The European Council voted today in a closed-door meeting to appoint the low-profile Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian Prime Minister, to the newly-created position of Permanent President of the European Council, passing over the heavyweight candidacy of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair that was heavily campaigned for by the current British PM, Gordon Brown.

Touted as the first “President of Europe” (that’s a bit of a misnomer), the newly-created position (along with a newly created EU-wide Foreign Minister) was designed to provide a higher profile for the EU on the international stage.

The EU's governance system is highly complicated to an outsider (or even to an insider - most Europeans are extremely apathetic about EU politics). Here's a chart that I nerdily made to show how political power in the EU works

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Once again, Mr. Obama is being faulted for bowing to a foreign leader.  Here is the video of our president briefly genuflecting to Emperor Akihito of Japan.

Barack Obama bows to Japan’s Emperor Akihito

All the president is doing is showing his respect for another culture’s traditions.  I happen to believe that many traditions are antiquated nonsense, such as saying “god bless you” after someone sneezes, but a diplomatic rendezvous with one of the world’s most powerful leaders is not the best platform to assert your views on outdated conventions.

Critics of Obama’s graceful curtsy can call it a sign of weakness all they want; it only shows how cripplingly insecure they really are.  I doubt the president’s momentary bending at waist will trigger a massive overthrow of the United States government.

“He bowed to the emperor? That’s the sign we’ve been waiting for! Bust out the nukes boys.”

Respectfully bowing is the very least of our worries.  If another country wanted to destroy our nation, I’m sure we’ve given them plenty of other, more relevant reasons, such as the two wars we are currently fighting, or the career of Nicolas Cage.  And let’s not forget the hand-holding stroll through a park former President Bush took with Saudi King Abdullah.  At least Obama didn’t treat the emperor like a nursing home resident.

So I think our country is going to be just fine.  No Pearl Harbor 2 (Pearl Harder), and no more Pokemon designed to secretly poison our youth against us.  After all, this country did nuke the hell out of two Japanese cities not that long ago – the least we can do is be a little nice.

As noted recently in the Washington Monthly, House Republican leader John Boehner has released as a statement bashing Attorney General Eric Holder’s attempt at prosecuting 9/11 mastermind Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed in NYC.  Stating that

“The Obama Administration’s irresponsible decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people. The possibility that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators could be found ‘not guilty’ due to some legal technicality just blocks from Ground Zero should give every American pause.

Boehner points out the flaw in American justice, as clearly there’s a chance that he could be found not guilty, and probably because of liberals. Maybe the ACLU? I’m not sure how after apprehending Mohammed and keeping him as our prisoner for years, now that we are officially prosecuting him, in the manner that western “civilized” society should, that this could be viewed as irresponsible. Perhaps he just watched an old video of Rudy Guliani’s performance after September 11th, and remembered,  utter the words 9/11 – liberal – special interests – and watch your ratings soar!

But, I will give credit, because as Boehner points out

“This decision is further evidence that the White House is reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality – treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue and hoping for the best. We need a real strategy for fighting and winning the war on America’s terrorist enemies that includes an effective, credible, and consistent plan for all terrorist detainees.”

I mean, after we’ve gone to their country, bombed the hell out of it, and captured the leader, of course now some liberal latte sippers would want to prosecute him in court. And that sets a dangerous precedent. Liberals want to treat captured prisoners like humans who should be officially sentenced, when we need a real strategy, like tort-AHEM!AHEM! enhanced interrogation, and disappearances, and secret prisons. Maybe we could call them gulags? And when the world looks back upon our country, the greatness they will see for us so wonderfully defeating terrorism in the enlightened manner of Captain Boehner and the Right WingNut Brigade.

News that I missed…

The Buenos Aires Herald reported that the Argentinian Supreme court ruled that marijuana will no longer be treated as a criminal offense for users, stating that

“…it is unconstitutional to punish marijuana consumers, if that action does not harm third parties. The decision would put an end to a long-term debate, in which users had claimed that the incumbent drug law violated privacy rights.”

Surprisingly, this is in accord with their federal government, who held

“The government has backed  the initiative to decriminalize drug consumers, as it would allow the government to focus its policies on drug trafficking networks instead of users. Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández said the decriminalization would allow users “to be treated as addicts instead of criminals.”

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An Italian court convicted 23 American intelligence officials of kidnapping in broad daylight a 23 year-old Muslim man that they suspected (incorrectly) of terrorism from the streets of Milan and subsequently sending him to Egyptian authorities (a country known to torture prisoners), where he was then (surprise) tortured.

Unfortunately, this is completely routine behaviour for the CIA, which has been engaging in what is called “extraordinary rendition” (the act of kidnapping terrorism suspects and sending them to secret prisons in countries known to torture prisoners) since at least 2006, probably earlier.

This is all completely illegal under international law. The United Nations Convention Against Torture (of which the US is a signatory) specifically states:

1. No State Party shall expel, return (”refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

A European Union investigation has estimated that the CIA has performed 1,245 secret flights through its territory to states where suspects will likely face torture. A Swiss investigation has concluded that at least 100 people have been kidnapped while in Europe.

The US should never have started this completely unethical and illegal program. Since it has not been stopped, international courts should follow the example of the Italian court and others that have opened investigations and immediately investigate these actions and prosecute them to the full extent of international law.

International representation of women in Parliaments and Congress varies dramatically, from a close-to-proportional rate of 48.8% in Rwanda to an inexcusable 0% in nine countries (these nations are listed below). You will note that in no country on Earth is there more than 50% representation of women in a nationally elected body. Every nation is ruled by more men than women, with some being more egalitarian than others.

The map below highlights nations with roughly proportional female representation in national legislatures as well as nations with less than proportional representation.

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which keeps data on the composition of international legislatures, there are 44,145 members of legislatures in the world. Only 7,999 of them are women. Thus, only 18.2% of members of all legislatures around the world are women.

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While in Marrakesh, Morrocco today, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged $100 million in aid to the greater Muslim community to “boost ties” with the Muslim world, with a large portion of that undoubtedly going to Egypt, which has been ruled by a domestically unpopular autocratic regime for decades. For years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has donated over $100 billion (adjusted for inflation) in military and economic assistance to help prop up the Egyptian government, more than any other nation besides Israel (I’m not gonna open that can of worms – at least not here).

What’s the reason for this? It’s complicated. Most Egyptians do not like their current government, and would like to see it opened up to real democracy (currently, the only candidate that is ever allowed on the presidential ballot is the current President, Hosni Mubarak). Further than that, most support a political organization called the Muslim Brotherhood, which engaged in terrorist activity in the 1950s but has long since become a reputable and legitimate political party with an Islamist ideology (Islamist does not mean that they are terrorists or that they necessarily want to implement rigid sharia law, but only that – like many Republicans and Democrats – they use their religion to guide their politics).

Despite the fact that the organization has been outlawed in Egypt (not because it’s dangerous, but only because it’s more popular than the president’s party), more than a dozen members have managed to get elected to the few national elected political positions not under the complete control of the president, showing just how widespread their support among average Egyptians is.

And it is precisely because of this perfectly legitimate and highly popular political organization that the United States continues to send $1.3 billion in military assistance every year to an undemocratic and autocratic regime with the excuse of “fighting terrorism” and “spreading democracy.”

This absurdly ironic situation needs to stop; the United States is only sending this money to Egypt because of their personal preferences in dealing with governments without Islamist leaders, and not in support of Democracy or against terrorism.

The United States should not send aid to “boost ties” with the Muslim community if that aid is only going to be used to oppress the majority of Muslims from expressing their political will at the ballot box.

WARNING: The ideas advocated in this post have absolutely no chance of occurring.

The United States has the oldest continually-operating constitution in the world. When first hearing this fact many Americans react with smug pride. That’s stupid; our political system is nothing to write home about.

The reason why nations so often change their constitutions is because their old ones don’t work anymore. Or (as is the case in the United States), they simply function at a level that is tolerable but far from ideal. Our current system is a presidential republic; parliamentary republics function much better.

In the United States, the President governs at the whim of a Congress that he or she often has little or no control over, even if he or she is of the same party as the majorities in one or either house of Congress (see: Barack Obama). The President’s agenda is rarely passed in a way that leads to the result that the President intended because all legislative power in concentrated in Congress. Beyond swaying public opinion in his or her favor, the President does not have any real control over how the bills he or she has to sign and enforce are written. There are obvious flaws to this, with Presidents often having extremely antagonistic relationships with their Congresses and even more combative attitudes toward the legislative intent of laws that he or she doesn’t agree with (see: George W. Bush and the Bill of Rights). Read the rest of this entry »

There is perhaps no other country in Africa that had more hope or promise for the future than Zimbabwe. And, like most of Africa, Zimbabwe has tragically had its hopes and dreams absolutely obliterated due to complete abject mismanagement of the economy by a despot ruler intent on clinging to power at any cost.

Without any dramatic stretch of the imagination, the situation in Zimbabwe can be viewed as representative of the situation on the entire African continent. Zimbabwe, like the continent as a whole, was once a place with enormous hope and promise. It is now an autocratic regime with probably the most mismanaged economy in the world.

Since 1980, Robert Mugabe has held unbridled power over the citizens of Zimbabwe. After decades of white-only rule, Mugabe first looked as though he would be an effective and fair ruler. Twenty-nine years of despotic rule later and that theory has been shown to be false. Mugabe has made illegal land grabs, beaten, jailed, and killed opposition members, rewarded his bully men with the land he illegally took (which they then grossly mismanaged), and stolen at least three elections – probably more.

But beyond the egregious human rights violations, the people of Zimbabwe have suffered the worst through the completely corrupt mismanagement of the economy.

Before having to abandon its own currency, the Zimbabwe dollar, Zimbabwe was afflicted with the worst case of hyperinflation in world history. During the peak of its hyperinflation crisis, Zimbabwe’s rate of inflation was estimated to be at the unfathomable rate of 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000% (there are twenty zeroes there, FYI) and its exchange rate with the US dollar was 300,000,000,000,000 (fourteen zeroes, if you’re still counting) Zimbabwe dollars to one US dollar. In 2002, that figure was Z$300 : US $1. Things clearly had gotten bad, fast.

After having ten zeroes taken off of all Zimbabwean currency in 2008, $100 billion still only bought three eggs.

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AP Photo.

Let’s start with some little-known facts:

1. An Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would be bad, but not nearly as bad as most Americans think.
2. It is likely that there is something fishy going on with Iran’s nuclear program, but there is absolutely no proof of this that we know of.
3. There is a strong possibility that Iran is working towards nuclear capability, but it is unlikely that they will actually develop a bomb.
4. A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a threat to the United States, but only indirectly.

If the second half of any of these facts are surprising to you, you’re not alone. Iran is perhaps the country the most misunderstood by and misrepresented to the American public, the vast majority of whom write it off as simply another crackpot Arab dictatorship to deal with.

Besides being completely untrue, the situation is far more nuanced than that. A history lesson for most Americans would go a long way towards assuaging the tensions between our two (very similar) nations.The similarities that many Americans see between Iran and the Arab world are almost entirely superficial.

Iranians are in fact not even Arab; they’re Persian. They do not speak Arabic, but a completely unrelated (it has far more in common with English or French than Arabic. E.g. the word for father: padayr, mother: madayr) and far older language called Farsi. They do not practice Sunni Islam, as the vast majority of the Arab world does, but are Shia. Iran’s history and culture are far older and – many Iranians believe – more sophisticated than that originating in Arabia, which some Iranians look down upon. Iran has, at best, a suspicious and distant relationship with its Arab neighbors.

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