An Update on Kenya

This update on Kenya is brought to IRWatch by our from Senior Correspondent Carl M. (who is too lazy to set up his own Blogger account).

Today I attended a seminar on Kenya's political climate. It was "headlined" by one of the few female parliamentary candidates that ran in 07. She talked a lot about the post-election violence, as well as highlighting the problems facing women in the country's political arena.

She was, as you were, disgruntled by western media outlets labeling of the "tribal violence". Her stance on the issue was that it was, at it's core, political protests against corruption. Violence to this and other issues, such as land use, was encouraged, and even paid for by tribal elders. This lead to much of the violence being along tribal lines, but not for tribal differences, rather it was over land use issues that the government has failed to resolve.

There were numerous cases of "warring" tribes taking each other in from the violence.

Another speaker pointed out that half the deaths in Kenya were caused by police in response to the protests. Live rounds were regularly used by riot police the moment anti-government protests turned violent. I do not know the source of her numbers, but the scenario is quite believable.

Concerning technology in Africa, one of the main reasons the populace believed they were robbed of the election is the widespread use of texting. Landlines are fairly rare, but cell phones are apparently quite common. Local election results were posted at each polling place. This information was spread through texting, and it was widely held by the populace that the challenging candidate won by a large margin. When results were delayed and eventually announced in favor of the incumbent, the protests that eventually turned violent began.

An Addendum on NATO

I couldn't find a place to put this in my previous post (the Past and Future of NATO) on NATO that was going in my final thesis, but I found this interesting nonetheless. This is from Dr. Nile Gardiner of the Heritage foundation, and I have heard this slogan repeated on more than one occasion to berate NATO members who are not willing to get into the heavier fighting in Aghanistan.

"NATO is a war-fighting alliance, not a glorified peacekeeping group."
(The NATO Riga Summit: Time for Backbone in the Alliance)

Is it? Is it really? It started as a defensive organization, and since after the Cold War when it started actually intervening in conflicts, two of the three were definite peacekeeping missions. I really hate bumper sticker catch phrases because they rarely if ever have any basis in reality.

The Past and Future of NATO

While the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has little to do with international politics in East Asia, it would be amiss for a review of present day US-Russian relations not to mention NATO. Even aside from the aforementioned European missile defense, which NATO actually just approved (NATO Endorses European Missile Shield), Russia is frustrated by NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the United States is eager to gain more allies willing to commit troops to the war in Afghanistan. But why is Russia so frustrated by NATO's expansion, and why is the United States concerned with NATO membership when NATO is not the possible source for troops in Afghanistan?

In the late 1940s, NATO was created with the United States in Western Europe as a regional counterbalance to the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, it was a purely defensive alliance; throughout the Cold War it did not have a single military engagement. In fact it was not until three years after the fall of the Soviet Union, that NATO entered into its first armed conflict, in the final months of the conflict in Bosnia. In 1999, NATO was called upon again and quickly ended the war in Kosovo. In 2001, NATO agreed that the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States constituted an attack on a member nation, and in 2003 NATO took command of the war in Afghanistan. In addition, throughout the late 1990s, Eastern European countries were invited and began to become members of the alliance. Not coincidentally, tensions between NATO and the Russian Federation rose during this period as well.

But why does modern non-communist Russia so dislike NATO? A member of the Brookings Institution puts it this way: to Russia "NATO is a four letter word" (James Goldgeier, Power and Purpose p183). Russia feels this way because of a combination of factors: NATO was originally formed as opposing Russia, and has very recently become more militaristic, and is expanding into Russia's strategic back yard of Eastern Europe.

A true rethinking of the concepts behind NATO need to be considered. This is not to say that the United States should bow to Russia's concerns, but just recognize that the security interests of Russia and the United States are not mutually exclusive. Compromise on this issue could do a great deal to help the United States with its other issues of contention with Russia.

A Look at Eastern European Missile Defense

We all know that the current Russian administration doesn't like proposed missile shield in Eastern Europe. In a previous post (Former Prime Minister of Russia on the Eastern European Missile Shield), we've established that even pro-western Russian moderates such as Yegor Gaidar are "extremely worried about this [ABM] program". But what is the government's official stance on this program? In May of 2007, two proponents of this policy were called before Congress and asked to explain if the United States and Europe need a European missile defense system. Together they presented the following argument:

The world’s most threatening and unstable regimes can develop and deploy lethal nuclear arsenals and the ballistic missiles to deliver them to Europe and even the United States ... The Intelligence Community estimates that Iran could develop long-range missiles capable of reaching all of Europe and the United States by 2015 if it chooses to do so ... The missile defense system that we are proposing to place in Europe—in cooperation with Poland and the Czech Republic—would provide an extra layer of protection against possible missile attacks not only to the United States, but also to NATO allies and other European friends ... We cannot have U.S. security decoupled from that of our NATO allies. We cannot take a unilateral or isolationist approach to security.

...

The 10 interceptors we hope to field in Poland and the radar in the Czech Republic would have little or no capability against Russia’s large strategic offensive force, which could overwhelm the U.S. system’s limited number of interceptors regardless of their location. In theoretical one-on-one engagements, U.S. interceptors located in Europe would have little or no capability to intercept Russian ICBMs launched at the United States as the U.S. interceptors are too slow to catch Russian ballistic missiles.

There is no reason to believe that traditional nuclear deterrence would not work both ways in relations between Europe and Iran. The real problem is that Europe is not sufficiently motivated to take military action against Iran, especially after the 2007 United States National Intelligence Estimate which stated with high confidence that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons.

In addition, these plans made unilaterally with Poland and the Czech Republic because NATO was not willing to collectively sign onto the process. This unilateral action left the United States holding the bill for the cost of the system. But though the fiscal cost is significant, the diplomatic cost pales in comparison. It needlessly served to worsen US relations with Russian and led to Russia suspending its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (-BBC News).


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Full transcript of the hearing:
Do the United States and Europe need a missile defense system? : joint hearing before the Subcommittee on Europe and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, first session, May 3, 2007.

What is a Cold War?

After the Soviet Union had fallen, the Russian economy was in shambles, whereas the United States was the world’s only remaining superpower. Many areas of goodwill had already begun to emerge, and many believed the Cold War was over. The United States had little to fear from the new Russian government, but was this also true of Russia? Though the Warsaw Pact was had been dissolved, NATO remained, and in fact would begin expanding through old Warsaw Pact members. In recent years, nuclear arms talks would end. The United States would abandon the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, and would not only begin building a ballistic missile shield in the United States, but in Eastern Europe as well. In response, the Russian Federation withdrew from the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. Many have asserted that this is the beginning of a new cold war. But what is a cold war? What actually makes tensions into a cold war, and is it possible to stop it?

MLK and International Justice

This article comes from IRWatch Senior Correspondent, Janelle F.

Today the US remembers and celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man known for his profound influence on the Civil Rights Movement and its intersections with American social politics. This is also a fitting time to recall Dr. King's activism in the realm of US foreign policy and world politics, specifically in his reactions to the Vietnam War. He saw the war in Vietnam as a symptom of a greater disease, one in which people's rights were denied and their welfare jeopardized – the same disease causing the ugly symptom of social injustice in the US.

On April 4, 1967, Dr. King gave a speech to Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City (the full text of the speech can be found here). He called for an end to the violence in Vietnam, but also for more than that. He called for sympathies that crossed racial, political, and national boundaries – for all people to unite in their common humanity, and allow that commonality to be the driving force in relations among nations and people.

"Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.

"This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
…

"Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and non-violence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition."

Through mutual respect and compassion, Dr. King believed we could achieve a greater peace and find mutual benefit. However, he also had a rather sentient vision of the alternative:

"There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. And if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing Clergy and Laymen Concerned with committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy."

Perhaps the best way to honor the legacy of Dr. King is not simply to rejoice in the great strides that have already been taken, but to continue to push forward toward the realization of his vision of true justice, equality, and peace.

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Source
The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute

"Japan plans Tokyo missile shield"

Missile Shields aren't just for Eastern Europe and Alaska anymore. According to the BBC:

The Japanese military carried out their [Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)] assessment in the capital overnight.

According to a military spokesman, the two sites surveyed were Shinjuku Park, a business hub in central Tokyo, and a site in Ichigaya, not far from the Imperial Palace and key government offices.

...

PAC-3 missile defence systems have already been installed at two bases in Japan, with authorities planning an expansion to a total of 11 sites by 2011.

The Japanese government is also co-operating with the US on ship-based missile defence systems.

In December 2007, a Japanese warship successfully shot down a mock ballistic missile off Hawaii, in the first test of a system that will ultimately be installed on four destroyers.

Interesting. While Japan has more of a definable threat from North Korea than Eastern Europe from Iran, this leads me to bigger questions. Is the US actively proliferating ABM technology? Certainly seems that way.

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Source
BBC News - Asia Pacific, Japan plans Tokyo missile shield