Today is the anniversary of one of the saddest moments in American history–the massacre at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. It was the last battle between US troops and the Native American Lakota nation, and it was a bloody incident characterized by confusion and race hatred. The battle was representative of most of the battles between indigenous peoples and more economically developed societies: the technological advantages of the latter predetermined the outcome. The number who died in the massacre is not known (between 150 and 300), but included many innocents.
Chief Spotted Elk
The violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) has reached horrific levels. According to UNICEF, more than 1,000 people have died in the last month, and there are reports of children being decapitated and mutilated. The civil war between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias shows no sign of abating, and the presence of French peacekeepers has apparently had little effect. Indeed, the suspicion is that the French are supporting the Christian militias. As is always the case, do not believe that the battle is a religious one: the fighting is over who controls power, not a battle over doctrine.
I think that these posts need to be leavened a bit by a little diversion. Don’t believe your own eyes. Make sure you watch until the end to see how you have been deceived.
Gisèle Mounzer of esri, a brilliant company that specializes in mapping, has published a map of the travels of Odysseus in his ten-year journey from Troy to Ithaca. It uses a modern-day map of the Mediterranean and points out the various stops on his journey. It is impossible to verify the accuracy of the map, but the map itself is an extraordinary window into a great work of art.
There was a bomb attack at the central train station in Volgograd (known as Stalingrad during the Soviet era), Russia. Authorities believe that the attack was carried out by a female suicide bomber associated with a Islamic movement in the Caucasus. There has been a spike in violence in the region as rebels appear to be trying to disrupt daily life in Russia as the Winter Olympic games in Sochi get close to opening. Female suicide bombers are known as “black widows” by Russian authorities as they try to avenge the deaths of their husbands or loved ones at the hands of the Russian police or military.
Violence is breaking out in Bangladesh as elections near. The ruling Awami Party, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been rocked by the refusal of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to participate in the elections. The BNP, led by Khaleda Zia, believe that the elections will be rigged and are refusing to participate in protest. Hasina and Zia are longtime rivals, and their personal animosity toward each other is a major part of the deadlock. THe violence, however, will serve to undermine the legitimacy of the Bangladeshi state.
These were the stories listed on the “More News” sections of the front page of today’s online New York Times A depressing way to start my morning read:
The turmoil in Turkey is leading to serious economic problems. Not only are investors worried about the stability of the Turkish government, they are also being attracted to US dollar assets as the US Federal Reserve begins to ease off its program of quantitative easing (QE). The Federal Reserve’s easing is colloquially referred to as the “taper”. QE kept the yields on US Treasury bonds low and the taper means that interest rates on US Treasury bonds will now begin to rise slowly. As the yields rise, they become more attractive to investors. So the fearful investors in Turkish assets now have a more profitable alternative. If money begins to flow out of Turkey into the US, the Turkish economy will become weaker as it loses capital. The larger issue is that the “taper” will also attract investors in other countries that may be experiencing political turmoil, such as Ukraine and Thailand. A widespread capital flight from these emerging economies will trigger off a serious economic problem for these weaker economies.
The global balance of power began to shift slowly after the US invasion of Iraq. The removal of a Sunni government in Iraq and its replacement by a Shia-oriented government in 2004 was the beginning of a shift that accelerated in 2013 as the US and other powers sought an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. Other governments have had to re-balance their interests to adjust to these changes, and the shifts are beginning to become quite dramatic. Nowhere are these changes more obvious than in Asia, and the US and Europe have been slow to anticipate the differences.
Another US District Court has issued a ruling on the US National Security Agency’s surveillance techniques that contradicts an earlier District Court’s decision. The first ruling, on 17 December held that the collection of metadata on telephone calls was unconstitutional; the decision today held that the surveillance was legal. The ruling today held that the NSA had not used the data for any purpose other than to track terrorists. How the Court knew that this conclusion was true is beyond me–I doubt that the Judge looked at all the files. How the judge could predict the future uses of those files is also beyond me. There are reasons why the Constitution has a 4th Amendment.
The Turkish Military has issued a statement that it does not wish to become involved in the political controversy surrounding corruption in the administration of Prime Minister Erdogan. The statement was probably necessary because of the fear of a military coup like the ones that occurred in 1960, 1971, and 1980. Turkish memories of military rule are bitter and harsh, and the fact that the military felt obliged to issue the statement is, in a very real sense, disquieting–it reflects an assessment that the current government is near breaking down.
Jackson Diehl is the Deputy Editorial Page Editor of the Washington Post and he has written an editorial which links the protests that have occurred throughout the world over the last three years. It is a very good essay, but he makes the mistake of referring to protests of the “elites.” I think he is actually referring to the middle classes of these countries, and using the word elite as a surrogate for those people who govern. The Washington Post is going to have to update its style book. In 2013, the word elite should be reserved for people who actually control large financial resources.
South Sudanese rebels have seized the oil producing sections of the country which puts the government in a very difficult position. Without the oil revenues, the government will have a difficult time maintaining its control over the country. China, which has significant interests in South Sudanese oil, has joined a large number of countries trying to defuse the two-week crisis. Although the violence in the country can be mapped out along ethnic lines (Nuer vs. Dinka), the real issue is control over the country and the oil wealth.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a sacred site dedicated to the memorial of all the war dead of Japanese soldiers (and, indeed, of all soldiers who have died defending their countries). But the shrine also contains the remains of several Japanese soldiers who were convicted of Class A war criminals from World War II. The atrocities committed by those soldiers include many committed against Chinese and Korean civilians. Thus, the visit has raised outrage in those countries, who worry that the visit signals a return to Japanese militarism. The controversy over the shrine is long-standing so Abe knew that his visit would create a foreign outcry; his calculation is that the damage to foreign relations is outweighed by the domestic benefits of the visit. That calculation does raise some concern over the return of Japanese nationalism.
The political crisis in Turkey has deepened as three cabinet ministers resigned from the government. The crisis came about as Prime Minister Erdogan’s cohort has been charged with corruption. The Turkish media has splashed photographs of shoeboxes filled with cash as corroboration for the charges. The Erdogan government was roiled last summer as many people protested what they viewed as a growing authoritarianism in the government. The current crisis leaves the government very fragile and likely to fall, another weakness in the overall troubled state of political stability in the Middle East.
After a suicide bombing of a police headquarters, Egypt has determined that the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered a “terrorist” organization. The move signals a hard line against the group similar to the extreme measures used against the organization during the Mubarak years. The Muslim Brotherhood has denied any role in the bombing and another group, closely linked to al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility. The political situation in Egypt seems to be drifting further away from any possibility of reconciliation and the likely imposition of authoritarian rule, an outcome that would be deplored by both the religious and the secular movements in Egypt.
This is the 99th anniversary of the famous “Christmas Truce” that occurred between Allied and German forces in World War I. It was a remarkable event, as the soldiers who had been trying to kill each other for months, observed an informal truce and exchanged presents and played soccer on the killing fields. The soldiers acted on their own, and their superiors were furious when they found out what had happened. But it was an extraordinary of human solidarity in the face of desperate conditions.
There is a widespread consensus among climatologists that climate change is occurring and that it is being driven by the emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2. Moving away from the carbon-based fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum) that drive these emissions will be very difficult, although progress is being made on a variety of alternatives. However, one obstacle to this transition which is widely suspected–the opposition of the private and public companies that make a lot of money selling these carbon-based fuels–is difficult to measure. Sean McElwee and Lew Daly have written an essay that gives some ballpark estimates to how much money would be lost to these companies if the world were to stop using these fuels. The number is actually staggering, and the size of the loss explains the vigorous efforts these companies have made trying to undermine the climate change debate. Here is their estimate of the dollar losses to those companies that own reserves of carbon-based fuels:
If the international community is serious about limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, carbon assets may face a $20 trillion write-down (the U.S. GDP was $15.7 trillion in 2012).
Such economic losses would have tremendous economic repercussions. But a radically changed climate would also have extreme economic consequences.
The three members of Pussy Riot have been released from prison in an amnesty issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin. They had spent two years in prison for their protests against Putin, and their treatment in prison was a series of humiliation and abuse. They remain defiant, however, and have vowed to work toward Putin’s ouster.
I do not Twitter. I do not know how to Twitter. I do not wish to know how to Twitter. Twitter is the Seventh Seal, and human civilization is doomed.
President Obama has announced a limited intervention in South Sudan. The number of military personnel being sent is very small, so the intent is simply to protect American citizens in the country. The move follows an aborted attempt to rescue three Americans which was foiled by rebel fire. The situation in South Sudan is fragile and dangerous, and it is not clear how an outside intervention can resolve the power struggle between the Nuer and the Dinka. But the presence of American troops will have a small stabilizing effect which might be built upon with a sustained diplomatic effort.
It is hard to comprehend climate change–the earth seems to be so vast and we, as individual humans, seem to be so insignificant. One possible metric of the rate of change cause by global warming is to understand that human activity contributes 250 trillion Watts (Joules per second). That translates into the amount of energy released by four Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs every second, or 400,000 such bombs every day. That’s an awful lot of energy to release into the atmosphere.
Happy Solstice!!!! We can all celebrate because the days will start getting longer. Unfortunately, even though today marks the least amount of daylight for the Northern Hemisphere, it doesn’t mark the coldest time of the year–that’s still weeks away because temperatures lag behind daylight hours. But we’re on the upward slope now!!
The apparent thaw in US-Iranian relations seems to have ended abruptly (or at least slowed considerably). The US is blocking Iran’s participation in the negotiations on Syria scheduled for next month. Both Saudi Arabia and the Syrian opposition to President Assad are relieved by the decision, but it certainly complicates the peace process. Iran has a stake in the outcome of the conflict in Syria, and states should pursue the possibility that Iran could be persuaded to support an outcome that did not involve Assad. Freezing Iran out of the negotiations does not give it a say in framing such an outcome.
The Thai opposition party, the Democrat Party, has announced that it will boycott the snap elections called for by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The elections were called to defuse a tense political situation as the protests have called for an immediate resignation of the Shinawatra government and its replacement by a “People’s Council.” The opposition movement has as its objectives the continued exile of former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, the current Prime Minister’s brother. If the boycott does occur, it is unlikely that the election will resolve any of these tensions since the opposition believes that the elections will not be run fairly.
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