Austin Bay Blog

The NY Times reports the Burmese military has stolen aid supplies.

Lead graf:

The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country for the victims of Cyclone Nargis was being stolen, diverted or warehoused by the country’s army.

The gut of it:

The aid directors in Myanmar declined to be quoted directly on their concerns about the stolen relief supplies for fear of angering the ruling junta and jeopardizing their operations, although Marcel Wagner, country director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, confirmed that aid was being diverted by the army. He said the issue would become an increasing problem, although he declined to give further details because of the sensitivity of the situation.

International aid shipments continued to arrive Wednesday, including five new air deliveries of relief supplies from the United States. Western diplomats said their representatives at the airport were making sure the cargo was unloaded efficiently and then trucked to staging areas.

The fate of the supplies after that, however, remained unknown, because the junta has barred all foreigners, including credentialed diplomats and aid workers, from accompanying any donated aid, tracking its distribution or following up on its delivery.

Criminal, cruel, vicious. No one should be surprised.

Key grafs:

Burma’s regime is pursuing a modified “Darfur strategy,” at least the Darfur political strategy as pursued by Sudan’s dictatorship in Khartoum. For the last three years, the Sudanese government has been resisting, thwarting, dodging and blocking international relief and peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, carefully relenting — by an inch or two — when the public and economic pressure reaches a momentary crescendo.

The Burmese junta knows the script…

And:

In Burma, a few (the junta) wield vast physical power over the rest. Ditto North Korea. Ditto Sudan. Economic sanctions, economic rewards, harsh words, warm words and sharp threats may nudge these regimes, but the dictators only move when it’s in their interest. When 100,000 deaths serve the interest of the local thugs, then the realistic options are starkly limited.

Dictatorships kill.

A couple of years ago an Air Force non-com –who happens to be the son of one of my Army buddies— sent me an email about his service in Iraq. Though an airman, he drew a convoy-protection assignment, which entailed a course in ground combat tactics prior to deployment. Over one four week period his outfit found and disabled 54 mines and booby-traps, IEDS (Improvised Explosive Devices) in the lingo of the Global War on Terror. He didn’t enlist in the Air Force to protect truck convoys, but when the need arose and the orders appeared, he took the mission. Moreover, he did it well.

As I read Michael Yon’s new book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, I thought about that Air Force sergeant. Yon’s subtitle is one reason “How a New “Greatest Generation of American Soldiers Is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope.” That young sergeant, and dozens of others like him I’ve had the privilege of knowing are the subjects –and heroes—of Yon’s book.

Here’s the link to Amazon.com for anyone wanting to order it. I will review the book this week in my Creators Syndicate newspaper column. The review will include a long passage that twice already I’ve read aloud. Both times my small audience asked: “Why don’t we hear more stories like this?”

I’ve had Michael on my pajamasmedia Deep Background program several times. Michael Yon is one of those unusual Americans who emerge in war time to do the jobs that need to be done. The job he is doing is covering combat in Iraq at the gritty, confusing, and valiant level of close combat, and doing so with honesty, passion, and professional expertise.

Yon isn’t World War Two’s Ernie Pyle, he’s the Global War on Terror’s Michael Yon. This is a different war with a very different media environment. Yon “self-embedded” with US combat units in 2005 – paying his own way and getting donations through his website michaelyon-online.com. Given the Internet and digital technology, it isn’t really surprising that emails and web logs (blogs) have been the richest sources of detailed, day to day combat reporting. Yon is part of this new media environment.

His technique, however, is Pyle’s – be there with the troops, with the Iraqis, in the vehicles, on foot patrols, in the alleys, in the homes, then tell what happened and tell it well. Yon writes: “I prefer to write what I see with my own eyes in the streets and on the battlefield, to paint a picture as intimate and rich in detail as I can, and then…let the reader come to his own understanding.”

Yup.

A friend of mine recently retired from USAID sent me a link to this website — the outfit makes concrete wall-ties. He’s involved in a couple of developmental projects using this “concrete forming” building technique. Concrete-formed homes are fairly cheap and are comparatively easy to build, which makes them attractive alternatives in the developing world. There are various “model villages” projects –I heard one discussed by the Afghan ambassador to the US a couple of years ago in the Q&A following a lecture in Washington. How do you power the homes? In many places the ideal source would be solar power, a photo-voltaic system that generates and stores enough power to do two things: (1) run a very small refrigerator (to store medicine and keep milk fresh); (2) power one electric lamp for at least four hours in the evening in order to provide light so students can read and do homework. That’s a genuine health and education policy. The cost of photo-voltaic systems is dropping. This power system could also charge a laptop. Add a passive solar heating system for hot water and you get the luxury of a hot shower (assuming you have a water system in place).

My friend also sent me a note about “good news about Iraq you never hear.” He has worked with CHF International on a micro-lending project and wanted me to see the results of its “Access to Credit Services Initiative.” So follow the link and check it out. This is the kind of story that rarely gets any play. That’s sad, for so many reasons. This is a real-world program for encouraging peace.

Here’s a column from 2002 about a micro-lending program in Uganda.

UPDATE: While cruising the CHF site I found this page on a “green” water project in Indonesia.
It’s solar powered. At a developmental aid conference in Honduras in 2003 one of the programs featured a “do it yourself” small village “clean water system” that as I recall could also use solar power (the system was designed to use different power sources– whatever power source was available). A friend of mine in Texas has been involved in water well projects in Malawi. Digging the wells means also teaching locals to operate and repair the systems. The goal is clean water. Dirty water kills — improving health in the developing world means clean, reliable water.

UPDATE 2: The model villages Q&A with the Afghan ambassador took place in 2005– time flies. See Comment 1 on this post and my response to the comment. The commenter links to his site with this developmental package. There are lots of ideas out there, lots of good ideas. The glitch? All developmental aid problems divide into three parts: Money, personnel and political will. This assumes, of course, you have enthusiastic host country agreement, sustained host country political will, and for-real physical security.

It certainly looks like the 2006 Comprehensive Ceasefire Agreement is shattering.

This is the third series of firefights in the last month (running gunbattles punctuated by an occasional ambush is probably a better description).

The Burundian military conducted several airstrikes on an infiltration and base area in April (April 23 and April 30). I believe these are armed helicopter strikes, not fixed wing, but if someone knows differently add a comment. (The Rukoko Swamp or Rukoko Marshes, is a major base camp area and infilitration route for rebels. It is located on the Burundi-Congo border.)

ONUB (United Nations Operation in Burundi), is regarded as a peacekeeping success. Given its mandate, I think it was. I note the Burundian government (which is a coalition government) is asking for regional and international help to end the fighting.

While looking for more information on Burundi I found a recent article on the African Standby Force, written by John Haberson of CUNY.

I wrote a US Army War College paper on the subject (I think 1997). The article mentions 1994 as a seminal date, but the idea has floated around for decades.

Key grafs:

Specifically, African states have moved to organise the African Standby Force (ASF), supported by sub-regional and country-level military units. One of such sub-regional units, the Eastern African Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) has been the collective responsibility of Eastern African and Indian Ocean countries, except Burundi. The whole structure is to be governed by an assembly of East African heads of state and government.

What are the specific objectives of this new security architecture and how is it to be structured, organised, funded and implemented? In January 2004, African defence ministers met in Addis Ababa to formulate the “Draft Framework for a Common African Defence and Security Policy.”

This policy reflected the adoption two years earlier of the AU “Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council” that also included establishment of a military staff committee to advise this new council, the creation of the ASF to implement the Council’s decisions.

But the idea goes back still further to the 1994 Cairo Declaration on the Code of Conduct for Inter-African Relations, the 2000 AU Declaration on Unconstitutional Changes of Government and the Kampala declaration in the same year of the Conference on Security, Stability, Development, and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA).

As designed, the multinational ASF would consist of five sub-regional brigades of 3000-4000 troops plus a sixth one based in Addis Ababa.

Good idea? Yes. Creating it is a huge challenge. A regional African peacekeeping force ought to have a cultural advantage when entering a civl war (intra-state conflict) — ie, a better knowledge of ethnic issues than peacekeepers from Europe and Asia. That, of course, is not always the case. Training, discipline, intelligent leadership, professionalism — these are the critical qualities.

Here are some other thoughts on peacekeeping, from this week’s Creators Syndicate column (via StrategyPage):

Somalia and Bosnia ought to provide valuable and critically important lessons, which should organizationally and operationally inform and guide new missions. They do, though only in the most glancing sense. Every major U.N. peacekeeping operation remains a “shake and bake” exercise with personnel contingents assembled piecemeal, equipment a collective hodge-podge, supply a sometimes thing and airlift often supplied by the U.S. Air Force, since no one else can do it.

A friend of mine with family in northern Mexico returned from a recent visit. Yes, he said, there are a lot more Mexican Army troops than in the past. He got a close look at one truckload — heavily-armed young Mexican soldiers in battle dress, carrying what he identified as American-made M-16 rifles. Most of the Mexican Army units I’ve seen have Belgian G-3 7.62 millimeter rifles as their standard rifle, though Mexico is replacing that old “NATO standard” with the smaller 5.56 mm automatic rifles. The big point is, of course, my well-heeled, Spanish speaking friend who is in Mexico every two or three months saw Mexican Army soldiers in places he had never seen them before — in towns, on roads, and in outlying areas.

My friend was not in Ciudad Juarez, he was traveling to Monterrey; still, this Reuters report sketches the background. The Mexican Army is fighting a war with Mexico’s big drug cartels. The report’s headline suggests the Mexican Army is failing, but –wait– the situation in Juarez is more complex than that:

Soldiers have taken over many security tasks from the often corrupt city police, making dozens of arrests and seizing arms and narcotics but the fight against common crime has apparently suffered.

While crime statistics are hard to come by, many residents say bank robberies, burglaries, vehicle theft, kidnappings and assaults have risen sharply over the past month, as criminal gangs take advantage of a security vacuum.

Dozens of local police have quit, either under pressure from military accusations of corruption or angered by army plans to seize their weapons and purge their ranks.

Ciudad Juarez sits across the border from El Paso, Texas. Drug war gunbattles rip Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.

Seventeen Mexican drug gang members were killed near the U.S. border on Saturday, their bodies scattered along a road after one of the deadliest shootouts in Mexico’s three-year narco-war.

Rival factions of the Arellano Felix drug cartel in Tijuana on the Mexico-California border battled each other with rifles and machine guns in the early hours of the morning, police said.

Fourteen bodies were lying in pools of blood on a road near assembly-for-export maquiladora plants on the city’s eastern limits. The corpses were surrounded by hundreds of bullet casings and many of their faces were destroyed.

The 15th body was found nearby

This firefight took place very near the Mexico-US border and in many respects looks like some of the scenarios that worry US and Mexican law enforcement officials. Here’s my version of one of the worrisome could-bes: a cartelista gunfight near the border “spills over” and involves US police and border personnel in a shoot out with Mexican gang members. That’s an international incident. The “could be” gets dicier– US police fight the gangster force on the “north side” while Mexican soldiers battle the gang members on “south side” — and US and Mexican security personnel accidentally hit one another with gunfire. Can’t happen? Of course it can, especially when machine guns and grenade launchers are involved. Explicable? Sure, to rational people, but not explicable in sound bites. Fearmongers and political hacks will rhetorically magnify this bad situation. It is possible cartel gunmen would try to start an incident near the border in order to create a situation when US and Mexican security forces accidentally engage one another.

This quick border tour, however, sets the stage for discussing President Felipe Calderon (I will write some of this up for StrategyPage). Mexico is fighting an oil war of an odd sort — a political oil war with several implications. The Mexican government is grappling with Calderon’s proposals to “modernize” the Mexican national oil company, PEMEX. “Modernize” is in quotation marks because many Mexicans –but especially Mexican left-wingers like Calderon’s former presidential campaign opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador —say Calderon’s plans will lead to privatization PEMEX. This is a touchy subject for Mexican nationalists. In 1938 the Mexican government expropriated foreign oil holdings in Mexico, with many of the foreign companies being US oil companies. Forming PEMEX threw a punch at the Colossus of the North (ie, the US).

Mexico makes a lot of money off of its oil (I saw a report recently that said Mexico is the US’s third largest oil import supplier and is currently the world’s tenth leading oil exporter). Mexican proven oil reserves, however, are declining and PEMEX needs capital to explore for more, particularly deep prospects off-shore. Calderon claims he is really seeking partners for off-shore exploration (and deep off-shore prospects require a lot of investment capital and well as technological expertise). In any case, the PEMEX revitalization plan is another example of Calderon’s extraordinary guts.

Calderon is fighting a war on the major drug cartels while fencing with various militant groups (EPR as an example). He is also fighting a war on police, judicial, and political corruption (which he correctly sees as key to winning the war on the drug cartels and modernizing Mexico’s economy). Calderon is proving to be a fascinating and often subtle public leader—a 21st century Mexican revolutionary. It will be interesting to watch his “multi-front war for modernity” play out over the next four years.

Get this (via the Times OnLine, as in London Times, aka “The Times”):

North Korean military engineers are completing an underground runway beneath a mountain that can protect fighter aircraft from attack until they take off at high speed through the mouth of a tunnel.

The 6,000ft runway is a few minutes’ flying time from the tense front line where the Korean People’s Army faces soldiers from the United States and South Korea.

The project was identified by an air force defector from North Korea and captured on a satellite image by Google Earth, according to reports in the South Korean press last week.

Now, read the whole thing (RTWT in old blog lingo).

Note that the reporter, or editor, or perhaps the NoKo defector, or perhaps all three think that the Israeli strike on the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor (the alleged Syrian reactor allegedly provided by North Korea), has led to a new wave of “military infrastructure hardening” by Pyongyang:

The airstrike [Israeli airstrike in Syria] appears to have convinced North Korea to harden its own defences and to spend more on its military, even as it struggles to cope with a new food shortage that could see millions of its citizens go hungry. In recent days North Korea has ordered its people to be vigilant against “warmongers”.

Hmmm…bad conscience regarding the Syrian reactor? No, Kim Jong-Il has no conscience, at least in any mature, pan-human sense of the word. Oh, he has the “conscience” (italicized) of a psychotic, self-absorbed, megalomaniacal narcissist (which is one reason is he is Stalinist– guess that also describes some members of Earth First!, Al Qaeda, and MoveOn.org).

Be that as it may, Kim’s hardened runway is designed to keep the dagger to Seoul’s throat. Based on the TImes’ description, it is a vulnerable dagger. Four (okay, perhaps two) precision-guided blockbuster bombs could close the tunnel’s exit, but in order to be effective those bombs would have to hit before Kim’s attack aircraft took off. Well, some people think first strikes are in order.

I love this historical stroke in the Times’ article:

The alliance between the two clan dictatorships in Damascus and Pyongyang is more than 35 years old. In another tunnel, this one under Mount Myohang, the North Koreans have kept as a museum piece the Kalashnikov assault rifle and pistols sent as gifts from President Hafez al-Assad of Syria to Kim Il-sung in the early years of their friendship.

Today North Korea and Syria are ruled by the sons of their 20th-century dictators – Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2000 and Kim Jong-il took over in 1994. They inherited a hatred of America and a fondness for authoritarian family rule.

Jim Dunnigan and I describe North Korea as a “herditary dictatorship” (see Third Edition of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War, soon to be replaced by the Fourth Edition).

Both Syria’s and North Korea’s heriditary dictatorships are poised for first strikes, NoKo against SoKo and Japan, Suria against Israel. The Times notes:

The Scud-C is strategically worrying to Israel because Syria has deployed it with one launcher for every two missiles. The normal ratio is one to 10. The conclusion: Syria’s missiles are set up for a devastating first strike.

Since 2004 there have been a series of leaks designed to suggest that Syria has renewed its interest in atomic weapons, a claim denied by Damascus.

In December 2006 the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Siyasa, quoted European intelligence sources in Brussels as saying that Syria was engaged in an advanced nuclear programme in its northeastern Hasakah province.

It also quoted British security sources as identifying the man heading the programme as Major Maher Assad, brother of the president and commander of the Republican Guard.

Early last year foreign diplomats had noticed an increase in political and military visits between Syria and North Korea. They received reports of Syrian passengers on flights from Beijing to Pyongyang, almost the only air route into the country. They also spotted Middle Eastern businessmen using trains between North Korea and the industrial cities of northeast China.

And:

The danger to Israel is multiplied by the triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran. Syria has served as a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated £50m of missile components and technology sent by sea from North Korea to the Syrian port of Tartous, diplomats said.

They say Damascus and Tehran have set up a £125m joint venture to build missiles in Syria with North Korean and Chinese technical help. North Korean military engineers have worked on hardened silos and tunnels for the project near the cities of Hama and Aleppo.

Feudal tyrants armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Anyone sane, honest, and cherishing the lives of loved ones still want to bitch about pre-emptive strikes by democracies?

Trust that Barack Obama will talk with these feudal tyrannies. As Glenn Reynolds would say, “Heh.”

Imagine what will happen in the sensationalist media and, for that matter, in Campaign 2008, when this scratchy, grating audio –capturing the voice of John McCain shooting the breeze with a bunch of Swift Boat vets over a beer in the Daiquiri Bar at the Army-Navy Club in DC— finally explodes on the Internet:

TRANSCRIPT OF ALLEGED PIRATE AUDIO:

A voice with a slight Texas accent asks: “Johnny –what’s with these whining defeatist Democrats?”

(Brief clink of beer bottle, salty snicker from stage left)

McCain, in a gruff whisper, replies:

“Well, they’ve been catered to and coddled by the press, Hollywood, and academia so long that when reality intrudes they get bitter, cling to their carbon credits and secular utopianism, or antipathy to people who don’t drive Volvos, or anti-American sentiment, or anti-American military sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment, or anti-chemicals in the organic lettuce sentiment, or anti-nuclear power sentiment, or anti-fossil fuel sentiment, or anti-capitalist sentiment, or suddenly anti-ethanol sentiment, and of course their anti-ChimpMcCheneyBush syndromes as a way to explain their frustrations.”

I invite commenters to provide the following:

(1) Herd media reaction (herd media, not hard)
(2) The reaction of staunch Republicans
(3) The reaction of staunch Democrats (you may refer to your “herd media” answer if you wish)
(4) A deconstruction of McCain’s alleged reply by the usual card-carrying sociology prof
(5) Barack Obama’s reaction in public
(6) Barack Obama’s reaction in private

No need to tell us McCain would never say this. But what would be the consequences?

Would Obama’s San Francisco billionaire buddies finally understand the arrogance, ignorance, and solipsism of Obama’s now infamous (and authentic) answer?: “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Interesting article at Pajamas. What will your next computer be able to do?

As for the next wave in media…

RealClearPolitics and StrategyPage both had this week’s column up. RCP received some interesting comments on the column.

Key argument in the column:

Knights Charge (code name for the anti-Shia gang offensive in Basra and southern Iraq) is proving to be an extraordinarily significant political and military operation with rather heady long-term payoffs.

That’s key — understanding Knights Charge is an integrated political-military operation. Maliki made it clear that this multidimensional operation was planned and executed by the Iraqis themselves and that the United States was not consulted. For this, his insta-critics chastised him. But Maliki knows his enemies, particularly Mahdi Army chieftain Moqtada al-Sadr.

Go here for one of the symptomatic “Basra Blunderbuss” columns my essay mentions.

Some other links:

My column from April 2, 2008.

From that column:

The Iraqi way often appears to be indecisive, until you learn to look at its counter-insurgency methods in the frame of achieving political success, instead of the frame of American presidential elections.

In southern Iraq and east Baghdad, Sadr once again lost street face. Despite the predictable media umbrage, this translates into political deterioration.

Think of the Iraqi anti-Sadr method as a form of suffocation, a political war waged with the blessing of Ayatollah Sistani that requires daily economic and political action, persistent police efforts and occasional military thrusts.

Bill Roggio analyzes the assault on the Hayaniyah neighborhood in Basra
NY Times Iraqi Army Takes Last Basra Areas From Sadr (April 20)

NY Times on the deserters and shirkers (April 4, 2008).

More from Bill Roggio (April 23).

Key quote from Bill Roggio:

Iraqi and US forces have not stopped their operations against the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the South despite Sadr’s threat to conduct a third uprising. US forces in Baghdad alone have reported 56 “criminals” killed since Sadr issued his warning. The US military refers to the Mahdi Army as criminals in an effort to marginalize and delegitimize the group.

A sad report from the TimesOnLine,, but sad? Tragedy? Deep depravity? How do you describe 2200 percent inflation and 90 percent unemployed?

I wrote shortly after the election that the military and police forces and the state intel service, CIO, were the decisive players. Mugabe’s militias play a role, but the Zimbabwean Army could chill them.

Here’s some data on the recount robbery ploy (via Reuters):

The recount in 23 of 210 constituencies could overturn the results of the parliamentary election, which showed President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF losing its majority to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change for the first time.

ZANU-PF lost 16 out of those 23 constituencies in the original count, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said. The ruling party needs to win 9 seats to get a simple majority in parliament. Results of a parallel presidential vote have not been released, but MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he has won.

THis crops up at the bottom of the report — and no one who is aware of Mugabe’s 1980s depredations in Matabeleland should be surprised:

The MDC has accused the former guerrilla commander of unleashing loyal militias to help him rig victory in the runoff and allowing veterans of the independence war to invade some farms, echoing a wave of land invasions that began in 2000.

Human Rights Watch said on Saturday that ZANU-PF was using a network of informal detention centres to beat, torture, and intimidate opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans into voting for the ruling party.

The former guerrilla commander? Why, Robert Mugabe. He’s traveled the arc: he starts as a “brilliant” Marxist revolutionary who will lead his nation to a utopian post-colonial socialist future. He ends up as a decayed, brutal mass murderer and thief using the same vicious techniques he used as a “revolutionary” except on a larger scale.

Mugabe is jealous of Nelson Mandela. Indeed. Mandela has a large soul. Mugabe? He has…power.

I wrote this for StrategyPage ten months ago:

Zimbabwe is one of the worst economically managed countries on the planet. It has one of the most autocratic and increasingly erratic dictators, Robert Mugabe, whose dictatorship has overseen the destruction of what was once one of Africa’s most productive agricultural economic sectors. But not according to many African nations, and the United Nations. Zimbabwe was elected to head the UN’s Commission on Sustainable Development. When 50 nations voted on a secret ballot, the result was 26 for, 21 against, three abstaining. Zimbabwe’s election is a disgrace.

The entire StrategyPage post provides a lot of useful background material, especially the refugee and economic data.

In retrospect, this post from March 14, 2007 provides a fair assessment of the MDC’s 2008 election strategy. Note the comment about the MDC finding common ground with disgruntled members of ZANU-PF (that happened — hence Mugabe’s need to stifle the electoral results).

And this is happening, too (as quoted from StrategyPage in March 2007):

The MDC has a lot of international moral capital, some international media appeal, and political appeal in Zimbabwe. However, the organization is defenseless. Its members are easily harassed and intimidated by Zimbabwean authorities and the “war veterans” (which are a Mugabe militia in many respects).

This is an extraordinary video essay leveraging video clips from the Newseum. Ed Driscoll cloaks his dagger-work with a video persona inspired by The Honeymooner’s Ed Norton and The Talking Heads’ David Byrne.

Food riots in Cameroon, Egypt, and the Ivory Coast. Haitian anger over rice prices topples a prime minister.

This week the “food crisis” rates scare headlines — but the problem is an old one and no surprise.

For numerous reasons, but especially the wildcard of biofuels and how they affect global food prices, this subject is an excellent subject for another Consequences video.

From this week’s Creators Syndicate column (via StrategyPage):

…(corn) Prices have increased for numerous, complex and often opaquely connected reasons, but producing ethanol “biofuel” (an alleged “green” alternative to gasoline) certainly contributes to the rising demand for corn…

And:

Ethanol is an easy target for the sensationalists. The pun is more accurate than the accusation: A maze of interrelated factors affect the price of maize and most other foodstuffs. The growing economies of India and China require energy, and demand from these two Asian giants as well as sustained demand from other advanced economies has spurred a long-term rise in oil prices. Higher oil prices bump food prices; it takes energy to raise and transport food.

“Middle class” Indians and Chinese also buy more foods. Lousy weather (in Australia as well as the United States), crop rotation and, in the case of the world’s No. 1 food producer, the United States, fewer acres under cultivation (likely culprit: suburbs) also factor in higher food prices.

So the “world food crisis” sprouting bold headlines this week isn’t so much sudden as it is vexingly systemic.

The column ran long, but on the blog I’ve space to add several other issues.

Countries employ import tariffs, export taxes, and agricultural subsidies to protect domestic farmers and food supplies; however, these programs have downsides, like protecting the inefficient. There’s a lot of space for structural change, but it would require political leaders with spine from Canada to Cameroon.

Ending food tariffs (import tariffs but also “export taxes”) and agricultural subsidies is probably a very good idea but it’s politically difficult, desperately so in the short-term; however, tariffs and subsidies, particularly in the developed world, distort global prices.

The food crisis has brought back Malthusian doomsters, but every once in awhile a blind hog finds an acorn and Haiti is arguably a genuine Malthusian hell –lack of resources exacerbated by very complex social, economic, and political problems. I recall reading in 1987 an extract from a Canadian report that relying on its own resources Haiti could support a population of two million people. At the time it had a population of six million. US and Canadian food aid kept four million people alive. The corrupt Haitian government, soil depletion, and bizarre land rights issues depressed Haitian agricultural productivity but bottom line there were too many people given the food resources.

However, the planet’s worst examples of mass starvation are the result of corruption and murderous dictatorships.

PajamasMedia has posted the latest Deep Background program.

The subject is Iraq: Five Years On. I have four guests: Jules Crittenden, Bill Roggio, Michael Totten, and Glenn Reynolds. Jules Crittenden embedded with 3rd Infantry Division in March and April 2003– the point of the spear in the armored thrust on Baghdad. Bill Roggio is one of the top military analysts on the Web. Michael Totten needs no introduction other than he should win a Pulitzer Prize — if they give one for work on the Web. Glenn Reynolds has covered the media and information angles of the war on terror as closely and actule as anyone anywhere.

Four informed guests, four strong personalities, a complex subject that defies soundbites — check it out.

I offered a “framework” for understanding the truly long war in Iraq.

From the transcript:

MR. BAY: Now here’s how I’m going to suggest we approach this very complex topic especially with four complex guests. Here’s my frame. Since August 1990, we’ve had five wars or five campaigns in Iraq. First of all, Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Second, the war of U.N. sanctions. That’s a slow war that began in April 1991 and continued until March 2003. Then from March to May 2003 or thereabouts, the war of liberation. From the late summer of 2003 until late fall 2006, we had the complex insurgency. Recall that Iraq’s democratic government only took power in May 2006. The execution of Saddam Hussein and the beginning of the so-called surge provides something of an in-point for this fourth phase, the complex insurgency. I’ll call the current war, the current campaign, Nation Building, though the popular name might be The Surge.

So, Bill Roggio, of Long War Journal, I’ve described a very long war starting August 2nd, 1990. Any problems with this framework?

MR ROGGIO: No. I think generally this framework is perfect. You know, people want to go back and forget that the — you know, that nearly a decade of sanctions were a complete failure in containing Saddam Hussein. Everyone gets wrong what the actual Duelfer report said about Saddam and the chemical weapons or his WMD program. He was building a covert capacity and trying to wait out the U.S. to leave.

You know — and in some ways 2007 here there also was sort of a war for liberation here as well. We, in the Iraqi security forces, worked to liberate Iraq from al-Qaeda in Iraq, wrest control from them in large swaths of territory in the center and northern parts of the country. But, yes, I would agree completely that this is a very good way of looking at this war.

MR. BAY: Well, the title of the program is Five Years On but I thought if we were going to talk about it, we ought to look at that you could be counting at seventeen or eighteen years.

Ed Driscoll and I have produced four or five of these podcasts since January 1 — now that my blog is back online and I’ve turned in the draft of the new edition of Quick and Dirty Guide to War, Ed and I intend to produce the show more frequently.

A few days ago Roger L. Simon of pajamasmedia interviewed Daphna Ziman about her charges that Reverend Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles delivered an anti-Semitic diatribe at an LA community awards banquet held April 4th. Hey, it gets uglier. Ms. Ziman was an honoree — she received the Tom Bradley Award for community service at an event held to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. The mayor of LA was in attendance. Watch the video and listen to what she has to say about the Reverend Lee’s remarks at the ceremony. Ms. Ziman is Jewish. She adds she was so insulted and dismayed she left her award.

One of the commenters notes Ms. Ziman is a Hillary Clinton supporter. She does mention Reverend Jeremiah Wright. She asserts that Rev. Lee brought up Barack Obama. She also mentions Obama toward the end of the video and says he “sat in that church” for twenty years — menaing Jeremiah Wright’s church in Chicago.

However, this does not strike me as gimmick campaign outrage, not at all — looks to me like a case of ignorant, anti-Semitism delivered by a professional ethnic militant. This pathology has always been there. WHen the professional ethnic militant is a member of the KKK we hear about it. When the professional ethnic militant is from an ethnic minority group, the reporting usually becomes rather “opaque” if it’s reported at all –we’re to understand, not condemn, etc. This pathology has surfaced in the neck and neck Democratic Party presidential primary campaign– the press can;t ignore it anymore.

Ms. Ziman delivers a powerful phrase (I paraphrase but this is close): “How dare they find an enemy to unite some sort of a theology.”

On the web everyone gets to fire back. Reverend Lee defends himself in a long letter — so you may judge the quality of his defense for yourself.

Roger has an update on the story at pajamas.

An article of mine at PajamasMedia.com.

The comments on the article are a good read. Note AJacksonian’s superb comment.

For the record, the wisecrack about “appeasenik” reactions fo my column is just that — a wisecrack for the pajamasmedia article. The student got a serious answer to his very serious question. The student asked: “Dr. Bay, how do you run a terrorist organization?” As the article notes, we were discussing the Madrid March 11, 2004 attack shortly after it occurred. I tried to give him and the rest of the class a useful, non-academic sketch of the “dynamic components” of an Al Qaeda-type terrorist operation. That’s basically the origin and raison d’etre of the list, which will be included in the upcoming 4th edition of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War (Paladin Press).

The Reuters story quotes Morgan Tsvangirai as telling Time Magazine: “We’ll manage to get Mugabe out. Mugabe is being deserted. No one wants to touch Mugabe in the region now. Eventually, we will ease him out.”

Sounds positive. Getting to positive, however, may (will?) involve significant violence– as in thwarting a Mugabe “coup” to retain power. In other words, he’ll use military and militia forces to “knock the vote.” Mugabe-directed violence is part of Zimbabwe’s daily ration of hell. Mugabe’s so-called “war veterans” (a thug militia) are already ransacking farms and trying to intimidate members of the opposition MDC.

The Reuters story leads with this:

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is implementing a de facto military coup to keep himself in power but will be ousted with the help of other African countries, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said.

Tsvangirai elaborates:

“This is, in a sense, a de facto military coup. They have rolled out military forces across the whole country, to prepare for a run-off and try to cow the population. It’s an attempt to try to create conditions for Mugabe to win,” Tsvangirai said.

Which leaves several questions. Will other African countries provide military forces if Mugabe launches his “self coup” and violence escalates? Tsvangirai’s statements strongly suggest he has received assurances of political support, which is good news. The political support of neighboring nations could influence the thinking of Zimbabwe’s military leaders — stressing “could.”

Read the entire report.

Realclearpolitics.com features a summary of this morning’s testimony by General Petraeus .

Key graf:

Still, security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador Crocker and I reported to you last September, and it is significantly better than it was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was made to deploy additional forces to Iraq.

A number of factors have contributed to the progress that has been made.

First, of course, has been the impact of increased numbers of coalition and Iraqi forces. You’re well aware of the U.S. surge. Less recognized is that Iraq has also conducted a surge, adding well over 100,000 additional soldiers and police to the ranks of its security forces in 2007 and slowly increasing its capability to deploy and employ these forces.

A second factor has been the employment of coalition and Iraqi forces in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations across the country, deployed together to safeguard the Iraqi people, to pursue Al Qaeda-Iraq, and to combat criminal elements and militia extremists, to foster local reconciliation, and to enable political and economic progress.

Another important factor has been the attitudinal shift among certain elements of the Iraqi population. Since the first Sunni Awakening in late 2006, Sunni communities in Iraq increasingly have rejected Al Qaeda-Iraq’s indiscriminate violence and extremist ideology. These communities also recognize that they could not share in Iraq’s bounty if they didn’t participate in the political arena. Over time, Awakenings have prompted tens of thousands of Iraqis, some former insurgents, to contribute to local security as so-called Sons of Iraq.

With their assistance and with relentless pursuit of Al Qaeda- Iraq, the threat posed by AQI, while still lethal and substantial, has been reduced significantly.

The recent flare-up in Basra, southern Iraq, and Baghdad underscored the importance of the cease-fire declared by Muqtada al- Sadr last fall, another factor in the overall reduction in violence.

During his opening testimony I noticed one of his charts, the Anaconda Strategy chart.

Here’s a link to all of the charts Petraeus used. The Anaconda Strategy is chart 8.

The Anaconda Chart is a complex graphic depicting an intricate, multi-dimensional war. It’s tough to describe even with a copy in front of you. However, the strategic concept behind Petraeus’ chart (titled “Anaconda Strategy versus Al Qaeda In Iraq”) is dirt simple: Squeeze and keep squeezing.

A commercial artist would certainly describe the chart as “too busy,” but war isn’t an exercise in esthetics. The Anaconda Strategy identifies six routes of attack on Al Qaeda In Iraq: (1) Kinetics (which includes combat); (2) Politics (which includes countering ethno-sectarian pressures and Iraqi political reconciliation); (3) Intelligence (operations from air recon to intel assessment); (4) Detainee Ops (includes counter-insurgency in detention facilities), (5) Non-Kinetics (education, jobs programs); and (6) Interagency.

Anaconda’s Interagency is a hodge-podge and a kludge of a category, including diplomacy, information operations, and –an interesting specificity—engagement with Syria.

On the chart these six broad routes become operations that converge upon and compress Al Qaeda’s command and control capabilities, finances, ideological appeal, safe havens, weapons, and popular support.

Generals have to operatonalize (execute) the abstraction of a strategy. Petreaus has.

Realclearpolitics.com featured last week’s Creators Syndicate newspaper column and the gents at Powerline commented. As the column attests, I saw the Basra and east Baghdad counter-militia operations very differently from the NY Times, etcetera. I don’t even want to bother with the various links logging the defeatist assessment, other than this typical herd-media column by Trudy Rubin. She labels Basra as a “debacle.” Hey, she wrote it. It’s dated April 7.

Quote:

Petraeus and Crocker did not expect that their testimony would be preceded by the debacle in Basra. As I wrote last week, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki initiated a major Iraqi military operation without prior consultation with the Americans. This has now been publicly confirmed by Crocker and other top administration officials…

(If the first link doesn’t hold up, try this one, entitled “Basra Blunder” in her home newspaper, the Philiadelphia Inquirer. It’s an earlier column, from March 30, which displays an even more reactionary negativism. What her analysis amounts to is anti-Bush Administration polemicism.)

I wonder how the coalition military did not know about the operation — there are coalition advisers in Iraqi brigades. Trucks move on roads watched by both Iraqi and coalition troops. I realize “prior consultation” is the important phrase — in my view, that’s a positive. The Iraqis planned the operation and carried it out on their own, without consulting Petraeus and Crocker. Good deal. In the long run that plays well politically in Iraq and it corners Sadr — the US did not tell Maliki to go after Sadr. If the US had, Sadr could tout that “prior approval,” maintaining that Maliki is a puppet, etc. Instead, you have an elected democratic prime minister who happens to be a Shia ordering his nation’s troops to strike a Shia gangster. Did Rubin miss that? Judge for yourself. I’d say she did.

Sunni and Kurd reaction to the attacks on Shia militias were positive– and that is a very important element of the political context.

From the AP report linked above:

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s faltering crackdown on Shiite militants has won the backing of Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that fear both the powerful sectarian militias and the effects of failure on Iraq’s fragile government.

The emergence of a common cause could help bridge Iraq’s political rifts. The head of the Kurdish self-ruled region, Massoud Barzani, has offered Kurdish troops to help fight anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.

More significantly, Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi signed off on a statement by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and the Shiite vice president, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, expressing support for the crackdown in the oil-rich southern city of Basra.

At this point in Iraq’s development the political context is the dominant context. Sadr needed Iran to help negotiate a ceasefire? What does that demonstrate to everyone in Iraq about Sadr? The Iarqi Army had to test itself against the Shia gangs. No, it wasn’t perfect. War is not the realm of perfect. War is the realm of “friction,” as Clausewitz wrote, “the suck” in current lingo. When howitzers drop a salvo I guarantee you the situation is drastically imperfect.

But but but…as time marches it is increasingly clear the Iraqi Army did a far better job than the Shia gangsters.

Now Sadr is calling for “dialog.”

The lede:

Aides to Muqtada al-Sadr called Monday for dialogue to resolve a violent standoff with the Iraqi government, saying that the radical Shiite cleric would disband his militia if senior religious leaders ordered it.

The overture came as Baghdad’s main Shiite district of Sadr City faced continued clashes between al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia fighters and Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces.

I will guarantee this is not the last battle. See my column:

The bottom line, again:

The Iraqi way often appears to be indecisive, until you learn to look at its counter-insurgency methods in the frame of achieving political success, instead of the frame of American presidential elections.

In southern Iraq and east Baghdad, Sadr once again lost street face. Despite the predictable media umbrage, this translates into political deterioration.

Think of the Iraqi anti-Sadr method as a form of suffocation, a political war waged with the blessing of Ayatollah Sistani that requires daily economic and political action, persistent police efforts and occasional military thrusts.

So what about last week’s instant narrative of doom? Is anyone besides me tired of it? The quick damnation of PM Maliki and the Iraqi Army’s efforts last week reveals an immense ignorance of warfare, one still rampant despite six-plus years of alleged experience; it displays not simply hasty, herd-mentality judgmentalism, but demonstrates in trump cards the sensationalist, fear-leveraging slant of most media coverage. Scare’em into reading the screed seems to be the herd-media’s order of business, and if that doesn’t work, affect deep moral outrage.

Until time proves the deep outrage was embarassingly superficial, and the political impulse rather than analytic honesty is revealed.

This appears as an update to a recent post, but since I’ve gotten a couple of emails about browser problems I’ll re-post this note from TheArena:

Note to Readers about the new Austin Bay ArenaUSA portal…..

With the return of Col. Bay’s blog, we are introducing a new technology that is a multi media communications portal. The design allows the viewer to gain access to 360 degrees of information on the topics and events covered by Col. Bay.

The current structure of this daily evolving platform is currently optimized to be viewed using Internet Explorer and Windows Media Viewer. We are steadily adding capabilities that will include full range obrowsers such as updated Firefox, Safari and other.If you use other browsers such as Safari, then just set to open under Explorer for this portal and you will be able to access this exciting new tool. Our decision to release early is based on the desire to make this new platform available as soon as we were able in order to give the widest number of users full access.

Same applies for MAC users, just go to Explorer and if you don’t have Windows Media Player, just download it, it’s free. In the current mac environment, we recommed Firefox and the video will be set for flash.

We will post updates on the portal regularly to update you on changes and additions.

Thank you.

CURRENT VIEWING PROTOCOL:
Internet Explorer or Firefox
With Windows Media Viewer plug in or flash.

Post-election there were three closely linked questions — how far would Mugabe go to hold on to power (”how deep the cheat”), what would the security forces do, and how would the regional power, South Africa, respond to Zimbabwe’s post-election turmoil?

Seems Mugabe and his cadre are going to try to maintain control.

Michael Ledeen thinks the fight is on.

Mugabe’s touhgest militia, the so-called war veterans, are making their usual threats. Mugabe’s “provocation against freedom fighters” charge (mentioned in the Reuters release) is supposed to portray the opposition MDC as a “pro-colonialist movement” (ie, in league with Great Britain).

The MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) says violence is brewing and Mugabe is preparing for “a war on the people”:

Zimbabwe’s opposition on Saturday accused President Robert Mugabe of deploying militias and planning a war to reverse the result of last weekend’s election.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Mugabe was “preparing a war on the people” and deploying forces including liberation war veterans ahead of a presidential runoff vote.

Militia posturing. Rhetoric of civil conflict. So…what about the ZImbabwean Army and the Central Intelligence Organization, the two key security forces? THe Reuters report I linked to above says this:

Analysts believe Mugabe will use his control of state apparatus, including the security forces, as well as pro-government militias to intimidate MDC supporters.

Maybe. The CIO-types know how to read the tea leaves, and a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe will eventually emerge. As for the Army, this may be the man to watch: Solomon Mujuru. (And read about his wife, Joyce –the politician. Apparently there is a dispute over her parliamentary seat– I recall reading early reports that she had been defeated, but maybe not…)

Jim Dunnigan of StrategyPage and I noticed a couple of reports last year about Mujuru “distancing” himself from Mugabe, and there was at least one rumor of the highly unsubstantiated type claiming Mujuru was building his own support base – similar to this breathless post from 2007 which I found via Google a few minutes ago.

As for South Africa? South Africa remains a quiet voice — the report says South Africa’s President Mbeki thinks “the situation for now is manageable…”

Manageable? 15,000 to 20,000 percent inflation (the numbers are absurd, beyond Weimar). South Africa has at least two million Zimbabwean refugees (though they are often called “economic migrants”).

More on this later.