From the AP

In Niger, a desert country twice the size of Texas, most of the 11 million people live on a dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of four dies before turning 5. And that's when things are normal...

To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken areas. They leave it to the economists and politicians to come up with a lasting remedy.

One such economist is James Shikwati. He blames foreign aid.

"When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize on how to get more," said the Kenya-based director of the Inter Region Economic Network, an African think tank.

"They forget about getting their own people working to solve these very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change."

You may have heard or read about the DoD's latest annual report to Congress on China's military power. There was a good story on NPR last week about it. I've only recently become interested in the "rise of China" debates. But the more I read, the more I'm convinced it's much ado about nothing. China wants to be seen as a great power. It recognizes that the road to take is through economic strength as well as military strength. This shouldn't threaten the U.S. China needs foreign direct investment and values its trade relations with the U.S. As for military strength, China is modernizing its forces. But this seems related mainly to Taiwan and the perception that it needs a modern, high-tech military capable of waging war like the U.S. is able to. That doesn't mean against the U.S. Anyway, the report is suprisingly, highly readable and talks not only about force size but about strategic motivations. It's only about 45 pages. Take a look.

In other news that has also flown under the radar, Iraqbodycount has issued a report on civilian casualties in Iraq.

Findings include:

Who was killed?

24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years.
Women and children accounted for almost 20% of all civilian deaths.
Baghdad alone recorded almost half of all deaths.

When did they die?

30% of civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before 1 May 2003.
Post-invasion, the number of civilians killed was almost twice as high in year two (11,351) as in year one (6,215).

Who did the killing?

US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims.
Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims.
Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths.
Killings by anti-occupation forces, crime and unknown agents have shown a steady rise over the entire period.

What was the most lethal weaponry?

Over half (53%) of all civilian deaths involved explosive devices.
Air strikes caused most (64%) of the explosives deaths.
Children were disproportionately affected by all explosive devices but most severely by air strikes and unexploded ordnance (including cluster bomblets).

How many were injured?

At least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded.
The invasion phase caused 41% of all reported injuries.
Explosive weaponry caused a higher ratio of injuries to deaths than small arms.
The highest wounded-to-death ratio incidents occurred during the invasion phase.

Read the entire report here.

CNN finally featured a short piece on the crisis in Niger during Wolf Blitzer reports today. It saw no irony in reporting that the crisis could have been prevented if the internaitonal community had paid attention months ago. CNN of course not being part of the international community because it's hard to get news down in Atlanta.

See some photos of an insurgency in its last throes from the WaPo.

The UN says some aid is finally flowing to Niger. The BBC article quotes UN officials as saying that "it took graphic images of dying children for this to happen." But that's no thanks to U.S. media. Have you seen any graphic images?

I sent an email to the people at the Center for American progress about the Niger famine and they included a paragraph on it today's Progress Report (scroll down to 'Under the Radar').

I always champion the work of Samantha Power and her oustanding book A Problem From Hell. Now she will also be working as a foreign policy adviser to Senator Barack Obama. Good news all around.

Condi is only a couple of countries away. Will she say anything about the crisis in Niger?

In related, and much more important news, NBC's Andrea Mitchell got roughed up by Sudanese security for being uppity.

That's what this CNN story purports to tell us. Except it's not really a CNN story. It's a wire report from Reuters. How did the rich ignore Niger crisis? Major media outlets like CNN -- which in the past played a huge role in bringing attention to suffering in Somalia and Ethiopia -- couldn't care less these days.

CNN, a month ago on famine in Niger:

Millions of people on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert face severe food shortages unless donors come up with enough cash to help see them through the next three months, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

...

The next three months are vital, with $7.2 million needed immediately to ensure subsistence farmers and their families in the arid band of savannah make it through to October when harvesting starts again, officials said.

I guess that "next three months" thing didn't reach the people CNN t.v. people. No war; no IEDs. You couldn't send Christiane Amanpour to report?

Can this really be happening with so little media coverage (and attention by international community) just two weeks after Live 8 and the G-8 summit?

Children are dying of starvation in feeding centres in Niger, where 3.6m people face severe food shortages, aid agencies have warned.
The crisis in the south of the country has been caused by a drought and a plague of locusts which destroyed much of last year's harvest.

Aid agency World Vision warns that 10% of the children in the worst affected areas could die.

They say the international community has reacted too late to the crisis.

...

Little foreign aid has come into the country to deal with this crisis so far.

Aid agencies in the country predict the situation will get worse in the coming months and say the world has responded too late.

"There are children dying every day in our centres," says Milton Tetonidis of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

"We're completely overwhelmed, there'd better be other people coming quickly to help us out - I mean, the response has been desperately slow."

UN bodies and NGOs are appealing for donations through their websites.

The hunger in Niger was predicted months ago - but that did nothing to prevent the present disaster.

See some all to familiar pictures here. Where's the outrage from the Washington Post which has been all over dying in Darfur? A search on the keyword 'Niger' there, of course turns up nothing but Plame-gate.

Juan Cole gets is right on the double standard

Christian Terrorist Rudolph Sentenced
What the Rightwing Press Will not Say

Notorious Christian terrorist Eric Rudolph was sentenced to two life terms on Monday. The one-time fugitive had carried out four bombings that terrorized the southeastern areas of the United States. Among his crimes were the blowing up of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed a policeman, and a bombing of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.

As his sister-in-law made clear, Rudolph is driven by the ideology of the "Christian Identity" hate group. Terry Nichols of the Oklahoma City bombing was likewise connected to Christian identity and their "Elohim City".

Of course, you won't see the headline above in American newspapers, even though any Muslim who acts as Rudolph did would be called an "Islamic terrorist" (a particularly objectionable term because "Islamic" means "having to do with the Muslim faith). It is like talking about "terrorism rooted in Christianity."

Read the rest here.

The president took time away from the G-8 summit in Scotland to express condolences over those fifty or more people killed in London on July 7. I guess like the rest of us, he's so used to waking up each morning for the Iraqi suicide bomb report that he forgot to do the same for the bomb blast Saturday that killed 100 people.

A couple of things about Plamegate don't make sense to me after thinking about it for a few days. Literally, a couple.

First, part of the pseudo Rove defense seems follow the lines of I didn't mention Valerie Plame by name and/or I didn't know she was a covert CIA operative -- the covert part being essential to whether a crime was committed or not. But if Rove knew she worked for the CIA how could he not know she a covert agent? If he knew this from some work related matters then it seems two things are possible: (1) he came across her name and didn't know whether she was an (overt) analyst or a covert officer. If he didn't know, then why would he be telling this fact to a reporter potentially jeopardizing her life and career? (2) He knew she was a covert operative and revealed who she was anyway. So the big question in my mind is, how could he have known where she worked and not know in what capacity, for the exact reason that if he didn't know, he could accidentally reveal her name?

My second question involves the Rove was trying to alert Matt Cooper to a bogus story regarding the yellowcake in Niger by pointing out that Joseph Wilson's wife was involved in getting him sent to sniff out the allegations. This doesn't make any sense. If she had something to do with it, so what? Does that make his conclusions less valid? If so, then where is the evidence that Saddam actually did seek yellowcake from Niger?


Update: This story just out from the AP would answer one of my questions.

Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a person briefed on the testimony.

...Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.

Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. The conversation eventually turned to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq war policy and the intelligence it used to justify the war, the source said.

The person said Rove testified that Novak told him he had learned and planned to report in a weekend column that Wilson's wife, Plame, had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims of alleged nuclear material sales to Iraq.

Salon went to a lot of trouble to list reasons why George W. Bush will not fire Karl Rove over the Valerie Plame scandal.

Reason No. 1: Firing Rove would be perceived as an admission by George W. that things are amiss in his administration. The hallmark of Bush's presidency has been its ability -- when faced with adversity or controversy about a war, a policy or an individual -- to simply ignore the matter and stick to its talking points.

Following this is a discussion of Paul Bremer, George Tenet, and Donald Rumsfeld -- three guys responsible for a big mess in Iraq. Instead of firing them, they all got medals. For some reason Salon goes to the trouble of giving five more reasons why the firing won't happen.

They could have stopped with number one. This is the battle-tested tactic of this White House. Simply pretned there is no problem. Remember, in the aftermath of the Abu Graib prison abuse, Dubya said that Rumsfeld was doing a "superb" job. Some people thought that odd. Jon Stewart made a joke about it and year later Rumsfeld is around for the second term.

So I expect the same strategy here. "Karl Rove is a good man. He's a good friend. He's doing an excellent job." Rove could run over the pope with his Mercedes and Bush would stick to the mantra. Remember, day is night, up is down, and a war of choice costing thousands of lives is a good thing. And don't forget that you live in the reality based community.

A op-ed in today's Washington Post laments the fact that Arab countries have done nothing to stop the killing in Darfur. Joseph Britt, the author, seems to think that the "Muslim community" has a responsibility for doing something.

Absent from the picture have been the other Arab states. This is exceedingly strange, and not just because most of Darfur's victims are Muslims. Darfur is thousands of miles away from any of the Western countries trying to stop the genocide there; even the African nations sending peacekeepers are remote. Meanwhile, Egypt, with a huge army, a modern air force and more contacts within Sudan than every Western country combined, has looked on while as many as 400,000 people have been slaughtered just beyond its southern border and has, in effect, done nothing.

His logic rests on the dubious notion -- dare I call it Orientalist -- that, well, Muslims have a responsibility for other Muslims that transcends nationality and national interest. Why he thinks this he doesn't say. Perhaps I've got it wrong because Britt has the irritating but all too common habit of interchanging Arab and Muslim as if they were equivalent. If he's trying to shift the burden away from the world's only superpower, that's one thing, but his argument is pretty weak. I don't think he'd agree with a substitution of Christian for Muslim and agree that the U.S. ought to intervene wherever Christians are suffering. Hell, even George W. had to be dragged into that line of reasoning to send John Danforth to Sudan to help mediate the North-South dispute.

This is an essay that at heart demonstrates a lack of understanding not only of geopolitics but the Middle East, Arab, and Muslim world that so many pundits and commentators sadly possess.

On another note, it is admirable of the Washignton Post to devote so much time to the issue in Darfur. Over the past 8 months, it has run numerous editorials critical of the U.S. for failing to take a more active role in the genocide occuring there. But I wonder if its outrage isn't selective. What about the Democratic Republic of Congo? Over the past six years, its slide into civil war with incursions by Rwanda has seen millions of civilians die. According to the International Rescue Committee "more than 31,000 civilians continue to die monthly as a result of the conflict." I can't seem to find any editorials clamoring for the White House to help the UN peacekeeping effort there (which is some 13,000 troops short of what it would like). Unfortunately this doesn't suprise me -- on the part of the White House or WaPo. And that's a shame. Just some thoughts.

I find it alternately amusing and alarming that whenever there is a terrorist attack -- and since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that means in some other country --there are is this self-examination about whether we (Americans) are doing enough to make ourselves safe. On one hand, it's a noble idea. On the other hand it's a continuing effort at deluding ourselves.

I've written here numerous times how, again alternately amusing and alarming, I find it that traveling through several airport in this country, after September 11th, TSA, security, airport officials or whomever one would contact in an airport in case of trouble, have been incredibly nonchalant when told of unattended baggage. You know, that's the baggage the overhead recordings tell you to report every 2 minutes. What do you think caused those explosions in London? What carried the bombs in Madrid a year ago? UNATTENDED BAGGAGE.

I don't have a solution to making funds more available for terrorism prevention in one type of transport versus another. But this isn't the problem as I see it. Sure if we're serious about closing holes a terrorist could exploit, then allocation of funding is and issue that would have to be dealt with. But the "if" part is essential. Just as after every other big attack overseas, organizations like the Center for American Progress (which I like very much), write eloquently about themes such as "are we really safer?" That's the problem -- the fact that it takes another terrorist attack to prompt this introspection.

Last night on an extended version of CNN's Newsnight with Aaron Brown, a reporter left a bag at Grand Central Station in New York unattended for over 30 minutes waiting to see who would report it or whether security would pick it up. No one ever did. This was the same day as the London bombing. This is the problem, not funding. I guarantee that this happens every day in every major airport in this country. What's also telling is the fact that the segment went on without dwelling on this fact. Where were the interviews with station officials?

This country is not serious about taking measures to protect itself from these types of attacks. And thatÂ?s fine if you accept the inevitability of an attack of this sort (as a great many Londoners and Brits in general seem to). But we don't in this country. WeÂ?re still frantically, yet ineptly, trying to shore up airline security by making travelers take off their shoes -- maybe. We-re reactive, and not very good at that.

So thereÂ?s been a rail attack in Britain. Now it's an issue for the U.S. That's not going to cut it. What I predict may change this dynamic is the foiling an attack before it happens. Say security discovers a number of explosive-laden backpacks at shopping mall in a city before they detonate. Then perhaps we'll take security more seriously. The problem is given a terrorist scenario of that sort, it's likely to succeed before being discovered.

Again, all of that is fine, if we're prepared to accept that inevitability. But Americans arenÂ?t. Someone would have to be blamed. Brian Williams would have to do a five-part series on "What went wrong in the heartland." Rush Limbaugh would blame lefty liberals for somehow bringing the suicide bombers to these shores. There's little chance of Americans showing the resilience that Londoners have a mere day after the terrible attacks over there. Nothing wrong with Americans reacting different, but we aren't prepared to take simple steps to prevent similar attacks here. We're more concerned with what books people are checking out of the library. That disconnect is a shame because I think it is only a matter of time before we suffer our own 7/7.

Here's a challenge to the tens of people that read this weblog. Take your backpack to your closest airport or rail station. Leave it unattended and take pictures of it every 15 mintues with the time-stamp activated on your camera until you get bored. Then send them to me and I'll post them. I'll bet I could make a nice photo-montage of exactly why we're not any safer in this country.

Over the holiday weekend the LA Times published a two-part fascinating series on North Korea and the extreme poverty there. It's really worth reading. Check it out here and here.

On a related note, I recently discovered this blog dedicated to North Korea related issues.

I've read similar sentiments from conservative writers, commentators and bloggers today -- don't blame the London bombing on Iraq. I obviously disagree. It seems to be a reaction in the vein of "don't let the terrorists win." It's something I want to write about in the coming days. This country, and particularly conservatives need to come to grips with backlashes against American foreign policy. Realizing that U.S. foreign policy actions can be a causal factor in terrorism doesn't mean the policy was wrong or unwarranted in the first place. A number of conservatives seem to feel that critically examining policy decisions is unpatriotic rather than prudent policymaking. The perfect example of this is the George W. Bush's answer to "why do they hate us?" "They hate our freedom" he like to say. Do any serious policymakers, analysts, academics, or even journalists really believe that?

Anyway, back to the "this doesn't have anything to do with Iraq" line. Christopher Hitchens article in Slate today purports to address this.

In any event, there are two considerations here. The first is Britain's role as a leading member of the "Coalition" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second is its role as a host to a large and growing Muslim minority. The first British citizens to be killed in Afghanistan were fighting for the Taliban, which is proof in itself that the Iraq war is not the original motivating force. Last year, two British Muslims pulled off a suicide attack at an Israeli beach resort. In many British cities, there are now demands for sexual segregation in schools and for separate sharia courts to try Muslim defendants. The electoral strength of Muslims is great enough to encourage pandering from all three parties: The most egregious pandering of all has come from Blair himself, who has promised legislation that would outlaw any speech that could be construed as offensive to Islam. Since most British Muslims are of Asian descent, a faint sense exists that criticism of their religion is somehow racist: In practice this weak-mindedness leads to the extension of an antiquated law on blasphemy that ought long ago to have been repealed but is now to cover the wounded feelings of Muslims as well as Christians.

On and on this article rambles, but never explains why the bombing has nothing to do with Iraq. It concludes

It is ludicrous to try and reduce this to Iraq. Europe is steadily becoming a part of the civil war that is roiling the Islamic world, and it will require all our cultural ingenuity to ensure that the criminals who shattered London's peace at rush hour this morning are not the ones who dictate the pace and rhythm of events from now on.

It's one thing to list alternate explanations and explain why one is more compelling than the others. But all Hitchens did was make an assertion say it's true because he says so. Hitchens of course is smarter than this, but I'm seeing similar logic in other places, and that's a shame.

One would think that September 11th would have produced in television news the ability to handle a crisis better than what I've watched today. I don't remember much about the Tuesday, September 11th coverage on television. I was too shocked to notice and I think news outlets were too overwhelmed for inanity. Today, I guess because the London attack is smaller in loss of life and is, well, over there, let the games begin. Unfortunately, CNN's Miles O'Brian was in his usual spot for the morning (at least for me, on the west coast) show. He really is over his head when it comes to international affairs (stick to science Miles). The inanity reached its pinnacle when he interviewed a woman who was only a few meters away from the bus explosion. O'Brian asked her if "she pittied the terrorists." What kind of stupid question is that? And for her part the woman valliantly tried to answer the question before coming to the apparent conclusion herself that it was a dumb question and saying she didn't really know how to answer that. I've never wished for Wolf Blitzer to hurry to office before.

When I began watching coverage at 5:00am Pacific time (roughly four hours after the first explosion), I must have waited for at least 2 and half hours for CNN to actually recap what had happened. A simple "four explosions; three underground on a bus" was all I need, but was not forthcoming. Instead, they looped the same footage over and over with no context other than it was in London and something bad had happened. That was coupled with the requisite (and useful) person on the scene interview. But after about an hour, they simply resorted to repeating the same footage and interviews.

I didn't see a timeline of what happened in graphic form until several hours later. Now really, is that too much to ask?

More later.

I'll weigh in later; comments I've read briefly show this not to be bloggers finest hour. A few are really up in arms about George Galloway's statement. See some photos here and here.