Jan 25, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
The Los Angeles Times reports today that this weekend's Iraq election is looking up for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.Allawi has taken advantage of his incumbency and name recognition, his image as a strongman and his Shiite ethnicity, presenting his slate as a secular alternative to the religious Shiite parties.
The competing Shiite parties have taken notice of Allawi's secular appeal. The New York Times reported yesterday:With the Shiites on the brink of capturing power here for the first time, their political leaders say they have decided to put a secular face on the new Iraqi government they plan to form, relegating Islam to a supporting role.
The senior leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of mostly Shiite groups that is poised to capture the most votes in the election next Sunday, have agreed that the Iraqi whom they nominate to be the country's next prime minister would be a lay person, not an Islamic cleric. ...
"There will be no turbans in the government," said Adnan Ali, a senior leader of the Dawa Party, one of the largest Shiite parties. "Everyone agrees on that."
This should be great news -- after all, we certainly don't want to replace Saddam's regime with a theocracy. But the article goes on to indicate that the new "secular face" of the Shiite parties may be more political expediency than political enlightenment.Shiite leaders say their decision to move away from an Islamist government was largely shaped by the presumption that the Iraqi people would reject such a model. But they concede that it also reflects certain political realities -- American officials, who wield vast influence here, would be troubled by an overtly Islamist government. So would the Kurds, who Iraqi and American officials worry might be tempted to break with the Iraqi state.
Can these parties be trusted to truly reject theocracy? Just how Islamist were they before yesterday? Besides the Dawa Party, the United Iraqi Alliance also includes the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Iraq's main Shia political party. This report from The Telegraph raises suspicion about SCIRI's new secular position:For a party that was set up in Iran in the 1980s to promulgate Islamic revolution in Iraq but now says it upholds secular values, dealing with the changing winds of fortune have become part of a careful political act.
"We want to appeal to the broadest number of Iraqis. We need to build a consensus between parties to rule this country," said Mr Imarah, a 42-year-old educated in Iran. "Only that way will be able to get elected."
Not only does the list containing SCIRI have the largest Shia parties, it also has the approval of the most revered Shia spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Mr Imarah insists that the involvement of Ayatollah Sistani in the election does not undermine the secular platform on which SCIRI and other Shia parties are standing. "We represent a very broad front," he insisted.
However, many outside the Shia south believe SCIRI is only playing with secularism. Once in power the mask will fall away and the party will return to its core set of Islamic beliefs, they say. Many fear that Ayatollah Sistani will be supplanted in the organisation by clerics with closer ties to Iran.
Still other reports indicate that concern about the Shiite parties "playing with secularism" is justified. From a Boston Globe report on campaign posters in Iraq:...[O]n the streets of Baghdad, politics and religion freely mix in glossy posters and tattered fliers.
"Your support for this list is support for the faithful, national Islamic march," read one poster for the Islamic Dawa Movement. The movement "declares its appreciation of the role of the clerics and the great religious authorities," read another statement.
A poster for the United Iraqi Alliance, the group that has the tacit support of al-Sistani, bears the image of Islam's cubic Kaaba shrine in Mecca, along with that of the Shiite cleric and an Iraqi flag.
"Not participating in the elections means your candidates won't be able to defend your religious and worldly affairs," it read.
But another report in The Boston Globe is even more damning. According to the story, SCIRI and Dawa have worked together before -- to rule the town of Basra after the U.S.-led invasion. The resulting political environment is, to say the least, less than secular.More than any other city in Iraq, Basra is a living test lab of Islamic rule in Iraq. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, two Islamic parties have controlled the provincial government: the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Dawa Party. Both are traditional Islamist parties that fought the Baathist regime from bases in Iran.
When the Baathist ruling class fled Basra after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, Islamic parties quickly came to power on a popular wave of belief that religious parties would be less corrupt and power-hungry than secular political parties.
The provincial governor is a veteran of the Badr Brigade, the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who spent years in exile in Iran.
Traditional Islamic values have reshaped the dynamics in Basra, which a decade ago hosted a decadent array of bars, casinos and brothels that attracted visitors from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, where drinking, gambling and prostitution are major crimes.
On the streets now almost no women are visible. Those who venture out are covered head to toe in black.
Basra's liquor stores all closed down last summer when vigilantes began firebombing them.
Openly, the fiercest power struggle is between two kinds of Islamists -- the established exiles in the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Dawa versus the young followers of the firebrand cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who are thought to be responsible for the liquor store attacks. [Emphasis added]
President Bush left the door open for the establishment of an Islamic theocracy in Iraq rather than impose a free government. In his inaugural address, Bush reiterated his stance: "Our goal, instead, is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way." One of those voices is that of terrorist Moktada al-Sadr, the same al-Sadr whose thugs are thought to have firebombed liquor stores in Basra. The same al-Sadr who referred to 9/11 as "miracle from God" and whose militia killed American soldiers in Najaf. The same al-Sadr who has 14 followers running as candidates in the United Iraqi Alliance.
But there are other voices in Iraq. From the above report:"Don't listen to what people tell you -- look at what they do on the ground," said Anwar Muhammad Ridha al-Jabor, 40, director of Al Nahrain Radio in Basra.
She believes, based on her call-in radio show and polling conducted by her station, that people in the southern provinces are fed up with authoritarian rulers and are not impressed with a year and a half of Islamist rule.
"People just got rid of Saddam," she said. "Now they want to be free, and not be threatened by anyone, including the Islamic groups."
We can only hope that the attitude above wins election day.Jan 23, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
While there were good ideas in President Bush's second inaugural address, as is often the case with Bush, many of the good ideas were undermined by bad ones. I got the impression that Bush hoped to balance the ideas that might be viewed as "harsh" (personal economic independence, control of one's own destiny, ending tyranny) with ideas that that might be viewed as "compassionate" (service to others and a greater cause, helping other countries achieve democracy).
In the Jan. 20 edition of TIA Daily, Robert Tracinski provided a good analysis of the philosophical contradictions: Altruism vs. Liberty at the Inauguration.The good part of the "Forward Strategy of Freedom" is Bush's recognition of the connection between tyranny and war. Nations that murder and enslave their own citizens always seek to export those evils outside their own borders. So it is true that America's long-term interests come from the spread of liberty across the globe.
But the primary problem with Bush's theory is that he regards liberty as a causeless "yearning of the human heart" implanted there by God, which therefore requires no intellectual or cultural foundation. Notice that in Bush's speech the lack of freedom is regarded as the "deepest source" of terrorism -- while "ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder" are regarded as mere by-products, as movements that opportunistically take advantage of the "simmering resentment" caused by tyranny.
And so, for example, Bush believes that deposing Saddam's regime and holding elections is all that is required to promote the spread of liberty in the Middle East. No Western institutions or ideas are needed -- and indeed, he says later in the speech, "America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way." That is the root of everything that is wrong with his administration's management of the occupation of Iraq.
But Bush's "compassionate" ideas did nothing to forestall fears that his speech signaled a new aggressiveness in ending foreign tyranny. The administration, and even Bush's father, felt compelled to reassure critics that we would maintain the status quo. (Joe Gandelman has more.) And that is too bad, because it is exactly a new aggressiveness that is needed.
On domestic issues, particularly in regard to Bush's Social Security reform, the contradictions were more glaring. Tracinski wrote:The "broader definition of liberty" endorsed by Bush is the same view of freedom promulgated by Franklin Roosevelt, complete with the worst of Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms": "freedom from want." Bush explicitly endorsed the welfare-statist view that freedom means a social guarantee of prosperity, to be provided by the state.
Thus, in proposing a semi-privatization of Social Security, Bush is not promising to lift the heavy hand of government out of our lives and reverse the disastrous legacy of the New Deal welfare state. No, he presents his reforms as a continuation and extension of Roosevelt's legacy, only in a newer, more practical form.
It gets worse in the next paragraph, where Bush makes liberty conditional on religious belief and altruism. ... Bush advocated freedom -- but within the constraint that we are our brothers' keepers.
There is no "freedom" for the government to force one generation to be the keeper of another. There is no "freedom" for a country to democratically establish an Islamic theocracy. Until Bush grounds the concept of "freedom" to individual rights, he will be unable to effectively fight for freedom at home or abroad.
Another excellent observation from Robert Tracinski regarding the inauguration: The Protests Against Representative Government: Anti-Inauguration Protests Reflect the Left's Hostility to Liberty.Jan 18, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--Last week, the New York City Council's Economic Development Committee held a hearing that basically opposed the plans of Wal-Mart to open its first-ever NYC store in Rego Park, Queens. "They have to make big changes if they want to come into New York," threatened Councilwoman Helen Sears, echoing the familiar objections raised by unions against Wal-Mart.
But, said Dr. Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, "such political posturing represents an outrageous violation of the rights of countless individuals. Aside from the fact that Wal-Mart employs tens of thousands of individuals who all sought their jobs voluntarily--and that complaints against the chain do not typically come from employees, but from labor unions who want no non-union competition--by what presumptuous claim to dictatorial power does the government tell free men and women where they may and may not shop?"
Bernstein pointed out that nationwide 100 million people per week voluntarily choose to shop at Wal-Mart. "The reason they do so is obvious: quality products in astonishing varieties and quantities at low prices."
Bernstein concludes that Wal-Mart's stunning success was made possible by a revolution in productivity. "Sam Walton's firm pioneered the computer management of its stock and continually finds low-cost suppliers to keep its prices down. It is the efficiency of Wal-Mart's vast operation that enables it to provide a plethora of quality products at low prices. Such productivity should be celebrated by all Americans--even the politicians."Jan 12, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--The tidal waves that took so many lives two weeks ago again raised the question, why do devastating natural disasters wreak far more havoc in undeveloped nations than in advanced ones?
Environmentalists often argue that disasters are caused by man's "interference with nature" through technology and industrialization. But as the "tsunami tragically demonstrated, environmentalists are dead wrong," said Dr. Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. "Far from being the cause of such tragedies, science, technology and industry provide the only means of safeguarding human lives against natural disasters."
Bernstein points to the recurring example of the relatively undeveloped Caribbean islands, which suffer far worse devastation and loss of life from the same hurricanes that hammer Florida year after year. The U.S. makes its hurricane forecasts available to these island nations, but because of poor communications, bad roads and bridges, weak structures and buildings, lack of medicine, etc., the loss of life is often far greater than in the U.S., where "the use of satellites, radar and communication technology make it possible to predict hurricanes and warn people well in advance of danger; well-maintained highways enable people to evacuate swiftly and safely; steel and concrete homes better withstand nature's fury than wooden or thatched huts; hospitals and medicines are readily available to quickly treat the injured."
"Nature," said Bernstein, "always has and always will produce earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, hurricanes, etc. But only science helps us understand these potential killers, and only technology and industrialization help us protect ourselves from them."Dec 28, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From an AP report: One third of those killed in disaster may be children.The U.N. organization estimates at least one-third of the tens of thousands who died were children, and the proportion could be up to half, said UNICEF spokesman Alfred Ironside in New York. He said communities are suffering a double loss: dead children and orphaned boys and girls. "Our major concern is that the kids who survived the tsunami now survive the aftermath. Because children are the most vulnerable to disease and lack of proper nutrition and water." Children make up at least half of the population in Asia. Many of them work alongside poverty-stricken parents in the fishing or related industries in coastal areas, so they were in harm's way when the tidal waves came. Many children from the more affluent families would also have been on the beaches for a stroll or for Sunday picnics. In Sri Lanka, which suffered the biggest loss of life in the tsunami, crowds had come to the beaches to watch the sea after word spread that it was producing larger-than-normal waves. Thousands of children joined their elders to see the spectacle. The waves brought in fish. The old and the young collected them. Many waited for more fun. Then the 15 feet-to-20 feet tidal waves hit the tropical island of 19 million people. "They got caught and could not run to safety. This is the reason why we have so many child victims," said Rienzie Perera, a police spokesman who said reports from affected police stations indicated children made up about half the victims in Sri Lanka.
And from The Wall Street Journal editorials: A Great Natural Disaster: Prosperity is the best defense against tsunami.Rich countries suffer fewer fatalities from natural disasters because their prosperity has allowed them to create better protective measures. Consider the 41,000 death toll in last December's earthquake in Iran compared with the 63 who died when a slightly stronger earthquake hit San Francisco in 1989. The principal victims of the tidal waves in Sri Lanka and elsewhere Sunday were the poor people living in coastal shanty towns. The wealthier countries around the Pacific Rim have an established early-warning system against tsunamis, while none currently exists in South Asia. Developing countries that have resisted the Kyoto climate-change protocols have done so from fear that it will suppress their economic growth. These countries deserve an answer from the proponents of those standards. How are they supposed to pay for such protection amid measures that are suppressing global economic growth?
Cheese and Crackers has a post with video, articles and donation links regarding the tsunami disaster. From CNN: Tsunami death toll tops 116,000. Digital Globe has high-resolution before and after pictures of the devastation caused by the tsunami (via LGF). Here's a U.S. government list of South Asia tsunami/earthquake relief agencies.Dec 27, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From CNN: Yushchenko: Ukraine finally free.Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has said Ukraine will finally be free after declaring himself the winner of the rerun of fraud-filled presidential elections.
However, despite Western monitors declaring the election came closer to meeting international standards, supporters of the pro-Russian candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych on Monday vowed to challenge the results in court. ...
Yanukovych had the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Yushchenko has stronger ties to the West.
Rybachak said Yushchenko intended to go to Moscow right away for talks with Putin.
"His first ... trip will be as president to go to Moscow to discuss with President Putin about bilateral relations," said Rybachak. "We clearly under[stand] Russia is our priority and Yuschenko's first trip will be to Putin."
While there were good ideas in 
From an AP report: 
From CNN: