Day: June 29, 2011

Is It A Failed State?

Inkwell Institute

Middle East Desk

The magazine, Foreign Policy, has ranked the different states as to whether they are considered a failed state or not……the criteria is…..The categories used to determine how failed a state was are demographic pressures, refugees, group grievance, human flight, uneven development, economic decline, state delegitimization, public services, human rights, security apparatus, factionalized elites, and (level of) external intervention.

Using that criteria Somalia is the most failed state in the world and the least failed is Norway….but all that is just lead up to the point of this post….the state that I ask if it is a failed state is Israel.  Israel is #58 of 177 states listed on the Failed State Index by Foreign Policy…….with scores like…..The issues Israel scored the highest (most troubled) on were external intervention (8), factionalized elites (8), human rights (8), group grievance (9.3), and refugees (8).

What could possibly the solution?……..”that without solving the Occupation Israel will continue being a failed state.  Neither Foreign Policy nor the world will continue accepting Israel’s claim that disarray among Palestinians is their own fault.  Societal chaos in Palestine can be directly attributed to a conflict in which Israel is at least an equal partner.”

Could this report give Israel the wish to solve their problem of a conflict?  Of course not!  The conflict has become an institution…a political institution, an economic institution and finally a cultural institution…..there will be no drive to a lasting peace.

But why not?

A report in the UK’s Guardian shows some of the problem….

The former head of Israel‘s spy service has launched an unprecedented attack on the country’s current government, describing it as “irresponsible and reckless”, and has praised Arab attempts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Meir Dagan stepped down as the head of Mossad six months ago but has gone on the offensive in a series of briefings with journalists and public appearances because he feels that Israel’s security is being mismanaged by Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister.

So, we are back to the Israeli government…….the source of all the problems for most of the last 60 years……polls have shown that the population would like to find a way to end their years of terror and anticipation of the conflict continuing…..but as with most “democracies”….what the people want and what they get is seldom the same.

Please, before the hate mail starts….I am NOT against Israel as a nation and its right to exist……I am against a government that functions in hate….it is always about their survival (the government) not about the people’s survival….there is a difference!

There Is NO Nation Building!

College of Political Knowledge

Since the invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq the US has been accused of trying to nation build….and of course this has been denied by all involved…Bush/Rumsfeld/Gates/Clinton/Cheney/Obama…..yada yada….all those in Washington have denied the accusation…..we were at war to remove AQ, destroy the Taleban, find WMDs, execute Saddam and on and on…a whole litany of reason why we dropped that first bomb…..we are assured almost daily that we are not involved in nation building……but is that the truth?

Let us look at just what nation building is…….to build a nation one needs to have 5 ingredients……these are…..identity, legitimacy,penetration, participation and distribution…..without all 5 there is NO nation to build……let me simplify this for my readers……

Identity–the people must identify themselves as one people…..that will not happen in Afghanistan….they see themselves as Pashtu, Tajik, etc……

legitimacy–a government must have the respect and willingness to go with the wishes of the people…..Afghanistan has NONE of this with thye exception of Kabul and Karzai and his cronies….

penetration–the nation must have the support of all its citizens and that includes those people in the isolated areas……Afghanistan will have NONE of this for the small villages feel that they must fend for themselves against all comers…..

participation–the residents must feel that if they take part in the system that their concerns will be addressed by whoever wins the election….Afghanistan will have NONE of this….ancient suspicions will always lead the vote……

distribution–this addresses the wants list of the people…….the villagers will always want more than they get and the ritzier people will always get what is more than they possibly deserve….and then there is the distribution of laws….will all people have the same rights?  In Afghanistan, we know this will NOT be true……

Now with the knowledge of what it takes to build a nation…..what are our chances of Afghanistan becoming a fully functioning nation?  My opinion….slim to NONE!

If NONE is the correct answer……..now ask, just what the Hell are we doing in Afghanistan?

On a side note…..this just in from Newser website……..

The head of Afghanistan’s central bank resigned yesterday, and says he won’t return to the country for fear of reprisals thanks to his investigation of the Kabul Bank corruption scandal. Abdul Qadeer Fitrat is currently in the US, the New York Times reports. In a scathing resignation letter, he says Hamid Karzai’s administration constantly tried to block his inquiry, threatened him with legal action, and even “used law enforcement agencies against the staff of the central bank.” “Some known circles were plotting against me,” he said in an interview on Afghan TV, though he declined to name names. The head of Karzai’s high commission on corruption, Azizullah Ludin, shot back that they blamed Fitrat himself for Kabul Bank’s problems, while an official in the attorney general’s office said they had charges against Fitrat. But Western diplomats, the Times notes, view Ludin with skepticism; he presided over Afghanistan’s fraud-ridden 2009 election.

And my friends will be the major obstacle to Afghanistan becoming a fully functioning nation…..CORRUPTION!