The Nigerian rebel group, Boko Haram (“Western Education is evil”), has been waging a long-standing guerrilla movement in northern Nigeria for several years. In its most recent attack,185 people were killed. The Nigerian government seems incapable of stopping the violence and there does not seem to be any basis for accommodation with the group. The continuing violence seems likely to split the country apart.
Government forces loyal to President Assad of Syria have waged a week-long offensive in mainly Sunni Muslim suburb of Damascus, Jdeidet al-Fadel. Estimates are that perhaps as many as 500 civilians have been killed in this offensive. The US has pledged to double its aid to the Syrian rebel opposition to almost $250 million, but will not include any weapons in that aid package.
Hampshire College Professor, Michael Klare, has a provocative essay on the coming global instabilities due to resource shortages. His prognosis is particularly grim, but difficult to refute directly.
The US has announced a $10 billion arms deal with three Middle Eastern countries: Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The details of the agreements are not clear, but it certainly appears as if Israel received the bulk of the weaponry, and most of it seems to be designed to enhance Israel’s ability to both attack Iran and to defend itself against an attack from Iran. The message to Iran is unmistakable, since all three countries regard Iran as a serious threat.
An interesting essay on an Englishman’s impressions of what life in France is like as the economic crisis continues to unfold. I suspect that France still has a long way to go before things start getting any better.
About half of all the prisoners in Guantanamo are now on a hunger strike. The challenge to American detention has received sparse attention in the American news media, but the non-American media has been watching the strike very carefully. This article is from The Russian Times.
There is an interesting debate about the legal rights of one of the accused Boston bombers. He has not been given his Miranda rights because Justice officials believe that there is an urgent need to gather intelligence and that an attorney present to defend the accused’s tights would compromise that need. Even more interesting is the demand of some Republicans that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev be treated as an enemy combatant. To label a domestic criminal in that manner without the slightest bit of evidence that the accused was an agent of a state means that the definition of “war” can be almost infinitely expandable to cover any act that “threatens” another state. We should be very careful before we enter that realm: the Constitution doesn’t really operate all that well in a time of war.
Change comes to the world in a variety of ways, but cultural change is without doubt the most important of all the sources of change. A new book, How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. chronicles how rock and roll chaanged and undermined the USSR. This review is from The Guardian, and I can’t wait to read the book this summer.
Barry Ritholz has reproduced some great economic graphs on the differences between rich and poor countries in their recoveries from the financial crisis on 2008-09. The conclusion? Poor countries are doing much better recovering from the crisis largely because they have not followed austerity policies. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned.
Many people are talking about Chechnya in light of the news about the bombings in Boston, but apparently few know much about thus province in Russia. The Atlantic has a good background piece on Chechnya that may prove to be informative. Unfortunately, I do not think that knowing that the alleged bombers were from Chechnya adds very much to our understanding of the ways we should interpret the bombings. Criminals can be from anyplace in the world.
As many as one million Argentines protested the crumbling economy and the policies of the government. The political situation in Argentina has been deteriorating for a long time, but it appears as if the public has reached close to a breaking point. Argentina’s situation is not directly related to the economic conditions in Europe, but does reflect a growing global dissatisfaction with overall slow growth and income inequality. The growth of the far right in Greece is an example of how economic deterioration leads to political dissent.
Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was arrested on charges of terrorism on his return to the country. Musharraf entered Pakistan after a period of exile after he was ousted from the Presidency several years ago. Ostensibly, he returned to run for office again, but he was not considered a viable candidate. We’ll have to see how the trial proceeds.
The US is building a new class of aircraft carriers which are the most expensive military instruments ever built. The U.S.S. Gerald Fordwill feature some extraordinary capabilities, but each of us will have to judge whether it is worth $11.5 billion. The intent is to build three of these ships at a total cost of more than $40 billion. Of course, it is highly likely that these cost figures will increase dramatically. And it is unclear whether any other country will try to match this firepower at any point in the near future.
The Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment has issued a scathing report on the use of torture by the United States in its “war” on terror. The 11-member committee was comprised of highly qualified and experienced individuals, and the report has great credibility. Among some of its findings include these conclusion
“Torture occurred in many instances and across a wide range of theaters”
There is “no firm or persuasive evidence” that the use of such techniques yielded “significant information of value”
The use of torture has “no justification” and “damaged the standing of our nation, reduced our capacity to convey moral censure when necessary and potentially increased the danger to U.S. military personnel taken captive”
“As long as the debate continues, so too does the possibility that the United States could again engage in torture”
The Obama administration’s keeping the details of rendition and torture from the public “cannot continue to be justified on the basis of national security”, and it should stop blocking lawsuits by former detainees on the basis of claiming “state secrets”
We can only hope that the President and the Congress will heed these findings.
The FBI has released photographs of two individuals who it believes are suspects in the bombing in Boston. Welcome to the new world: thousands of photographs and videos of a crime scene in real time, and perhaps the world’s first crowd-sourced manhunt. We should perhaps think seriously about the nature of that world before we wholeheartedly embrace it.
In 2010 Harvard University economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff published a paper, based largely on their book, This Time It’s Different. The paper suggested that there was a correlation (not a causal relationship, as Rogoff and Reinhart were careful to point out) between a public debt of more than 90% of a nation’s GDP and slow economic growth. The hypothesis was used by many, especially Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s Vice-Presidential candidate in the 2012 election) to justify strong measures to reduce public debt. Indeed, the hypothesis was cited by some economists in the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to justify harsh austerity measures in several European states with high public debt. In now turns out that there were many errors in the study, and the correlation is now open to question. So the question is now whether the austerity measures imposed were in fact justified. Obviously more research is necessary, but it is disheartening to think that the unemployment rates in Greece and Spain (upwards of 35%) are due to flawed analysis.
A new form of bank protest has emerged in Spain and has rapidly spread across Europe. Flash mobs are assembling in all sorts of bank facilities and doing a flamenco (a dance form with strong anti-government roots in Spain). You can find information about this protest movement at flo6x8, but here is a You Tube example of the protest. Check out the security officer as he tries to figure out what to do. I especially like the guy in the cow outfit.
China has published its own “white paper” in response to the US white paper that outlined a US military “pivot” from Europe to East Asia. Not surprisingly, China believes that the US shift of military resources to the Pacific is a destabilizing move, and that it plans to counter the US move with a build-up of its own military. Tensions are undeniably on the rise in that region, with nationalism resurfacing in Japan and South Korea, the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, and the new assertiveness on the part of the Chinese military. We should hope that these changes can be slowly assimilated into a new equilibrium in the region.
Five separate UN agencies issued a plea for an end to the carnage in Syria. The joint plea was unprecedented and intended to put pressure on the political decision-making of the UN. The five agencies are all charged with providing humanitarian assistance to war-torn regions, and they warned that they could no longer guarantee that they could discharge their responsibilities in Syria. It’s not clear what action the agencies proposed, and it is unlikely that the Security Council will act in any different way because of the plea.
Twice a year, the IMF issues a report on its expectations for economic growth. This time, the IMF is predicting markedly slower growth for the world, and for the European Union in particular. The news is grim because the economic forecasts have been steadily lowered each time over the last three years. There is no reason to expect that this time the IMF will be any more accurate, and economic growth will probably be lower than that predicted by the IMF.
The conspiracy theories about the bombings in Boston are racing around the internet. Ignore them. I am not aware of anyone who has any substantive information about what happened that is not generally available. Which means that no one knows anything. Now is the time for hard, clinical, sober analysis: dispassion is essential. Wait for the evidence; indeed, wait for the evidence to be corroborated by several reliable news sources. And keep your mind completely open to all possibilities as you examine the evidence. One of the lessons of 11 September 2001 is that rumors were allowed to fly free, and hysteria and ignorant thinking was allowed to permeate our discussions, with catastrophic consequences.
Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel is a detainee at Guantanamo. In his words: “I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.” He is currently on a hunger strike with other detainees and has written an op-ed which was published in today’s New York Times. The correct way to think about this op-ed is to imagine that you are the prisoner: can you imagine what your feelings would be if you were in the same circumstance? Is this a standard of justice that you would endorse if you were the prisoner?
The German Council of Economic Experts, an advisory committee to Chancellor Merkel, is proposing a “wealth tax” on the rich as a way to raise money to support bank bailouts. Correctly, the Council believes that the rich simply avoid paying income taxes, and a tax on assets is the only way to get enough money to avoid default. Needless to say, the proposal is highly controversial, but it does go to the heart of the problem. We’ll see how far the proposal goes.
Nicolas Maduro and Henrique Capriles are running for the presidency of Venezuela, six weeks after the death of Hugo Chavez. Maduro wishes to carry on the Chavista legacy, whereas Capriles wants to change direction radically. The race is close and the results will be known tomorrow. But the election will make a huge difference, not only for Venezuela but also for much of Latin America.
For the first time 1998, global military spending has declined. The decline is significant for two reasons. First, it is largely due to the effects of the economic downturn in Europe and the US and both try to balance their budgets. Second, military spending increased in many other areas of the world, signaling the shift in the world balance of power. It seems as if the military balance will slwoly become more equal globally if the trend continues.
The Bank of Japan, like the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, has been following a policy of quantitative easing in an attempt to stimulate the Japanese economy. One of the consequences of these policies is that it can lead to currency devaluation because buyers of the currency fear that the loose money policies will lead to an oversupply of the currency. Currency devaluations can lead, however, to an unfair advantage in trade since the country’s exports will be artificially cheaper. Such policies are considered violations of free trade policies, and the US government has, for the first time, made that charge against Japan. This rift only adds to more difficulties for the Japanese.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a report that suggests that the Arctic will be ice-free by the middle of this century, and perhaps even sooner. Not only will this change lead to unanticipated changes in the climate, it will probably open up the Arctic to balance of power politics as nations will likely compete for the resources in the region. This consequence is the result of sowing the wind.
Paul Pillar used to work for the State Department, but has written extensively on the Iraq war and on the Iranian negotiations, often in terms quite critical of the US. He was also a friend of mine at Dartmouth. His recent essay on the Iranian negotiations asks some very important questions about what the US is trying to accomplish in the most recent negotiations with Iran.
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