by David Steven | Jun 27, 2008 | North America
You couldn’t make this stuff up:
Sens. John Kerry, Bob Corker, and Sheldon Whitehouse today announced the passage of their legislation to remove former South African President Nelson Mandela from the terror watch list. The bill grants the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the authority to waive U.S. travel restrictions on President Mandela and other members of the African National Congress (ANC.)
Mandela and his fellow ANC members remain on the list for activities they conducted against South Africa’s apartheid regime decades ago. The senators hope the passage of this legislation will end this embarrassing impediment to improving U.S.-South Africa relations.
“In recognition of his ninetieth birthday this summer, Nelson Mandela is again honored as one of the world’s strongest voices for human dignity and courage in the face of oppression. Today the United States moved closer at last to removing the great shame of dishonoring this great leader by including him on our government’s terror watch list,” said Kerry.
That’s right – Condi will now be allowed to consider deeming Mandela unlikely to blow up US citizens…
[Via Ezra Klein]
by Richard Gowan | Jun 20, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks, North America, Off topic
Yesterday, I offered up Texan senator John Cornyn’s macho cowboy re-election video as “Texan political advertising at its best”. But the enjoyably off-beat William Butler Yeast blog (which has a commendable “What I’ve Been Drinking” sidebar which I hope we’ll be imitating soon*) points out that the creator of the single most powerful (and nastiest) advert for any Texan politician ever died last weekend.
The ad man was Tony Schwartz. The Texan was Lyndon Baines Johnson. The target was Barry Goldwater, LBJ’s opponent in the 1964 presidential election and feared by some as too likely to, er, go nuclear. The result was the “Daisy Ad”.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63h_v6uf0Ao&feature=related]
* As you ask, it’s a gin and tonic for me right now. Though I’m right out of lime.
by Richard Gowan | Jun 19, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks, North America, Off topic
Here’s a really very moving campaign ad for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, or “Big John”. It’s almost enough to make me forgive Clooney’s “Waging Peace” video, but not quite.
As I got this from Gawker (“Insane Political Ad Must Be a Joke”) and Gawker pointed out that it was already available from Wonkette and lots of other places, U.S. readers may well have seen it already. But I suspect that, in spite the world-size-reducing powers of the web, readers further afield may have missed it. Enjoy!
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcB7uCqdFk]
by Charlie Edwards | Jun 18, 2008 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia
While the national football team’s loss to Italy last night heralded the end of an era for French football and possibly Raymond Domenech tenure as coach, a new era in French national security and defence policy was being ushered in by President Sarkozy.
In a sentence: The new French white paper is a radical departure from traditional French defence policy and recommends a plethora of new policies that seek to transform internal structures of government regarding intelligence and crisis management while simultaneously articulating a shift in approach to international affairs.
It’s good, far better than the US National security’s strategy and better in some areas than the recent UK strategy. Terrorism ranks as France’s primary threat (pourquoi?).
The two key takeaways are the wholesale transformation of France’s crisis management structures and the five strategic functions of national security strategy.
The strategy offers a well worn narrative beginning with the end of the post-Cold War world and the effects of globalisation. There are some clear parallels with work done in the UK, US, Singapore and elsewhere but some notable differences. Like the UK NSS the French white paper takes an all-hazards approach, dealing with active, deliberate threats but also with the security implications of major disasters and catastrophes of a non-intentional nature.
Unlike the UK NSS which was primarily the creation of a small group of policy makers inside the Cabinet Office the French Government have put a huge amount of effort into their new strategy. The composition of the Commission included government agencies, the armed forces, parliamentarians, academia, think-tanks, independent experts and industry. And in a striking similarity with the Conservative Party’s approach, the Commission took evidence from individuals from 14 countries on 5 continents with televised and on-line hearings. Furthermore there were more than twenty in-depth field visits in defence and national security units and facilities.
For a more indepth analysis…
(more…)
by Richard Gowan | Jun 15, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
Kosovo continues to limp, hop and stumble towards statehood. Today, the UN hands over some policing and justice duties to the EU, in a deal hammered out by Ban Ki-moon and Javier Solana that’s less than a week old and still contains some notable gaps. As predicted here ages ago, the UN will be staying on to offer a political “umbrella” for EU activities.
The Russians are making a hoo-ha about the EU presence on behalf of the Serbs, and you have to admire the rhetoric. Here’s Russia’s Permanent Representative to NATO, hardliner Dmitry Rogozin, on the subject:
“We warned our UN colleagues long ago that there were such things as honour, duty and the UN resolution that must be complied with. Unfortunately political forces which prefer to wipe their feet on international laws like on a doormat prevail in Europe.”
But this feels like a venting session rather than anything more serious (confirming another prediction made here, that Moscow’s leverage on Kosovo has always been more limited than it appeared). Everyone else is shuffling their feet. The EU may now have a foothold in Kosovo, but it’s been made to look pretty silly along the way, especially when it became clear that it couldn’t afford to deploy without inheriting second-hand vehicles and kit from the UN.
But a bigger problem is that EU and UN personnel, who were best buddies up until the start of this year, have fallen out badly in the run-up to this decision. Worse still, the latest carve-up of responsibilities leaves both politically weakened. Although the UN may be staying on, its credibility with the Kosovo Albanians is shot – indeed, the latter are saying openly they expect the UN to be gone by autumn.
Conversely, Ban’s decision provides no indication on what role the EU’s political chief in Kosovo, Peter Feith, should play. Feith was meant to oversee the Kosovo government and wade in if it started to misbehave. But he still lacks the de jure authority to do so while the UN leadership lacks the de facto power to intervene. The winners? The Kosovo Albanians, I think. They should be able to maneuver quite nimbly in this mess…
