by Alex Evans | Feb 15, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Economics and development
John Githingo – Kenya’s crusading anti-corruption champion, who was permanent secretary in charge of governance and ethics until he had to flee to the UK in 2005 – offers a succint analysis of how aid donors have contributed to instability in Kenya:
To many in the west confronted with images of machete-wielding Africans, what has happened may look like an atavistic uprising. In fact it has been a deadly elite-driven political game in which the machete carriers are pawns on a blood-soaked chessboard. The kings and queens include institutions such as the World Bank, western governments and others who have engaged with Kenya’s polity in a manner that has often involved sweeping fundamental realities under the carpet. For the past four years some of these players insisted that Kenya’s politics were merely noise that would be drowned out by the chugging of a vibrant economic engine. Those who used their credibility as purveyors of this alchemy are as responsible for the current situation as some of the leading belligerents now. They need to engage responsibly and with unity and clarity.
Too true, unfortunately. Githingo also injects a note of realism into reports that a deal between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki is close to being reached, noting that:
Kenya is gripped by a battle within its political elite that has led to a failed election. This has fractured the nation along historic fault-lines of resource inequality, ethnicity, generation and class. Potent grievances over the distribution of land, and over the perceptions that the president’s Kikuyu community feels entitled to rule, are stirred into the mix. It is a contradiction because the two ostensibly opposing forces have no fundamental ideological differences. Indeed, it is not clear that the mediation in Nairobi involves leaders who retain control of the situation on the ground.
by Charlie Edwards | Feb 15, 2008 | UK
A short qualification in respect to my last post. I’ve had a couple of emails reminding me there are at least three excellent contributions to the current RUSI journal. I stand corrected.
I wonder what officials in the intelligence agencies, and Whitehall think about being called a soft touch?
Here’s the Cabinet Office response (from the BBC)
The government firmly rejects the claim that the United Kingdom is a fragmented society said a Cabinet Office spokesman. “The safety and security of our citizens is the government’s main priority, and the government rejects any suggestion that Britain is a soft touch for terrorists.
“Some of the recommendations made by Rusi have already been introduced by the prime minister. For instance a new National Security Committee is already established with a brief which includes international security, defence, counter-terrorism and community cohesion issues.”
The spokesman said some of the report’s other claims “do not stand up to scrutiny”. And he added: “The government firmly rejects the claim that the United Kingdom is a fragmented society.”
It’s worth noting that RUSI’s announcement was not covered by the BBC’s security correspondent Gordon Corera who instead covered the news that the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) could lose up to 121 members of staff as the MoD looks to stream line the department.
by Alex Evans | Feb 15, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Economics and development
Shashank Bengali, a journo based in Nairobi, was looking for a mechanic the other day. He asked Thomas, his office’s driver, who replied: “There is a man. He’s a Kikuyu, but he’s a good man.” Bengali wonders,
A few months ago, would Thomas, a Luhya (and a Raila Odinga supporter), have prefaced his endorsement with “he’s a Kikuyu”? I asked him, and he laughed. Tribal distinctions, once rarely discussed in polite company, have leaped to the forefront of conversations in post-election Kenya.
For progressive-minded Kenyans, this is a cause for concern, Bengali continues. So The Nation has provided a helpful checklist to see whether you’re guilty of discrimination based on tribe:
• You have suddenly changed your hairdresser, mechanic or doctor because you resent the community they come from.
• You suddenly stop calling and talking to a once close friend or acquaintance because you strongly believe their community is responsible for the chaos in the country.
• You sneer or recoil the moment the passenger seated next to you answers his or her phone in a language that you perceive as the enemy’s.
• You subconsciously try to gauge the tribe of the waiter who is serving you or the customer you are serving with the intentions of spiting them.
• You ask for the second names of those you are serving as a civil servant on the basis of favouring only those from your ethnic background.
• You stop watching a certain presenter on TV or listening to a certain broadcaster on radio just because they come from a different ethnic community.
• You strongly resent and protest the fact that your daughter or son is dating someone from the “enemy” community.
by Alex Evans | Feb 15, 2008 | Conflict and security, North America
Everything else is early this spring – so maybe April Fool’s Day too? Er no, they’re serious. TPM Muckracker has more:
The CIA’s use of waterboarding was legal and not torture, a Justice Deparment official argued this morning, because it was a “procedure subject to strict limitations and safeguards” that made it substantially different from historical uses of the technique by the Japanese and the Spanish Inquisition.
Steven Bradbury, the Justice Department official who heads up the Office of Legal Counsel, is testifying before a House Judiciary subcommittee this morning. And he made an unexpected argument when Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) asked him whether waterboarding violated the law against torture.
It did not, he said. And he argued that what the CIA did bears “no resemblance” to what torturers in time past have done. “There’s been a lot of discussion in the public about historical uses of waterboarding,” he said. But the “only thing in common is the use of water,” he said.
by Alex Evans | Feb 15, 2008 | Influence and networks, North America
Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber is wondering who counts as the “foreign policy community”:
Given the vagueness of boundaries, the best definition I’ve been able to come up with is the following. Anyone who has a credible chance of being able to publish a single authored article in one of a small number of key journals qualifies as a member of the foreign policy community. The list of journals would certainly include Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy ; I think that there is a strong case to be made too for The National Interest and The American Interest. There may be one or two others, depending on how expansively you want to define it. These journals provide, in a sense, a sort of rough and ready credentialling mechanism.
Lest you wonder why he’s asking, it’s in response to Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent – who, we learn, is not a fan of Brookings scholar Michael O’Hanlon:
Michael O’Hanlon is a Brookings Institution defense expert who doesn’t actually know anything about defense. He does, however, know how to be a reliable barometer of what very-slightly-left-of-center establishment types believe should be said about defense. If anyone in the foreign-policy community respects O’Hanlon, I haven’t met him or her. I remember being at a barbecue in 2005 and remarking that O’Hanlon has never had an interesting thought in his life when an aide to John Bolton stood up, pumped the air with both fists, and bellowed, “Preach it, brother!”
