What US Foreign Policy For 2008

[Asher Kelman]

As we enter the New Year, 2008, I think it's worth diverting a few minutes from photography to look at where we are and what we might do better in the coming year.
If I had influence to bring to the ears of the candidates for the new President of the U.S.A., these are some points I would try to bring them to consider. This concerns out imperative to conserve friends more than just bombing enemies. I'll not preach to the choir, rather try to address ignored constituencies.

Since 9/11 and the shock of the attacks on American Invulnerability at home, the whole mindset of the US foreign policy has been sucked up into a black hole of "The War on Terror". As much as 3rd world countries might also be threatened by extremist movements, their peoples languish under greater threat from ill distribution of wealth and trading opportunity. This is where the current U.S. blind spot since 9/11 in attention!

Let's take the South American continent, for example. Hundreds of millions of people wondering why rich America is just concerned with their own security and the drug "problem" and appears to have no other pro-active policies in place for South American's benefit. With forceful implementation of generous trading policies (needing, mind you, action by congress), robust commerce will transform this massive area into the richest trading partner. That alone will be the greatest good deed and have the richest financial reward for the USA.

Meanwhile, in this current vacuum from U.S. inattention, the Chinese are contracting for oil we could use and Hugo Chavez can claim that only he cares for the poor and the working classes. The massive U.S. treasury and mental effort squandered in Iraq could have enabled many friends to stand on their own feet. That's the way to get a healthy world. So what do we have to do?

There are three major sleeping regions we need to give attention in 2008: Latin America, with whom we share common issues of human rights and opportunity distribution; Africa where oil has not provided the benefits to most people and HIV/aids has stricken men, women and children and unemployment, crime and insurgency is endemic and Indonesia and the Philippines where the fragile communities need support from rising extremist activity and poverty. We must buy their goods in preference to imports from China.

Further, these measures and leading U.S. role to recognize, help plan, mitigate deal with human and wild life populations threatened by climate change would do more to rehabilitate the American's moral leadership.

With this strengthened role, all the former colonial powers, The Dutch, Spanish, Germans, Russians, Japanese, French and British would come on board for a unified approach to dealing with the disasters afflicting peoples all over the planet. It's one thing to get rid of a Saddam Hussein, it's another to ignore one's friends and give them over to those who want to wipe us out. We have, even now, the largest economy. We cannot just squander this on inefficient wars. I'm not even commenting on the morality of wars, just the waste in tactics to secure the well being of all of us! Surgeons are not meant to beat up a sick person, just remove the cancer surgically and with decisive action and then rapidly facilitate them to recover by their own inner strengths.

I do not think trade alone is the magic bullet to defeat our enemies but it's surely a good way to conserve out friends!

Happy New Year, Peace and the finest photographs for memories, fine art and bread on the table!

Asher

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

The Failed States Index 2007

The world’s weakest states aren’t just a danger to themselves. They can threaten the progress and stability of countries half a world away. In the third annual Failed States Index, FOREIGN POLICY and The Fund for Peace rank the countries where the risk of failure is running high.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3865&page=7


Happy New Year!

 

[Ray West]

Hi Georg,

re your link, got to the page that gives the background to the statistics, see what utter crap it is.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3865&page=8

I find it quite accurate.

 

[Ray West]

From page 8 -

For the Failed States Index, FfP focused solely on the first step, which provides snapshots of state vulnerability or risk of violence during a window in time. The CAST software indexed and scanned tens of thousands of open-source articles and reports using Boolean logic. The data are electronically gathered using Thomson Dialog, a powerful data-collection system that includes international and local media reports and other public documents, including U.S. State Department reports, independent studies, and even corporate financial filings. The data used in each index are collected from May to December of the preceding year. The software calculates the number of positive and negative “hits” for the 12 indicators. Internal and external experts then review the scores as well as the articles themselves, when necessary, to confirm the scores and ensure accuracy.

So, it's based on what gets talked about. The above paragraph is a laugh - 'using Boolean logic' - that's so exciting. Which 'tens of thousands of open source articles'? Will this post be included in next years results, what is so important about 'US state department records', etc.? The results will probably represent a particular political viewpoint, probably aligned with USA gov. That doesn't make it accurate. But, you can only judge it's accuracy by comparing, probably, with a small selection of other open source documents, all dancing to the same tune.

The world needs the USA foreign policy, like a fish needs a bicycle (cross ref to Ron's piranha). ;-)

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[nicolas claris]

The world needs the USA foreign policy, like a fish needs a bicycle (cross ref to Ron's piranha). ;-)

Ha! I would go for a dresine:

;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)
Happy new year! <):- ()

 

[Asher Kelman]

Ha! I would go for a dresine:

;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)
Happy new year! <):- ()

The lower image looks like a design for a crossbow, an interesting metaphor for a male ballet dancer with a bicycle!

Back to basics!

The USA is for a while the largest economy with the most powerful military. There are many failed states. The USA is faced with a growing militant Islamic threat as well as the desperation from hopeless poverty in 3rd world countries. We cannot insulate Western Society merely by might and by deals with failed states like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. We have squandered opportunities to improve the well being of humanity and protect the planet. Religious fanaticisms, in themselves, be they Christian or Muslim, are challenge enough. One major consequence, the logarithmic growth of poor desperate communities, is the greatest existential threat to the Western democracies. The dire poverty then provides the afterlife as the only place for solace and maryrdom as the price of the one-way ticket. In balanced societies, the attention is to the joys of the present and overcome the passion for a place in the afterlife.

This is only valid for popular movements where there's competition for values. Where the State has a dictatership, such a Saudi Arabia or a Spain of Queen Isabella and Ferdinand, Islam and Catholicism respectively defines the allowed options. In cases where communities can choose their way of life, thriving commerce and education will, hopefully, allow other thinking to compete and evolve.

Much of the population disaster and poverty of South America with hundreds of millions of people suffering is simply a result colonial suppression of the indigenous culture by Portugal and Spain. The imposition of Catholicism has directly led to population outstripping economic resources. While Spain and Portugal can be model systems of democracy right now, the victims in their Colonies multiply. Worse, most of these poor people know nothing of their own cultures. We hear nothing from the Europeans of any guilt about this rape of South America. I give this as one example. The Portuguese and Spanish slavers then filled up their plantations with many times the number of slaves from Africa as the combined transport of the West Africans to the USA.

At present the USA has pretty well ignored South America apart from some distinguished companies no different than the continents own exploitative super rich families and corporations.

I have stated that the foreign policy of the USA should be to use trade to build these economies and so change the lives of the poor. At present, they see the USA as mostly being concerned with self interest of getting oil, selling arms, a drug war and being anti communist. We need to show them the other side of the American way of life, a generosity that is extended to those in need. This is what the USA must so on its own.

That applied around the world by the other ex-Colonialists, France, Belgium, (yes little Belgium), Germany, Russia, Holland, Austria and Japan, would do much more to put us on a peaceful path to the future than the United Nations or any other effort.

The USA is a leader. The last few years use of this has been to say the least, wasteful. What could have 200 billion dollars bought?

My thoughts are not directed as a “question” to Europeans, rather as a “plea” to those in the USA. The Europeans may well be no less guilty than the Americans; they seem to exclude serious history in self-evaluation. I only direct my thoughts on what the USA might better do from now on. Massive trade with China could be cut in half and transferred to people in the 3rd World: Afghanistan, Pakistan and South America.

The U.S.A. has, I contend, at the very least, a duty to itself to put it’s trading power to work with these dirt poor communities. That to me will go a long way to stop support for future terrorism. Jean-Paul Satre would support me at least!

Thoughtfully,

Asher

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

I think we might do ourselves a great favour in asking on the real reasons for poverty.

I agree with you on colonial heritage for one part, but I think we should not seclude this as history, wrap it up and file it as done and dusted. I also intend to think that a solitude US position does not help either.

Cutbacks in vital services, health education and so on are a direct result of the SAP's put in place by the International Money Fund and Worldbank, Structural Adjustment Policies.

They enabled the biggest peacetime transfer of wealth, from the peripherie to the center.

So the Worldbank tells developing countries to export more of their commodities, and they did. Export commodities that are cheaper than finished products, and imported inished products, while at the same time real technology transfer or industrial capital was blocked. - How bloody convinient! - This is why I say we should not wrap up the colonial heritage in a layer of "Well, yeah, unfotunately that happened in the past!"

The above described is nothing new, it is a structure that creates dependencies, l;ess circulation of money in their own economies and next to no multipliers at all.

Mercantilism par excellence, still practised!

Allow me to come back to Senegal mentioned in an earlier post in the same context. Did you ever come across the "Luckiest Nut in the World" Asher?

http://mediathatmattersfest.org/5/the_luckiest_nut_in_the_world/

It is a animation explaining the impact of loans, structural adjustment and cashcrops on what we call so eloquently developing countries!

It traces how Senegal were encouraged to grow nuts for export. As a poor nation without many resources, loans were taken out to help develop the industry. Other nations saw this was going well, so they followed suit. The price of nuts started to drop and Senegal faced debt repayment problems. Structural adjustment policies were put in place cutting spending, reducing government involvement in that nut industry and elsewhere. However, things got worse. At the same time, rich countries, such as the US, were subsidizing their own nut and other industries, allowing them to gain in market share around the world. Rich countries have tools such as trade tarrifs and the threat of sanctions at their disposal to help their industries, if needed.

Hence, the rich promote a system of free trade for everyone else to follow, while mercantilism is practiced for themselves.

I am afraid my friend, poverty is much more than absence of prosperity and economical growth, it is an ideological construct!

Protecting own industry and force open developing countries by the described SAP's. Selling artificially cheaper products in poor countries, undermining local producers

We impose from North to South, and from South to North the stream of refugees will flow.

The IMF is owned by developed nations. To reach majority decision 85% is needed. The US holds 16.79% of total votes, UK 4.86%, Saudi Arabia 3.17%, Japan 6.02% Germany 5.88% and so on.

http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.htm

Structural adjustment policies have therefore had far-reaching consequences, this is just one of the mechanisms whereby inequality and poverty has been structured into laws and institutions on a global scale.

I think what we face at the moment is the beginning of the end of capitalism, and I am not astonished.



Peace
~^..^~

 

[Ray West]

Hi Georg,

The beginning of the end of capitalism - hopefully it's more towards the middle of the end.

I'm not sure if it's relevant, but sometimes, it's just the small indications that show the seriousness of the illness, like the first shiver showing the onset of the 'flu.

I think this little story epitomises the ignorance of the public, the greed of the business's, how far folk have come from any understanding of 'what it's all about', on every level.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=419792&in_page_id=2

(no profit - who are they kidding?)

If it wasn't so sad, it would be bloody hilarious, I'm sure it's a Monty Python sketch.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Asher Kelman]

I think we might do ourselves a great favour in asking on the real reasons for poverty.

I agree with you on colonial heritage for one part, but I think we should not seclude this as history, wrap it up and file it as done and dusted. I also intend to think that a solitude US position does not help either.

Colonialism and destruction of self-sufficiency is the single largest cause outside of natural disasters such as floods and locus plagues. The next most important cause is clean water, subsidized food and antibiotics when not linked to birth control. Missionaries teaching enough to get the youth to merely read and abandon ancestral villages and culture, separate the exploding community from a sense of identity and purpose. Now the Christianized indigenous peoples can only work for others and are strangers in their own forests. They lose the ability to fend for themselves. They are poor and lost but they are at least saved!

Without our Western Intervention, the same people would be hunting and growing crops with respect for the world they know well. The provide for what they need and are not poor.

Cutbacks in vital services, health education and so on are a direct result of the SAP's put in place by the International Money Fund and Worldbank, Structural Adjustment Policies.

They enabled the biggest peacetime transfer of wealth, from the peripherie to the center.

So the Worldbank tells developing countries to export more of their commodities, and they did. Export commodities that are cheaper than finished products, and imported inished products, while at the same time real technology transfer or industrial capital was blocked. - How bloody convinient! - This is why I say we should not wrap up the colonial heritage in a layer of "Well, yeah, unfotunately that happened in the past!"

The above described is nothing new, it is a structure that creates dependencies, l;ess circulation of money in their own economies and next to no multipliers at all.

If what you say is indeed true, then it's very different from what average Americans and even very educated Americans think of the IMF. My quick assessment would be that American citizens have no idea of any harm from IMF-linked trading policies. Maybe in Europe this is common knowledge.

It's interesting that with Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea and China, technology has been transferred efficiently from the West. Why not to Africa? Is it because of lack of infrastructure to defend investment?

I believe in the good of man and recognize the penchant for opportunism, exploitation and greed too. However, I see a passage towards enlightenment and respect for humanity. In my travels in Africa, Turkey all over Europe and in America I have gotten a sense of coalescing islands of humanity.

George, man is a supreme hunter but also a kind and wonderful enlightened being. I photograph a lot of young people. They are positive, generous and have moral values based on kindness not bible texts nor self-interest.

Of course, many of them will work for the exploiters. However, I believe there will be more of the kind folk who will demand equity. So this Century is not the end of democracy, but rather the very beginning of an age of insight. This is painful since we live in bubbles of religious and cultural "delusionorium". When good people learn of an “evil IMF”, they will turn the tide of what politicians need to want. That's how we make changes.

To look after the planet and ourselves, we must tell each other what we know and not just assume we all know it because it's so obvious.

So for this coming year, I am sure that people will be improved by the effort of caring neighbors. So George, let's be alert but have faith in the great open hearts and fairness of most people who just need to know what's going on!

I have an unswerving optimism and faith that the breast that nurtures will overcome the other primitive, the canine's that rip apart, the attacks we make on one another.

Put trust in that spirit!

A toast to you and everyone for 2008!

Asher

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

A toast to you and everyone for 2008!

So do I, cheers Asher!

If what you say is indeed true, then it's very different from what average Americans and even very educated Americans think of the IMF. My quick assessment would be that American citizens have no idea of any harm from IMF-linked trading policies. Maybe in Europe this is common knowledge.

My observations were that the average American or European does not even know about the IMF and it's function. They might have heard about the World Bank or the IMF but are less informed on their daily business, but to put some more meat on the ripcage of my accusations:

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel memorial Peace Prize 2001 (Theory of Information Asymmetries), former Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000 resigned under pressure from criticisms he made of the IMF and World Bank.

Still, it was a great disappointment to me that my own government should have gone so much against the principles for which I believed it stood, including transparency and the importance of the role of government. (My conversations with the President convinced me that he himself supported both my stances and the values that underlay them, but that the US Treasury often did not adequately inform him about the policies they were advocating, let alone ask for his approval.)
- see link below

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2001/stiglitz-autobio.html

He was also a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet and chairman of the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers. The U.S. Treasury had put massive pressure on the World Bank to silence his criticisms of the policies which they and the IMF had pushed. He resigned under this pressure.

The IMF likes to go about its business without outsiders asking too many questions. In theory, the fund supports democratic institutions in the nations it assists. In practice, it undermines the democratic process by imposing policies. Officially, of course, the IMF doesn’t “impose” anything. It “negotiates” the conditions for receiving aid. But all the power in the negotiations is on one side—the IMF’s—and the fund rarely allows sufficient time for broad consensus-building or even widespread consultations with either parliaments or civil society. Sometimes the IMF dispenses with the pretense of openness altogether and negotiates secret covenants.

— Joseph Stiglitz, What I learned at the world economic crisis. The Insider, The New Republic, April 17, 2000

People like Joseph Stiglitz highlighted the truth behind the closed doors of these institutions. I agree with Stiglitz that the World Bank is in fact a key cause of contemporary poverty, and I also point out again that poverty is a ideological construct that is desired to be maintained by the driving ideologists behind it, naturally!

The title World Bank in fact might be misleading to some readers, it should be called US World Bank, because firstly as I pointed out, US Vote quota always holds Veto power, and secondly that the President of the Bank is always an American, nominated by the President of the United States.

Today Robert Bruce Zoellick heads the Worldbank, before him Paul Wolfowitz, the latter name might be known to most people here in another context. <cynical grin>

I envy you for your optimism Asher. You must have access to some very good drugs in deed, can I have some? <LOL, another cynical grin>

But seriously my friend, I agree with you that human beings are made for goodness and in the light of this common insight I also agree that we need to inform ourselves on the reality of our situation, despite the obvious that is broadcasted over and over again.

We need global policies that are fundamentally based on ethical values to tackle the problems we face.

To look after the planet and ourselves, we must tell each other what we know and not just assume we all know it because it's so obvious.

YES!

Peace
~^..^~

 

[Asher Kelman]

My observations were that the average American or European does not even know about the IMF and it's function. They might have heard about the World Bank or the IMF but are less informed on their daily business, but to put some more meat on the ripcage of my accusations:

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel memorial Peace Prize 2001 (Theory of Information Asymmetries), former Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000 resigned under pressure from criticisms he made of the IMF and World Bank.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2001/stiglitz-autobio.html

He was also a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet and chairman of the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers. The U.S. Treasury had put massive pressure on the World Bank to silence his criticisms of the policies which they and the IMF had pushed. He resigned under this pressure.

People like Joseph Stiglitz highlighted the truth behind the closed doors of these institutions. I agree with Stiglitz that the World Bank is in fact a key cause of contemporary poverty,

So, there's homework for us all to read up on! Thanks very much!

and I also point out again that poverty is a ideological construct that is desired to be maintained by the driving ideologists behind it, naturally!

George, you slipped this one in! Yes "romantic love", "patriotism", "team member" are idealogical contructs too, but they do have useful function in our societies since they describe a state of being for which we have accepted and developed attitudes, respect and responses to.

So I don't think that the term povery should just be looked on as a mere tool of manipulating societies but rather an opportunity to see where we as a society have gone wrong in oppportunity and resource access. I sense some cynicism, perhaps? I'd hope that a good proportion of folks dealing wiht "poverty are well intentioned, if not well-informed of antecedants, context and future consequences of what needs to be done". You have a right to be critical. However cynicism may wash away the good with the bad, so I try to recognize when I have been dismissive of other people's good deeds for the poor as self-serving. It's not that it isn't self serving, which is usually the case, but rather that there are often real community benefits that go beyond what small interventions are made.

I was critical of merely providing wells for clean water for villages in Africa as tokenisn=m for people to pat themselves on the back and take celebratory pictures. My wife pointed out to me today that the consequence of the well water is that gilrs don't have to spend all day fetching water and now can go to school. So I promised myself for 2008 to be less cynical.

I envy you for your optimism Asher. You must have access to some very good drugs in deed, can I have some? <LOL, another cynical grin>

I'm lucky not to have the genes for using them to escape. That is purely chance I guess. I do still like a good glass of wine or a Belgian ot Czech beer to toast firends. That I do again for you! Yes I'm fortunate to use this for celebration not solace.
[/QUOTE]

Asher