Clinging to Power – The Art of Blackmail

Hamid Karzai is our guy, the head of the government we created in Afghanistan, and the only horse we have any bets on. Our success in the region hangs on this mega-corrupt leader of a dangerous narco-state, the hotbed of radical Islam dedicated to the total destruction of Israel and of course, the United States. After all, it was the launching platform for the devastating 9/11/2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. The re-election effort that continued Emperor Karzai’s reign was so plagued with mud that almost everyone familiar with the process believes the results to be completely bogus – false balloting, fictitious voters and corrupt election officials; Karzai missed nothing in railroading the results. His pockets, and those of his cronies and relatives, are heavy with siphoned and purloined cash – revenue sharing with those who are hated by the local people, bribes of the worst kind. NATO allies have pushed for a clean-up; Karzai has rejected their entreaties.

Karzai sees the writing on the wall. With NATO forces clearly destined to leave in the not-too-distant future, Karzai has cards to play to fight his way to sustaining his revenue flow before, sooner or later, he and his family will be forced to flee to sanctuary somewhere else… somewhere else with a few very fat Swiss bank accounts. The players: the United States and its NATO allies, China, Iran, Pakistan and the Taliban.

Citing Karzai’s verbal threats against the West (“If you and the international community pressure me more, I swear that I am going to join the Taliban”), the April 5^th New York Times summed up the situation: “There are no good options on the horizon, many analysts say, for reining in Mr. Karzai or for penalizing him, without potentially damaging Western interests. The reluctant conclusion of diplomats and Afghan analysts is that for now, they are stuck with him… Many fear the relationship is only likely to become worse, as Mr. Karzai draws closer to allies like Iran and China, whose interests are often at odds with those of the West, and sounds sympathetic enough to the Taliban that he could spur their efforts, helping their recruitment and further destabilizing the country… ‘The political situation is continuing to deteriorate; Karzai is flailing around,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul with long experience in the region. “At the moment we are propping up an unstable political structure, and I haven’t seen any remotely plausible plan for building consensus.’”

For NATO, threats and diplomatic pressures have had no results whatsoever. The attempt to create grassroots democracy as a counter to Taliban and Karzai dictatorial efforts has fallen flat on its face, as local tribal cabals (often under threat of Taliban violence) simply ignore this Western notion of government. The only viable path remaining is the withdrawal of NATO forces, which, of necessity, will surrender the embattled country to a mixture of warlord (and that now has to include Karzai himself) and Taliban control. They win; we lose, but unless we are prepared to multiply both the number of NATO troops in the region by double or triple… and commit to a very, very long presence in Afghanistan, this is not a country that we can realistically expect to control or stabilize.

So what are we actually doing? Continuing to pressure Karzai and threatening to leave? Not exactly. The April 10^th New York Times tells us that the new administration policy is to try a “softer approach” with Karzai: “After more than a year of watching America’s ability to influence President Hamid Karzai ebb, Obama administration officials now admit privately that the tough-love approach Mr. Obama adopted when he came to power may have been a big mi stake… ‘There is a realization that public remonstrances and temper tantrums don’t work,’ said Bruce O. Riedel, an Afghanistan expert at the Brookings Institution who has worked with the administration on Afghan policy. ‘It brings out the worst in Karzai, while undermining support for the war effort in Congress, in the media, and in the public. If you disparage Karzai, you’re in effect saying the war cannot be won.’” Yeah, I guess we’re pretty good at catering to corrupt regimes that don’t reflect genuine popular support (just the virtual vote of a stuffed ballot box)… and painting ourselves into a “no-win” corner.

Meanwhile, the United States remains the high-profile target in the entire region. A blast outside the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan (a very dangerous town) killed six and wounded 20 on April 5^th. The Pakistanis also arrested a high-ranking Afghani Taliban at the behest of the U.S. – a token gesture – and immediately got assailed as hindering the Afghan peace process. And then there is this “other” news: as one Taliban operative is captured, the ISI (the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate), which is notoriously sympathetic to Muslim fundamentalists, releases two other senior Afghan Taliban leaders. “The ISI wants ‘to be able to resort to the hard -power option of supporting groups that can take Kabul,’ the Afghan capital, if the United States suddenly leaves, said a U.S. military adviser briefed on the matter. The ISI’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban was forged under similar circumstances in the 1990s, when the spy service backed the fledgling Islamist movement as a solution to the chaos that followed the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Washington Post, April 10^th. Pakistanis hate being in the middle of what they see as an American “war on terror” (despite Mr. Obama’s avoidance of this terminology), even as Taliban operatives threaten the Pakistani government as well.

So it comes down to the concept of throwing good money after bad at a time when domestic needs for money would seem to trump fighting a war backing a super-corrupt and hated government that has no loyalty to us anyway. We are not even putting ourselves into an enhanced bargaining position with the Taliban with our efforts, as some would have hoped. And yes, we know that if we withdraw, whatever chaotic governance remains in Afghanistan will probably be hostile to the United States, but if they believe that they can launch attacks against Americans and American assets without recrimination, they should remember both our capacity for mass retaliation (although nuclear weapons are now officially off the table for nations that comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and our capacity to remove threats with surgical precision; those drone strikes have truly sapped al Qaeda forces in the Tribal District of Pakistan. We just cannot let these dark forces destroy or degrade us by a constant drain on our economy, the lives of our soldiers… and mostly, a drain on our spirit.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I know that the time to withdraw is now.

Looking Down the Mine Shaft

Nobody is ever going to make working in a mine safe. Gasses release, some toxic and even fatal, cave-ins occur, water floods in, fires rage, equipment crushes and maims, coal dust destroys lungs, explosions malfunction – all of this often a mile or more away from the point of entry. Picture the faces of anxious and grieving relatives that you’ve seen around even mine disaster story ever reported. Early April wasn’t a good time for miners. Two stories made the headlines, proving the point beyond all doubt.

China: “From the start, China’s latest coal mine disaster seemed likely to end as so many others had in a country where an average of seven miners die every day: a failed rescue effort, grieving relatives, few if any survivors… But then, more than a week after the half-built Wangjialing mine in northern China was flooded with millions of gallons of water, rescuers heard taps on a metal pipe. They furiously pumped water out of the shaft and sent glucose injections down through a pipe. By late [April 6^th], rescuers had dragged 115 men up to safety, though 38 others remained missing… Survivors said they had strapped themselves to shaft walls with their belts so they would not drown, hung there for days, then jumped into a mine cart that floated by. Others said they ate bark from the pine pillars used to construct the mine.” April 6^th New York Times.

West Virginia: “Dangerous gases forced rescue crews to abandon the search [April 8^th]for four coal miners missing since an explosion killed 25 colleagues in the worst U.S. mining disaster in more than two decades... Rescue crews had been working their way through the Upper Big Branch mine by rail car and on foot early Thursday, but officials said they had to turn back because of an explosive mix of gases in the area they needed to search… ‘We think they are in danger and that's the whole intent of evacuating them from the mine,’ said Kevin Stricklin of the Mine Health and Safety Administration… The rescuers made it to within about 1,000 feet of an airtight chamber with four days worth of food, water and oxygen where they hoped the miners might have sought refuge. They did not make it far enough to see the bodies of the dead or determine if anyone had made it to the chamber.” April 8^th AolNews.com. The next day, smoke and fire stopped rescuers again. Hope faded for any survivors.

Demon coal is usually the culprit – and as I have blogged before, “clean coal” remains a myth – but our constant need for vital metals and minerals reminds us that this dangerous occupation is likely to remain with us for continuing generations, even as we advance technology and employ more robotic machinery and fewer miners. The harsh reality is that to mining companies, their miners are simply expendable. To the owners, it’s simply a balance of how much they are willing to pay for safety against the fluctuating price of coal on the open marketplace. In much of the world, it is cheaper to bribe a mine inspector (or higher-ups not to pass or enforce safety legislation) than to fix the problem. In the United States, “King Coal” uses a legally sanctioned bribe, particularly in states where mining is one of the leading employers and sources of tax revenues; we call this “campaign contributions.” The results are the same.

The April 8^th Washington Post supplies some of the numbers: “Mining companies and related trade groups have sharply increased their lobbying efforts in recent years, tripling their spending from $10.2 million in 2004 to nearly $31 million in 2008, according to a review of lobbying disclosures by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a watchdog group… Mining firms and their employees have also donated more than $13 million to federal lawmakers since 2005; 74 percent of that money went to GOP candidates and about half came from industry political action committees… The United Mine Workers of America, by contrast, donated less than $1 million to federal candidates during the same time period, according to CRP data. All but 1 percent of that went to Democrats.”

The West Virginia mine was a part of huge Massey Energy, a company with a checkered past of numerous safety violations and strong anti-union efforts: “The mine… was shut down temporarily for safety violations 29 times last year, some of them for ventilation infractions, Stricklin said. Massey was cited for 515 safety violations at the mine in 2009 and 124 so far this year.” Los Angeles Times, April 9^th. Plus this from the April 9^th Washington Post: “A surge in the number of challenges to mine safety citations has clogged a federal appeals process, allowing 32 coal mines to avoid tougher enforcement measures last year, government safety officials said [April 9^th]… View Only Top Items in This Story Five of those mines are owned by Massey Energy, which is contesting more federal safety fines than any other coal mining company in the nation, according to data and federal officials. By contesting the citations, the 32 mines were able to avoid falling into a ‘potential pattern of violation’ category, which would have brought closer scrutiny and moved regulators a step closer to the ability to restrict or shut down operations.”

But Massey’s willingness to “pay the price” politically is anything but ambiguous: “The company's chief executive, Don Blankenship, is a highly active GOP fundraiser and bankroller who is known for his outspoken opposition to labor unions; the Upper Big Branch Mine [the site of the above disaster] is not unionized… CRP calculates that individuals and PACs connected to Massey Energy have contributed more than $300,000 to federal candidates in the past two decades, 91 percent of which went to Republicans. Top recipients include current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has collected $13,550 from Massey-connected contributors, records show.

“Blankenship contributed the federal maximum of $30,400 last year to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and he has supported Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and GOP Senate candidates Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio… The Massey Energy chairman garnered national attention in 2004 when he contributed $3 million to the campaign of a West Virginia judicial candidate, who later played a pivotal role in overturning a $50 million judgment against Massey Energy. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that the judge should have recused himself from the case.” The April 8^th Post. But then again, miners are expendable… Profits appear not to be.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the America I know is about equal justice under the law.

Everybody Must Get Banned

To fertile political minds, art creates the highest degree of plausible deniability in an oppressed or censored world. I’ve written about this before, but it is worthwhile remembering that China has never been a bastion of literal expression, long, long before the current version of China – the Peoples Republic – was founded. Traditional art never drilled down to create realistic depictions of common scenes of life. The novel was not a part of Chinese tradition until very recently, and abstract symbolic writings (poems, stage plays, etc.) and impressionist art have historically been the rule.

In the time of Confucius, hundreds of years BC, you could find yourself beheaded, drawn and quartered, subjected to a death of thousand cuts or simply banished should your eyes meet those of a ruling magnate or if your words offended a passing duke. Folks learned to deflect true meaning into art that might truly imply a hostile truth but could in fact find an innocent explanation elsewhere. Chinese learned to speak in visual metaphor, design homes with windows that faced inward (towards the courtyard) but not to the outside and only engage in writings and art that were abstract enough to create this aura of plausible deniability. Get-to-the-bottom-line Americans often can’t deal with this Chinese proclivity of indirect speech.

Fear of artists is thus heavily ingrained in the highest reaches of Chinese leadership. They’re not comfortable with free expression, and when it comes to Westerners – celebrity artists in particular – used to speaking their mind, the Communist Party is downright paranoid. So rabble-rousers, even from times gone by, are a hard ticket for Peoples Republic officials to sanction, especially when those might be tickets sold to a rock concert in China featuring musicians who made their mark in protest songs, however long ago.

As the April 5^th AolNews.com illustrates: “During a 2008 performance in Shanghai, Bjork called out, ‘Tibet! Tibet!’ while singing a song titled ‘Declare Independence.’ Since then, some say Chinese officials have been increasingly wary of Western performers… ‘Those who used to take part in activities that harm our nation's sovereignty are firmly not allowed to perform in China,’ the Ministry of Culture said after the Bjork incident… In 2009, for example, China is thought to have banned the English group Oasis from performing, after officials discovered that a band member had appeared at a 1997 Free Tibet benefit concert in New York. But according to Chinese officials, the promoter's financial problems were the issue, not censorship.” Tibet, PRC policy maintains, is and always has been part of China and has no independent right to exist. The spontaneous comments were not appreciated.

Enter Robert Zimmerman… er… Bob Dylan… who was scheduled to carry his current concert tour into Asia, particularly featuring performances in Shanghai and Beijing. “Chinese officials will not allow Bob Dylan to hold concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, apparently because of the rebellious lyrics that helped make the singer a '60s icon. Over the weekend, Dylan canceled the entire Asian leg of his tour… Dylan's promoter in Asia, Brokers Brothers Herald, told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post that ‘China's Ministry of Culture did not give us permission to stage concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, so we had no alternative [but] to scrap plans for a Southeast Asian tour.’ Brokers Brothers' Jeffrey Wu said the ‘chance to play in China was the main attraction’ for Dylan.” AolNews.com. Google, Bjork, Oasis and now Dylan. Threat down!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I smile at what continues to strike fear in the hearts of government officials.

Where has the Overhead Bin?

Southwest Airlines has built an entire ad campaign on the fact that with their passengers, “Bags Fly Free.” Many other airlines charge you if you check any luggage (unless you have special membership status with the airline or fly other than economy) or if you check more than one piece. Result: folks are packing less, carrying on more, freeing up that “belly of baggage” in the bottom of the plane – the cargo hold – for more lucrative air freight. And now, one airline is about to charge you if you actually carry a bag on board the plane that is bigger than a purse or a briefcase/laptop – which should fit neatly under the seat in front of you and suck up what little leg room you get these days – something that needs to go in the overhead bin.

Spirit Airlines, a discount carrier, was born in the mid-west, but specializes in holiday destination travel, particularly around Florida and the Caribbean/Latin America. Effective August 1^st, as Spirit’s Website provides, “Fees apply for carry-on baggage that will not fit in the under seat space. All baggage fees are non-refundable and may be paid in advance or at the airport.” You could be charged $30 or more – one way – in addition to ticket prices that may creep upwards as jet fuel costs continue to rise. Most other airlines have indicated that they are not going to follow in Spirit’s footsteps, and Spirit believes that its fares are still very competitive.

Indeed, Spirit defends its policies with a pretty lame: “‘Nobody brings their package to FedEx or U.P.S. and expects them to ship it for free,’ said Ben Baldanza, the chief executive of Spirit Airlines.” April 7^th New York Times. Yeah, Ben, but your passenger with the carry-on isn’t asking for “free,” since he or she bought a ticket that has, since regular air travel began, included access to the passenger compartment overhead bins. And except for an occasional business day trip, everyone carries enough for a change of clothes and some bathroom supplies, we’re mostly pissed because you are trying to disguise a fare increase into a non-discretionary need to have some carry-on. Hey, on most airlines, we now have to pay for food – or simulated food – on all but what appears to be interstellar travel… and for checked baggage too. Yeah, Spirit does that as well: $19 bucks if you pay for one bag online ($25 at the airport), $25 for a second bag and $100 for a third – each way.

For airlines that charge baggage fees, the numbers look really good – from a shareholder’s perspective: “The total in bag fees collected by the airlines has skyrocketed since they were first imposed. According to the Transportation Department, the fees rose from $464 million in 2007 to nearly $2 billion in just the first nine months of last year… Joseph Pascarella, who has worked as a baggage handler in Tampa, Fla., for 37 years, said he had noticed the difference. ‘Before the bag fees, we would handle an average 250 bags on a flight. Now it’s closer to 150 to 175. People are also thinking twice about taking that extra bag.’” With less luggage, airlines are losing fewer bags, loading and unloading the cargo hold is faster (often with fewer baggage handlers, another cost savings) and fewer airline employees are getting injured from heavy suitcases.

For passengers, that’s nice, and we do appreciate the industry group SITA’s report that there has been a 24% reduction globally in baggage “mishandling,” but frankly, charging for checked bags has pushed more stuff very uncomfortably into the passenger compartment: “In the United States, the most visible consequence of baggage fees has been the increase in more, and heavier, items in the passenger cabin, the very behavior that prompted Spirit’s new fee for carry-on policy. A survey by the Association of Flight Attendants found ‘excess amounts of oversized carry-on items’ were causing flight attendants to be injured. Eighty percent of the flight attendants reported muscle pulls and sprains. Thirty-five percent said they were hit by falling bags…

“One thing baggage fees were expected to do but have not done is to reduce the turnaround time at the gate. With so many passengers trying to bring everything they need for a trip into the passenger cabin, departures are often delayed to deal with the problem of trying to squeeze too many bags into too little space… ‘Almost every flight, the amount of luggage people try to carry on doesn’t fit,’ Mr. Pascarella, the baggage handler, said. ‘It’s at least 10 to 20 bags per flight.’ … In 2005, the average weight of passengers and their luggage was revised upward to more accurately reflect the larger girth of travelers and their wider array of travel gear.” The Times.

Think that the baggage stuff is horrible? Irish-based carrier Ryanair has one possibility that you probably never considered: “Ryanair is considering charging passengers £1 ($1.40) to use the lavatory on its flights, according to chief executive Michael O’Leary…. The Dublin-based airline has gained a reputation for its high booking fees and ancillary charges… The carrier charges £30 to check in a bag, £10 to pay for flights with a debit or credit card (excluding Visa Electron), £60 to check in sports or music equipment, £15 for each kilo of excess baggage, £50 to change a flight and £100 to change the name on a ticket.” Feb. 27^th Telegraph.co.uk. They’re even thinking of reducing the number of bathrooms to add more seats! I guess we Yanks still have a lot to learn from the European continent… or is that in-continent?

Okay, we know these trends go in cycles, and if air travel drops precipitously – perhaps because an inflating dollar might not always do that well against other currencies, which in turn is a deterrent to travel – and the cost of fuel doesn’t kill the industry altogether, I suspect we’ll see some discounts and new travel policies along the way. Or… air travel can go back to its roots and return being a playground only for business travelers and the rich.

I’m Peter Dekom, and that’s the plane truth!

Arctic’d Off

For centuries, explorers dreamed of a great passage across the top of Canada, through a mysterious break in the ice that would lead commerce from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again during the great summer thaw… or even at any time of the year. Vikings tried to penetrate the impenetrable, and some early explorers actually believed that saltwater did not freeze; they believed that a fresh water gap would connect Asia to Europe and fulfill Christopher Columbus’ dream of establishing that trade direct route to the “Indies” – he had to settle instead for discovering America. Oh well. Nobody’s perfect. Why would anyone think it were passable? “Captain James Cook had reported, for example, that Antarctic icebergs had yielded fresh water, (seemingly confirming the hypothesis), and that a route close to the North Pole must therefore exist. The belief that a route lay to the far north persisted for several centuries and led to numerous expeditions into the Arctic, including the attempt by Sir John Franklin in 1845. In 1906, Roald Amundsen first successfully completed a path from Greenland to Alaska in the sloop Gjøa. Since that date, several fortified ships have made the journey.” Wikipedia.

Well, with global warming, the Northwest Passage is becoming a reality. There appears to be every likelihood of a navigable waterway – during the warmer months – where you wouldn’t need lumbering icebreakers to crush their way through what used to be solid ice. Indeed in the summer of 2008, a commercial vessel, the MV Camilla Desgagnés, made the voyage quite easily, according to her crew. But of course, with this newly-noted natural phenomenon, the value of the Northwest Passage becomes incredibly greater, both strategically and commercially. Look who’s up there: Canada, the United States (Alaska), Russia, Norway with impacts on Scandinavia as well. So valuable in fact that as U.S. and Russian nuclear submarines have coursed through what Canada believes is their territorial waters on many occasions; more than one dispute has surfaced.

“On July 9, 2007, [Canadian] Prime Minister Harper announced the establishment of a deep-water port in the far North. In the government press release the Prime Minister is quoted as saying, ‘Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this Government intends to use it. Because Canada’s Arctic is central to our national identity as a northern nation. It is part of our history. And it represents the tremendous potential of our future’... On July 10, 2007, Rear Admiral Timothy McGee of the United States Navy, and Rear Admiral Brian Salerno of the United States Coast Guard announced that the United States would also be increasing its ability to patrol the Arctic... On April 9, 2006, Canada's Joint Task Force North declared that the Canadian military will no longer refer to the region as the Northwest Passage, but as the Canadian Internal Waters. The declaration came after the successful completion of Operation Nunalivut (Inuktitut for ‘the land is ours’), which was an expedition into the region by five military patrols.” Wikipedia. Russia laid certain claims (particularly as to natural resources), and the United States (along with the EU) took the position that these were “international waters,” open to anyone.

So on March 29^th, a meeting was convened in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, among senior diplomats from Canada, the United States (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton), Russia and Norway to discuss the opportunities to develop this new waterway under a more mutually controlled structure. In addition to the obvious shipping lane, the possibility of massive oil and gas reserves under the Arctic creates a level of huge potential... for conflict. Ms. Clinton was not even happy about the guest list to this conference: “Clinton noted that the three other nations in the Arctic region -- Sweden, Finland and Iceland -- had complained they were not included in the meeting. She said she also was contacted by representatives of indigenous groups in the area that had been left off the list.” I guess more voices would clearly make the case for a wider international view of the passage.

So as most the earth’s resources are identified and claimed as part of sovereign nations, even as most of our planet is under international waters, it is most interesting how the disappearance of islands, the opening up of new lands and waterways, and the reshaping of our globe by nature herself (with a few man-made disasters and calamities thrown in for good measure) will test the necessary diplomatic efforts as clearly friendly neighbors may get… well… unfriendly when it comes down to cold, hard cash.

I’m Peter Dekom, and “opportunity often breeds contempt.”

It Was Never a Country

Before World War I, the “Sick Man of Europe” – the Turkish-based Ottoman Empire – accepted a military aid/training package from Germany. Big mistake. When the war rolled around, the Ottomans were clearly on the wrong side; what little was left in their true holdings was being divided up, even before the war came to an end. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, on May 16, 1916, the Sykes-Picot accord was entered into, a “secret convention made during World War I between Great Britain and France, with the assent of imperial Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine into various French- and British-administered areas. The agreement took its name from its negotiators, Sir Mark Syke s of Britain and François Georges-Picot [above] of France.” Modern day Iraq was carved up in that agreement between French and British interests – the French got the areas around Mosul, British got control of Baghdad and Basra.

After the war, on “11 November 1920 it became a League of Nations mandate under British control with the name ‘State of Iraq’… Britain imposed a Hāshimite monarchy on Iraq and defined the territorial limits of Iraq without taking into account the politics of the different ethnic and religious groups in the country, in particular those of the Kurds and the Assyrians to the north. During the British occupation, the Shi'ites and Kurds fought for independence.” Wikipedia. The “State of Iraq” was no more of a single nation that we would have been by joining Mexico, Central America and the present-day United States into one country. It didn’t work then, and it most certainly doesn’t work now.

A brutal dictatorship – under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni minority control – repressed all dissent; the Sunnis didn’t even know they were just a minority until the United States toppled that regime in 2003. The Shiite claims that the Qur’an is a mystical book capable of interpretation only by the highest of religious scholars has long driven an angry and impassioned wedge between them and Sunnis who believe that the Qur’an is the literal word of Allah that must be read directly by all faithful Muslims. Shiites claim a majority stake in Iraq and Iran, but they only represent 15% of global Muslims; most of the rest are Sunni. The Kurds Assyrians in the north of Iraq are separated from the Sunnis and Shiites in the south more for ethnic and cultural reasons than by faith (there are many religions among the these northerners, including Islam).

The “why can’t we all get along” constitutional system of government imposed by the United States after its 2003 conquest essentially assumed that the majority Shiites could participate fairly in a government with Kurds and Sunnis, two factions who lived in mortal terror at the thought of Shiite dominance. Indeed, Iraq has never eschewed the sectarian violence that was punctuated with Shiite “death squads” and Sunni suicide bombs as well as battles over oil rights.

In the north – in the Kurdish region 300 miles north of Baghdad, the locals are claiming the oil drilling rights and selling oil exploration/extraction rights to foreign oil companies over the central government’s strong objections. “In Baghdad, central government officials reacted with rage to the news that DNO [a Norwegian oil company] was drilling. These officials considered the Kurds' sale of Iraqi oil rights to be illegal and warned that it threatened to polarize further a country already fracturing along ethnic and religious lines.” FastCompany.com (April 5^th). Secular friction remains in the headlines today, and as U.S. forces pull out, the future of Iraq – and our forced experiment in democracy forcing incompatible peoples under one government – would have to be described as “very much in doubt.” But as bad as an oil dispute might be, the “friction” usually takes a deadlier form.

Recent disputed elections have further destabilized Iraq. Sectarian violence has escalated on April 2^nd as gunmen (disguised as Iraqi troops) opened fire on innocent civilians, and suicide bombs have exploded like firecrackers on April 4th. The “soldiers” killed 24 civilians – Sunnis – execution style. The suicide bombers – car bombs mostly planted outside diplomatic buildings in Baghdad – killed a further 35 people. The April 4^th Los Angeles Times states the obvious: “The slayings reignited fears of the sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007… There have been increasing concerns that insurgents will take advantage of Iraq's political turmoil to further destabilize the country, nearly a month after parliamentary elections failed to give any candidate a decisive win… Many fear a drawn-out political debate could spill over into violence and complicate American efforts to speed up troop withdrawals in the coming months.” But sooner or later, U.S. forces will withdraw… Afghanistan anyone?

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes the best intentioned plans just don’t work.

They Only Scream Once

From 1908 to 1960, that large land mass, with a large snout giving access to the ocean known generally as the “Congo,” was a Belgian colony. The Belgians built beautiful grand buildings everywhere, from administrative offices to opulent residences. This tiny European nation poured infrastructure – particularly roads and railways (connecting theretofore unconnected regions) – into this resource-rich area, until the pressure to end European colonialism end Belgium’s rule. Nascent democracy elected leaders like Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to what was now known as the Republic of the Congo. Political stability eroded quickly, secessionist movements grew rapidly, and about 100,000 Belgians who had remained after independence departed, leaving a power and operational competency vacuum that further destabilized the nation.

After years of violent struggle, the United States backed one particular rebel – Joseph Mobutu – because of his strong anti-communist stance. In 1971, Mobutu renamed the country Zaire, and built one of the saddest regimes on the continent. “A one-party system was established, and Mobutu declared himself head of state. He periodically held elections in which he was the only candidate. Relative peace and stability was achieved; however, Mobutu's government was guilty of severe human rights violations, political repression, a cult of personality and corruption. (Mobutu demanded every Congolese bank note printed with his image, hanging of his portrait in all public buildings, most businesses, and on billboards; and it was common for ordinary people to wear his likeness on their clothing.)

“Corruption became so prevalent the term ‘le mal Zairois’ or ‘Zairean Sickness’ was coined, reportedly by Mobutu himself. By 1984, Mobutu was said to have $4 billion, an amount close to the country's national debt, deposited in a personal Swiss bank account. International aid, most often in the form of loans, enriched Mobutu while he allowed national infrastructure such as roads to deteriorate to as little as one-quarter of what had existed in 1960. With the embezzlement of government funds by Mobutu and his associates, Zaire became a ‘kleptocracy.’” Wikipedia. Meanwhile, the country descended into an era of severe decline; most of the incredible national highway and rail system was reclaimed by the jungle. Travelers wanting to reach the other side of Zaire often had to fly out of the country to reenter from the other side.

When the Soviet Union fell, Mobutu’s value to the United States plunged. Regional conflicts, notably the vicious civil war in Rwanda, spilled over into the eastern Congo, and various warring factions eventually forced Mobutu to flee in 1997: “Rwandan Hutu militia forces (Interahamwe), who had fled Rwanda following the ascension of a Tutsi-led government, had been using Hutu refugees camps in eastern Zaire as a basis for incursion against Rwanda. These Hutu militia forces soon allied with the Zairian armed forces (FAZ) to launch a campaign against Congolese ethnic Tutsis in eastern Zaire... In turn, a coalition of Rwandan and Ugandan armies invaded Zaire under the cover of a small group of Tutsi militia to fight the Hutu militia, overthrow the government of Mobutu, and ultimately control the mineral resources of Zaire. They were soon joined by various Zairean politicians, who had been unsuccessfully opposing the dictatorship of Mobutu for many years, and now saw an opportunity for them in the invasion of Zaire by two of the region's strongest military forces.” Wikipedia Congo’s natural resources were at stake: copper, diamonds and zinc were high on the list.

The nation was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but warring factionalism continued. The Congo became one of the most dangerous places on earth. President Laurent-Desire Kabila was assassinated in 2001, and his son Joseph assumed power, just as former allies – the Rwandan/Ugandan coalition – resumed their attack on the established order. Raw fighting was everywhere, the United Nations intervened, and a fragile peace led to a multi-party election in 2006. The results of that election pushed the factions back into mortal combat. The numbers are horrific – 5.4 million people have died, the greatest number in any war since WWII. In 2 009, people were dying at the rate of 45,000 per month, an estimated 200,000 women have been raped, homes and villages destroyed.

The eastern Congo was once known for its coffee plantations; the region shares a border that includes Uganda and Rwanda and has been a place of refuge for many rebel fighters. With heavy military aid from countries like the United States (funneled through Uganda), these forces have been losing men and power rapidly, a fact that has only made their efforts more brutal and desperate, as they make up for shortages in their forces by taking over entire villages and conscripting the young males and hospital workers, killing or raping everyone else. Mostly to save bullets, they prefer to bludgeon their victims to death. The L.G.R. is one of the most vicious. “[Over a year ago], the American military had sen t advisers to Uganda to help plan an attack on the headquarters of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Garamba National Park, in northeastern Congo. Ugandan helicopters strafed the camp, narrowly missing Joseph Kony, the group’s leader, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on crimes against humanity. Afterward, the fighters scattered and vented their outrage on nearby villagers.”

“Human Rights Watch, which sent a team to investigate the killings in February, said the L.R.A. killed at least 320 people in this area, calling the massacre one of the worst in the group’s 23-year, atrocity-filled history… Witnesses said that the number of dead could be several hundred more, and that most victims had been taken from their villages, tied at the waist and forced into the jungle, often with enormous loads of looted food balanced on their heads. Along the way, fighters randomly selected captives to kill, usually by an ax blow to the back of the head. ‘They only scream once,’ said Jean-Claude Singbatile, a high school student who said that he spent 14 days in captivity and witnessed dozens of killings.” March 28^th New York Times. This murderous calamity continues into the present day.

Is Africa the cruelest continent? Think of all of the conflicts and pain inflicted in the Sub-Sahara. Did rampant European colonization set the stage for this unparalleled brutality? What is our role/complicity in the failures of governance and peace in the region? And exactly what should we or can we do to subdue the seemingly never-ending brutality and injustice? As I think of the destruction in Haiti from the recent earthquake – which most certainly remains a gaping hole of desperation and need that must be filled – the pain in Africa, particularly the eastern Congo, I also think of our need to make a perpetual commitment to stamp out cruelty, poverty and injustice wherever we really can.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if no one ever writes about it, we might never know.

I Came, I Thaw, I Conquered

The April 2^nd Wall Street Journal ran this headline: Factories Revive Economy, but the sub-headline took the joy away: Manufacturing Expands Globally, But U.S. Producers Remain Reluctant to Hire. L Unemployment’s sticky figures held the March figure to a constant and miserly 9.7%, but those who have fallen out of this statistic but still don’t have full-time work continues to rise. With 13 months of manufacturing growth, there is a light on in the window, but U.S. employers are still holding a workforce that is at slightly above 80% capacity. They have to absorb that excess capacity and will probably opt for more overtime before they trust the economy to ramp up their employment demands; this suggests that employers have about 30% of capacity to fill before they create that recovery vector we all want to see in unemployment statistics.

Fact is, the next generation is graduating and finding limited if any traditional job opportunities. They watch their parents, and their notion of job security is probably shattered for all time. Work for a company your whole life, move up the ladder (with lots of older workers refusing to retire or let go) and retire on a nice pension? To them, this is the stuff of the new mythology. Indeed, as healthcare become more universally available other than through employer benefit plans, the very scope and notion of work is changing. Younger folks with some semblance of education and skill are looking at working for a while on a project they like and perhaps for themselves, maybe as a full-time employee, but most likely as independent contractors not included on the employment rolls of the company for whom they work. Saves the company money in fringe benefits, covers what happens when they no longer need the capacity, and it allows this new work force to pick and choose where it will deploy; traditional notions of company loyalty and long-term commitments are disappearing rapidly as the world of work changes.

Which brings me to the title of this piece, a thaw in relations motivated by the hour-long phone call between President Obama and China’s President Hu Jintao, which resulted in an invitation (accepted) for Hu to visit the United States, technically as part of a nuclear power summit (April 12-13) hosted by Obama, but more realistically because of recent tensions between the two countries. We’ve differed on sanctions for Iran, control and censorship of the Internet and the balance of relative currency values. Google left China amid its refusal to abide by China’s censorship requirements, and China is ‘damming’ (in a Green way) Google’s efforts all over Asia in retaliation. China likes Iranian oil and doesn’t want to piss off its supplier for “moral reasons.” But most importantly, there is the issue of the relative value of the Yuan and the dollar.

We all know China holds trillions of our national debt instruments and still is a huge net exporter into the U.S. economy. They really don’t want to see dollar values tank as we borrow ourselves silly in building our “recovery-driven” national debt. They also don’t want to reduce the value of the dollar, making their exports more expensive and potentially reducing U.S. consumer demand as a result. We want their currency to be worth more for precisely that reason – to reduce the U.S. importation of Chinese goods (which impacts our balance of payments deficit). Effectively, American Treasury officials see China as a currency “manipulator” in forcing the Yuan to maintain lock-step parity with the dollar, no matter how hard we try to separate those values. But if the Treasury report on this currency issue – due on April 15^th – lambasts China (and hence Hu) two days after his departure… well, that ain’t happenin’, and so we are seeing a “thaw” in relations between the two nations. Just in case, the government delayed the report: “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on [April 3^rd] he was delaying an April 15 report on whether China manipulates its currency but pledged to press for a more flexible Chinese currency policy.” Washington Post, April 3^rd. Hey, China actually might be a currency “manipulator”!

Which brings me back to the way our younger generation is likely to work in the future. Since you pay back harsh deficits by inflating your currency (solves all those homes underwater, mortgage-wise, doesn’t it?) or creating new values that allow future generations the ability to earn more, well the solution to the repayment obligation may have a strange solution. Since we aren’t really upgrading the educational system, perhaps a nation of millions of not-employees-but-independent-contractors will begin to develop new values and new businesses and new inventions and methodologies to create that future earnings wealth in ways we just cannot expect. We call that the American spirit and maybe we might find it coming back with a vengeance in this new dynamic workforce.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we really do surprise ourselves every once and a while.

Census Deprivation

“About 2.5 million census-takers began traveling across more than 630,000 villages and 5,000 cities in an effort to visit every structure serving as a home, from tin shanties to skyscrapers, in what the government calls the world's largest administrative exercise.” April 1^st New York Times. A massive effort with the stated intention of fingerprinting and photographing every resident over the age of 15, resulting in an identity card being issued to everyone able to carry one. Questions are drilling down on issues like Internet and mobile phone usage, and more intimate details involving the availability of toilets and whether or not the drinking water is potable. The cost of this census, the broadest ever taken, is estimated to be about $1.2 billion, but the results could reshape the nation’s future in huge ways.

Why aren’t Americans protesting in the streets over what is clearly a tradition-buster – mandatory identity cards? Is this a method to control illegal immigration or something bigger? I think the answer is more basic than that. The country in question is not the United States; it is India, a nation with an estimated 1.2 billion people. The world’s largest democracy, India is also one of the most polarized economic systems on earth, with the vast majority of its population on the lower, even the lowest, economic rungs of society, yet sporting an upper and middle class with a total aggregation so as to exceed the entire population of the United States.

Picture census workers tracking down the vast hordes of homeless people, millions who sleep in doorways, on railroad platforms or even under parked cars. But change for the millions of uncounted is a strong wind blowing. On April 1^st, a new compulsory education law kicked in India in to provide that essential ingredient to improve the quality of life for “impoverished children who have been denied school admission because of a lack of documents such as birth certificates.” The Times. That little identity card will open many doors that were previously slammed shut.

I know how completely absurd the system was, providing a “free education” that no one in the poorest segment of society could ever afford. Years ago, I prepaid for a poor Indian lad in Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) – a self-taught, multi-tongued-fluent purveyor of bangles to foreign tourists – to receive an education in the local school. I knew that if the money were given to his parents, the education would never happen, but even though school was free, he was deprived of an education because he couldn’t afford the books, school supplies and most importantly, the mandatory school uniform. I accompanied him to each shop, making sure that there would be enough money to keep him well-supplied for quite a while. My reward, a couple of years later, was a thank-you note, handwritten in English.

India’s population is growing faster than that of China; it’s only a matter of time before India passes the Peoples Republic to become the most populous nation on earth. Asia is on fire with growth, even as Western economies continue to stumble under the weight of a financial collapse that still holds exceptionally high unemployment rates, decimated real estate values and the nasty after-effects of too much debt in the past and insufficient credit for the present and the foreseeable future. Asia is measuring what she has to do to take advantage of the “Asian Century,” and we need to learn how to recover and return to at least a modicum of prosperity.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there is a whole ‘nuther world out there watching us slide down.

Teen, Lean and Mean

Consumer spending has been hampered by an horrific housing market – values plunging and destroying middle class net worth – as well as by chronic unemployment and under-employment. For teens, the “parental bank” shut down tightly after the crash that began on September 15, 2008 with the fall of Lehman Bros. With little evidence of improvement, current or projected, in these two middle class economic indicators, and the Consumer Confidence Board telling us that February showed a steep decline in the consumer confidence index, there is little reason to expect any significant increase in grassroots buying. Luxury retailers are staggering under this negativity, and many high-end designers are experiencing threats to their very existence as even the well-heeled shoppers are keeping the pursed closed.

Teen trend retailer, Abercrombie & Fitch – famous for its sexy ads and above average pricing – experienced 20 months of sales declines. In fact, teen buying in general dropped for a full 18 months. Mall traffic had declined to such an extent that mortgage defaults among shopping centers hit record levels. Bleak was now “normal and expected.” Adults still have zipped their wallets, but there has been an interesting movement among teen shoppers. They’re coming back to the malls, buying again, and even upscale venues like Abercrombie are experiencing improvement (like a recent 8% increase in sales).

Parents tend to spend on their children before they spend on themselves, so movement in teen spending suggests that adult spending – at least among those who have jobs and believe that they won’t lose them – may not be too far away. These younger shoppers not only follow fashion among their peers (they are the first line in pop culture), they are also growing and changing sizes. Pent-up demand has opened the door… a bit anyway. The rising buying trend is a necessary precursor to bringing back the unemployed. Without increases in consumer demand, there is no reason to expect any real change in the unemployment numbers. And even with increases in consumer demand, employers are likely to pick up the initial slack with their existing work force – adding overtime before bringing back massive numbers of employees. Only after there is proof of consistent demand are we likely to see any meaningful positive movement in the employment picture. With possible contractions in credit (or at least no improvement in credit) or in the moribund housing market (existing home and new home sales both fell at the last measure), this nascent improvement could stumble and drop back to the lower levels of consumer spending; only time will tell.

The March 27^th Los Angeles Times examined the new freer spending habits of high schoolers and college students: “The resurgence in spending has led to two straight months of year-over-year sales increases for teen retailers after 18 months of declines, according to Thomson Reuters… In January, the sector -- which includes American Eagle Outfitters Inc., Aeropostale Inc. and Wet Seal Inc. -- posted a 6.5% year-over-year increase, making it the month's biggest outperformer… [In February] teen retailers again beat expectations with a 5% sales increase, far better than the 2.3% decline analysts had forecast, Thomson Reuters said. At the top of the pack was action sports retail chain Zumiez Inc. of Everett, Wash. Results are based on sales at stores open at least a year, known as same-store sales, and considered a reliable measure of retail health… ‘You've seen teens come back pretty aggressively in terms of spending,’ retail analyst [Christine] Chen said. ‘Teenagers are not a savings-oriented bunch. They spend every dollar they get.’” Yup, teenagers with mortgages and retirement savings accounts are indeed a rarity.

Looking for signs of hope, in a landscape that suggests otherwise, is an important part of moving closer to the kind of “recovery” that has all-but-eluded most Americans, even as the stock market allowed the “experts” to declare the recession over and the recovery commenced when average Americans totally know that is far from reality for them. We need reasons to resume that self-confidence that has defined Americans for so long.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are occasional glimmers of light.