Re: Kenya

[Guest guest]

I was lucky in a way because of where I went to high school. At time when most high school students were going to school with people from the few local blocks or maybe across town, my school had people from around the world. The vast majority of the students were from the US and most of them from Virginia and the bordering states, but many were from other countries. We had Mexicans, Japanese, Taiwanese, Koreas, British, Germans, and other Europeans and some other South American countries. We also had Africans: several Kenyans and Liberians mostly. The Liberians were the sons of government officials and were there as much for their safety as anything. One of them was on the phone with a friend in Liberia who's father was also a government man when gunmen broke in the house and killed the family.

A friend in the US Army Special Forces was in the section responsible for African operations. He said that the rural parts of Africa were pretty squared away, for the most part. It was the cities and areas like the diamond fields that were a disaster, though I'm not sure what all countries he went to since he couldn't go into that.

Now, Africa is still a very tribally aware part of the world. It was interesting to read how during the diamond wars in Sierra Leone and other places that people wouldn't help others from other tribes and could tell each other apart just by sight. There are tensions throughout much of Africa. A large part of the problem goes back to the colonial era when countries were drawn on maps in Europe for the benefit of the colonial powers rather than conditions on the ground. The result of that was that nations would created with tribes divided by the national borders, but more than that, it bundled together tribes with ancient animosities.

That wasn't so bad as long as the colonial powers were they were stomp on any tribal violence. However, after WWII, the colonial powers pulled out and generally did not offer any help at all to the countries after independence. As a result, most were democracies for a few months or a year or two at most before they fell into factional violence from which most have not recovered. Kenya had long been one of the more stable of the countries, the former British colonies being the most stable of the lot. However, Zimbabwe went and now Kenya is having problems. I suppose that government corruption can only go on for so long before the governments tumble.

Something else to consider was the effect of the Cold War. The Communists fomented rebellion after rebellion in Africa, which collapsed many countries and is responsible for the chaos that brewed up in Rawanda and other places. The US and some European nations resisted this more or less because we had to fight them. It is unfortunate that the only choices tended to be nasty people that could barely be trusted. All I can say about that was that Winston Churchill and General Patton were correct. Churchill wanted to give the Russians much less aid so they would be hurt worse than they were by the Nazis, so as to let them kill each other and the other allies could come in and take out the winner. Patton knew the Russians were our real enemies and wanted to attack them as soon as the Nazis surrendered. Since the Russian economy was about to collapse, and would have if we hadn't bothered to support them so heavily, so a year or two of war with them would have crushed them, which would have been better than the 50 years of turmoil and near annihilation that we went through.

In closing, this is just an example as to why I think the Bush administrations almost religious fervor over spreading Democracy is foolish. Much of the world just isn't ready for it yet. Democracy has to grow from the ground up, not be imposed from the top down. In Europe, it took centuries for Democracy to take root, beginning with the English Magna Carta, that is if you don't count the ancient basis from Greece and Rome. Many South American countries have democracies, but what you have is that several have elected radical Populists like Chavez that are looting and crashing their countries and have made themselves enemies of the US, if we were honest about it. Most of the other democracies are like that, others are pandering to forces that are going to rot them from within. The US isn't doing so hot lately either and the current crop of Presidential hopefuls on both sides are not the least bit inspiring.

In a message dated 1/3/2008 3:24:34 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps for a while. He served in Kenya and he had suggested to his parents that if he were to die, donating to a special fund for Kenya that some members of the Corps set up was what he wanted in leiu of flowers. Years later, he died in a mountain climbing accident in New Zealand.His parens asked mourners to donate to the fund, and I did. I do not regret the donation except that when I see things like what is happening in this article going on, it shows me that African nations are pretty much a lost cause. I do not think I will donate to any African cause again based on what is happening in Kenya and other African nations.http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4073754AU Head Goes to Kenya Following Violence"Head of the African Union Goes to Kenya Following Election Violence That Has Killed 275"<snip>"The killing of up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus Tuesday as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret recalled scenes from the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, when more than a half-million people were killed."<snip>"The U.N. cited Kenyan police as saying 70,000 people had been displaced so far. Around 5,400 people have also fled to neighboring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister."<snip>"The worst part is that they were hacking people and then setting them on fire," he added.TomAdministrator See AOL's top rated recipes and easy ways to stay in shape for winter.

[Guest guest]

" A large part of the problem goes back to the colonial era when

countries were drawn on maps in Europe for the benefit of the

colonial powers rather than conditions on the ground. The result of

that was that nations would created with tribes divided by the

national borders, but more than that, it bundled together tribes with

ancient animosities.'

I have always wondered why parts of Africa simply do not meet and

subdivide themselves along ethnic or tribal lines. This would create

bigger countries in some areas and smaller countries in others, but

it would probable solve the problem of tribal and ethnic warfare.

Additionally, the leaders of these areas would be more easily elected

and deposed according to the votes or constituency of the people.

I suppose, however, that it might be too late for that given that

many of the resources in Africa have been plundered. You could not

give tribal land back to a forest people whose forests have been cut

down, for example.

Tom

Administrator

[Guest guest]

"And this is what happens when a third world country begins to move up the ladder to an industrialized nations too fast. China has depleted most of its own forests through harvesting without replanting and slash and burn agriculture. Now they need timber from overseas. Watch them as they get rich quick and then hit an economic recession the way that Japan has as the countries they get their resources from start charging them heavily for the products they buy or as resources run low. "

True to a point. China has mishandled its resources badly, much like the Europe and the US did over 100 years ago. Currently, the Chinese steel industry alone uses about 6 times as much coal per unit of steel produced than the US does. I pretty much every other sector for manufacturing to agriculture, it is the same story. China is quite wasteful of its natural resources.

Also like the West 100 and more years ago, they are heavily polluting their water and land. It is interesting to note that the Yangtze, one of their major rivers, as much as 50% is considered unfit for any purpose (drinking, agriculture or manufacturing) and at times as much as 10% is considered sewage. Pollution of water and farmland is hurting crop production and is causing deserts to spread.

The central government is trying to crack down, but China is actually very decentralized. Because of this, local leaders don't enforce mandates put out by the Central Government. Now, the Central Government doesn't really care about the environment: they care about growing the economy and with it China's economic and military influence. They issue these mandates against pollution because there are thousands of protests each year because the pollution is making people sick and killing them. This could lead to riots which could threaten the power of the Central Government and bring the whole thing down. Of course, they also care about having the Olympics hampered by the amazing level of smog in Beijing. A lot of that comes from outside the city, especially contaminated dust blow off the worn out farmland. It would be really amusing is something like that came up and disrupted the games with smog and dust so thick you couldn't see across the field, a fairly common occurrence as thick as the smog gets over there.

The real problem there would be that the Chinese would try a military solution to the problem. By that I mean they might attack Taiwan to distract the people from the environment crisis and failing government. I'm not sure if that would work for long though. But China would lose far more than it would gain from that, however, because a disruption in international trade would put more than 100 million people out of work almost overnight and think of the rioting that would cause.

China is much more precariously balanced than people think. If our economy goes into a recessions, it will probably really hurt theirs. Imports will slacken and if they keep their currency pegged to the dollar, it will undercut their economy. In addition, the Chinese pirate and steal technology and secrets like nobody's business. They steal designs and then sell cheap knockoffs. Indeed, counterfeit products are a sizable but unreported chunk of their economy. It will eventually all catch up to them. It is simply unfortunate that international contempt for our current President is causing other countries to pull away from us and the Dollar. That I believe will come back to haunt them before long.

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[Guest guest]

That is because of the nature of tribal warfare.

In the hierarchy of battles, tribal cultures have the most frequent battles while industrial nations have the fewest. Tribal warfare had two types of conflict: raiding and pitched battles. Raids were the more common of the two and would be skirmishes over resources, claimed lands, personal insults, etc. Sometimes a person or two was killed, but not always. Pitched battles may have been rather ritualized affairs where there was a lot of noise and fuss but few injuries or even deaths. The reason for this was very simple.

If you had a tribe that was living on the margins of survival as it was, then you needed every person you had. If you had say 100 combat able men in the whole tribe, men who also hunted, if you lost 1 or 2 of them in a battle, that was a big deal. Since skirmishes could be a weekly affair and battles happening a few times per years, a 1% casualty rate would quickly wipe out your tribe, even with replacement births.

There were exceptions, however. Some forces like the Zulu, Aztecs and others found for keeps. That is, they actively sought to annihilate the enemy on the battlefield to gain dominance over the other tribes. Those are only two such tribes of the many around the world that practiced such tactics well before the Europeans came on to the scene. Don't forget the Mongols. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols spread from Mongolia to Eastern Europe. They were famous for making mountains of the slain civilians of the people they conquered and they very nearly slaughter all of the Chinese after their conquest because Genghis wanted open plains to feed his horses. He was convinced by one of his advisors that it would be better to have the Chinese as slaves growing food and making weapons for the Mongol army.

A very nasty tribal war happened right near my place in Alabama. The Creek Indians lived in that area. Some adopted the European way of life with settled farms, and others didn't. Those others went to war against their own kind, going so far as to slaughter over 500 men, women and children not 50 miles from my place. That kicked off the Creek Indian War. After the war, many of the Indians were right where they had been before the war and many are still there today.

The first English to arrive in Virginia at town appeared during a time of war between the local tribes. That is probably one thing that kept them alive. Both nations wanted to have the White Men fight on their side and so tried to gain their friendship. If it hadn't been for that war, they might well have united and kicked the English out.

Japan was very different from Africa. To begin with, the Japanese were more organized and were beyond the tribal stage of society. They were unified enough that after the US retaliated for the murder of a US citizen by a Samurai and forced Japan out of its self-imposed isolation, that they suffered a great deal to industrialize their country. They caught up to the west, going from a feudal, agricultural society to an industrial one in a few decades. From having few primitive cannon in 1854 when they met and realized they could no longer keep out foreigners to 1905 when their navy defeated the Russians at the Tsushima straits, they had come a very long way.

Most of Africa does not have that kind of unity. It is possible that the Zulu might have, but a foolish English Governor of South Africa provoked a war with them that left the ruined. I always thought it would have made sense to have them as allies securing part of the border as a buffer state since the Zulu had no interest in a war with the English because they knew that they could not win it. Other tribes seemed to not have the unity to accomplish it. Then again, bad people like Mugabe in Zimbawe always seem to come along and mess things up too. Its a shame that the African Union has let him go on so long and not destroyed him. But then, most of them are probably afraid that if they push for action on Mugabe, that they might be next, since most of them aren't much better.

Still, Africa remains a region of interest because they do have resources that we could use. Its just a shame that they are so messed up over there that the wealth doesn't go toward building the nations up. Fair, economic growth would probably go a long way toward settling tribal rivalries.

In a message dated 1/4/2008 12:32:52 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

This is both true and untrue. Native Americans were at war with one another, but not to the point of outright slaughter. Until the white man came to the North and South American coasts, most of the peoples here were able to exist under tenuous treaties and bonds. I do not think there is any existing modern political system that will work for Africa short of tribalism at this point. One has to wonder though about the nature of African peoples. We in essence destroyed the Japanese economy and political system in WWII and the became a fominant economic and political power within 50 years time. It has been nearly that long since colonial powers withdrew from many of these African countries and these countries have still not been able to recover. TomAdministrator Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape in the new year.

[Guest guest]

" What most people don't know is that China is by far the greatest

importer of illegal timber products. By that I mean china needs wood

products and it isn't picky about from where or how they get it. This

is causing forests around the third world to be clear cut and not

replaced, since there are no laws about that in many of those

countries and even if they were, there is enough laxity and

corruption that nothing happens. "

And this is what happens when a third world country begins to move up

the ladder to an industrialized nations too fast. China has depleted

most of its own forests through harvesting without replanting and

slash and burn agriculture. Now they need timber from overseas. Watch

them as they get rich quick and then hit an economic recession the

way that Japan has as the countries they get their resources from

start charging them heavily for the products they buy or as resources

run low.

" But as for the tribes, very often, there is not sharp delineation

between tribes. there tends to be some overlap, especially in more

urban areas where tribal borders are jumbled up. Few really large

tribes exist, big enough to make a viable state. There are probably

hundreds if not thousands of tribes, so giving each their own country

wouldn't be a solution. It would simply make the problem worse as all

of those tiny countries slugged it out with their neighbors just like

tiny countries have always done. Indeed, history shows that the

smaller and more tribal a group, the more common violence is with its

neighbors. "

This is both true and untrue. Native Americans were at war with one

another, but not to the point of outright slaughter. Until the white

man came to the North and South American coasts, most of the peoples

here were able to exist under tenuous treaties and bonds.

I do not think there is any existing modern political system that

will work for Africa short of tribalism at this point.

One has to wonder though about the nature of African peoples. We in

essence destroyed the Japanese economy and political system in WWII

and the became a fominant economic and political power within 50

years time. It has been nearly that long since colonial powers

withdrew from many of these African countries and these countries

have still not been able to recover.

Tom

Administrator

[Guest guest]

Found this today.

China Counterfeit Surprise

January 4, 2008: One reason China tolerates the widespread manufacture of counterfeit products is because some of them have some military benefit for China's Cyber War effort. This came to light recently when the FBI arrested two Americans for running a computer parts company that was selling counterfeit computer parts (especially Cisco router components), manufactured in China. The phony parts had counterfeit labels, and were delivered in counterfeit boxes. The two brothers had a contract to sell these parts to the Department of Defense and other government agencies.

Actually, the Chinese got lucky with this one. Normally these counterfeit parts are sold by transitory operations. Eventually, the user has reason to contact the manufacturer of the shoddy part. At that point, the buyer discovers that, say, Cisco, has no router component with the serial number the scammed buyer is reading over the phone. It is then that the buyer realizes they have been screwed.

Counterfeit computer parts can be made to very low standards. They will work for a while, but not for the long periods of time that justify the high price of the authentic parts. The Chinese manufacturer sells the counterfeit parts at, say, 20 percent of what a real part would cost, to a foreign distributor. This guy then peddles the counterfeit parts to dealers who may, or may not, know they are getting cheap, but fake, parts at a deep discount. The dealer can then sell the counterfeits at a discount. Discerning buyers can check serial numbers on these high price components (some have a list price of thousands of dollars), but others are more trusting, and get burned.

Counterfeit high-tech items are a growing business, and a growing danger. In addition to computer gear, auto and aircraft components are also being faked. Some aircraft and auto accidents have been traced to the fakes, which makes it a public safety issue. But with the Department of Defense installing counterfeit computer components, it becomes a national security issue. There's also the fear that the Chinese, or some other hostile nation, might get their hands on real computer components, and replace some of the chips with modified ones that will make government networks easier to hack. Yes, it just gets worse.

China is much more precariously balanced than people think. If our economy goes into a recessions, it will probably really hurt theirs. Imports will slacken and if they keep their currency pegged to the dollar, it will undercut their economy. In addition, the Chinese pirate and steal technology and secrets like nobody's business. They steal designs and then sell cheap knockoffs. Indeed, counterfeit products are a sizable but unreported chunk of their economy. It will eventually all catch up to them. It is simply unfortunate that international contempt for our current President is causing other countries to pull away from us and the Dollar. That I believe will come back to haunt them before long.

Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape in the new year.

[Guest guest]

" Its a shame that the African Union has let him go on so long and not

destroyed him. But then, most of them are probably afraid that if they

push for action on Mugabe, that they might be next, since most of them

aren't much better. "

I think the African Union is mostly for show. Many of the leaders on it

are secretly funding political upheavals in adjacent African countries.

I think at present, it is simply an organization designed to unite

against European and North American exploitation, which is good as far

as it goes, but it needs to coalesce further.

Tom

Administrator