by Mobutu Sese Seko, who ensured that one of the world's most mineral-rich countries remained impoverished, Congo was plunged into a war that drew in five countries and helped cause 4 million deaths.

After a peace deal in 2002, the UN's largest peacekeeping force was deployed to try to disarm the myriad rebel groups roaming the country. Donors pumped in more than £220m - Britain was the largest contributor, with £36m - to prepare for what is the most expensive election ever supervised by the UN.

If the count proceeds smoothly and the main parties accept the results - which is by no means guaranteed - it could usher in a new era of peace, stability and development. If not, some of the rebel leaders-cum-politicians could return to the bush and plunge the Great Lakes region into chaos once again.

Pssst! Wanna buy a slightly used doctrine?

Michael Wright: I got a message on my voice mail "She's talking about the ancestors again and also about a kind of 12 inch high animal that lives in burrows in the Kalahari. Is she okay?" What's up?

Pundita: Nothing's up. I'm fine, fine.

MW: Not by that tone of voice.

P: What am I supposed to talk about? The Bush Democracy Doctrine dead in the water?

MW: Do you recall Robert Zoellick resigned from the state department in June? I am surprised you're not still walking on air.

P: Who's Rice picking to replace him? Count Dracula? Actually, that would be an improvement over yet another of her Cold War buddies.

MW: I think you're being premature to assume the doctrine is dead.

P: Okay, it's not dead; it's being sold off piecemeal by State.

MW: Who do you like for the next President of the United States?

P: Laura Bush.

MW: I'm asking a serious question.

P: I am writing her in as a proxy candidate for her husband.

MW: You don't want Dubya to leave office during this phase of the war?

P: I live in fear of the next US president.

MW: You think Iran is counting the hours until Bush and Cheney leave office?

P: And every other terror sponsoring state, including China.

MW: You don't like Cheney for president.

P: I respect Cheney but not as much as I fear him. He's part of the Cold War clan. Bush managed to break with the Republican branch of that clan over foreign policy and war doctrine. Yet I think Cheney was among the few in the party who didn't stab Bush in the back because of it.

I am afraid the new era is still very fragile, if it's gotten here yet. It's still more of a point on the horizon. It could vanish with the next White House administration.

MW: I think many see the choice as multilateralism or regionalism. You hear that argument in the talk about the collapse of the Doha round. "Now the world will revert to regionalism and bilateral deals and eventually drift back to the beggar thy neighbor trade environment of the 1930s."

P: They don't see the choice as between sound government and the collapse of civilization, do they?

MW: No, they don't see it that way, Pundita.

P: The ancestors see it that way. The meerkat clans of the Kalahari see it that way.

MW: [laughing] Okay, I'll stop trying to cheer you up.

Pundita does her Girl Scout deed for the year

Now we have arrived at our annual feature called, "Pundita coddles lazy readers," whereupon we answer questions that have piled up from people who want to swallow a pill every evening and know all the important news of the day.

1) In what might be a nod to blogosphere denizens who have only eyes and not ears, John Batchelor now writes what seems to be a weekly column for The New York Sun.

2) The New York Sun no longer demands a subscription before its pages are available to the Internet reader. Because this decision might be revoked at any time, make use of the freebie while you can in order to get great daily war reporting and access to Batchelor's weekly column. In honor of the Sun's graciousness, Pundita is graciously posting a link to their newspaper on her blog's sidebar.

3) For the reader who pleaded that I bring Ouija out of mothballs, I venture that John Batchelor's July 28 New York Sun piece titled Green Light is the clearest insight about how the enemy is thinking at this time. John's advantage over Ouija is that he doesn't cost a fortune in repairs, lapse into archaic Romanian, or channel a Hungarian resistance fighter whose English consists of ve mik goulash from dead KGB.

4) No, I should think that if you had a headache that night or had to grade papers that is not an excuse to miss Batchelor's show. The only valid excuse is if the night ICU nurse wrestles your portable radio and earphones away from you.

But in that case you might consider emulating the tactic of a friend of mine, who has hired a Batchelor Show Minder. (Not to be confused with a Puffy Head Minder.) The minder dutifully listens to every segment and summarizes for his clients.

In this way the clients manage to sound halfway intelligent every morning around the water cooler.

5) The reason you can't read the John Loftus report on the John Batchelor Show website is because Loftus delivers the report on John's radio show.

6) The reason you missed the Loftus report that night is because he reported during the first half hour of the show. The time of 10:35 PM ET is approximate for the report's airing. Sometimes the report is earlier and sometimes after 11:00 PM or even later.

The varying time slot of the reports seems to depend on the war -- whether it's in a very hot phase, as it is now -- and Loftus' schedule. During hot phases, Loftus almost always reports during the first hour of the show or right after the 11:00 PM ABC news break.

7) A rule of thumb is that during a hot phase listen to the show's opening segment (right after the ABC news report at approximately 10:05 PM ET) to hear whether Batchelor mentions when Loftus and Aaron Klein will present their reports.

8) No, it is not false advertising for the website to put Loftus' name or the name of Batchelor's other guests over a link to a newspaper article not written by the guests. The guest name over the link simply signifies that Loftus will be discussing a topic that evening which relates to the article.

9) You will stop having these types of complaints if you remember that John Batchelor's radio show, with millions of daily listeners, is part of the mediasphere and not the blogosphere.

Batchelor and his researchers cull excellent news articles and post them to the website but the site is not the radio show. The site does carry some audio transcripts of 'special' conversations; e.g., interviews with terrorists, but the Current Intelligence section is simply a guide to topics that will be covered during a show.

10) For those who want Batchelor's website to post transcripts of every guest interview -- well, you can write Batchelor with the request (his email address is posted on the site). But if you don't have time to listen to the show, when will you find time to read the transcripts?

John's segments fall into two categories: timely and timeless. The segments that deal with history and 'social' themes will be just as informative years from now. The other category reflects fast-changing daily events, which often build on each other. If you don't keep up, you'll fall behind the news curve very quickly during war time.

Note

Dymphna had some interesting comments in response to yesterday's "Nobody Moves..." post, which I added at the end of the post as a 'Midnight Update.'