HOT5 Daily 2/3/2011

1. "Egypt: An Interview About Why I'm Rarely Interviewed" Good points from one of the better Middle East analysts.

Representative Sample: Egypt is also not the same as other Arab countries. Each country is different. I am enthusiastic about the events in Tunisia and I believe that country will make a transition to democracy because the Islamists are weak while the moderate middle class is relatively strong there, while external issues play a far smaller role than in Egypt.

2. "A Thought on the Muslim Brotherhood in Post-Mubarak Egypt" Let's hope his thought is correct.

Representative Sample: I suspect the Egyptian people cannot help but see the Muslim Brotherhood as the chief enemy of the regime that has brutalized and repressed Egyptians for more than half a century, hence the chief ally and/or representative of anybody who hates Mubarak. While that seemingly puts the MB in the driver's seat for seizing power when the Mubarak regime is ousted, there is a contrarian response that should be noted as well

3. "Where have all the music pirates gone?" Pirating music has lost its popularity?

Representative Sample: Remember when music was cool? Back in the days of Napster, it was music that defined file-sharing; millions of people raced to listen to the most obscure artists found in the libraries of friends and strangers.

4. "Media Upset That The Obama “Transparency” Hasn’t Appeared" You'd think they'd know better by now.

Representative Sample: This is the candidate that touted the improved transparency he would bring to the White House….and we’ve seen none of it. In fact, quite the opposite.

5. "14 YEAR OLD GIRL LASHED TO DEATH BY MUSLIM CLERIC" Reason #3534346002 why many people have strongly negative views of Islam.

Representative Sample: The teenager was accused of having an affair with a married man, police say, and the punishment was given under Islamic Sharia law.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

HOT5 Daily 2/2/2011

1. "Can Iraq's new military hold the line?" We are going to be in Iraq for quite some time.

Representative Sample: "I don't think the U.S. Air Force will be able to leave Iraq for at least five years, as there's no way the Iraqis alone will be able to deal with any kind of air threat for this period," said retired Brig. Gen. Musa Qalleb, a Middle East defense expert.

2. "Big Knife, Bigger Man" Amazing story.

Representative Sample: Shrestha took out his kukri and went to work. In short order he had killed three and injured eight so badly they couldn’t get off the train. This one guy then chased the remaining dozens of thieves into the jungle.

3. "Atheists Raise $3.3 Million in Microfinance Loans To Alleviate Poverty" If you've never seen it, Kiva is worth checking out. It's remarkable how far small amounts of money (to Americans) can go in various parts of the world.

Representative Sample: Many people in the developing world don’t want a handout. They have ideas for small businesses they can start, often with only a few hundred dollars of investment. Unfortunately, they do not have access to conventional lending. Even when banking is available, they often do not have collateral to secure loans.

4. "Tuning graphene film so it sheds water" Applications for graphene.

Representative Sample: “Graphene films are transparent and, because they are made of carbon, they are very inexpensive to make,” Dickerson said. “The technique that we use can be rapidly scaled up to produce it in commercial quantities.”

5. "You Eat Too Much Meat, And Only Big Nanny State Can Stop You" Food Nazis.

Representative Sample: The authors of the UN report have called for government intervention to increase the price of meat in the West and thus reduce consumption.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Could You be a U.S. Diplomat?

The Christian Science Monitor has a quiz based on the foreign service exam.

The 20 questions here are based on the job knowledge portion of the Foreign Service Officer's exam. The real exam consists of 60 questions and is administered over 40 minutes. Think you know enough to become a US diplomat? Take our quiz.

I once considered taking the foreign service exam so I thought this was interesting. I got 20 out of 20, so if it's anything like the real thing I would have been it good shape.

HOT5 Daily 2/1/2011

1. "Middle East Turmoil: Is Saudi Arabia Next?" Probably only a matter of time before there is some sort of upheaval.

Representative Sample: Ten percent unemployment that has persisted for years. Pervasive under-employment for the highly educated. Women largely excluded from the labor force. One out of seven adults who cannot read.

2. "Clueless in Washington" An excellent take-down of the wishful thinking currently in progress.

Representative Sample: According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

3. "NEO on the Nile?" Hopefully it won't be necessary.

Representative Sample: Continued political turmoil and rioting in Egypt is raising the possibility of a non-combat evacuation operation (NEO) to remove more than 90,000 Americans from that country. While the State Department would prefer the current system of charter flights, the Pentagon is prepared to send in the Marines, if necessary.

4. "Carniculture" Factory-made meat?

Representative Sample: Vat-grown meat has been a staple (!) of the science-fiction diet for as long as I’ve been reading it, which is quite a long time. H. Beam Piper coined the neologism in the headline, so far as I know, back in the Sixties or earlier.

5. "Oil Spill Commission Ignored Mechanical Causes of Spill" Our government in action.

Representative Sample: President Obama’s oil spill commission spent six months examining the “root causes” of the Gulf disaster, yet never inspected the failed blowout preventer — the part of the well that could have, as its name suggests, prevented the explosion.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

HOT5 Daily 1/31/2011

1. "Some Unfashionable Thoughts About Egypt" Another good analysis.

Representative Sample: There are, after all, two different approaches to foreign policy that can be called “conservative”: one points to the spread of democracy as an expression of American greatness and seeks to sweep aside dictatorial rulers in order to promote democratic values, institutions, and elections wherever possible. The other is more strictly power-based: if America’s the good guy, then first we have to make sure that America’s allies are strong and its enemies are weak.

2. "Five questions about Egypt" Questions worth asking.

Representative Sample: having spent the morning watching the Sunday talk shows and the afternoon feverishly updating my Twitter feed, let me take this opportunity to ask as many provocative questions as I can

3. "13% of Science Teachers Are Creationists" Not just believers in creationism, but advocate it in the classroom.

Representative Sample: This is why we need activists in the classroom who are willing to stand up to the Creationists. We need more advocates for good science. If you choose to duck and cover when the subject of evolution comes up, you’re hurting your own students’ education — how can any decent teacher stand by while that happens?

4. "The Unintended (or Not) Consequences of Magazine Capacity "Restrictions"" Debunking the latest gun control nonsense.

Representative Sample: The Arizona shooting has provoked predictable calls for various gun control schemes, each and every one a recycled proven failure, but the most clever and insidious is the banning of large (actually, regular) capacity magazines for semi-automatic firearms.

5. "Clausewitz for Children" Seriously.

Representative Sample: A work in progress: the Children's Illustrated Clausewitz. Because it's never too early to start training them to better understand the role of the military in terms of political objectives.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Supporting the Egyptian Protestors is Bad U.S. Policy

As the situation in Egypt continues to evolve, there have been repeated calls for the U.S. to stand forthrightly on the side of the protestors. This position finds support on both the left and right. For example, here is Elliot Abrams, who served in foreign policy positions for both the Reagan and G.W. Bush administrations.

President Obama's words of support for both the demonstrators and the government late Friday, after speaking with Mubarak, were too little, too late. He said Mubarak had called for "a better democracy" in Egypt, but Obama's remarks did not clearly demand democracy or free elections there. We cannot deliver democracy to the Arab states, but we can make our principles and our policies clear. Now is the time to say that the peoples of the Middle East are not "beyond the reach of liberty" and that we will assist any peaceful effort to achieve it - and oppose and condemn efforts to suppress it.

Abrams also writes,

Such a statement would not elevate our ideals at the expense of our interests. It turns out, as those demonstrators are telling us, that supporting freedom is the best policy of all.

Unfortunately the first sentence isn't true, and the second is an assertion based on little evidence and much wishful thinking. Abrams, and others pushing for an anti-Mubarak stance ignore some important facts and possibilities.

1. All of the U.S. alliances and friendly relationships with Arab states are with non-democratic regimes -- with the exception of Iraq. We can't forthrightly support democracy without at least indirectly undermining our allies.

2. Loyalty and consistency matter in foreign relations. The Mubarak regime was good enough to ally with and supply with massive amounts of U.S. aid, but now suddenly democracy in Egypt is supposed to be our primary concern? What kind of message would we be sending to Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian allies if we suddenly turn on Mubarak? We only support you until the first time you have major popular protests. No doubt sending that message will do wonders for the strength of our relationships with Arab rulers.

3. Democracy in other countries can have negative consequences for the United States. Democracy isn't some sort of magical, unalloyed good that we should be pushing regardless of all other circumstances. Has greater democracy in Turkey been beneficial to U.S. - Turkish ties? When the population of a country is largely hostile in attitudes toward the U.S., as is Egypt, it makes little sense for America to be promoting democracy in that area.

4. The U.S. will get no credit from the protestors even if we come out strongly against Mubarak. The people of Egypt aren't suddenly going to forget how the U.S. propped up the Sadat and Mubarak regimes for decades, just because we withdrew our support at the last minute. Such a move will be seen as a transparent, cynical attempt to curry favor with whatever government replaces Mubarak.

5. U.S. withdrawal of support could lead to greater violence. If the U.S. pulls its support from Mubarak, it is possible that he might decide to crack down harder in a desperate attempt to retain power. He'll no longer have to worry about U.S. opinion if we turn on him, suspend his aid and ally with his enemies. We need to consider the unintended consequences of such a major shift in policy.

6. And finally, Mubarak could survive. It doesn't look good for him now, but it's possible he could weather the storm and retain power. We gain nothing by wrecking our relationship with him.

HOT5 Daily 1/30/2011

1. "SOMETIMES THE BEST POLICY IS TO GET OUT OF THE WAY WHEN HISTORY IS ROLLING FORWARD" A pretty good overall analysis.

Representative Sample: The administration is torn between two competing visions put forward by the foreign policy establishment in Washington of what the US should do and say about the crisis in Egypt, and as is typical, they have chosen to split the difference.

2. "EGYPT: Mubarak's Survival Strategy" But will it work?

Representative Sample: Mubarak's strategy for combating the open source protest is now becoming clear. It's to create a vacuum. De-escalate and out-wait the protest.

3. "Somali Pirates: Indian Navy Destroys Pirate Mother Ship, Captures Pirates" Good news.

Representative Sample: Since its hijack, the vessel was being extensively used by the pirates to launch attacks on merchant vessels passing along the shipping lanes off the island chain.

4. "Human Rights Maps (117): Gun Rights in the U.S. and the World" Within the U.S. and comparisons to the rest of the world.

Representative Sample: It's a series of graphics.

5. "New Ground Zero Mosque Imam: Gays are Like Animals or Something" Anti-gay rhetoric from a Muslim cleric, shocking I know.

Representative Sample: I can't wait to see the Ground Zero Mosque's number one supporter, Mikey Bloomberg, come out and explain this one away. Ought to be quite amusing.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.