Belgium and Poland have apparently agreed to send troops to the Central African Republic, joining French efforts to bring down the level of violence that is killing hundreds of innocents. The situation in the CAR has deteriorated rapidly since early December, and the UN has raised concerns over the variety of problems that are crippling the country. Several nations have sent in supplies to alleviate the starvation that has accompanied the violence, but the humanitarian intervention is necessary to provide the stability necessary to distribute those supplies.
It is difficult to interpret events in closed societies such as the former Soviet Union, Maoist China, and North Korea. Analysts often have to resort to combing through little tidbits of information to figure out who is actually calling the shots in opaque governments. The BBC has done a great job of interpreting two photographs of the leaders of North Korea in order to determine how extensive the recent personnel changes have been. This type of analysis requires an incredibly detailed understanding of the structure of government and all the cultural cues that a photograph conveys.
Over a year ago, the US Congress printed a 6,000 page report on the use of torture in the “war on terror.” It seems like many people have read the report, but the Obama Administration has thus far refused to release the document. The refusal is hard to justify: torture techniques are hardly national security secrets. It is more likely that the report is highly embarrassing to the US. Embarrassment is not a justification for secrecy, particularly to a country that should be figuring out how to conduct its national security business without the resort to inhumane techniques.
World Politics News 
Leave a comment