GLOBALIZE THIS!

Saturday, May 15, 2004

CURIOUSITY, DISBELIEF OR MORBID FETISH?

Those of you driven to see the gruesomest of gruesome set a new Globalize This! traffic record yesterday. Those who came searching for the video of Nick Berg parting with his melon must have been sorely disappointed.

I must admit that I, too, went searching for the video to no avail. It seems to have been purged down the memory hole. Still photos remain, and can be viewed at Drudge, for one, here. Brace yourself.

It's the same sensation, be it curiousity, disbelief or morbidity--I think--which drove me to watch again and again the footage of those poor souls who threw themselves from the heights of the trade center towers, rather than perish in the 9/11 inferno.

P.S. I would like to extend special warm greetings to my military guests from NIPR.mil.

UPDATE: George informs me that the video is still available here. BE FOREWAREND. This is VERY GRUESOME footage. I had to shut it off before it got to the critical moment. Horrifying. No one should suffer such a fate.

UPDATE II: PRNewswire is reporting that "Nick Berg" was the most searched term on internet search engines last week. It succeeded in edging out Britney Spears, Clay Aiken and Paris Hilton.

¶ 5/15/2004 11:38:54 AM

2 comments

Friday, May 14, 2004

GREETINGS FROM GHANA

From a correspondent of mine in Accra:

Hi [Globalize This!],
Its long time since I heard from you.
How are you and how is work?
In Ghana the political season is approaching and there is so much politics
in the air.
Ultimately, the IMF and the World Bank decide where we should
go so no matter who is in power there would be no change in
economic policy.
How is US? Any hope for President Bush in the next election?

Warm regards,

N.A.

¶ 5/14/2004 10:06:13 AM

0 comments

Thursday, May 13, 2004

THINGS FALL APART, QUIUCKLY

Here is what I wrote back at the end of February about Larry Diamond, a leading democracy development theoretician and Bush administration advisor to USAID and the Iraqi CPA:

ON THE PROSPECT FOR DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ

Larry Diamond is a leading theoretician of democracy development, and--as I learned today--he is senior fellow at the right-wing Hoover Institution and advisor to the CPA in Baghdad.

On the prospect for democracy in Iraq, he avers:

"A democracy can be built in Iraq. No one who engages the new panoply of associations and parties can fail to recognize the democratic pulse and possibilities."

It is statements like these that make me think Prof. Diamond should remain a theoretician and leave the democracy building to political hacks who really know how a democracy works. It also reminds me that democracy has almost nothing to do with the myths ingrained in the American psyche by years of high school social studies curricula.

Now, Dan Drezner reports, Diamond has lust his luster for Iraqi democratic aspirations:

"We just bungled this so badly," said Diamond, a 52-year-old senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "We just weren't honest with ourselves or with the American people about what was going to be needed to secure the country...You can't develop democracy without security," he said. "In Iraq, it's really a security nightmare that did not have to be. If you don't get that right, nothing else is possible. Everything else is connected to that."

My how things can change in just a month and a half.

¶ 5/13/2004 04:27:40 PM

PIG PILE ON BUSH

The latest fad sweeping the punditry: pig pile on Bush. Even the Financial Times' Martin Wolf, for sure no left-wing crank, is joining the charge. Yesterday, Wolf had this to say:

If I find the Bush administration's foreign policy disturbing, so must the vast majority of humanity...So what is wrong with this administration? Put simply, it fails to understand the basis of US power, mis-specifies US objectives and is incompetent in executing its intentions. As a result, the position of the US - and so of the west - is worse, in significant respects, than it was the day after September 11 2001.

¶ 5/13/2004 10:30:14 AM

0 comments

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

MORAL RELATIVISM: US AND THEM

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK):
I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. The idea that these prisoners -- you know, they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cell block 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.

Random Muslim Indonesian:
Even hostages, under the teachings of Islam, must be treated humanely. If others did otherwise, it doesn't mean we should do the same.

Random Muslim in Qatar:
As a Muslim I can only say, we are not allowed to touch an innocent civilian!

Scott McClellan, White House Spokesman:
[The decapitation of Nick Berg] shows the true nature of terrorists. They have no regard for innocent life...There is no justification for the taking of innocent human life.

International Committee of the Red Cross:
Certain military intelligence officers told the ICRC that in their estimate between 70% and 90% of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake.

Where is Elizabeth Dole now?

Libby Dole: "Public servant, charming perfectionist."

¶ 5/12/2004 06:05:49 PM

0 comments

GAP COMES CLEAN

In a 40 page report released on its website today, Gap Inc. lays it out for all to see in its social responsibility performance.

The WSJ reports on the report. Note that even with the multinational parent company establishing codes of conduct, a normal work week in a Gap-producing factory is 60 hours. Ugh.

In the report's introduction, Gap CEO Paul Pressler described some of the challenges companies face in monitoring working conditions in overseas factories, particularly in those of sub-contractors:

"In many countries, governments simply don't have the resources or the will to enforce laws and regulations."

This points to a fundamental problem with the way enforcement mechanisms (when they even exist) are constructed to address protection of worker and human rights. Governments, particularly non- and/or marginally-democratic ones, have little incentive to enforce labor rights. Universal rights to free association and collective bargaining (i.e. the right to form unions), create new centers of democratic political power outside prevailing non-democratic power structures, which threatens to disrupt the ruling political balance.

Multinational companies provide direct investment which is the life blood of economic growth (and balance in the international accounts) for most developing countries, and what MNCs are looking for in developing countries is low-cost production centers for labor-intensive manufactured goods. So no one wants to rock the boat. It's a classic prisoner's dilemma problem: if all countries cooperate on enforcing labor standards, then everyone will be best off; but if a country cheats on labor standards, it will attract more investment and be better off relative to countries who enforce labor standards.

While developing country governments may very well be lacking in technical expertise and financial resources to monitor and enforce labor rights, there are also clear disincentives for governments to do so. This paradox begs the question, why place the onus of enforcement on governments where there are structural incentives for governments not to enforce labor standards? As it is the MNCs who largely are benefitting from access to low-cost labor in developing countries, MNCs should bear the onus of enforcement, including sanctions assessed for labor rights violations. If Nike or the Gap are violating labor rights in their overseas factories (or in factories where goods are produced for their label under contract), why sanction the government of China or Vietnam or Myanmar or whomever? Sanction Nike and the Gap!

Gap Inc.'s Social Responsibility Report indicates that adherence to labor standards does create value for MNCs. However, industry-wide compliance would require that all companies are as benevolently enlightened as the Gap--as evidenced by this report--appears to be. In other words, self-regulation--the image which the Gap is trying to promote--is not a viable option. What is needed is independent monitoring of overseas facilities, backed by the weight of sanctions from the United States.

I know, it's a pipe dream. But this is how we might reconcile the demands for trade and economic development that respects human rights, if the powers that be were so interested.

¶ 5/12/2004 02:00:40 PM

0 comments

Monday, May 10, 2004

BUSH BACKS RUMSFELD

The President pro-tem:

"Mr. Secretary, thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror. You are doing a superb job. You are a strong secretary of defense. And our nation owes you a debt of gratitude."

And in other news:

During the first two weeks of this month, the American army committed war crimes in Falluja on a scale unprecedented for this war. According to the relatively few media reports of what took place there, some 600 Iraqis were killed during these two weeks, among them some 450 elderly people, women and children.

The sight of decapitated children, the rows of dead women and the shocking pictures of the soccer stadium that was turned into a temporary grave for hundreds of the slain - all were broadcast to the world only by the Al Jazeera network. During the operation in Falluja, according to the organization Doctors Without Borders, U.S. Marines even occupied the hospitals and prevented hundreds of the wounded from receiving medical treatment. Snipers fired from the rooftops at anyone who tried to approach. (via Maxspeak).

Indeed, truly superb.

¶ 5/10/2004 01:54:23 PM

0 comments

G-D BLESS MADIBA

Nelson Mandela, today before the South African Parliament:

"We live in a world where there is enough reason for cynicism and despair. We watch as two of the leading democracies, two leading nations of the free world, get involved in a war that the United Nations did not sanction. We look on with horror as reports surface of terrible abuses against the dignity of human beings held captive by invading forces in their own country. We see how powerful countries -- all of them so-called democracies -- manipulate multilateral bodies to the great disadvantage and suffering of the poorer developing nations."

¶ 5/10/2004 01:46:59 PM

0 comments