Recently in World Events Category

The June 28 edition of BusinessWeek cited the major items China buys from the United States:

1. Beverages and alcohol.
2. Agriculture and livestock products.
3. Waste and scrap.
4. Iron, steel, copper, and aluminum.

The third item is the one that grabbed my attention, for three reasons.

One: We produce a whole lot of waste and scrap, if that's our third-largest export to China.

Two: Why can't WE use that waste and scrap to produce more consumer goods? You know--recycling. Is it because we don't make stuff anymore? We've sent all of our manufacturing abroad?

Our fourth-largest export is instructive: raw materials that American industries should be using to produce stuff. The Chinese make stuff, they sell it to us, and when we're done with it, we sell it back to them to make more stuff to sell us. The Circle of Life. Elton John wrote a song about that.

Three: We're missing out on yet another Green industry. The Europeans are perfecting wind power. The Japanese, Chinese, and Europeans have the high-speed trains. The Japanese produce hybrid and electric cars, and lead in battery technology. The Israelis are assembling the infrastructure for electric cars. And the Chinese process the world's junk and turn it into something useful.

Lots of Green jobs are being created around the world, while we sit back and gulp our beloved oil and insist that the sky isn't falling.

Pat Buchanan stirred up some controversy by objecting to the idea of having 3 Jews on the Supreme Court. Elena Kagan would join Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If diversity is desired, why have Jews, who comprise 2% of the US population, control 33% of the seats on the Supreme Court?

I'm not sure what I think of that. Processing.

Buchanan points out that of the last 7 justices nominated by Democrats, going back to Kennedy, 1 was black (Marshall), 1 was Puerto Rican (Sotomayor), and the other five were Jews (Goldberg, Fortas, Ginsberg, Breyer, and now Kagan).

Hmmmm. Buchanan regularly stands up for the persecuted American male WASP. He's not a crazy man for doing so. But it's sure not politically correct. Which is his point.

The current court has six Catholics, 1 Protestant, and 2 Jews.

• John Roberts--Catholic
• Stephen G. Breyer--Jewish
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg--Jewish
• Anthony M. Kennedy--Catholic
• Antonin Scalia--Catholic
• John Paul Stevens--Protestant
• Clarence Thomas--Catholic
• Samuel Alito--Catholic
• Sonya Sotomayor--Catholic

Do we need that many Catholics? How about an evangelical? Someone who represents me. If not an evangelical, I'll settle for a Mormon (who make up almost as much of the population as Jews). George Bush could have gone for an evangelical. Instead, he took the Path of Least Resistance by settling for two while male Catholics. Boring!

It's hard to determine how large the evangelical population is, because we get lumped in with all-purpose Protestants. But evangelicals make up at least 20% of the population. Would it be impossible to confirm an evangelical to the Supreme Court, because of the pro-life stand which almost inevitably accompanies the label? (Doesn't seem to stop Catholics from getting confirmed.)

I find it interesting that David Souter, one of the 4 (out of 111) Justices who was unmarried, was replaced by an unmarried woman. Souter never married; Sotomayor is divorced. "Unmarried" is a demographic group.

For that matter, at least 10% of Americans claim no religious affiliation; a growing chunk are atheists. Should they have a voice? It might be harder to confirm an atheist than an evangelical.

I'm not sure what I think of all of this, and whether demographic diversity should be the goal when it comes to the Supreme Court. Above all, I want qualified, sharp people. I liked adding a female Hispanic, though it didn't need to be Sotomayor. I like the idea of adding yet another woman, though it doesn't need to be Kagan. How about a woman who is an evangelical?

Just throwing out some evolving thoughts.

Pundit/comedian Bill Maher says Apple CEO Steve Jobs would do a better job of running America than the Obama administration.

"America needs to focus on getting Jobs -- Steve Jobs. Because something tells me that Apple would have come up with a better idea for stopping an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico than putting a giant box on top of it.

"In 2001, Apple reinvented the record player. In 2007, the phone. This year, the computer. I say, for 2011, we let them take a crack at America. Our infrastructure, our business model, our institutions. Get rid of the stuff that's not working, replace it with something that does. For example, goodbye US Senate -- Hello Genius Bar! So good luck, Steve -- you'll need it!"

"Drill, baby, drill" made a sure-fire applause line during the Republican Convention. But now we're seeing one side effect of off-shore drilling. Because of our addiction to oil, and our official pampering of Big Oil, the fishing, tourist, and other industries on the Gulf Cost are suffering big-time.

Accidents do happen. This oil spill, the Exxon Valdez--those are aberrations, accidents that only rarely occur. But when they do occur, they wreak havoc.

The answer, of course, is to develop alternative energy sources. We wasted eight years under George Bush, whose policies always, ALWAYS, did the bidding of Big Oil. He did zippo on the energy front. And if Republicans regain control of the White House, the oil industry will once again get everything it wants.

For energy reform, we unfortunately must depend on Democrats. Scary, but true. I hate the idea of having to depend on Democrats for anything (or Republicans, for that matter), but it's true.

The current BusinessWeek tells about all the excess energy Germany has from wind power, which generates 8% of the country's electricity (compared to 1% in the US). During the past eight years, German doubled its wind-power capacity, while the US twiddled its thumbs and kept bowing to Big Oil. Germany's problem is figuring out how to store the excess electricity. the Scandinavian countries have pushed big into wind power, too.

I wish Obama would start pushing nuclear power, which seems like the best longterm solution. It's clean, dependable, safe, doesn't hurt the environment. Of course, if we had a Chernobyl meltdown, I'd be writing something different. But for now, I'm sticking to nuclear power.

Under Obama, we are at least talking about Green Energy on a number of fronts--wind, solar, electric cars, a more efficient power grid etc. We need to get some things going strongly before the Republicans regain control and default back to blowing wet kisses to Big Oil.

"Drill, baby, drill" is not the answer. It's a finite resource which will run out someday, and squeezing the last drops out of the oceans and ground will get increasingly costly, messy, and dangerous. This oil spill won't be the last.

Years down the road, the Last Man Standing with coveted oil reserves will be Arabs or Iranians. We've gotta stop being in their debt.

In his book "The Bottom Billion," about the world's poorest countries (which I reviewed earlier), Paul Collier writes:

"Elections determine who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used."

In our quest to spread democracy, we tend to place way too much emphasis on elections. Democracy involves a whole system of governance. Third World countries have learned how to hold elections, putting on a show for the world, without really instituting democracy.

Collier says studies show that in countries that successfully turned around, democracy and political rights were not important factors--a result he finds "extremely disappointing." But results are results.

What's really needed, he writes, is political checks and balances.

Without systemic checks and balances, tyrants can rule behind the facade of elections, cloaking themselves in an illusion of legitimacy. Like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, or Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines (RIP), or that idiot in Iran. Or maybe Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan? Collier says our enthusiasm for elections needs to be joined with enthusiasm for political restraints.

The US (and most western countries) have separate branches of government which provide checks and balances. But a legislature or judicial system can be co-opted by a totalitarian ruler.  Collier cites a free media as the best form of checks and balances. Freedom of the press, which has characterized the US since our founding, is a key indicator of health. As much as we gripe about the media's excesses and biases, it's a crucial part of who we are. When you see a country where the media is free to criticize the government, it's usually a sign of democratic health.

I had heard about this photo, but recently stumbled across it. This satellite photo shows a night-time view of North and South Korea. North Korea is totally dark, except for its capital, Pyongyang--probably because Beloved Leader Kim Jong Il is up indulging his favorite pastime of watching American movies. China lies north of the border. (Obviously, the country outlines are superimposed.)

The Predator unmanned drone is an incredible weapon. Some consider it by far the most effective weapon we have against Al Qaeda. You don't hear much about the Predator successes, because they usually occur in remote regions of Pakistan where reporters can't go. But Predators are constantly on the prowl, and constantly taking out Bad Guys.

The New Yorker has the best long-form reporting you'll find anywhere, and Jane Mayer, who mostly writes on military affairs, has become my favorite New Yorker writer. Last October she wrote a lengthy feature (is there any other kind in the New Yorker?) looking at how we use the Predator. It was fascinating.

There are two Predator programs. The military version operates in Afghanistan and Iraq as an extension of ground forces, with 200+ drones. The CIA's program is aimed at terror suspects wherever they can be found, but mostly in Pakistan; the program isn't officially acknowledged, and the number of Predators is unknown.

The CIA strikes require the president's approval. President Obama has dramatically increased  the number of Predator strikes, beginning with two strikes in Pakistan on his third day in office.

During his first nine months in office, Obama authorized more CIA aerial attacks in Pakistan than George Bush did in his final three years in office--over 40 strikes, or around one bombing a week. Those strikes had  killed up to 538 people (Predators leave a lot of collateral damage, but you've got to have mixed feelings about folks who hang out around terrorists). Multiple drones constantly fly over Pakistan, looking for targets.

She writes about four Europeans who tried to join Al Qaeda in Pakistan, and who "described a life of constant fear and distrust among the militants, whose obsession with drone strikes had led them to communicate only with elaborate secrecy and to leave their squalid hideouts only at night." Wouldn't you be uptight if you knew a silent, invisible Predator circling above might fire a missile into you at any moment?

One Taliban leader the Pakistanis wanted killed was targeted by 16 missile strikes before we finally got him. Those first 15 strikes killed 207-321 people, depending on your information source. So that's an issue our military leaders wrestle with.

How many innocent people is it okay to kill? John Radsan, a former CIA lawyer, put it like this: "If it's Osama bin Laden in a house with a four-year-old, most people will say go ahead. But if it's three or four children? Some say that's too many. And if he's in a school? Many say don't do it."

That gives insight into the difficult decisions military leaders in a values-laded country must make regarding terrorists who cowardly hide among innocent people.

You have to be careful in drawing comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam. There are significant differences in the governments of Afghanistan and South Vietnam, in the nature of and capabilities of the enemy forces, in the US military, and in our understanding of fighting a guerrilla army. But war historian Andrew West raises some valid questions.

He points out that in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese Army was, to a large extent, "Americanized" and designed to fight alongside American troops and logistical support. West says, "The plan worked remarkably well, as long as American forces and or support was close at hand. But the South Vietnamese military was never meant to fight on its own."

When we basically pulled out in 1973, South Vietnam fell within two years. He says the Vietnamese army was not sufficiently Vietnamese to survive our departure. When North Vietnam invaded, they found lots of high-quality, but unusable, American equipment which the South Vietnamese weren't able to maintain.

I remember reading a war memoir of a former South Vietnamese general. He said that before America entered the war in force, South Vietnam had amazing airplane mechanics who knew how to keep shot-up planes flying with the equivalent of duct tape and bailing wire. But when we entered the war, if an airplane engine wasn't working right, our solution was to replace the whole engine. That became the new way to do things. When we left, replacing engines was no longer an option, but they didn't know how to fix what was broken.

West looks ahead to America's eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan. Are we building an Afghan army that can do well fighting alongside American forces, but will crumble when we leave? Are we again trying to build a First World military out of a Third World country, something which is unsustainable in our absence?

These are valid questions, but are nothing new to our military leaders, who ever live in the enduring shadow of Vietnam.

A Gallup World Religion Survey shows that 53% of Americans have a "not too favorable" or worse view of Muslims. That's not surprising, since we're at war with a group which tightly identifies itself with Islam.

But the survey also showed that a person who hates Jews is overwhelmingly likely to also hate Muslims. There is no "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing going on here. Anti-Semites are full-service bigots, it seems. I would guess that these people also dislike other groups as well (Hispanics, blacks, Asians, gays, Mac users, whatever). 

Col. Stuart Herrington ran secret interrogation centers for the military from the Vietnam War through the early 1990s. He gave a speech about interrogation techniques, which Thomas Ricks mentions on his blog, The Best Defense.

Says Ricks, "One of the most striking aspects of his talk is the cold professional contempt he has for Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who not only encouraged a brutal approach, but were amateurish in doing so."

Herrington said, "There was no room on our team for charlatans who believed in sleep deprivation, inducing hypothermia, stress positions, face slapping, forced nudity, water boarding, blaring heavy metal music, or other amateurish, ineffective and ethically flawed tricks."

It's a very interesting post. I suspect Herrington was as sickened as I was at reading "The Dark Side," a superb piece of reporting about our descent torture, which will be remembered for decades as an American low-point.