Book Review: Come Hell Or High Water

Michael Eric Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster is an ineloquent survey of the government’s response—or lack of it—to the hurricane that devastated the mostly poor residents of New Orleans. Dyson’s book examines the disaster at the intersection of class and race and how government neglect made a bad situation worse.

Nothing Dyson has written is new. New Orleans, a predominately black city, is one of the poorest, crime-ridden cities in the nation. Years of benign neglect by federal, state and local government have taken its toll. What Katrina did was to bring it to the fore. It was attention grabber when thousands of Orleanites, mostly black and mostly poor, were stranded waiting for anyone to help them.

Dyson places most of the blame on the federal government for not doing much before, during or after the hurricane. I would have to agree with Dyson that the federal government’s response—or lack of it—bordered on the criminal. But it’s unfair to place the whole blame on the federal government, in my opinion, when both the state and local government were equally sluggish in their respnse to Katrina.

And Dyson does not see the response to Katrina as an isolated incident, but as a problem with the system itself. Now this is where Dyson goes off the rails. He cites government cutbacks on welfare, housing and other social programs, starting in the 1980’s, after the election of Reagan, as the culprit. If this were so, then all blacks, regardless of geography would be worse off, right? But all social indicators say that blacks have made substantial advancements in many areas, leading many to enter not only the middle-class, but upper classes as well. Something other than institutionalized racism ails New Orleans.

I don’t think Come Hell or High Water is the best book on Katrina. For one thing, it’s badly written, which I found to be exasperating and tedious. Dyson is an academic and writes like one: though the book is straightforward, Dyson often veers toward the pedantic, and often gets caught in the thicket of acadamese. There is nothing intimate about the book; it’s all facts and figures, like a college textbook or delivering a paper at some symposium. You don’t hear the voices of Katrina victims aside from brief testimonials at the beginning of each chapter.

Cuba Accuses US Of Killing Fleeing Citizens

Cuba accuses the United States for the death of its citizens who try to flee the island. From Granma:

CUBA condemned Thursday the policies of the United States that incite illegal emigration by residents of the island to that country, with resulting human fatalities, as occurred this past December 22.

According to a communication from the Ministry of the Interior, read out yesterday on the Cuban “Roundtable” TV program, two Cubans perished on Saturday, December 22 after the speedboat in which they were attempting to leave the country capsized one kilometer off the northern coast of Havana province.

…At the same time, the communication concludes, investigations are continuing into this unfortunate accident whose root cause is the murderous U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act, which incites illegal emigration and the lucrative activities of the Cuban American mafia in South Florida.

Naturally, a mouthpiece like Granma, is not going to ask the first question that pops in one’s head when these incidents happen: why are people risking life and limb, including arrest, to flee to the United States, a bastion of capitalist exploitation, from a worker’s paradise like Cuba, where education and healthcare is free, and everybody is happy?

If you read the whole article, human trafficking seems to be the main motivating factor. Cuba is rationalizing that the “Cuban mafia” in Miami is somehow forcing people to flee, for the purposes of slave labor. If human trafficking is indeed the goal, it is half-ass way of going about it. In fact, it’s cheaper to bring people over the Mexican border than it is from Cuba.

Keeping It In The Family

In a previous post, I wrote that it was doubtful that any of Benazir Bhutto's children would take their mother's place since they are a tad young, spent their formative years overseas, and are only half-Bhuttos. I was wrong. Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zaradari, has been appointed to lead one of Pakistan's major political parties. He has no political experience other than being his mother's son. Below is a video of a press conference announcing his appointment.



It seems like Bilawal's father, Asif Zaradari, a character in his own right, does most of the talking. Bilawal, when he does talk, speaks in a clipped, anglicized English, betraying his expensive private school education. He belongs on the polo field, not the bloodsport that is Pakistani politics.

The appointment of Bilawal proves that dynastic politics run deep in South Asia, which is a tragedy since it also proves that the PPP is a cult of personality, not a political party.

Capitalizing On Bhutto's Death

Bhutto’s body has barely been put to rest and it's already grist for America’s political mill:

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton on Friday accused the camp of rival Sen. Barack Obama of politicizing the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Sen. Hillary Clinton says she regrets that Sen. Barrack Obama's camp "would be politicizing this tragedy."

"I just regret that [Obama and his chief strategist] would be politicizing this tragedy, and especially at a time when we do need to figure out a way forward," Clinton said Friday in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

Politics is such a brutish business.

Death Of An Icon

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is tragic but hardly surprising. The Bhuttos are streaked with fatalism. Their history reads like a Greek tragedy. Benazir’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged by President Zia ul-Haq on bogus charges, purportedly to get rid of a potential rival. Both of Benazir’s brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, are dead: the former in a police altercation, and the latter on the French Riviera, under mysterious circumstance, presumably through poisoning. The only Bhutto remaining is a younger sister, Sanam, but there is little information about her except that she’s married and has two children. Will she carry the torch for the PPP, a party founded by her father?

Many critics are saying that this will be a blow for democracy in Pakistan. Really? I don’t think so. The democracy practiced in Pakistan has been a half-hearted affair, at best. Democratic institutions were never allowed to mature beyond what their power hungry leaders—and the military—wanted. Benazir Bhutto was equally guilty of this, and she was Prime Minister not once, but twice. In fact, Bhutto was no more democratic than her rival, Nawaz Sharif. To say that democracy in Pakistan is in danger is utter foolishness when democracy was never there to begin with.

The only thing that an assassin’s bullets and bombs accomplished was to splinter the PPP, which was essentially a cult of personality for the Bhutto clan. Who will lead them now? Party workers are already on the prowl, looking for the next Bhutto to lead them to the promise land. Benazir’s children, perhaps? Doubtful. Since they’re not only young but are half-Bhuttos, and their father, a likely candidate, is not only unremarkable, but a grafting charlatan to boot.

Book Review: We Are All Suspects Now

There is a lot to like about Tram Nguyen’s book, We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11, and there is plenty not to like. Nguyen writes an intimate book about the plight of immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, in post-9/11 America. The maltreatment of illegal immigrants at the hands of the U.S. government is revealed in painful personal testimonies and vivid profiles.

Nguyen covers a lot of ground in her svelte volume: arrest and disappearance of illegal immigrants, harassment of asylum seekers, special registration for young Muslim men, racial profiling, the militarization of the border, and those fleeing the United States for safer pastures.

Naturally, most of the victims are Muslims. They have borne the brunt of the government’s war on terrorism given the fact that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Muslims in the name Islam, even though most Muslims had nothing to do with it. Hysteria ruled the day. And it still does. Nguyen treats this and other issues well with her straightforward writing.

Nevertheless, while reading the book, I sensed an undercurrent of contempt for the sovereignty of the United States. The problem with Nguyen is that she’s a bleeding heart; and what goes unsaid is that she is also a supporter of open borders. She treats those who oppose this as, well, hicks. Take, for example, her treatment of Chris Simcox, whose only concern is to defend America’s borders from illegal immigrants and criminal gangs who smuggle drugs. Not a violent fellow at all, but Nguyen treats Simcox like a racist and a right-wing kook, even though a majority of Americans support his opinion.

Another thing I dislike about Nguyen’s book is that she conflates both illegal immigration and terrorism into one issue, when, in many cases, they are mutually exclusive. In her mind if an illegal immigrant (or, in her parlance, “undocumented’) is cleared of any links to terrorism, they should be simply released. This is wrongheaded and muddled thinking. Just because an illegal immigrant doesn’t have a connection to terrorism he or she does not cease to be illegal!

Illegal immigrants may not be violent criminals like murderers and rapists, but they are lawbreakers; people who skirted the law to get to this country illegally. Nguyen shamelessly treats them as victims. This is a slap to the face of all those legal immigrants who followed the law and patiently waited their turn. Of course, they are nowhere to be found in her book.

This being said, I don’t want to thought of as some cold-hearted idealists. I’m a realist and pragmatic. I do believe that the United States needs a sensible policy on immigration, but opening the borders is not the answer.

India: No One Writes Letters Anymore

Excellent article in The New York Times about the dying industry of professional letter writing in India. The article profiles one G.P. Sawant, who claims he hasn’t written a letter in three years! The culprit? Globalization, internet, and high mobile phone penetration.

I remember when my mother use to write letters to Bangladesh and India on those familiar blue air mail paper slips, and receive them in turn. Those days are long gone, of course: now calling costs pennies a minute, IM and e-mail are equally intimate—as a result, no one writes letters anymore. Hence there is no need for professional letter writers like Mr. Sawant, who, long retired, idyllically passes his time away at his stand, just in case that one person might need a letter written.

[via kottke]

Watching Football Is Not A Human Right

I didn’t know that watching a football game was a human right the way some politicians are bleating about it. So what if many New England Patriots fans will be unable to watch their team make history simply because of geography. The answer is simple: get cable, or a satellite dish, and subscribe to the NFL Network, who is broadcasting the game; or better yet, go to someone’s house who already has the NFL Network, bring some beer and/or food as compensation; or, finally, just visit your neighborhood tavern, who will undoubtedly be broadcasting the game in order to drum up business. There is no paucity of choices, just the will to seek them out.

In the meantime, we have politicians threatening the NFL with fire and brimstone if it doesn’t put the game on “free television”, threatening to eliminate the NFL’s anti-trust exemption. Yeah, like the NFL still needs anti-trust exemption these days. I believe Congress should just butt out and let the NFL (a private business), NFL Network (a cable network owned by the NFL), and the fans (a private group) sort it out.

[via alarming news]

Book Review: Reporting By David Remnick

A writer of immense talent, I’d much prefer David Remnick write for The New Yorker rather than wasting away editing it. In the meantime, I’ll be very content rereading his collection of articles, Reporting: Writings From The New Yorker. Most article and essay collections are tedious bores, assembled as vanity pieces, often as fillers between publications of new books.

Not this book. Each article is a joy. Written in a simple, elegant and personal style that is Remnick’s hallmark: intelligent without being pedantic; sophisticated without being pretentious; serious without being taken too seriously—the comparisons are almost endless.

The volume is divided over five sections—politics, writers, Russia, Israel, and boxing. An eclectic mix of subjects, to be sure, but in the fine hands of David Remnick there is a rare chance he won’t dazzle you with his witty journalism and keen insights. His profiles on Philip Roth and Don Delillo, both iconoclastic American novelists, provide a glimpse of these very private people yet reminds us of their aloofness. Remnick’s articles on boxing are a remarkable commentary on the sports fading glory while describing its moral degeneracy personified by the rather loathsome, though talented, Mike Tyson.

The articles contained in this collection are to be savored and enjoyed, not consumed like fast food. Read them (and reread them) at your leisure, and for your pleasure. They demand it.

Modi, Media And Lies

Dawn is arguably Pakistan’s most sensible newspaper, so I was dismayed when they wrote this editorial about upcoming elections in Gujarat. An excerpt:

THE Indian state of Gujarat is back in the international news. Five years ago in 2002 Gujarat had received a lot of media publicity — of course of a negative kind — for a horrific carnage which saw over 2,000 Muslims brutally murdered. The same party, the BJP, which was then in the government has once again swept the state polls much to the horror of many who stand for secularism, non-violence and inter-communal harmony. Whatever implications this may have for Indian politics, the BJP’s win is certainly disturbing. With the general elections in India due in 2009 — they could be held sooner if the Congress-Left coalition at the centre fails to hold — Mr Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s BJP chief, could make a leadership bid in Delhi. That would certainly have a profound impact on India’s foreign policy, especially when Mr Modi’s brand of politics and ideology is not of the same kind as that of Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee who had led the BJP to power in New Delhi for the first time.

This is utter nonsense. Dawn is implying that if Modi somehow becomes prime minister (which is a big question mark, at the moment) India will descend into a communal hell, ending with the wholesale slaughter of Muslins and other non-minorities (genocide, I think they call it). Yet Congress-led government have less than a stellar record in communal harmony, including the mass killings of Sikhs after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Of course, not even the Indian media would dredge this up so I don’t expect much from the Pakistani media.

At the same time, it was Vajpayee who sued for peace with Pakistan (visiting Lahore), while its armies were occupying Kargil. It was Vajpayee who invited Musharraf to Agra for a summit. All the while, the media was branding Vajpayee as a chauvinist, bigot and communalist.

A List Of Unheralded Films For 2007

FirstShowing.Net has a list of 17 movies that were ignored and deserve a second look. Do what I did: add them to your Netflix queue.

My Name Is Smith, Just Smith

Some recruiter simply named Smith left a message on my cell phone about a job I might be interested in Connecticutt. He didn't leave his first name, or even called himself Mr. Smith, just Smith. Weird. And the man sounded like a desi, not some random native American. It was a deeply-accented English too, the kind spoken by Indian code jockeys that come to the United States, don't communicate much (except with each other), and pretty much keep to themselves, so their language skills, to say the least, are a bit stilted.

I decided against returning his call because I wasn't interested in going to Connecticut at all. Nevertheless, as is the practice, the recruiter followed up on his voice mail with an e-mail, which was asimply signed 'Smith'. I kept asking myself: is that really his name? Or is it an attempt by the recruiter to ingratiate himself to candidates without scaring them away with an ethnic-sounding name? But why rest with just one name.

Another Book On A.Q. Khan

Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan is becoming a popular subject these days as there is another biography about him called The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets...And How We Could Have Stopped Him. Here’s an excerpt of a review from The San Francisco Chronicle:

Upon hearing mention of people who have caused death and destruction in our world, such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, most decent people will react negatively. While Dr. Abdul Qadeer (A.Q.) Khan may not elicit the same reaction, it's high time to include him on that list.

Khan played a major role in constructing Pakistan's nuclear program, bringing atomic bombs to the Islamic world and to various rogue states. He's regarded as a hero by some in his native country, and a national disgrace by others. Time magazine dubbed him the "Merchant of Menace" in February 2005. And his controversial actions mark him as a real threat to liberty, freedom and democracy.

Two prominent reporters, the husband-and-wife team of Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, spent four years examining Khan's life, views and possible reasons for selling nuclear secrets. Their efforts have yielded "The Nuclear Jihadist," which details Khan's rise in terror circles and points fingers at various sources, including U.S. government officials, for not stopping him earlier.

A.Q. Khan in the same league as Hitler and Stalin! Even I think that’s a bit much. If A.Q. Khan wasn’t selling nuclear technology, someone else would. I doubt it was Khan’s intention to kill anybody, he just wanted to be famous: a flamboyant and vain man who enjoyed the role of playing a hero, who not only delivered the goods, but was (and still) worshiped for it.

And why exclusively blame A.Q. Khan? Why isn’t Pakistan being raked over the coals for its involvement? Each subsequent government not only indulged him but condoned his activities and, at times, actively participated in them. Nuclear technology was not being sent via Pakistan International Airlines but on air force transport aircraft planes. At the same time, that Pakistan would deny any knowledge of A.Q. Khan’s activities was laughable. I’m sure A.Q. Khan is not happy in his place in life: made to admit on television his crimes, banished into exile, forced to keep his mouth shut, and to live out his life with the indignity of being thrown under a bus by a country that greatly benefited from his work.

I’m sure A.Q. Khan, conceited and vain as he is, is almost chomping at the bit to say something, anything to clear his name. Now that’s a book I would like to read.

What's More Dangerous: Iran Or A Dirty Bomb

What’s more scarier: a nuclear-armed Iran, or this?

An underreported attack on a South African nuclear facility last month demonstrates the high risk of theft of nuclear materials by terrorists or criminals. Such a crime could have grave national security implications for the United States or any of the dozens of countries where nuclear materials are held in various states of security.

Shortly after midnight on Nov. 8, four armed men broke into the Pelindaba nuclear facility 18 miles west of Pretoria, a site where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade uranium are stored. According to the South African Nuclear Energy Corp., the state-owned entity that runs the Pelindaba facility, these four "technically sophisticated criminals" deactivated several layers of security, including a 10,000-volt electrical fence, suggesting insider knowledge of the system. Though their images were captured on closed-circuit television, they were not detected by security officers because nobody was monitoring the cameras at the time.

I think the world community should focus its attention and energies on these kinds of incidents rather than attack Iran. I’m not defending Iran or its odious regime, of course, but the right of a sovereign nation to defend itself by any means necessary, including nuclear weapons. I have a hard time accepting the argument proffered by the United States and its allies that Iran has no right to possess nuclear weapons while the P-5 (China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States) are allowed by virtue of the fact they had it before everyone else.

The world should be more concerned about low-yield nuclear weapons like “dirty bombs”. As the attempted theft has proven, a “dirty bomb’ going off is a more viable possibility than, say, Iran blowing Israel off the map. Iran will never do such a thing because they realize Israel—and the United States—would retaliate ten-fold, it’s mutually assured destruction for the new millennium.

I believe Iran getting nuclear weapons is a fait accompli. Pakistan not only has nuclear weapons, but sold the technology to whoever wanted it, including, ironically, Iran! In my opinion, Pakistan is more dangerous than Iran, yet there are no plans to defang Pakistan of its nuclear weapons (and the subsequent punishment were laughable); in fact, the United States is giving Pakistan billions in aid. Iran knows it’s just a waiting game.

Knowing this, isn’t it better to enlist the Iranians in securing existing supplies and hunt down and arrest would-be thieves? After all, Iran could just as easily be a target of a “dirty bomb” as the United States.

[via connecting the dots]

More Corruption At United Nations

More evidence from James Kirchick, over at Contentions, that the United Nations is nothing more then a den of thieves:

In what’s unlikely to be a surprise even to casual observers of the United Nations, an internal audit conducted by the international organization has discovered corruption involving hundreds of millions of dollars regarding the disbursement of contracts for peacekeeping missions. The UN these days seems to be little more than an elaborate racketeering organization for wanna-be crooks and gangsters—too cowardly to participate in actual crime in their home countries, and thus taking advantage of the miserable and oppressed people entrusted into the organization’s care. This latest scandal is only rivaled by the Oil-for-Food heist of some years prior.

The results of this latest investigation are the latest fruit of the Volcker Commission, established in 2004 to investigate similar kickbacks and bribes disbursed under the ill-fated UN program in Iraq. The task force that uncovered the peacekeeping abuse had hired some of Volcker’s investigators, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, to his credit, has requested that the investigative body’s mandate be funded further. Unsurprisingly, developing nations are using parliamentary tactics to hold up the reauthorization process.

It’s must be noted that a majority of members of the United Nations are venally corrupt: when they’re not stealing from their own people, they steal from others, and the United Nations, with its loose controls and open pots of gold, seems like a good a place as any for an ambitious grafter on the make.

But corruption in the upper echelons is only the tip of the iceberg for the United Nations. It extends all the way to the peacekeepers themselves, many of whom engage in various illicit activities like smuggling and gun running; and many of them pray on refugees themselves through rapes, intimidation and outright extortion.

Is it any wonder why many donor countries, especially the United States, are so reluctant to fund peacekeeping missions?