African Union Show of Strength?

The AU for the most part has been ineffective in dealing with certain crises that afflict Africa. The situation in Darfur is the clearest example of the organizations failure (and soon to be the UN failure if a peace agreement isn't settled or peacekeeping forces aren't enabled to quell the violence in the region). Yet have we witnessed a turn around for the AU in terms of strength?

Just recently, the AU launched an offensive on a small Island off the South Eastern coast of Africa, possibly to boost its image as a capable organization. Adam Wolfe, who writes the blog On Political Risk, dissects the situation for us in this World Politics Review article.

The African Union launched an invasion of a separatist-controlled island off the coast of Mozambique last week in part, to bolster the multilateral organization's image abroad. Around 1,300 AU troops joined 400 Comorian government troops to oust Col. Mohamed Bacar from Anjouan, one of the three islands that make up the Union of the Comoros. In a one-day fight, the AU-Comorian troops gained full control of the island, and Bacar fled to French-controlled Mayotte, the other island on the Comorian archipelago.

The only problem for the AU was that hardly anyone noticed the successful mission.

In the United States, there was almost no press coverage of the assault, and even less commentary from the government. The New York Times ran a 180-word brief on page A-12; the Washington Post's coverage barely eclipsed 50 words. The U.S. State Department issued a 100-word press release commending the operation, but spokesman Sean McCormack was not asked any questions about it at his daily press conferences last week.

I'm glad to see the AU having some type of meat behind it, yet the goals of the organization itself aren't that idealistic, as Wolfe points out below.

The AU participated in the attack for two reasons: to demonstrate to the donor community that it is capable of undertaking coordinated military operations and to serve as a warning to Africa's other secessionist movements. On both accounts, though, the mission will probably have little lasting effect.

One striking point is that the event, as Wolfe points out, was largely unnoticed. Do we simply not care? I mean it is just some small island off the coast of Africa, yet does Rev. Wright and a Clinton trip to Bosnia from the 90's warrant more discourse than this? Whatever the case, the AU needs some new PR consultants, because no one seems to care.

The African Union is no European Union, yet it is better than the Arab League but doesn't hold a candle to the UN. Yet again, that's not saying much.

Where I found this article:
World Politics Review

Three Story Sunday

A Chinese newspaper (government controlled of course) calls for the crushing of protesters in Tibet.

The communist government's leading newspaper called Saturday to "resolutely crush" Tibetan demonstrations against Chinese rule.

The statement came as international criticism against the crackdown on Tibetan protesters swelled.

A senior EU official said European countries should not rule out threatening China with an Olympic boycott if violence continues in Tibet. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi also joined the growing chorus of critics.

Will trade with the country cloud critical judgment from the international community? At least the criticism in the United States is mostly non-partisan. Oil independence is mostly the talking point of both parties, but what we really need is to be free from China (though many businesses would be baffled to consider such a thing).

McCain is meeting with leaders of Europe.

Senator John McCain's trip abroad - which took him from the Middle East to No. 10 Downing St. to the Élysée Palace here - was more than just a congressional fact-finding trip, or even a candidate's attempt to appear statesmanlike.

It was also an audition on the world stage for McCain in his new role as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. And it offered McCain the chance to begin testing his oft-stated hope that as president he would be able to repair America's tattered reputation abroad by shifting course on some of the policies that have alienated its allies - in areas like global warming and torture - even as he continues to embrace what much of the world sees as the most hated remnant of the Bush presidency: the war in Iraq.

If the international community doesn't like Iraq, then they should cooperate with the United States more in stabilizing the country. We can't leave an Iraq in ruins.

More strikes on Al-Qaeda targets by special plane called Predator.

The United States has stepped up its use of pilotless planes to strike at Qaeda targets along Pakistan's rugged border area, a measure that in the past drew protests from President Pervez Musharraf but now has his government's tacit approval. Since January, missiles reportedly fired from CIA operated Predator drones have hit at least three suspected hideouts of Islamic militants, including a strike last Sunday on a house in a South Waziristan village called Toog.

Technology only gets better and better. Hopefully we will continue to use these on Al-Q if there is a transition in leadership in Pakistan (from authoritarian rule to a democratic one). Al-Q is not just a threat to the United States, but to everyone.

Three stories on a snowy Sunday.

The Zimbabwe Election

Here is an article on the upcoming Zimbabwe election, which most likely will end up in the hands of Mugabe, the dictator like ruler who has turned his country into a nation of "peddlers and beggars" as one citizen says. We can only watch and cringe.

Robert Mugabe has run this country for so long that his presence is like some common particulate in the air, taken in with every breath. Gladys Sithole can barely recall a Zimbabwe without him, this inescapable "old man," as she calls him, with godlike powers and all-too-human failings.

A mother of three, she was once a bookkeeper in a dry cleaning store, but jobs like that have mostly vanished. She is a street peddler now in a collapsed society, where a surreal inflation rate of 100,000 percent speedily melts money into nothing, and essential commodities are so scarce that bars of soap are sliced up to be sold by the chunk and cooking oil is traded by the tablespoon.

There is a presidential election scheduled here for March 29, and Sithole said she hoped that this time Mugabe, the 84-year-old former guerrilla fighter who has led the nation since independence in 1980, would finally lose.

Here is a Reuters segment on Zimbabwe:

Mugabe, the strongman ruler from Africa.

With another stolen election, will the populace rise up?

Where I got this article/photo and video:
International Herald Tribune/Reuters

Disarmed in Your Own Home, D.C. Living

If it's a right, it's a right. If it's to protect, it's to protect.

Where I found this video:
Mary Katharine Ham

The Olympics Tyranny Problem

The 2008 Olympics are being held in China this year, an authoritarian state whose control over its citizens is evidenced by this video:

and...

Clearly they aren't mad over sour milk, rather the hard stance policy towards Tibet.

Matthew Continetti, from The Weekly Standard gives China a gold medal in tyranny.

In July 2001, when the International Olympics Committee (IOC) awarded the 2008 summer games to Beijing, the international community began a thought-experiment. Wouldn't holding the games in China give the world's democracies "leverage" over that country's Communist dictatorship? Wouldn't the increased media attention and "scrutiny" force Beijing to relax its security apparatus and increase civil liberties? Wouldn't the Olympics be just another elevation in China's "peaceful rise" to "responsible stakeholder," great-power status?

Seven years later, we have our answer. It is a resounding "No." Over the last couple of weeks, riots have broken out in Tibet and surrounding areas and been suppressed by brute force. The State Department's annual report on human rights details an uptick in China's already dismal practices. A prominent Chinese dissident has been put on trial in Beijing on charges of subverting state power. The hypothesis that hosting the Olympics would mellow Beijing's ruthlessness has been proved false. The experiment has failed...

There clearly wasn't a good reason, then, for China's absence from the State Department's list of the worst human rights violators. Surely that absence reflects the same naive view articulated seven years ago during the debate over the awarding of the Olympics; the same facile argument American elites--Democrats and Republicans, academics and bureaucrats, lobbyists and corporate titans--have peddled for two decades: that our economic engagement with China would lead inevitably to political liberalization. This does not seem to be happening, however. Which raises some serious questions about our China policy. Isn't it time we had a grown-up discussion about China's persistent authoritarianism? This summer seems like a pretty good occasion to start it.

The debate should begin now.

China Checklist to Warrant Debate:
Authoritarian Dictatorship
Support for Sudan
Support for Burma
Suppression of citizens
...etc.

Singing the Iraqi Blues

The Christian Science Monitor has a good article on the presidential candidates views on Iraq (with them keeping options open).

In the military, there's an adage that even the best plans don't survive contact with the enemy – a recognition that any approach must be adapted to the circumstances of the moment. The same might be said of the major presidential candidates when it comes to how each intends to tackle the war in Iraq.

However adamant they are now about their respective plans, the candidates will have to conform their positions to whatever security and political situations they confront as commander in chief next year, say analysts.

The two Democrats' plans to withdraw US troops quickly, for instance, may be tempered by the practical realities of what that entails. If Republican Sen. John McCain is president, he would need to be responsive to the electorate and find a US troop level for Iraq that is sustainable.

The quest for wiggle room came into relief recently when an aide to Sen. Barack Obama (D) disclosed that Mr. Obama's plan to remove most US troops from Iraq within 16 months was "a best-case scenario," a nod to those who suggest that Obama's plan is unrealistic. That aide, Samantha Power, left the campaign. But supporters of each of the candidates acknowledge that positions could change at least slightly when any one of them gets into office.

Why stick to a position when you can shift.

Zakaria feels Iraq has already fallen into a loop.

There is a paradox in the current situation in Iraq. We are told that the surge has worked brilliantly and violence is way down. And yet the plan to reduce troop levels—which was at the heart of the original surge strategy—must be postponed or all hell will once again break loose. Making sense of this paradox is critical. Because in certain crucial ways things are not improving in Iraq, and unless they start improving soon, the United States faces the awful prospect of an unending peacekeeping operation—with continuing if limited casualties—for years to come.

In a brilliant and much-circulated essay written in August 2007, "Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt," David Kilcullen, a veteran Australian officer who advised Gen. David Petraeus during the early days of the surge, wrote, "Our dilemma in Iraq is, and always has been, finding a way to create a sustainable security architecture that does not require 'Coalition-in-the-loop,' thereby allowing Iraq to stabilize and the Coalition to disengage in favorable circumstances." We have achieved some security in Iraq, though even this should not be overstated. (Violence is still at 2005 levels, which were pretty gruesome.) But we have not built a sustainable security architecture.

Zakaria taking a critical view of the surge (where progress seems apparent).

Oh Iraq, how long will you keep me blue?

McCain on 60 Minutes

Now that he has the nomination, it's game planning time.

Where I found this video:
RealClearPolitics

Media Bias Against Clinton

Here is something I've noticed since the primaries began, the bias the media has against Hillary Clinton. Hillary just doesn't cry, she is manipulating the public to get votes! To put so much coverage on tears, laughing patterns and dress style, really shows how low the media has gone. Here is an article describing the bias against Hillary.

Several independent watchdog organizations, including Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and the Center for Media and Public Affairs, have documented persistent and widespread bias against Clinton and in favor of Obama.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs reported that since mid December, when the Iowa caucuses came into play, Obama has received the lion's share of the positive coverage: "From Dec. 16 through Jan. 27, five out of six on-air evaluations of Obama (84 percent) have been favorable, compared to a bare majority (51 percent) of evaluations of Mrs. Clinton. The gap in good press widened since the New Hampshire primary, with Clinton dropping to 47 percent positive comments and Obama holding steady at 83 percent positive.

The media or the voter, which one is more powerful?

Where I found this article:
RealClearPolitics