Africa & the United States

     There's a really good article about the problems that the US State Dept has with its Africa Bureau. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-08-10-africa_N.htm Among some of the problems the article points out are:

• Diplomats feel overwhelmed by new demands without additional staff.
• The group in charge of boosting the U.S. image is a "failed office" with no strategic plan and little integration with other diplomats.
• While the United States "helps feed Africa," it should focus more on helping Africans feed themselves — and on preventing HIV/AIDS as well as treating the condition.
• There isn't enough travel money to properly oversee a $2 billion Africa peacekeeping program.
• A new military command in Africa is "stepping into a void created by a lack of resources for traditional development."
• Corruption "receives insufficient attention as an impediment to trade, development and investment."
     There's one other main problem that should be addressed & that is Al Queda. The United States & its western allies have ignored & taken advantage of the African continent for centuries. As a result, extreme poverty & corruption have increased dramatically. That's given Al Queda furtile ground to sow. Their results have been staggering. Radical Islamic regimes have popped up in in the northeast countries & are making their way south. Pirating is dramatically up.
     The western countries have to stop shoveling money into Africa & get these countries into a survival mode where they can be prosperous on their own. Otherwise, other emerging super powers such as China will start to take over or Al Queda will complete its African domination. Then we'll all be wondering why we're sending troops to Africa to fight, only it'll be our own fault for ignoring a growing situation for far too long.

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Trash Days

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n For anybody who either works for or follows government, consider this a cautionary tale. This is what happens when people don't through fiscal problems.
A few years ago, the city of Springfield, Massachusets, in a bid to create revenue, decided to make its residents pay yearly for trash removal. What they decided to do was to make everybody buy specific trash cans & then pay a yearly fee to pick up the trash in them. In other words, the residents are renting their very own trash cans! That means that if they put their trash in another type of trash can or trash bag, the city doesn't pick it up.
While that may be stupid in & of itself, it gets worse. If the residents don't pay the garbage tax, the city comes & takes away the trash cans. No regulation trash cans, no trash pick up. You can see where this is going, right?
Fast forward to this year. Residents & apartment complex owners can't afford the fee so the trash cans get taken away. Trash starts piling up. Where do residents start putting their trash? The usual spots: abandoned lots, the side of the road, & in the woods. Rats & other rodents start getting at the trash, creating a potential health disaster; not to mention a very serious littering & blight problem.
When will governments learn? When thinking short term, you also have to think long term. All governments, both municipal, state, & federal, might to keep in mind the unintended consequences of their actions before doing them.

Too Many Issues?

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According to the new NBC/WSJ poll, 37% of Americans believe that President Obama is dealing with too many issues. My main question is this: just what issues should he drop? Should he drop economic ones? Maybe he should forget about health care because we all know that’ll fix itself pretty soon. Maybe he can get those pesky foreign governments like Iran & North Korea to behave themselves so he won’t have to handle such little problems.
People tend to have ADD when it comes to reality. We tend to forget what kind of trouble we were & still are in. We may not have that deep forboding feeling we all had in Febuary & March when it felt like the world was caving in but believe me, the problems haven’t gone away. We still have high unemployment. We have a health care system that’s going to bankrupt us. We have a regulatory system that needs serious fixing to prevent the banking crisis from theoretically happening again. The stimulus package money is just now beginning to work its way through the system. We have a swine flu pandemic, which isn’t affecting us as much right now but will once the weather starts turning colder. That’s a lot of plates to spin but you know as well as I do that if he starts dropping problems in favor of others, people will be screaming that he isn’t doing enough.
These are tough times we’re in right now & there are many plates to spin. So far, the president seems to be doing a pretty good job of it.

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Iran & Obama

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It seems the drumbeats for President Obama to be more forceful with Iran are growing louder. Both Mitt Romney & John McCain have come out in favor of an aggressive stance concerning our relationship with the Iranian dictator. Even I on Sunday was practically screaming at the computer, wondering why Obama wasn’t saying much about the Iranian election. What I now realize is that much like Romney, McCain, & other Republicans, I would be wrong.
The fact of the matter is that Obama can’t be too forceful at this moment for a few reasons. For starters, there is an extremely good chance that despite the election being rigged, the group that runs Iran now will be the same group that’s running it a year from now. Since they’re developing nuclear weapons, we’ll more than likely have to negotiate with them. Best not to get them more riled up than they already are at the moment.
The second & more important reason is that if Obama says that he stands with the reformers, he’ll look like he’s meddling in Iranian politics & handing President Ahmadihijad a rather large propaganda tool to use against the reformers. The Iranian people may not like their leaders but they like America less. If we pick sides, at least at the moment, we will help to defeat the reform movement. As much as it pains me, it’s best to let the Iranians work it out for themselves right now & step in if things don’t go the way we want them to. It looks like so far, the tepid response is working. The supreme leader of Iran has switched positions & has now called for an investigation into the election. Also, we found out today that the State Department asked Twitter to postpone its maintenance shutdown so that the Iranian protesters could keep twittering so the US is helping the reformers, just behind the scenes.
As far as why the Republicans want a tougher response to the crisis right now, it makes perfect sense. They’re not in power so talking tough has no political downside for them. It also makes Obama look weak in the eyes of Americans like me who would like a tougher response. I don’t envy the president right now.