Asymmetrical Information

--"let's take the land from the rich people who unjustly own it and give it to those who need it"--

Actually, it was "let's take the land from the white people who unjustly own it and give to those who need it." One can't talk about Mugabe's rule in the absence of anti-colonialism and race--it's like talking about Hitler as an economic force and without reference to nationalism.

I don't think that that's true, at least as to what I'm talking about, which is the inevitable economic ruin entailed in radical land reforms. Whether the people with the land are aristocrats, ethnic minorities benefitting from an earlier conquest, corrupt clerics, or any other group of people who society has suddenly decided came by their land unjustly, the result is that everyone-former landowners and rural peasants and urban workers-suffers horribly. The fact that the dispossessed farmers were white colonials is not putting any food in the mouth of Zimbabwe's starving children.

In other words, the same thing happened in Russia under Stalin and in China under Mao, although expropriator and expropriatee were the same race and nationality.

But there have been cases of land reform, conducted in a more civilized and efficient way, that didn't lead to mass starvation. Look at Japan, following World War II.

In fact, weren't the first steps in Chinese land reform successful--when they broke up the big estates--and it was only the forced collectivization and other messes associated with the Great Leap forward that followed several years later that caused starvation?

The point is that redistribution of property can go horribly wrong if it's done poorly and if it's done in service of a totalitarian or racist regime. Within a democratic framework, or done with a limited goal in mind of creating a middle class, it can have positive results. That's my point--Mugabe didn't give a fig about the Zimbabwean economy or the poor, he was trying to rally the majority against the minority to cover his own corruption and keep himself in power. Democratic institutions serve as a brake on the slippery slope in better circumstances. Amartya Sen is relevant here.

And this does lead us back to Japan today. Their farm sector is now oversubsidized and a bit ridiculous, but that's due to the concentration of political power in rural areas in an undemocratic Senate--a problem Americans can sympathize with. It's orthogonal to land reform. If the land was divided up into estates getting subsidies and worked by poor farm labor, I don't think anyone would be much better off, and a lot of people would be worse off. In any case, it's not China c. 1960.

Calling Mugabe's expropriation of farms an example of land reform is like calling the conscription of Poles for forced labor a full employment program. Things that sound good can always be abused for bad purposes; that doesn't make that abuse an example of the ultimate goal of the good.

Brittain33 is right of course, and one must also add that Mugabe's own corruption and greed was/is so extreme that he gave rise to the term "kleptocracy". With him at the helm, disaster would have been the result whether the expropriation took place or not.

"Mugabe didn't give a fig about the Zimbabwean economy or the poor, he was trying to rally the majority against the minority to cover his own corruption and keep himself in power."

Exactly, Brittain. Grants were not distributed to those who most needed or best could utilize the land, but rather to 'war veterans' who helped him obtain and help him keep power.

That's why I put the word "radical" in front of land reform. Land reform has certainly worked in many times and places--but nowhere that I am aware of where it took a majority of the country's cultivation at once and handed it over to someone else, whether it be a farm collective or the dispossessed. Land reform, in my admittedly extremely limited reading, seems to work where it is gradual, where the people receiving the land are the people who already work it, and where the takings and the compensation are sufficient to keep the former landlords around providing capital (human and financial). The problem from a radical's point of view is that those land reforms lack the scope to remedy society's ills, which is what radical reformers are seeking. Thus, Iran's land reform was modestly ambitious, and modestly successful, while China's land reform was colossal in scope, and in tragic consequences.

Speaking of Mugabe, why can't the world do anything about him? If America is all about unseating cruel dictators and spreading democracy as a matter of principle, isn't he the best case one could make?

I'm not being snarky and I'm not wasting time with an argument that Bush has to fix every problem in the world if he wants to claim to fix one. Conservatives love to identify Mugabe as one of the world's worst dictators, and they're absolutely right. If you made a list of all the countries in a world in need of an intervention, Zimbabwe should be at the top. North Korea has done more damage to its people, but it's also a problem without a solution.

I'd fully support any American initiative to get rid of him and put someone in his place who won't starve his people to death. Yet we don't hear anything about him from the Bush Administration, not even via proxy. Why not? How will people here feel about our country's dedication to the oppressed if Bush leaves office in 2009 without having removed Mugabe from his perch? Isn't this the least he could do to make "democracy" NOT look like a third-string post hoc explanation for the war, but the principle that he convinced Americans to support after it did become the rationale?

Brittain33:
I think the major reason is that Mugabe only kills his own people. AFAIK, he is not supporting, coordinating, or allying with terrorists that want to attack the US or its troops. (Maybe he is, and I simply don't know about it. Wouldn't be the first time.)

If our FP were purely to extend democracry, we would start with a dictactorship 90 miles from Florida. However, extending democracy is merely a method in our reducing or ending the danger from the Islamic terrorists. Just as in WWII, we didn't invade Spain, even though it was a brutal dictatorship, because our goal wasn't to overthrow every fascist or allied regime, but to win the war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

You probably didn't watch our election in 2000, but one of the planks that GWB ran on was to reduce our intervention overseas in areas which didn't affect our national interest (Haiti, Kosovo, etc.)

Hee. I'm American; the name is something of a random pseudonym.

I remember how Bush campaigned against in 2000, and I opposed him then for it. I thought our intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo was an act of good that was mitigated only by moving too late in the first case. Bush has changed his position on this issue, and this change is widely acknowledged. And for the last two years, much of what we've been hearing about Saddam Hussein was about how cruel he was to his own people, and how important it is that Iraq becomes a functioning democracy to serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East.

Americans, being essentially good people, have come to support the idea of making Iraq into a better place for its own sake. Bush has campaigned on the basis of this goodwill, and certainly people who criticized the war have heard thousands of times if they liked rape rooms and mass graves of Iraqi civilians. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If we didn't care about the country's internal policies toward its citizens, we could leave tomorrow. We won't.

Of course we didn't invade Spain during World War II. But Bush isn't Roosevelt, our policy in World War II wasn't to overthrow local dictators and bring democracy to far corners of the globe in stasis. Bush explicitly criticized American policy during World War II in Latvia a few weeks ago. He believes that people should have the freedom to choose their own government, even if it means going to war. What alternative was there to Yalta?

The difference between Zimbabwe and Cuba, and between Zimbabwe and North Korea, is that Zimbabwe would be both easiest to invade, militarily and diplomatically, would bring the greatest potential reward to the people there. That's all. So why not do it? Does Bush like watching Zimbabweans starve? Wouldn't the world be a better place without that bastard in power?

"How will people here feel about our country's dedication to the oppressed if Bush leaves office in 2009 without having removed Mugabe from his perch?"

Well, since the kind of intervention you're talking about inevitably results in Americans coming home in body bags (not to mention the worldwide hatred of Imperialist America that would undoubtedly accompany such a campaign), I guess I'll feel the same way about Bush leaving power without getting rid of Mugabe as I will feel about him leaving power while Kim Jong Il is still in power, about the cops when they catch one rapist but not all of them, or about myself when I give to some charities without giving away everything I own to the poor. In other words, it doesn't matter how we "feel" about it: the world sucks and you do what you can with scarce resources.

There's also the fact that as far as I know, Mugabe is popular in Zimbabwe. He's doing what his constiuents want him to do. Of course, they don't realize that what they want is killing them, but that's what you get in a country where the average IQ is 70.

The sad thing is, South Africa is on the same path. It was a much more developed economy than Zimbabwe, so there's a lot more room to fall, but it's just as inevitable. It's a sad reality that no one wants to face, but black Africans are not able to run a modern economy on their own. Look anywhere around the world - from Haiti to Detroit - and you find that where blacks achieve political power, civilization crumbles. Wish it weren't true, but it is.

Brit: the answer is that the West doesn't care when genocide happens to Africans. It's a sad, horrible, awful fact. But it's a fact none-the-less. Rwanda, Congo, Zimbabwe, the massive starvation in Somalia, French action in the Ivory Coast, Darfur...we can and should do something about it, and maybe we will once we've taken care of things that are a more pressing concern to American safety, but it's still fairly reprehensible morally. "Never Again" must mean "never again to Europeans". I will forever hate the Clinton Administration for creating the term "acts of genocide".

since the kind of intervention you're talking about inevitably results in Americans coming home in body bags (not to mention the worldwide hatred of Imperialist America that would undoubtedly accompany such a campaign),

It would be a fraction of what we've experienced with the Iraq war, and as we've noted, Americans are willing to accept the losses of troops and the objections of other countries if we believe in what we're doing. Saddam is gone from Iraq, there are no weapons there to fall into the wrong hands, yet we're still there and still losing people. This is because America cares about freedom and wants Iraq to succeed. Because Saddam's crimes are too great to allow that atmosphere to be restored.

about the cops when they catch one rapist but not all of them,

How about if the police declared that catching rapists was their #1 priority in a city full of them, and then proceeded to capture one rapist, but stopped there without capturing a second rapist? How about if this second rapist had a big sign out front saying "RAPIST LIVES HERE" in flashing lights, the lock on the door is busted, and there are a few dozen rape victims in chains in the house waiting to help escort him to justice? If the police went around talking about how awful rape was while this guy stayed free, wouldn't you feel like this was a lost opportunity--or perhaps question what the police were doing?

I was making the argument that of course resources are limited, we can't invade any country, but if we are concerned about unpopular dictators and people starving to death, there can be no debate that we can make the difference in one country commonly recognized to be going through hell because of one man's control.

There's also the fact that as far as I know, Mugabe is popular in Zimbabwe. He's doing what his constiuents want him to do.

Times of changed. He's not popular at all. He had to rig the last several elections by throwing his opponents in prison and sending gangs of his supporters out to beat up anyone associated with the opposition. The people in the country are actively starving. Mugabe's lost the ability to provide the majority of the country with enough sustenance to get them to support him. He has his hardcore cronies, but that's it.

Despotism in the Persian Gulf is far more dangerous to the rest of the world than despotism in southern or central Africa. On the other hand, if the Bush Administration does not attempt to parlay changes in Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, and, hopefully, Syria, by the end of this term, into increasing the pace of change in Saudi Arabia, the Bush legacy may not be positive.

Saudi Arabia was always the fulcrum upon which the entire geo-political board was centered, but, to be fair, it is many ways the toughest nut to crack. The global economy cannot stand Saudi oil production going down for any length of time, but, at the same time, the Islamist ideology permeating form Saudi Arabia, fueled with oil revenues, is what causes much violence. How is the cat to be belled? Well, an Iraq which has a semblence of self-government by the population, and is fully exploiting it's oil extraction potential, would make the task less dangerous, but the Iraqi project is itself very, very difficult. Zimbabwe is understandably on the burner way, way, way, in the back.

Geopolitics is hard.

Of course, in one of life's little ironies, any attempt to improve life for the black citizens/residents of Zimbabwe by toppling Mugabe would be vociferously opposed and condemned as racist by Sharpton, Jackson, the NAACP, the Black Caucus, and the united MSM.

Not all resource limitations are physical. There is a shortage of political resources for direct action in sub-Saharan Africa.

any attempt to improve life for the black citizens/residents of Zimbabwe by toppling Mugabe would be vociferously opposed and condemned as racist by Sharpton, Jackson, the NAACP, the Black Caucus, and the united MSM.

It's a bit presumptuous to criticize people for what they haven't done. Many black people criticized the Clinton Administration for NOT intervening in Rwanda. In the meantime, I did a search on Mugabe and NAACP and found a press release where Mfume criticized Mugabe's government via Zimbabwe's ambassador for his undemocratic practices following the 2002 election. The NAACP has provided election monitors to Zimbabwe in the past.

Note that the list of names you mentioned opposed the Iraq War and many of Bush's other intiatives of the last five years. Bush did not allow that to stop him from leading the country anyway in spite of their opposition. Why would he fold in this case? Why would you underestimate his resolve to bring freedom to an oppressed country?

In any case, Mugabe has burned through a lot of his freedom-fighter credibility with his mistreatment of his people and his contempt for democracy. Even if all black leaders were as contemptuous as you describe them, I don't think they care too much about this particular millstone if the goals and purposes are positive.

Britain33:

Analogies aside, it's not the US's job to save the oppressed of the world (it's nobobdy's job, which is why nobody does it) from tyranical local misrule. If it can be squared with the national interest, the tyrannical nature of the regime we're opposing IS a factor in the decision, at least for me. That's a cost/benifit judgement, and if you can convince me that removing Mugabe is a national interest of the US, worth the cost in American dead, I would support removing him.

There are at least four nations I can think of off the top of my head where military intervention to get rid of the rulers would be justified by the same arguments you are applying to Zimbabwe: Libya, N. Korea, Sudan, and Syria. There are undoubtedly many others. I wish they could all be removed or preferably overthrown by their own people (peacefully, of course: with rainbows and flowers and moral bravery by exceptionally good looking revolutionaries), but it's not even the theoretical responsibility of the US to do so. I agree that Mugabe should be put on the luge ride to the Hell Olympics. It won't happen by our hand, though.

It's not only domestic political capital that's lacking. South Africa is next door, and suffers the results of Zimbabwe's failure directly, most notably in floods of indigent illegal immigrants. Yet South Africa, and various pan-african bodies, firmly oppose outside intervention. Indeed, they refuse to criticize, and object when the US or UK attempt to do so. There is an unfortunate racial/colonial resentment that ends in support of "our own" ba*tard. Not so dissimilar to attitudes in other parts of the globe. The coalition overrode such complaints wrt Iraq, to incessant complaint; to call for expenditure of similar political capital in Africa for "pure" disinterested reasons, but over local objections, is disingenuous at best. When Mbeke signals something other than "stay away", I suspect some western power support might be available.

Mugabe has a plan: everyone is going to learn Chinese. And: "Can I lose weight and support Zimbabwean land reform... at the same time?"

The calls for intervention in Zimbabwe are very premature. Who would take Mugabe's place? Where would we invade from? It is landlocked so without support from one of the neighboring countries we can't even get overflight rights for a paratroop drop. Are we to risk getting shot down over Mozanbique?

The Kuomintang successfully pulled off massive land reform
in Taiwan in the 1950s. At the time almost all the country's
fertile land was owned by a rather small group of people.
The land in most cases was farmed not by the owners but by
tenants. The KMT gave ownership to whomever was actually farming
the land. The KMT did not villify the landowners and in fact
gave some kind of financial instrument in compensation for the
land taken from the landowners. At the time these instruments
were not particularly valuable but -- although I don't understand
the details -- they were in some sense indexed to the Taiwan economy
and later turned out to be the basis of some of the former
landowning families' fortunes.

Of course the differences here from the Zimbabwan land reform
are dramatic. In Zimbabwe the land was taken from the people
who actually farmed it. The former landowners were vilified,
sometimes killed and chased from the country. The land was given
for the most part to the politically connected, who in most cases
knew and know absolutely nothing about farming. In the cases where
the land has been given to those who do have some knowledge, it's in
most cases an african style, low productive kind of agriculture
completely different from the capital-intensive kind of agriculture
that the white Zimbabwan farmers had practiced or for the small
set of people who are both black and knowledgeable about modern
techniques, in that case these people lack the financial resources
to rebuild what was often destroyed by Mugabe's followers.

from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/22/wzim22.xml

Quote:

White farmers evicted by Robert Mugabe's government have
reacted with contempt to an offer that they should return
to Zimbabwe to take part in "joint ventures" with those
who brutalised them and stole their land.

Gideon Gono, the governor of the country's central bank,
suggested the idea last Thursday as a possible solution
to Zimbabwe's economic crisis.

timothy wrote:
Brit: the answer is that the West doesn't care when genocide happens to Africans.

Of course, as other commenters have noted, neither do the Africans (or at least their leaders). South Africa, Mugabe's other neighbors and the OAU would all oppose our involvement. Absent something that affects our interests, why should we get involved where we're not wanted?

Jim

Yes, the average IQ of Zimbabweans is 70. And the average IQ of arabs is 85. That means that in terms of human intellectual capital, the liberation of arabs makes more sense. Arabs at least have a small prayer of governing themselves peacefully. Very small. Zimbabweans have none at all.

Of course the petroleum capital and the worldwide terrorism that it fuels is more to the point. The game is in mid-play. Best not to declare defeat until the game is over.

I apologize in advance for going off on a tangent, but can the data in "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" be correct? Statistically, can an entire nation average more than two standard deviations below the mean? I don't have the means to doubt the data, but when the results end up with an anti-Wobegonian result that 80% of the world is below average intelligence, something doesn't pass the smell test.

On land reform, I somewhere saw the comment that the blow to property rights that most `land reform' entails hurt mostly the intended beneficiaries. If the powerful landlords were not secure in their ownership, how could the new much less powerful owners be secure. Also, I think many land reforms replace one kind of tenancy with another: the new `owners' may not sell the land, only farm it. I think it was Hernan deSoto who argued that land can only be a stepping stone to wealth if it can be pledged for loans or otherwise alienated.

Most land reform seems like a Gift of the Magii: you can't really give a poor person `property' if in doing so you destroy the entire concept of property.

" black Africans are not able to run a modern economy on their own"
- nonsense! They're as capable as anyone, but they're also subject to the same limitations. Communinist dictatorships/kleptocracies (same thing) haven't worked well anywhere, regardless of who has tried to impose them. Land "reform" may not lead as quickly to famine in Venezuela as in Zimbabwe, but only because of its oil wealth. And I don't think there's any evidence that imprisoning the rich was a sound economic strategy in China even before the Great Leap. Bad policies are bad policies regardless of the skin tone of the person enforcing them.

"South Africa is next door, and suffers the results of Zimbabwe's failure directly, most notably in floods of indigent illegal immigrants. Yet South Africa, and various pan-african bodies, firmly oppose outside intervention."

Sadly, many speculate that South Africa refuses to intervene because it expects to profit from increased investment (it's been getting the funds that might otherwise have gone to Zimbabwe). And its justification for staying out is hypocritical - South Africa is arguing now that others shouldn't intervene in a country's internal affairs, when the same black leaders demanded that others intervene when they wanted to gain power.

"you can't really give a poor person `property' if in doing so you destroy the entire concept of property"

Excellent point! The theory for land reform is to take "underutilized" land and put it in more productive (and socially desirable) hands. In practice, it usually involves taking the best, most productive farmland, often killing the former owners (it's cheaper than paying them), and giving that farmland to political cronies. For example, Mugabe's wife got some of the confiscated land meant for the poor. When government thugs are allowed to take whatever property they want and dole it out at their own discretion, there's bound to be trouble. Without the rule of law, there's no reason to expect land or other types of redistribution to work.

I wish that Bush and the US could do something about Mugabe, but any move would be labelled racist and would be heavily opposed. Look at the media's reaction to Bush's criticism of land "reform" in Venezuela.

Ducrider writes:

>>>It's a sad reality that no one wants to face, but black Africans are not able to run a modern economy on their own. Look anywhere around the world - from Haiti to Detroit - and you find that where blacks achieve political power, civilization crumbles. Wish it weren't true, but it is."

Ducrider, there's ONE good thing I can say about your comment. Most people who think like you simply smile in your face, and then say this kind of RACIST NONSENSE behind closed doors. You've provided a window into a mindset that I believe is far too pervasive in America.

Thanks.

I will not defend Mugabe in this post, but I wonder...if Mugabe is a bad guy for confiscating farmlands,(a lot of which came from the "Land Apportionment Act of 1930", which gave white colonists, who represented 5% of the population 50% of the land--http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575825_9/Zimbabwe.html)...what would we call George W. Bush for what is going on right now in Iraq? The "liberal media" certainly has been falling down on the job reporting the type of "reforms" that went on under Bremer in Iraq:

>>>The tone of Bremer’s tenure was set with his first major act on the job: he fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the country’s borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties, no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared two weeks after he arrived, was “open for business.”
One month later, Bremer unveiled the centerpiece of his reforms. Before the invasion, Iraq’s non-oil-related economy had been dominated by 200 state-owned companies, which produced everything from cement to paper to washing machines. In June, Bremer flew to an economic summit in Jordan and announced that these firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery.” It would be the largest state liquidation sale since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But Bremer’s economic engineering had only just begun. In September, to entice foreign investors to come to Iraq, he enacted a radical set of laws unprecedented in their generosity to multinational corporations. There was Order 37, which lowered Iraq’s corporate tax rate from roughly 40 percent to a flat 15 percent. There was Order 39, which allowed foreign companies to own 100 percent of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector. Even better, investors could take 100 percent of the profits they made in Iraq out of the country; they would not be required to reinvest and they would not be taxed. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign banks to Iraq under the same favorable terms. All that remained of Saddam Hussein’s economic policies was a law restricting trade unions and collective bargaining.
If these policies sound familiar, it’s because they are the same ones multinationals around the world lobby for from national governments and in international trade agreements. But while these reforms are only ever enacted in part, or in fits and starts, Bremer delivered them all, all at once. Overnight, Iraq went from being the most isolated country in the world to being, on paper, its widest-open market."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0924-13.htm

While corporations have swooped in, the quality of life for the Iraqi people is poor.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/2b9242d27e858655700faef450ec18d8.htm

If we are concerned about the effect of "reform" on the health of children in Zimbabwue, why aren't we as concerned American reform and the health of children in Iraq?

--Cobra

Cobra -

Other than the horrendous possibility that multinationals might get to keep some fraction of the wealth that they create, what is the problem with these policies? It sounds like the Bush administration is helping to put the Iraqi economy on a sound basis, whereas Mugabe is killing white farmers simply because he wants to steal their land. An open economy will help Iraq to build wealth, which will help the children of Iraq.

Of course the quality of life of Iraqis is currently poor - Saddam looted their country, with the help of the UN. But these new policies represent international best practices for helping the country in the future. Stop demonizing corporations and look at which economic systems have worked. If companies are willing to come in and invest and get the Iraqi economy going, it will help everyone.

Ann writes:
>>>Other than the horrendous possibility that multinationals might get to keep SOME FRACTION of the wealth that they create, what is the problem with these policies?"

"Some Fractions?" They get to keep it ALL, with NO responsibility to the Iraqi people. NONE. Read the Orders AGAIN.

"...There was Order 39, which allowed FOREIGN companies to own 100 PERCENT of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector. Even better, investors could take 100 PERCENT of the profits they made in Iraq OUT of the country; they would NOT be required to REINVEST and they would NOT BE TAXED. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for FORTY YEARS...."

How pray tell, are these types of policies going to "help" the Iraqi children? Who's policing these corporations? Hell, who's policing America reconstruction efforts, with unbelievable reports like these:

>>>The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was unable to keep track of nearly $9 BILLION it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.
The U.S. officials relied on Iraqi audit agencies to account for the funds but those offices were not even functioning when the funds were transferred between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an audit by a special U.S. inspector general."
http://www.forbes.com/business/manufacturing/feeds/ap/2005/01/30/ap1791607.html

It seems to me that America needs to get its own house in order before knocking on Mugabe's door.

--Cobra

Unfortunately, africa is truly a lost continent. Mugabe is merely one of many ugly tyrants among a continent full of them. It is the heartbreaking descent of Zimbabwe from its former splendid wealth to its present impoverishment that shines the spotlight of shame on Mugabe. A lost continent indeed.

Cobra -

Companies will not be forced to reinvest in Iraq, but they will choose to reinvest, as long as there are good projects. Foreign companies will hire locals, providing jobs. There's a good chance that they'll raise local standards in terms of how employees are treated (that has happened in many developing countries, which is why so many Asians view the anti-sweatshop movement as a great threat). They will train employees and help develop the economy.

The Iraqi people will receive many benefits from a growing economy, without artificial restrictions that prevent profits from going to those they belong to. After all, if foreigners provide the capital and bear the risks, why shouldn't they get the return on their investment, just as employees get the return on their labor? The Iraqi governemnt, as it gets up and running, will be able to regulate and tax any businesses operating in Iraq, and everyone will benefit from a strong economy.

As for spending money on development without first waiting years for Iraqi auditing standards to be developed and auditors trained, what alternative would you prefer? Ideally, the money would be fully audited, because ideally Saddam would have been gone long ago and a stable democracy would already be operating, in which case we wouldn't even be there. The provisional authority was faced with a choice between spending right away, to get things moving, and waiting months or years to put in place trained accountants. Compared to the UN Oil for Food program, this is nothing. No one died because full auditing procedures weren't in place (and in fact, many lives were probably saved), whereas many Iraqis died because Saddam was allowed to divert food money into palaces and bribes.

Look at the media's reaction to Bush's criticism of land "reform" in Venezuela.

No offense, but you MUST be some kind of media geek to have picked up a sense of Bush persecution on that story. "Land reform in Venezuela" is not a story that the MSM is putting front and center, even when Bush responds.

I wasn't trying to argue that poor little Bush was being persecuted. The destruction of Venezuela through communism/socialism isn't the kind of story that gets much attention at all in the US, unfortunately. But I've been following Venezuela casually, off and on, since Carter "helped" with their last election, and I'm repulsed yet fascinated at the idea that anyone, anywhere, still falls for the failed communist line. Communism lead to far more deaths in the 20th century than did war or facism.

The connection between land theft in Venezuela and in Zimbabwe is pretty obvious (and relevant to the original post). I've been struck by the fact that the media stories I've seen are more upset about Bush commenting on Venezuela's policies than about Venezuela's policies. If simply saying something negative about Venezuela is viewed so negatively (when it's viewed at all), then what would be the reaction to Bush invading Zimbabwe? Most of the world doesn't care if Zimbabweans die but would be very, very upset if the US helped to save them.

I like the "media geek" label but am not sure I've earned it. Maybe it's something I can work towards.

Venezuela and Zimbabwe are two twin nations with identical fates. Zimbabwe is merely a bit further along the disastrous path. Venezuela will catch up.

Ann,

How many Iraqis have died as a result of America's invasion and occupation? How many homes have been destroyed? Are Iraqi lives worth the same as white famers in Zimbabwue?

--Cobra

Yes, Iraqi lives are valuable, which is why they deserved to be liberated. By talking only about the deaths and turmoil because of the liberation and occupation, you're implying that their alternative was to live in peaceful prosperity. Their alternative was to be trapped under a sick, brutal dictator. Now they have hope; they have a chance to build a future.

Iraqis that want power for themselves and don't care about Iraqi lives are trying to sabotage that process, and the US is helping the Iraqis fight off those thugs. Our goal is to give Iraq a stable, state-of-the-art government and economy that is set to grow and prosper and give hope and opportunity to the Iraqi children. What hope did they have under Saddam? Yes, the transition has been difficult, but what were the alternatives?

The US can't and shouldn't invade everyone, but we should continue to pressure governments to reform, and the UN and Europe should help. Self-described "realists" (i.e. defeatists) say that we can't fix everything and thus should think only of our own short-term interests. But I agree with Bush that, in the long term, the US is safer if more governments modernize. Zimbabwe and Venezuela are taking a step backwards into the failed policies of the past, while we're helping Iraq to move forward.

Ann writes:

>>>Companies will not be forced to reinvest in Iraq, but they will choose to reinvest, as long as there are good projects. Foreign companies will hire locals, providing jobs. There's a good chance that they'll raise local standards in terms of how employees are treated (that has happened in many developing countries, which is why so many Asians view the anti-sweatshop movement as a great threat). They will train employees and help develop the economy."

My goodness, you would think that you sit on the board of directors of some of these corporations if you believe that they actually are concerned about anything other than making a PROFIT. Where do you get this stuff from? American corporations show about as much concern for the American worker as the next outsourcing/downsizing/pension defaulting board meeting they hold. Yet, you look at them as the salvation for Iraq.
Curious.
>>>Compared to the UN Oil for Food program, this is nothing. No one died because full auditing procedures weren't in place (and in fact, many lives were probably saved), whereas many Iraqis died because Saddam was allowed to divert food money into palaces and bribes."

First of all, nobody with even a microbial concern for OUR US TAX DOLLARS would DARE claim that nearly $9 BILLION missing is "nothing."
Second, if you even were to BELIEVE this "Oil for Food" smokescreen, you have to acknowlege that somebody outside of Saddam made money off of the program. According to reports, one of those "somebody's" was a subsidiary of a familiar company we all know and love.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/02.03E.Hallib.Iraq.htm
>>>Iraqis that want power for themselves and don't care about Iraqi lives are trying to sabotage that process, and the US is helping the Iraqis fight off those thugs."

So it's wrong for Iraqis to want power for themselves in Iraq? When did this happen?

Zimbabwe is another issue where apparently, you believe that it is wrong for the indigenous population to want power for themselves.
Exactly what made the brutal rulers from Great Brittain any better than Saddam Hussein?

>>>It seems the height of hypocrisy that the world should be focused on the plight and
non-payment of compensation to white farmers, without as much as a mention of the savagery with which the Black African owners were massacred and their lands seized without compensation. The word Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe, is an Ndebele word for "slaughter," and it refers to the savagery of the British settlers, including the infamous Cecil Rhodes who had crushed the attempt by the indigenes to fight back, leading King Lobengula to swallow poison rather than be captured. Or should we forget the savagery of the bestial Sir Frederick Carrington, who had publicly advocated that the entire Ndebele race should be forcefully removed or be exterminated.

Or that of profligate Ian Smith, who seized the government in 1965 and unilaterally declared the then Southern Rhodesia independent, when he refused to apologize for the atrocities he committed while he held office. In fact, he even boasted that he had no regrets about the estimated 30,000 Zimbabweans killed during his rule. Said Smith, "the more we killed, the happier we were."
http://www.blackcommentator.com/10_zimbabwe.html

I suppose some posters here will find some way to trivialize the suffering of black Zimbabweans. Will you be one of them, Ann?

--Cobra

cobra,

I'm with you on Zimbabwe. With the white man and his stolen property out of the picture the people of that land no longer have even local foreign masters.

That they no longer have food either is a small price to pay, eh?

"if you believe that they actually are concerned about anything other than making a PROFIT."

This is the whole "invisible hand" thing. The corporations don't have to be worried about anything other than making a profit, and they still help Iraq by providing goods or services, hiring people, etc. Charity/handouts/government redistribution is not the only way that wealth is acquired. Someone has to create the wealth first, and corporations help with that, not because they're forced to or are acting as a charity, but because that's the system. I don't look at corporations as the "salvation" of Iraq, they're simply part of an efficient system.

The $9 billion hasn't vanished, it simply hasn't been fully audited. Again, what would you have preferred - months or years of inaction while auditors were trained and Iraqi accounting standards developed? First you claim to be concerned about Iraqis, then you're shocked that money has been spent to help them. There's no evidence that the money has been misspent - they simply didn't hold up the funds to first develop a more extensive accounting network.

The Iraqis that are doing car bombs, murdering local police, etc., are trying to establish a new dictatorship, which I believe is "wrong". It's wrong for some Iraqis to want total power at the expense of the rest of the country.

You keep changing the subject - why did you drag in the UK? The crimes of colonialism don't excuse the crimes of Mugabe. Are you saying that we have to support sick, brutal, incompetent thugs because it's impossible for an African country to be well run by locals? I'm against rulers wrecking countries and hurting their own people, regardless of the nationality or skin color of the rulers. Zimbabwe is being destroyed by bad policies, while the policies being put in place in Iraq are those most likely, based on current technology, to build wealth and help the country.

cobra,

With starvation in the wings Mugabe ought to easily top 30,000 don't you think?

A million dead is a small price to pay to get rid of the white devils.

And lucky for us they million are not dead yet. So there is still some hope for socialism in Zimbabwew. At least theoretically.

Exactly what difference does it make to a country if some of its assets are 100% foreign owned?

When I go looking for a job the first thing I think about relative to a company is can they use my skills profitably.

Whetther the owners are Dutch, German, or American is of zero interest to me.

So basically, I can construe from these recent posts, that Iraqis and Black Zimbabweans are totally inept, incompetant people, who couldn't find a way to survive until British and American colonists came to "save" them.
If you don't realize how RACIST your theories sound, I don't know what to tell you. But let's examine some statements just for fun.

M. Simon writes:

>>>That they no longer have food either is a small price to pay, eh?"

Well, when you invade a country, take it over, give away the most fertile farmlands to foreign colonists, and develop a system where 90% of food production is dependent on those invaders, there will be transitional problems. If your statement is that the indigenous population of Zimbabweans, who lived on the land for maybe thousands of years in an agricultural society had no idea how to feed themselves before the white man came is stupifying, but since you probably require more than just my rhetoric to convince you, here's the TRUTH:
>>>The nation of Zimbabwe takes its name from a massive complex of stone buildings that dominates the high plains just outside the town of Masvingo in the southeastern part of the country. In the language of the Shona people, the nation’s major ethnic group, “Zimbabwe” means “stone building.” The impressive stone-walled enclosures of Great Zimbabwe are a dramatic symbol of the country’s long history and past glories. Constructed by the Bantu ancestors of the Shona over a period of 400 years beginning in the 11th century, Great Zimbabwe served as the headquarters of the vast Monomatapa kingdom, an empire that once included all of today’s Zimbabwe, and also northern South Africa and considerable stretches of Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania. It was ruled by powerful kings whose wealth was based on huge herds of cattle and whose trade relations extended from neighbouring kingdoms all the way to Arabia and distant Asia.
After the decline of the Shona empire in the 15th century, Great Zimbabwe no longer served as an administrative and political centre, but remained an important place of worship for the local people for hundreds of years. However, when the first European explorers came across its immense ruins in 1871, their initial reaction was stunned surprise. How could the black African ancestors of the people they were about to colonize and exploit have had the skill and knowledge to have erected such magnificent structures? To investigators like the German archaeologist Karl Mauch, the answer was simple. No black Africans, past or present, had built Great Zimbabwe. Instead, Mauch claimed, its construction was the achievement of some Middle Eastern people, possibly descendants of the mythical “Queen of Sheba” referred to in the Old Testament. Deeply imbued with racist attitudes toward black Africans, Mauch and other white Europeans like him could not credit them with the intellectual ability to construct such amazing buildings."
http://www.cbc.ca/newsinreview/Sep2000/zimbabwe/historical.htm

Hmmm....white people suggesting that black Africans are stupid and can't build or run anything. Now where have I read that kind of thing, lately?

--Cobra

Cobra. Take a deep breath, my friend. The contention herein is emphatically NOT that black Africans (or Arabs) are or were helpless, inept, unable to feed themselves, mental children, or any of the other rationalizations with which earlier generations of "colonizing" powers excused their own land grabs.

The contention is that Mugabe's land grab, while appearing to be a kind of justice because, after all, those white imperialists had arrogated all the good land to themselves in the past, has not only not improved the situation for Zimbabwe's people but has made it dramatically worse. Mugabe did not act in the interests of his countrymen, but in his own interests alone. The fact that Europeans behaved shamefully in the past does not excuse Mugabe's shameful behavior today.

That the old civilizations of Africa are reduced to ruins, that the old kingdoms were looted, that the entire region became known as the Dark Continent for no better reason than that Europeans feared and did not understand the differences they encountered there - these things are tragic, but they're also part of the immutable past now. We can't know what Africa would have been like if, instead of having been absorbed into various European empires for a couple of hundred years, it had been left alone to develop on its own, to choose its manner of interaction with the "West." The question this post addresses is, given a past that can't be altered, with all the baggage it carries, what does Zimbabwe deserve today?

As an aside that I don't intend to be snarky, it's not proponents of the Invisible Hand who were so vocal in insisting that the Iraqis were not "ready" for democracy. That attitude thrives in some circles, apparently, but my read of these comments doesn't elevate it above cotyledon status here.

Africa is ravaged by HIV/Aids, a plague native to africa and propagated by the behavior of african peoples. The educated classes of many african nations have been decimated by this plague. No wonder africans cannot rule themselves, or choose good leaders. Their most intelligent people have died. The remnants are those with IQ below 80. This is unfortunate. Perhaps the brilliant american blacks such as Crorba might go to africa and help to rebuild?

It's not the African people, it's the system! If legal, political, economic and financial systems were put in place that gave people (and companies) appropriate incentives, Africa could thrive. But vested interests block changes towards a meritocracy that focuses on competition.

Political, legal, economic and financial systems are technology, and many countries refuse to adopt modern technology. Mugabe wants power and doesn't care who he kills.

Mr. (I assume) Limerick:

Your assertion, on its face, appears to me to be counterintuitive, which is putting it politely. If death from AIDS is an indication that your behavior was risky - that is, stupid, shouldn't the appalling rate of death from AIDS in Africa have led to an increase in average IQ? Shouldn't AIDS have proven to be a positive selection mechanism? Or do you claim that the "ruling classes" who you imply have been preferentially decimated by AIDS uniformly rose to power through their intelligence (that is, that every intelligent person became part of the "ruling classes" and a sexual or drug-using libertine), leaving only unfortunate dumb-but-moral people in poverty?

Gad. What a horrible thing to discuss in these terms. Please, please desist. There's enough tragedy in this story without adding dismissive and unsupported assertions such as these.

Jamie writes:

>>>Cobra. Take a deep breath, my friend. The contention herein is emphatically NOT that black Africans (or Arabs) are or were helpless, inept, unable to feed themselves, mental children, or any of the other rationalizations with which earlier generations of "colonizing" powers excused their own land grabs."

YOUR contention is completely acceptable and reasoned. As I said before, I'm not defending Mugabe with mine position. I question the HYPOCRISY of supporting American foreign policy under Bush in Iraq versus attacking Mugabe's domestic policy in Zimbabwe. Second, your posts have nowhere near the incendiary eugenics-level taint as these beauties:

>>>No wonder africans cannot rule themselves, or choose good leaders. Their most intelligent people have died. The remnants are those with IQ below 80. This is unfortunate."
Posted by Standford P. Limerick at May 26, 2005 07:24 AM
>>>Yes, the average IQ of Zimbabweans is 70. And the average IQ of arabs is 85. That means that in terms of human intellectual capital, the liberation of arabs makes more sense. Arabs at least have a small prayer of governing themselves peacefully. Very small. Zimbabweans have none at all."
Posted by Arcana at May 23, 2005 08:41 PM
>>>It's a sad reality that no one wants to face, but black Africans are not able to run a modern economy on their own. Look anywhere around the world - from Haiti to Detroit - and you find that where blacks achieve political power, civilization crumbles. Wish it weren't true, but it is."
Posted by Ducrider at May 23, 2005 11:18 AM

On a concurrently running thread on this blog, a poster claimed that I'm "crying wolf" when I discuss perceived racism. I wonder what he would comment to the above posts here?

--Cobra

Cobra:

I'm getting tangled in the threads... I remember the comments you quoted and my reaction was similar to yours (I won't be so presumtuous as to claim it was "the same"). I also remember the "crying wolf" reference, but IF I recall correctly (not positive that I do) it didn't have to do with anything so blatant as I perceive your three examples to be - wasn't it in regard to the preferential adoption of babies of the parents' ethnicity? Surely there's a difference between a perception of racism from the statement "Africans cannot rule themselves" versus a statement that many parents prefer to adopt children who superficially look similar to them?

I question the HYPOCRISY of supporting American foreign policy under Bush in Iraq versus attacking Mugabe's domestic policy in Zimbabwe.

But most of the examples you gave regarding foreign ownership in Iraq are identical to policies regarding foreign ownership in America. Can't foreigners have 100% ownership in most American industries? Are there any requirements for them to reinvest? As Ann notes, that's capitalism bub, and it seems to be working OK for the US. I don't think anyone is taking property from Iraqis by force and giving it to foreign companies. I just don't see any comparison with Zimbabwe.

American corporations show about as much concern for the American worker as the next outsourcing/downsizing/pension defaulting board meeting they hold. Yet, you look at them as the salvation for Iraq.

Yet America, and pretty much every other industrialized democracy in the world, gets by. In fact, most people would say that corporations do significantly more good than harm. They aren't "salvation" in and of themselves of course, but how can anyone view the fact that Bush is allowing them in Iraq as a criticism?

And Cobra, you may not be intending to defend Mugabe's policies, but that's sure how it reads to me.

Jamie writes:

>>>"Surely there's a difference between a perception of racism from the statement "Africans cannot rule themselves" versus a statement that many parents prefer to adopt children who superficially look similar to them?"

I believe you answered the differences in the answer you gave me in the other thread. It's a matter of degree. Essentially, the same point is made in all the above scenarios, which is "non-white people are something LESS than whites."
This is the overall message implied. The logic being, that if you consider a group to be "inferior" to you, it's far easier to defend attrocities such as colonialism, where land is often forcibly taken from the previous inhabitants. It also depends on the gatekeeper of the information. IMHO, if Zimbabwe didn't involve the "hey, rich white folks are getting screwed" angle, there wouldn't be the hullabaloo.
That's the nature of American media and culture. Think about it...we just witnessed one of the worst natural disasters in a century, with over 200,000 dead, many times more displaced, and what is the face of the Tsunami coverage?
A supermodel--whom I don't have to add, was NOT indigenous to the areas affected by the Tsunami.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Entertainment/story?id=764443
As with the other thread, race DOES matter.

--Cobra

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