Staying in Iraq

I've been saying for years that we aren't leaving Iraq any time soon, despite our supposed withdrawal date, and a report from the Washington Post appears to confirm that assumption.

U.S. officials welcomed on Wednesday Iraq’s decision to negotiate with Washington on keeping some U.S. troops in the country into next year ... Iraq’s top political leaders agreed late Tuesday that the Iraqi military needs to continue training programs with U.S. forces, marking the first step in a process that still could take months to resolve.

On the one hand the U.S. has good reasons for retaining a military presence in Iraq, which are laid out in the article. But the problems lie in the details.

Significant details that remain unresolved include the length and focus of any training program, how many U.S. troops such training might require and how Iraqi leaders would formally request and approve a new partnership. Mullen and his colleagues also want legal immunity for any troops who stay behind.

One huge detail not mentioned is who is going to pay for the continuing U.S. presence. If Iraq wants and needs U.S. troops to remain in its country beyond the agreed upon withdrawal date, it should provide the financial support for that presence. With our fiscal situation as it is, we should not continue to maintain large foreign deployments, plus the aid programs that go with them, at our expense.

$350 Million for Malawi?

According to the New York Times, yesterday the U.S. froze a $350 million dollar "grant" to Malawi.

A senior American official, Sheila Herrling, said Tuesday that the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal agency, was “deeply disturbed” by accusations that the police had fired live rounds on unarmed people last week, and by claims that press coverage of the two-day demonstrations had been suppressed. The $350 million grant from the corporation, which was announced only in April and was to be disbursed over five years for electricity generation, is a large amount of money for Malawi, whose annual budget is about $2 billion.

I'd be willing to bet that many Americans would be very surprised to hear, especially given our own fiscal situation, that until this hold we were going to give $350 million dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to Malawi. Even I was surprised at the amount, although I know that we just hand out cash like candy to pretty much anyone, even to hostile populations like the Palestinians and the Pakistanis.

Obama's Mideast Speech

I found nothing particularly surprising in the president's speech. It was the sort of thing I would expect from someone whose foreign policy ideas are based largely on an exaggerated notion of the power of talking and on wishful thinking. Like some freedom agenda promoters on the right, Obama seems oblivious to the fact that democracy in other states is not necessarily in the U.S. interest. He dismisses such concerns as temporary, and exhibits a sort of childlike faith in democracy. As usual he shows no understanding of the difference between the collapse of regimes favorable to the U.S., and of those who are hostile.

Obama's remark about using the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians has stirred up a hornets' nest. Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic points out that this idea is nothing new to U.S. policy.

This has been the basic idea for at least 12 years. This is what Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were talking about at Camp David, and later, at Taba. This is what George W. Bush was talking about with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. So what's the huge deal here? Is there any non-delusional Israeli who doesn't think that the 1967 border won't serve as the rough outline of the new Palestinian state?

As I wrote in the previous post, I think a Palestinian state is a very bad idea and should not be U.S. policy. But I agree with Goldberg that there has been an overreaction to this particular comment by Obama. The whole so-called "peace process" has been a bad joke for a long time.

Much more disturbing than the comment about the 1967 borders, is Obama's call to spend even more U.S. money in the region -- as if we aren't spending enough already. In Obama's world, there is nothing that can't be improved by more government spending, and this applies externally as well as internally.

We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo – to build networks of entrepreneurs, and expand exchanges in education; to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the region, we intend to provide assistance to civil society

He goes on to give a laundry list of things we are going to be wasting money on, no doubt in many cases to the benefit of people who despise us.

Money Down a Hole

The U.S. continues to pour money into Pakistan with very little to show for it. The Christian Science Monitor has an article up called, "US aid in Pakistan: Where's the money going?" The answer to that question is: we don't know. According to the article, since 2002 the U.S. has given Pakistan $20.7 billion in aid, more than 2/3 of it to the military.

The US reimburses Pakistan for costs associated with the numerous military operations launched following US goading.

But the Defense Department has failed to obtain enough information to judge whether $2 billion in claims were valid, according to the government accountability office. Their 2008 report found evidence of double billing or repayment for unrelated or nonexistent efforts, including $200 million for radar upgrades – even though militants have no air force that would require such radar.

And you can bet that documentation on the rest of the aid is only slightly less shaky. As in Afghanistan, we are simply pouring money down a hole. And for all this money, we get Osama bin Laden living more or less openly a short distance from major Pakistani military facilities. We also get attempts to shoot down NATO helicopters, safe havens for the Taliban, significant Pakistani military & intelligence ties to terrorist groups, and the use of money that is supposed to fight terrorists going instead to beefing up defenses against our friend India. On top of all that we get constant whining about our actions, outrageous demands, and complete refusal to allow us to direct where our own money is going. Lately Pakistan has even attempted to blackmail us, implying that it will cozy up to China if we dare re-evaluate the massive aid that they feel entitled to.

Pakistan is not our friend and is an ally in little more than name only. In our dealings with it, as with many other countries, we have relied far too much on the carrot and not enough on the stick. No further aid to Pakistan should be extended without tight, binding restrictions. Pakistan's demands and blustering should be treated as the bluffs of a weak country and called. There are plenty of threats of our own that could be made to Pakistan, starting with suggestions that the U.S. might draw much closer to India, including supporting Indian territorial claims. The Osama bin Laden situation has given us the opportunity to cut Pakistan down to size. We should take it.

Can We Stop Giving Money to Our Enemies?

The revelation that Osama bin Laden had been living in luxury in Pakistan, in a resort town full of military families about a mile away from the nation's military academy, has already spurred some calls to cut, or at least reevaluate the massive aid we give to that country. But Pakistan is far from the only dubious recipient of U.S. money. For years it has been U.S. policy to support the Palestinian Authority, an entity made up of people largely hostile to America, whose greatest enemy is Israel, a major U.S. client state. Now our Palestinian "friends" have signed a unity agreement with the terrorist rulers of Gaza, Hamas. According to the BBC, the agreement "paves the way for a joint interim government ahead of national elections next year." As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points out,

"When... the head of the Palestinian Authority embraces Hamas, an organisation that two days ago condemned the American action against Bin Laden, praises Bin Laden to the gills as some great martyr for emulation, when he embraces this organisation that is committed to Israel's destruction, fires rockets on our cities... this is a tremendous setback for peace, and a great advance for terror."

If we continue funding the Palestinians, at some point we will not only be providing money for Israeli missile defenses, but for the rockets those defenses are designed to stop -- if we aren't already.

The Scale of Disaster in Pakistan

As the blogosphere wrangles over the Ground Zero mosque, the current disaster in Pakistan hasn't seemed to get as much coverage. But the sheer scale of the devastation raises all sorts of questions, not only about the future of that country, but about its impact on U.S. policy in the region. Here's Ralph Peters, writing in the New York Post.

Try to grasp that number. Twenty million people, overwhelmingly poor, have lost their homes, their slight "wealth" and their livelihoods. Thousands have died.

And international aid groups estimate that 3.5 million children are at mortal risk from diseases spread by polluted water and poor sanitation. Think cholera, typhoid, dysentery and common diarrhea -- the latter a killer among children in the developing world.

As Peters points out, this makes Hurricane Katrina "look like a thunderstorm." Even the Haitian earthquake, which attracted massive international attention and aid, pales before the scope of this disaster. And unlike Haiti, Pakistan is a nuclear power, home of the strongest branch of the Taliban, and full of millions of people with Islamist sympathies. The U.S. has pumped billions of military aid into the country in an attempt to keep it on-board in the fight in Afghanistan, with mixed results. We are now sending in large amounts of humanitarian aid. But the government, which was already shaky, now appears utterly incompetent to deal with the massive flood. Governments have fallen before because of their inability to respond to disaster. What will happen in Pakistan, and is there anything we can do about it? Peters argues that the Taliban will attempt to exploit the situation.

Islamist extremists will attempt to capitalize on the disaster by 1) providing local aid to the poor; 2) blaming the government for not helping sufficiently; 3) claiming that the deluge was a judgment from Allah for Pakistan's cooperation with the West and for not supporting jihad, and 4) spreading rumors that the US masterminded the flooding to take control of Pakistan and punish Muslims.

This is an extremely volatile situation. Desperate people often do or support things they would never countenance in normal times. And with a fifth of their country underwater, there is incredible desperation in Pakistan.

Things Few People Know About

Did you know that the U.S. just completed its first-ever military exercise with Cambodia?

The recently completed US-Cambodia military drills, known as "Angkor Sentinel 10", involved 1,200 soldiers from 23 countries and were ostensibly part of Washington's Global Peace Operations Initiative, a program run jointly by the US Department of Defense and State Department to help train global peacekeepers against insurgency, terrorism, crime and ethnic conflict.

According to the article, although it had token multinational participation, it was primarily a U.S.-Cambodian affair. The U.S. has been providing funding and training for the Cambodian military since 2006. Along with military assistance, the U.S. is also providing economic aid.

Washington is currently one of Cambodia's largest donors with more than $72 million in assistance this year focused on health, education, economic development and government accountability. The US donated $65 million in 2009.

The whole article is interesting reading, and provides many more details, including the controversial nature of U.S. involvement with the Cambodian armed forces, which don't exactly have a sterling reputation. In the view of Clifford McCoy, the author, U.S. aid to Cambodia is part of a contest for influence with China. The quest to buy friends continues. 

The Terrorist Stimulus Plan

I wish I could take credit for coming up with that title, but the honor goes to Exurban Jon with his article, "Obama announces Terrorist Stimulus Plan." I often criticize President Obama for his failure to act in accord with U.S. interests, and this is a prime example. Here's the key part of the post.

Let me get this straight. Our economy has cratered. Unemployment is nearly 10 percent. The national debt is expected to exceed our gross national product by next year. And we're giving $400,000,000 to our mortal enemies in Gaza?

$400,000,000 to the Hamas-led death cult allied with Iran and Syria? $400,000,000 to the people who celebrated the destruction of the twin towers? $400,000,000 to rain thousands more rockets upon Israeli women and children?

He forgot to mention a couple of other things. We are still involved in two wars, both of which involve major nation-building projects. Afghanistan in particular has no end in sight, and is absorbing more and more resources with not a whole lot of results to show for it. We have no idea what happens to more than 50% of the money we give to that country. No, I'm not exaggerating. Yet somehow we can scrape up 400 million dollars to give to people that hate us.

I know I've posted about this issue recently, but the sheer stupidity of such an aid program is almost beyond belief. We are not going to be able to bribe the Palestinians into being our friends. Are there individual Palestinians deserving of aid, and basically friendly toward the U.S.? Yes, there are. But the Palestinian people as a whole are hostile to the U.S. Rightly or wrongly, they regard Israel as their mortal enemy. The U.S. is Israel's greatest ally and supporter. The Palestinian territories may be infested with fanatical, terrorist-loving people who believe all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories, but even Palestinians are not ignorant enough to think that the U.S. puts their interests ahead of Israel's, or that this aid is anything more than a bribe, and a sop to the U.S.'s Islamic allies in the region. We could give untold billions to the Palestinians, but unless we abandon Israel they are not going to be our friends. They will spit in the face of our gifts, and see only the arms and support we provide to Israel.

There are some situations in foreign policy where it makes sense to play both sides. The Israeli-Palestinian situation is not one of them. The divisions are so clear & sharp between the sides, that there is little room for the U.S. to maneuver. For years now we've tried to pretend that we can be some sort of honest broker in the region, mediating between the two parties, and for the most part we've gotten nowhere. No one is fooled by our honest broker pose. By adopting such a position, and by trying to be even-handed, we gain nothing. We waste our time and resources, we damage our alliance with Israel, and we appear weak and vacillating to our enemies. When we aren't rewarding the Palestinians for their support of terrorism and our enemies, we are encouraging them to believe that if they continue holding out, they might achieve some of their ludicrous demands. Funding our enemies is not only a stupid waste of resources we can't afford, but it achieves nothing.  What's next, an aid program for the Taliban?

Obama Administration Says Helping Our Enemies is a Priority

In the aftermath of the Gaza blockade incident, the Obama administration has been relatively quiet, trying in its typical weak way to appease everyone, rather than taking a clear stand in support of our ally. The latest statement illustrates yet again that we have a foreign policy team that isn't particularly interested in advancing U.S. interests.

"We are working urgently with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and other international partners to develop new procedures for delivering more goods and assistance to Gaza," said Mike Hammer, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

The last thing we should be doing is delivering goods to Hamas-controlled Gaza, a clear enemy of the United States. The Obama-administration is spending U.S. taxpayer money to help Hamas, a terrorist organization that hates the U.S. slightly less than it hates Israel.

"It remains a U.S. priority to provide assistance to the people of Gaza," Hammer said.

What have the people of Gaza ever done to deserve a single penny of U.S. assistance, let alone be a "priority" for U.S. aid? If a nuclear terrorist device took out a U.S. city tomorrow, there'd be rejoicing in the streets of Gaza. Rather than finding new ways to undercut the Israel blockade, the U.S. should stand aside, let Israel do the dirty-work, and shield it from any effective international response. It is clearly in the U.S. interest for the blockade to remain in effect, and for Hamas to be deprived of the weapons and resources it needs to resume attacking Israel. 

On the broader foreign policy front, the Obama administration continues the pretense that a state can separate the people of another state from their government, for purposes of policy. The Bush administration made a similar error, which reflects a lack of understanding of how states interact. It is simply not possible to make a clear distinction in most cases between the general population of a country and its government. For better or worse, a government represents the people to the outside world. No government can remain in power without the support of at least a substantial minority within its own country. And in the case of Hamas, it apparently has majority support in Gaza. The idea that we can help the people of Gaza, yet not help Hamas is ludicrous. By giving assistance to Gaza we are undermining the necessary blockade put in place by our ally Israel, and we are directly assisting a terrorist organization similar in nature to the Islamist enemies we are already at war with. By doing so we gain absolutely nothing. We aren't going to generate good will in Gaza, or a sense of gratitude. The Palestinians despise us. Look at any opinion poll. We will get no credit whatsoever for our efforts. The people of Gaza will take our aid, spit in our faces, and cheer the deaths of Americans whenever they fall to Islamist terrorist attacks. But the fools in charge of our foreign policy are more interested in appeasing international Israel-hating opinion than in U.S. interests.

Note: No HOT5 Daily today. It will return tomorrow.

US Funds Israeli Missile Defense

I often criticize President Obama on foreign policy, so it's worth pointing out when does something right. Israel is in the process of building a multi-layer missile defense system. One key component is called "Iron Dome."

The Iron Dome missile defense system aced a test run in January, and event that convinced senior defense officials that the defense system was on its way to becoming operational and that it will be able to effectively protect against short-range missiles, such as Katyushas and Qassams, which often hit Israeli towns.

Like most missile defense systems, it's expensive, and the question of funding was holding it up.

The budgetary difficulty that has been delaying Israel's armament with the anti-missile defense system Iron Dome has apparently been resolved. The Pentagon has issued a message to Israel's Defense Ministry that U.S. President Barack Obama has approved the transfer of special assistance totaling $205 million (just under NIS 800 million) for the purchase of more than ten Iron Dome batteries.

For those who balk at handing even more money to Israel, here's why I believe this action is in the U.S. interest.

As I've argued before, I believe that U.S. interests are best served by keeping a lid on the overall Arab/Israeli situation, and by a policy of deterrence toward Iran and its likely eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons. An effective Israeli missile defense system will do several things. First, it will lessen the chance that Israel will need to take offensive action to defend itself. Rockets which are intercepted before they strike are much more tolerable than ones which hit Israeli towns and kill civilians. It may even make Palestinian rocket attacks even more counterproductive than they are already. Why make the effort to launch such attacks if there is little likelihood that they'll hit any targets?

An Israel with an effective missile defense system is also an Israel that might be more willing to consider a deterrent policy with regard to Iran. Iron Dome doesn't counter long range missile threats, but it's a component of an layered system, which would at least partially reduce the threat from Iran's ally/proxy Hezbollah. With the U.S. tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the situation as fragile as it is in both places, the last thing we need is a major war caused by a preemptive Israeli offensive. Such a war would radically alter the dynamics of the situation, and cost far more than the $205 million we are shelling out to Israel. If improving Israeli defenses makes offensive action less likely, and I believe it does, than the money is well-spent. Finally, we have our own needs regarding missile defense. Funding what appears to be a successful Israeli project could benefit our own efforts through technology transfer. It is also likely that Israeli defenses will be tested for real, as they intercept rockets from Gaza. The data from a working missile defense system should be invaluable to missile defense research in general.

The Congo War

Nicholas Kristof has an article in today's New York Times called, "The Grotesque Vocabulary in Congo." The title refers to two terms used to describe things that happen in the seemingly endless war.

“autocannibalism,” ... describes what happens when a militia here in eastern Congo’s endless war cuts flesh from living victims and forces them to eat it. ... Another is “re-rape.” The need for that term arose because doctors were seeing women and girls raped, re-raped and re-raped again, here in the world capital of murder, rape, mutilation.

This is what real war crimes look like, as opposed to ridiculous charges over whether the treatment of some terrorist constituted torture. Kristof thinks the U.S. needs to do something about the Congo War -- as if it is somehow a U.S. problem.

isn’t it time for the U.S. to lead a major, global diplomatic push for peace?

No, it most definitely isn't. One, because it isn't in the U.S. interest. Two, because we are not currently in a good position to do anything about it. And three, because a "push for peace" in Congo would be useless. Let's consider Kirstof's four point plan:

1. Pressure on Rwanda to stop funding its pet Tutsi militia in Congo. Good luck with that. Even if successful, that wouldn't stop the conflict.

2. An international regime to monitor mineral exports from Congo so that warlords do not monetize their militias by exporting minerals through Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Oh please. Anything with the word "international" in it is not going to work effectively.  Corruption in Africa is endemic. There have already been similar attempts to restrict imports and exports. 

3. A major push to demobilize Rwandan Hutu fighters and return as many as possible to civilian life in Rwanda or settlements in Congo or Burundi. That should be coupled with a crackdown on leaders in Congo and those who direct action from Europe and the United States. Would that help if it were possible to accomplish? Maybe a little. But the conflict in Congo would continue.

4. A drive to professionalize the Congolese Army and end the impunity for murder, torture and rape, starting with the arrest of Jean Bosco Ntaganda on his warrant for war crimes. Completely unrealistic. "Professionalizing" the Congolese Army is far easier said than done -- ask the people training the Afghan army -- and aid directed to that purpose is almost certain to be misused. And arresting an individual for war crimes is pointless and nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

Rather than a "push for peace,"a more likely solution for stabilizing the Congo involves far greater violence and mass killing, where groups like the Lords Resistance Army are destroyed, their leaders killed, their followers slaughtered in great numbers, and the remainder terrorized into submission. As long as there are multiple factions, strong enough to fight and kill their enemies, but too weak to effectively control the country, the war is probably going to continue. Getting the U.S. more involved in the Congo is a terrible idea. In Afghanistan we already face a similar situation on a somewhat smaller scale. And there is no end in sight to that conflict. The last thing we need is a massive nation building project in Africa -- because that's what it would take, another war directed by the U.S., involving more and more U.S. troops, and an incalculable amount of money and other aid. 

The so-called "Kidnapping" Case in Haiti

With the caveat that all details may not be available, from what has been printed so far, the charges of kidnapping against American missionaries in Haiti appear to be a massive overreaction. These people were trying to help children after a huge disaster. They aren't kidnappers. The charge is ludicrous.

I've seen things on various atheist sites attacking the missionaries as people trying to steal children for God, and supporting the ridiculously harsh charge of kidnapping. In my opinion, these atheists are blinded by their hatred of religion -- and in some cases religious people. The missionaries failed to follow the proper procedures, yes. But Haiti isn't America. It isn't even the Dominican Republic. It's a country in total chaos. I find it amazing that a government helpless to provide even basic services, is somehow able to find the resources to arrest foreigners who are trying to assist after the disaster.

Naturally, as usual the Obama administration is completely worthless when it comes to protecting American citizens abroad.

the Obama administration said the matter was in Haitian hands. 

"This will be a judgment based by the Haitian government on Haitian law," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "If Haiti decides to consult with the United States in terms of other legal avenues, obviously, there are legal procedures for us to do that."

Here we have the Obama administration pretending that Haiti is somehow just an ordinary, functioning country that we have to treat like an equal. Haiti was a basketcase before the earthquake. Now, the U.S. and other countries are providing a gigantic array of services and support, with the U.S. military controlling key parts of the capital. The country would probably have twice as many dead now, with disease running rampant, if it weren't for the U.S. and other international aid and direction. The Haitian government and law are bad jokes, and so is the Obama reaction. 

The Obama administration, which thinks we need to provide terrorists with rights, is perfectly happy to allow barely functioning third-world hellholes to decide the fate of Americans. Isn't it great that we have a president that thinks "Haitian law" is more important than American citizens?

Your Money at Work

Were you aware that you are financing farming in Zambia? You are if you are a U.S. taxpayer. We just loaned 20 million dollars to Zambian farmers.

About 30,000 small-scale farming households, in Zambia, many headed by women, will benefit from a US$20 million loan to the country from the International Fund for Agricultural Development

That's pretty nice of us isn't it? But I guess it's ok, since we aren't in debt, emerging from a major recession, fighting any wars, or currently involved in some sort of massive disaster relief project. We have plenty of spare cash to loan out to anyone who asks for it.

Money for Haiti

Guess who is putting up the largest share of aid to Haiti? I know, it's a big surprise. Here's a chart based on UN figures.

What are the odds that a large portion of that $106 million from private donors & organizations also comes from the U.S.? And note what's missing from the chart. Where's economic powerhouse China? They've put up a whole $4.4 million. I hope they can afford it. How about India? $5 million. At least they managed more than China. 

The U.S. numbers will go far higher, especially with the major military deployment. According to the administration,

Haiti will require "substantial assistance" from the U.S. and international governments for years to come

You might ask, why is it our job to rebuild Haiti and take care of Haitians? Or you could wonder,  what gives the U.S. government the right to give away huge amounts of U.S. taxpayer money, especially during a recession with the deficit & debt spiraling out of control, and major problems here at home? If you ask those questions you might also notice that you are in a fairly small minority. There's no outcry over aid to Haiti -- pretty much the opposite. For the most part, Americans expect to spend large sums of money doing everything possible to help whenever there is any sort of major disaster. It's something worth remembering the next time some anti-American type starts screeching about the evil U.S.

Education in Pakistan

What about it, you may ask? Why is this of interest to an American? You are going to pay for it, that's why.

The United States plans to spend USD 200 million this year on education in Pakistan, the U.S. Agency for International Development's largest education programme worldwide, it said. 

The idea is to improve the capacity of Pakistan's fledgling civilian-led administration, and to promote trust between the two nations, the report said.

And believe it or not, this is being touted as an anti-terrorism measure.

With a curriculum that glorifies violence in the name of Islam and ignores basic history, science and mathematics, Pakistan's public education system has become a major barrier to US efforts to defeat militant groups thriving in the country, Washington Post quoted American and Pakistani officials as saying.

Yeah, I'm sure the public education system, no matter how bad, is a main reason fanatical, extremist Muslims turn to terrorism. No doubt a U.S.-assisted curriculum will work wonders to solve the problem. Let's hope they won't be importing leftist American teachers to portray the U.S. as responsible for many of the world's ills.

This program is part of our overall $7.5 billion aid package to Pakistan. Apparently with so much money to give away, we just weren't sure exactly what to do with it all and decided to experiment. It's also unlikely that the Pakistani government, which was up in arms about all the strings attached to aid, would actually allow us to meddle with their public education in any substantive way. This is just more U.S. taxpayer money thrown down a hole.

Why We Shouldn't Give Money to the Third World, Reason #483789788

If you need any more reason why U.S. taxpayer money should not be given to third world countries, look no further than the recent British experience with Kenya.

The British government has issued a travel ban to more than 20 Kenyan citizens accused of corruption, and frozen funding for the ministry of education over the disappearance of US$1.3 million.

The UK was helping fund education, but the money intended for that purpose just vanished. But if you read further in the article, that scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.

Reports said Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had dropped its investigations earlier this year into the "Anglo-Leasing" affair, in which contracts worth some $100m were awarded to firms which did not exist.

The SFO said it was dropping the case because of a lack of co-operation from Kenyan agencies.

A hundred million dollars of corruption, and the British can't get any cooperation from the government of Kenya. They just have to write it off as a loss.

Kenya is hardly the most corrupt third world country out there. The sad fact is that aid money sent to so-called developing countries, with the best of intentions, often disappears into the pockets of corrupt officials. As seen in Kenya, this is not a small scale problem or an aberration; it is the rule not the exception.  I recently wrote a post called, "Wasting Money in Afghanistan," about how over fifty percent of our aid money doesn't reach its intended targets. I'm not an isolationist, and there are rare occasions where aid is warranted. But it should come with major strings attached and be carefully monitored, not be handed out like candy to enrich corrupt local officials.

Afghanistan's Pretentions of Sovereignty

The Karzai government is complaining that "foreign critics" are "interfering in Afghanistan's internal affairs." According to the foreign ministry, calls for specific reforms "exceeded international norms" and "violated respect for Afghanistan's national sovereignty." The Afghan attitude would be pretty funny if we weren't sacrificing the lives our soldiers and spending vast amounts of money to help the country.

You know what else causes disrespect for Afghanistan's national sovereignty? How about a corrupt, ineffective central government that only retains power through electoral fraud? The same government can't even begin to control its own territory, hasn't been able to build an effective army or national police force despite massive foreign assistance, and is utterly dependent on U.S. and other aid. Yet this government feels entitled to whine about its sovereignty. Wouldn't it be nice if the Afghan government were actually working to build a country that might someday deserve respect, or would show the tiniest bit of gratitude toward the other nations trying to help it?  There are few governments less entitled to pretensions of national sovereignty than that of Afghanistan.

We're Number One! -- In Weapon Sales

According to the New York Times, despite the recession the U.S. dominated the international arms market last year, with two-thirds of all sales.

larger arms deals concluded by the United States with developing nations last year included a $6.5 billion air defense system for the United Arab Emirates, a $2.1 billion jet fighter deal with Morocco and a $2 billion attack helicopter agreement with Taiwan. Other large weapons agreements were reached between the United States and India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea and Brazil.

Apparently we lead not only in overall sales, but also in sales to the developing world. As much as I like seeing America's defense industry prosper, given the volume of sales, I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that a significant number of our arms deals were probably inadvisable. Just as we have a tendency to hand out foreign aid to pretty much anyone, we also sell weapons to many countries that we should think twice about supplying with U.S. equipment. But unlike foreign aid, at least we are getting paid.

Pandering to our Enemies, Punishing our Friends

The Obama administration continues to demonstrate its foreign policy incompetence today, by cutting off aid to Honduras in support of ex-president Zelaya, a friend of every leftist enemy of the U.S. in Latin America. Rather than congratulate Honduras for ousting him, the Obama administration has steadfastly sided with our enemies in the region, using the ridiculous pretext that Honduras has failed "to restore democratic, constitutional rule."

The removal of Zelaya, a would-be Chavez-like strongman, was at least arguably in accord with Honduras' "democratic, constitutional rule," as if that should be any concern of the U.S. at all. What should concern us is whether or not the Honduran government pursues policies favorable to U.S. interests -- something that is (or was until we aligned ourselves against them) much more likely with the current regime than an ally of Chavez such as Zelaya. And since when do we predicate aid on "democratic, constitutional rule"? If that was a significant criteria for foreign aid we'd be giving out a whole lot less of it.

Rather than standing up for U.S. interests and backing the new government of Honduras, or at the very least staying out of Honduran internal affairs, the Obama administration has yet again revealed its willingness to pander to our enemies while taking a tough line against our friends. Obama (and Hillary Clinton) probably think that currying favor with the leftist leaders of Latin America will pay some sort of dividends. It won't. They are no doubt just laughing at American weakness, and our unwillingness to recognize our own interests. 

Department of Really Bad Ideas

The U.S. military is already tied down in two long-term nation-building projects, and has numerous other smaller commitments. But Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution thinks we should send troops to the Congo.

If the situation is to improve, we need to do the one thing that is required above all others -- strengthen security, especially in eastern Congo. And by now we should have learned the hard way that there is only one way to do so -- by leading through example, with the deployment of at least modest numbers of American troops, to spark a broader strengthening of the current U.N. mission.

Even O'Hanlon recognizes that his own idea sounds crazy, given our current situation, so he proposes that we create a new military formation, a "peace operations division." This would be comprised of hastily-trained volunteers to be sent on peace-keeping missions. Sounds great, huh? Where do I sign up?

The Congo is one of the biggest basket cases on earth. The UN peacekeeping mission is often part of the problem, with corrupt, underpaid, poorly-trained "peacekeepers" contributing to the general hellish state of the country. Even if we weren't wrapped up with Iraq and Afghanistan, getting involved in Congo's mess would be a terrible idea. Its problems will not be solved by peacekeeping efforts -- if they are ever solved at all. They'll be solved by even greater killing & violence. The only thing that will stabilize such a situation is a central government powerful and efficient enough to exterminate the various armed gangs and rebels and impose order -- or in the absence of that central power -- local forces able to pacify & defend their own regions -- at the individual village level if necessary. Humanitarian aid, refugee camps, evacuating villages, working with a corrupt and ineffective government, foreign "peacekeepers," and all the other things currently being done -- which O'Hanlon foolishly wants the U.S. to jump into -- are the equivalent of putting a dirty, bacteria-laden band-aid on a sucking chest wound.