Columbia's only locally owned alt weekly

By Andisheh Nouraee

The Fund For Peace is an educational group headquartered in D.C. that “works to prevent war and alleviate the conditions that cause conflict.”

Naturally, I hate them. Without war and conflict, I’ve got no career. What am I gonna do for money? Write poetry? Every decent rhyme for “Nantucket” has already been taken. Suck it. Duck it. Kirby Puckett.

But this isn’t all me-me-me. I’m worried about others, too. Think of all the hard-working explosives makers, prosthetic limb polishers, and mortuary refrigeration technicians who’ll be out of work if these Fund For Peacenik freaks get their way. Careers aren’t just about money. They’re about giving people a sense of purpose. Without purpose, the soul is drained and self-esteem vanishes.

These Fund For Peace pricks don’t care though. In fact, there’s strong evidence to suggest they enjoy injuring the self-esteem of others.

How else do you explain the Failed States Index — Fund For Peace’s annual list of nations ranked by how violent, unstable and destitute they are?

I suppose it’s useful for policy planners, scholars, commentators and mortuary refrigerations technicians to know where the action is. I just wish they didn’t call them “failed” states. How about something gentler and less judgemental? How about Differently Successful States Index? Or how about Most Room To Improve States Index? See, you can make the same point without being mean.

So which states does Fund For Peace label the failingest of failed states? Here’s a run-down of the top/bottom 10. At the end of each listing, I’ve decided to say something nice about each country so they don’t feel as badly if they read this.

10. PAKISTAN — Nuclear-armed and overrun with violent extremists. Deadly terrorist bombings are routine in Pakistan and large parts of its territory are outside the government’s authority.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT PAKISTAN: It’s semi-official outfit, the shalwar kameez, is basically just pyjamas. It’s like the whole country is always dressed in comfy sleepwear.

9. GUINEA: It’s poor, hot, and run by clique of military officers. It has no functioning civil service. Life expectancy is less than 50 years. It’s so awful, people who live there sometimes go to Liberia for a better life. Think about that.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT GUINEA: Guinean singer Mory Kanté’s 1985 album 10 Kola Nuts is delightful.

8. CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: No money. No government services except violence. And a civil war. If it’s neighbors weren’t so awful, more would flee.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: So well-named, even a geographic illiterate can find it on a map.

7. IRAQ: Wasn’t everything supposed to be awesome there once George W. Bush gave ‘em freedom? Oh, well. Iraq’s still plagued by obscene amounts sectarian violence and official corruption.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT IRAQ: As much as we deserve it, they still haven’t bombed us.

6. AFGHANISTAN: It’s now the central front in the War On Terror™. Foreigners enjoy having wars there. The locals seem pretty fond of fighting as well.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT AFGHANISTAN: Shares its heroin with the world at surprisingly low prices.

5. CONGO: Ground zero for the deadliest international war since World War II.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT CONGO: Too polite to guilt us about the above fact.

4. ZIMBABWE: In his quest to hold on to power, dictator Robert Mugabe took farms away from farmers and gave them to his cronies. The country went from food exporter to starvation-state in less than a decade.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT ZIMBABWE: Inspired one of Bob Marley’s last great songs.

3. SUDAN: Run by a genocidal regime that’s protected from international sanctions by China because it has oil.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT SUDAN: NBA giant turned heroic humanitarian Manute Bol was from Sudan.

2. CHAD: Very corrupt, even by Africa’s standards. Getting more violent as neighboring Sudan’s Darfur conflict spills over the border.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT CHAD: The only African place name suitable for white kids.

1. SOMALIA: An anarchic state that hasn’t had a government in two decades. When it almost got a government in 2006, we toppled it because they were religious extremists.

SOMETHING NICE ABOUT SOMALIA: If you hate big government and love freedom, Somalia is paradise.

.talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

What sparked the humanitarian crisis in the Kyrgyz Republic?

By Andisheh Nouraee

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the Kyrgyz Republic.

Landlocked and surrounded by four extraordinarily boring countries, Kyrgyz Republic (commonly known as Kyrgyzstan) has, in my opinion, the least appealing location of any country of any country on the globe. I suppose you could argue Poland has a worse location because it’s pinned between two historically violent superpower rivals (Russia and Germany). But at least Poles can get in their cars and drive to cool places like Prague, Vienna or Budapest. Get in a car in Kyrgyzstan and drive for 12 hours and you’ll find yourself in remote western China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, or Uzbekistan. Podunkistans, all.

The Kyrgyz people have made a valiant effort to improve their lot. Despite general poverty, they have near universal literacy. It’s always fun to read about how poor you are. The Kyrgyz also use two of their most abundant edible natural resources, millet and horse milk, to make popular alcoholic beverages. Like I always say, when life serves you horse milk, make horse milkade.

Is that not charming enough for you? Well, the Kyrgyz have more kinds of stringed musical instruments than Guitar Center. Rock on.

One more?

Okay, the Kyrgyz have ancient mythological epic poem (called the Epic of Manas) that runs an Odyssey-dwarfing 500,000 lines long. Tweet that, bitches.

Unfortunately, Kyrgyzstan also has a trait that causes trouble everywhere it pops up — ethnic strife.

When the no-good Red Commie Russians sucked Central Asia into the Soviet Union as five separate “republics”, they drew the borders deliberately to encourage ethnic rivalries within each republic. Fostering internal rivalries kept the republics weaker and easier to dominate. You know this concept as “divide and conquer.”

When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 (according to VH-1 it was “creative differences” — apparently Russia wanted to do an ambitious double album, while the Baltic Republics and Ukraine were still into punk) the ethnically hodgepodge Central Asian republics, including Kyrgyzstan, became their own countries.

The two ethnic groups who are fighting right now in Kyrgyzstan are ethnic Kyrgyz, who are 70 percent of the population, and ethnic Uzbeks, who make up about 15 percent of the population.

Why would they fight? What problem is so serious that mature adults can’t resolve it peacefully over a vat of fermented horse milk followed an all-night lute jam?

Well, apparently a lot of ethnic Kyrgyz think ethnic Uzbeks want to take the Uzbek bits of Kyrgyzstan and join them with neighboring Uzbekistan. Typical “us” vs. “them” stuff. It’s an ancient source of tension, but it has become a source of actual violence thanks to Kyrgyzstan’s recent political instability.

In April the government of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown because he was dictatorish. The interim government is now promoting a referendum that could make Kyrgyzstan a parliamentary democracy — a rarity for a slab of the world known for strongman presidents, warlords and single-party states.

Ethnic Uzbeks largely support the interim government. No surprise since parliamentary democracy tends to work better for ethnic minorities than strongman-type regimes. But clearly some ethnic Kyrgyz, many of whom are probably sympathetic to the overthrown regime, disagree.

Anti-Uzbek rioting in the country’s second largest city (Osh) have left hundreds confirmed dead, and probably many more unconfirmed dead. Eyewitnesses report that Kyrgyz army troops have been participating the massacres — which suggests someone in the government (or former government) is trying to stoke this ethnic rivalry. Divide and conquer.

The U.N. estimates 400,000 people have been driven from their homes. Nearly a quarter of those fleeing went all the way across the border to Uzbekistan.

When terrified civilians in poor, rural countries are forced from their homes, for many of them it’s a death sentence. They’re left without shelter, clothes, food, medicine, clean water, or toilets.

International aid agencies are trying to help, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that hundreds, if not thousands of people — innocent civilians — might die before this is over.

And for what? Almost nothing.

talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

By Andisheh Nouraee

Maybe I’m just an old fuddy duddy, but back when I was coming up, surprise was considered an essential element of successful warfare.

In fact, I can still recall that glorious day when I learned about the importance of surprise in war. It was 1832 and, just for fun, I downloaded the great Prussian military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz’s then-newly published “On War” to my Kindle. We didn’t have TV then, so we read German books for fun. If you think that’s bad, consider that there was no such thing as a high-speed “3G” network in those days. We only had “2G.” The download took, like, seven minutes or something crazy like that. Lameness!

Anyway, it’s right there in Book Six, Chapter Three. That’s where Clausewitz lists “surprise” as one of the main factors of strategic success in warfare. In case you’re curious, the other five elements are terrain, strength of forces, popular support, morals, and an uplifting, jingoistic tune, preferably by Lee Greenwood.

Why the heck should you care what an old, dead German dude thinks of war? Well, before they were only good at cars and spicy mustard, Germans were also awesome at war. In fact, Clausewitz is probably the most influential western military thinker of the past 200 years after Edwin Starr. Though the modern battlefield would be almost unrecognizable to Clausewitz, his strategic principles still enhance our knowledge of how wars work.

To understand the importance of surprise, consider three of the most pivotal battles of the 20^th century. Would Nazi Germany have so quickly trounced the French if Hitler had broadcast six months ahead of time that he was sending his blitzkrieg around French defensive fortresses? Of course not.

Would the German army have stranded itself in Russia during the winter of 1941-1942 if Stalin had distributed leaflets announcing he had massive reinforcements waiting to pounce once the Germans got close to Moscow? Nyet.

And would the D-Day invasion of France have been successful if General Eisenhower had made hotel reservations on the beaches his forces landed on? Ha! Trick question! There weren’t enough hotel rooms in Normandy in 1944 for 160,000 allied troops.

I mention all this because a.) you try writing a 700-word humor column about war without going long with the intro now and then and b.) because for a long while I’ve been puzzled by the plenty-talked-about-but-hasn’t-yet happened battle of Kandahar.

The Kandahar offensive is the planned climax of the Obama escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Kandahar and the countryside surrounding it are the Taliban heartland. If the U.S. is to begin its hoped-for (and Obama-promised) drawdown of U.S. troops next year, it’d be swell if we could loosen the Taliban’s grip on Kandahar.

The offensive has been publicly talked about in vague terms since last year, and in more specific terms since March – when several news outlets said the offensive would begin in June 2010.

But doesn’t announcing the offensive ahead of time give the Taliban time to prepare? Of course. But also, so what?

The Taliban can’t beat the U.S. and its NATO allies on the battlefield no matter how much of a heads-up they get. In reality, the Kandahar offensive is a political battle. To win, the U.S. and Afghanistan’s central government need to convince the area’s residents they’re better off if they side with the U.S.

To that end, the U.S.’s top man in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, met with 1,000 tribal leaders in Kandahar in April to sell them on the planned offensive. The locals refused to bless the offensive because they’re worried the Afghan central government is just as nasty and corrupt as the Taliban. They also worry that siding with the U.S. will make them targets for assassination by Taliban militants.

McChrystal says the battle won’t start until he gets local okay. He’s now scrambling to put together a development package (government offices, schools, security forces, etc.) that he can immediately deploy into areas U.S. forces capture from the Taliban. Unless local elders are convinced McChrystal’s “government in a box” plan is workable, the Kandahar offensive might remain the Godot of U.S. military operations – much talked about, but never seen.

talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

Is it Monday morning quarterbacking to tell you I knew the euro was going come apart? They don’t have quarterbacks in Europe so I’m not sure what the equivalent figure of speech is. Monday morning corner-kicking? Monday morning beret knitting? Monday morning red wine decanting? Monday morning panini pressing? Monday morning nutella spreading?

By Andisheh NouraeeIs it Monday morning quarterbacking to tell you I knew the euro was going come apart? They don’t have quarterbacks in Europe so I’m not sure what the equivalent figure of speech is. Monday morning corner-kicking? Monday morning beret knitting? Monday morning red wine decanting? Monday morning panini pressing? Monday morning nutella spreading?Anyway, whatever European thing you want to call it, I’m telling you I knew it was gonna happen. I’m no financial whiz. Not at all. It’s just common sense, people. The euro is inherently unstable. Big chunks of greasy lamb meat and yogurt sauce wedged tight into folded pita? Everyone who’s ever held a euro knows you’ve only got about five minutes before the pita soaks ups so much dripping fat and yogurt that it begins to crumble. That’s why they wrap them in tin foil.And don’t ever get me started on the mess euros make when you put them in your wallet. Last time I went to Europe, I ruined two pairs of pants on the first day. Thank goodness for debit cards.(Editor pulls columnist aside to explain mix-up).Okay, so it appears I may have been slightly confused earlier about the precise nature of Europe’s currency crisis. The euro and the gyro are apparently two different things. This explains the annoyed look I kept getting from cashiers when I visited Vienna in 2007.The euro crisis is actually about the viability of Europe’s common currency. There’s a growing likelihood some or all European countries will revert to their pre-euro national currencies.Why’s that? Because the Greek debt crisis has exposed fundamental flaws in Europe’s 16-nation currency union.Greece spent way, way, way beyond its means during the first decade of this century. No one paid much attention because the world economy was growing and credit was easily available.When the economy tanked, however, Greece was exposed as the euro’s weakest link. Private investors grew reluctant to finance Greece’s runaway spending like they had for so long. The result, Greece was on the verge this Spring of defaulting on its debts.Defaulting would have sucked, but Greece’s currency union with the rest of Europe made the suckiness worse. Greece’s debt is in euros, which means its financial situation directly affects even fiscally sound eurozone countries like Germany, Finland and Luxembourg. Also, many of the banks owed money by Greece are in Europe. Big bank losses would damage the European economy the same way it damaged the U.S. economy. Think of Greece as Europe’s AIG – a giant company no one liked, but a company whose collapse would ripple out in very bad ways. In other words, Greece is too big to fail. So, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary stepped-in with an enormous bailout to keep Greece from defaulting on its debts.But here’s the catch – bailing out Greece may keep the euro stable, but it isn’t necessarily the best thing for actual Greek people. The bailout came with the condition that Greece would sharply cut government spending. Because government spending is such a huge part of the Greek economy, this guarantees Greece will go into a deep, long recession. Unemployment will skyrocket and wages will decline. If Greece had its own currency, however, it could cushion much of the pain by letting its currency’s value plummet. This would help boost exports (since Greek goods and services would be cheaper for foreigners) and dampen inevitable rising unemployment.Greek people know this. And since Greece is a democracy, it’s entirely possible someone’s gonna run for office saying “Screw the euro and the IMF and austerity. Let’s go back to our own currency and deal with the crisis ourselves.”The same thing could happen if Spain, Italy and Portugal end up in the same debt situation as Greece. Rather than abide by internationally imposed belt-tightening, they might just bail out of the euro.Don’t be surprised if a 16 nation currency ends up a 10 or 12 nation currency within a few years.
talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

Long-time readers of this here “newspaper column” know its author/typist is moderately obsessed with North Korea’s English language propaganda site, Korean Central News Agency.

By Andisheh NouraeeLong-time readers of this here “newspaper column” know its author/typist is moderately obsessed with North Korea’s English language propaganda site, Korean Central News Agency.KCNA is a fascinating and freaky glimpse into the brains running the world’s most totally totalitarianisticalicous totalitarian regime.For the uninitiated, KCNA’s stories come in only four flavors.Caustic criticism of the regime’s enemies (actual May 26 headline: “Japan’s Moral Vulgarity Slammed”)Fulsome praise of Kim Jong-Il and his family (a May 20 story about Kim’s visit to China described him as “a great man who left sacred footprints on the vast Chinese land.”The excruciating, mundane details of the dictator’s daily schedule (actual May 17 headline “Kim Jong Il inspects potato farm”Inexplicably odd cultural stories that can’t possibly have relevance to actual North Koreans, much less to the foreigners at whom KCNA’s English is aimed (ex. A May 26 story headlined “Okryu Restaurant Becomes More Popular for Terrapin Dishes”)Adding to the wonderment is the fact that KCNA’s story’s are written in stiff, stilted language suggesting its authors learned English without ever having an actual conversation with a native speaker. Ex. “Such act is nothing but a deliberate and premeditated provocation aimed to push the daily aggravating inter-Korean relations to the brink of war.”I’ve been visiting KCNA in recent days to see if it might reveal any clues what the heck North Korean military leaders were thinking when, on March 26, they torpedoed the Southern Korean ship ROKS Cheonan sailing near South Korea’s maritime border with North Korea. I’m also curious to see if the site reveals anything about North Korea’s desire for, or fear of, a war against South Korea and the U.S.Despite losing 46 sailors in what no one disputes was a completely unprovoked, surprise attack, South Korean (and by extension, U.S.) leaders have resisted the temptation to make a crappy situation even crappier with pointless tough talk. Nevertheless, when an international report confirmed beyond any doubt that North Korea was responsible for the attacks, South Korea was obliged to respond.On May 24, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak announced his country was closing South Korean sea lanes to North Korean ships. The move cuts-off one of the only economic feeding tubes nourishing North Korea’s persistent vegetative state of an economy. The South also announced it would resume propaganda broadcasts to the North. Kim Jong-Il and his regime are terrified of these broadcasts. They remind his subjects that, just over the militarized border in the South lies one of the world’s wealthiest and dynamic countries. Sixty years ago, it was Africa-poor. Today, it’s people have jobs-n-freedom-n-stuff while North Koreans are starving prisoners of a Stalinist regime where dissidents are tortured and murdered, children starve to death, and women cram leaves into their pants to catch their menstrual flow.Simultaneously, South Korea is moving to get the U.N. to impose new, more punishing sanctions against the North. Chances are China would block any new sanctions. Even so, the move pressures China to rein in North Korea as much as it can. China wants to be a grown-up country. Giving diplomatic cover to Kim Jong-Il’s insane regime isn’t consistent with grown-up behavior.I hope I’m not wrong, but I’m confident that South Korea and the U.S. will be able to avoid war with North Korea. Despite North Korea threatening that South Korea “will perish in the flames kindled by themselves,” it’s clear from KCNA that North Korea doesn’t want war either. Luckily, South Korea’s president, like our own, doesn’t seem very interested in angrily talking his way into a war. Again, I could be wrong, but it looks like the grown-ups aren’t taking North Korea’s crazy-bait.
talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

The U.S. and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons between them. Sounds fair.

By Andisheh Nouraee
Every decade has its defining question.
In the ‘70s, it was, “Who wears short shorts?” In the ‘80s, the nation wondered, “Where’s the beef?” In the ‘90s, we struggled to answer one simple question: “Can’t we all just get along?” And during the ‘00s, with two disastrous wars and the looming threat of terrorism, Americans demanded to know, “Whatcha gonna do with all that ass/All that ass inside them jeans?”
Barely four and a half months into the ‘10s, it’s perhaps too early to say for sure what this decade’s defining question will be. If I had to guess, though, I think it’ll end up being something like: “Who should have nuclear weapons?”
Throughout May, world leaders are meeting in New York to help answer that question. The meeting is a conference to discuss the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Active since 1970, the NPT allows five of its 189 signatory nations to have nukes. The U.S., Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom are allowed to have nukes. In exchange for the privilege, the five nations agree to refrain from using a nuke against a non-nuclear state and work toward the eventual elimination of their arsenals. Additionally, all signatories are recognized to have an inalienable right to peaceful nuclear energy production.
The U.S. and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons between them.
The U.S. has 5,113 nuclear weapons, roughly 2,200 of which are so-called strategic warheads, the kind that can be lobbed at other cities from a long distance. The rest are so-called tactical nukes, the kind we’d use on a battlefield – or maybe for Fourth of July celebrations during a Palin Administration.
The Ruskies are believed to have about 2,800 strategic warheads. Russia feels like it needs more nukes that the U.S. because its conventional military is crap these days.
Guess who the third nukiest nuclear power is? Believe it or not, it’s France, which is thought to have about 300 strategic warheads – at least one of which is rumored to be aimed at the Fox News headquarters because of all that “freedom fries” nonsense. And by rumored, I mean I just started that rumor.
Numbers four and five on the nuclear Who’s Who are China and the U.K. The Chinese have about 180 strategic warheads. I’m sure they’ll get more once the U.S. moves all its weapons factories to China to save money.
The Brits have about 160 strategic nukes. Each is equipped with a loudspeaker that apologizes profusely for any inconvenience its use may cause.
Three nations that never signed the NPT also have nukes. Israel developed its nuclear program in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, an era when the large armies of neighboring Arab nations threatened to overrun Israel. Though the conventional strategic threat to Israel has waned, Israel continued to hone its nuclear program. It’s now believed to have missiles, aircraft and submarines capable of delivering nuclear payloads.
India and Pakistan declined to sign the NPT because, at the time the NPT was drafted, they were warring enemy nations racing one another to develop nukes first. Points for honesty, I suppose.
Not that anyone asked me, but I think the NPT is the most successful arms control treaty since Philip II’s No More Impaling People on Sharp Pikes Dipped In Feces Accord of 340 B.C. In 40 years, only one country that signed the NPT, North Korea, has dropped out and developed a nuclear weapon.
Despite that success, the NPT is teetering on the edge of obsolescence. Non-nuclear nations increasingly view the NPT as a tool to keep non-nuclear nations weak enough to be bombed by the West. Remember that the War On Terror™ targeted non-nuclear nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia) while sparing nuclear nations that behaved just as terror-ifically (Pakistan and North Korea). With the NPT’s Big Five squeezing Iran about its nuclear fuel enrichment program, while ignoring Israel’s actual arsenal, more world leaders are calling B.S. on the NPT.
Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we’ll be forced to modify the treaty in a way that makes it more meaningful for modern times.
Or maybe it’ll just crumble and regional powers like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Brazil will join the arms race.

talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

By Andisheh Nouraee

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH GREECE?

For the past decade, Greece has been that guy who
pays his credit card bill with another credit card

A long time ago, current Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou killed his father (former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou), then married his own mother. After a while, the crops stopped growing, the women of Greece stopped having babies and the tzatziki curdled in the silos. Horrified, the MILF-wife killed herself and Papandreou gouged out his own eyes, then flew so close to the sun that he melted his wings, torching Greece’s bond rating along the way. The price of spits soared, rendering millions of Greeks with no place to cook their lamb. Chaos ensued.
Last week, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund responded by installing Zeus as Greece’s interim prime minister. Greece’s 12 major gods and Nia Vardalos are scheduled to gather on Mount Olympus next week to choose a permanent successor.
Sorry. That’s what happens when a columnist on deadlines mixes the Economist, D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths and ouzo.
For the past decade, Greece has basically been that guy who pays his credit card bill with another credit card. Greece’s government went on a debt-financed spending spree made possible by general robust growth and easy credit.
In case you haven’t noticed, robust growth and easy credit currently reside on the “That’s so 2007” ash heap, right next to Anna Nicole Smith’s corpse and Taylor Hicks’ singing career.
Though the same difficult conditions plague many Western democracies (including our own), Greece’s situation is different for several big reasons.
Greece’s national debt is equal to 115 percent of its gross domestic product, and its current annual deficit is a whopping 13.6 percent of GDP. Thanks to the Great Recession, Greece can no longer pay interest on its current debts, nor easily restructure its debt. Moneyed institutions no longer have faith in Greece’s ability to pay what it owes.
Greece’s economy is also plagued with fraud. As a member of Europe’s currency union since 2001, Greece is supposed to abide by rules requiring that its budget deficits not exceed its gross domestic product by more than 3 percent. As we’ve already noted above, Greece broke that rule. But Greece didn’t just break it. It actively sought to cover up the fact. With the help of honest American capitalists like the wonderful people at Goldman Sachs, Greek governments shuffled debts from spreadsheet to spreadsheet for several years, obscuring how badly its government was overspending. Dishonesty and delay only made Greece crash harder.
Finally, there’s the gyro. Sorry, I mean the euro. If Greece still had its old currency (the drachma), it would have more flexibility right now. It could let the value of its currency plummet, thus reducing the value of its huge debt and alleviating some of the pressure its government now faces to slash spending.
But Greece’s currency is the continent-wide euro, which means: a) it doesn’t have the autonomy to fiddle with the currency on its own and, b) all the other countries on the euro have a great interest in keeping Greece’s economy from totally collapsing. It’s not unlike the situation with U.S. banks. Greece is too big to fail.
Hence the giant bailout. In exchange for a massive European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout package to keep its entire economy from becoming the Mediterranean equivalent of the U.S. real estate market, Greece has agreed to massive government spending cuts over several years. In part because Greece’s public sector accounts for half its economy, we’re seeing massive, sometimes violent street protests as a result. As we know from our own country’s politics, government waste isn’t waste when the money’s being spent on you.
Will the bailout succeed in stabilizing Greece and world financial markets? I have no clue. Greece’s political opa-sition could coalesce around the public’s anger, topple the current government and reject the bailout terms. It’s also possible that Greece’s mismanagement has exposed an unbridgeable chasm between fiscally prudent northern Europe and fiscally profligate southern Europe. If a similar crisis hits Portugal or Italy, the European currency union may collapse with it. Simply put, the euro won’t survive if the Germans and French think they’ll keep getting stuck paying Greek and Portuguese credit card bills.

talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

DON’T PANIC By Andisheh Nouraee

You know, things aren’t like they were when I was coming up. People today are big babies.

Back in my day, we didn’t have peanut allergies. No siree ma’am. If you suffered anaphylactic shock after eating a peanut, it was cause you were a sissy.

And we didn’t have this “Internet” thing making everything so easy. If you wanted something, you had to work for it. You had to leave your house to steal music. You had to look a cashier in the eye when you purchased pornography. And you had to go to a library and hand copy text out of a book when you wanted to plagiarize.

And back in my day, people had principles and honor, too.

For example, when one country fired a shot at another country, the other country would shoot back. You didn’t question it. You just did it.

“Oh, a scruffy Serbian terrorist assassinates the Austrian crown prince? Well, then, we will plunge an entire continent into a war that leaves 16 million dead and ends in a stalemate that will resume 20 years later with an even bigger war that leaves 60 million dead. We will call them Worlds Wars I and II.”

With that in mind, you’ll understand why I’m so disgusted by South Korea’s wussified non-response to the recent torpedoing of its ROKS Cheonan warship.
On March 26, Cheonan was patrolling the Yellow Sea, one-mile from Baengyeong, a South Korean island just 10 miles from North Korea’s west coast. Baengyeong is near the so-called Northern Limit Line, the disputed sea boundary dividing South Korean and North Korean territorial waters. The line is an extension into the sea of the land border militarized land border dividing the two Korean states.

At 9:22 P.M. an explosion rocked the ship. Minutes later, the Cheonan’s captain contacted fleet command reporting the ship was under attack. By about 9:30, the ship was underwater. Thermal images published on a Korean-language news site depict the ship breaking in two. 46 sailors died, as did one of the divers looking for survivors.

Why did the Cheonan sink? South Korea’s forensic investigation determined the ship was hit by some sort of explosive from the exterior. Who would do such a thing?

Gee, I don’t know. My sources at the U.S. Department of the Blindingly Obvious suggest the sinking may be North Korea’s doing. The country’s navies have had at least four clashes near Baengyeong since 1999. Also, North Korea’s foreign policy in recent years consists largely of well-timed, dramatic explosions. In October 2007 and again in May 2009, North Korea detonated nuclear weapons. And it’s constantly testing ballistic missiles in the general direction of Japan and the U.S.’s Pacific coast.

North Korea, of course, denies it’s had anything at all to do with the incident. Its English language propaganda web site claims “puppet military warmongers, right-wing conservative politicians and the group of other traitors in south Korea are now foolishly seeking to link the accident with the north at any cost.”
But that’s not actually true. South Korean leaders have largely kept their bulgogi holes shut; mourning the loss, assuring the public that the responsible party will pay, but never actually naming North Korea.

Why is that? Well, maybe it’s because South Korean leaders have no principles and honor, like people used to back in my day. Back in my day, if a Commie Asian ship so much as pointed a shuffleboard cue at you (see Gulf of Tonkin incident of August 1964), the honorable reply was to start a massive war with well-over 1 million people dead (see Vietnam War).

Or maybe there’s a better explanation. Maybe South Korean and U.S. leaders are being patient. Despite their anger, it may just be that they realize there’s no point in starting a war with North Korea. Even if South Korea and the U.S. toppled the North Korean regime, the toppling would likely come after North Korean unloaded thousands of tons of conventional, chemical, biological and maybe nuclear weapons on South Korean cities, and probably Japan, too.

Sissy? Wise? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

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How many civilians has the U.S. killed in the War On Terror™?

By Andisheh Nouraee
Before I joined the SocialistLibtardIslamofascistHomo Conspiracy (aka the media), I worked for a small public relations firm.
I did PR for commercial real estate companies. I learned a lot during my tenure. I learned two-hour lunch breaks would be socially acceptable if you replaced the word «break» with «meeting.» I learned that all good strip clubs bill discreetly to your credit card. I also learned a lot of corporate buzzwords and clichés.
Most of them were silly. I heard a lot about synergy, proactivity and win-win situations. Even a decade later, I’m waiting to hear someone, somewhere describe a deal as a win-lose situation. «Man, they totally ripped us off. Definitely a win-lose situation.»
Business life wasn’t all eye-rolls and bullshit bingo, though. I spent time around smart people and picked up on the way they think.
Reading several stories in the past week about civilians killed during the War on Terror™, I was reminded of one of the few management clichés I picked up during my PR years – one that actually has meaning: «You can’t manage what you don’t measure.»
In English, this means you can’t honestly figure out if you’re good or bad at something unless you have an objective measurement – money, time, widgets sold, pageviews, etc.
The Pentagon is the biggest-spending enterprise in our government and produces an endless variety of charts and spreadsheets measuring things like how much money is spent on childcare at Fort Hood, or how much it costs to maintain the shooting range at Fort Stewart.
Money isn’t the only thing the Pentagon measures. The Pentagon also keeps a running count of the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regardless of what one thinks of America’s foreign policy, it’s generally agreed that the Pentagon has a duty to keep track of and make public the number of Americans who’ve died in battle. Human life is the most valuable thing we can measure.
So imagine for a second if the Pentagon refused to disclose how many American troops died in battle. Imagine instead that generals and politicians merely showed up in front of cameras every few months and insisted that, gosh darnit, America is doing its best to keep the casualty count low. End of conversation.
Americans wouldn’t tolerate it. Instinctively, we’d know that if the government was refusing to disclose how many Americans died, it certainly would be because the number is very high. Government officials tend not to obscure information that makes them look good.
By that logic, the government must also keep track of how many Iraqi civilians have died in the War on Terror™, right?
The Pentagon insists it manages civilian casualties. According to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, «Gen. [Stanley] McChrystal is doing everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties.»
But the surprising truth is that the Pentagon doesn’t actually measure those casualties. «We don’t do body counts» is how Iraq invasion leader Gen. Tommy Franks put it in 2003.
A few people were put off by the general’s bracingly literal disregard for innocent Iraqis, but not enough to ever make the government start counting – not even in our new administration. To use another business cliché, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet. The War on Terror™ is our omelet, and Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis and Somalis are the eggs. If that’s an imperfect analogy, it’s only because the Pentagon probably measures how much money it spends on eggs for omelets.
When I saw the WikiLeaks.org video of a U.S. helicopter in Iraq mowing down unarmed civilians, I was left thinking it was a common occurrence. And when I read about U.S. troops in Afghanistan killing two pregnant women and a teenage girl then covering it up – then smearing the journalist who reported it – I could only assume that kind of thing happens a lot.
Why? Because the Pentagon can’t offer any objective information to the contrary. They don’t measure, which means they’re not managing it.
It’s funny how Americans reject objective studies showing Obamacare will cut U.S. health care spending, but seem perfectly content with evidence-free declarations that we do our best to avoid killing civilians. And by funny, I mean not funny.

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Are Barack Obama’s nuclear policies making the U.S. safer?

By Andisheh Nouraee
If I were one of Barack Obama’s secret Muslim handlers, I’d be angry.
Their diabolical secret Muslim plan seemed foolproof; win the War On Terror™ by sneaking a charming, telegenic Kenyanesian member of their brotherhood into the White House! Genius!
So what if Hopey al-Changeypants wasn’t born the U.S. We’ll build a time machine that takes us to Hawaii in 1961 where we’ll stick “evidence” of Obama’s American “birth” into hospital files and local newspapers. Allah provides!
And just to be safe, we’ll sneak someone onto Straight Talk Express where we’ll whisper the worst possible campaign advice into John McCain’s ear while he naps. “Pick Palin and you’ll win over the all-important ‘f**ktard hockey MILF and the dudes who want to bone them’ demographic.
The plan very nearly worked. Obama won. But instead of moving the White House to Mecca and replacing the “Star Spangled Banner” with some Cat Stevens song like he promised his handlers he would, Obama started acting all American-like.
He not only helped keep us out of another Great Depression, but he re-engineered our healthcare system in a way that will cover more people while saving money over the long-term. And don’t even get them started on the way he conducts his personal life. Instead of wearing traditional Muslim garb, he sports a suit and tie most places. His most recent physical revealed he drinks beer and smokes cigarettes. And his wife walks around without sleeves on everywhere she goes? What the hell kind of Muslim extremist is this guy? He’s clearly gone native. Maybe he even has Stockholm Syndrome.
More than anything, I bet his handlers are quadruple ticked-off at Obama’s foreign policy shenanigans. The guy sent here to lose the War On Terror™ is doing way more to actually win it than his predecessor did.
He initiated the biggest anti-Taliban offensive in Afghanistan since Bush lost his focus there in 2001. He also strong-armed Pakistan into launching its biggest-ever offensive against Talibandits in its own country.
And if that wasn’t enough to make Obama the worst foreign-born radical Muslim secret agent in the history of the U.S. Presidency, now the jerk is going out of his way to try to reduce the threat of nuclear war against the United States.
First Obama reached a deal with Russia to reduce our nuclear weapons arsenals from 2,200 warheads to 1,550 warheads within seven years. The 650 warheads we’re giving up won’t reduce the ability of the U.S. to wage war at all – we still have the strongest nuclear and conventional military in the world, by far. But the deal accomplishes three big things for us. 1. It reduces the numbers of nukes pointing at us. Pretty great. 2. It gets us one-step closer to the next big arms deal with Russia, where we hope to get them scrap a lot of their small, so-called tactical nukes – the kind that are most likely to be stolen and sold on the black market. 3. It’s a diplomatic tool. It’s easier to get other nations to join your non-proliferation efforts when you yourself are shrinking your stockpile.
Of the three items on that list, the diplomacy bit is the one paying the quickest dividends. Obama just hosted leaders from 47 nations in Washington, D.C. where they not only talked, but actually did stuff to reduce the threat of nuclear war. Ukraine announced at the conference it was giving up all of the highly enriched uranium it has sitting around. HEU is the key ingredient for making nuclear weapons. Chile and Mexico also announced that they’re going to hand over nuclear materials from research reactors
Conference participants also pledged to secure all loose nuclear materials in their countries within four years. The goal may not be met, but every bit of nuclear material secured between now and then is one fewer source of bomb material for terrorists. Remember, it only takes a grapefruit sized hunk of uranium to build a bomb.
It’s as if Obama actually loves the United States or something. Creepy, I know.
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