Re: North Korea/Ethiopia arms deal

1

Shady arms deals with questionable states during a Republican administration? You could knock me down with a feather.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:18 PM
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I would say that it puts the "oil for food scandal" into proportion, except that for the people for whom that scandal was important, proportion was always already lost.

I'm nervous about our apparent policy of making Ethopia our "policeman in the Horn of Africa." There are just so many ways it can go wrong.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:22 PM
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Anything that puts free cash into North Korea is bad, as the place is run by lunatics, and cash will only go into either missiles or palaces. North Korea has to be treated like a heroin addict. Send food, send heating oil, etc., but don't give them money.

Africa is much the same. Beyond Bosnia type interventions to minimize genocide, involvement there should also focus on building infrastructure. But like North Korea, for god's sakes don't just send money.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:28 PM
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What do you make of this?

That at no time in our history have we had a less coherent foreign policy, formulated and run by such complete and utter incompetents. In a fair world, anybody who voted for these clowns in 2004 on foreign policy grounds would have their right to vote revoked.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:34 PM
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The thing that kills me about this arms deal is that Ethopia was, apparently, buying old Soviet weapons and parts. Surely there must be another source for those?


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:39 PM
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3: Uh, Africa's a pretty big place. Did you mean the horn of Africa?

Also, apropos of nothing, product idea: Nerf Korea!

Would it sell?


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:44 PM
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Seems to me foreign policy can be screwed up by people who have a grand dream and think all of the dominos are going to fall in the proper order, or by people who can't think far enough ahead to understand that one domino is going to affect another.

This seems to be a case of both at the same time. Ugh, ugh, ugh.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:50 PM
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Africa's a pretty big place. Did you mean the horn of Africa?

Seriously, how many countries on that continent can you think of where sending cash as aid won't result in it just being siphoned off at the top? Not that this unique to Africa.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:51 PM
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5: There's plenty of old Soviet stuff around. The issue is the price, and the Nerf Koreans probably sold it for $1.98. Of course, we could have subsidized the purchase from a more expensive store if there really was a benefit for us in the Ethiopians having those parts.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 7:59 PM
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8: I don't know enough about most of the governments to really say, but it certainly seems like a broad statement unless you know a lot more about the specifics than I do.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:00 PM
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9.--More like if the government thought anyone might pay attention.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:02 PM
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11: One would think hey would have learned they're living in a leaky boat by now.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:06 PM
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One more vote for "Who cares?"


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:06 PM
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but it certainly seems like a broad statement unless you know a lot more about the specifics than I do.

Well, it's not every country out there, but a hell of a lot of Africa is seriously fucked. And a huge barrier to progress is corruption. I've seen estimates putting it in the hundreds of billions a year. But again, it's hardly unique to Africa. Arafat died with a net worth of what, a billion? I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest something was amiss.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:18 PM
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The issue is the price, and the Nerf Koreans probably sold it for $1.98.

Might have also been a sketchy sale. Romania used to be a source for a lot of the stuff coming into Africa, but I've read that they've tightened their rules on sales to be more in line with EU standards.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:21 PM
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13: Yeah. I can't get excited about this one, one way or the other.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:22 PM
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14: I would agree it's a huge problem for most all of the developing world, but does that mean we should forego cash aid altogether? Seems extreme. What about debt forgiveness? Is that basically rewarding the corruption that siphoned off the loans in the first place?

I think 11 has the real metric. Cash aid to anywhere is fine, as long as the rest of the world can sustain enough interest (or get enough access) to understand what happens to it.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:28 PM
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does that mean we should forego cash aid altogether? Seems extreme. What about debt forgiveness? Is that basically rewarding the corruption that siphoned off the loans in the first place?

I'm for debt forgiveness. What's done is done. But I'd like to see us try a different tack. Use those billions to fund a division in the Army Corp of Engineers that was dedicated to international aid projects. Have the Army guys supervising, but use local labor and suppliers. Always actual Army personnel, none of this contracting with U.S. companies nonsense that has plagued Iraq.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:53 PM
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Use those billions to fund a division in the Army Corp of Engineers that was dedicated to international aid projects.

Just not levees.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 04- 7-07 8:56 PM
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In January a North Korean arms deal goes through to Ethiopia... and in early February the six-party talks reach a disarmament agreement vis-a-vis North Korea. Obviously the sale by itself wasn't likely a significant factor---but I'm sure it helped.

Some people might call it a shady arms deal. Looks like a win (for Ethiopia)/win (for us)/win (for North Korea)/win (for SE Asia) proposition to me.


Posted by: Hmmm... | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 12:09 AM
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19: yah rilly. I'd rather give 'em the cash, let them fuck it up for themselves.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 12:22 AM
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Some people might call it a shady arms deal. Looks like a win (for Ethiopia)/win (for us)/win (for North Korea)/win (for SE Asia) proposition to me.

Jesus. This is what we're calling a win? The facilitation of a North Korean arms sale so that Ethiopia can participate in a Somali civil war?


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 3:02 AM
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Just not levees.

I know, I know. It's just that the situation in a lot of third world countries makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I figure the current results are so shitty that surely there's not much to lose by trying something different.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 3:07 AM
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So much for the alleged neoconservative drive towards liberalism and democracy, given that Ethiopia has moved aggressively towards authoritarian repression of its own population in recent years after getting involved in a huge war with its neighbor Eritrea that virtually no one in the world paid any attention to despite staggering casualties and enormous human rights repercussions (well over 500,000 refugees in motion).

Just the people you want as your proxies when fighting Islamofascists! Naturally I had folks telling me the other day about what a great success the Ethiopian operations in Somalia against Islamic militants were because, you know, it was "mission accomplished" in the first couple of weeks of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, the Islamicists went running. Only, hey, what's going on? Fierce continuing urban warfare in the streets of Mogadishu waged by persistent Islamic insurgents? Ethiopian troops pinned down, begging for more US support, while also trying to con other African Union states into sending troops? Gee, what's that all about?

Adding North Korea to the mix is an extra-special bit of brilliance, though. Hat tip to whomever thought of that inside the Administration. Well-played, sir, well-played.


Posted by: Timothy Burke | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 8:26 AM
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As many people here know (I hope) the problem with US foreign aid policies is not simply that we make a lot of grants and loans to corrupt governments in poor countries, without sufficient oversight -- it's that our heavily government-subsidized private weapons industry then pressures them to buy weapons from us and our NATO/Israeli friends. Not to mention the fact that much of our aid comes with so many ridiculous ideological litmus tests ("Family planning programs? Good God man, you don't mean to say that you want to use the taxpayers' money for abortions!?"), that the only people who qualify for it are toadying dictators who simply have to lie to the right people in order to fund their guns and palaces (cf. Hussein, Saddam).

Perhaps this is kind of a hackneyed observation, looking at Wikipedia's Africa entry, it strikes me that there's hardly a national border on the entire continent that wasn't determined by European colonizers.


Posted by: minneapolitan | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 8:35 AM
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Yeah, that's pretty hackneyed.


Posted by: FL | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 10:09 AM
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Well yeah. I'm sure I can't tell anyone here anything about colonialism, but I've had plenty of discussions with folx out in the real world who claim that [African nation] has brought all its problems upon itself, and that colonialism doesn't have anything to do with it.


Posted by: minneapolitan | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 10:20 AM
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Look, I post obsessively about Glenn Reynolds. I can't criticize hackneyed.


Posted by: FL | Link to this comment | 04- 8-07 10:23 AM
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Look, I post obsessively about Glenn Reynolds.

Hey Labs, have you heard of Michelle Shocked?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 04- 9-07 1:32 PM
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