Bits and Pieces - 1-20-2023

 From the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft Symposium

“Have US military programs made African countries less safe?”

“There is no question that the United States needs to re-evaluate its overly militaristic approach to Africa, and to cease its support for endless war in places like Somalia.” 

“It is equally important to scrutinize U.S. support for civil society programming on the topic of CVE — “countering violent extremism” — which has had a number of negative effects. First, the U.S. government’s preoccupation with questions of security and terrorism has redirected donor funding away from issues of pressing concern to people on the continent (social welfare, education, development, jobs, etc.). Second, U.S.-backed civil society programming on CVE normalizes new forms of policing.”

“U.S. counterterrorism in Africa has failed. It was evident from the earliest post-9/11 days that the war on terror was seeding what it sought to eliminate. The Pentagon funded and trained soldiers who violated human rights, corrupted public service and mounted coups. Counter-terror support repurposed African regional organizations as military coalitions.”

“What should be done differently? Perhaps, one could start with examining the consequences of the preoccupation with locating and eliminating threats to U.S. interests. A thorough analysis of these consequences, intended and unintended, might lead to a reassessment of U.S. security-counterterrorism programs in Africa.”

“Both globally and in Africa … counterterrorism has proved both ineffective and counterproductive for U.S. security. For the countries identified as threats, the toll in lives and livelihoods has been high. To address the causes of violence and insecurity, U.S. policymakers and citizens should give up the illusion of U.S. global leadership.”

One after another, the symposium’s speakers focused on the failures of U.S. policy which relies entirely on the military and the violent suppression of those it deems “the enemy” of U.S. interests. The pattern is replicated at home. The War on Drugs, mass incarceration, the expansion and militarization of the police are motivated by the same approach to the effects of racism and poverty in the good old US of A.

 

And from The Intercept

“AT A WIDELY anticipated summit hosted by the Biden administration in Washington, D.C., last month, African leaders called for more support from the U.S. government for counterterrorism efforts on the continent. Aware that the Biden administration has woken up to the geostrategic significance of Africa in the context of Russia’s war with Ukraine, a number of the heads of state in attendance approached the gathering as a political marketplace in which loyalties are bought and sold. All signs indicate that elite pacts in the name of “security” will continue to dominate U.S.-Africa relations, with ordinary people caught in the crosshairs of newly emboldened U.S.-trained security forces.”

“The speeches delivered by each of these leaders poignantly illustrated what some might refer to as “empire by invitation,” wherein ostensibly sovereign leaders reproduce colonial power relations by inviting a more expansive role for imperial actors in their own affairs.”

“The overarching message was that economic desperation and political frustration should be understood as threats that call primarily for one kind of solution: containment, and, if necessary, the use of violent force. None of the speakers on the Peace, Security, and Governance panel acknowledged that, particularly since the establishment of AFRICOM, the U.S. has in many ways contributed to the very instability it claims to want to solve, with the rise of al-Shabab in the aftermath of the 2006 U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia a case in point.”

Pax Americana? Can the U.S. military accomplish what the Roman legions and the British Navy were unable to? Can the U.S. prevent the ultimate disintegration of Its “Empire of Liberty” with the wonderful weapons that technology is providing, or will the costs of empire and the challenge of nations not burdened by those costs, be too much?

 

Quotable Quotes

Philip Roth

“You can’t write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent.”

From the New Yorker

“As the baffling and then burlesque and then baroquely burlesque affair enveloping General Petraeus and his friends, of both sexes, fell upon us like another hurricane last week, it seemed to confirm once again Philip Roth’s fifty-year-old assertion.

“The Petraeus story rapidly expanded, novella-like, into a kind of “Fifty Shades of Khaki.” First came the news that the hero of the surge had been surging with his biographer, a woman who, as a quick scan of her book-tour appearances suggests, was not only fabulously appealing but also more or less openly italicizing her attachment to the General.

“Then it came out that she had been sending notes to another female admirer of the General, which were threatening or, perhaps, merely catty. Then it came out that an F.B.I. agent who admired the second admirer, to whom he had sent a photo of himself shirtless, which may have been meant to entice or may have been entirely wholesome, had sprung to her defense by launching an investigation into the affair, which he leaked to Republican congressmen. 

Then it came out that a second general, in Afghanistan, had been corresponding with camp follower No. 2 in a way that some people said was “flirtatious.” The national-security establishment suddenly seemed like “Couples” with epaulettes.”

 

And at home, from Public Citizen (slightly edited for brevity)

“Pharmaceutical giant Moderna is threatening to more than quadruple the price of its COVID-19 vaccine. (Pfizer has already made similar noise.)” This despite the fact that:

·         Development of the vaccine was actually done in partnership with the federal government (NIH) and almost entirely funded by American taxpayers, to the tune of some $1.7 billion.

·         The U.S. government has been paying the company $26.36 per dose for millions and millions of doses, even though it costs the company less than $3 per dose to manufacture

·         As a result, Moderna — a company with just three employees as recently as 2013 — made more than $19 billion in *profits* over just the past two years.

·         Yet Moderna’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, whose personal net worth is estimated at $6.3 billion, wants to jack the price up to as much as $130 per dose.

The rationale of big Pharma is simple. They have an opportunity to amass huge profits from a public health crisis, and they intend to milk it for all it’s worth. And if they didn’t some other corporate entity would come along and do it, since exploitation is the basic logic of our economic system.

As the Woody Guthrie song goes “some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.” But in either case, you’ve been robbed!

Note that the Republicans are right; there is a real crime wave in this country over the past few years, and nobody is doing anything about it. But as usual they are pointing the guns in the wrong direction.  From dodging taxes to outright wage theft, to destroying the environment to buying politicians (I could go on, but I really have other things to do), it is the uber-rich who have been stealing from us, ordinary working Americans, in an even more egregious fashion than usual.