Image courtesy of worsttech.com

So, in the wake of the most recent WikiLeaks scandal, the diplomatic cabletastrophy, the MasterCard “cyber attacks” and the attack on the Iranian nuclear program lots of new language has been added to the media vocabulary.  Until just a few weeks ago the vast majority of Americans had no clue what a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, nor certainly viewed internet crime as any sort of national security issue.  Now it seems politically motivated cyber attacks are all the rage, and though these are the newest forms of political attacks popularized in news media, they’ve been a popular  weapons against human rights organizations for ages.

Yet, not surprisingly, one rarely if ever hears about cyber attacks on human rights organizations and sources of independent media.  Perhaps at least in part because excluding major efforts of governments and the like, they tend not to actually be that big of a deal.  Contrary to the sea of tweets and TV news stories, cyber attacks, while certainly pretty fierce and frightening displays of political beliefs, tend not to cause earth shattering meltdowns.  As with more traditional political attacks, these recent attacks have had an impressive impact in bringing public attention to a host of differing political ideologies.

If not for sharp manipulation of mainstream media sources, WikiLeaks probably never would’ve stood out among the sea of nerdy political sites.  Whatever the WikiLeaks scandals amount to in history, the organization certainly will have had a profound impact on the US populace and international community in bringing the influence of technology into the public eye.

Imara had a great post on Republican rhetoric about cutting foreign aid when they take control of the House of Representatives in January 2011. He didn’t point out a gem of a quote from Kay Granger (R-TX) who is seeking to become the chair of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee:

I want to be sure that we aren’t increasing foreign aid at the expense of our troops.

I think this is notable (in a very sad way) for two reasons.

First, there is no tradeoff between spending money on foreign aid and defense because the budget is not a fixed sum.*

Second, for someone on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee and State and Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, she sure seems confused about the relative levels of spending on each. Below I’ve got a helpful chart that shows these expenditures from the fiscal 2011 budget. In case you are not a math whiz, the graph shows that foreign aid expenditures are about 5% of defense expenditures. Beyond that, most US foreign aid these days goes to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.** (I wonder why that is?)

I hope the chart reassures Rep. Granger that the US Government currently doesn’t seem to be facing a tradeoff between spending lots and lots on defense and not very much on foreign aid.

Update:

*Let me be more clear. Talking about a tradeoff between aid and defense makes as much sense as a tradeoff between: (1) defense spending versus and spending on the postal service; (2) more defense and larger budget deficits; or (3) more defense and higher taxes. Granger makes it seem as if there is a fixed line item in the budget for “defense and other overseas stuff.” This simply makes no sense.

**Plus Egypt and Israel.

Best Friends For Life

As Republicans gear themselves up to take over the House, the debate around the States’ finances, and the terror of Government spending is starting anew.  Unsurprisingly, among the potential targets for cuts in funding is the area of development and foreign aid.  As Barak mentioned in a previous article, domestically we’ve a pretty mixed up opinion when it comes to issues of foreign spending, and this flawed understanding is something legislators don’t hesitate to take advantage of.

I definitely wouldn’t argue that we’re doing everything right where foreign aid is concerned, historically we’ve a pretty shaky record in the area of aid.  Yet the type of results we tend to expect in the amount of time we’re willing to commit also tends to be fairly absurd.  It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that what we need isn’t less spending, or even more spending, but more effective spending, unfortunately we have a hard time agreeing on just what that means.

A few days ago Secretary Clinton spoke on the release of the first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review or in government terms “QDDR” (oh how I hate acronyms).  The review aims to shape future changes in US policy in the areas of development and diplomacy, by among other things utilizing “civilian power” and getting agencies like the Department of State and USAID to work cooperatively.  If successful in bringing about any actual policy change, QDDR could nip some of the foreign aid spending rhetoric in the bud before our incoming legislators have a chance to go too far in gutting funding.

Why is it when an individual breaks into someone’s house and destroys the contents inside, it’s called a felony, but when a bank does it, it’s called a mistake? Why do the victims of these “mistakes” need to file private lawsuits to get restitution? Isn’t this why we have the police?

As much as I’m sure there’s little value in getting into a discussion over the value and or dangers of universal health care in the United States, a recent court ruling regarding President Obama’s controversial health care bill brings up some interesting questions regarding the US judiciary system.  Typically when assessing the quality of democracy and or “freedom” in a developing state, one of the core questions asked is on the quality of rule of law and the relative independence of the judiciary.

There isn’t too much disagreement on just what is meant by “independent judiciary,” but what follows is one of the core components of an independent judiciary as defined by freedom house: Read the rest of this entry…

Tom Friedman is ready to throw in the towel on US efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

I understand the problem: Israeli and Palestinian leaders cannot end the conflict between each other without having a civil war within their respective communities. Netanyahu would have to take on the settlers and Abbas would have to take on Hamas and the Fatah radicals. Both men have silent majorities that would back them if they did, but neither man feels so uncomfortable with his present situation to risk that civil war inside to make peace outside…

The most valuable thing that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could do now is just get out of the picture – so both leaders and both peoples have an unimpeded view of their horrible future together in one state, if they can’t separate…

America must get out of the way so Israelis and Palestinians can see clearly, without any obstructions, what reckless choices their leaders are making. Make no mistake, I am for the most active U.S. mediation effort possible to promote peace, but the initiative has to come from them.

Man’s got a point.

Despite typically avoiding issues of domestic politics, I can’t help but wonder at one of the statements from Nuccio & Prendergrast’s recently noted article  on issues of democracy education and civics stagnation.

This arguably has contributed to the authoritarian nostalgia afflicting many new democracies in which significant portions of the population look back on the “good old days” when the messy business of democratic policymaking was not on display. Leaders chosen through elections may represent the public, but they may not be very skilled at governing, i.e., fulfilling the undeliverable or unwise promises they made to constituents. A voter uneducated in the give and take of democratic citizenship might conclude that democracy itself is responsible for the failure of elections to solve their problems.

Interestingly despite years of education on civics, politics and systems of governance, at times when I look at our own system I find myself genuinely questioning the efficacy of democracy in the United States.  Living in a nation which aims to lead others on the values of democracy promotion, I am never surprised when I hear Americans rail on about the evils of politics and the “hot mess” that democracy seems to be at times.  I can only imagine how maddening it must be to live somewhere moving through the process of democratization without having been educated on the difficulties of hollow campaign promises, political rhetoric and compromise.

Along similar lines, recent research by economist Gary Richardson presents a linear relationship between GOP support in a state and federal funding. It’s long been one of those accepted truths that the rhetoric around government spending is hogwash, and that historically red states take the lion’s share of government funds but it takes an economists to providing statistical data to support or decry old truisms.

Though I was in no way surprised by Richardson’s findings, their presentation brought me to the always unpleasant question of why people either don’t know or don’t care.  Given my education on the subject, it can be hard to accept that people don’t know these semi-basic truths of US politics, but hopefully I’m wrong as the alternative is willful ignorance.  It’s hard to believe that anyone actually buys arguments of fiscal conservatism and the constant damning of government spending, but the evening news around election time certainly paints a contrary picture.

Living in the US makes it difficult to imagine at times what it must be like living in an area where politicians are just beginning to learn the manipulative language of campaign promises.  Here in the states our attitude toward politics has been a long while in developing, there’s a strange poetry to our political rhetoric which makes it noteworthy despite its hollow nature.  Typically it strikes as a surprise when politicians actually live up to anything they claim on the campaign trail, even more so when anything said in front of a camera is backed up by facts.

There’s a pretty solid article by Shankar Vedantam at Slate if you’re interested in reading on Richardson’s findings beyond my annoyed ramblings.