Avuncular American

Pacific Rim Fireworks: The Kim & Sarah Shows

Definition of narcissistic personality disorder: “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.”

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

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I doubt that Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean leader, has much need for a public relations adviser, but his decision to launch a bunch of missiles on the eve of American Independence Day was surely a master move of attention grabbing.

Though it did confuse the message of the month, just when the world was getting used to the kindler, gentler image of a country that dismantled an entire English brewery to make "The Pride of Pyongyang," reputed to be a very decent beer.  Then there was the barbecue diplomacy between North Korea and the US via a New Jersey restaurateur.  All that sacrificed for the sake of some pyrotechnics.

But then we're used to the cognac-swilling dictator (Hennessey's best customer) - who provides junior high school-aged girls to his high-level visitors - acting a bit outrageously.  "He believes his own propaganda," said former CIA psychologist Dr. Jerold Post, in a 2003 CNN interview.  Scary stuff indeed.

Not nearly as scary, perhaps, as the portrait of Sarah Palin provided by Todd Purdum in the current Vanity Fair, many of whose Alaskan interviewees cited the above-mentioned "narcissistic personality disorder" in connection with their soon-to-be-former governor.  Purdum's article provides excellent background reading for anyone still harboring any illusions about Gov. Palin being the incarnation of the wholesome home town girl.

Yesterday Palin launched her own pre-Fourth fireworks: a rambling "Hi Alaska" paean to herself and her accomplishments delivered in high school diction, which was actually a "Bye, Alaska" to announce her resignation.  She, who might want to become the first woman President of the United States, assured her listeners that "America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future."  Presumably when they look North they'll see Sarah Palin, and yearn for the times when we last had a Republican President who had trouble with coherent speech.

How appropriate, in her July 4th double bill with Kim Jong-Il, that she closed her farewell address with a quote from General Douglas MacArthur, the "American Caesar" who suffered from another type of narcissistic personality disorder: hubris.  Palin's MacArthur inspiration: "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."  In fact, MacArthur's headstrong disregard for his civilian superiors (i.e., President Truman) made a Korean War turn into a war with China.  He was finally dismissed for near insubordination.

MacArthur's replacement in Korea, General Mathew Ridgeway's words about his predecessor...

...the hunger for praise that led him on some occasions to claim or accept credit for deeds he had not performed, or to disclaim responsibility for mistakes that were clearly his own; the love of the limelight that continually prompted him to pose before the public... the headstrong quality...that sometimes led him to persist in a cause in defiance of all logic; [and] a faith in his own judgment that created an aura of infallibility...

... could be applied to Ms. Palin as she begins to stake out ground deserted by more grown up and stable Republicans.

But unlike old soldier MacArthur, don't expect Sarah Palin to "fade away."

(Fireworks photo from OSHA)

The News From America

Tomorrow is the official Independence Day holiday, but today is a Federal holiday in the U.S.  Happy Fourth of July!  If you're in New York, you can even visit the crown of the Statue of Liberty, closed since September 11, 2001.  (photo, National Park Service).

But most of the attention instead appears to be focused on the Pacific coast, where what has to be the world's largest concentration of journalists and hysterical sycophants since the death of Lady Di has gathered to follow the minutiae surrounding Michael Jackson's sudden demise. 

Writer James Howard Kunstler sees disturbing parallels between the late Jackson and his country ("bankrupt," "has-been"), as the State of California's travails remind us.  But will the thousands of info-tainment reporters camped outside Neverland use some of their Jackson down-time to cover the story behind California's fiscal crisis?  Don't count on it.  The audiences back home which lap up every detail about Jackson might be bored by a bit of real reporting about real people in the US.

Like the kind pictured standing behind California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as he does battle with budget and banks.  As Jennifer Steinhauer reported for the New York Times,

It was unclear whether the i.o.u.’s, known as warrants, would be accepted by all of the banks in California, which were caught off guard by the move and seemed hesitant to entrust the state to repay the them — at an interest rate of 3.75 percent — in October, as promised.

Now, these would be the same banks that themselves have been receiving billions in government bailout money, some of which comes from those California taxpayers pictured behind the Governor.

I.O.U.s - reminds you of that wonderful rebranding of bailed-out "AIG" into "AIU" (what were they thinking?) - and the haughty attitude of banks in general were on my mind this morning as I sat in a stifling lobby marveling at the (lone) teller behind the glass of her air conditioned space.  On the wall behind her was a poster asking people why - if they owned a computer - they didn't conduct their banking business over the internet?

As it happened, the transaction I needed to accomplish couldn't be done either over the web or at the ATMs arrayed outside this branch.  Otherwise I can assure you I wouldn't have sat a minute more in that sauna.  But why do we have banks?  Have they completely forgotten where their money comes from?  But I digress, sort of.

Back to the US.  On July 4, 1776, representatives of the thirteen colonies signed the Declaration of Independence and set off the process that led to the founding of the United States of America.  They had had it with the "long train of abuses and usurpations" by a distant ruler.

California has often been a trend setter or harbinger for things good and bad.  If banks start biting the hand - government - that feeds them, then it won't be long before taxpayers will act on the resentment against the financial class that has been building up after bailouts, bonuses, Madoff, Stanford...

California banks: better take those State warrants, if you know what's good for you.  Remember who issues your license.  Hint: "I'll be back."

Swedish Breath of Fresh Air for Europe

This post first appeared in Euractiv/Blogactiv's Errant European.

To our Swedish friends who have taken over the helm of the EU Presidency, hej! (pronounced "hey," which makes saying hello so easy for Americans in Sweden).

To the people from Prague who kept the seat (luke)warm for six months, ahoj! ("goodbye" in Czech; couldn't find "good riddance" in the online dictionary).

After six months of the frenetic French présidence, followed by six months of Czech I-don't-want-to-be-here questioning of the very concept of Europe, we will now return to a more classic activist term by a government of committed Europeans.

I confess to a certain affinity for the Swedes, in part because my daughter has been studying there for the past year. I've only been there twice, but Stockholm has to be one of the most functional and beautiful capital cities in the world, and the city of Lund on the other side of the country is an historic university town nestled in beautiful countryside.

But it's the Swedes' success in melding capitalism and social welfare and environmental responsibility that will serve it well over the next six months. Last fall, as the Bush Administration was floundering with its bank bailouts, more than one observer pointed to the Swedish experience in the '90s, when it rescued - with strings attahed - its banking industry.

The timing of the Swedish presidency is either inspired or fortunate, or both, given the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference. The EU will have at its helm a country that walks the walk when it comes to environmentalism of the practical sort.

Not that it will be all sweetness and light: the Russians have already said nyet to the Stockholm venue for EU-Russia talks. And the Swedish Presidency will have to deal with the unresolved matters of the second term of EU Commission Chairman Jose Manuel Barroso and the still unratified Lisbon Treaty.

But it will be a breath of fresh air to have a coordinated, conscientious, and image-conscious leadership at the European Council. Just look at the logo above for the just-inaugurated Swedish Presidency. Its simplicity is worthy of the country that gave us IKEA and its universally-recognized brand.

Maybe the Swedes can give the European brand a lift while they're at it.  Anything beats the Crayola coloring book approach of the Czechs.

Avast, Somali Pirates: Payouts, Prosecution and Projectiles

As soon as you start using the term pirate, unfortunately cute or nostalgic images of Johnny Depp and Long John Silver come to mind - "Avast, me hearties!" ("avast" means to stop or cease) and other lusty lingo.  All that is best relegated to the world of children's stories (image, Playwood Toys).  Today's real-world piracy is, as a Somali pirate phoning the wife of a European hostage said, all about "money, money."

We returned to Brussels over the weekend, as news came out about the liberation of the Belgian ship Pompei, which had been captured in April by Somali pirates operating as far away as the Indian Ocean waters of the Seychelles.  No secret was made of the fact that a ransom had been paid, though the exact amount was not revealed.  Belgian police and military personnel set forth to join up with the liberated crew, part of an investigation in pursuit of the pirates, who violated a 1928 Belgian law which provides for international jurisdiction by Belgian courts in matters of piracy committed against nationals.

Somali pirates may not exactly be quaking in their skiffs at the prospect of Belgian prosecutors dragging them off to Brussels, but Belgium's legal approach is at least novel.  The payment, by the shipping company and/or its insurers, was made under duress, and was motivated as much by wanting to avoid physical harm to the crew as to protect its investment in this very specialized "side stone dumping vessel" (used in port dredging operations).  And how many Somali pirates have simply been released after capture by international forces?  At least the Belgians are setting the stage for prosecution.

Payouts to pirates have been made from time immemorial (see Richard Zacks' The Pirate Coast for an account of early U.S. travails with the Barbary Pirates of North Africa, which included ransoming of hostages), and given NATO and EU naval forces' inability to prevent all such incidents, will likely continue when Somalis successfully pick off unescorted vessels.  La Libre Belgique tells us that recently the pirates have even taken to using Somali refugees as human shields when launching their assaults.

Naval patrols, ransom for hostages and vessels, prosecution in the (unlikely) event that names, fingerprints, and perps are matched up ... all these responses are in the panoply of the world's reactions to this scourge of international shipping (see the ICC's Live Piracy Map for a look at how the Horn of Africa is piracy ground zero).  But how about the "kinetic" response?  As Zacks' quotation of an old Barbary pirate maxim - "Whoever acts like a sheep, the wolf will eat" - a more muscular response - "Blow them out of the water!" - should be an important part of the international community's toolkit.

Classic criminals after "money, money," rather than Johann Hari's description in The Independent of the "Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia," are nonetheless an outgrowth of the anarchic conditions that have prevailed in Somalia for the better part of two decades.  As Alain Lallemand in Brussels' Le Soir reminds us, it is in the West's interest to prevent Somalia from sinking under the weight of its multiple dysfunctionalities.

Taking the threats from Somalia seriously and using the impressive firepower on board all those naval vessels (Belgium, by the way, has offered to station armed military on board commercial vessels) has to be part of a wider strategy to encourage Somalia to rejoin the community of nations.  And while the West is righteously indignant over piracy's threat to international trade, it must ensure that its own commercial vessels are not using the free-for-all in Somali waters to dump hazardous waste and rape the country's fisheries, as Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, UN envoy Somalia, alleged last year.

No need to give the "Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia" any patriotic pretexts for its piracy.

Mountaintop Maginot Line - Where It Worked

The past week or so we've been doing some serious hiking in the French Alps, just west of the Italian border and about three hours' driving on twisty roads from Grenoble.  We are in the mountain valley of the Ubaye River - strategic for centuries before the European Union and NATO made war between allies like France, Italy, and Germany unthinkable.

In a museum in our little village, there's a piece of elephant tusk - a reminder that Hannibal's army approached Rome from the unexpected Alpine side.  On the mountaintops overlooking this valley and many others like it, French military engineers working for 17th/18th century Vauban and 20th century Maginot built fortresses that defy the imagination.  "La Route Napoleon" winds through passes and valleys on its way to Italy.

The Maginot Line got its bad reputation because of its northern portion, which guarded the frontier with Germany.  Anyone with a passing knowledge of World War II history knows that the piece that was missing - the Ardennes forest between Belgium, Luxembourg, and France - was the very place that the German blitzkrieg was successful.  The Maginot fortresses with their hardened artillery emplacements and underground railroads were magnificently useless, bypassed by German tanks roaring through the "impenetrable" forest.

Except for here in the French Alps, where the Maginot Line did its job.  In June 1940, Mussolini's troops hopped on Hitler's bandwagon and attacked an overstretched France.  Though outnumbered, the French forts held their ground, but the war was already a lost cause in the north.  After four long years of occupation by Germans and Italians, French and American troops retook the historic fortifications in the cold winter of 1944-45.  Some of the German-held forts only capitulated in the last weeks of the war.

So, back to our June 2009 military tourism.  Imagine our surprise when hiking on a mountain trail (photo top left; altitude approximately 6,000 feet) and seeing a machine gun nest inside a six inch thick steel carapace poking out of its reinforced concrete bunker.  The woods around the lookout are ringed with barbed wire, with trees bulging around their steel embrace for upwards of 75 years (Maginot built his line in the 1930s).  As isolated as this outpost was, it was equipped with an infrared sensor that detected Italian troop movements.

Further back in time, but updated as military technology became ever more sophisticated and lethal, Fort Tournoux (photo, above right) is a remarkable example of "génie militaire," built layer-cake on 2,000 vertical feet of strategic hillside.  Thanks to the collective of local municipalities and an association dedicated to preserving this amazing collection of fortresses, guides take visitors up a hair-raising mule trail to visit "Fort Moyen," the lowest of three Tournoux forts which dominate the confluence of the Ubaye and the Ubayette Rivers.  Though it was built starting 1852, Fort Tournoux's guns only had their baptism of fire in June 1940, when they supported the Maginot forts further up the Ubayette to stop the Italian advance.  The fort was in service in one way or another until the late 1980s.

Up the valley, a testament to an earlier age, the Berwick Redoubt (photo, left) built in the Vauban tradition in the 18th century.  Though its stone construction has withstood the test of time better than its wooden North American counterparts, it is redolent of the frontier forts of the French and Indian War of the same period.

France's mountain military tradition continues, though during our stay a contingent based in another historic fortress lowered its flags for the last time.  A local woman remarked on the imminent closure of another Alpine unit in the valley, at a time when some of Europe's highest mountain passes offer exceptional training opportunities for France's expeditionary missions.  But base closures are never a simple matter for the economies of the communities concerned, and President Sarkozy did promise a major defense realignment last year.  "The cannon recoils; the artilleryman never," the proud insignia etched (click on photo, right) on the high altitude barracks on silent Fort Tournoux.  Ah, but the artilleryman and the chasseur alpin must bow to the new defense realities and the priorities of their civilian masters.

Europe's internal borders are disappearing, and the "chasseurs alpins" are more likely to see action in Afghanistan's rugged mountains than in these parts.  The Schengen Treaty has led to the dismantling of border posts, and EU internal cross-border threats are better handled by customs & immigration "flying patrols" than by the mountaintop Maginot Line.

Vacation Reading 'Til Normal Blogging Resumes

New readers, welcome to Avuncular American!

Those familiar with the site know that usually I post every couple of days.  But for the past few weeks, we have been where the air is too thin for regular internet availability.

It was possible to do some posting from internet cafes in the valley - here is my article on French military fortifications in the Alps.  That will be it for another week or so - we'll be on the move.

For those of you who are new to the site, or "regulars" who are too shy to check out things like "categories" or "archives," here are a few links to major categories of mine:

Diplomacy (there are a few "Diplomacy 101" stories hidden in there)
Film (No spoilers, few Hollywood products, lots of "art" films)
Israel-Palestine (I've been following that since volunteering in the West Bank in the 70s)
Elections (mostly on US elections, but covers other countries too)

If you see anything that triggers a reaction, post a comment or send me an email.  Keep checking in to AA, but I probably won't be back in force until the end of June.  Thanks for your patience!