The New Clarion

In researching African development for my entry on Ethiopia, I came across a startling fact about a neighboring country that I had never encountered before.

When one thinks of Somalia, one thinks of pirates, the civil war (and Clinton’s disastrous humanitarian intervention in 1993), extreme poverty, and anarchy. From the perspective of the Western democracies, Somalia’s situation is untenable and incomprehensible: it lacks a central government.

The remarkable fact that I mentioned earlier is that it’s doing as well as or better than ever. The dictatorship of Siad Barre was of a Stalinist, socialist bent so it’s not a particularly high threshold to meet, but conventional wisdom—at least among international aid types—is that the more state the better. According to their notions, Somalia should be utter chaos where life is “nasty, brutish, and short.”

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In December, I visited Ethiopia to pick up my newly-adopted son (proud father link, if you’ll bear with me) and I was struck by the prevalence of commerce throughout the capital city, Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is known as a Third World country with widespread poverty; with a per-capita income of $780, there are few countries in the world poorer than it. But everywhere I looked there were entrepreneurs of every stripe selling goods, services, and capital goods. I struggled to understand this seeming paradox of highly-visible capitalism in one of the poorest nations.

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…the news of where Obama’s policies are taking us could not be worse. First, Obama is letting legal considerations dictate policies of war. Bush also failed here, but I’m not sure if he would have done this:

The captain of a ship that the United States Navy recently detained has said his vessel is now en route to Syria. The boat was initially believed to be carrying arms destined for Hamas, though sources say the weapons will likely be delivered to Hezbollah.

The U.S. navy was forced to release the ship, which it had detained in the Red Sea on suspicion of carrying arms to Hamas-ruled Gaza. Weapons of various kinds were found aboard the ship, which was flying the Cypriot flag when it was stopped January 19, the U.S. military said.

The ship was released Tuesday when it became apparent that there was no legal basis for holding it.

No legal basis for holding a ship full of weapons headed for terrorists? Is this a serious way to wage the “war on terror”?

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As a followup to a previous post about the Charter 08 movement in China, I’d like to draw your attention to this Washington Post article.

I wondered in that blog entry whether it would “catch hold as a rallying point.” It has gained thousands more signatures since it came out last year, which is paltry given China’s massive population but incredible when you think of the possible consequences of signing. The crackdown on signatories has continued apace; this could be another Tiananmen Square in the making.

The right to life, liberty, and property is universal. The Chinese government’s failure to live up to its responsibility in safeguarding those inherent rights cannot stand. Their attempts to squelch and suppress this cry for freedom will only serve to embolden and broaden the resolve. I am heartened by the Chinese people’s actions and I wish them the best of luck in their struggle.

According to this article, Hugo Chavez is willing to allow foreign oil companies to begin investing in Venezuelan oil projects again, since Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, is in dire need of new victims to despoil. 

It is a telling sign of how deeply the global economic crisis has cut: President Hugo Chávez, who initially reveled in describing the crash as proof of capitalism’s flaws, is now quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

Until recently, buoyed by the surging price of oil, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with the tax authorities and imposing a series of royalty increases.

But faced with the plunge in oil prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials here have quietly begun soliciting some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks, including Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, in the hope of getting them to invest in Venezuela again.

It is hard to imagine any company would consider accepting such an invitation to disaster.  Nevertheless, they are considering it.     

But energy executives here speak with restrained optimism. Nineteen companies paid $2 million each last month for data on areas open for exploration, twice what such data costs elsewhere.

Perhaps the oil companies can make some kind of profit from such ventures, even after Chavez nationalizes them, since he is magnanimous enough (sarcasm) to allow them to remain as minority partners after the nationalizations.  But that is no excuse for aiding and abetting the rule of an anti-American socialist, who allies himself with all of America’s enemies.

None of this seems to register with oil company executives, who would rather “go along to get along” than stand on such old fashioned grounds as principles, such as justice, (freely negotiated) contracts, and property rights.  They are dunces, the proverbial type who will sell our enemies the rope with which to hang us.   These are the same executives who support the anthropogenic global warming hysteria that demonizes their own industry, and the catastrophic legislation to slay that mythical dragon.

“If re-engaging with foreign oil companies is necessary to his political survival, then Chávez will do it,” said Roger Tissot, an authority on the Venezuelan oil industry at Gas Energy, a Brazilian consulting firm focusing on Latin America. “He is a military man who understands losing a battle to win the war.”

There is no secret about Chavez’s intentions here.  He is saying: “I need some useful idiots to help me fight America.  Any takers?”  And oil executives are not being wall-flowers in their eagerness to dance to Hugo’s tune.

In a move typical of this body, the United Nations Security Council on Sunday roused itself to call for a halt to “all violence in the Gaza Strip” after Israel launched air strikes on several Hamas installations.  The preceding week of rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel elicited nothing from the UN.  In their normal role of ally to thugs and aggressors the world over, the UN aids and abets Hamas’s hit and run attacks on Israel by allowing Hamas to attack with impunity, and then rushing in to defend them when Israel finally responds.  The institution is a disgrace to the world, and particularly to the US, which continues to host the evil organization on its own soil.

 http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-12-28-voa3.cfm

North Korea has declined to make its oral agreements official, moving diplomatic negotiations to end its nuclear weapons program back to the starting line. So it is now not an official sponsor of terrorism, some of the sanctions against it have been lifted, and it faces an Obama administration that pledges “direct and aggressive diplomacy” but will likely be as conciliatory as the Clinton administration was—though probably not including a basketball signed by Michael Jordan.

Although Kim Jong-Il had a stroke, it still seems like this has been his year. The civilized world continues to treat him as just another world leader while his diplomatic service strings them along with laborious talks that go nowhere. He has been using his nuclear weapon aspirations as a lever to get ever-increasing concessions from the West.

But what should we be doing about North Korea? Diplomacy clearly doesn’t work with Kim Jong-Il as it’s been 14 years since the original effort. We are stretched too thin with Iraq and Afghanistan already to invade North Korea and get rid of his nuclear program completely. I think a targeted air strike like Israel’s back in 1981 would take care of their sole nuclear plant capable of manufacturing plutonium. Our foreign policy should properly address our enlightened self-interest, so to speak, and eliminating the weapons program would suffice to that end.

Longer term, it is clear that Kim Jong-Il and his regime of thugs is a menace to the free world. The United States, with or without United Nations support, should seek to topple the DPRK. We could arm the citizenry, providing air support as necessary, while encouraging South Korea to invade with an eye toward reunification. Technically, we are still at war with North Korea so we could provide troops without complication. Furthermore, this time around North Korea has no friends like China or the Soviet Union to lean on. Countries like France, Russia, and such will squawk but they won’t put up much in the way of opposition. This war is the one that we should have fought instead of the one in Iraq—the DPRK is much more of a threat than Saddam Hussein ever was.

Over 300 Chinese intellectuals have signed what’s called Charter 08, a manifesto calling for Western-style democracy to be instituted in China. Two of its authors have already been arrested. The document, as you might expect, is more Universal Declaration of Human Rights than Declaration of Independence but it’s still a wonderful start and contains a number of surprising gems:

1. A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding its provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with the people and turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human rights, authorizes the exercise of public power, and serves as the legal underpinning of China’s democratization. The constitution must be the highest law in the land, beyond violation by any individual, group, or political party.

14. Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market.

As well as some not-so-surprising turds:

16. Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security system that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education, health care, retirement security, and employment.

17. Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural environment and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and responsible to our descendents and to the rest of humanity. This means insisting that the state and its officials at all levels not only do what they must do to achieve these goals, but also accept the supervision and participation of non-governmental organizations.

It’s a courageous step, far better in its understanding of the proper role of government than I had thought. Will it catch hold as a rallying point? Can the rule of law ever come to China? At least we now know where to keep our attention focused.

Pirates off the coast of Somalia have had a field day this year, successfully capturing 39 vessels including a Saudi supertanker. Navies from around the world are steaming around the Gulf of Aden trying to provide some cover in a joint task force. But so far, the most that has happened is eight pirates picked up in Somali waters were dropped off in Kenya for trial.

The most common reaction to this situation is incredulity, an amazement that this is a problem in this modern era. But should we really be surprised at these blatant attacks?

Denmark, which is leading the joint task force this year, caught ten pirates in September but released them after six days of “sweating” in a “hot container.” Why were they released? Because the Danish authorities, both military and civilian, couldn’t figure out what to do with them. If they were made to stand trial in neighboring countries, they may have faced the death penalty. And if they were brought back to Denmark, they could “seek asylum.” So the Danes dropped them on a Somali beach near where they lived, restored to them their non-weapon personal effects, and bade them good luck. In a repeat incident earlier this month, the Danish “warship” caught two pirate boats, confiscated the weapons, and let the pirates go. One of the pirate ships sank due to weather, but the Danes refused to send crews to recover that boat so that the pirates might learn a lesson.

It’s not just the pacifist Europeans either. The United States naval commander recommended that merchant vessels learn defensive maneuvers and maybe consider carrying armed guards. For Admiral Gortney, the answer is “on the beach—Somalia—assuring security and stability and making sure the conditions that breed pirates are no longer there.” The Pentagon press secretary concurs that the situation “requires a holistic approach from the international community at sea, ashore, with governance, with economic development.” I guess the administration wants to formalize the ransoms that the Somali pirates are demanding by taking the money from the shipping companies (and all of us) and then paying protection money to Somalia in the form of foreign aid. Maybe if they got handouts, the “thinking” goes, they wouldn’t need to acquire machine guns and take to the seas.

A Wall Street Journal op-ed’s title said everything I was thinking on this subject: “Why Don’t We Hang Pirates Anymore?” It turns out that Articles 100 through 111 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea are unsurprisingly milquetoast on this issue. It suggests in Article 100 that “all States shall cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State.” But then it says in Article 110 that a warship cannot even board a pirate ship except to verify its right to fly its flag. Once piracy is established, Article 105 allows for the courts to mete out punishment. But as the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “one of the challenges that we have—you have in piracy clearly is, if you are intervening and you capture pirates, is there a path to prosecute them?

While a functioning state in Somalia is the best prescription for ending piracy in its waters, that is beyond a proper foreign policy. These pirates are violating individual rights wholesale; we must stop them through force. The United States military must expands its rules of engagement to lethal and decisive levels even though no pirate has yet dared to attack an American merchant ship. Safety on the high seas is always in our interest and we must muster the fortitude our forefathers did during the Barbary wars.