Two Stories in Today's FT

The Financial Times, a centerist British papaer, ran two interesting stories today. The first concerns the situation in Baghdad and the apparent success of the surge. The article beings:

Baghdad’s Shurja market is open for business. The capital’s central commercial district, which earlier this year was virtually shut down by repeated car bombings and sniper fire, is now thronging with residents doing last-minute shopping before this week’s Eid holiday.

Six months after the “surge” of US troops finished deploying into Baghdad, Iraq’s capital is breathing again.

Shia militias still hold sway over large areas of the city, and around a half a dozen people are still reported killed every day in shootings, bombings and mortar barrages. But even if the return to normal life is only a temporary respite, Baghdadis say they are enjoying the moment.

Residents who once hunkered down in their homes and adopted false identities to shield themselves from sectarian death squads now venture out to work, shop, or simply visit restaurants and parks.

The US military says violence has fallen by 60 per cent nationwide over the past six months, an impression that is borne out by anecdotal evidence from Iraqis. The Iraqi Red Crescent also reports that the country’s number of internally displaced fell for the first time in October, when 110,000 people returned to their homes.

The second story concerns the wasteful spending at the UN, and American efforts to stop it:

Officials of United Nations member states met throughout the weekend to try to avert a budget crisis over what the Bush administration has branded the largest proposed increase in spending in the organisation's 62-year history.

The UN's budget committee had set a deadline of this Wednesday to approve a request from Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, for $4.2bn (£2bn, €2.9bn) to cover the UN's regular expenditure over the next two years.

But with the US digging in its heels over likely additional expenditure that it says could boost this total by a further $1bn, the UN faced the prospect of entering 2008 without a budget.

When Mr Ban presented his first budget as secretary-general on October 25, he said the amount was "not much, considering the demands upon us". Requesting $23m - or half a percentage point - increase for 2008-2009, he said: "Never has the world so needed a strong United Nations, yet never have our resources been stretched so thin." The same day, however, UN officials acknowledged that cost adjustments had already boosted the bottom line to $4.4bn, while additional items not accounted for would carry the total to more than $4.6bn.

In a closed-door meeting of member states last week, Mark Wallace, US deputy ambassador to the UN, said spending could be as high as $5.2bn - a 25 per cent rise - in view of further demands for funding expected in the coming year. "With the largest budget increase in history," he said, "the credibility of the UN is at stake."

Part of the US complaint is that three out of every four dollars of the regular budget go on the salaries of 10,000 staff and other related costs. "The . . . increase does not go directly to humanitarian or development aid but rather to increasing the size of the UN secretariat bureaucracy," Mr Wallace said.

Getting the Arabic Right

In reading over Mitt Romney's website in August, I was appalled by his very first issue position: 'Defeating the Jihadists.' The former Massachusetts governor went on to explain that,

the defeat of this radical and violent faction of Islam must be achieved through a combination of American resolve, international effort, and the rejection of violence by moderate, modern, mainstream Muslims.

In spite of this, he had embraced – unknowingly, we shall hope – the radical Wahabist understanding of the term 'jihad,' which simply has the literal meaning of 'struggle.' To many, probably most Muslims, this struggle is an interior one, a personal one, a spiritual one: suicide bombers are not holy warriors – 'mujahideen' – striving to know or serve the Almighty, they are evildoers properly termed 'mufsidun,' who are engaging in a psychopathic war against society, 'hirabah.'

I notified the Romney campaign of their mistake and the website has since changed. While there has been no adoption of the terms 'mufsidun' or 'hirabah,' terms such as 'jihad', and 'Islam' are always preceded by 'violent' or 'extreme' to clarify that this is not the mainstream variety in question. The headline now reads "Confronting Radical Jihad".

Mitt Romney was not the only presidential candidate to make this linguistic mistake. Ron Paul's website refers to "our direct enemies, the jihadists."

By accepting the Wahabist misappropriation of the term 'jihad,' these candidates and countless other Americans give our enemies further ammunition in the war of ideas, implicitly accepting that the moderate Muslims are wrong in their understanding of Islam, that jihad does demand the killing of innocent American families.

Conversely, use of the terms 'mufsidun' and 'hirabah' – and efforts to educate the American people about them – would not only demonstrate a presidential candidate's command of the complexities involved in the War on Terror but would also strike a blow in the ideological conflict that is at the heart of this struggle. These terms convey exactly what Romney and others are trying to say, and they say it in a way that a majority of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims understand.

The issues pages for John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich are happily free of this misappropriation of Arabic terms. Whether this happened because the candidates know the proper use of the words or are simply listening to thoughtful advisors, I tip my hat to them all. (This is not to say that all have excellent plans for the Middle East or the War on Terror; some make profound mistakes, but they are not this one. Perhaps more blog posts are in order.)

Mike Huckabee's website has gone so far as to explain that,

Fighting smart means learning the neighborhood, achieving a level of political, religious, and cultural sophistication about the Arab and Islamic worlds that will pay huge dividends for us.... I will support moderates, not extremists, with no favoring of Sunnis or Shiites. The long-term solution to terror is to empower moderates in the region.

While 'moderate' is probably not the best term - Christians, would you like to be designated as 'moderate Christians'? Kind of makes you sound wishy-washy, doesn't it? - that's a good start.

(Special thanks go out to J. Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics, for his excellent text on the matter, Fighting the War of Ideas Like a Real War.)

Afghans 'still hopeful on future'

"Most Afghans are relatively hopeful about their future," the BBC reports, reflecting information collected in a recent poll.

They also support the current Afghan government and the presence of overseas troops, and oppose the Taleban.

But the poll suggests that Afghans are slightly less optimistic than a year ago, and are frustrated at the slow pace of reconstruction efforts.

Charney Research spoke to 1,377 people in October and November in all 34 provinces for the BBC, ABC and ARD.

This is the third such survey, and is published to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the fall of the Taleban.

Overall, the figures indicate that the peaceful north of Afghanistan is significantly more satisfied than the troubled south. Most dissatisfaction is found in the south-west, where the Taleban are most active.

The poll suggests that despite another year of conflict, confidence and hope have been dented only a little in the past 12 months.

Boycotting the Beijing Games

I'm boycotting the Beijing Olympics. No, I have not been invited to participate, nor was I ever really planning on attending.

Normally I'm kind of opposed to boycotts. In the modern economy, revenue streams can be very complicated and corporations are often wholly- or partially-owned subsidiaries of some other company. The goals of many boycotts are ambiguous and the message intended to be sent and the means by which it will be sent are often unclear. Furthermore, the time span for most boycotts is vague: if the boycott's goals are not achieved in a timely manner, will it drag on indefinitely?

To address such questions, I figured I'd post a small manifesto for my Beijing Olympic boycott:

What is to be boycotted?

Coverage of the Games, in print or on television, including the opening and closing ceremonies. Any merchandise is also out.

How long will the boycott last?

The length of the Games, 8-24 August 2008.

What is the goal of the boycott?

I am under no illusion that the infinitesimal amount of money the Chinese regime will lose due to my boycott will go noticed. Nor am I under the illusion that millions will flock to my side, creating a mass movement that will in some way harm the regime. (Though I must confess that, if this happened, I would not be opposed.)

Instead, this boycott is aimed at educating fellow Americans about the evils of the Chinese regime. Inevitably there will be get-togethers to watch the opening ceremony; I plan on being in the next room telling folks why I'm not watching the TV. The list of reasons is so extensive I struggle to find the right place to start:


* The Chinese regime has supported the military junta in Burma for years; had the Chinese wanted to stop the suppression of monastically-lead pro-democracy demonstrations this year, it could have. It didn't.

*The Chinese regime conducting ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang, intentionally conducting nuclear tests upwind of population centers of Turkic Uyghur populations, releasing violent criminals into Xinjiang to help kill of the Uyghurs, and settling large numbers of heavily-armed ethnic Han Chinese to drive them out.

*The Chinese regime is destroying Tibetan culture, to such an extent that the Dahli Lama has threatened not to reincarnate himself in Chinese-controlled Tibet, so oppressive is the environment.

*The Chinese regime and its various state-owned industries stealing American commercial secrets left and right. This is not free trade, this is industrial espionage, intellectual piracy. Under the guise of winning jobs for their own people, the Chinese regime demands that most products sold in China be made in China; this allows them to copy any and every design for products made there. (And have no doubts, they are copying with a vengeance.)

*The Chinese regime routinely hacks American networks, trying to steal military and political secrets from the government and contractors.

*The Chinese regime is busy subverting South Pacific island nations, as it tries to out-maneuver Taiwan for diplomatic influence in the region. This subversion has included - but is not limited to - support for the coup in Fiji.

*The Chinese regime has armed the Taliban, thereby threatening the lives of Afghans, Americans and their other allies, and delaying democracy and development in that nation.

*The Chinese regime suppresses democracy at home, heavily censors the internet, makes use of slave labor, oppressing the Catholic Church, poisons its own rivers and engages in more abuses than I have time to type.

*Oh, yes. And the Chinese regime has displaced 1.5 million of its own people to build the Olympic Park in Beijing. And you thought use of eminent domain was out of control here...

Return of the Airship?

A 170-foot non-rigid airship, the Polar 400, made its maiden flight the day after Thanksgiving; its revolutionary design may result in a low-cost alternative to heavier-than-air unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The Virginian-Pilot carried the story, complete with exclusive photos.

"It's very responsive. It's the most maneuverable blimp I've ever flown," said test pilot Doug McFadden. "To my knowledge, no one has mounted an engine on a non-rigid surface, and no one has used hydraulic propulsion to do it," explained Alan Ram, head a propulsion for the project.

Blackwater Airships, a unit of Blackwater Worldwide, designed the airship to carry intelligence-gathering cameras, sensors and communications gear for counterterrorism, counternarcotics and border security operations. The vehicle is unmanned and piloted by remote control from the ground.

"With a few engineering innovations, Blackwater hopes to turn a time-tested platform - the Navy used blimps to watch for enemy submarines in World War II - into a modern tool for combating terrorism and for other 21st-century needs," the Virginian-Pilot explained.

Kremlin Detains Garry Kasparov

As if there were not already enough reasons to distrust Pooty-Poot's Russia, here is one more. The BBC reports that Garry Kasparov, opposition leader and former world chess champion, has been detained by the Kremlin.

When Kasparov's Other Russia Party, recently banned from December's parliamentary elections, attempted to march to the Electoral Commission, the police moved in. The election has been a contentious issue for Other Russia, a coalition which brings together leftists, nationalists and mainstream politicians; their appeal to the country's Supreme Court, disputing the election ban, was dismissed.

However, the BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow report that "attending the rally for the first time was the leader of one of the mainstream liberal parties - a sign that the movement is growing." Let us hope that, with Western support, the opposition can mobilize in a powerful way. Sadly, I will not holding my breath.

NYPD Goes International

Serviam magazine reports that the New York Police Department, faced with the threat of terrorism, with only limited help from the CIA and FBI, has begun "running operations as far away as Virginia and Mississippi, and has raised eyebrows with the expansion of a virtual foreign intelligence arm present in more than a dozen countries." In addition, NYPD "has tapped the private sector for help, and created an analytical unit that rivals the finest teams at the FBI and CIA." Among their products is a recent report titled Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat. The report has received critical acclaim not only for its insight and actionability, but also the absense of political correctness that hamstrings so many other efforts. While some people might be worried about this new activity on the part of the NYPD, I would contend this is simply one of the strenghts of the federal system: if one part of the government fails to do its duty, others are able and willing to step into the gap.