4 Jun 2014
A PLANET IN PERIL
It is generally acknowledged that in the World today
there are potentially calamitous problems relating to
environmental destruction, resource depletion, global
warming and over population. The natural resources of
this planet, its forests, fisheries and crop lands are
already being used at such a rate that is unsustainable.
We are already using the planets renewable resources
faster than what the planet can replenish. This trend is
related to the ongoing and accelerating process of
species extinction and the destruction of natural
habitats such as the tropical rainforests, whole ocean
ecosystems, rivers and coastal wetlands. This gradual
destruction of the earths biosphere, its animal and plant
species together with their complex webs of self
sustenance, is certainly set to continue as human
population growth and increased economic activity
imposes more pressures on the planetary ecosystem.
The worlds population at an estimated 7 billion people
today, is projected to grow to over 10 billion people as
early as 2050. This is coupled with massive growth in
economic activity lead by the surging economies of
China and India and further boosted by economic
growth in the rest of the World as well. If the Planet is
already struggling to cope with the demands placed
upon it by the human race currently, when we also
factor in these other considerations, then certainly we
are heading for some interesting times. The United
Nations Environment Programme and the World Wildlife
Fund for Nature issued a joint report in 2000 that said,
'The World's seas, fresh waters, forests and croplands
are being exploited at such a rate that nothing will be
left by 2075'. Also food shortages and food price hikes
that were experienced by the World in 2008 may be the
shape of things to come.
ONE NATION IS STILL POSSIBLE
My wife and I currently are on a book tour
by bus through several states, and I have
been struck by the number of people who
already have read "One Nation," but also by
the large, enthusiastic crowds whose
constituents include all political parties.
People are concerned about our future as a
nation and the poor prioritization of issues
by our leaders, to put it mildly.
We wrote "One Nation" to convince our
fellow Americans that "we the people" are not
enemies and that our strength is derived
from unity and common sense, which should
be ubiquitous. The real enemies are the
forces that are constantly trying to divide and
conquer. They create divisions based on race,
gender, age, education and, especially,
income. It is important that we discuss who
the purveyors of division are and what drives
them to seek a radical alteration of the
American way of life.
We discuss the tools used to manipulate the
populace into feeling that they should be
offended so easily by words, while diverting
their attention away from the real issues that
desperately cry out for a solution. One of the
major keys to avoiding manipulation is
knowledge. Our system of government was
designed for people who could easily
understand the issues and vote intelligently
based on knowledge, rather than blindly
following political leaders who are often
enshrouded with less than honorable motives.
One of the book's major themes is that
knowledge is a formidable enemy of
falsehood and a formidable ally of truth.
There are specific steps that each of us can
take, such as reading about something new
for a half-hour every day for a year. Such a
simple move will profoundly change the life
of the reader and will vastly increase their
effectiveness as an involved and responsible
citizen.
In today's world of widely disseminated
information, a person rapidly can become
knowledgeable in a variety of areas,
regardless of his occupation.
The greatest concerns of the people we are
encountering on the road revolve around the
future of their children and grandchildren as
we continue along the path of government
growth and escalating expenditure of
taxpayer money, essentially ensuring that
future generations have lives characterized
by significantly reduced economic freedom.
The lessons are abundant in America and
throughout the world regarding the
consequences of prolonged fiscal
irresponsibility. Also, historical records are
replete with accounts of the self-destruction
of nations, driven by national debt. Many of
our leaders are complacent about our
precarious financial state because people
seem more interested in reality television and
sporting events than in our imminent
financial collapse. Once again, history
informs us that national leaders seldom
recognize and act upon economic warnings
before disaster occurs.
I think the majority of the American people
know we are rapidly approaching the fiscal
cliff, and they are concerned but not
panicked. It is not too late for people of all
political stripes to put partisan bickering
aside and join forces to combat the
unsustainable debt that threatens our future.
It also is not too late for responsible voters to
notice which leaders refuse to seriously
engage in such endeavors and remove them
from office.
It doesn't matter to me that those who despise
my warnings will say I'm only promoting my
book and trying to make money. From their
perspective, they are probably incapable of
understanding motives that would differ from
theirs. Regardless of what they say, November
2014 will bring perhaps the most
consequential midterm elections in history.
Combined with the elections of 2016, "we the
people" will determine whether traditional
American values and traditional
interpretations of our Constitution are
important to us, or whether we prefer to
continue down the path of ever-increasing
government control of everything, including
our lives. Books such as "One Nation: What
We Can All Do To Save America's Future"
will, by the grace of God, ensure that we go
into that election process with our eyes open.
Not only are there no enemies among us, but
we can and must come together to recapture
the values that made us an exceptional
nation. We must use our intellect and energy
to unleash the most powerful economic
engine the world has ever known. Then we
must concentrate on opening the pathways of
personal empowerment to the millions of
Americans who feel forgotten. Instead of
restraining them in positions of dependency,
we must provide clear pathways to self-
improvement. We can help those who have
made mistakes that make it difficult for them
to pursue an education by providing a
reasonable amount of money for day care.
By demonstrating true compassion as dictated
by Judeo-Christian values, we can make
America a place of dreams and success for
everyone. We must remember that freedom
is not free, and all of us must be involved in
its maintenance.
by bus through several states, and I have
been struck by the number of people who
already have read "One Nation," but also by
the large, enthusiastic crowds whose
constituents include all political parties.
People are concerned about our future as a
nation and the poor prioritization of issues
by our leaders, to put it mildly.
We wrote "One Nation" to convince our
fellow Americans that "we the people" are not
enemies and that our strength is derived
from unity and common sense, which should
be ubiquitous. The real enemies are the
forces that are constantly trying to divide and
conquer. They create divisions based on race,
gender, age, education and, especially,
income. It is important that we discuss who
the purveyors of division are and what drives
them to seek a radical alteration of the
American way of life.
We discuss the tools used to manipulate the
populace into feeling that they should be
offended so easily by words, while diverting
their attention away from the real issues that
desperately cry out for a solution. One of the
major keys to avoiding manipulation is
knowledge. Our system of government was
designed for people who could easily
understand the issues and vote intelligently
based on knowledge, rather than blindly
following political leaders who are often
enshrouded with less than honorable motives.
One of the book's major themes is that
knowledge is a formidable enemy of
falsehood and a formidable ally of truth.
There are specific steps that each of us can
take, such as reading about something new
for a half-hour every day for a year. Such a
simple move will profoundly change the life
of the reader and will vastly increase their
effectiveness as an involved and responsible
citizen.
In today's world of widely disseminated
information, a person rapidly can become
knowledgeable in a variety of areas,
regardless of his occupation.
The greatest concerns of the people we are
encountering on the road revolve around the
future of their children and grandchildren as
we continue along the path of government
growth and escalating expenditure of
taxpayer money, essentially ensuring that
future generations have lives characterized
by significantly reduced economic freedom.
The lessons are abundant in America and
throughout the world regarding the
consequences of prolonged fiscal
irresponsibility. Also, historical records are
replete with accounts of the self-destruction
of nations, driven by national debt. Many of
our leaders are complacent about our
precarious financial state because people
seem more interested in reality television and
sporting events than in our imminent
financial collapse. Once again, history
informs us that national leaders seldom
recognize and act upon economic warnings
before disaster occurs.
I think the majority of the American people
know we are rapidly approaching the fiscal
cliff, and they are concerned but not
panicked. It is not too late for people of all
political stripes to put partisan bickering
aside and join forces to combat the
unsustainable debt that threatens our future.
It also is not too late for responsible voters to
notice which leaders refuse to seriously
engage in such endeavors and remove them
from office.
It doesn't matter to me that those who despise
my warnings will say I'm only promoting my
book and trying to make money. From their
perspective, they are probably incapable of
understanding motives that would differ from
theirs. Regardless of what they say, November
2014 will bring perhaps the most
consequential midterm elections in history.
Combined with the elections of 2016, "we the
people" will determine whether traditional
American values and traditional
interpretations of our Constitution are
important to us, or whether we prefer to
continue down the path of ever-increasing
government control of everything, including
our lives. Books such as "One Nation: What
We Can All Do To Save America's Future"
will, by the grace of God, ensure that we go
into that election process with our eyes open.
Not only are there no enemies among us, but
we can and must come together to recapture
the values that made us an exceptional
nation. We must use our intellect and energy
to unleash the most powerful economic
engine the world has ever known. Then we
must concentrate on opening the pathways of
personal empowerment to the millions of
Americans who feel forgotten. Instead of
restraining them in positions of dependency,
we must provide clear pathways to self-
improvement. We can help those who have
made mistakes that make it difficult for them
to pursue an education by providing a
reasonable amount of money for day care.
By demonstrating true compassion as dictated
by Judeo-Christian values, we can make
America a place of dreams and success for
everyone. We must remember that freedom
is not free, and all of us must be involved in
its maintenance.
POPULAR NONSENSE
"Young people are exploited!" "Income
mobility is down!" "Poor people are locked
into poverty!"
Those are samples of popular nonsense
peddled today.
Leftist economist Thomas Piketty's book
"Capital in the Twenty-First Century" has
been No. 1 on best-seller lists for weeks (with
400 pages of statistics, I assume "Capital" is
bought more often than it is read). Piketty
argues that investments grow faster than
wages and so the rich get richer far faster
than everyone else. He says we should impose
a wealth tax and 80 percent taxes on rich
people's incomes.
But Piketty's numbers mislead. It's true that
today the rich are richer than ever. And the
wealth gap between rich and poor has grown.
Now the top 1 percent own more assets than
the bottom 90 percent!
But focusing on this disparity ignores the fact
that over time, the rich and poor are not the
same people. Oprah Winfrey once was on
welfare. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was a
farmhand. When markets are free, poor
people can move out of their income group.
In America, income mobility, which matters
more than income inequality, has not really
diminished.
Economists at Harvard and Berkeley
crunched the numbers on 40 million tax
returns from 1971-2012 and discovered that
mobility is pretty much what The Pew
Charitable Trusts reported it was 30 years
ago.
Today, 64 percent of the people born to the
poorest fifth of society rise out of that quintile
-- 11 percent rise all the way into the top
quintile. Meanwhile, 8 percent born to the
richest fifth fall all the way to the bottom
fifth. Sometimes great wealth makes kids lazy
and self-indulgent, and wrecks their lives
Also, the rich don't get rich at the expense of
the poor (unless they steal or collude with
government). The poor got richer, too. Yes,
over the last 30 years, incomes of rich people
grew by more than 200 percent, but
according to the Congressional Budget Office,
poor people gained 50 percent. That growth
should matter more than the disparity.
Piketty's data reveal times in our history
when income inequality decreased: during
world wars and depression. Do we want
more of that ?
It's right to worry about the plight of the
poor, but not everything done in their name
really helps them -- minimum wage laws, for
example.
I've had hundreds of employees whom I paid
nothing: student interns. Unpaid internships
were allowed for years, because it was
understood that interns learn by working. My
interns learned a lot. Many went on to
successful careers in journalism. One won a
Pulitzer Prize. Many said they learned more
working for me than at college (despite
$50,000 tuition). They benefited and I
benefited. Win-win.
So for years government ignored Labor
Department rules that decreed unpaid
internships legal only if an employer gets "no
immediate advantage" from the intern.
Geez, who wants that? Of course I got an
advantage from my interns. That's why I
employed them!
Recently, President Barack Obama's Labor
Department announced it would enforce the
internship rules, and some interns sued their
former employers, claiming internships were
"unfair." Charlie Rose forked over a quarter
of a million dollars. Word spread, so now
unpaid internships are vanishing.
Some people say it's good that unpaid
internships are gone, because they are unfair
to poor people, who can't afford volunteer
work. But getting rid of opportunities does
nothing to help anyone. Employers lose and
students lose.
Difficult as it can seem to make your own
way in this world without a phony
government promise that you'll be taken care
of, or that every job will pay at least $15 an
hour, success happens when markets are
relatively free. Individual initiative creates
new things, companies, job opportunities --
whole new ways of life -- that make the world
better for all of us.
Government "help" ends up doing harm.
Leave people free -- both as workers and
employers -- to pursue opportunities they find
worthwhile, and we will prosper in ways
government planners could never imagine.
mobility is down!" "Poor people are locked
into poverty!"
Those are samples of popular nonsense
peddled today.
Leftist economist Thomas Piketty's book
"Capital in the Twenty-First Century" has
been No. 1 on best-seller lists for weeks (with
400 pages of statistics, I assume "Capital" is
bought more often than it is read). Piketty
argues that investments grow faster than
wages and so the rich get richer far faster
than everyone else. He says we should impose
a wealth tax and 80 percent taxes on rich
people's incomes.
But Piketty's numbers mislead. It's true that
today the rich are richer than ever. And the
wealth gap between rich and poor has grown.
Now the top 1 percent own more assets than
the bottom 90 percent!
But focusing on this disparity ignores the fact
that over time, the rich and poor are not the
same people. Oprah Winfrey once was on
welfare. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was a
farmhand. When markets are free, poor
people can move out of their income group.
In America, income mobility, which matters
more than income inequality, has not really
diminished.
Economists at Harvard and Berkeley
crunched the numbers on 40 million tax
returns from 1971-2012 and discovered that
mobility is pretty much what The Pew
Charitable Trusts reported it was 30 years
ago.
Today, 64 percent of the people born to the
poorest fifth of society rise out of that quintile
-- 11 percent rise all the way into the top
quintile. Meanwhile, 8 percent born to the
richest fifth fall all the way to the bottom
fifth. Sometimes great wealth makes kids lazy
and self-indulgent, and wrecks their lives
Also, the rich don't get rich at the expense of
the poor (unless they steal or collude with
government). The poor got richer, too. Yes,
over the last 30 years, incomes of rich people
grew by more than 200 percent, but
according to the Congressional Budget Office,
poor people gained 50 percent. That growth
should matter more than the disparity.
Piketty's data reveal times in our history
when income inequality decreased: during
world wars and depression. Do we want
more of that ?
It's right to worry about the plight of the
poor, but not everything done in their name
really helps them -- minimum wage laws, for
example.
I've had hundreds of employees whom I paid
nothing: student interns. Unpaid internships
were allowed for years, because it was
understood that interns learn by working. My
interns learned a lot. Many went on to
successful careers in journalism. One won a
Pulitzer Prize. Many said they learned more
working for me than at college (despite
$50,000 tuition). They benefited and I
benefited. Win-win.
So for years government ignored Labor
Department rules that decreed unpaid
internships legal only if an employer gets "no
immediate advantage" from the intern.
Geez, who wants that? Of course I got an
advantage from my interns. That's why I
employed them!
Recently, President Barack Obama's Labor
Department announced it would enforce the
internship rules, and some interns sued their
former employers, claiming internships were
"unfair." Charlie Rose forked over a quarter
of a million dollars. Word spread, so now
unpaid internships are vanishing.
Some people say it's good that unpaid
internships are gone, because they are unfair
to poor people, who can't afford volunteer
work. But getting rid of opportunities does
nothing to help anyone. Employers lose and
students lose.
Difficult as it can seem to make your own
way in this world without a phony
government promise that you'll be taken care
of, or that every job will pay at least $15 an
hour, success happens when markets are
relatively free. Individual initiative creates
new things, companies, job opportunities --
whole new ways of life -- that make the world
better for all of us.
Government "help" ends up doing harm.
Leave people free -- both as workers and
employers -- to pursue opportunities they find
worthwhile, and we will prosper in ways
government planners could never imagine.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: INCOMPETENT OR INTENTIONAL?
Even Democrats are beginning to yell
“incompetence!” And it’s a nightly refrain on
FOX News. Certainly we are seeing signs of
incompetence in the deplorable VA scandal.
And the rollout of ObamaCare was a world-
class case of “glitch.” Inquiring minds are still
asking what became of a half billion dollar
investment in Solyndra. That “green energy”
company went belly up. The fact that many of
its organizers were Obama contributors
should not attract any congressional
oversight, of course. Nothing to see here,
folks, just move on (dot org).
The other administration woes—from Fast &
Furious to Benghazi are even more troubling.
A proper investigation may tell us whether or
not vets died awaiting care at VA hospitals.
But we already know that Americans died
because of administration missteps in Mexico
and Libya.
So, for those inclined to yell INCOMPETENCE,
there is plenty to yell about. Still, it might be
wise to pause and reflect: Is competence
really the winning issue that some pundits
think it is?
The 2012 campaign for president was run
largely on the basis of executive competence.
Candidate Mitt Romney was famous for his
start-up of Bain Capital, for rescuing the 2002
Winter Olympics, and for running a taut ship
as Governor of Massachusetts. He may have
stumbled with Joe Sixpack when he said he
“liked to fire people” who don’t perform, but
there was an aura of quiet competence
circling all the bright young folks who rallied
to Mitt’s campaign apparat.
Most impressive, perhaps, was their high-tech
plan for voter turnout. After all, voter turnout
is everything in politics. Long before
Abraham Lincoln stepped on the debate
platform with Democrat Stephen Douglas,
Lincoln the Whig politico was giving
campaign workers lessons in turning out the
vote for his party in Illinois.
Team Romney promised a state-of-the-art
computer-driven voter turnout effort that
would be far more advanced than anything
seen before. They called their plan Project
ORCA. It was a humorous dig at the Obama
turnout effort. The president’s team called
their computer program Narwhal.
On Election Day, November 6, 2012, ORCA
beached itself early in the day. The much-
vaunted computer program crashed. Fearing
leaks, the Romney team failed to test ORCA
before the critical day. It was perhaps the
most spectacular failure in the history of
presidential politics.
By contrast, Mr. Obama’s Narwhal swam
smoothly through calm seas to a thumping
victory. A businessman friend of mine, who
is highly tech savvy, related to us the story of
his lawyer daughter. She voted in Northern
Virginia at 1 pm. At 1:40 pm, she got a text
message from the Obama campaign listing all
her friends on FaceBook who had not yet
voted. The Obama team asked our young
advocate, politely, to text her friends and
encourage them to vote.
This is a cautionary tale. Critics can go on
and on about this administration’s
incompetence. We should be aware, however,
that the left will use these charges as
examples of the unfairness of President
Obama’s critics. They have never been
willing to give our first black president a fair
shake, Mr. Obama’s supporters are saying.
Barack Obama has been supremely competent
in the one great thing that matters to liberals:
Getting and keeping power. Don’t forget, it is
in ruling over us that liberals live and
breathe and have their being.
Let’s also remember that “competence” was
the great watchword of that other
technocratic Massachusetts governor, the
smooth and efficient Michael Dukakis. In
1988, he promised “competence not
ideology.”
Vice President George Bush countered that
competence will get the trains there on time,
to be sure, but it doesn’t let you know where
the trains are going. Bush ran a tough
campaign based on values and principles, a
campaign that accentuated the differences in
governing philosophy. He blasted Dukakis as
a “liberal.” He carried forty states. (That was
the last campaign where a candidate openly
claimed to be liberal. Now, they are all
“progressives.”)
Conservatives need to tell Americans where
they want to take the train. They should be
strong in saying that ObamaCare must be
repealed. They should not shy away from
social issues, but should learn how to
communicate the pro-life and pro-marriage
positions more effectively.
My friend Gary Bauer has wisely pointed out
that the NBCNews/Wall Street Journal polls on
people and the economy show that none of
the Republicans’ economic issues can
command a majority. The best of the GOP’s
planks garners less than 40% of the
electorate.
I agree with most of those conservative
economic positions. But too voters don’t.
Twelve years of miseducation and sixty years
of media misinformation have taken their
toll. By dumping social issues and stressing
only economic issues, the Republicans can
assuredly carry 37% of the vote---which is
what President George H.W. Bush got in 1992
against that New Democrat, Bill Clinton.
Barring misfortune, President Obama will be
in office until January 20, 2017. He is daily
increasing his powers. He had already issued
forty-one substantive changes to ObamaCare.
These changes were not approved by
Congress. Nor were they adjudicated by the
Supreme Court. Nonetheless, he holds the
power and he issues his diktats. And the great
bureaucratic machine rolls on over us all. In
wielding that vast power, in daily seizing
even more power, Mr. Obama’s competence
is unequaled.
“incompetence!” And it’s a nightly refrain on
FOX News. Certainly we are seeing signs of
incompetence in the deplorable VA scandal.
And the rollout of ObamaCare was a world-
class case of “glitch.” Inquiring minds are still
asking what became of a half billion dollar
investment in Solyndra. That “green energy”
company went belly up. The fact that many of
its organizers were Obama contributors
should not attract any congressional
oversight, of course. Nothing to see here,
folks, just move on (dot org).
The other administration woes—from Fast &
Furious to Benghazi are even more troubling.
A proper investigation may tell us whether or
not vets died awaiting care at VA hospitals.
But we already know that Americans died
because of administration missteps in Mexico
and Libya.
So, for those inclined to yell INCOMPETENCE,
there is plenty to yell about. Still, it might be
wise to pause and reflect: Is competence
really the winning issue that some pundits
think it is?
The 2012 campaign for president was run
largely on the basis of executive competence.
Candidate Mitt Romney was famous for his
start-up of Bain Capital, for rescuing the 2002
Winter Olympics, and for running a taut ship
as Governor of Massachusetts. He may have
stumbled with Joe Sixpack when he said he
“liked to fire people” who don’t perform, but
there was an aura of quiet competence
circling all the bright young folks who rallied
to Mitt’s campaign apparat.
Most impressive, perhaps, was their high-tech
plan for voter turnout. After all, voter turnout
is everything in politics. Long before
Abraham Lincoln stepped on the debate
platform with Democrat Stephen Douglas,
Lincoln the Whig politico was giving
campaign workers lessons in turning out the
vote for his party in Illinois.
Team Romney promised a state-of-the-art
computer-driven voter turnout effort that
would be far more advanced than anything
seen before. They called their plan Project
ORCA. It was a humorous dig at the Obama
turnout effort. The president’s team called
their computer program Narwhal.
On Election Day, November 6, 2012, ORCA
beached itself early in the day. The much-
vaunted computer program crashed. Fearing
leaks, the Romney team failed to test ORCA
before the critical day. It was perhaps the
most spectacular failure in the history of
presidential politics.
By contrast, Mr. Obama’s Narwhal swam
smoothly through calm seas to a thumping
victory. A businessman friend of mine, who
is highly tech savvy, related to us the story of
his lawyer daughter. She voted in Northern
Virginia at 1 pm. At 1:40 pm, she got a text
message from the Obama campaign listing all
her friends on FaceBook who had not yet
voted. The Obama team asked our young
advocate, politely, to text her friends and
encourage them to vote.
This is a cautionary tale. Critics can go on
and on about this administration’s
incompetence. We should be aware, however,
that the left will use these charges as
examples of the unfairness of President
Obama’s critics. They have never been
willing to give our first black president a fair
shake, Mr. Obama’s supporters are saying.
Barack Obama has been supremely competent
in the one great thing that matters to liberals:
Getting and keeping power. Don’t forget, it is
in ruling over us that liberals live and
breathe and have their being.
Let’s also remember that “competence” was
the great watchword of that other
technocratic Massachusetts governor, the
smooth and efficient Michael Dukakis. In
1988, he promised “competence not
ideology.”
Vice President George Bush countered that
competence will get the trains there on time,
to be sure, but it doesn’t let you know where
the trains are going. Bush ran a tough
campaign based on values and principles, a
campaign that accentuated the differences in
governing philosophy. He blasted Dukakis as
a “liberal.” He carried forty states. (That was
the last campaign where a candidate openly
claimed to be liberal. Now, they are all
“progressives.”)
Conservatives need to tell Americans where
they want to take the train. They should be
strong in saying that ObamaCare must be
repealed. They should not shy away from
social issues, but should learn how to
communicate the pro-life and pro-marriage
positions more effectively.
My friend Gary Bauer has wisely pointed out
that the NBCNews/Wall Street Journal polls on
people and the economy show that none of
the Republicans’ economic issues can
command a majority. The best of the GOP’s
planks garners less than 40% of the
electorate.
I agree with most of those conservative
economic positions. But too voters don’t.
Twelve years of miseducation and sixty years
of media misinformation have taken their
toll. By dumping social issues and stressing
only economic issues, the Republicans can
assuredly carry 37% of the vote---which is
what President George H.W. Bush got in 1992
against that New Democrat, Bill Clinton.
Barring misfortune, President Obama will be
in office until January 20, 2017. He is daily
increasing his powers. He had already issued
forty-one substantive changes to ObamaCare.
These changes were not approved by
Congress. Nor were they adjudicated by the
Supreme Court. Nonetheless, he holds the
power and he issues his diktats. And the great
bureaucratic machine rolls on over us all. In
wielding that vast power, in daily seizing
even more power, Mr. Obama’s competence
is unequaled.
CHINA'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST FOREIGN WORDS
Twice in late April, People’s Daily railed
against the incorporation of acronyms and
English words in written Chinese. “How much
have foreign languages damaged the purity
and vitality of the Chinese language?” the
Communist Party’s flagship publication asked
as it complained of the “zero-translation
phenomenon.”
So if you write in the world’s most exquisite
language—in my opinion, anyway— don’t even
think of jotting down “WiFi,” “MBA,” or “VIP.”
If you’re a fan of Apple products, please do
not use “iPhone” or “iPad.” And never ever
scribble “PM2.5,” a scientific term that has
become popular in China due to the air
pollution crisis, or “e-mail.”
China’s communist culture caretakers are
cheesed, perhaps by the unfairness of the
situation. They note that when English
absorbs Chinese words, such as “kung fu,” the
terms are romanized. When China copies
English terms, however, they are often
adopted without change, dropped into Chinese
text as is.
This is not the first time Beijing has moaned
about foreign terms. In 2010 for instance,
China Central Television banned “NBA” and
required the on-air use of “US professional
basketball association.” The irony is that the
state broadcaster consistently uses “CCTV” to
identify itself, something that has not escaped
the attention of China’s noisy online
community.
In response to the new language campaign,
China’s netizens naturally took to mockery
and sarcasm last month. They posted fictitious
conversations using ungainly translations for
the now shunned foreign terms. On Weibo,
China’s microblogging service, they held a
“grand competition to keep the purity of the
Chinese language.” The consensus was that
People’s Daily was once again promoting the
ridiculous and impractical, as the substituted
Chinese translations were almost always
longer and convoluted.
The derision has not stopped China’s
policymakers from taking extraordinary steps
to defend their language. In 2012, the Chinese
government established a linguistics
committee to standardize foreign words. In
2013, it published the first ten approved
Chinese translations for terms such as WTO,
AIDS, and GDP, ordering all media to use
them. A second and third series of approved
terms are expected this year. How French.
There is a bit of obtuseness in all these
elaborate efforts. As People’s Daily , China’s
most authoritative publication, talks about
foreign terms damaging “purity and vitality,”
it forgets that innovation, in the form of
borrowing, is the essence of vitality. And as
for “purity,” the Chinese people are not
buying the Communist Party’s hypocritical
argument. “Do you think simplified Chinese
characters pure?” asked one blogger.
The party, starting in the early Maoist era,
replaced what are now called “traditional”
Chinese characters for a set of “simplified”
ones, thereby making a wholesale change of
the script. The new set of characters may be
easier to write, but the forced adoption meant
that young Chinese in the Mainland can no
longer read classic works in their own
language unless they have been transcribed
into the new characters.
The party, it seems, is just anti-foreign. “Since
the reform and opening up, many people have
blindly worshipped the West, casually using
foreign words as a way of showing off their
knowledge and intellect,” said Xia Jixuan
from the Ministry of Education, quoted in
People’s Daily . “This also exacerbated the
proliferation of foreign words.”
Are foreign words inherently bad? In China,
unfortunately, we are seeing further evidence
of the closing of Communist Party minds.
against the incorporation of acronyms and
English words in written Chinese. “How much
have foreign languages damaged the purity
and vitality of the Chinese language?” the
Communist Party’s flagship publication asked
as it complained of the “zero-translation
phenomenon.”
So if you write in the world’s most exquisite
language—in my opinion, anyway— don’t even
think of jotting down “WiFi,” “MBA,” or “VIP.”
If you’re a fan of Apple products, please do
not use “iPhone” or “iPad.” And never ever
scribble “PM2.5,” a scientific term that has
become popular in China due to the air
pollution crisis, or “e-mail.”
China’s communist culture caretakers are
cheesed, perhaps by the unfairness of the
situation. They note that when English
absorbs Chinese words, such as “kung fu,” the
terms are romanized. When China copies
English terms, however, they are often
adopted without change, dropped into Chinese
text as is.
This is not the first time Beijing has moaned
about foreign terms. In 2010 for instance,
China Central Television banned “NBA” and
required the on-air use of “US professional
basketball association.” The irony is that the
state broadcaster consistently uses “CCTV” to
identify itself, something that has not escaped
the attention of China’s noisy online
community.
In response to the new language campaign,
China’s netizens naturally took to mockery
and sarcasm last month. They posted fictitious
conversations using ungainly translations for
the now shunned foreign terms. On Weibo,
China’s microblogging service, they held a
“grand competition to keep the purity of the
Chinese language.” The consensus was that
People’s Daily was once again promoting the
ridiculous and impractical, as the substituted
Chinese translations were almost always
longer and convoluted.
The derision has not stopped China’s
policymakers from taking extraordinary steps
to defend their language. In 2012, the Chinese
government established a linguistics
committee to standardize foreign words. In
2013, it published the first ten approved
Chinese translations for terms such as WTO,
AIDS, and GDP, ordering all media to use
them. A second and third series of approved
terms are expected this year. How French.
There is a bit of obtuseness in all these
elaborate efforts. As People’s Daily , China’s
most authoritative publication, talks about
foreign terms damaging “purity and vitality,”
it forgets that innovation, in the form of
borrowing, is the essence of vitality. And as
for “purity,” the Chinese people are not
buying the Communist Party’s hypocritical
argument. “Do you think simplified Chinese
characters pure?” asked one blogger.
The party, starting in the early Maoist era,
replaced what are now called “traditional”
Chinese characters for a set of “simplified”
ones, thereby making a wholesale change of
the script. The new set of characters may be
easier to write, but the forced adoption meant
that young Chinese in the Mainland can no
longer read classic works in their own
language unless they have been transcribed
into the new characters.
The party, it seems, is just anti-foreign. “Since
the reform and opening up, many people have
blindly worshipped the West, casually using
foreign words as a way of showing off their
knowledge and intellect,” said Xia Jixuan
from the Ministry of Education, quoted in
People’s Daily . “This also exacerbated the
proliferation of foreign words.”
Are foreign words inherently bad? In China,
unfortunately, we are seeing further evidence
of the closing of Communist Party minds.
AMERICA'S PURPOSE AND ROLE IN A CHANGED WORLD
More about: North America , US , Lebanon
MAY/JUNE 2014
America’s Purpose and Role in a
Changed World
25 people recommend this. Be the first of your friends. Recommend
Sarah Grebowski
’ll never forget my brief and ill-received
show of American patriotism as a young
expatriate in Beirut. It was the summer of
2010, and the city was teeming with convoys
of Lebanese youth honking and waving flags
to celebrate their favorite teams’ victories in
the World Cup. After an exciting win by the
US, I joined a group of Americans in a street
celebration. But cruising down the main
thoroughfare of West Beirut, our procession of
stars and stripes was met with disapproving
looks. The image that remains with me to this
day is that of an older man standing silently
with his shoe in his hand. The tattered sole
was pointed directly at us, an expression of
disrespect in Muslim culture. We recognized
the gesture’s meaning only because a similar
shoe had been thrown at the American
president’s head a year earlier.
Today’s generation of young Americans,
known as the millennials, has come of age at
a time when America has been humbled on
the world stage. Many of them have traveled
extensively at a young age and experienced
this diminished reputation firsthand. Their
parents and grandparents believe that
America has been a remarkable force for
good in the world and that the country should
not lose sight of its responsibility to shape
events globally because of mistakes made in
the last decade. But millennials seem more
fixed on the limits of American power and
disenchanted with ideas of American
exceptionalism.
Because of these reservations, the millennial
generation is often described as declinist or
isolationist. I disagree. Young Americans care
more than any other age group about what
happens beyond our borders. Millennials tend
toward multilateralism and the cautious use of
force, and perhaps would be more selective in
committing US resources overseas. But far
from an abdication of global leadership, this
prudence may prove to be the silver lining to
millennials’ crisis of confidence in America’s
role as, in President Obama’s words, “not just
a place on a map, but the light to the world.”
ther generations have been disillusioned
by the tarnishing of America’s image
abroad. This was particularly true during the
war in Vietnam. A Foreign Affairs article
published in 1970 titled “The New Generation
of Isolationists” contains remarkable parallels
between the attitudes of young baby boomers
at the time and millennials now. The 1970s
youth generation saw deep flaws in American
democracy, felt outrage over America’s wars
and covert action, and vowed that they would
not repeat the foreign policy mistakes being
made by their elders.
Much as the 1972 Democratic Party
convention and its presidential candidate
harnessed the political voice of this frustrated
generation, the 2008 presidential election,
which saw the second-highest youth turnout
in history, focused national attention on the
attitudes and opinions of the eighteen-to-
thirty-two-year-old slice of the American
population known as the millennials. Amid
the clamor over what it means to be a
millennial, this much is clear: the current
generation embraces a distinctly different
worldview than that of older generations. In a
2011 Pew Research poll, “The Generation Gap
and the 2012 Election,” millennials were the
least likely age group to say that the US is the
greatest country in the world; in fact, only
thirty-two percent of them held the view.
The reasons for young people’s skepticism
toward claims of American greatness that
resonate so strongly with their elders are
complex.
For starters, millennials’ unprecedented level
of interaction with foreign cultures makes
them reluctant to think of their country as
fundamentally superior to others. More than
simply gaining familiarity with other
countries and feeling an affinity for the global
community, millennials have developed bonds
with foreign countries through their
experiences living, working, and studying
abroad. Especially throughout America’s
economic recession, when many college
graduates faced a discouraging lack of job
opportunity at home, many have called Beirut,
Beijing, Kyiv, and other places home. Recent
polling data from Zogby Analytics confirms
that millennials are much less likely to agree
that foreign cultures are inferior to American
culture than other generations have been.
Historical context is also part of the equation.
Millennials have come of age during a decade
when America’s image has plummeted as a
result of unpopular wars, shaping their
perception of the country. More importantly,
they have never seen the world order come
under a threat from a malign force such as
fascism or communism. Millennials have read
about the exceptional things America has
done to benefit the rest of the world, but were
never shaped by the visceral experiences of
stocking a fallout shelter during the Cold War
or being conscripted to fight for America’s
way of life. The attacks of 9/11 might have
been a seminal event for the millennials, but
the resulting war against al-Qaeda has not
affected as many younger people as
profoundly as these previous conflicts did.
Finally, millennials perceive an awkward
mismatch between ideas of American
exceptionalism and the pronounced crisis of
institutions the country faces. Millennials
today witness partisan gridlock, economic
stagnation, and growing socioeconomic
inequality at home and wonder whether the
US has the capability or the moral right to
provide global leadership when it has such
interminable difficulty putting its own house
in order.
f millennials aren’t thinking like leaders of
the free world once did, what then do they
see as the way forward for the US?
Isolationism is not the mainstream view
among them, despite the Brookings
Institution’s 2011 finding that fifty-eight
percent of the “emerging foreign policy
leaders” identified among the younger
generation think America is “too involved in
global affairs and should do more at home.”
Millennials on the extreme end of foreign
policy opinion—who, for example, favor
slashing the foreign aid budget, which hovers
at one percent of federal spending, for the
sake of “nation building at home”—often
overestimate the degree to which scaling back
our presence globally will fix domestic
problems.
But the Brookings profile of millennials may
be an outlier. A greater number of studies
indicate that millennials are ready to embrace
a robust foreign policy with more, not less,
engagement beyond our borders. A 2005 poll
conducted by GQR Research, for example,
showed that more young Americans believed
that the September 11th attacks underscored a
need for America to be more connected with
the world (fifty-five percent) than a need
simply to assert greater control over its
borders (thirty-nine percent). Millennial
foreign policy views are also not necessarily
defeatist or declinist. Most young Americans
believe that the nation’s best days are ahead
of us and show more optimism about the
future than older generations. 1
The central question, then, is not whether but
how the millennial generation of
policymakers will preserve America’s position
in the world and promote global stability and
prosperity. If trends continue, the rising
generation will likely be cautious in the use of
force to achieve foreign policy goals and
prefer diplomacy instead. (In the 2011 Pew
poll, sixty-six percent of millennials thought
that relying too much on military force to
defeat terrorism actually leads to more hatred
and terrorism.) Multilateralism is also central
to the millennial vision. Younger Americans
are the most likely to believe that America’s
security depends on building strong ties with
other nations, and think that the US should
take the interests of its allies into account
even if it means making compromises. 2
This is no abdication of global leadership, but
rather a realistic reaction to the lessons of
recent history. What would be the wisdom
after the Iraq War in using military force
over diplomacy to advance democratic
change? Where are the financial and political
resources for the US to secure its interests
unilaterally?
Millennials see leadership as more than a
binary choice between isolationism and
interventionism, and weigh the many forms
of agency when it comes to how the US can
shape events around the world. Though
shirking a global leadership role is not an
option, scaling back our commitments abroad,
especially militarily, does seem to be an
important priority among this young
generation. Aware of America’s fallibility and
the constraints upon its global behavior,
millennials believe they can craft a more
sustainable level of American engagement
beyond its borders by recalibrating its use of
hard and soft power to shape events
WHY IS THE PENTAGON HONORING A CHINESE GENERAL?
General Fang Fenghui, China’s chief of
general staff, is now in the US on a five-day
tour of American military facilities, including
the naval air station in San Diego, where he
inspected the USS Ronald Reagan , one of
America’s 10 active aircraft carriers. Most
notably, he will receive a “full-military-
honors arrival ceremony” at the Pentagon on
Thursday.
The visit comes as a fleet of about 80 Chinese
vessels , both military and civilian, are
protecting a drilling rig that China National
Offshore Oil Corporation, a Chinese state-
owned enterprise, positioned just off
Vietnam’s coast at the beginning of this
month. China’s ships rammed and collided
with Vietnamese craft defending waters that
Hanoi believes to be within its exclusive
economic zone. The rig’s location is near the
Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
Beijing, with its infamous nine-dashed line on
its official maps, takes the position that about
90 percent of that body of water is China’s,
including the drill site. The expansive—and
largely indefensible—claim includes the
coastal waters of Taiwan, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia as well as
Vietnam.
Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying
to calm the situation. “He urged both sides on
both calls to de-escalate tensions, to engage in
high-level dialogue, to ensure safe conduct by
their vessels at sea, and to resolve the dispute
through peaceful means,” said State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, referring
to Kerry’s conversations with his Chinese and
Vietnamese counterparts. The Chinese flatly
rejected these even-handed comments, blasting
Kerry for just trying to keep the peace in the
region. Hong Kong’s South China Morning
Post has called the exchange a “war of words.”
According to one Chinese oil official , Beijing
apparently directed its state oil company,
commonly known as CNOOC, to drill in order
to bolster its sovereignty claim. “This reflected
the will of the central government and is also
related to the US strategy on Asia,” said the
official, speaking anonymously to Reuters,
about drilling in Vietnam’s waters. “It is not
commercially driven.”
Beijing, with its particularly provocative
move, is obviously testing President Obama,
who had just left the region after an eight-day
tour to reassure allies and friends. Vietnam was
the perfect target for the Chinese, as it is not
allied with Washington. Yet the Chinese
gambit nonetheless affects US interests as it
directly impinges freedom of navigation,
something America has defended for more
than two centuries. Moreover, Beijing’s act
against Vietnam’s coastal water mirrors
moves against American allies Japan, South
Korea, and the Philippines.
The Chinese do not take American warnings
seriously, reports the Wall Street Journal. And
why should they? General Fang is about to get
military honors while his country’s vessels are
deliberately creating turmoil and directly
challenging American interests.
Washington may think it is preserving
regional order by seeking to develop a
cooperative relationship with Beijing—hence
the honor for Fang—but Chinese
policymakers evidently perceive them
differently, seeing America’s hopeful and
generous moves as symptoms of weakness.
After all, they have continually increased the
pressure on their neighbors and challenged
Washington directly, especially during the last
half decade.
In any event, there is no arguing with history.
China has, in recent years, been harassing
American vessels in international waters,
dismembering the Philippines, and
appropriating international airspace. The
Chinese have regularly violated the territorial
integrity of Japan with their probes on the sea
and in the air. Last October, for no apparent
reason, Beijing publicly boasted about its
ability to kill Americans in the tens of
millions.
The assumptions that guide American policy
toward China are obviously incorrect. It’s not
too late to change course and maybe even
send General Fang home without his Pentagon
ceremony.
general staff, is now in the US on a five-day
tour of American military facilities, including
the naval air station in San Diego, where he
inspected the USS Ronald Reagan , one of
America’s 10 active aircraft carriers. Most
notably, he will receive a “full-military-
honors arrival ceremony” at the Pentagon on
Thursday.
The visit comes as a fleet of about 80 Chinese
vessels , both military and civilian, are
protecting a drilling rig that China National
Offshore Oil Corporation, a Chinese state-
owned enterprise, positioned just off
Vietnam’s coast at the beginning of this
month. China’s ships rammed and collided
with Vietnamese craft defending waters that
Hanoi believes to be within its exclusive
economic zone. The rig’s location is near the
Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
Beijing, with its infamous nine-dashed line on
its official maps, takes the position that about
90 percent of that body of water is China’s,
including the drill site. The expansive—and
largely indefensible—claim includes the
coastal waters of Taiwan, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia as well as
Vietnam.
Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying
to calm the situation. “He urged both sides on
both calls to de-escalate tensions, to engage in
high-level dialogue, to ensure safe conduct by
their vessels at sea, and to resolve the dispute
through peaceful means,” said State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, referring
to Kerry’s conversations with his Chinese and
Vietnamese counterparts. The Chinese flatly
rejected these even-handed comments, blasting
Kerry for just trying to keep the peace in the
region. Hong Kong’s South China Morning
Post has called the exchange a “war of words.”
According to one Chinese oil official , Beijing
apparently directed its state oil company,
commonly known as CNOOC, to drill in order
to bolster its sovereignty claim. “This reflected
the will of the central government and is also
related to the US strategy on Asia,” said the
official, speaking anonymously to Reuters,
about drilling in Vietnam’s waters. “It is not
commercially driven.”
Beijing, with its particularly provocative
move, is obviously testing President Obama,
who had just left the region after an eight-day
tour to reassure allies and friends. Vietnam was
the perfect target for the Chinese, as it is not
allied with Washington. Yet the Chinese
gambit nonetheless affects US interests as it
directly impinges freedom of navigation,
something America has defended for more
than two centuries. Moreover, Beijing’s act
against Vietnam’s coastal water mirrors
moves against American allies Japan, South
Korea, and the Philippines.
The Chinese do not take American warnings
seriously, reports the Wall Street Journal. And
why should they? General Fang is about to get
military honors while his country’s vessels are
deliberately creating turmoil and directly
challenging American interests.
Washington may think it is preserving
regional order by seeking to develop a
cooperative relationship with Beijing—hence
the honor for Fang—but Chinese
policymakers evidently perceive them
differently, seeing America’s hopeful and
generous moves as symptoms of weakness.
After all, they have continually increased the
pressure on their neighbors and challenged
Washington directly, especially during the last
half decade.
In any event, there is no arguing with history.
China has, in recent years, been harassing
American vessels in international waters,
dismembering the Philippines, and
appropriating international airspace. The
Chinese have regularly violated the territorial
integrity of Japan with their probes on the sea
and in the air. Last October, for no apparent
reason, Beijing publicly boasted about its
ability to kill Americans in the tens of
millions.
The assumptions that guide American policy
toward China are obviously incorrect. It’s not
too late to change course and maybe even
send General Fang home without his Pentagon
ceremony.
VIOLENCE, POWER, AND NUCLEAR PUTIN
V
T
More about: Europe and Central Asia , Russia , Ukraine, Vladimir Putin
ONLINE FEATURES
Violence, Power, and Nuclear
Putin
574 people recommend this. Be the first of your friends. Recommend
Mariana Budjeryn
The practice of violence, like all action,
changes the world, but the most probable
change is to a more violent world.
—Hannah Arendt, On Violence
ladimir Putin wants to reclaim for Russia
the respect and status the Soviet Union
once commanded and has recently
undertaken to achieve this by force. His
landgrab in Ukraine has been swift and
remarkably successful, emboldening him to
continue his campaign against Ukraine.
Between his high popularity at home and the
meek reaction of the West, it might seem that
Putin is growing in power. Yet to maintain it,
he will have to increasingly rely on violence,
including world’s largest nuclear arsenal. The
West should understand that the cost of
deterring him now is dwarfted by the cost of
deterring him later.
So far, Russia and the West have engaged in a
war of words. Russia accuses the decaying
and hypocritical West of instigating last
winter’s Euromaidan protests in Ukraine,
deposing its corrupt regime, and installing an
illegal government in Kyiv. The US accuses
dishonest and belligerent Russia of invading
Ukraine, illegally annexing Crimea, and now
fermenting separatism in the country’s east
and south. Russia, while denying direct
involvement in Ukraine, claims that, like the
US, it has the right to project its power
wherever it deems necessary. The Russian
Parliament gave Putin the leave to do so by
force—only in Ukraine, for now.
Putin’s is an old-fashioned Machiavellian
understanding of power, whereby violence,
force, and coercion are various
manifestations of it and allude to the different
ways in which one man rules over another. As
that Clausewitzian maxim goes, war is simply
a continuation of politics by other means.
Force begets power, and power can use force
if and when it likes. In short, might
constitutes right.
Yet there is a profoundly different way to
conceive of the relationship between power
and violence. Political theorist Hannah
Arendt, while recognizing that power and
violence often come in tandem, drew sharp
distinctions between the two and juxtaposed
them as opposites. Power, she argued, is not
the ability to impose the will of one man over
another, but the ability to act in concert.
Power is the property of the collective, and a
single actor can be powerful only in as much
as he has the following of many. Power is
generated through persuasion and
demonstration. Because the support for power
is granted through free choice and can be just
as freely withdrawn, power comes with
responsibility to practice what it preaches.
Violence, on the other hand, is the property of
a single actor, individual or institutional.
According to Arendt, while power is the end
in itself, violence is always instrumental, a
means to an end. It also needs tools: physical
strength, soldiers, weapons. Violence distorts
equality between actors and obliterates
freedom to choose, which is so essential to
power and the responsibility it entails. Power
relies on support; violence commands
obedience. Power needs no justification, but
does need legitimacy; violence can be
justifiable, but never legitimate.
All forms of government, including
democracies, rely on a combination of power
and violence. All forms of government,
including tyrannies, rely on the general
support of society, too. To forge this support, a
tyranny sooner or later turns to coercion,
which necessarily diminishes its power and
makes it, as Montesquieu said, the most
violent and the least powerful form of
government. Thus, the resort to violence is
nothing else but a symptom of eroding power.
Vladimir Putin eschews and at the same time
envies US power, which he sees as freedom to
do as it wills in the world. What he does not
understand is that genuine US power is
manifested not in its military prowess, vast
intelligence network or economic might per se ,
but in the willingness of others to follow it
voluntarily. It is manifested in the fact that
US-led NATO did not fizzle away when the
instrumental reasons for its existence
disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet
Union. It is manifested in the free choice of
the polities formerly under the Soviet
domination, from the Baltics to Kyrgyzstan, to
align with the US-led Euro-Atlantic order
without any coercion. George Kennan best
described the essence of US power as leading
by example.
Ironically, Putin and his cronies unwittingly
grant recognition to Western power every
time they freely choose to send their children
to Western schools, park their fortunes in
Western banks, and establish their residencies
in posh Western cities and vacation spots.
While US power thus conceived has been
declining, in no small part due to its ill-
justified and unsupported invasion of Iraq, it
is still vastly more attractive than anything
Putin and his Russian world has to offer. With
its corrupt and oppressive oligarchy, its
primitive hydrocarbon economy one-eighth of
the size of America’s, and its stifled public
sphere, Putin’s Russia has found few eager
followers. Unable to generate power by
influencing, engaging, and inspiring the
world with a compelling ideology, a model of
development, or a concept of good life, Putin
resorted to violence.
After all, it worked at home. Putin’s
popularity is craftily manufactured through
various forms of coercion. As Sergei Guriev, a
Russian economist in exile, summed up : “For
less sophisticated people, he relies on
brainwashing… For more sophisticated but
less honest people, he needs to bribe them.
For honest, sophisticated people, he uses
repression.” Brainwashing is the most
dangerous of coercive methods because it
creates an illusion of power, intoxicating but
false. Nevertheless, it is a form of intellectual
violence: by snuffing out dissent and
establishing a monopoly on interpretation of
past and present, Putin’s regime has forced
millions of Russian minds into a rut, robbing
them of freedom to make a fair choice
between alternatives.
Thus, Putin’s regime stands and falls on
substituting violence for its nonexistent
power. To admit that people or states can
follow a leader without being coerced is to
subvert his own model of rule. Therefore, the
story must be told of the West blatantly
forcing others to align with it. It becomes
inevitable that the West should play its dirty
hand in Ukraine’s pro-European protests, as
in every other anti-Putin project inside or
outside Russia.
he repercussions of Putin’s conflation of
power with violence are ominous. He is
not the only leader to do this, but he is the
only leader presiding over a country whose
mediocre power is far outmatched by the
violence it is still capable to inflict upon the
world with its nuclear armaments. One might
argue that nuclear weapons were also a factor
in the US-Soviet stand off, and that deterrence
might still work well enough today. Yet the
current conflict bears a significant difference
from the Cold War: the Soviet Union was a
recognized superpower, and Putin’s Russia is
not.
The Soviet Union was one of the victors of
World War II, and participated in the
establishment of the postwar order on par
with the US and Britain. Its communist
ideology and critique of capitalism found
followers in Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
Behind its closed borders, the USSR relied on
gulags and the KGB for its survival. Yet to the
West, ever a riddle wrapped in a mystery
inside an enigma, the USSR was indisputably
a superpower. As such, it engaged on equal
terms with the US in both the arms race and
the disarmament race of the Bush-Gorbachev
years. The USSR’s special status conferred
upon it a responsibility for maintaining the
international order and preventing the
nuclear Armageddon.
By comparison, Putin’s Russia is open to
global flows of goods, capital, and data. In
any political, economic, or conventional
military regard, it is at best a regional actor,
as President Obama recently reminded Putin.
The international support Russia was able to
muster for its Ukrainian foray is pitiful:
eleven powerless states, including North
Korea, Syria, and Cuba, held together by their
hatred and fear of Western power rather than
by any positive idea, vision, or goal.
Furthermore, Ukraine may have cost Russia
the vestiges of greatness it enjoyed in military
and space cooperation with the US.
The only area in which Russia still brandishes
a global status is its nuclear arsenal. It is the
only conceivable reason why Russia still
enjoys a permanent seat on the UN Security
Council. In essence, Russia inherited the
Soviet Union’s super-force without a modicum
of super-power responsibility. In fact, Putin
looks to be set on dismantling the very postwar
order that helped prevent nuclear
conflagration during the Cold War.
Meanwhile, the West seems paralyzed by
Putin’s audacity and unsure what to make of
it. The temptation not to get mired in a
conflict over Ukraine is great. Economic
sanctions and visa restrictions against Putin’s
inner circle are meant to shake his oligarchic
power base at home. So far, these reactions
look like ineffectual finger wagging rather
than a credible deterrent, let alone a way to
reverse territorial changes already effected.
In any case, sanctions take time to produce
change, and, with Ukraine’s presidential
elections looming on May 25th, time is
working in Putin’s favor.
Arendt warned that nuclear weapons were
capable of distorting politics precisely due to
the kind of radical mismatch between power
and capacity for violence we see in Russia
today. The danger is not that, undeterred,
Putin’s regime will gain in power, but rather
that to compensate for its lack of power it will
have to rely on ever more crude coercion,
both domestically and in the neighborhood it
feels entitled to rule. In light of this threat, the
West should mount a prompt, united, and
decisive response to Putin proportionate to his
transgressions. It should do so not just for
Ukraine’s sake, but also for its own, if it wants
to avoid the rising costs of dealing with an
exponentially violent revisionist regime
armed with the most formidable weapons in
existence.
T
More about: Europe and Central Asia , Russia , Ukraine, Vladimir Putin
ONLINE FEATURES
Violence, Power, and Nuclear
Putin
574 people recommend this. Be the first of your friends. Recommend
Mariana Budjeryn
The practice of violence, like all action,
changes the world, but the most probable
change is to a more violent world.
—Hannah Arendt, On Violence
ladimir Putin wants to reclaim for Russia
the respect and status the Soviet Union
once commanded and has recently
undertaken to achieve this by force. His
landgrab in Ukraine has been swift and
remarkably successful, emboldening him to
continue his campaign against Ukraine.
Between his high popularity at home and the
meek reaction of the West, it might seem that
Putin is growing in power. Yet to maintain it,
he will have to increasingly rely on violence,
including world’s largest nuclear arsenal. The
West should understand that the cost of
deterring him now is dwarfted by the cost of
deterring him later.
So far, Russia and the West have engaged in a
war of words. Russia accuses the decaying
and hypocritical West of instigating last
winter’s Euromaidan protests in Ukraine,
deposing its corrupt regime, and installing an
illegal government in Kyiv. The US accuses
dishonest and belligerent Russia of invading
Ukraine, illegally annexing Crimea, and now
fermenting separatism in the country’s east
and south. Russia, while denying direct
involvement in Ukraine, claims that, like the
US, it has the right to project its power
wherever it deems necessary. The Russian
Parliament gave Putin the leave to do so by
force—only in Ukraine, for now.
Putin’s is an old-fashioned Machiavellian
understanding of power, whereby violence,
force, and coercion are various
manifestations of it and allude to the different
ways in which one man rules over another. As
that Clausewitzian maxim goes, war is simply
a continuation of politics by other means.
Force begets power, and power can use force
if and when it likes. In short, might
constitutes right.
Yet there is a profoundly different way to
conceive of the relationship between power
and violence. Political theorist Hannah
Arendt, while recognizing that power and
violence often come in tandem, drew sharp
distinctions between the two and juxtaposed
them as opposites. Power, she argued, is not
the ability to impose the will of one man over
another, but the ability to act in concert.
Power is the property of the collective, and a
single actor can be powerful only in as much
as he has the following of many. Power is
generated through persuasion and
demonstration. Because the support for power
is granted through free choice and can be just
as freely withdrawn, power comes with
responsibility to practice what it preaches.
Violence, on the other hand, is the property of
a single actor, individual or institutional.
According to Arendt, while power is the end
in itself, violence is always instrumental, a
means to an end. It also needs tools: physical
strength, soldiers, weapons. Violence distorts
equality between actors and obliterates
freedom to choose, which is so essential to
power and the responsibility it entails. Power
relies on support; violence commands
obedience. Power needs no justification, but
does need legitimacy; violence can be
justifiable, but never legitimate.
All forms of government, including
democracies, rely on a combination of power
and violence. All forms of government,
including tyrannies, rely on the general
support of society, too. To forge this support, a
tyranny sooner or later turns to coercion,
which necessarily diminishes its power and
makes it, as Montesquieu said, the most
violent and the least powerful form of
government. Thus, the resort to violence is
nothing else but a symptom of eroding power.
Vladimir Putin eschews and at the same time
envies US power, which he sees as freedom to
do as it wills in the world. What he does not
understand is that genuine US power is
manifested not in its military prowess, vast
intelligence network or economic might per se ,
but in the willingness of others to follow it
voluntarily. It is manifested in the fact that
US-led NATO did not fizzle away when the
instrumental reasons for its existence
disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet
Union. It is manifested in the free choice of
the polities formerly under the Soviet
domination, from the Baltics to Kyrgyzstan, to
align with the US-led Euro-Atlantic order
without any coercion. George Kennan best
described the essence of US power as leading
by example.
Ironically, Putin and his cronies unwittingly
grant recognition to Western power every
time they freely choose to send their children
to Western schools, park their fortunes in
Western banks, and establish their residencies
in posh Western cities and vacation spots.
While US power thus conceived has been
declining, in no small part due to its ill-
justified and unsupported invasion of Iraq, it
is still vastly more attractive than anything
Putin and his Russian world has to offer. With
its corrupt and oppressive oligarchy, its
primitive hydrocarbon economy one-eighth of
the size of America’s, and its stifled public
sphere, Putin’s Russia has found few eager
followers. Unable to generate power by
influencing, engaging, and inspiring the
world with a compelling ideology, a model of
development, or a concept of good life, Putin
resorted to violence.
After all, it worked at home. Putin’s
popularity is craftily manufactured through
various forms of coercion. As Sergei Guriev, a
Russian economist in exile, summed up : “For
less sophisticated people, he relies on
brainwashing… For more sophisticated but
less honest people, he needs to bribe them.
For honest, sophisticated people, he uses
repression.” Brainwashing is the most
dangerous of coercive methods because it
creates an illusion of power, intoxicating but
false. Nevertheless, it is a form of intellectual
violence: by snuffing out dissent and
establishing a monopoly on interpretation of
past and present, Putin’s regime has forced
millions of Russian minds into a rut, robbing
them of freedom to make a fair choice
between alternatives.
Thus, Putin’s regime stands and falls on
substituting violence for its nonexistent
power. To admit that people or states can
follow a leader without being coerced is to
subvert his own model of rule. Therefore, the
story must be told of the West blatantly
forcing others to align with it. It becomes
inevitable that the West should play its dirty
hand in Ukraine’s pro-European protests, as
in every other anti-Putin project inside or
outside Russia.
he repercussions of Putin’s conflation of
power with violence are ominous. He is
not the only leader to do this, but he is the
only leader presiding over a country whose
mediocre power is far outmatched by the
violence it is still capable to inflict upon the
world with its nuclear armaments. One might
argue that nuclear weapons were also a factor
in the US-Soviet stand off, and that deterrence
might still work well enough today. Yet the
current conflict bears a significant difference
from the Cold War: the Soviet Union was a
recognized superpower, and Putin’s Russia is
not.
The Soviet Union was one of the victors of
World War II, and participated in the
establishment of the postwar order on par
with the US and Britain. Its communist
ideology and critique of capitalism found
followers in Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
Behind its closed borders, the USSR relied on
gulags and the KGB for its survival. Yet to the
West, ever a riddle wrapped in a mystery
inside an enigma, the USSR was indisputably
a superpower. As such, it engaged on equal
terms with the US in both the arms race and
the disarmament race of the Bush-Gorbachev
years. The USSR’s special status conferred
upon it a responsibility for maintaining the
international order and preventing the
nuclear Armageddon.
By comparison, Putin’s Russia is open to
global flows of goods, capital, and data. In
any political, economic, or conventional
military regard, it is at best a regional actor,
as President Obama recently reminded Putin.
The international support Russia was able to
muster for its Ukrainian foray is pitiful:
eleven powerless states, including North
Korea, Syria, and Cuba, held together by their
hatred and fear of Western power rather than
by any positive idea, vision, or goal.
Furthermore, Ukraine may have cost Russia
the vestiges of greatness it enjoyed in military
and space cooperation with the US.
The only area in which Russia still brandishes
a global status is its nuclear arsenal. It is the
only conceivable reason why Russia still
enjoys a permanent seat on the UN Security
Council. In essence, Russia inherited the
Soviet Union’s super-force without a modicum
of super-power responsibility. In fact, Putin
looks to be set on dismantling the very postwar
order that helped prevent nuclear
conflagration during the Cold War.
Meanwhile, the West seems paralyzed by
Putin’s audacity and unsure what to make of
it. The temptation not to get mired in a
conflict over Ukraine is great. Economic
sanctions and visa restrictions against Putin’s
inner circle are meant to shake his oligarchic
power base at home. So far, these reactions
look like ineffectual finger wagging rather
than a credible deterrent, let alone a way to
reverse territorial changes already effected.
In any case, sanctions take time to produce
change, and, with Ukraine’s presidential
elections looming on May 25th, time is
working in Putin’s favor.
Arendt warned that nuclear weapons were
capable of distorting politics precisely due to
the kind of radical mismatch between power
and capacity for violence we see in Russia
today. The danger is not that, undeterred,
Putin’s regime will gain in power, but rather
that to compensate for its lack of power it will
have to rely on ever more crude coercion,
both domestically and in the neighborhood it
feels entitled to rule. In light of this threat, the
West should mount a prompt, united, and
decisive response to Putin proportionate to his
transgressions. It should do so not just for
Ukraine’s sake, but also for its own, if it wants
to avoid the rising costs of dealing with an
exponentially violent revisionist regime
armed with the most formidable weapons in
existence.
UKRAINE'S ELECTION EXPOSES PUTIN LIES
Despite the best efforts of Vladimir Putin and
his terrorist commandos in the eastern
Donbas region, Ukraine’s presidential
elections did in fact take place on May 25th,
under conditions that international observers
concur were fair and free. As of this writing,
Petro Poroshenko appears to have won in one
round.
Herewith a few lessons:
First, Ukraine is hardly the unstable almost-
failed state that Putin and his Western
apologists say it is. The terrorist violence was
confined to two provinces—Luhansk and
Donetsk. In the rest of the country, the voting
proceeded smoothly. On top of that, Ukraine’s
security forces were able to maintain law and
order in much of the country, a positive
development that builds on the armed forces’
creditable performance in their “anti-terrorist
operations” in April and May.
Second, Ukraine is anything but the
illegitimate state Putin and his western
apologists say it is. Voting participation for
the entire country was high: about 60 percent.
Not including the two provinces that were
terrorized by Putin’s commandos,
participation was even higher. Everyone
knows that the only thing that kept Ukrainians
in the Donbas from voting was Putin’s
terrorists.
Third, Putin’s terrorist commandos have been
outflanked by the elections. People want
stability; they want a return to normality.
And they know that elections can bring about
both. The terrorists, like Putin, have nothing
but violence to offer. That is not a winning
electoral platform. Nor is it any way to win
the hearts and minds of the eastern Ukrainian
population the terrorists claim to be
defending from wild-eyed Ukrainian
“fascists.” Small wonder that, after hemming
and hawing for several months, even
Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov,
got off the fence and denounced the terrorists,
while calling on Donbas residents to take to
the streets and march in protest. (And, in an
indication of just what is still so wrong with
the Donbas, hundreds of thousands heeded his
call. Were they not, one might well ask,
capable of acting on their own—without being
told to do so by some higher-up?)
Fourth, while Ukraine now has a legitimately
elected president, Putin has egg on his face—
lots of it. Russia’s fascistoid dictator can
continue questioning democratic Ukraine’s
legitimacy, and he is perfectly entitled to
believe that fair and free elections are unfair
and un-free, but at some point such
truculence becomes nothing more than
childishness, stupidity, and petulance. Come
to think of it, haven’t those three qualities
defined Putin’s behavior since the fall of
2013, when he coerced Ukraine’s since-
deposed sultan, Viktor Yanukovych, into
backing out of the Association Agreement with
the European Union? Ask yourself this: just
what has Putin gotten out of this entire crisis?
An arid peninsula with enormous economic
and political problems, a spike in his
popularity, and affirmations of love from his
Western apologists. And just what has he lost?
Good relations with the West, good relations
with Ukraine, and the prospect of a rapid
recovery of Russia’s moribund economy. Isn’t
it time to recognize the obvious: that Putin’s
statecraft is about as refined as
Yanukovych’s?
Fifth, Ukraine’s much touted, much decried,
and much denounced “radical, right-wing
extremists” attracted about 1–2 percent of the
vote—which surprised no one who knows a
bit about Ukrainian politics. (Contrast that
with the 25 percent achieved by France’s
National Front in the May 25th elections to
the European Parliament.) In a word,
Ukraine’s right-wingers are a fringe
phenomenon that has played no serious role
in Ukraine’s national politics, is playing no
serious role in Ukraine’s national politics, and
will continue to play no serious role in
Ukraine’s national politics. All those Western,
Russian, and Ukrainian analysts who’ve been
beating the drum about the nefarious
influence of Ukraine’s right in the last few
years—while turning a blind eye to the
extremism of Yanukovych’s thuggish regime
and the even worse extremism of the pro-
Russian hyper-chauvinists who eventually
became the core of Putin’s terrorist
commandos in eastern Ukraine—have some
serious crow to eat. And some serious
apologies to make: for diverting attention
from the real danger in Ukraine to their own
personal obsessions.
Sixth, it may be time to be guardedly
optimistic about democratic Ukraine’s
prospects. True, the Donbas will remain a
problem for a long time, but Putin’s terrorists
are unlikely to branch out to other parts of
the country. As Turkey, Israel, Colombia, and
many other countries have shown, life can go
on, even when terrorists are ensconced in
regional strongholds. More important, Putin
and his terrorists appear to be in a dead end.
The government of Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk has a serious reform program that
should bring about radical economic change
and a whole-scale decentralization of
authority. The newly elected president has
good credentials and a huge popular mandate.
The West—the United States, the European
Union, the International Monetary Fund, and
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—
supports Ukraine and will make sure that
reforms are in fact implemented. Finally, the
capital city, Kyiv, has a new mayor, the pro-
Western reformer, Vitaly Klitschko.
Not bad for a country that, according to
Putin’s Russian propagandists and Western
apologists, is supposedly on the verge of
collapse.
his terrorist commandos in the eastern
Donbas region, Ukraine’s presidential
elections did in fact take place on May 25th,
under conditions that international observers
concur were fair and free. As of this writing,
Petro Poroshenko appears to have won in one
round.
Herewith a few lessons:
First, Ukraine is hardly the unstable almost-
failed state that Putin and his Western
apologists say it is. The terrorist violence was
confined to two provinces—Luhansk and
Donetsk. In the rest of the country, the voting
proceeded smoothly. On top of that, Ukraine’s
security forces were able to maintain law and
order in much of the country, a positive
development that builds on the armed forces’
creditable performance in their “anti-terrorist
operations” in April and May.
Second, Ukraine is anything but the
illegitimate state Putin and his western
apologists say it is. Voting participation for
the entire country was high: about 60 percent.
Not including the two provinces that were
terrorized by Putin’s commandos,
participation was even higher. Everyone
knows that the only thing that kept Ukrainians
in the Donbas from voting was Putin’s
terrorists.
Third, Putin’s terrorist commandos have been
outflanked by the elections. People want
stability; they want a return to normality.
And they know that elections can bring about
both. The terrorists, like Putin, have nothing
but violence to offer. That is not a winning
electoral platform. Nor is it any way to win
the hearts and minds of the eastern Ukrainian
population the terrorists claim to be
defending from wild-eyed Ukrainian
“fascists.” Small wonder that, after hemming
and hawing for several months, even
Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov,
got off the fence and denounced the terrorists,
while calling on Donbas residents to take to
the streets and march in protest. (And, in an
indication of just what is still so wrong with
the Donbas, hundreds of thousands heeded his
call. Were they not, one might well ask,
capable of acting on their own—without being
told to do so by some higher-up?)
Fourth, while Ukraine now has a legitimately
elected president, Putin has egg on his face—
lots of it. Russia’s fascistoid dictator can
continue questioning democratic Ukraine’s
legitimacy, and he is perfectly entitled to
believe that fair and free elections are unfair
and un-free, but at some point such
truculence becomes nothing more than
childishness, stupidity, and petulance. Come
to think of it, haven’t those three qualities
defined Putin’s behavior since the fall of
2013, when he coerced Ukraine’s since-
deposed sultan, Viktor Yanukovych, into
backing out of the Association Agreement with
the European Union? Ask yourself this: just
what has Putin gotten out of this entire crisis?
An arid peninsula with enormous economic
and political problems, a spike in his
popularity, and affirmations of love from his
Western apologists. And just what has he lost?
Good relations with the West, good relations
with Ukraine, and the prospect of a rapid
recovery of Russia’s moribund economy. Isn’t
it time to recognize the obvious: that Putin’s
statecraft is about as refined as
Yanukovych’s?
Fifth, Ukraine’s much touted, much decried,
and much denounced “radical, right-wing
extremists” attracted about 1–2 percent of the
vote—which surprised no one who knows a
bit about Ukrainian politics. (Contrast that
with the 25 percent achieved by France’s
National Front in the May 25th elections to
the European Parliament.) In a word,
Ukraine’s right-wingers are a fringe
phenomenon that has played no serious role
in Ukraine’s national politics, is playing no
serious role in Ukraine’s national politics, and
will continue to play no serious role in
Ukraine’s national politics. All those Western,
Russian, and Ukrainian analysts who’ve been
beating the drum about the nefarious
influence of Ukraine’s right in the last few
years—while turning a blind eye to the
extremism of Yanukovych’s thuggish regime
and the even worse extremism of the pro-
Russian hyper-chauvinists who eventually
became the core of Putin’s terrorist
commandos in eastern Ukraine—have some
serious crow to eat. And some serious
apologies to make: for diverting attention
from the real danger in Ukraine to their own
personal obsessions.
Sixth, it may be time to be guardedly
optimistic about democratic Ukraine’s
prospects. True, the Donbas will remain a
problem for a long time, but Putin’s terrorists
are unlikely to branch out to other parts of
the country. As Turkey, Israel, Colombia, and
many other countries have shown, life can go
on, even when terrorists are ensconced in
regional strongholds. More important, Putin
and his terrorists appear to be in a dead end.
The government of Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk has a serious reform program that
should bring about radical economic change
and a whole-scale decentralization of
authority. The newly elected president has
good credentials and a huge popular mandate.
The West—the United States, the European
Union, the International Monetary Fund, and
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—
supports Ukraine and will make sure that
reforms are in fact implemented. Finally, the
capital city, Kyiv, has a new mayor, the pro-
Western reformer, Vitaly Klitschko.
Not bad for a country that, according to
Putin’s Russian propagandists and Western
apologists, is supposedly on the verge of
collapse.
HEZBOLLAH THREATENED BY IRAN'S FINANCIAL WOES
I
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More about: Middle East , Lebanon, Iran, Syria, US
ONLINE FEATURES
Hezbollah Threatened by Iran’s
Financial Woes
71 people recommend this. Be the first of your friends. Recommend
Oren Kessler and Rupert Sutton
ran’s economy continues to flounder. It is
hemorrhaging money in Syria, and years of
sanctions have left it suffering from high
unemployment (a quarter of youth are jobless)
and the world’s second-highest inflation rate
(20 percent ), despite a minor boost provided by
an interim nuclear agreement. Now, however,
Iran’s economic woes are beginning to affect
its ability to project power across the region,
potentially leaving its most dangerous
international proxy in the lurch.
Sources close to Hezbollah told Lebanese media
last week that Iranian funds to the group are
drying up. In the words of Hezbollah expert
Matthew Levitt, “Iran is not in good financial
shape; the money from Tehran [to Hezbollah]
doesn’t come as it used to.” As a result, the
group’s military wing has reportedly ordered
its overseas cells and external security units
to find new revenue streams, and its social
services have also had to cut costs.
Over the past three decades, Tehran has
funded Hezbollah terrorism around the world,
from its 1983 bombings of US and French
barracks in Beirut that killed 299 servicemen,
to attacks in the early 1990s at Jewish and
Israeli centers in Argentina that killed 114.
That relationship has continued to this day—
in 2012 Hezbollah bombed an Israeli tourist
bus in Bulgaria , killing six, and the same year
planned a similar attack in Cyprus. The group
has been accused of attacking diplomats as far
afield as India and Georgia, and last month
its operatives admitted to plotting attacks on
tourists in Thailand.
At the same time, Hezbollah also operates a
global network of criminal and narcotics
rings. In West Africa, it has made millions
trading in blood diamonds and arms. In
Colombia, its members have been convicted of
cocaine trafficking, and in the lawless border
areas between Argentina, Brazil, and
Paraguay it runs smuggling networks
transporting marijuana and tobacco. In the
US, officials have uncovered a multimillion-
dollar Hezbollah-run smuggling ring dealing
in drugs and cigarettes.
As less money comes in from Iran, Hezbollah
will likely have to turn to these illicit
operations even more to make up the
shortfall. Last week, however, a bill was
introduced to the US Senate that seeks to
challenge the group’s money-laundering and
logistics operations, designating Hezbollah as a
narcotics-trafficking and transnational
criminal organization. The bill would place
sanctions on individuals and firms conducting
any business with Hezbollah, severely
hindering the organization’s ability to
fundraise at a time when its coffers are
already drying up.
With its diminished financial prospects,
Hezbollah’s overseas cells could face an
accompanying decline in the group’s ability to
conduct both terror attacks and criminal
activity. The failure of its recent attacks in
Cyprus, India, Georgia, and Thailand indicate
that its operational capacity is already
compromised—something money troubles will
only exacerbate.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to bankroll the
Syrian government in its brutal three-year
war against rebel forces. Tehran is believed to
provide the Bashar al-Assad regime with
upwards of $600 million monthly to prosecute
the war and cover its fiscal deficit. For its part,
Hezbollah is itself losing money , pledging to
provide for the families of up to 500 of its
fighters killed in battle alongside Syrian
forces.
Rogue behavior carries costs. The Islamic
Republic’s nuclear program has devastated its
economy, raising fuel, food, and energy prices
for ordinary Iranians. Its three-year
campaign to save the Syrian regime is
bleeding its bank accounts, and damaging its
ability to fund terror beyond its borders.
The Syrian tragedy has claimed as many as
160,000 lives , with no end in sight. Still, in the
dark clouds above Damascus a silver lining
may be emerging: the weakening of the
Islamic Republic and its most dangerous
proxy.
Share
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More about: Middle East , Lebanon, Iran, Syria, US
ONLINE FEATURES
Hezbollah Threatened by Iran’s
Financial Woes
71 people recommend this. Be the first of your friends. Recommend
Oren Kessler and Rupert Sutton
ran’s economy continues to flounder. It is
hemorrhaging money in Syria, and years of
sanctions have left it suffering from high
unemployment (a quarter of youth are jobless)
and the world’s second-highest inflation rate
(20 percent ), despite a minor boost provided by
an interim nuclear agreement. Now, however,
Iran’s economic woes are beginning to affect
its ability to project power across the region,
potentially leaving its most dangerous
international proxy in the lurch.
Sources close to Hezbollah told Lebanese media
last week that Iranian funds to the group are
drying up. In the words of Hezbollah expert
Matthew Levitt, “Iran is not in good financial
shape; the money from Tehran [to Hezbollah]
doesn’t come as it used to.” As a result, the
group’s military wing has reportedly ordered
its overseas cells and external security units
to find new revenue streams, and its social
services have also had to cut costs.
Over the past three decades, Tehran has
funded Hezbollah terrorism around the world,
from its 1983 bombings of US and French
barracks in Beirut that killed 299 servicemen,
to attacks in the early 1990s at Jewish and
Israeli centers in Argentina that killed 114.
That relationship has continued to this day—
in 2012 Hezbollah bombed an Israeli tourist
bus in Bulgaria , killing six, and the same year
planned a similar attack in Cyprus. The group
has been accused of attacking diplomats as far
afield as India and Georgia, and last month
its operatives admitted to plotting attacks on
tourists in Thailand.
At the same time, Hezbollah also operates a
global network of criminal and narcotics
rings. In West Africa, it has made millions
trading in blood diamonds and arms. In
Colombia, its members have been convicted of
cocaine trafficking, and in the lawless border
areas between Argentina, Brazil, and
Paraguay it runs smuggling networks
transporting marijuana and tobacco. In the
US, officials have uncovered a multimillion-
dollar Hezbollah-run smuggling ring dealing
in drugs and cigarettes.
As less money comes in from Iran, Hezbollah
will likely have to turn to these illicit
operations even more to make up the
shortfall. Last week, however, a bill was
introduced to the US Senate that seeks to
challenge the group’s money-laundering and
logistics operations, designating Hezbollah as a
narcotics-trafficking and transnational
criminal organization. The bill would place
sanctions on individuals and firms conducting
any business with Hezbollah, severely
hindering the organization’s ability to
fundraise at a time when its coffers are
already drying up.
With its diminished financial prospects,
Hezbollah’s overseas cells could face an
accompanying decline in the group’s ability to
conduct both terror attacks and criminal
activity. The failure of its recent attacks in
Cyprus, India, Georgia, and Thailand indicate
that its operational capacity is already
compromised—something money troubles will
only exacerbate.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to bankroll the
Syrian government in its brutal three-year
war against rebel forces. Tehran is believed to
provide the Bashar al-Assad regime with
upwards of $600 million monthly to prosecute
the war and cover its fiscal deficit. For its part,
Hezbollah is itself losing money , pledging to
provide for the families of up to 500 of its
fighters killed in battle alongside Syrian
forces.
Rogue behavior carries costs. The Islamic
Republic’s nuclear program has devastated its
economy, raising fuel, food, and energy prices
for ordinary Iranians. Its three-year
campaign to save the Syrian regime is
bleeding its bank accounts, and damaging its
ability to fund terror beyond its borders.
The Syrian tragedy has claimed as many as
160,000 lives , with no end in sight. Still, in the
dark clouds above Damascus a silver lining
may be emerging: the weakening of the
Islamic Republic and its most dangerous
proxy.
3 Jun 2014
FOREIGN AIDS
Foreign aid or (development assistance) is
often regarded as being too much, or wasted
on corrupt recipient governments despite any
good intentions from donor countries. In
reality, both the quantity and quality of aid
have been poor and donor nations have not
been held to account.
There are numerous forms of aid, from
humanitarian emergency assistance, to food
aid, military assistance, etc. Development aid
has long been recognized as crucial to help
poor developing nations grow out of poverty.
In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to
give 0.7% of their GNI (Gross National
Income) as official international development
aid, annually. Since that time, despite billions
given each year, rich nations have rarely met
their actual promised targets. For example,
the US is often the largest donor in dollar
terms, but ranks amongst the lowest in terms
of meeting the stated 0.7% target.
Furthermore, aid has often come with a price
of its own for the developing nations:
Aid is often wasted on conditions that
the recipient must use overpriced
goods and services from donor
countries.
Most aid does not actually go to the
poorest who would need it the most
Aid amounts are dwarfed by rich
country protectionism that denies
market access for poor country
products, while rich nations use aid as
a lever to open poor country markets
to their products
Large projects or massive grand
strategies often fail to help the
vulnerable as money can often be
embezzled away.
often regarded as being too much, or wasted
on corrupt recipient governments despite any
good intentions from donor countries. In
reality, both the quantity and quality of aid
have been poor and donor nations have not
been held to account.
There are numerous forms of aid, from
humanitarian emergency assistance, to food
aid, military assistance, etc. Development aid
has long been recognized as crucial to help
poor developing nations grow out of poverty.
In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to
give 0.7% of their GNI (Gross National
Income) as official international development
aid, annually. Since that time, despite billions
given each year, rich nations have rarely met
their actual promised targets. For example,
the US is often the largest donor in dollar
terms, but ranks amongst the lowest in terms
of meeting the stated 0.7% target.
Furthermore, aid has often come with a price
of its own for the developing nations:
Aid is often wasted on conditions that
the recipient must use overpriced
goods and services from donor
countries.
Most aid does not actually go to the
poorest who would need it the most
Aid amounts are dwarfed by rich
country protectionism that denies
market access for poor country
products, while rich nations use aid as
a lever to open poor country markets
to their products
Large projects or massive grand
strategies often fail to help the
vulnerable as money can often be
embezzled away.
TAX AVOIDANCE / HAVEN
We might notlike the idea
of paying taxes, but without it,
democracies will struggle to function, and will be unable to provide public services. This affects both rich and poor nations, alike.
Individuals and companies all have to pay
taxes. But some of the world’s wealthiest
individuals and multinational companies,
able to afford ingenious lawyers and
accountants, have figured out ways to avoid
paying enormous amounts of taxes. While we
can get into serious trouble for evading
payment of taxes, even facing jail in some
countries, some companies seem to be able to
get away with it. In addition, if governments
need to, they tax the population further to try
and make up for the lost revenues from
businesses that have evaded the tax man (or
woman).
Why would companies do this, especially
when some of them portray themselves as
champions of the consumer? The reasons are
many, as this article will explore. In
summary, companies look for ways to
maximize shareholder value. Multinational
companies are in particular well-placed to
exploit tax havens and hide true profits
thereby avoiding tax. Poor countries barely
have resources to address these — many have
smaller budgets than the multinationals they
are trying to deal with.
Yet, companies and influential individuals
also pour lots of money into shaping a global
system that they will hope to benefit from. If
the right balance can’t be achieved, not only
will attempts to avoid taxation and other
measures undermine capitalism (which they
claim they support) they will also undermine
democracy (for even responsible governments
may find it hard to meet the needs of their
population).
of paying taxes, but without it,
democracies will struggle to function, and will be unable to provide public services. This affects both rich and poor nations, alike.
Individuals and companies all have to pay
taxes. But some of the world’s wealthiest
individuals and multinational companies,
able to afford ingenious lawyers and
accountants, have figured out ways to avoid
paying enormous amounts of taxes. While we
can get into serious trouble for evading
payment of taxes, even facing jail in some
countries, some companies seem to be able to
get away with it. In addition, if governments
need to, they tax the population further to try
and make up for the lost revenues from
businesses that have evaded the tax man (or
woman).
Why would companies do this, especially
when some of them portray themselves as
champions of the consumer? The reasons are
many, as this article will explore. In
summary, companies look for ways to
maximize shareholder value. Multinational
companies are in particular well-placed to
exploit tax havens and hide true profits
thereby avoiding tax. Poor countries barely
have resources to address these — many have
smaller budgets than the multinationals they
are trying to deal with.
Yet, companies and influential individuals
also pour lots of money into shaping a global
system that they will hope to benefit from. If
the right balance can’t be achieved, not only
will attempts to avoid taxation and other
measures undermine capitalism (which they
claim they support) they will also undermine
democracy (for even responsible governments
may find it hard to meet the needs of their
population).
SYRIA UNREST
Syria is one of the oldest places where
civilization has thought to have started. Its
capital, Damascus, is one of the oldest
continuously inhabited cities in the world.
Throughout history it has seen many changes,
violent and otherwise.
Today it is comprised of a number of ethnic
groups, mostly Arab, though a reasonable
number of Kurds, Armenians are also
present. There have also been a number of
Iraqi refugees and the main Arab group are
themselves from different sects and
denominations.
Around January 2011, following on from the
Arab Spring where protests against ruling
regimes erupted in a number of Middle East
countries, protesters in Syria came out
demanding President Bashar al-Assad and his
government step down. In response, Assad
sent in troops with some cities and regions
being besieged for weeks and months. Both
pro and anti-government protest gatherings
have at times been large.
Criticism of Syria’s crackdown has been quite
widespread. The Arab League has responded
by suspending Syria’s membership. Syria
claims that it is fighting an insurgency that is
terrorist by nature and claimed Al Qaeda is
involved. It has not been possible to verify
that claim so many see it as a cynical excuse.
The ruling regime is a sect of Shia, so has
support from Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah,
while the opposition is largely Sunni, thus
receiving support from other Middle East
countries, such as Saudi Arabia and others.
Thousands have been killed — civilians and
armed combatants. Some are asking the West
for a military intervention like there was in
Libya, but the US in particular is not keen on
another military intervention even though
they have been openly hostile and critical of
the Syrian ruling regime for many years.
China and Russia also have close ties with
Syria and to date have not been keen on any
action condemning Syria and have even
vetoed some actions. Some papers have
reported Iran and others helping Syria with
weapons, while others also mentioned the
opposition being armed by the West.
civilization has thought to have started. Its
capital, Damascus, is one of the oldest
continuously inhabited cities in the world.
Throughout history it has seen many changes,
violent and otherwise.
Today it is comprised of a number of ethnic
groups, mostly Arab, though a reasonable
number of Kurds, Armenians are also
present. There have also been a number of
Iraqi refugees and the main Arab group are
themselves from different sects and
denominations.
Around January 2011, following on from the
Arab Spring where protests against ruling
regimes erupted in a number of Middle East
countries, protesters in Syria came out
demanding President Bashar al-Assad and his
government step down. In response, Assad
sent in troops with some cities and regions
being besieged for weeks and months. Both
pro and anti-government protest gatherings
have at times been large.
Criticism of Syria’s crackdown has been quite
widespread. The Arab League has responded
by suspending Syria’s membership. Syria
claims that it is fighting an insurgency that is
terrorist by nature and claimed Al Qaeda is
involved. It has not been possible to verify
that claim so many see it as a cynical excuse.
The ruling regime is a sect of Shia, so has
support from Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah,
while the opposition is largely Sunni, thus
receiving support from other Middle East
countries, such as Saudi Arabia and others.
Thousands have been killed — civilians and
armed combatants. Some are asking the West
for a military intervention like there was in
Libya, but the US in particular is not keen on
another military intervention even though
they have been openly hostile and critical of
the Syrian ruling regime for many years.
China and Russia also have close ties with
Syria and to date have not been keen on any
action condemning Syria and have even
vetoed some actions. Some papers have
reported Iran and others helping Syria with
weapons, while others also mentioned the
opposition being armed by the West.
GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
The global financial crisis,brewing for a while, reallystarted to show its effects inthe middle of 2007 and into2008. Around the world stock markets have fallen, large financial
institutions have collapsed or been bought
out, and governments in even the wealthiest
nations have had to come up with rescue
packages to bail out their financial systems.
On the one hand many people are concerned
that those responsible for the financial
problems are the ones being bailed out, while
on the other hand, a global financial
meltdown will affect the livelihoods of almost
everyone in an increasingly inter-connected
world. The problem could have been avoided,
if ideologues supporting the current
economics models weren’t so vocal,
influential and inconsiderate of others’
viewpoints and concerns.
institutions have collapsed or been bought
out, and governments in even the wealthiest
nations have had to come up with rescue
packages to bail out their financial systems.
On the one hand many people are concerned
that those responsible for the financial
problems are the ones being bailed out, while
on the other hand, a global financial
meltdown will affect the livelihoods of almost
everyone in an increasingly inter-connected
world. The problem could have been avoided,
if ideologues supporting the current
economics models weren’t so vocal,
influential and inconsiderate of others’
viewpoints and concerns.
ANIMAL RIGHTS
Animals are used for research in a variety of settings,
including tests to determine the safety of drugs,
cosmetics and other substances. Whether or not
humans should use animals for testing purposes,
however, is a controversial subject. There are both pros
and cons to using animals for testing, but the scientific
community, the government and society in general have
yet to reach a consensus on this ethical issue.
One of the primary advantages of animal testing is that
it allows researchers to develop new medications and
treatments, advancing the field of medicine and
enhancing the health of society. For instance, many
drugs used to treat or prevent cancer, HIV, diabetes,
infections and other medical maladies have resulted
from tests performed on animals. Many proponents of
animal testing support the practice for this reason, even
if they do not support testing cosmetics or other non-
essential substances on animals.
Animal testing also enables scientists and researchers
to test the safety of medications and other substances
with which humans have regular contact. Drugs, for
instance, may pose significant risks to humans, so
testing them on animals first gives researchers a chance
to determine drugs' safety before human trials are
performed. While scientists are cognizant of the
differences between humans and animals, the
similarities are considered significant enough to produce
relevant, useful data that they can then apply to
humans. Thus, animal testing reduces harm to humans
and saves lives, not only because the exposure to risky
substances is minimized, but because resulting
medications and treatments have such positive impacts
on the overall quality of life experienced by humans.
Critiques of Animal Testing
One of the major disadvantages to animal testing is
that a significant number of animals are harmed or die
as a result of experiments and testing. Unfortunately,
many of the substances used on animal subjects never
receive approval for human use or consumption. Those
who oppose animal testing consider this a very
important point, because humans receive no direct
benefits as a result of the deaths of these animals.
Opponents also argue that animals are dissimilar
enough from humans to make the results of animal
tests unreliable. A related criticism is that testing
induces stress in the animals, meaning that the subjects
do not react to experimental substances in the same
way that they might in more natural circumstances,
making the results of experiments less valid.
Using animals as research subjects is also expensive,
because the animals require food, shelter, care and
treatment in addition to the costs of experimental
substances. Long-term or multi-phase tests can
increase the costs of the practice as well. The actual
price paid for the animals is also worth consideration;
there are companies that breed and sell animals
specifically for testing purposes.
including tests to determine the safety of drugs,
cosmetics and other substances. Whether or not
humans should use animals for testing purposes,
however, is a controversial subject. There are both pros
and cons to using animals for testing, but the scientific
community, the government and society in general have
yet to reach a consensus on this ethical issue.
One of the primary advantages of animal testing is that
it allows researchers to develop new medications and
treatments, advancing the field of medicine and
enhancing the health of society. For instance, many
drugs used to treat or prevent cancer, HIV, diabetes,
infections and other medical maladies have resulted
from tests performed on animals. Many proponents of
animal testing support the practice for this reason, even
if they do not support testing cosmetics or other non-
essential substances on animals.
Animal testing also enables scientists and researchers
to test the safety of medications and other substances
with which humans have regular contact. Drugs, for
instance, may pose significant risks to humans, so
testing them on animals first gives researchers a chance
to determine drugs' safety before human trials are
performed. While scientists are cognizant of the
differences between humans and animals, the
similarities are considered significant enough to produce
relevant, useful data that they can then apply to
humans. Thus, animal testing reduces harm to humans
and saves lives, not only because the exposure to risky
substances is minimized, but because resulting
medications and treatments have such positive impacts
on the overall quality of life experienced by humans.
Critiques of Animal Testing
One of the major disadvantages to animal testing is
that a significant number of animals are harmed or die
as a result of experiments and testing. Unfortunately,
many of the substances used on animal subjects never
receive approval for human use or consumption. Those
who oppose animal testing consider this a very
important point, because humans receive no direct
benefits as a result of the deaths of these animals.
Opponents also argue that animals are dissimilar
enough from humans to make the results of animal
tests unreliable. A related criticism is that testing
induces stress in the animals, meaning that the subjects
do not react to experimental substances in the same
way that they might in more natural circumstances,
making the results of experiments less valid.
Using animals as research subjects is also expensive,
because the animals require food, shelter, care and
treatment in addition to the costs of experimental
substances. Long-term or multi-phase tests can
increase the costs of the practice as well. The actual
price paid for the animals is also worth consideration;
there are companies that breed and sell animals
specifically for testing purposes.
SMOKING BAN
A smoking ban is a public policy that includes criminal
laws and health regulations that prohibit smoking in
certain public places and workspaces. There are varying
definitions of smoking employed in this legislation. The
strictest definitions define smoking as being the
inhalation of any tobacco substance while the loosest
define smoking as possessing any lit tobacco product.
There are many reasons why smoking bans originated,
but most of these have medical origins. Research has
shown secondhand smoke is almost as harmful as
smoking in and of itself. The effects of secondhand
smoke are relatively the same as smoking. Lung
disease, heart disease, bronchitis and asthma are
common. Those who live in homes with smokers have a
20-30 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer than
those who do not live with a smoker. Many see it as
unfair that others have to suffer the effects of
secondhand smoke when they are not able to make the
decision for exposur to it. Non-smokers who worked
with smokers experienced a 16-19 percent increase in
lung cancer rates. In this case, the worker had no
choice but to face exposure to the smoke. Smoking
bans remove these risks for many people. The National
Cancer Institute, Surgeon General of the United States
and National Institutes of Health all support smoking
bans because of the statistics of second-hand smoke.
Smoking bans are also imposed because they improve
air quality in restaurants and other establishments. In
New York, it is now illegal to smoke in all hospitality
venues. Studies by the Center for Disease Control have
shown the air quality in New York establishments to be
nine times higher than those in New Jersey where
smoking remains legal. Studies have also shown
employees are exposed to far fewer toxins in areas
where smoking is banned in the workplace. In Norway,
tests showed a decrease in the nicotine levels of both
smokers and nonsmokers when smoking bans were
enacted in the workplace.
Critics of Smoking Bans
Despite the positive effects on health and air quality,
many people are still opposed to smoking bans in the
United States. Critics in the smoking ban debate include
the well-known musician Joe Jackson as well as
Christopher Hitchens, a political critic. Usually, people
who oppose smoking bans see these laws as an
example of the government interfering in people's lives.
They look at the effects on smokers, not those on non-
smokers who are subjected to second-hand smoke.
Other critics emphasize the rights of the property owner
and draw distinctions between public places, such as
government buildings, and privately owned businesses,
such as stores and restaurants.
Some critics of smoking bans believe that outlawing
smoking in the workplace may cause smokers to simply
move their smoking elsewhere. Instead of smoking
indoors, workers may begin smoking in public parks and
exposing a new set of people to their secondhand
smoke. Some have even argued that local bans on
smoking will increase DUI fatalities. Those who wish to
smoke will be forced to drive further away to do so,
althoughno evidence has been found to support this
theory.
Smoking bans in public places are becoming more and
more common in the United States. Whether the rights
of the non-smoker to breathe in fresh air outweigh
those of the smoker to smoke freely is a matter of
opinion, manifesting itself in a heated smoking ban
debate.
laws and health regulations that prohibit smoking in
certain public places and workspaces. There are varying
definitions of smoking employed in this legislation. The
strictest definitions define smoking as being the
inhalation of any tobacco substance while the loosest
define smoking as possessing any lit tobacco product.
There are many reasons why smoking bans originated,
but most of these have medical origins. Research has
shown secondhand smoke is almost as harmful as
smoking in and of itself. The effects of secondhand
smoke are relatively the same as smoking. Lung
disease, heart disease, bronchitis and asthma are
common. Those who live in homes with smokers have a
20-30 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer than
those who do not live with a smoker. Many see it as
unfair that others have to suffer the effects of
secondhand smoke when they are not able to make the
decision for exposur to it. Non-smokers who worked
with smokers experienced a 16-19 percent increase in
lung cancer rates. In this case, the worker had no
choice but to face exposure to the smoke. Smoking
bans remove these risks for many people. The National
Cancer Institute, Surgeon General of the United States
and National Institutes of Health all support smoking
bans because of the statistics of second-hand smoke.
Smoking bans are also imposed because they improve
air quality in restaurants and other establishments. In
New York, it is now illegal to smoke in all hospitality
venues. Studies by the Center for Disease Control have
shown the air quality in New York establishments to be
nine times higher than those in New Jersey where
smoking remains legal. Studies have also shown
employees are exposed to far fewer toxins in areas
where smoking is banned in the workplace. In Norway,
tests showed a decrease in the nicotine levels of both
smokers and nonsmokers when smoking bans were
enacted in the workplace.
Critics of Smoking Bans
Despite the positive effects on health and air quality,
many people are still opposed to smoking bans in the
United States. Critics in the smoking ban debate include
the well-known musician Joe Jackson as well as
Christopher Hitchens, a political critic. Usually, people
who oppose smoking bans see these laws as an
example of the government interfering in people's lives.
They look at the effects on smokers, not those on non-
smokers who are subjected to second-hand smoke.
Other critics emphasize the rights of the property owner
and draw distinctions between public places, such as
government buildings, and privately owned businesses,
such as stores and restaurants.
Some critics of smoking bans believe that outlawing
smoking in the workplace may cause smokers to simply
move their smoking elsewhere. Instead of smoking
indoors, workers may begin smoking in public parks and
exposing a new set of people to their secondhand
smoke. Some have even argued that local bans on
smoking will increase DUI fatalities. Those who wish to
smoke will be forced to drive further away to do so,
althoughno evidence has been found to support this
theory.
Smoking bans in public places are becoming more and
more common in the United States. Whether the rights
of the non-smoker to breathe in fresh air outweigh
those of the smoker to smoke freely is a matter of
opinion, manifesting itself in a heated smoking ban
debate.
RACIAL PROFILING
Racial profiling is a phrase often used in law
enforcement or the court system to refer to the use of a
person's ethnicity or race to decide on whether to
engage in some type of legal proceeding. The act itself
is very controversial and considered by many as illegal
and inappropriate.
Racial Profiling Debate
There are several definitions of racial profiling, including
those established by different offices like the Office of
the Arizona Attorney General. This office defines it as
"Use by law enforcement personnel of an individual's
race or ethnicity as a factor in articulating reasonable
suspicion to stop, question or arrest an individual,
unless race or ethnicity is part of an identifying
description of a specific suspect for a specific crime."
Most definitions are similar in that they identify that
some type of police action is being taken that relies on
the national origin or race or ethnicity of a person rather
than the actual behavior of the person in some manner
of criminal activity.
Racial profiling is also referred to as racially-biased
policing and can be broken up into a narrow definition
and a broad definition. The narrow definition is the most
commonly used definition with regards to a police
officer stopping, questioning, arresting or searching
someone based on his or her ethnicity or race. The
more broad definition looks at racial profiling as
occurring whenever police use race or ethnicity as a
factor when reacting with suspicion and action against
an individual.
Critics of racial profiling look to the Fourth Amendment
of the United States Constitution to challenge the
practice. This amendment protects citizens from
unreasonable searches and seizures without probable
cause. The Fourteenth Amendment is also used in legal
cases to support the right of citizens to be treated
equally under the laws of the United States.
In 2001, former President George W. Bush addressed a
Joint Session of Congress and declared that racial
profiling was wrong and that America was going to end
it. He went on to comment that the nation's police
officers need the support of the American people, and
due to the abuses of a few, they were hindered in doing
their jobs properly. Rather than being racially profiled,
law enforcement was being pigeon holed, although it
could be said they were experiencing a similar situation
to that of those individuals who were racially profiled. A
year later, Attorney General John Ashcroft shared
President Bush's sentiment and stated that using race
as an indicator of potential criminal behavior was
unconstitutional and undermined the criminal justice
system. A former policy regarding racial profiling was
issued by the Department of Justice in June of 2003
that forbade the practice by federal law enforcement
officials.
Police Profiling Debate
The racial profiling debate, however, seems to center on
whether or not the practice is really all that bad. Some
in the realm of law enforcement argue that the practice
is necessary and effective. They believe that due to
demographic and socio-economic factors and their
relation to crime, those in a large minority population
have a higher risk of participating in criminal activities.
They argue that ignoring the facts due to moral integrity
is professionally and morally wrong. If law enforcement
officers are to identify and take action against violators,
any information to assist them in being more effective is
crucial. Critics of racial profiling argue that individual
rights are violated when this practice is utilized. Civil
liberties organizations intimate that this type of profiling
is in fact a form of discrimination and undermines basic
human rights and freedoms. Researchers are interested
in collecting data and analyzing trends to see how this
information corresponds to perceptions of racial profiling
and the effects it has on ethnic groups.
enforcement or the court system to refer to the use of a
person's ethnicity or race to decide on whether to
engage in some type of legal proceeding. The act itself
is very controversial and considered by many as illegal
and inappropriate.
Racial Profiling Debate
There are several definitions of racial profiling, including
those established by different offices like the Office of
the Arizona Attorney General. This office defines it as
"Use by law enforcement personnel of an individual's
race or ethnicity as a factor in articulating reasonable
suspicion to stop, question or arrest an individual,
unless race or ethnicity is part of an identifying
description of a specific suspect for a specific crime."
Most definitions are similar in that they identify that
some type of police action is being taken that relies on
the national origin or race or ethnicity of a person rather
than the actual behavior of the person in some manner
of criminal activity.
Racial profiling is also referred to as racially-biased
policing and can be broken up into a narrow definition
and a broad definition. The narrow definition is the most
commonly used definition with regards to a police
officer stopping, questioning, arresting or searching
someone based on his or her ethnicity or race. The
more broad definition looks at racial profiling as
occurring whenever police use race or ethnicity as a
factor when reacting with suspicion and action against
an individual.
Critics of racial profiling look to the Fourth Amendment
of the United States Constitution to challenge the
practice. This amendment protects citizens from
unreasonable searches and seizures without probable
cause. The Fourteenth Amendment is also used in legal
cases to support the right of citizens to be treated
equally under the laws of the United States.
In 2001, former President George W. Bush addressed a
Joint Session of Congress and declared that racial
profiling was wrong and that America was going to end
it. He went on to comment that the nation's police
officers need the support of the American people, and
due to the abuses of a few, they were hindered in doing
their jobs properly. Rather than being racially profiled,
law enforcement was being pigeon holed, although it
could be said they were experiencing a similar situation
to that of those individuals who were racially profiled. A
year later, Attorney General John Ashcroft shared
President Bush's sentiment and stated that using race
as an indicator of potential criminal behavior was
unconstitutional and undermined the criminal justice
system. A former policy regarding racial profiling was
issued by the Department of Justice in June of 2003
that forbade the practice by federal law enforcement
officials.
Police Profiling Debate
The racial profiling debate, however, seems to center on
whether or not the practice is really all that bad. Some
in the realm of law enforcement argue that the practice
is necessary and effective. They believe that due to
demographic and socio-economic factors and their
relation to crime, those in a large minority population
have a higher risk of participating in criminal activities.
They argue that ignoring the facts due to moral integrity
is professionally and morally wrong. If law enforcement
officers are to identify and take action against violators,
any information to assist them in being more effective is
crucial. Critics of racial profiling argue that individual
rights are violated when this practice is utilized. Civil
liberties organizations intimate that this type of profiling
is in fact a form of discrimination and undermines basic
human rights and freedoms. Researchers are interested
in collecting data and analyzing trends to see how this
information corresponds to perceptions of racial profiling
and the effects it has on ethnic groups.
BORDER FENCE
The Mexico-United States barrier is the subject of a
great deal of controversy in the United States. Also
known as the border wall or border fence, it is
constructed of several barriers that are intended to keep
illegal Mexican immigrants from traveling across the
border into the United States. The barriers were
originally built as part of a three prong operation to
curtail drug transportation routes from Latin America as
well as illegal immigration. Operation Gatekeeper is in
California, Operation Safeguard is in Arizona and
Operation Hold-the-Line is in Texas.
The placement of the barriers was a strategic effort to
mitigate the flow of illegal border crossings into the
Southwest part of the United States. Unfortunately,
opponents of the barriers claim that they are a drain on
taxpayers' money and more of a political gambit. They
see the Mexico-United States barrier as an ineffective
deterrent to illegal immigration that ultimately and
inappropriately jeopardizes the safety and health of
people seeking sanctuary in the United States. Other
concerns involve the impact on the environment with
regards to animal habitats and migration patterns.
The border itself between Mexico and United States is
fraught with a mix of urban and desert terrain and
spans over 1,900 miles. Both the uninhabited areas of
the border and urban areas are where the most drug
trafficking and illegal crossings take place. Crime is
prevalent in urban cities like El Paso, Texas and San
Diego, California. The border is constructed of a series
of short walls and virtual fence areas that are monitored
by Border Patrol Agents through a system of cameras
and sensors. In the last 13 years, over 5,000 migrant
deaths occurred along the border according to a
document from the Human Rights National Commission
of Mexico.
In 2005, United States Representative Duncan Hunter
from California proposed a plan to construct reinforced
fencing along the entire border, including a 100-yard
border zone on the United States side. An amendment
to the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal
Immigration Control Act of 2005 was passed that called
for mandatory fencing along 698 miles of the border. As
a result of the legislation, the government of Mexico, as
well as ministers of several Latin American countries,
condemned the construction plans. Rick Perry, the
governor of Texas, expressed his dissatisfaction and
indicated that the border should be open with a
technologically supported safe and legal migration.
Residents of Laredo, Texas were also displeased as
they were concerned about the economic ramifications
of the fence.
Public Opinion - The Border Defense Debate
In 2006, a CNN poll showed that most Americans
preferred the idea of more Border Patrol Agents rather
than a 700 mile fence. Congress revisited the fence
plans in 2007 as they wanted to see a comprehensive
border security plan, and senators from Texas
advocated a revision. The Secretary of Homeland
Security was able to see the fence plan to fruition
without any legal recourse due to a rider attached to the
Real ID Act of 2005. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act,
Coastal Zone Management Act, Clean Water Act,
Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation
Act and National Environmental Policy Act were all
waived when fencing was extended through a research
reserve near San Diego, California. The United States
Department of Homeland Security and United States
Customs and Border Protection spent over $40 million
and earmarked $50 million more to determine the
adverse effects the fence would have on the
environment. Despite these measures, by January 2010,
the fence project from Yuma, Arizona to San Diego,
California was completed. In March 2010, President
Barack Obama froze the expansion of the virtual fence
to use the money to upgrade current border technology
great deal of controversy in the United States. Also
known as the border wall or border fence, it is
constructed of several barriers that are intended to keep
illegal Mexican immigrants from traveling across the
border into the United States. The barriers were
originally built as part of a three prong operation to
curtail drug transportation routes from Latin America as
well as illegal immigration. Operation Gatekeeper is in
California, Operation Safeguard is in Arizona and
Operation Hold-the-Line is in Texas.
The placement of the barriers was a strategic effort to
mitigate the flow of illegal border crossings into the
Southwest part of the United States. Unfortunately,
opponents of the barriers claim that they are a drain on
taxpayers' money and more of a political gambit. They
see the Mexico-United States barrier as an ineffective
deterrent to illegal immigration that ultimately and
inappropriately jeopardizes the safety and health of
people seeking sanctuary in the United States. Other
concerns involve the impact on the environment with
regards to animal habitats and migration patterns.
The border itself between Mexico and United States is
fraught with a mix of urban and desert terrain and
spans over 1,900 miles. Both the uninhabited areas of
the border and urban areas are where the most drug
trafficking and illegal crossings take place. Crime is
prevalent in urban cities like El Paso, Texas and San
Diego, California. The border is constructed of a series
of short walls and virtual fence areas that are monitored
by Border Patrol Agents through a system of cameras
and sensors. In the last 13 years, over 5,000 migrant
deaths occurred along the border according to a
document from the Human Rights National Commission
of Mexico.
In 2005, United States Representative Duncan Hunter
from California proposed a plan to construct reinforced
fencing along the entire border, including a 100-yard
border zone on the United States side. An amendment
to the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal
Immigration Control Act of 2005 was passed that called
for mandatory fencing along 698 miles of the border. As
a result of the legislation, the government of Mexico, as
well as ministers of several Latin American countries,
condemned the construction plans. Rick Perry, the
governor of Texas, expressed his dissatisfaction and
indicated that the border should be open with a
technologically supported safe and legal migration.
Residents of Laredo, Texas were also displeased as
they were concerned about the economic ramifications
of the fence.
Public Opinion - The Border Defense Debate
In 2006, a CNN poll showed that most Americans
preferred the idea of more Border Patrol Agents rather
than a 700 mile fence. Congress revisited the fence
plans in 2007 as they wanted to see a comprehensive
border security plan, and senators from Texas
advocated a revision. The Secretary of Homeland
Security was able to see the fence plan to fruition
without any legal recourse due to a rider attached to the
Real ID Act of 2005. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act,
Coastal Zone Management Act, Clean Water Act,
Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation
Act and National Environmental Policy Act were all
waived when fencing was extended through a research
reserve near San Diego, California. The United States
Department of Homeland Security and United States
Customs and Border Protection spent over $40 million
and earmarked $50 million more to determine the
adverse effects the fence would have on the
environment. Despite these measures, by January 2010,
the fence project from Yuma, Arizona to San Diego,
California was completed. In March 2010, President
Barack Obama froze the expansion of the virtual fence
to use the money to upgrade current border technology
IS TORTURE THE LAST RESORT?
Terrorists have killed thousands of people across the
globe. These deaths are undeserved, and as a result
many people push for the torture of terrorists in order to
uncover information to prevent future attacks. The
torture debate, however, is hugely controversial subject
in modern society.
Arguments in Favor of the Torture Debate
First, there are a number of advantages to torturing
terrorism suspects. Information obtained from terrorists
is often incredibly time-sensitive. The information
obtained through torture is used for a variety of
purposes. If information is given about an attack taking
place in the future, military and government officials can
utilize that information in a timely manner to prepare for
an attack. Torture allows officials to obtain the
information in a timely fashion. Next, many argue that
terrorists are deserving of some extra punishment as a
result of all the death and misery that they have
caused. Torture is a means of providing that extra
punishment.
Torture is also justified by many because it is still
relatively humane compared to what terrorists to do
soldiers they capture themselves. Torture is considered
a good method to turn to when needed information is
not disclosed by terrorists. Lastly, when tortured, a
subject may supply information that was not even
requested by the interrogator. This information is often
incredibly useful, but officials do not always know the
right questions to ask.
Arguments Against the Torture Debate
While there are definitely some advantages for the
torture of terrorists, there are also many disadvantages.
Torture is considered by many experts as both
impractical and ineffective. When people are tortured,
the information supplied is often falsified; the person
undergoing torture does not have an ultimate goal of
supplying accurate information. Indeed, most torture
victims are not even capable of giving accurate
information. Instead, their main goal is simply to stop
the torture in order to allow pain or stress levels to
return to normal levels. Another disadvantage is the
high rate of attrition among interrogators. It is hard to
keep the interrogators psychologically sound when they
partake in such difficult activities.
Other disadvantages in regard to the torture debate
revolve around the psychology of interrogation regarding
the subject of the questioning. Those undergoing
interrogation and torture may consider themselves as
heroes, not criminals. Interrogators who torture are
perceived as dirty and immoral, making the subject even
more resistant to yield information. Last, torture causes
an array of negative opinions. Those who undertake
practices involving torture are perceived as evil, swaying
public and international opinion and potentially causing
a great number of negative effects.
globe. These deaths are undeserved, and as a result
many people push for the torture of terrorists in order to
uncover information to prevent future attacks. The
torture debate, however, is hugely controversial subject
in modern society.
Arguments in Favor of the Torture Debate
First, there are a number of advantages to torturing
terrorism suspects. Information obtained from terrorists
is often incredibly time-sensitive. The information
obtained through torture is used for a variety of
purposes. If information is given about an attack taking
place in the future, military and government officials can
utilize that information in a timely manner to prepare for
an attack. Torture allows officials to obtain the
information in a timely fashion. Next, many argue that
terrorists are deserving of some extra punishment as a
result of all the death and misery that they have
caused. Torture is a means of providing that extra
punishment.
Torture is also justified by many because it is still
relatively humane compared to what terrorists to do
soldiers they capture themselves. Torture is considered
a good method to turn to when needed information is
not disclosed by terrorists. Lastly, when tortured, a
subject may supply information that was not even
requested by the interrogator. This information is often
incredibly useful, but officials do not always know the
right questions to ask.
Arguments Against the Torture Debate
While there are definitely some advantages for the
torture of terrorists, there are also many disadvantages.
Torture is considered by many experts as both
impractical and ineffective. When people are tortured,
the information supplied is often falsified; the person
undergoing torture does not have an ultimate goal of
supplying accurate information. Indeed, most torture
victims are not even capable of giving accurate
information. Instead, their main goal is simply to stop
the torture in order to allow pain or stress levels to
return to normal levels. Another disadvantage is the
high rate of attrition among interrogators. It is hard to
keep the interrogators psychologically sound when they
partake in such difficult activities.
Other disadvantages in regard to the torture debate
revolve around the psychology of interrogation regarding
the subject of the questioning. Those undergoing
interrogation and torture may consider themselves as
heroes, not criminals. Interrogators who torture are
perceived as dirty and immoral, making the subject even
more resistant to yield information. Last, torture causes
an array of negative opinions. Those who undertake
practices involving torture are perceived as evil, swaying
public and international opinion and potentially causing
a great number of negative effects.
THUS TERM LIMITS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Term limits ensure that elected public officials cannot
remain in power indefinitely. They do this by putting a
restriction on the number of terms someone may be
elected to a public office. Some term limit provisions
only restrict the number of consecutive terms a leader
may serve; others limit the total number of terms over a
lifetime. Lifetime terms limits are much more restrictive,
since an official may never again be a candidate for an
office in which she or he has served the limit of terms.
On the other hand, a limit to serving consecutive terms
means a politician could conceivably be re-elected to
the same seat over and over as long as there was a
break in between each period of service.
The practice of term limits goes back at least as far as
Ancient Greece and Rome, both societies which had
elected officials rather than a royal family or a
theocracy. Several modern presidential republics also
enforce term limits on a variety of offices. For example,
Mexico limits its president to one term of six years'
duration, and its congress people cannot serve
consecutive terms. The Russian Federation limits
consecutive terms for its president to no more than two.
In the United States, term limits date back to the
colonial period, when William Penn provided for triennial
rotation of the upper house of the colonial legislature in
his Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties. Currently, the
President of the United States can only serve two terms
as provided for in Amendment 22 to the Constitution,
but there are no restrictions on terms for the Vice-
President or for members of Congress. There have,
however, been calls for the introduction of term limits
for other national offices in an effort to prevent one
person, such as William Byrd in West Virginia or Teddy
Kennedy in Massachusetts, from virtually holding an
elected position for life.
Within the United States, policies on term limits for
officials elected to state or local offices vary, with some
localities enforcing them and others having no such
policy. Term limits are less common in countries that
have a parliamentary republic rather than a presidential
one, since the head of state often does not have a set
term of office at all; instead, he or she can be taken out
of power at any time upon losing the confidence and
support of the parliament. However, even in a
parliamentary system, some officials who serve a
particular term may have the amount of time they can
hold office limited.
Opponents of Term Limits
Critics in the term limit debate claim that they can be
arbitrary and end up preventing the best person for a job
from serving in it; at times, experience is more
important than fresh perspectives. Constant transition in
leadership can stall legislation and public works projects
before anyone benefits from them. In fact, over the
history of the United States, term limits have, at times,
been relaxed in order to allow a particularly strong
leader to stay in power in a crisis situation, as in the
case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Proponents of Term Limits
Proponents in the term limit debate argue that they
ensure a wider range of perspectives in government and
prevent power from being consolidated in one person,
which could easily happen due to the popularity or
privilege of a particular individual. Term limits offer an
automatic check on consolidation of power.
remain in power indefinitely. They do this by putting a
restriction on the number of terms someone may be
elected to a public office. Some term limit provisions
only restrict the number of consecutive terms a leader
may serve; others limit the total number of terms over a
lifetime. Lifetime terms limits are much more restrictive,
since an official may never again be a candidate for an
office in which she or he has served the limit of terms.
On the other hand, a limit to serving consecutive terms
means a politician could conceivably be re-elected to
the same seat over and over as long as there was a
break in between each period of service.
The practice of term limits goes back at least as far as
Ancient Greece and Rome, both societies which had
elected officials rather than a royal family or a
theocracy. Several modern presidential republics also
enforce term limits on a variety of offices. For example,
Mexico limits its president to one term of six years'
duration, and its congress people cannot serve
consecutive terms. The Russian Federation limits
consecutive terms for its president to no more than two.
In the United States, term limits date back to the
colonial period, when William Penn provided for triennial
rotation of the upper house of the colonial legislature in
his Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties. Currently, the
President of the United States can only serve two terms
as provided for in Amendment 22 to the Constitution,
but there are no restrictions on terms for the Vice-
President or for members of Congress. There have,
however, been calls for the introduction of term limits
for other national offices in an effort to prevent one
person, such as William Byrd in West Virginia or Teddy
Kennedy in Massachusetts, from virtually holding an
elected position for life.
Within the United States, policies on term limits for
officials elected to state or local offices vary, with some
localities enforcing them and others having no such
policy. Term limits are less common in countries that
have a parliamentary republic rather than a presidential
one, since the head of state often does not have a set
term of office at all; instead, he or she can be taken out
of power at any time upon losing the confidence and
support of the parliament. However, even in a
parliamentary system, some officials who serve a
particular term may have the amount of time they can
hold office limited.
Opponents of Term Limits
Critics in the term limit debate claim that they can be
arbitrary and end up preventing the best person for a job
from serving in it; at times, experience is more
important than fresh perspectives. Constant transition in
leadership can stall legislation and public works projects
before anyone benefits from them. In fact, over the
history of the United States, term limits have, at times,
been relaxed in order to allow a particularly strong
leader to stay in power in a crisis situation, as in the
case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Proponents of Term Limits
Proponents in the term limit debate argue that they
ensure a wider range of perspectives in government and
prevent power from being consolidated in one person,
which could easily happen due to the popularity or
privilege of a particular individual. Term limits offer an
automatic check on consolidation of power.
DID WAR ON IRAQ PASS THE MESSAGE?
The Iraq War began on March 20, 2003 with the
invasion of Iraq by troops from the United States and
Great Britain. This war has also come to be known by
several other names including Operation Iraqi Freedom
and the Second Gulf War.
Before the invasion, the government of the United States
claimed that there was a possibility that Iraq was
storing weapons of mass destruction that posed a
threat to the wellbeing of the United States and other
nations. The United Nations asked Iraq to cooperate
with weapons inspectors and verify their possession of
cruise missiles and other weapons, but the nation's
officials were noncompliant. Surprisingly, none of these
weapons were ever discovered following the invasion.
This, along with several other incidents, has led to a
great controversy regarding the necessity of the Iraq
War.
Following the invasion of Iraq, the goals of the United
States and Britain changed somewhat. The invasion led
to an occupation by American and British troops and
the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein, the leader of
the Iraqi government at the time. Efforts were also
made to improve the quality of life of the people of Iraq
by removing the oppressive government and replacing it
with a democratic government that was more or less set
up by United States' officials.
Over 300,000 American and international troops were
involved in the invasion and matched up against an
Iraqi army of about 375,000. Thousands have lost their
lives on both sides. Over 16,000 Americans have lost
their lives and between 98,000 and 107,000 Iraqi
civilians have also been killed. This is one of the main
reasons why so many people have been opposed to the
war.
Human rights have been a very controversial issue
throughout the duration of the war. Both sides have
been accused of violating basic human rights with their
practices. The Iraqi government is criticized for their use
of torture and death squads and massacres of their
people. Many supporters of the war rally behind the
effort to end these practices. However, others argue
against the war because the other side has also been
using practices that could be considered inhumane.
White phosphorus was used in Iraq and has had
negative effects on the health of civilians. Many
bombings of American troops have also resulted in
civilian deaths.
Public Opinion of the War
The public Iraq War debate appears to resound largely
with disapproval. In 2007, BBC World Service polled over
26,000 people in 25 nations. They found that 73 percent
were opposed to the way the United States handled the
Iraq invasion. Another survey conducted in 2007 showed
that over two-thirds of people internationally believed
that the United States should withdraw from Iraq.
Withdrawals have since been initiated and President
Barack Obama supports the removal of troops in as
timely a manner as possible.
Citizens of nations in the Middle East also have mixed
opinions of the war. Over 60 percent of Saudi people
have a negative view of the war and ninety-six percent
of Jordan was opposed to the war as of 2007. The
majority of people in France, Jordan, Lebanon, China,
and Spain all believe that the world was safer before
the Iraq War.
Did the United States make a bad move in its invasion
of Iraq? Public opinions vary. The war has led to a large
number of casualties, but the Iraq War debate still
lingers on whether or not the invasion was ultimately
justified.
invasion of Iraq by troops from the United States and
Great Britain. This war has also come to be known by
several other names including Operation Iraqi Freedom
and the Second Gulf War.
Before the invasion, the government of the United States
claimed that there was a possibility that Iraq was
storing weapons of mass destruction that posed a
threat to the wellbeing of the United States and other
nations. The United Nations asked Iraq to cooperate
with weapons inspectors and verify their possession of
cruise missiles and other weapons, but the nation's
officials were noncompliant. Surprisingly, none of these
weapons were ever discovered following the invasion.
This, along with several other incidents, has led to a
great controversy regarding the necessity of the Iraq
War.
Following the invasion of Iraq, the goals of the United
States and Britain changed somewhat. The invasion led
to an occupation by American and British troops and
the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein, the leader of
the Iraqi government at the time. Efforts were also
made to improve the quality of life of the people of Iraq
by removing the oppressive government and replacing it
with a democratic government that was more or less set
up by United States' officials.
Over 300,000 American and international troops were
involved in the invasion and matched up against an
Iraqi army of about 375,000. Thousands have lost their
lives on both sides. Over 16,000 Americans have lost
their lives and between 98,000 and 107,000 Iraqi
civilians have also been killed. This is one of the main
reasons why so many people have been opposed to the
war.
Human rights have been a very controversial issue
throughout the duration of the war. Both sides have
been accused of violating basic human rights with their
practices. The Iraqi government is criticized for their use
of torture and death squads and massacres of their
people. Many supporters of the war rally behind the
effort to end these practices. However, others argue
against the war because the other side has also been
using practices that could be considered inhumane.
White phosphorus was used in Iraq and has had
negative effects on the health of civilians. Many
bombings of American troops have also resulted in
civilian deaths.
Public Opinion of the War
The public Iraq War debate appears to resound largely
with disapproval. In 2007, BBC World Service polled over
26,000 people in 25 nations. They found that 73 percent
were opposed to the way the United States handled the
Iraq invasion. Another survey conducted in 2007 showed
that over two-thirds of people internationally believed
that the United States should withdraw from Iraq.
Withdrawals have since been initiated and President
Barack Obama supports the removal of troops in as
timely a manner as possible.
Citizens of nations in the Middle East also have mixed
opinions of the war. Over 60 percent of Saudi people
have a negative view of the war and ninety-six percent
of Jordan was opposed to the war as of 2007. The
majority of people in France, Jordan, Lebanon, China,
and Spain all believe that the world was safer before
the Iraq War.
Did the United States make a bad move in its invasion
of Iraq? Public opinions vary. The war has led to a large
number of casualties, but the Iraq War debate still
lingers on whether or not the invasion was ultimately
justified.
WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
In operation since January 1, 1995, the World Trade
Organization regulates trade between the 153 member
nations who participate in the organization. The 153
member nations of the World Trade Organization
comprise more than 97% of total world trade. The
objective of the World Trade Organization is to stimulate
economic growth and promote free trade between
nations. The World Trade Organization provides a
framework for the negotiation and formalization of trade
agreements between the member nations as well as a
dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing World
Trade Organization agreements that have been executed
by government representatives of member nations.
Although the World Trade Organization technically
operates on a one country, one vote system, votes are
not actually ever taken. Instead, decision making in the
organization is usually by consensus with bargaining
power based primarily on relative market size. Although
the use of consensus in decision making increases the
likelihood that the ultimate decision will be widely
accepted, it is generally a slow process that ultimately
results in ambiguous agreements. Furthermore, the
consensus decision-making usually occurs through a
process of negotiations between small groups of nations
as opposed to by consensus of all member nations.
WTO Debate Controversy
The practice of consensus decision-making has sparked
a World Trade Organization debate, because critics
contend that many of the developing country members
of the World Trade Organization are often excluded from
the informal negotiations and, therefore, are excluded
from the main decision-making process. Furthermore,
critics of the World Trade Organization's consensus
model argue that it ultimately favors the United State
and Europe due to their greater relative market size.
These critics assert that the World Trade Organization is
biased in favor of wealthy nations and multinational
corporations and against smaller, poorer developing
nations. In support of their position, critics contend that
wealthy nations are able to maintain high import quotas
and duties in certain products, thereby blocking imports
from developing nations. Similarly, critics assert that
the World Trade Organization maintains high protection
of agriculture in developed nations while pressing
developing nations to open their markets. Thus,
opponents of the work of the World Trade Organization
argue that the organization is actually widening the very
sociological gap between the poor and the rich that it
claims to be correcting.
Other opponents in the World Trade Organization debate
argue that the World Trade Organization is so focused
on free trade that it is ignoring issues such as labor and
the environment. They contend that the organization
actually promotes the agenda of wealthy multinational
corporations that is aimed at free trade above the
interests of working families, local communities, and the
environment. These critics are concerned that an
emphasis on trade will be devastating to world natural
resources unless proper attention is paid to adequate
environmental regulation and resource management. In
support of their positions, critics point to the opposition
by the World Trade Organization to the laws in the
United States that protected sea turtles and those that
protected dolphins as well as to the clean air
regulations of the United States. Furthermore, the World
Trade Organization opposed the laws of the European
Union banning hormone-treated beef. The World Trade
Organization opposed these laws and regulations as
barriers to free trade. Furthermore, opponents argue
that the needs and rights of the labor market of the
member nations are being sacrificed on the altar of free
trade.
Organization regulates trade between the 153 member
nations who participate in the organization. The 153
member nations of the World Trade Organization
comprise more than 97% of total world trade. The
objective of the World Trade Organization is to stimulate
economic growth and promote free trade between
nations. The World Trade Organization provides a
framework for the negotiation and formalization of trade
agreements between the member nations as well as a
dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing World
Trade Organization agreements that have been executed
by government representatives of member nations.
Although the World Trade Organization technically
operates on a one country, one vote system, votes are
not actually ever taken. Instead, decision making in the
organization is usually by consensus with bargaining
power based primarily on relative market size. Although
the use of consensus in decision making increases the
likelihood that the ultimate decision will be widely
accepted, it is generally a slow process that ultimately
results in ambiguous agreements. Furthermore, the
consensus decision-making usually occurs through a
process of negotiations between small groups of nations
as opposed to by consensus of all member nations.
WTO Debate Controversy
The practice of consensus decision-making has sparked
a World Trade Organization debate, because critics
contend that many of the developing country members
of the World Trade Organization are often excluded from
the informal negotiations and, therefore, are excluded
from the main decision-making process. Furthermore,
critics of the World Trade Organization's consensus
model argue that it ultimately favors the United State
and Europe due to their greater relative market size.
These critics assert that the World Trade Organization is
biased in favor of wealthy nations and multinational
corporations and against smaller, poorer developing
nations. In support of their position, critics contend that
wealthy nations are able to maintain high import quotas
and duties in certain products, thereby blocking imports
from developing nations. Similarly, critics assert that
the World Trade Organization maintains high protection
of agriculture in developed nations while pressing
developing nations to open their markets. Thus,
opponents of the work of the World Trade Organization
argue that the organization is actually widening the very
sociological gap between the poor and the rich that it
claims to be correcting.
Other opponents in the World Trade Organization debate
argue that the World Trade Organization is so focused
on free trade that it is ignoring issues such as labor and
the environment. They contend that the organization
actually promotes the agenda of wealthy multinational
corporations that is aimed at free trade above the
interests of working families, local communities, and the
environment. These critics are concerned that an
emphasis on trade will be devastating to world natural
resources unless proper attention is paid to adequate
environmental regulation and resource management. In
support of their positions, critics point to the opposition
by the World Trade Organization to the laws in the
United States that protected sea turtles and those that
protected dolphins as well as to the clean air
regulations of the United States. Furthermore, the World
Trade Organization opposed the laws of the European
Union banning hormone-treated beef. The World Trade
Organization opposed these laws and regulations as
barriers to free trade. Furthermore, opponents argue
that the needs and rights of the labor market of the
member nations are being sacrificed on the altar of free
trade.
GLOBAL WARMING EXISTS?
Global warming is defined as an increase in the average
temperature of the earth's atmosphere. This trend
began in the middle of the 20th century and is one of
the major environmental concerns of scientists and
governmental officials worldwide. The changes in
temperature result mostly from the effect of increased
concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
These gasses, which include carbon dioxide and
methane, are mostly produced through human activity.
Global Warming Debate Controversy
The global warming debate has quickly become a source
of controversy. People disagree on how to address the
problem and some simply do not believe that global
warming is even occurring at all. Global warming is an
internationally recognized problem and many nations are
on board with addressing the issue in the most effective
manner possible. The Kyoto Agreement was called for a
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and, as of
November 2009, was signed by 187 nations. Since
1750, there has been an overall increase of 90-250
percent in the release of carbon dioxide.
Climate Change
If global warming continues at the rate it is right now,
scientists warn against a large number of ill effects.
Decreases in the amounts of ice and snow in some
regions have already endangered many species and
continue to do so. Further global warming will also
result in a melting of the polar ice caps, which is
already occurring. This will lead not only to loss of
habitats, but also to a rise in the level of the ocean. A
rise in ocean levels could bury some of the coastal cities
and islands under miles of water and greatly reduce the
amount of land available for human life.
Climate change already impacts a large number of
species. For example, coral reefs and mangrove trees
have declined in numbers. There is also significant
evidence to support changes in forestry over the last
100 years. As global warming has sped up, there have
been a number of responses, both innate and planned.
Many animal species have responded by migrating to
cooler climates. Others have adapted and some are
simply close to extinction.
Political & Scientific Reaction
As far as politics go, the responses are just as varied.
Mitigation is common and calls for a reduction of
emissions and less reliance on fossil fuels. Coal burning
power plants are now replaced with hydraulic power
plants and electrical cars are replacing some gasoline
efficient cars. Many people, however, feel that this is
not enough. These "environmental radicals" want to see
a complete overhaul of the system and severe reduction
of any reliance on factories or machines that produce
greenhouse gasses. Some environmental radicals have
proposed a system called geo-engineering. This would
involve engineering the climate of the earth artificially
through removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
or blocking incoming sunlight. These techniques would
be particularly costly to develop, so they are strongly
opposed by supporters of mediation and simple policy
change.
When it comes down to it, most politicians and
scientists agree that the power to stop global warming
lies mostly with the people. Whether a supporter of
simple mediation and reduction of use or a believer in
dramatic overhauls such as geo-engineering, most
scientists agree that the more people who are on board,
the better. One survey found that over one-third of
people were completely unaware of global warming and
its effects. A great first step toward changing the
environment would be to educate these people.
temperature of the earth's atmosphere. This trend
began in the middle of the 20th century and is one of
the major environmental concerns of scientists and
governmental officials worldwide. The changes in
temperature result mostly from the effect of increased
concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
These gasses, which include carbon dioxide and
methane, are mostly produced through human activity.
Global Warming Debate Controversy
The global warming debate has quickly become a source
of controversy. People disagree on how to address the
problem and some simply do not believe that global
warming is even occurring at all. Global warming is an
internationally recognized problem and many nations are
on board with addressing the issue in the most effective
manner possible. The Kyoto Agreement was called for a
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and, as of
November 2009, was signed by 187 nations. Since
1750, there has been an overall increase of 90-250
percent in the release of carbon dioxide.
Climate Change
If global warming continues at the rate it is right now,
scientists warn against a large number of ill effects.
Decreases in the amounts of ice and snow in some
regions have already endangered many species and
continue to do so. Further global warming will also
result in a melting of the polar ice caps, which is
already occurring. This will lead not only to loss of
habitats, but also to a rise in the level of the ocean. A
rise in ocean levels could bury some of the coastal cities
and islands under miles of water and greatly reduce the
amount of land available for human life.
Climate change already impacts a large number of
species. For example, coral reefs and mangrove trees
have declined in numbers. There is also significant
evidence to support changes in forestry over the last
100 years. As global warming has sped up, there have
been a number of responses, both innate and planned.
Many animal species have responded by migrating to
cooler climates. Others have adapted and some are
simply close to extinction.
Political & Scientific Reaction
As far as politics go, the responses are just as varied.
Mitigation is common and calls for a reduction of
emissions and less reliance on fossil fuels. Coal burning
power plants are now replaced with hydraulic power
plants and electrical cars are replacing some gasoline
efficient cars. Many people, however, feel that this is
not enough. These "environmental radicals" want to see
a complete overhaul of the system and severe reduction
of any reliance on factories or machines that produce
greenhouse gasses. Some environmental radicals have
proposed a system called geo-engineering. This would
involve engineering the climate of the earth artificially
through removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
or blocking incoming sunlight. These techniques would
be particularly costly to develop, so they are strongly
opposed by supporters of mediation and simple policy
change.
When it comes down to it, most politicians and
scientists agree that the power to stop global warming
lies mostly with the people. Whether a supporter of
simple mediation and reduction of use or a believer in
dramatic overhauls such as geo-engineering, most
scientists agree that the more people who are on board,
the better. One survey found that over one-third of
people were completely unaware of global warming and
its effects. A great first step toward changing the
environment would be to educate these people.
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