Iraq Wins Asia Cup

Iraq 1 - Suadi Arabia 0.

Opportunities For Action?

Two recent articles regarding politics in Latin America are noteworthy. The first is this article in the Washington Post describing Raul Castro’s July 26 speech in Camaguey, Cuba; during which he apparently indicated he was willing to open the country to more foreign investment.

Speaking at a ceremony commemorating the start of the 54th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, Raúl Castro declared that Cuba is considering opening itself further to foreign investment, allowing business partners to provide this financially strapped nation with "capital, technology or markets."

The younger Castro's remarks, coupled with his unusual admission that the Cuban government needs to pay its vast cadres of state-employed workers more to cover basic needs, amounted to the clearest indication yet of how he might lead this island nation. Castro, who was named interim president last July 31, vowed to partner only with "serious entrepreneurs, upon well-defined legal bases."

...

But he also was careful to appeal to hard-line party leaders, saying that any new business deals must "preserve the role of the state and the predominance of socialist property" and that the government would be "careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past, [which] owed to naivete or our ignorance about these partnerships."

...

Castro condemned the United States for using "corn, soy and other food products" to produce fuel, saying prices for those food staples were sure to rise. But he also leveled withering criticism at his countrymen for "absurd inefficiencies" in food
production that force Cuba to import food and promised unspecified "structural
changes."

Before this speech, it was generally considered that, though incapacitated, Fidel retained significant influence because his “Fidelistas” retained positions of power in government. Raul Castro, of course, has his “Raulistas,” mostly military men that dominate the island’s security structures. The big questions after Fidel’s operation was whether these two factions would duke it out, how that fight was going to be conducted, and who was going to emerge winner. Of course, there was very little doubt that Raul was going to be the successor, but what was open to question was the degree of bureaucratic resistance or support to Raul’s rule.

Raul’s frank language during his speech, particularly his criticism of his brother’s failed policies, indicates that the Fidelistas may be coming around to Raul’s point of view. The article alludes to this scenario, to some degree of Raulista consolidation.

For the U.S. this is an opportunity to exploit the schism that exists between the Raulistas and the Fidelistas. While neither of these groups are democratic, the Raulistas appear to be the lesser of two evils. U.S. policy inaction over the last months could be understandable given the uncertainty over which faction was going to come out on top in Cuba. But as it appears that the Raulistas are emerging victorious, it may be time for the U.S. to offer incentives to encourage their development and help isolate the Fidelistas. The U.S. should change their overall approach of conditioning full relations with democratization, but flexibility could go a long way towards speeding up a transition.

The second is a Miami Herald article, here, describing the speech given by Venezuela’s departing Minister of Defense in which he appears to be criticizing some of Chavez’s policies. Here’s the relevant section form the article:

''We should invent socialism of the 21st century . . . but not in a chaotic or disorderly fashion,'' Baduel said at the ceremony. “Before we redistribute wealth, we have to create it. We can't redistribute what we don't have.''

Taking a jab at Chávez's control of all government branches, he added: ``It should be clear that a socialist production system is not incompatible with a profoundly democratic political system, with checks and balances and separation of powers.''

Baduel wound up his speech without uttering the new Cuban-inspired salute that Chávez has recently imposed on the armed forces -- ``Fatherland, socialism or death.''

On the assumption that the journalist covering this speech is doing an accurate job and the article accurately reflects what happened, there are two things one can surmise right away.

First, General Baduel has big balls to criticize Chavez’s polices in public while Chavez is sitting in the stage behind him. That is a courageous man.

Second, if the article is accurate, the speech is a sign that all is not well within Chavez’s security structures. Whatever ideological differences may exist (if any) between the President and his security structures, bureaucratic politics is likely the driving factor in any potential schism.

If one is to take Chavez’s defense reforms seriously, from the development of an asymmetric defense warfare strategy to the creation of a civilian militia to act as a “military” vanguard in case the U.S. invades Venezuela, the traditional primacy enjoyed by conventional military forces in Venezuela’s security structure is in question. As a result, proud men like Baduel, career military officers that are clearly devoted to their Service and their chosen profession, will form the core of bureaucratic resistance to some of Chavez’s policies.

In this scenario, improving U.S. military-to-military relations with the Venezuelan armed forces is a key to not only exploit this potential schism for information and intelligence but also to provide moral and other support to these types of officers. Of course, this is assuming that such officers would like support from the U.S.—admittedly, a dangerous assumption. Mil-to-mil relations with Venezuela have long been dormant. It’s perhaps time to attempt to reinvigorate this channel.

Futbol Is My Life

Iraqis love soccer. When I was in Baghdad I bought a soccer ball and organized pickup games inside our small compound. Between the Iraqi guards and soldiers, the Nepalese guards, and us Americans (usually just me), we could get enough people together to play up to 5 on 5. We couldn't play much more than that, we had a very small playing field due to the T-barriers and HESCO baskets, stacked two and even three high. The only other open area was just outside of the wire, next to the street; a football-sized field with a giant trench obstacle running the length of it to prevent car bombers from reaching our building.

So, we played in the courtyard, cramped between our building and the explosion barriers, on the hot cement. One Iraqi guard in particular stands out in my mind. He would strip out of his thick navy blue uniform pants, take off his socks and shoes, and play in his underwear, barefoot. On cement that had been cooking in 120 degree temperature. He was very good.

In one game another Iraqi guard sliced the ball of his bare foot. The huge gouge, I thought, merited some stitches. They drove him to the local clinic and three days later, he hobbled back to the courtyard after work, took off his shoes, wrapped his injured foot with duct tape, and began to play. When I told him he shouldn't play due to his injury he smiled at me and said "futbol is my life. If I can't play, no life!" He grinned, mussed up my hair and hobbled over to take his position in the field.

On another occasion I was woken up by my boss. "Get your stuff on," he said "there's some shit going on just outside." By the urgency and tone of his voice, I knew what he meant. I turned off the roaring a/c window unit that drowned out all noise outside and, sure enough, I could hear the cracking of single shots and the staccato of bursts. There was a big firefight going on. I grabbed my helmet, flack vest, and weapon and headed to the roof of the building to take up my firing position in between an American and a Nepalese guard. The night sky was lit up by tracers and the sound of gun fire was everywhere. It wasn't deafening, but we definitely had to speak up to get heard. Boss was on the sat phone several feet behind me talking to the TOC up the street when I heard him say, in disbelief, "okay." I turned to look at him as he turned off his phone. "Shit" he said. It turns out there was no fire fight that night. The Iraqi national soccer team had defeated Saudi Arabia. What we were hearing was celebratory gunfire.

News of car bombings in Iraq are so common that it is easy to not give it a second thought. I lived through a car bombing, back in June 18, 2004, and even I get "car bomb fatigue" with some of the news coverage. It is hard to describe the carnage caused by these weapons and even harder to describe the psychological effect, the heavy, oppressive atmosphere, the deep deep sadness, that these explosions generate--at least it did in me. But today's news of the twin bombings during street celebrations after the Iraqi national soccer team advanced to the finals of the Asia Cup--one bombing near the Monsour District, close to where I played my pick-up games, killed 30 people--brought everything back. I hope Iraq wins the final. It's against Saudi Arabia.

Gettin' Away With Torture

So, when juxtaposed against the traditional U.S. way of doing things, the news of the release of the 5 Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor from a Libyan jail is an interesting case study on the difficulty of dealing with rogues like Moammar Gadafi.

A quick recap: these poor folks voluntarily leave their families to go live in Lybia and dispense much-needed public health. These good Samaritans end up accussed of infecting hundreds of kids with HIV, are thrown in jail, face the death penalty, and are tortured--for EIGHT YEARS! Oh, never mind that the Libyan case against them is scientifically refuted by international experts.

Now, I know that we are supposed to not dislike Gaddafi too much nowadays since he gave up his WMD program, but really, the treatment received by these people is just as bad as that received by countless of political prisoners in Cuba, or China, or North Korea, or, when Saddam was in power, in Iraq.

Here's the juxtaposition: The U.S. shuns these types of powers. Our policy is, if they don't open their markets to us, we impose sanctions and beat them over their thick heads with human rights and democratization. And, as Barack Obama said recently, we are supposed to think that by not talking to these countries we are somehow punishing them. In the mean time, they get away with, literally, murder.

France and the EU, on the other hand, embarked on diplomacy, offered to pay Libya ranson...er...make concessions, and voila, the prisoners are finally freed. And the bad guys? Well, they get away with, literally, torture.

Moral of the story: there's no easy way to deal with rogues.

At Least Cuba Has Beaches

Okay, so next week we fly to beautiful Miami, Fl, for some well-deserved vacation. While I'm looking forward to seeing some friends and family, I know eventually the conversation is going to shift to the inevitable comparisons between Fidel Castro and Bolivia's Evo Morales. Some of my Cuban friends will say something like "So, how's Bolivia doing? You know, that's how Castro started...." And not wanting to be rude I'd say something like, "Yeah, Bolivia is going from bad to worse...."

But in fact, these comparisons to Fidel Castro drive me nuts. BOLIVIA IS NOT CUBA. While I'm no fan of dirty communists, there is good reason why Evo got elected. In Bolivia there is massive social inequality and, for all practical purposes, it is (or was) an apartheid-like state. Does any one really believe that South Africa under P.W. Botha did not deserve to change? These facile comparisons with Cuba ignore Bolivia's horrible social and political history and deny the great injustices that need to be addressed in order for the country to crawl it's way out of the bottom of the South American barrel.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Evo. I think that cheeky bastard is doing great harm to that country. What Bolivia needs is strong democratic institutions, not his slow but steady dismantling of them. While I sympathise with Morales's "social justice" argument and his desire to advance "indigenous" causes, I really believe that in the end he will do more harm than good because, after he is finished, Bolivia's will be as far away from democracy as, dare I say it, Cuba is now. I support Evo's social vision, but I lament the way he is going about it.

Givin' it a Whirl

We'll here I am. At first I resisted doing this blogging thing. I was of the impression that people who blog have to be pretty high on themselves to assume the rest of us care or are interested or even want to know their opinions. The gall. But I guess if you can't beat them, join them!

We'll see how it goes. I mainly wanted a tool to help me get some of my thoughts in order. I wonder if this will do the trick....