Good Reads: Politics of withdrawal, fossil fuels, and media freedom in South Africa
Politics of withdrawal
This week, when President Obama marked the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, US Sen. John McCain took him to task for 鈥減oliticizing鈥� that event. When President Obama flew out to Afghanistan to praise US soldiers for their efforts over the past decade, and to sign a security pact with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Senator McCain said that because it involved long-term US national security interests.
For Americans, this should be fair warning: Every act by the president this year will be examined and deemed political or not, often depending more on political viewpoint than objective reality. But for the rest of the world, actions of the US president are too important to be seen in purely political terms.
Consider the Economist magazine鈥檚 article this week about the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA), which Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai signed on May 2. The Economist admits that little is known but the broad outlines of the agreement, including the expected beyond the announced end of US combat operations in Afghanistan in 2014. This, the Economist says, is聽good聽news. 聽聽
Ever since Mr. Obama first announced when American troops would begin to withdraw, many Afghans have been stalked by the fear of a return to the early 1990s, when the world abandoned them and the country imploded under the pressures of ethnic tensions and scheming neighbours. The result was a gruesome civil war and the rise of the Taliban.听
The SPA is an attempt to tell both Afghans and their neighbours that this will not happen again.
Vice presidents and foreign policy
Last week, Sen. Marco Rubio gave a speech on foreign policy at the Brookings Institute, which the Monitor鈥檚 Dan Murphy and others saw as Senator Rubio鈥檚 coming-out party as the likely vice-presidential candidate on Republican Mitt Romney鈥檚 presidential campaign ticket.
The press has assessed Rubio, and found him to be thoughtful and not overly hawkish. While Rubio is by no means likely to push for a return to the 鈥渨ith us or against us鈥� unilateralism of the Bush administration, his speech signaled that he believes the US should lead international organizations from the front, rather than seeking consensus and compromise, writes Mario Loyola in this week's National Review.
鈥β爄n Rubio鈥檚 view, diplomacy doesn鈥檛 mean bowing to international organizations where the lowest common denominator can kill collective action. Diplomacy means American leadership. 鈥楨ffective international coalitions don鈥檛 form themselves,鈥� Rubio said. 鈥楾hey need to be instigated and led, and more often than not, they can only be instigated and led by us.鈥�
Oil and politics
Americans might be surprised at what the citizens of other countries think about them. In many countries of Africa, for instance, it is thought that the only reason the American government does anything these days is to get control of oil.
The Iraqi war? 鈥淥il.鈥� The NATO operation to support Libyan rebels against Qaddafi? 鈥淥il.鈥� What about the billions of dollars spent by the US government to prevent the spread of HIV in Africa? 鈥淭hat is just a program to distract the world from America鈥檚 main preoccupation, which is oil.鈥�
A piece in the most recent Foreign Affairs magazine suggests that America may have to wean itself from fossil fuels, if only out of pure selfish national interests. As the writer Amory B. Lovins writes, the , and you add in other costs of transport and so on, the burden ends up being about one-sixth of the country鈥檚 gross domestic product. 鈥淓ven if oil and coal prices were聽not high, volatile, and rising, risks such as fuel insecurity and dependence, pollution-caused illnesses, energy-driven conflicts over water聽and food, climate change, and geopolitical tensions would make oil and聽coal unattractive,鈥� Mr. Lovins writes.
IQ and development
Racism and development work don鈥檛 usually get along. Those who want to make a difference in developing countries, helping poorer nations create vigorous economies, achieve self-sufficiency in food production, or build drinking water or public health systems, generally are not the types of people who believe in spurious theories of racial superiority.
The same can鈥檛 be said, unfortunately, for academics who write about development. Recently, a spate of articles argue that some countries are less developed than others because, well, because their citizens are stupid. in a Foreign Policy piece about these spurious academic studies, called "Dumb and Dumber." Mr. Kenny admits that IQ levels are higher in richer countries with better schooling systems, but then adds that as poorer countries get better nutrition and better educations, their IQ scores improve, something that scientists now call 鈥渢he Flynn effect.鈥�
The聽good聽news is that decolonization began a process of leveling the playing field, with rapidly climbing and聽聽indicators of health and education worldwide. Thanks to the Flynn effect, IQs are doubtless on a path of convergence as well, and the poisonous idiocy of genetic explanations for wealth and poverty will soon lose what little empirical support they might appear to have today.
Media freedom in South Africa
Finally, please聽read聽Nadine Gordimer鈥檚 fine piece in the New York Review of Books, about the troubling set of proposed laws that would sharply. Ms. Gordimer, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for literature, writes that she continues to support the African National Congress, but she opposes the proposed laws because they would essentially take South Africa back to the days of apartheid, when criticism was tantamount to treason.
For those who supported the freedom struggle in South Africa, the African National Congress鈥檚 rise to power in 1994 was an affirmation that truth and justice occasionally win out over racism and repression. But just 18 years later, Gordimer writes,鈥渨e now have the imminent threat of updated versions of the suppression of freedom of expression that gagged us under apartheid.鈥�
