November 12 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin (GEAB), produced by the influential think tank LEAP/Europe 2020, predicts that the US Government will default on its debt anytime before next summer. The analysis presented in their recent issue here suggests that the default will occur due to the following five factors:

“• The recent upward trend of the US Dollar is a direct and temporary consequence of the collapse of stock markets

• Thanks to its recent «political baptism», the Euro becomes a credible «safe haven» value and therefore provides a «crisis» alternative to the US dollar

• The US public debt is now swelling uncontrollably

• The ongoing collapse of US real economy prevents from finding an alternative solution to the country’s defaulting

• «Strong inflation or hyper-inflation in the US in 2009?», that is the only question.”

The outline presented in the GEAB generally corresponds to what we have been saying for a while with regard to the future of the US (and all the implications for those countries tied to it). The ‘global financial meltdown’ that is unfolding now is far from reaching its climax, one reason being the impending derivatives bubble that must burst and destroy the false economy based on speculation in order to start re-building the global economy. Those who expect any ‘meaningful results’ from the upcoming G20 meeting in Washington this week will be disappointed. To put it simply, if the US creditors wait a bit longer they would get a better deal. The important question that GEAB raises above regarding the US should be considered in the following manner: will the impending (hyper-) inflation be dealt with through internal implosion (with all its ramifications for the social order in that country) or a World War as has occurred many times in the past?

Posted in Economic Issues, In The News, Other, Disaster Management, Security Measures, Europe, North America, Politics | No Comments »

May 13 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Instead of writing again on the Serbian situation, I’ll let Ljubodrag Simonovic speak. The following is a very insightful and thought provoking interview Simonovic gave recently on Serbian television.

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April 9 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Carla del Ponte is coming out with a book, but you would never know that from the lack of coverage in the Western media.  It’s an odd story to over-look in the international headlines: former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) writes a tell all book. It would appear that truth, that first casualty of war, is far from dead in the Balkans; it’s just a badly injured victim locked up in a hospital under constant threat of having a pillow suffocate what claims contrary to popular myth are made. And Ms. del Ponte has just poked at a sore spot.

Undoubtedly, Ms. del Ponte’s book comes at a particularly annoying time for the international community. Kosovo was recently made independent with much fanfare; NATO welcomed Albania and Croatia into its fold; and Ramush Haradinaj, former Prime Minister of Kosovo, was acquitted on war crimes charges. Who in the West would want to hear of Ms. del Ponte’s allegations that Serbian men were kidnapped by Albanians to harvest human organs or that gathering evidence against NATO’s campaign in Serbia was made impossible? Such admissions, from one who enjoyed the high profile with the ICTY that Ms. del Ponte did, are certainly embarrassing. 

Ignoring Ms. del Ponte’s book, however, won’t make the problems of partiality inherent in the International Court, indeed in the international system, disappear. Ms. del Ponte, who was a poster-prosecutor for going after alleged Serbian war criminals, is perhaps best informed to make the claims she has: there was pressure to ensure that desired outcomes did, in fact, come to fruition.

Ms. del Ponte’s attempts to prosecute Albanians involved in the organ trafficking ring were repeatedly thwarted by the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK); allegations supported by her former assistant Florance Artman.  Ms. del Ponte’s hopes of investigating and potentially bringing NATO to court for its role in attacking Serbia were dashed, stating that ”…I was informed that I became a persona non grata at the Pentagon. Until 2005 I could not interview anyone there,” as a result of her intentions. 

These are not the only difficulties indicated by workers at the ICTY. Regarding the case of Ramush Haradinaj, Ms. del Ponte faced political pressure from Western diplomats in bringing the former Prime Minister to court due to claims that indicting a Kosovar politician would destabilize the region. (An interesting claim given the eagerness of the West to prosecute Slobodan Milosevic, indeed, bombing Serbia in order to bring about his fall not to mention the numerous Bosnian-Serb political figures indicted.) Judges as well as prosecutors on the Haradinaj case complained about the difficulties of having nearly 100 witnesses  testify, of which the identity of 34 were hidden from the public. Several witnesses for the prosecution were killed including Tahir Zemaj, his son and nephew who were shot during the investigation and Kujtim Berisha, who was hit by a car in Montenegro two weeks before the trial.

The unwillingness to reassess the situation in the Balkans, and perhaps more importantly the Western role in those conflicts, smacks of a bureaucratic and political stubbornness to hold steadfast on a crash course. The precipitous side-taking of Western powers in the conflicts, which were not beyond preventing before Germany, followed by others, acknowledged Slovenian and Croatian independence, was quite likely the spark that ignited the powder keg, which was the Yugoslavian economic and political troubles of the 1980s and early 1990s.

In an attempt to absolve itself of any involvement, the West sought and found a group to blame for the conflicts: the Serbs. This appears much to be the case considering the disproportionate number of Serbs and Montenegrins who have been brought up on war crimes versus Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians as well as the consistently negative imaging of Serbs in the Western media. There is no other way to explain this unbalance. Having been to the region and seen the destruction, it is so very apparent that atrocities were committed by all sides against all sides.  Ms. del Ponte is not the first high-level person to suggest that our approach to the Balkans has been biased.

Having backed the Albanians and bestowed upon them the status of victims, the international community, set in its course, is determined to prove this to be the case.  Difficulties, as reported by Ms. del Ponte and others who have worked at the ICTY, arise when the current course is challenged or cannot be supported because facts contradict prevailing perceptions. Instead of admitting an error in judgement, the system charges along bullishly. It’s a bureaucratic problem; changing course is difficult for the big machine and despite the pending disasters staying the course is always the preferred option. It’s easier and poses fewer threats of implication in ugly affairs. If I had a dollar for every ill-conceived measure or plan pushed ignorantly forward by bureaucrats with the support of politicians, I’d be a very rich woman.

Such is the nature of the beast, that big elephant in the middle of the room. Shh! Maybe if we just ignore the prejudice of the international system it might all just go away.

Posted in Europe, Politics | No Comments »

April 1 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The following article by Jean Christou published in the Cyprus Mail is a must read. Providing an insightful perspective on the unsettling, not mention unnecessary, direction in which security is headed, Jean draws from traveller anecdotes, links to which have been added here.

TRAVELLING back to Cyprus on a British Airways flight from London recently, I had a run-in with a flight attendant over a pair of headphones. As a regular sufferer during depressurisation before landing, I listen to music, which helps my ears to cope with the sometimes excruciating pain.

Aware of the rules about using CD players on take-off and landing, I always use a non-digital tape recorder and leave it on until the plane reaches around 10,000 feet, some ten minutes before hitting the runway and so posing no danger to the aircraft, or so I thought.

I saw the stewardess coming, and instead of trying to explain all this, I switched it off, unplugged the phones from the machine, but left them on my head as they still helped. Predictably she asked me to remove them. I showed her the wire attached only to fresh air. She was having none of it and insisted I take them off. I asked her why. The answer was essentially: “Just because”.

I told her she was paranoid. She stomped off. If she had given a logical explanation such as the heavily padded phones could… umm… damage my head in a crash landing, I would have complied.

Then of course I would have been compelled to ask her why other passengers were not being asked to remove their hairbands, glasses and jewellery, and also perhaps whether a crash landing was imminent by any chance.

The point of this diatribe? Not the non-logic of airport and airline rules – although some of them might qualify – but the lack of common sense and worse, in those tasked with implementing those rules.

So far in Cyprus we have escaped horrors like those perpetrated on passengers by some officials in the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), but if the EU starts stepping up its security under the new convergence agreement with Washington, running into these kinds of power-tripping individuals will be inevitable.

Just last month in the US, a 37-year old woman was made to remove her nipple rings with a pair of pliers in front of sniggering TSA staff because for some unimaginable reason they posed a security threat. After the humiliation, they allowed her to board her flight…while still wearing the same kind of ring in her navel. Breasts probably are more dangerous than navels when you think about it, and probably more titillating too, but that’s just a coincidence.

Another incident saw a pregnant woman made to lift up her shirt in front of other passengers to prove her condition because terrorists might just hide a bomb in a pregnancy suit. Yes it’s a possibility, but when the crying woman’s husband took issue with a female TSA agent for feeling up his wife’s breasts, he was thrown in the airport jail and later charged and taken to court for shouting abuse at TSA staff. The video tape of what actually happened had conveniently disappeared.

In an even worse case, a woman who was carrying a sippy cup with water for her toddler was told to hand it over. She needed the cup for the child for the flight ahead and offered to drink the water. She was told she could but would have to come back through security again with the empty cup. As she was being escorted back, she accidentally spilled the water. She was threatened with arrest “for endangering other passengers” with the spilled water and told to clean it up.

“I was ordered to apologise for the spilled water, and again threatened with arrest. I was threatened several times with arrest. A total of four police officers and three TSA officers reported to the scene where I was being held. I was also told that I should not disrespect the officer and could be arrested for this too. I apologised to the officer and she continued to detain me, despite me telling her that I would miss my flight. The officer advised me that I should have thought about this before I ‘intentionally spilled the water!’”

There is an endless list of such incidents, and more than 7,000 complaints are currently pending against the TSA, which is part of Homeland Security. This includes complaints by people who are listed for extra checks and those not allowed to fly at all. The TSA currently has 900,000 names on its “watch list”. That translates into almost a million potential ‘terrorists’. Yet according to recent figures, screeners failed to find 75 per cent of dummy explosives in 70 tests at LA airport, and those at Chicago failed to spot 60 per cent. No doubt they were too busy harassing members of the public over bottles of water or groping their breasts.

That’s not to say airport security is a bad thing, or that all TSA staff are sadists and perverts. Security is absolutely necessary, but what has become unacceptable is the way fare-paying passengers are treated, and the way we allow ourselves to be treated, queuing up like cattle to be herded together by power-trippers in uniforms. And more than 7,000 complaints do not constitute ‘isolated incidents’. But we just take it all lying down because it’s often hard to argue on personal privacy issues when it comes to the greater good.

How do you answer when the obedient citizens spout the: “I have nothing to hide” argument as they bend over for the uniforms.

Daniel J. Solove Associate Professor, George Washington University Law School suggests those who value their privacy should respond: “So you don’t have curtains then?” or “I don’t have anything to hide. But I don’t have anything I feel like showing you, either.”

Solove says the right to privacy recognises the sovereignty of the individual, but that most people associate it with hiding bad things about themselves. “The harms [here] consist of those created by bureaucracies – indifference, errors, abuses, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability,” he says.

In other words the problem lies not with the surveillance and checks themselves, which are legitimate enough at times, but in the flawed or even malicious interpretation of the information and how it can be used against someone if an airport or airline employee is having a bad hair day or doesn’t like your face… or even your headphones.

Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008

Posted in Identity Management, Security Measures, North America, Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 27 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Serbia’s foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, has announced plans to demand a partitioning of Kosovo along ethnic lines. Why such a request should not be granted is beyond me; if Albanians in Kosovo feel that they need to be independent for fear of another nation, then the situation should be no different for the Serbs now trapped on the wrong side of yet another unilaterally staked border. In fact, the declaration of an independent Kosovo with the old Tito-drawn borders in tact is just another sign that international supporters of Kosovo have not learned anything from the wars that ravaged the Balkans in the 1990s.

Although many Western countries are eager to prevent atrocities, particularly given the legacy of the Second World War, there is a dangerous precipitousness that is common in our approaches to intervention. This is not to say that we should sit around and wait. Indeed, following a newly reunified Germany’s initial support of Croatian and Slovenian independence much of the world did just that and the horrors of what followed continue to scar the Balkans today. I would argue, however, that it was that readiness to take sides with no real strategic insight into the consequences of such partiality that led to the conflicts being as horrible as they were.

The Western world on one hand seems to recognize its own global importance and on the other fails to tread lightly as the giant that it is. Impulsively we react to some claims of human rights abuses, not bothering to consider the validity of those charges (Kosovo); while other allegations are ignored until the fruition of those threats is unbearably manifested (Rwanda). We have no real formulated approach, no objective method for conflict intervention; as a result, we have failed miserably, time and time again. When we realize that blood is on our hands we quietly wash it away under the guise of history or permanently ingrained ethnic tensions that we could not have done anything about. The question is, if history plays such a big part in these conflicts why wasn’t it thoroughly analysed from the outset? If we are so well-educated and -informed there is no excuse for not having acted from our initial involvement in a more rational, objective fashion.

An independent Kosovo with old provincial borders in tact is just another example of our irrational approach to conflict intervention. Having studied the history and travelled in the region it is quite apparent to me: should those Serbs be left in Kosovo more strife will follow. Be wary of those who have been presented the status of victim; they so very often soon become the oppressor. If the West is truly interested in peace in the Balkans this is one request that they cannot deny Serbia.

Posted in Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 18 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Peter Worthington has published a great article on Kosovo that sheds some light on a complicated situation:

“NATO’s big blunder: Action in Kosovo one of the great outrages of our time

Last Thursday, at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto, a gathering sponsored by Lord Byron Society discussed Kosovo declaring independence from Serbia.

This is an esoteric topic of limited concern to those not familiar with Balkan politics. It is one of the great outrages of our times, and certainly the most scandalous and unnecessary adventure of the presidency of Bill Clinton, who unleashed his incompetent Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, to declare war on Serbia and persuaded NATO to join in.

Albright and the Clinton administration were persuaded that genocide was under way in Kosovo against Albanian Muslims who constituted a majority of the population.

The spectre of massacres and mass graves resulted in the 1999 decision to bomb Serbia into submitting to a more independent, multicultural Kosovo.

It was predicted by those who advocated war, that within 48 hours of being bombed, Serbia (Belgrade and Slobodan Milosevic) would capitulate and Kosovo would be free. Serbs, however, were made of sterner stuff than NATO and Washington anticipated, and the bombing lasted 78 days.

In the end, Kosovo technically remained a province of Serbia under UN jurisdiction. As for genocide and mass graves — that was a hoax. Nothing was found.

Atrocities, yes, roughly divided among Serbs and Albanians — the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). But not one mass grave.

It was eventually estimated that four times the number of Kosovo civilians died under NATO bombs, than had been killed by Serbs. The “war,” was largely the product of Kosovo Albanians provoking Serbs into retaliatory action, and having a willing international press — and U.S./NATO staff — eager to document what they were told.Jamie Shea, NATO’s spokesman, announced that some 100,000 Kosovars were missing, unaccounted for, and probably slaughtered. NATO later reduced this estimate to 10,000.

Winnipeg forensic pathologist Dr. Peter Markestyn was one of those designated to investigate and conduct forensic examinations. His team performed 1,800 autopsies. “That’s it,” he said. Hardly genocide.War crime prosecutor Louise Arbour — Albright’s choice for the job — did her bit by charging Milosevic with genocide and war crimes. She and the U.S. believed he was responsible for a massacre at the village of Racak, in January, 1999, when Serbs supposedly massacred 45 Muslim Albanians.William Walker, head of the Kosovo Verification Mission, visited the site and called it “an unspeakable atrocity … a crime against humanity … the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Skeptical French journalists investigated, and discovered that the bodies of KLA fighters who’d been killed while fighting, were dragged to the ditch, mutilated, some decapitated, and presented as massacred by Serbs.Finnish pathologists found it odd that little blood was in the ditch, and many had been shot at random, rather than executed. In other words it was a phony massacre, aimed at framing the Serbs.

To some it was mindful of Bosnian Muslims in Sarejevo mortaring market places and blaming Serbs — and getting away with it. Fortunately for Arbour’s reputation, Milosevic died before facing trial for Kosovo war crimes, else he’d likely have been acquitted.

The Kosovo war was staged and unnecessary — the U.S. and NATO hoodwinked into attacking. None of this suggests that Serbs were choirboys in the Balkans. Horrendous atrocities occurred.

Today, the Bush administration and European Union recognize Kosovo’s Independence. Russia and it allies do not. Nor does Serbia.

Realistically, there’s no way to right what was clearly a wrong, but at very least the truth of what happened should be recognized — which is what the meeting at the Military Institute on Thursday was all about.”

Posted in North America, Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 12 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

I wrote some time ago on the Dutch social problems, from which Canada could certainly learn a lot. Apparently, the Dutch have further experience that too should be considered.  The Star in Malaysia has published a great article by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf outlining how the Dutch conscientiously defused a potentially destabilizing situation that threatened to arise out of the efforts of a small right-wing minority:

Can a country protect itself against the chaos that could erupt when xenophobic fears are deliberately stirred? Our guest columnist – stepping in this week while Wide Angle columnist Huzir Sulaiman takes a break –explains how the Dutch Learning from the Danish “cartoon crisis” of 2006 and the Sudanese teddy bear debacle of 2007, the Dutch are preparing to pre-empt a Geert Wilders-inflicted pandemic of 2008.

This pre-emptive approach seems to be paying off, reversing what looked like an inevitable widening of the rift between the West and the Muslim World.

The Netherlands now know that outbreaks of xenophobia must be treated as any other pandemic threatening a population: In preparation for the outbreak, an early warning system must be established, and at onset, one must quickly quarantine the ideological disease before it spreads further.

With Wilders, the need for preparedness was great.

Wilders, leader of the right-wing, anti-Muslim Freedom Party in the Netherlands (of which there are only nine members in the 150-seat Dutch lower house), had long threatened to release a film exhibiting, in his words, “the violent and fascist elements of the Muslim faith”.

This sabre-rattling was not new. On previous occasions, Wilders equated the Quran with Mein Kampf (Adolph Hitler’s manifesto) and called for both books to be banned (a proposal roundly rejected by parliament).

Additionally, Wilders’ suggestion that the 1 million Muslims living in the Netherlands renounce aspects of their faith or leave the country was also dispelled as nonsensical. This new film, however, was going to trump polemical precedent, and the Muslim world was readying for the worst.

This is where the Dutch did right, by discernibly developing mechanisms to dampen disease spread.

With other European Union countries quickly diversifying religiously and ethnically, they too will no doubt trip up on similar potential points of ideological contention. Thus, this model deserves dutiful review and, ultimately, duplication.

If the saying “an ounce of prevention equals a pound cure” holds true, the Danish cartoon crisis should shock anyone into becoming an early-warning convert. The potential social, political, and financial costs are simply too great to ignore. And the Dutch, as we will see below, understood that.

At the highest levels of Government, the pre-emptive media response was palpable and powerful. The Dutch Foreign Minister stood by the right to free speech while putting reasonable parameters on the proviso, saying, “freedom of expression doesn’t mean the right to offend”.

The Dutch Interior Minister warned media companies against broadcasting (the film), noting the repercussions globally, saying, “A broadcast on a public channel could imply that the Government supported the project”.

Even the Dutch Embassy in Washington D.C. categorically condemned the content. But most impressive was the showing by Amsterdam’s mayor Job Cohen, who is Jewish, saying flatly that Wilders was “dehumanising Muslims”.

Under girding these official utterances, the Government readied the security sector with a series of Cabinet-level ministerial meetings to coordinate counter-terrorism services and conceptualise security plans. Furthermore, Dutch nationals abroad were notified of the need to register with state embassies while local Dutch mayors queued on standby.

Services in the non-governmental sector were also summoned. Mindful of the buzz building in the Arab press and keen to concoct a global media strategy to counteract a crisis, the Dutch Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates appealed to international organisations like ours (the Cordoba Initiative) to proactively engage Muslims in prevention-oriented activities.

Mobilising Dutch Muslim civil society, in close consultation and coordination with our Dutch Muslim legal liaisons on the ground, the Government received an overwhelmingly positive response.

Locally, in the Netherlands, Muslims showered Wilders with kindness, sending flowers, and e-mailing virtual hugs. This coincided with a coordinated campaign involving educational radio and TV programmes, talks, flyers, T-shirts, and peace-promoting online petitions – all with the purpose of preventing political furore.

Internationally, young Muslim leaders, from Europe to the United States to the United Nations, rallied to support local Dutch efforts while focusing on similar inoculation efforts in their own countries.

In sum, grassroots engagement was rigorous, respectful and well regimented - exactly the kind of early warning system that is needed at a local level to immunise a population from a threat.

No doubt the threat still exists, as the world still waits for Wilders’ cinematic debut. Nor is the Netherlands now impervious to potentially violent polemics in response to Wilders’ film.

But at least now, unlike in Denmark or Sudan, the early warning system has been activated, and the quarantining mechanisms queued. People stand ready this time.

Immunising a country against the pandemic of xenophobia and outright dehumanisation is serious business. Thankfully, the Dutch got started on this early. Given the diverse and ever-shifting hues of the European Union’s social and religious orientation, Netherlands’ neighbours would do well to nod in the direction.

Posted in Security Measures, Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 10 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Serbian parliament was dissolved due to a split among what was the governing coalition. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica was unable to gain majority support for not continuing to move towards joining the E.U. The country’s president, Boris Tadic, is perhaps the leading elite voice calling for Serbia to look West. Ultimately, through new “snap” elections the Serbian people will for once be able to decide somewhat the future course of their country. 

The outcome of these elections, which are expected to be announced early this week, will be telling. Although Tadic claims that the people already decided to “go West” with his presidential election victory in early February, the unilateral claim of Kosovar independence on February 17th might have changed the ending to this story. Furthermore, to what degree Serbians truly felt confident in continued pursuit of entry into the E.U. is up for debate, after all, Tadic failed to clinch his victory in the first round of elections securing only 35.39% of the vote to the Serbian Radical Party’s Tomislav Nikolic’s 39.99%. Indeed, it was only in the second round of elections which was essentially a run off that Tadic was able to win 51.19% of the vote to Nikolic’s 48.81%. With such a small margin it isn’t unreasonable to assume that Kosovo might now have become that extra push many Serbs needed to throw them into the arms of right-wing nationalists.

And why not? If one cared to look at this from a Serbian perspective they would quickly realize that, if not the E.U. at least several major European countries have consistently been early recognizers of breakaway republics (and now province) of former Yugoslavia - often taking with them sizeable Serbian minorities. Far from understanding what this has meant to the ethnic Serbs caught on the wrong side of newly staked international borders, the Serbian people have been cast as the villain in every subsequent conflict. Indeed, to the Serbs the E.U. (along with the U.S.) can be seen as  a violator, every time it comes near it takes another piece of Serbia with it.

And yet despite this history, the E.U. continues to remain hopeful that Serbia will come around, accept defeat and join them in a happy greater Europe. It’s a bit like the rapist asking his victim to marry him, isn’t it? Maybe that’s the E.U.’s plan, after all aren’t wives immune from testifying against their husbands? Perhaps the E.U. hopes Serbia will stop talking (or what the E.U. undoubtedly believes to be crying) after the wedding.

In any event, it isn’t a decision I would like to make. Serbia has been left with few options - isolation or a shot-gun wedding.
 

Posted in Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 10 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

ZDNet News published the following update on U.K. ID card plans:

“Home secretary Jacqui Smith also announced on Thursday that compulsory ID cards for all British citizens may now be delayed until 2015, subject to a future Parliamentary vote.

But the government still intends to force foreign nationals living in Britain to register their biometric details on the National Identity Register and carry an ID card by the end of this year.

Smith also set out plans to issue ID cards to people working in airports and other high security-risk areas from next year, a plan that has come under fire from trade unions.

After that the target is students and young people, who will voluntarily have the option of registering for an ID card from 2010.

Anyone renewing or applying for a new passport from 2011 onwards will be required to add their biometric details to the National Identity Register, but they won’t now be forced to pay for a physical ID card and can instead choose to just use their passport.

The government estimates the combined cost of getting a biometric passport and ID card would be around £100.

For the few who are likely to actually want a standalone biometric ID card, they will also have the option of paying to get one without getting a new passport.

The latest ID card consultation plans also reveal that people will face fines of up to £1,000 for missing appointments to register their biometric details on the National Identity Register.”

Why so few people seem to have realized the futility of using identity cards as a preventative measure in the “war on terrorism” is beyond me. Identity as a basis for national security measures is only as solid as identity is fixed. Biometric identifiers cannot and will not truly make identity a firm concept - how can it? A fingerprint or an iris scan can just as well be attached to a fraudulent official identity as to a legitimate one. Makes one wonder, what’s the point?

Posted in Identity Management, Biometrics, Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 6 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Here is an interesting article by Michael Berk and Dr. Piotr Dutkiewicz that was published in the Toronto Star this morning questioning the prevailing views of Russia in the West:

“If you see a man drowning, do you wag your finger at him and insist that he take swimming lessons, or do you throw him a life ring and help him get to shore?

The West’s finger-wagging approach to the development and democratization of Russia is a short-sighted approach that may play well on the home front but it ignores what’s really going on in Russia. Worse, it undermines a great opportunity to assist Russia in addressing some of its persistent problems.

As of Sunday, Russia has a new president. With most of the votes counted, Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s chosen successor, received more than 70 per cent of the popular vote, with a remarkably high (for an election whose results were known even before voters went to the ballot box) turnout of close to 70 per cent.

Now, the orderly transition of power in Russia (as Putin will step down in May) is critically important to its continued development and stability in the region. But what’s much more important is where will Russia be in 10 years, and how we can work with it to get there.

Most Western commentary on the Russian presidential election and its outcome is symptomatic of the application of Western value judgments. For most, this was simply a farce. Of course, the Russian election doesn’t meet the standards of Western democracies (it is not a “competitive election” and, in fact, the results are already pre-determined), although with “superdelegates” in the U.S. and “star candidates” in Canada we should be careful to look at our own shortcomings before criticizing those we see abroad.

But how long did it take these Western democracies to develop? None appeared overnight.

For a comparable example, look at post-war Germany and Japan. In order for Japan to become the liberal democracy it is now, it existed and struggled under authoritarian regimes in the 1950s and ’60s, during which time labour unions were outlawed and many people “disappeared.”

It’s not a happy story but it is the real history of democratic evolution in massively disrupted societies.

Nor are Western democracies immune to democratic backsliding when times get tough. The day after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., an onslaught on civil rights began that continues today. Most Americans willingly agree to that in exchange for the increased security they feel they need. In Canada when we felt threatened internally, we invoked the War Measures Act, and again many people were happy to give up a measure of freedom in exchange for security.

Russia’s showpiece presidential election is far from the most important thing that is happening in that country. Democracy doesn’t mean much if you are poor, you have no food, no decent housing, no access to health care or education, and civil infrastructure that is crumbling around you. Maybe most Russians made the most rational choice. They exchanged the power of the vote for the purchasing power offered to them by Putin’s regime.

The critics of the current elections are missing at least two key points. This is the first time in Russian history that a supreme power will change hands as a result of the election. This is the first time in Russian history that a Russian leader will peacefully relinquish his power in order to obey the letter of the constitution.

Moreover, the current elections are creating a stronger institutional and legal foundation for the introduction of rule of law and the strengthening of institutions that either didn’t exist after the fall of the Soviet Union or that were almost completely non-functional.

It is hard to overstate the chaos of the 1990s in Russia. Let’s look at the inheritance the Yeltsin government left to Putin: In the 1990s Russia suffered the biggest transformational recession in Eastern Europe. Neither World War I or the Revolution of 1917 brought about such a dramatic drop in economic output as was seen in the 1990s.

In 1998, at the lowest point of the 1990s recession, Russia’s gross domestic product was at 55 per cent of the pre-crisis peak in 1989. In the 1990s consumption decreased on average by about 33 per cent. More than a quarter of the Russian population lived at the level of absolute poverty and state institutions reached a peak of ineffectiveness bordering on dissolution of the state.

When Putin became president – just eight years ago –he had to face all of the above problems.

In an environment like that, it seems reasonable that the debate over which comes first – survival and social order or democracy – should only be conducted by the people facing those conditions. The Russians made their choice. The majority – 70 per cent to 80 per cent –chose market benefits and social order.

Compare that to the approval ratings for George Bush at around 30 per cent, or the 36 per cent who support Nicolas Sarkozy’s performance.

If you accept that Russia is on a path that will lead it away from chaos and toward stability and a more equitable social system, then the important question becomes how can we work together to get there faster.

There are many areas that are disturbing, such as health, the environment, public safety. But the biggest impediment to well-functioning civil institutions in Russia right now is corruption, at all levels of government and in business. This is a historical issue that truly exploded in the chaos of the 1990s, which enabled many local governmental administrators and local criminal groups to buy politicians and bureaucrats and to seize control of resources for their own ends.

A stronger judiciary and better laws are essential in weeding out corruption. For instance, in the latest budget, the government increased salaries for judges to decrease the appeal of bribes. But clearly more action is needed.

Another factor in dealing with corruption is the need to simplify and reduce the bureaucracy. The greater the bureaucracy, the more opportunities there are to encounter corrupt officials.

Steps are being taken to do this, such as the implementation of more e-government capabilities, and the streamlining of bureaucratic processes.

Though foreign investment is growing dramatically in Russia, it would grow faster if there was greater transparency and stronger governance. This is an area where Canada can help.

As a partner in the G8, in the United Nations and in the global community of nations, Canada has a choice to make in how we engage with Russia. We need to bear in mind that involvement in Russia is not a philanthropic adventure, but is in our own political and economic interest.

The new man in the Kremlin will adjust current policies, including those related to Canada. We can no longer sit back and watch. We can either stand on the sidelines, wagging our fingers as this potentially great neighbour tries to right itself, or we can be a real partner and work toward building an even more stable and democratic Russia, above all for our own future.

Dr. Piotr Dutkiewicz is the director of the Institute of European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at Carleton University. Michael Berk is director at the Canadian International Council and specializes in Russian affairs. His views may not represent the views of the CIC.“

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