Category: Terrorism

More Than Goodluck

More Than Goodluck

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

goodluckvsbuhariAfrican democracies are not doing well in the face of growing terrorism, and next weekend one of the biggest tests occurs when Nigerians go to the polls.

Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Lagos a day ago on his way to Kiev. His message was unequivocal: pursue, protect and keep clean the upcoming elections. None of the three are likely.

The presidential election is too close to call. President Goodluck Jonathan is seeking a second term. His unexpected best challenger, Muhammadu Buhari, is seeking a return to power.

Jonathan is an avowed Christian. Buhari is an avowed Muslim.

Jonathan at least talks democracy and claims he champions it. Buhari was one of Nigeria’s most ruthless military dictators currently being investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Neither candidate talks much about the ineffective war against Boko Haram, which controls about an eighth of the country.

Both candidates publicly disavow the possibility of a military coup. Both candidates’ advisers say otherwise.

There had hardly been a more popular man in Nigeria before Goodluck Jonathan came to power in 2011. His first few years were a love fest with the nation, and Nigeria was doing very well.

As with other popularly elected Nigerian leaders, Jonathan’s most important task was to keep the military at bay. The military has ruled Nigeria for more years than civilians since Independence in 1960. Occasionally those periods have been reasonably fair and peaceful; Buhari’s was not.

Almost all the military rulers, beneficent or tyrannical, looted the country. Nigeria is only now emerging from a state of constant corruption.

Jonathan carefully emasculated his own army so that when Boko Haram emerged, a dilemma of unexpected proportions did as well.

Foot soldiers were rarely paid because the military budget was systematically reduced or reallocated. Military leaders remain firmly in control, though, so what money was left was hoarded at the top. Foot soldiers get fed and clothed and are provided with enough aura to build egos instead of pensions.

But it’s the reason Nigeria’s military mostly fled Boko Haram, rarely fighting. All the successful military operations against Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria have come from the Chadian Army.

Which both Jonathan and Buhari say is just fine.

Despite Secretary Kerry’s noble visit, democracy is not working in Nigeria. Certainly for the moment it is not working for Nigeria’s Muslim community who is adamantly opposed to Boko Haram but getting no help from the central government.

A Buhari victory could come at the ballot box or the barracks. Either path is paved by Nigerians of all dispositions increasingly afraid of Boko Haram.

Next weekend’s elections will be unable to justly determine a winner. Jonathan’s democratic presidency achieved that goal the last time because he last won by such massive margins.

That won’t happen this time. It’s too close.

Each side has enormous resources for “getting out the vote” which means “getting out the vote as many times as you can.”

A contested election is certain and it’s hard to imagine anything peaceful. Bush vs Gore, or more appropriately, Kenyatta vs Odinga, are not models for this massively powerful and divided country besieged by terrorism.

So rumors now flourish in Lagos that Jonathan is courting military leaders to fracture any support that may exist for Buhari.

No irony ever before would match Jonathan installed in power by a military coup after losing a democratic election. That reality may be fanciful, though, as I expect the election will be inconclusive.

Let the strongest man win.

The Price of Democracy

The Price of Democracy

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tovoteortosuriveChad and Cameroon are defeating Boko Haram while Nigeria is losing. What’s going on?

Cameroon shares a 500 km border with Nigeria on the east and Chad shares a much smaller border above the Cameroon/Nigerian border from Lake Chad north.

Boko Haram controls virtually all the Borno State of Nigeria, which is its far northeastern province. Parts of two other Nigerian states, Yobe to the north of Borno and Adamawa to the south, are also contolled by Boko Haram.
chadnigcammap
Both Chad and Cameroon are holding Boko Haram at bay and, in fact, freeing hostages and securing border posts that Nigeria has abandoned. The few times that Boko Haram has tried to enter either country, it’s been pushed back into Nigeria.

Both countries are less powerful than Nigeria on paper, i.e. in terms of available military hardware and defense budgets. The U.S. which has strategic military arrangements with all three countries has a far greater one with Nigeria than the other two.

Why, then, is Nigeria incapable of defeating Boko Haram?

While the Chadian army is less powerful than Nigeria’s on paper, it’s a much better fighting force. It led the charge, so to speak, in the successful fight against Mali Tuareg Islamists last year, taking a role there second only to France.

Despite its much longer border with Nigeria, many fewer refugees are fleeing into Cameroon than into Chad. This is because the thrust of Boko Haram’s military advances has been to the northeast, driving directly towards Lake Chad.

So the refugee problem, which is a trigger for all sorts of conflicts worldwide, provides Chad with all the rational it needs to ratchet up the fight, and Cameroon – and possibly even Nigeria – don’t mind a bit.

Chad is the most militaristic society of all three countries and that’s essentially the short reason that it’s succeeding in fighting Boko Haram as it would – and has – any insurgency.

Last year when trouble in its neighboring Central African Republic erupted, battles spilled over into Chad for a very short time. Chad’s military response was so severe that while the CAR remains very unstable and its capital in constant turmoil, the fighting has been contained at the border by the Chad military.

Nigeria was once a country like Chad. It became independent from Britain in 1963, but within three years it was a military dictatorship. Military dominance continued in Nigeria right through its bloody Biafran Civil War and after, with several weak and unsuccessful attempts from time to time to move towards civilian democratic rule.

The 1980s were pivotal for Africa because of America’s president, Ronald Reagan. He insisted that all embassies throughout Africa have a chief “Democracy Officer” and that any aid be contingent on moves by that country towards democracy.

Nigeria was dependent almost completely upon British and American investment. New discoveries of oil were being made daily, and a rich future looked possible but only if the west would invest.

The military agreed to Reagan’s initiatives and elections in Nigeria were held in 1993, but as often happens the man who won was quite radical. The general who had agreed to the elections annulled them, and the U.S. and Britain promptly suspended aid.

Not until 1999 was a truly democratic government in place.

Ever since then Nigerian politicians have had a tricky balance: the educated mostly urban populations thrive on democracy. They depend upon goods and investment from the west which insists on democracy.

The rural populations – particularly in places like Borno State – are marginalized, ethnically divided and with local governments mastered by little dictators. They are supported by insurgents and increasingly, radical Islamists.

Most importantly, though, the Nigerian military has been systematically eviscerated by the Lagos civilian government so that it cannot return to power. Defense budgets have been cut and military commands intentionally fractured.

Nigeria is in the midst of still another national election. The last thing that the current president running for reelection wants is to empower the military. In essence, that means ceding at least for now large swaths of his country to Boko Haram.

Democracy is not everything that it’s made out to be: definitely not a one-size fits all. If democratic Nigeria is to survive, it will probably mean so will Boko Haram.

Free Hate

Free Hate

by Arusha ♥ 3 Comments

freespeechIs Charlie Hebdo hateful, and if so, should it be banned?

In the U.S. hate speech is constitutionally protected, but acts motivated by hate can be deemed illegal. It’s an extraordinarily complex if subtle distinction.

It’s not surprising that the political and religious leaders of Africa are near universally condemning this week’s European terrorism, but their societies are not expressing any such agreement at all.

Some of the most Muslim of Africa’s countries, including Morocco, Egypt, Mauritania and even Somali walked in lockstep with their condemnation of the terrorists but without, however, bringing up the subject of free speech. These and many more government statements seemed almost like they were all written by the same person.

But dig into social media and it’s a completely different situation:

“Discussions on social media are incensed,” Deutsche Welle sums up, today.

Moreover, government policy as opposed to government statements in Africa is quite different. The same governments above – as with almost all African governments – have strict laws against free speech.

In Egypt a person can be detained indefinitely whenever suspected of terrorism, and in Egypt today terrorism is defined as simple as speaking the words, “Muslim Brotherhood.”

In countries like Morocco where authoritative pro-western regimes are balancing a growing populist-Muslim movement, free speech and assembly is often banned and insults of the King result in imprisonment.

In less authoritative regimes like Kenya and South Africa, current legislatures are grappling with new laws that seriously restrict the press and other forms of free speech.

So don’t believe the government statements. I believe that Africans of almost all persuasions view the terrorism this week in France and Belgium as an understandable outcome of excessive “free speech.” The question is whether the outcome is worth it.

Free speech in Africa is a powerful weapon and those in power are unanimously wary of it.

With the less stable (Somalia), less developed (Mauritania) or more contentious governments (Morocco and Egypt), inhibiting free speech is used against Islamic militants because that same interdiction is used against any criticism of the existing regime.

With more stable and progressive governments like Kenya and South Africa, where political criticism is vibrant, the debate over Charlie Hebdo is quite unsettled. Earlier this week I wrote about this.

My own view is that we need to value the “worth” of hateful criticism. In an educated and tolerant society this value can be truly understood as an important test of free speech.

But in less educated and tolerant societies the value flips and reflects not a freedom but the oppressive power of the subjugator. Thems fighting words.

“Just like there is no such thing as unfettered capitalism, there is no such thing as unfettered free speech,” writes a New York muslim using an anonymous penname (touché!).

So when we as westerners condemn curtailments of free speech elsewhere, without criticizing our own hate speech/crime laws, are we simply claiming to have achieved the perfect standard … universally?

That’s the cardinal mistake of the West: presuming not just that they know best, but that no one else anywhere knows better.

It’s just not true. It’s not possible, and if we can excise this egoism from the argument, I think we’ll begin to empathize with the movers and shakers in the developing world who have very few riches to be taken from them, but enormous amounts of dignity.

African Charlie

African Charlie

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enfantducharliesLast week an unbelievable 2,000 people were killed by terrorists in Nigeria and a believable 17 were killed in France. Are you Charlie?

At the bottom is starvation. At the top is freedom of speech. Sometimes they seem unlinked, too far apart to have any meaning to one another.

But not today. Towards the top are Charlies arguing that without unfettered freedom of speech it’s not worth eating.

Towards the bottom are the jihadists who achieve power by delivering bread at the expense of a word against them.

Progressive Africans are as divided as modern westerners that free speech is so important, but African governments are much less so.

Often African apologists like myself see eating as a prerequisite to doing anything. Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society, wrote today:

“I will not be joining ‘Je Suis Charlie’… these cartoonists did not … care about ordinary sincere believers who would have been deeply hurt by the violent dehumanised images of the founders of the great religions of the world.”

Dowden reminded us that many of Charlie Hebdo’s images “came close to the sort of cartoons that the Nazis drew to depict Jews in the 1930s.”

But Kwendo Opanga writing for Nairobi’s Daily Nation says, “But, somebody please educate me: does killing me and the innocents next to me make my killer a better person and my ghost or spirit a veritable tribute to contrition?”

In developing societies there is still a lot of illiteracy and below that, abject ignorance. In America lying exploits ignorance to manipulate the reigns of power but the checks of truth are powerful, too.

Developing societies have far fewer defenses against lying.

Ruling against South Africa’s Sunday Times attempt to reprint Danish cartoons offensive to Islam, High Court Judge Mohamed Jajbhay explained, “Although freedom of expression is fundamental in our democratic society, it is not a paramount value.”

Jajbhay went on to explain what might be a paramount value, such as human dignity, or … eating.

When hunger and poverty is being reduced, we focus ideas and theories that distinguish humans from other animals. That was the case for much of the last 30 or 40 years.

That 30 or 40 years was a good story… unless you live outside where it’s happened.

The global reduction in poverty came mostly from China and India, little in Africa. There was some stabilization of poverty increases in Africa, but particularly in areas of conflict, poverty increased substantially.

The difference between eating and starving is not well understood by the well fed. Those who eat less in this case know much more: Starving is the fuel of jihad.

Mosul is Iraq’s 3rd largest city and remains in control of jihadists, because of the massive development it was denied by the Baghdad government in the last decade.

That same story plays out again and again throughout Africa. Nigeria’s neglected northeast state is almost entirely today in the hands of jihadists, for the same reason as Mosul.

Cartoons are abstract, food is not. The starving may want as much freedom as those who eat plenty, but they won’t know until they stop starving.

Those with a few morsels in their mouths can dream about a better life. They, too, want the freedom to express themselves, and they grow livid with the understanding that those who denied them their bread have access to so many colored crayons.

Let the ideologues argue about ideas as they munch their croissants and sip their lattes. The real debate is less arrogant, much simpler: bread.

#2 : Terrorism is Down

#2 : Terrorism is Down

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-Terrorism is declining in Africa, my #2 Story of 2014.

Terrorism is an almost meaningless word. At its root is war but differentiated from classic war by tactics of brutality and special cruelty.

Yet as we’ve seen in America this year, not even torture is easily associated with American definitions of terrorism. Conflict becomes terrorism in most people’s minds when they are so frightened that they react impulsively and thereby often become unable to defend themselves properly.

Napoleon at Waterloo or Bush at 9/11:

Scared to death. It’s a tactic that the Davids of the world retain as their most valuable, since today’s Goliath’s are incapable of being defeated by weapons other than fear.

Terrorism in Africa was definitely down in 2014 over recent years. From Mali to Egypt to Uganda to Mozambique, the incidents of terrorism were fewer in number than in 2013.

Readers of this blog will be focused on Kenya, because Americans control the narrative of terrorism in the world, and because Kenya is an African country they know more about than most other African countries.

Kenya has a close association to America. Its new constitution is modeled more by America’s than any single other country in the world. More recently Kenya became America’s proxy in the war in Somalia where Kenya remains the occupier and governor of a very fragile peace.

2013 was a horrible year for terrorism in Kenya. Since the horrible Westgate Mall attack in 2012, the Kenyan government began to react like most western governments when terrorized: clamp down.

Kenya beefed up security, increased military and police forces and began passing draconian laws. Much of this was counseled and paid for by America and undertaken exactly as America did after 9/11.

From my point of view, Kenya is even doing better than America after 9/11, because its reexamination of some of its draconian security laws is happening faster than it did in America.

America’s Patriot Act was enacted in October, 2001 and Obama ended all but 3 of its 10 provisions which will die if not renewed this year. Many persons myself included believe it had limited if any impact on reducing terrorism while greatly inhibiting personal liberties.

Kenya’s version of the Patriot Act was passed last month, but Kenya’s High Court suspended most of its key provisions Friday.

I hope the Kenyan High Court perseveres and strikes the law down for good, and I think there’s a good chance it will.

The Kenyan High Court is much more progressive than America’s Supreme Court. The Kenyan constitution, in fact, is more progressive than America’s.

The reason security has improved in Kenya, and the reason security improved in the U.S. after 9/11, had little to do with draconian new laws that culpable legislators hurried to enact.

The increased security was simply because of increased vigilance that was lacking before 9/11 or the Westgate Mall. We all know now how dismissive the Bush administration was of reports of imminent terrorism. Kenya’s dismissiveness may have been similar but was likely something else: lack of resources.

America and Britain have now beefed up Kenya’s resources, so while the explanation for why Kenya and the U.S. suffered dramatic attacks differs, renewed vigilence was similar in both countries, and given the west’s support, I think Kenya will continue to improve its security.

Should Kenya also put the kibosh on its horrible new security laws it will have also learned from America’s mistakes and will retain citizen liberties in a way America did not.

I think at that point the whole world – including America – will realize that America’s knee-jerk response to 9/11 was counter-productive and that “terrorism” is an eternal threat requiring measured but constant vigilance, not draconian security laws.

It’s fair to extrapolate Kenya’s experience to more or less all of Africa, with the notable exception of Nigeria.

Nigeria has never coalesced into a single republic well. The Biafran War was not a civil war like America’s. It was a much newer conflict of issues of ethnicity, class, privilege and income.

Boko Haram is the newest iteration of this contemporary conflict. There’s no question that its tactics are brutal and extreme, although the kidnaping of the school girls or the executions of young students is not a new technique in African conflicts.

Boko Haram’s ideologies are less global than local. This past weekend powerful Boko Haram forces overran a military base in Nigeria and could have easily taken more territory in neighboring Chad but didn’t.

Boko Haram is on the ascent because the Lagos government is on the decline. Crippled by a falling oil price as much as weak governance, Nigeria’s threat from Boko Haram is a serious internal one that ought not be extrapolated to Africa as a whole.

No conflict, no terrorism, is comforting. But in my long view of Africa, I’d say that things are getting better. More optimistically, Kenya’s chance to reframe how to deal with “terrorism” might be a model for the whole world. Take note, America.

Free Kenyan Collapse?

Free Kenyan Collapse?

by Arusha ♥ 2 Comments

Kenya democracy is on the brink of collapse, because … of democracy.

Facing imprisonment if the bill in Parliament he is criticizing is passed, popular Kenyan journalist, Kwame Owino, wrote today that Kenyan society “is bound for a democratic recession, with the possibility that its constitutional journey will come to an abrupt and painful stop.”

At immediate issue is a Security Bill that is so draconian if passed that if will effectively stop debate in the Parliament that passes it.

This afternoon Parliament grew so disruptive that fist-fights broke out, media cameras were smashed and the police ordered to surround the building.

“The changes are retrogressive and their cumulative effect could return Kenya to the police state of the 1980s and 90s and reverse gains made in protecting human rights,” Amnesty International Regional Director told local media.

Human Rights Watch said the Security Bill would “limit the rights of arrested and accused people, and restrict freedoms of expression and assembly.”

The bill’s details include holding “terrorism suspects … without charge for 360 days, compel landlords to provide information about their tenants and punish media organisations for printing material that is “likely to cause fear or alarm”.”

This is not a new development. There are already a series of horrible new laws, particularly against free speech, that this Parliament has already passed.

Bloggers around the country are being brought in by police for “impolite” or “disrespectful” remarks.

One of Kenya’s most political and followed tweeters, Robert Alai, was yesterday released on $2,000 bail and will be tried for having tweeted that Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta is an “adolescent president”.

Here’s the thing:

The reason that Kenyatta had the new Security Law introduced (or more correctly, many draconian amendments to the proposed law) is because of terrorism, mostly in Kenya’s far northeastern provinces which are adjacent Somalia.

Kenya with the aid and abetting probably of America invaded Somalia in October, 2011, and remains as an occupier. Somalia has achieved some peace and stability for the first time in more than a generation as a result, but Kenya has suffered terrorist retribution.

Kenyatta’s slow but methodical increase in security measures has seemed to work in stemming what had been a growing increase in terrorism.

Terror attacks in Nairobi, for example, happening last year at nearly one per month, are now rare.

But the cost of this has truly been the democratic rights protected by its fabulous young constitution.

It’s fair to surmise that every new tourist who comes to Kenya because of its new security sends an additional Robert Alai to jail… if the new laws work.

I don’t think they will. They didn’t in America. The Patriot Act did little to protect us. Under the Patriot Act a bevy of new terrorist attempts came to the surface, including the shoe-boot and underwear-pants bombers, the cargo planes and much more.

Not until we backed off draconian measures like the Patriot Act, began ending the wars of retribution in Afghanistan and Iraq, did our own security truly improve. That is if you exclude Sandy-Hook, the Black Knight bombing and maverick terrorists like the Boston Marathon bombers.

My point exactly. What is security? Three thousand people and the exponent of their families were seriously hurt by 9/11. How many in the exponential pool of marathon runners, parents of grade schoolers and movie goers have been hurt by domestic terrorism?

There is real equivalence, here, and the Patriot Act probably did more to increase this aggregate terrorism than it did to reduce it.

Once a power center like a government gets it into their noggin that they should fight terrorism, they begin to think they should fight until they win.

That is the recipe for certain defeat. Terrorism cannot be defeated. It has existed forever and it will forever exist.

European nations are the best examples of how to live with and manage terrorism.

America after 9/11 … and now Kenya, are about the worst examples out there.

Shape up, Kenya. There’s still time.

Fighting Terror with Terror

Fighting Terror with Terror

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futilityofantiterrorLike father, like son: Kenya has now joined its military father, the U.S., using illegal force in failed attempts to fight terrorism.

The Senate committee report released Tuesday is a shame on America that will follow our empire to its ultimate grave, but the extra-judicial killings of 500 detainees by Kenyan security forces is simply mindless.

My novel, Chasm Gorge, explains how a terrorist in Kenya succeeds by provoking America to react with excessive force. That’s exactly what’s happening in Kenya today.

And it’s fair to conclude that because America did it, Kenya does now. America planned, financed and helped managed the Kenyan invasion of Somalia.

The Kenyans are simply doing what their teachers did: Actions speak louder than words.

Yet there are words, too:

The Kenyan operatives told London’s Guardian that “they have received training and intelligence from Britain.” So add Britain to this terrible mix.

Why is this happening? Why did America torture? The evidence is strong that torture doesn’t produce useful intelligence, and even if it did it would be immoral.

Hypothetical cases suggesting that torture could reveal and thereby prevent an ultimate apocalyptic attack are ludicrous. Nothing yet in the human arsenal is more apocalyptic than the immorality of torture.

In today’s world and any future hi-tech world I can imagine, torture does nothing but escalate a conflict. So why pursue such inane policies?

The answer is the same as to why the Kenyans murder their detainees.

Revenge. It’s that simple. Revenge is short-term relief. It’s old testament equalizing. There is, in fact, some logic to revenge if a conflict is considered irresolvable, when compromise at any point is impossible. In this case only one side wins, and revenge is a move on the chess board that allows no draws.

If we truly believe certain conflicts are irresolvable, then as righties for years have argued, pull out all the stops! Let the nukes fall!

Fortunately, we’ve retain enough sanity to avoid doing this yet, which reveals the deeper truth that we are prepared to compromise, but that flies in the logic of revenge.

That’s the devilish duality of the American psyche: whatever our education and intellect tells us battles with our machismo. Our ego is deadly.

Many Americans are beginning to realize this. Terrorism wins when the terrorized over-react in fear, essentially defeating themselves.

When the U.S. spends trillions of dollars in retaliation to 9/11, it loses the battle of 9/11. When in reply to the several thousand soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan battles the U.S. kills and displaces fractions of millions of people, it loses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We, and now Kenya, are doing exactly what the terrorists want us to do.

And so, we’re both losing. For gods’ sakes, Kenya, learn from your failed teacher.

Ebola Epilogue

Ebola Epilogue

by Arusha ♥ 4 Comments

President Hollande of France entering an ebola hospital in West Africa.
President Hollande of France entering an ebola hospital in West Africa.
The apparent slowing of the spread of ebola in West Africa is almost as worrisome as the outbreak itself.

Many will think I’m crazy to write an epilogue to this story before it really is over, but like so many global crises the ebola epidemic will become forgotten the moment headlines disappear.

We really shouldn’t do this, this time. There are four extremely important lessons to be learned, that right now I hope everyone can understand.

First, the situation today:

There are just under 7,000 reported deaths from ebola, just under 17,000 reported individual infections, and both numbers are likely low because of the difficulty of accurate reporting in the ebola infected areas.

Foreign help is working. ABC reported yesterday two pages of good headlines about ebola in Liberia, including Obama’s troops and hospitals coming online, Chinese hospitals coming online, and the possibility there will be no new cases at all in Liberia.

With all the accelerated research and development of diagnosing and vaccinating against the disease, I predict ebola in West Africa will be contained in the first quarter of next year.

In a demonstration of similar optimism, the President of France visited a hospital in Conakry, Guinea, on Friday. Conakry is an epicenter of the disease.

With an outbreak of this magnitude it’s difficult to imagine it will ever be completely over, since so much of the area retracted into primitiveness as a result of almost two generations of horrible, scathing war.

But I’m willing to take the risk of being premature for wont of not losing public attention. We have four serious lessons to take from this situation:

Lesson 1.
TERROR & RACISM RULES
American culture in recent times craves being terrorized. There could be all sorts of reasons: remnants of 9/11, poor education, the Great Recession … whatever. Whether it’s vampires at the cinema, fear of ISIS or “open borders” or ebola, we crave being threatened.

In all these cases, “The Threatener” is the demon. Imagine, for example, if some horrible virus literally as bad as ebola or worse suddenly broke out in Des Moines. We would not be closing our bridges over the Mississippi or road-blocking I-80.

A virus worse than ebola did break out in America in the 1950s. It was called polio. Some parents did keep their kids out of school, but most didn’t even do that.

Ebola happened in BLACK Africa. All our reactions this time demonstrate racism to the core of our beliefs. Polio in Pittsburgh is god’s will and we will overcome it. Ebola in Africa is the work of the devil.

Lesson 2.
KNEE JERKS precipitate KNEE REPLACEMENTS
America today leads the world in short-term thinking, and that short-term thinking is why we have an ebola epidemic to begin with.

America’s political system is the best example. We fund the government almost from month-to-month. We have no long term social plans.

We cherish quick stock trades; we tutor our third grader just enough to get into fourth grade; we hand out just enough food stamps to take us through winter.

We lay globs of asphalt in cracks rather than pieces of new cement and then get furious when the cracks get bigger the next year.

Our hearts may be in the right place, but our minds are in Pluto. We pass referendum to increase the minimum wage for a long-term benefit to everyone including the shop keeper that gets the extra dough, but then elect politicians who vow to reduce the minimum wage to balance next year’s budget.

Tom Sommerville writing today in African Journalism argues so well that the ebola epidemic today is a result of American-dominated short-term thinking manifest by the IMF and World Bank.

He’s right on, and I’m not going to summarize his thinking, just go to his link above.

Basically, you get what you pay for. America has led the world paying discount prices for a modern planet that needs a bit more quality than we’ve been willing to accept.

It’s so counterproductive! We spend literally millions of dollars to intercept ebola (so far, no one) at our airports who has a temperature, but resist funding Obama’s emergency request to build ebola hospitals! Now how ridiculous is that!

We all know where this is going to lead, don’t we? Didn’t your grandpa give you your first piggy bank? If you neglect the oil change, won’t you have to buy a new car sooner? Come on guys, get real!

Lesson 3.
EXAGGERATION KILLS
I’m probably the greatest offender, admitted, and I am constantly trying to reform myself, so at least I’m ahead of many.

So I can attest first-hand of this horrible American affliction, exaggeration. Texas has to be the biggest place. My kids are always above average, thank you Garrison. My yard has the greenest grass. My pastor is the kindest man. My dog is the sweetest and … my enemy is always the devil incarnate.

Current ebola infection stats are horrible but nowhere near as catastrophic as earlier predicted. Both the CDC and WHO are now loathe to make future predictions, since their earlier ones were so off base.

Those quantitative assessments that earlier suggested “millions” of possible cases from institutions as respected as WHO and the CDC make me wonder if those organizations suffer from the same scientific deficits as Senator Inhofe.

Opponents of realism, of what is right in the world, of what should be done morally and practically, will now use these exaggerated claims to stop funding Obama’s ebola eradication mission, and this will kill hundreds if not thousands of more people than would otherwise be saved.

Lesson 4.
GEOGRAPHY IS DEAD
When I’m working in Nairobi or Johannesburg, I’m just about the same distance from the ebola epicenter as my kids are living in New York.

Every single capitol city in Europe is closer to the ebola center than any city in the U.S.

There are three nonstop flights daily from West Africa to the U.S. (two into JFK and one into Dulles). Daily, there is only one into Johannesburg and no non-stops into East Africa. There are dozens of nonstops daily into European capitols.

It has absolutely astounded me how bad Americans’ knowledge of basic planet geography is. I started work in Africa 40 years ago, and I was astounded then that someone in Chicago thought Dakar was as close to Nairobi as Detroit is to Cleveland.

But that has persisted, and there’s no explanation except poor education.

* * * *

The outbreak of ebola, the messy containment, the lessons that won’t be learned from the situation, are every man’s responsibility, every man on earth.

America cannot yet shed its responsibility as the world’s greatest power, and so it has to assume its greatest responsibility.

Remedies begin at home, of course. They begin with adjusting ourselves to realism and moralism. It’s a very dark time in America right now. Kids, get us out of this!

You First, Dear Girl

You First, Dear Girl

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Woman JihadistA growing number of women are becoming jihadists, especially in Africa. Why?

London’s Daily Telegraph claimed recently that one of every seven Britains who has traveled to troubled areas to join a jihadist cause is a woman.

Elizabeth Pearson of Kings College points out this is nothing new, although it appears to be growing substantially.

Ms. Pearson also points out that women are increasingly being used as suicide bombers.

Does this just provide a media advantage for jihadist groups, since media is more likely to report on terrorist acts if a woman is involved, as Ms. Pearson suggests?

The families of suicide bombers no matter their gender are often paid substantially, and jihadist leaders also perpetuate what I believe they believe is the myth that suicide in action assures martyrdom.

I actually think the main reason women are becoming more involved in jihadism is more simple. Gender abuse in America – and elsewhere in the western world – has been talked about for a very long time, but not really acted on in ways meaningful enough to reduce it.

If men want women to do something — anywhere in the world — they’re more likely able to persevere than the other way around.

Another more subtle reason may be linked to the definitely new global awareness that’s emerged recently to gender abuse. In this infant stage, this new awareness may have a polarizing effect especially upon many traditional male/female relationships.

The “put-up or shut-up” syndrome may be forcing some women — especially from less modern communities — to make a clear choice of being subservient or rebellious.

Whatever the underlying causes, it’s clear that the male/female “divide” is very easy to exploit by jihadists.

“Jihadist” is not synonymous with “Muslim” and Americans in particular don’t realize this, and this also contributes to why women are becoming increasingly involved in global terrorism.

Terrorism is successful when it clearly and completely divides its adversaries. There are good guys and bad guys, no moderate or indecisive or inconclusive guys.

America and much of the rest of the western world, especially Britain, are perfect places to overlay this ideology, because our societies have become so polarized. (Don’t think that Ted Cruz is anomalous to America. Britain, the Netherlands, France … they all have their Ted Cruz’.)

So-called modern women in Britain or the U.S. may still begin their outing in more traditional communities. Threatened and/or encouraged by liberation all around them, their communities force them into extreme choices: ostracism or submission.

Fleeing as a jihadist captures the rebellion of ostracism while still being entirely submissive. It is the ability to resist innate rights violations by, in fact, becoming a part of them.

Al Arabiya claims that British women are given the most important jihadist roles in Africa “because they [are seen as] the most committed of the foreign female fighters.”

Kamakazism and terrorism in all its forms from jihadists in the Mideast and Africa will not stop until America and its allies grow more circumspect about the real danger that exists from this jihadism.

Vilifying and exaggerating jihadist acts elevate their impact beyond reality then at the same time further divides modern societies into extreme opposites. No middle ground remains for the more traditional woman to find modern sanctuary.

Barbarism is hard to minimize. But until we acknowledge and fully embrace the fact that the barbarism of the terrorists in Nigeria is the same as the barbarism of an NFL player, we will continue encouraging the traditional woman to submit, whether that to be to abuse in an elevator or strapping herself with then detonating a gown of bombs.

Not Enough Eyes

Not Enough Eyes

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ManderaKenya’s an eye-for-an-eye policy against terrorists is doomed from the start and will only make matters worse.

This weekend poor Kenya suffered still another horrific terrorist attack in its far northeast near the Somalia border.

A commercial bus carrying about 60 people from the town of Mandera to Nairobi was hardly 30 miles from the Somalia border when terrorists apprehended it then murdered almost half those inside who were unable to demonstrate that they were Muslim.

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility.

This makes 135 similar incidents (although most were far fewer fatalities) so far this year. Almost all of these have been in the very remote northeast corner of the country, although there have been a couple attacks in Nairobi’s Somali suburbs as well.

In my opinion security in the country is definitely improving, although it’s hard to demonstrate this after such an attack as this.

But particularly in Nairobi people are actually relaxing and feeling considerably safer.

“Al-Shabaab can no longer attack in cities like Nairobi because of enhanced security measures,” wrote a former high military official in Kenya’s main newspaper this weekend.

But that same expert went on to demand a change in current government policy and security strategy, arguing for a much tougher stand including very quick and immediate retribution.

And that seems to be exactly what happened Sunday.

In response to the 28 persons killed and single bus destroyed by al-Shabaab, Kenyan officials claimed a raid across the border into Somalia killed more than 100 terrorists, destroyed four vehicles and an armed camp.

Kenya invaded Somali in October, 2011, completing the liberation of most of the country’s main urban areas about a year ago. That has led to the first globally recognized Somali government since 1994, although the government remains very fragile. The capital city of Mogadishu, however, is definitely returning to a semblance of normalcy for the first time in a generation.

Thanks to American drones, many of the al-Shabaab leaders have been killed as well, although new ones appear immediately.

The Kenyan response of tit-for-tat isn’t going to work. It hasn’t worked since the Jewish rebels of Masada were massacred by the Romans in 1 B.C. It isn’t working for Israelis, today.

Tit-for-tat escalates violence; it absolutely has never subdued it. Advocates point to short moments in history, as many contemporary Israeli leaders have done, but five or ten years of tense peace is hardly a demonstration of efficacy.

Ethnic and religious conflict must be seen for what it really is: an easy reflection of more meaningful differences, like those of wealth and opportunity, education and health. Whether it is northern Ireland or the Basque country lazy thinkers want to explain the difficulties by ethnicity or religion.

That’s completely wrong, utterly superficial.

If it weren’t wrong, then it means these conflicts must continue until one side is obliterated altogether. And that’s what drives many of their fighters, this belief that it’s do-or-die and nothing in between.

The real remedy is far more complicated and lengthy to implement. Of course, meanwhile, anxious citizens on the periphery of the actual conflict want quicker resolution.

Unfortunately, there is no quicker resolution, and believing there is only makes matters worse.

Happy Halloween, Ebola Sir

Happy Halloween, Ebola Sir

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

halloweenebolaNot even the outstanding basement haunted house that I so successfully ran when my children were in middle school can begin to achieve the truly absolutely unbelievable fears of ebola stoked by despicable American politicians.

“An epidemic of fear can be as dangerous as an epidemic with a virus.”

Maine health-care providers, led by the executive vice-president of the Medical Association of Maine issued that quote, in response to Maine’s T-Party governor’s abrasive and ignorant actions against a health care hero who just returned from West Africa.

A third-grader banned from attending her Milford, Connecticut grade school because she just returned from a wedding in Nigeria where she was the flower girl, had to get a court order to go back to school.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal sent out letters to recent returnees from West Africa who were planning to attend this weekend’s convention in New Orleans on tropical medicine, advising them they shouldn’t come.

A Strong, Maine, elementary school teacher was ordered into a 21-day quarantine because she just returned from her vacation in Texas!

Not only did parents panic when the principal of the Hazelhurst Middle School in Mississippi returned from vacation in Zambia, so many pulled their kids out of school, it closed!

“Principal Lee Wannik had returned to school a day early from a recent trip to Africa, where the Ebola virus has been spreading fairly rapidly. Principal Wannik has just returned from attending the funeral of his brother in Zambia, Africa. A meeting was held Tuesday, October 14 in the school’s auditorium, to try to calm parents and officials who wanted the principal to leave permanently.”

Zambia is thousands of miles away from the epidemic, further than London, with no viral epidemic outbreak there and no history of ever having had one.

The day after the parents pulled their kids out of school, the rumor spread
that the principal actually had ebola.

Tuesday Nigerian applicants to a community college 60 miles from Dallas showed their rejection letters to the press: Elizabeth Pillans, the Director of International Programs, confirmed that “Navarro College is not accepting international students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases.”

The applicants who revealed the letters are from Nigeria, which is “ebola free.”

The DeKalb County (part of Atlanta) Georgia K-12 school board issued the following statement yesterday:

“…no new students from Ebola-affected West African countries, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and other affected areas in the United States will be enrolled or allowed to attend classes on school campuses without proper medical documentation and approval by the Superintendent.”

Yesterday Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, notable for supporting the grieving family of Thomas Duncan who died of ebola there, told the press:

“…my wife who was in tears [was] told that she can’t work in the [school] cafeteria by some other moms because she might have Ebola, because I might have Ebola, therefore my child might have Ebola, [and] maybe they all need to leave school.”

There’s more: London’s very somber and highly respected Guardian Newspaper ran the following headline this week:

“Panic: the dangerous epidemic sweeping an Ebola-fearing US.”

Follow the link above so that you can read how American Airlines flight attendants locked someone in an airline bathroom because she vomited, how a journalism department at Syracuse University disinvited a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter because he had been in Liberia, and on and on and on.

Let’s stop. Drill down into each of these and you drill into a conservative, often T-Party community. I’m not saying this is wholly restricted to Republicans. My own democratic governor up for re-election is acting just as immature.

But we’ve got to fight back. The gloves need to come off. The divide is clear. We can’t be polite or shy. The more conservative an area is, the more likely it’s been fomenting this hysteria.

I’ll leave it to others to study why. Meanwhile, I’m pleading with you to join me in calling out the brazen fear-mongers wherever you see them.

Fight back. Inject some sanity back into America next Tuesday.

Zuma in Wonderland

Zuma in Wonderland

by Arusha ♥ 2 Comments

ebolaidiotsWhat do the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, a governor and numerous Congressmen have in common with Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa?

Like Zuma, they deny simple facts of science, in this case about ebola. Like Zuma, they should be sacked.

Rand Paul and Georgia Governor Zeal along with a host of other nuts in Congress are unfortunately just as astute politicians as Jacob Zuma, so I don’t expect they’ll be leaving the scene, soon.

But Martin Dempsey is a soldier, and the country’s top soldier, and Obama should immediately fire him.

“If you bring two doctors who happen to have that specialty (Ebola) into a room, one will say, ‘No, it will never become airborne, but it could mutate so it would be harder to discover.’ Another doctor will say, ‘If it continues to mutate at the rate it’s mutating, and we go from 20,000 infected to 100,000, the population might allow it to mutate and become airborne, and then it will be a serious problem.’ I don’t know who is right,” Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN this weekend.

This is America’s top soldier. This is one reason we have so many failed wars led by a military that’s incapable of being controlled.

Jacob Zuma contends you can simply protect yourself from AIDS by taking a rigorous shower after unprotected sex.

How the world, the U.S. or Africa, has allowed leaders whose beliefs are so warped to survive is more terrifying than any possible 9/11 threat. Neither is really a leader. Both Zuma and Dempsey are followers of the frightened and ignorant masses on which they depend.

Where I grow so angry is that at least one of them, Dempsey, can be sacked. Right now. No questions asked. If Dempsey believes what he said, imagine what he might believe about the war against ISIS.

This weekend CNN in print finally did what CNN-US never could: criticize CNN-US:

“What’s more disturbing than Ebola? The outrageous commentary,” the CNN headline by Michael Martinez read.

I hope the link above works for you, because CNN has modified its story and changed its link several times since it first appeared early Saturday morning. Clearly Martinez’ fresh and honest approach to news is anathema to Wolf Blitzer’s America.

Before all is lost, here are a few other choice comments Martinez compiled in that story:

“If someone has Ebola at a cocktail party, they’re contagious and you can catch it from them.” — Sen. Rand Paul

“The most comforting thing that I heard from (Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health) was that water kills the Ebola virus.” – Georgia Governor Nathan Deal

“The U.S. must immediately stop all flights from EBOLA infected countries or the plague will start and spread inside our ‘borders.’ Act fast!” – Donald Trump

“Reports of illegal migrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning.” — Georgia Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey, a medical doctor

“I don’t know … But I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control.” — R&B star Chris Brown

Crazy rightest Michael Savage said President Barack Obama wants to infect America with Ebola: “There is not a sane reason to take three- or four-thousand troops and send them into a hot Ebola zone without expecting at least one of them to come back with Ebola, unless you want to infect the nation with Ebola.”

There’s more where these came from and in multitudes of other stories, and it’s a shame that CNN has been so dainty in modifying and adjusting Martinez’ first filing.

These people are influential, powerful Americans. We already know they could care less about Africa, much less any community outside of their own cocktail parties.

Their beliefs have traction in America because Americans are poorly educated and have an increasingly myopic view of themselves and their communities.

The most important fact to recognize on this day that the World Health Organization declared Nigeria “ebola-free” while America still isn’t (because of Texas), is that without much more help from the outside of the sort Obama is offering, the epidemic in Africa will get worse and worse.

It is, in fact, possible to imagine a scenario a few years down the line if people like Dempsey, Paul, Deal and others held sway, where futile attempts to isolate the current infected countries turned into a world epidemic.

That is exactly what these ignoramuses if they prevail will ultimately cause.

Donald Trump couldn’t survive a week without the government he decries, and we’ve been able to live with that contradiction for a long time. His influence on Americans is counterbalanced so far by enough of us sane people.

But his (and other’s) influence in calling for an isolations of West Africa is not so easy to contain in today’s troubled and frightened America.

If you are reading this… if you are not as troubled and ignorant as the characters above, say something, please. Just a sentence. Just a few words of truth to your neighbor.

It’s not just the survival of millions of west Africans that’s in play. It’s the sanctity of truth.

Hands Off is Hands Dirty

Hands Off is Hands Dirty

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gettinghandsdirtyYou’d never guess which respectful country in the developed world contributes to ISIS’ ability to fund itself through oil revenues.

It’s been an interesting week in the War on Terror and of all the bad news playing out another Groundhog Day movie history came one new glimmer of hope: the global conversation turned a bit towards financially starving the adversary rather than bombing it to smithereens.

From 2011 to 2013 African oil producing countries earned $250 billion from their oil sales, a staggering 56% of their entire national revenues, 2.3 billion barrels of oil.

But nobody is quite sure where all that oil went, or who exactly got paid for it.

That total lack of transparency in the global oil market is exactly why ISIS can sell oil, and probably salt and peanuts, to fund its nefarious world.

“The sale of crude oil by governments and their national oil companies is one of the least scrutinized aspects of oil sector governance,” wrote AfricaFocus in a special report published several weeks ago.

The report documented as far as it could 1500 major oil transactions from African countries in the 2-year period starting in 2011.

The initial findings that record keeping was intentionally poor in order to blur bribes, and that the worst part of record keeping was that the destination of the oil sales was rarely known were not surprising given the level of corruption in the developing world.

What was surprising is what country facilitated this lack of transparency more than any other.

Switzerland.

“Of the 1,500 individual sales we identified, Switzerland-based companies purchased a quarter of the volumes sold by African NOCs, buying over 500 million barrels worth around $55 billion.”

These are not well known companies: Arcadia, Glencore, Trafigura and Vitol are among the most often mentioned. Reuters called these company’s transactions “shadowy.”

They are not companies with super tankers or refineries or thousands of employees. The largest, Arcadia, doesn’t even have a website. They are usually single billionaires trading in commodities and using Switzerland’s lack of regulation and transparency laws to buy with bribes and sell in darkness.

We often think of Switzerland as a placid meadow where everyone respects everyone else and minds their own business and so doesn’t need much governance.

Wrong.

In this case the shy Swiss are extraordinarily evil. And I’m not saying the individual billionaires running the unseen commodity trades are the evil ones. They’re just the players.

The evil is in the system, a system that says, ‘Hey, do what you want! Just don’t break any laws!’ particularly when there are no laws to break.

The funding of ISIS is wrong, but so is the fact that a handful of Swiss fund a huge percentage of Africa without any strings attached. This foments corruption, and in fact, it actually invites corruption.

It’s says I don’t care how you got your money to pay, just pay.

And Ronald Reagan should have applied his trickling down theories here, because trickling down is the corruption, deceit, and ultimately the heinous and cold-handed transactions that fund wars while causing starvation.

It may look like a placid meadow in the Alps. But it’s where The Joker hangs out.

Time To Call Off The Hounds

Time To Call Off The Hounds

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CreatingJihadistsYesterday, hundreds perhaps thousands of new Islamic militants were created in places like Kenya because of America’s bombing in the Levant.

For ten years Arkanuddin Yasin was a little known Islamic preacher in Kenya working for an also little known pan-Islamic political organization called Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). Yesterday, he and his organization attracted lots more attention by calling on young Muslims throughout Africa to join the fight against the U.S. bombing the Levant.

Kenya has a vibrant, active press. This was not a top news story. Imagine how many more Arkanuddin Yassins there are in Africa much less the rest of the world.

There is a thin line between religious or ideological beliefs and armed revolution. We see it nearly every week at home in America. Cliven Bundy made it onto the national evening news, but there are hundreds more of his kind every single day.

The schism between Islam and Christianity is ancient, but it hasn’t really been elevated to all out war since the end of the Ottoman Empire with World War I. That’s changed. Just as vigilantes on the Texan border have illegally taken over much of the border patrol, there.

It’s not just illegal, but it’s wrong the way ISIS has taken over large swaths of the Levant. It’s not just illegal, but it’s wrong the way Cliven Bundy and the Vigilante Patriots fire their weapons at will.

But the response by the powerful to these groups’ illegal and often immoral actions has made things worse in several ways.

The first mistake by authorities is providing outright support. This is as obviously immoral as the actions the authorities purport to interdict. It includes Saudi princes sending millions if not billions of dollars to jihadists. And in the same vein it includes giving the Vigilante Patriots not-for-profit tax status.

The second mistake is providing tacit support. We learned today that ISIS is earning several millions of dollars daily by selling oil from fields it won in war. Who’s buying this oil? Don’t think it’s so obvious. We know from decades of black market precious metals in Rwanda and The Congo that the principal buyers were Apple and Motorola.

One could argue that poorly managed global capitalism is the second mistake.

The third mistake is over reacting. This occurs in big ways and small ways: It’s the reaction of the U.S. to 9/11 and Kenyan police “roundup” of suspects in Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighborhood following the Westgate bombing.

Overreaction might be understandable but it’s too reactionary to be helpful, and like grade schoolers, we should be taught to contain our emotions. It does nothing but fuel the flames.

There is also the over reaction of getting involved when it’s none of your business. It’s very hard for we Americans to watch someone beheaded on TV without responding, but the fact is that beheadings in Saudi Arabia are common and summary. So how come we’re not bombing Saudia Arabia?

Over reaction is also cowering in fear for no good reason. It’s sending the Dubuque city police to guard the Mississippi river bridge after 9/11. It’s cutting funding for libraries to give the police department armed personnel carriers. It is invading Iraq.

The reason Saudia Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and by the way, Israel, are not fighting alongside the U.S. right now is because their borders haven’t been violated. The reason Iraqis ran from the fight is because there really aren’t Iraqis: Their society has never been formed well enough since we Americans blew it to smithereens.

It’s time to call off the hounds. It’s not an easy thing to do, but how many times do we have to fail trying to do more and ending up making things worse?

Shelter in Place

Shelter in Place

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index“The War on Terror,” Version 163 announced by Obama last week, is taking a significant toll on American tourism and business in East Africa.

This weekend the U.S. embassy in Kampala issued the most serious warning in their lexicon of warnings, “shelter in place,” one step before evacuation:

“All U.S. citizens are advised to stay at home or proceed to a safe location. Shelter-in-place and await further guidance. Follow U.S. Embassy Kampala on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates.”

The warning was issued Saturday and rescinded Sunday, after Ugandan authorities claimed to have foiled a terrorist attack Saturday night.

Then all day Sunday Ugandan military and police went through Kampala ransacking houses and shooting people. This, by the way, is how the Ugandan military works: shoot first, ask later.

It is the same philosophy that gave rise to terrorism in the first place.

It doesn’t work.

Uganda is neither a place to visit or live, right now, and it hasn’t been for some time. That isn’t because of an increased threat of terrorism, but because of the government’s increased militarism.

That seems to be in fashion with U.S. authorities right now.

Kenya is doing a much better job. Security outside the border region is improving, although security along the coast and Somali border is not.

Beheading, by the way, has been a modis homocide among terrorist groups for the last several decades. Recently another Kenyan border village experienced one.

What’s new, of course, is the beheading of westerners. The roughly thousand beheadings of Africans and Arabs didn’t draw any serious attention. But my goodness, we’ve now had three innocent westerners brutally beheaded! Time for action.

Until now terrorists felt that the potential ransom for a westerner was more valuable than the potential public reaction.

They’ve realized now that the PR value of a few beheadings is worth zillions more than a couple hundred million dollars.

We’re now playing into their game exactly as they wish us to.

That’s why they’re winning.