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March 22, 2008
US, Iraq & Bullying...
There is not much to say on this, other than the account seems about right and rather unsurprising in many ways given the demonstrated incompetence and public behaviour.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Echoing Obama to MENA
An interesting comment in The Wasington Post, whose main thesis is an approach like Obama's to race, to MENA would help. Of course I also think of race within MENA at the same time. But worthy of a think.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:13 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 29, 2007
American Idiocies & Reasons to Fear Left Bollocks
While I await with impatience the end of the current American administration, as its gross incompetence and sheer idiocy are in themselves reasons to see them off, this bit of blogging nonsense and the coverage from the Financial Times reminded me that the American left has its share of incompetent posturing morons, and not merely in blogging land. Leaving aside the blog partisan, whose silly ranting on about Mr Guilani's having done business with Qatar, and oh horrors a "Qataran" [the same author mocked 'poofed' up hair as an expression...] or rather Qatari minister of the responsible ministry having supposed connexions to al Qaeda. Insofar as the fellow is the Interior Minister of Qatar, and member of the Royal family which runs Qatar (a close US ally), the posturing is idiotic.
Or more directly, the harmlessness of the supposed measure which pretends to allow private American citizens to attempt to sue Sovereigns they pretend are state sponsors of terror [presumably defined by Americans] (never mind the potential of it having been overlooked, which does not strike one as impossible) is clearly false proposition.
The Iraqi government was quite right to object, and the US Presidency was right to veto this idiocy.
Continue reading "American Idiocies & Reasons to Fear Left Bollocks"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:50 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 04, 2007
MENA Idiocies overheard
Actually - I do bloody swear - at my hotel lobby this evening:
Group of Americans (I presume given where I am business or American development assistance people) talking:
"You know there has never been a war between two countries with Mc Donalds"
[blithering on about McDo]
"We should work harder to get McDonalds in these [presumably MENA] countries, and the culture of getting along will improve [or grow, frankly I forget the precise wording]"
Ensued was a long, statistically illiterate discussion on the impact of FDI and peace, politics, pro Americanness, etc. which provoked a deep desire to jump and shot "Black Swan, Nassim Taleb" and obscenities.
As I have to suspect the American government subsidized or otherwise promoted this illiteracy, I give my condolences to those who tax payments are subsidizing sheer idiocy... (although frankly the understanding of the limited applicability of certain kinds of observations or stat analysis is not politically driven so I have to limit my ranting)
Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:23 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 27, 2007
Bang, bang goes petrol
The US administration is queerly talented in enriching its enemies while engaging in pointless, self-defeating particularly nuisible form of extra territorality in its unilateralism.
I don't know that I could put it better than Stephens: "the White House once again seems hell-bent on being outwitted in the court of global opinion; and, maybe, on making a strategic miscalculation that could make the war in Iraq look like a sideshow."
Regardless, while dealing with big international money center banks has its efficiencies, there is other non-transparent sources of financing, and while perhaps less skilled, their equally non-transparent friends in Dubai's 2nd to 3rd tier operators can get by.
I am merely happy to have a new found interest in likely benefiting parties.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 04, 2007
Stalin, America's Mouallim in Torture
We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us:
With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture.
So, the US decided to copy the Sons of Stalin in their approach to winning over the Islamic world and fighting terror. It is grotesque what the current American administration has done to the Americans' reputation, and more grotesque that the Right Bolsheviks turned to the Left Bolsheviks for lessons. Afghanistan of the Soviets and Algeria of the French evidently taught no lessons.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 01, 2007
The Face of American Diplomacy
Ladies, Gentlemen: I give you the modern face of American diplomacy. And no, this is in fact actual, not a joke.
Ms Debra Cagan at the Embassy of Hungary most charmingly told UK MPs she really dislikes Iran and oh, official policy is no attack, except wink wink...
Or as the Daily Mail (yes, yes, I know...) put it:
"She seemed more keen on saying she didn't like Iranians than that the US had no plans to attack Iran," said one MP. "She did say there were no plans for an attack but the tone did not fit the words."Another MP said: "I formed the impression that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack Iran. It was very alarming."
Tory Stuart Graham, who was on the ten-day trip, would not discuss Ms Cagan but said: "It was very sobering to hear from the horse's mouth how the US sees the situation."
I submit to you that no person willingly photographed in such an outfit at a diplo reception should be allowed anywhere near policy making or indeed out of the festering provincial suburb from which they crawled. A clear case of demonstrable bad judgment capacity.
[Update]
And the Walrus enters into the action: John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.
These people, they are actually mad. Truly, literally mad.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:40 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
August 27, 2007
Developing Private Markets, Promoting Growth etc: US & Iraq, how to fail miserably all around
In reading this article from the Washington Post entitled most charmingly, "U.S. Falters In Bid to Boost Iraqi Business, Few Products Sold To American Firms" I confess to having been a bit taken aback.
Just when I think the Americans can show no greater depth of utter incompetence in Iraq, along comes something new. What possessed the idiots in Baghdad to think they could get Iraq exporting directly to the United States when functioning emerging market economies have trouble penetrating with companies run by people actually skilled in... well commerce, well it utterly escapes me. The sheer incredible unrealism involved in these efforts is truly stunning.
Now, as context, I would like to share some rants (of many) on Iraq and economic development from 2003, a period I would remind readers where I was actively still working on a major equity investment in Iraq that thankfully never went ahead. I can thank the American occupation authority, the infelicitously named "CPA," for having saved me the losses that would have followed had they been competent enough to respond in a timely fashion to our various efforts. They were not, so no investment, and now four years later all involved thank their lucky stars.
But regardless, the historical review:
1) Encore Ideology over practicality, 5 August 2003;
2) Bring on the Clowns - CPA as circus, 24 August 2003;
3) Iraq and Responsibility 1 September 2003;
4) On Iraq & the Privatization "Rules" 29 September 2003;
5) Iraq Reconstruction: Stunning Political Idiocy, Stunning Miserliness and Stupidity;
6) Iraq: Economic Reforms Analysis 2 October 2003;
(7) Iraq: an analytical piece of interest
Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 15, 2007
A Whiff of Idiocy, A Whiff of Bigotry, A Whiff of Cankerous Fear in his Dotage (Lewis, Bernard)
Unlike many of my fellow authors, I rather like the works of Bernard Lewis, or rather, the classic works of Bernard Lewis when he was a historian rather than a political dabbler.
Pity to see an old historian stretch himself into idiocy.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:21 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack
March 07, 2007
Imperial America: Iran & Sanctions on 3rd Party Hydrocarbon Sector Investment
The Financial Times has an interesting, if infuriating (from its content, not writing) article on the Imperial American pretension to regulate other's investment in Iran. What irritates here especially is that I know from experience the slightest hint of similar actions by EU or similar parties touching on American interests provokes paroxysms of incoherent rage on the part of Americans. I confess readily knowledge of this, as well as my conviction that the US efforts here are posturing and will end up merely alienating without any real achievement, adds to my deep sense of irritation.
Now, mind you, the concept of the effort does not offend, and my snide swipe at Imperial America is most explicitly not from your usual Lefty whinging "evil capitalist America" tripe sort of point of view. No, It's about over-reaching, and clumsy over-reaching. I am a strong believer in avoiding too much obvious hypocrisy. One reason the overdone language the Americans and the French tends to engage in in their precious self-fellating rhetoric over their respective civilisations irritates.
Operationally, for many of the same reasons I predict that it will be the Chinese and similar parties that will reap the Iraqi hydrocarbons windfall, I strongly believe the US sanctions are an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, which for some reason the current American administration seems to find to be a queerly enjoyable activity.
Continue reading "Imperial America: Iran & Sanctions on 3rd Party Hydrocarbon Sector Investment"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 06, 2007
Opportunity Cost
I just had an amusing, even hilarious for me, lunch with my attorney who was ranting on about how his local clients have to be brow-beaten (and we're talking corporates, name brand even) into conveying timely information, to him, their attorney, for work they've demanded.
I actually have the exact same experience. It's amazing, really, what it takes to get the simplest fucking things done in this region. Efficiency. What's most irritating and yet in some ways puzzling (in others not when you think about internal organisational structures and incentives) is the foot dragging raises their costs as much as mine (or the attorney's). Of course the constant whinging on about costs etc when they sit down with a bill makes this even more infuriating.
But there are clear organisation incentives to non-performance in the typical MENA company, nothing shocking that doesn't exist in the West of course - see Dilbert. But as always, these things are a question of degree, and indeed the weakness of countervailing incentives.
In some ways it's a good way to look at the failures of Iraq, since the American decision makers innocently assumed the exact same incentive structures, decisional processes and worst yet, reactivity. And being arrogantly blinded to the sometimes (indeed often) subtle differences - any one of which may be individually trivial, but cumulatively is fatal - were unable to react, to adjust and change at once tactics and conceptual strategy in ways that actually responded to the real incentive structures.
I've noted in places like our fool Andrew Sullivan (and even more egregiously chez the Moustache of Understanding) comments tending to indicate that Arabs (or Muslims, en grosso modo) don't value / want / desire Liberty, etc. etc. That's bollocks - but the operational incentives for making changes to achieve those things require different approaches, and realisation that the near term incentive structure is weighted towards avoidance of decisions etc. - nails get pounded down - unless one has a means to control - as in guns.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 21, 2007
The Carib Gulag Archipelago
I am not frequently moved to comment on issues American domestic in large part, however this news item caught my eye for its meaning to the MENA region and US image there.
I have no expertise in US constitutional law and shall not remotely pretend to comment on the legality or constitutionality. I am sure others will.
Rather, I am moved by the sheer idiocy of what the US continues to do. If this is indeed legal and constitutional, well, I have to say that the Americans have carved out a vast gaping whole in the tradition of Habeus Corpus, one that is at once revolting for its Neo-Bolshevik logic and disturbing given the increasingly imperial pretensions and reach of US law. Worse than these essentially moral, but also pragmatic issues, given that these acts might be justified if the cost-benefit was positive (it is not), is the massive self-inflicted damage (for no real gain at all) the US is doing to itself in creating what is, in effect, an off-shored version of the Gulag Archipelago. Yes, rather more humane if still involving torture, than the Soviet version, but in many ways less honest, for the tortured logic that Guantanamo is somehow in some tortured legal fiction, not under US sovereignty.
I am particularly moved to comment on this because of an interesting anecdote from a friend yesterday, who had to do some neurological tests - involving electroshocks to test reaction. The joke on the part of the Arab doctors, all quite Westernized and Western leaning, based on his citizenship, was "not going to be any worse than the torture at Guantanamo."
The US has fallen to a low level when even its friends make jokes in this manner. Reminds me of the jokes I used to hear from Sov lands....
Regardless, then of the legality, the US has stepped up to a precipice. It must come back.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:29 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack
January 20, 2007
The Talabani Al Hayat Interview
Kevin Drum posted a question with respect to a news item cited by Juan Cole, on what Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Iran - US - Iraq relations.
The article Cole worked off referred to an accompanying article of the interview w al-Hayat (what appears to be a partial transcript of the interview).
In that interview he responds to a question w respect to Iran and Syria:
Continue reading "The Talabani Al Hayat Interview"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:31 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 16, 2007
American MENA Public Diplo profile
A serviceable article from The Financial Times on Karen Hughes.
Continue reading "American MENA Public Diplo profile"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:47 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 13, 2007
Isolated or Changing Dynamics: Iraq, Sunni Arab, Sunni Shia and the Americans
An interesting article from The Guardian, which focuses on the journo's interviews with some Sunni insurgents, highlighting the nastiness of the evolving civil war, and the queer evolution of interests, such that some of the insurgents interviewed were looking to the Americans for potential support and protection agains the Shia death squads. This is surely a real evolution as other reporting has indicated that in Iraq it is the Sunni community in and around Baghdad that is most favourable to an American "surge."
It rather bodes ill for the bizarre American taste to take on Iranian interests in Iraq - which given the militias on the Shia side are relatively synonymous with Shia militias in Iraq. It is not hard to forsee the Americans having no friends (where friend means "not enemy") in Iraq at all - and worse, the US government not realising nor understanding.
Continue reading "Isolated or Changing Dynamics: Iraq, Sunni Arab, Sunni Shia and the Americans"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 12, 2007
Further image problems notes
Where to start?
In the full basket of bad news, it is hard to know where to start.
It strikes me that this editiorial from the bland Gulf News rather captures what has become a universal frustration in the region, in response to the reports the US is scheming to use the Siniora government to tackle Hezbullah, likely of course but most unwelcome leaking for said recipient. Or the terrible optics of Somalia with the idiocy of air strikes in the midst of villages and the like neither have the tactical nor the strategic effect presumably intended, although they do achieve a brilliant effect of making the al-Qaeda and other opponents of America look spot-on correct in their claims that the US prefers chaos and death for Muslims.
Nor does the raid on Iranian quasi-consular sites, sites duly organized with Iraqi entities help attenuate the image of the US as a blundering, incompetent bull in a chinashop, lashing out withour regard to friendly interests.
It is no wonder the sober Financial Times calls the latest American ... well policy seems to be granting the idiocy too much dignity, reaction then, the latest reaction Surge towards debacle in Iraq and MidEast.
Continue reading "Further image problems notes"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 10, 2007
Naivete, oh so naive these Americans who are unloved...
I had lunch today with a US diplo who likes to talk to me for financial sector intelligence in MENA (I presume said diplo gets to write blisteringly interesting cables back to Washington about such things).
I sometimes even get snippets of intel for meself (good to know if a certain firm has been in town with US Emb. assistance prospecting etc), and at least a lunch (although most tediously they can't buy alcohol, bloody puritans).
I was amused, in my convo, to get a reaction of shock - actual genuine shock - when I declined to intro to some local financiers because I felt they'd react badly to a US Gov contact.
(The image supra is from the online edition today of a Maghrebine business daily - I use it here to illustrate merely the image problem the US faces. The topic was business, but the imagery, Sadaam.... Unfair, but there it is.)
Continue reading "Naivete, oh so naive these Americans who are unloved..."
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:13 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 08, 2006
Poodle Bis: Servile Foolishness
I see the Poodle is still humping Bush ibn Bush, the Cretin hereafter's leg. Pity.
I await with impatience a Conservative government, but it is a pity the avalanche of realism has not jerked either the Cretin or the Poodle into reality.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:06 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
December 04, 2006
Bolton Pisses Off - Good Bloody News
Good news, although as usual the Bush ibn Bush manages to undertake the clean up in a clumsy, ungraceful manner that neither looks credible nor even leverages the moment.
Sadly the US President's comportment underlines his personal incompetence and inability to live up to the historic situation his own incompetence created. Worse than a mediocrity, an incompetent mediocrity who believes himself Theodore Roosevelt or Churchill.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 22, 2006
Coercion & Land: Israel
There has been much commentary online on this article in the NY Times on Israeli land seizures in the Occupied Territories.
I find the debates rather tedious and...well idiotic. I suppose for those without operational knowledge of how things work in emerging markets or in coercive environments (and that includes prissy Americo-Israelis who rarely experience the business end of the occupation) that theoretical niceties such as "tittle transfers legally registered" mean something.
Continue reading "Coercion & Land: Israel"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 14, 2006
We don't trust you but we want to invest in you...
Some thoughts on a conference call I just participated in with respect to an American group with some kind of US Gov backing (to be frank not sure the nature, but apparently some US G capital went into the Fund) and some MENA region investors.
The best moment in the call came when the American group came out with the phrase, "you realise if we put our capital in, you have to personally engage to be subject to the US Patriot Act." What that means in an effective legal sense to a bunch of MENA investors who are off-shore is unclear to me, although given the increasingly imperial ambitions of American law enforcement (The brit banker thing still sticks in the craw of us people off-shore, for example) it might have real impact. The silence that followed spoke volumes. Now, mind you the MENA investors side are all clean people (well most of them I know to be clean, I have confidence in the remainders). But who the fuck wants to sign on to being subject to the highly political vagaries of American "anti-terror" legislation. Especially if one has the handicap of being Muslim in an increasingly hysterical anti-Muslim atmosphere in "Patriot" circles?
But what was queerest is (i) it is the Americans who are making the approach - I presume under official pressure to put US Gov capital to work in the MENA region, but (ii) all the riders and attachments to their efforts (using those terms metaphorically) say "We don't trust dirty Muslims and Arabs, goddamned terrorists..." Any one measure doesn't seem inherently unreasonable, but the overall package - non-negotiable - smells. I am no longer surprised by an opinion I recently heard from an American investment banker based in the Gulf who said to me, in talking about investment opportunities "I no longer want to touch anything with US government association, bad for my business."
There are real concerns for the Americans to address, but if they want to engage in the MENA region, their approach at present is counter-productive to their real aims. But in an atomosphere of magical thinking, what can I expect. Need to find a Sterling paid job, however.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:56 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
October 12, 2006
Madness, Maps & Dickey
Without any comment, I share this fine arty by veteran journo Chris Dickey, Bordering on Insanity: Does the Middle East need to be destroyed in order to save it?.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:30 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
October 08, 2006
Al Hurra and Market Driven Advice
Related to Tom's recent note on the TV in the Middle East, our old Aqoul amigo Abu Aardvark has some Advice for al-Hurra which I found quite on point, being at once driven by a good understanding of American interests and the media market in region.
I am sure longer term readers will recall some commentary back in the old livejournal days regarding the supposed al Jazeerah privatisation and related Arab Media Policy. Some simple minded commentators cheered without understanding the media market.
The Father of Aardvarks has what I consider rather savvy market-oriented advice, which I am sure this current American Administration will not heed, despite their faux-Conservatism with their magical Right Bolshy inclination to unrealistic Bolshy type transformationalism. Real, honest market driven evaluations and pragmatic market driven policy utterly escapes them.
Continue reading "Al Hurra and Market Driven Advice"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 03, 2006
On Nation Building & American Magicalism
Prompted by an somewhat typical George Will column, The Leaders [Americans] Have
Aside from this amusing closing (whose connexion with the remainder of the opinion piece is a bit obscure)
"Where's the leader?" Bush, according to Woodward, has exclaimed in dismay about the Iraqi government's dithering. "Where's George Washington? Where's Thomas Jefferson? Where's John Adams, for crying out loud?" For a president to ask that question about Iraq, that tribal stew, is enough to cause one to ask it about the United States.there is Will's foolish comment:
Continue reading "On Nation Building & American Magicalism"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:33 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 02, 2006
Iraq Despair, Bis: The American Revelations
Following up on my personal note regarding Iraq Despair as noted with respect to despair among specialists, I have been intrigued to see the explosion of materials documenting the Bush Adminstration's gross incomptence in Iraq and the Middle East. Quite an array of articles, from the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph (which for my money in covering a reported Saudi massive security fence to wall out Iraq speaks for itself with respect to the Americans utterly delusional happy talk) although their article on Americans considering cutting off funding to Iraqi (Shia) police operating as death squads is almost as good in highlighting the swamp in which the Americans have blundered into, a swamp of their own making.
Perhaps at some point Americans will realise that to win their goals, they need to grapple with the world as it is, not as they would wish it to be. Of course that means getting rid of the Right Bolsheviks.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tariq Ramadan
Tariq Ramadan has an interesting Op Ed on his effective banning from the United States. The Right Bolsheviks seem to be like the old Left Bolsheviks.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:11 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
September 25, 2006
Decisions, not faux decisions. Alternatives, not faux alternatives
Normally the blog, the atrociously named but nevertheless readable Glittering Eye does not irritate me sufficiently to post something on it. However, today it did. Plus I have Ramadan insomnia.
Continue reading "Decisions, not faux decisions. Alternatives, not faux alternatives"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:29 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
US Air Travel
Have to fly shortly to the US of A for some business. Would rather not, but there it is.
Can anyone direct me to a current summary of the idiotic American regs designed to give pants wetters a false sense of security while inconveniencing the maximum number of persons possible?
Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:47 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
August 24, 2006
Real Challenges - Competing With Hezbullah
I had another convo with the American group on the US Gov propo regarding Lebanon reconstruction.
The thinking is going in the right direction, they realise on reflection that rushing in to compete with Hezbullah is a great way to do CPA bis, but now the question is "How do you compete with Hezbullah to mitigate its wins?"
Regardless of American stupidity in regards to its FP, the question is a real one.
How indeed does the US compete with Hezbullah?
Continue reading "Real Challenges - Competing With Hezbullah"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 23, 2006
Pimping Giddiness: MENA Private Sector & New America Foundation
In reading the first paragraphs of a Washington Post Op Ed by a fellow at the New America Foundation, entitled The Real 'New Middle East' I thought I was going to be pleased, sadly though the author took real observations and mixed them in with simple-minded swallowing of corporate and governmental PR spin to produce absurd tripe typical of the wide-eyed neophyte or the paid propagandist.
A pity as the author's main thesis in a less over-done and gullible form has merit.
Continue reading "Pimping Giddiness: MENA Private Sector & New America Foundation"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 18, 2006
Hezbullah's Victory: Roy - Clearheaded as Usual
It is worth drawing attention to Olivier Roy's commentary piece in The Financial Times, entitled Hizbollah has redrawn the Middle East
The perceived victory of Hizbollah in Lebanon may be short term but has highlighted some new and important developments. For the first time, the Israel Defence Forces were unable to prevail in an all-out war. More significant, the winner this time is a Shia Muslim, non-state, armed movement supported by Syria and Iran. In Israel’s previous wars, from 1948 to 1982, the challengers were Sunni Arabs.
Again, returning to punching above their weight.
But the most important issue is who is going to grapple with this issue realistically - rather than throw tantrums that US "largesse" is not "appreciated" as the cretin in power in the US has done.
Continue reading "Hezbullah's Victory: Roy - Clearheaded as Usual"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 17, 2006
MENA Trade, Business Culture & Americans
While I confess this note is in part motivated by my desire to have an excuse to share this cartoon from the Moroccan business daily, l'Economiste from yesterday's - 16 Aug edition. This was emailed to me yesterday, and is worthy of a good laugh, I thought it also worthwhile to undertake some reflexions on both the subject matter and some generalisations about practical issues.
The text, by the way, reads roughly, "Let's go, don't be so timid." I presume everyone gets the allusion.
The subject matter is the fairly substantial non-impact of the much ballyhooed - in US circles - and much feared -in Maghrebine circles- Free Trade Agreement with the United States.
Utterly unsurprising, I may add, despite the rather overdone expectations on the American side (based on painful conversations with earnest American officials I have had from time to time) and fears on the Maghrebine side (who delusionally feared the US was going to come in and buy everything. If only.)
Continue reading "MENA Trade, Business Culture & Americans"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:48 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 16, 2006
The Lebanon Debacle First Lessons
Lessons may be to big a word, perhaps "preliminary observations approaching lessons" would be better.
The most remarkable item from this fiasco is the manner in which the current American administration unerringly executes near-perfect bicycle-kick own-goals. It's breathtaking in its consistency, and the sheer deluded pig-headedness of it all. Only a year or two I passed over in polite silence or sneered at American Left whinging on that the Bush Administration is the worst in living memory; I confess I am sliding towards a similar opinion now in light of the simply extraordinary incompetence on display and the bizarre inability to learn from its own goals. The "Neo-Con" block is truly Bolshevik in its elevation of its ideological precepts over all fact and ample evidence of failure of its most radical precepts.
The night before last in particular in watching on one of the arab sats the Bush speech with my partner and friends I was Almost taken aback by the depth and intensity of the reaction to his speech, and this among, as I noted at Lounsbury, a crowd tending to the liberal (free market) and not typically anti-American (my JV partner being the sole person who I might characterise as "pro-American" at some level) but certainly typically pro-West. Bankers and the like.
Continue reading "The Lebanon Debacle First Lessons"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 13, 2006
And a short echo on cluelessness and navel-gazing
While were I not obliged to spend my time this weekend working on investment performance whanking (obliged meaning, choosing to as the said performance is not in any way related to me Titanic), I would have some amplifications on this note by Billmon with respect to a fine Op Ed in The Washington wondering why US military can't achieve the same street cred as Hezbullah on the ground.
Continue reading "And a short echo on cluelessness and navel-gazing"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:17 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
End Game or maybe not
As our very own Tom Scud has summarised, the UN 1701 fig leaves and the online world of whankers reaction, I have little to add at the moment, having spent part of this weekend trying to rebrown myself (as camoflage) and internalise the new recommends GIPS guidelines as I write a profile for a fund. However, I do have a question for the more asture observers out there. The Sixth War is one of the monickers on the Arab Sats (at the moment I can't recall if it's al Jazeerah or al Arabiyah, things tending to blend at the moment). Anyone want to breakout the war accounting there for me as I can't get Six wars - depending on how I break it up I get one more or less. Oddly this irritates me.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:06 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
August 06, 2006
A Comment on The Bolshy Right: The intellectuals have taken over the asylum
I am not normally given to quoting entire op eds at length, but I found FT's America's editor-at-large, Jurek Martin brilliant on Friday: capturing as he did the special type of idiocy when theoreticians, aka intellectuals of a certain kind - or better, ideologues - run things, in "The intellectuals have taken over the asylum" The Financial Times, 4 Aug. 06.
A note of warning for the humourless and those prone to the same, Jurek oft writes tongue in cheek, so no, not everything stands to close scrutiny. However, it is an amusing and close comment on the matter:
Continue reading "A Comment on The Bolshy Right: The intellectuals have taken over the asylum"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:49 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
July 30, 2006
Sadly Predictable: Transforming Leb Land by Bombing Backfires
The campaign against Hezbullah turns on itself, and American "diplomatic efforts" continue to exist in some strange, delusional world of wishful thinking, where by some magical intervention from on high Hezbullah caves, and again somehow military force magically re-arranges inconvenient political realities. A queer belief system, to be sure, given it is so clearly divorced from reality, but it is the operating one for the US government as it blunders from one PR disaster to another.
[link corrected]
Continue reading "Sadly Predictable: Transforming Leb Land by Bombing Backfires"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:07 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
July 26, 2006
Despairing of sense: MENA and an increasingly unmoored America
I am increasingly despairing of the completely unmoored US position in the Middle East. Between utterly magical thinking regarding breaking Hezbullah militarily and equally bizarely unmoored and ungrounded policy in Iraq (where, per this NYT arty, after 3 years of major effort, the American military is working to "reclaim control of the Iraqi capital"), I am beginning to think, after some hope that Rice was actually rather more competent than I had given credit in the past, that I am facing roughly two odd years of truly complete, ham-handed incompetence of the most dangerous kind.
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:42 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
July 14, 2006
Leb Land and Israeli bloody mindedness
Some thoughts on this escalating madness.
First, it really is painful to watch CNN fellating the Israeli point of view. Really bloody hell, a bit of critical analysis, not soft-ball questions to Netanyahu. I expect American media to be pro-Israeli, but critically so.
Second, the escalation is begining to worry me. Yesterday I was inclined to think this would blow over, but now the number of (American and Israeli) security types out pimping the line that Israel has to move into southern Leb Land to insure its security strikes me as a worrisome indicator of both American and Israeli thinking in the decision making circles. Of course, the last time they ran this, it was decades long disaster that made Hizbullah what it is today.
Third, Israeli actions while not unjustified are Pyrrhic. They are going to drive a rally-round-the-flag effect and doubtful they are going to generate what is wanted.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:11 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Lebanon - Israel: US Media
As I count down the US exile, the Leb Land crisis with the Israeli over-reaction is an interesting occasion to observe the sheer incompetence, laziness and pandering that is the US media (mass and blog-loonistan).
Watching CNN in particular I was bemused by a truly stupid waste of broadcast time in reading the inanely ignorant blithering of viewers (which was as predictable as it was unenlightening, such as Avi from LI -not an actual name- ranting on about the evil UN, etc.); hardly news unless one had some analysis of the reactions.
The segement on "knowing our enemy" (our? Has Israel become a US state? Bloody hell, a bit of objectivty mates) re Hizbullah was typically shallow, ill-informed and security focused. Domestic US news really is atrocious. Not a new comment but bloody hell.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:20 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
June 28, 2006
NYT & US SWIFT 'spying' prog bis
I noted that Kevin Drum has linked to an intriguing but I think rather wrong-headed discussion at Crooked Timber with respect to the SWIFT program. How the author at Crooked concludes that the Central Banks were not the proper authorities for SWIFT to communicate with truly escapes me, as in most jurisdictions they are precisely the authorities that most jurisdictions have regulating payment systems, and for most GAFI compliant countries, have dedicated staff for these kinds of issues...
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:40 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
June 27, 2006
NY Times & SWIFT
I understand from a perusal of The Washington Post and some reporting on outgoing US Secretary of Treasury Snow's comments that much is being made on the more irrational or emotional side of the American Right of the NYT revealing that American authorities have been tapping SWIFT's database fishing for information.
While the sentiments are in some way understandable, I have to say, chill mates, everyone who had the slightest clue about international wires etc. assumed this was happening anyway. This is only "news" in the political sense. Bloody hell, you can't fucking go to an American government function without some US rep or another whanking on about wires.....
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:41 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
May 27, 2006
Whanking Ignorance on Dubai
In writing a little bit on some idiotic whanking about "progressive" economics and conservative Islamists, I reminded myself to return to something I spotted via GrapeShisha
A truly stupid article on Dubai which only deserves comment on these excerpts
Dubai sounds like a fake country. Or an exotic place only vacationing al-Qaida cellmates and CIA spooks know how to find. ..... Dubai's connections to al-Qaida terrorism apparently were accidental, not government-countenanced. But Islam is the state religion ..... So beneath the glitz and gleaming skyline Dubai is a theocratic Islamic state that no American would want to be a citizen of for more than an hour. But it's spectacular proof that the Middle East is not monolithically backward, hopeless or anti-Western. And it shows that relatively good things can evolve in the Muslim world without the United States having to use force to create them.
I honestly am impressed the author could pack quite so many stereotypes, just plain idiotic mischaracterisations (hint having a state religion does not a theocracy make you semi literate git, else England would be a theocracy (and in terms of enforcing 'uniformity would not have been far off Dubai if one rewinds not so far, but no one would think of writing seriously that Elisabeth I was a 'theocrat' ).
I honestly wonder at the literacy and rationality of American commentators on Islam, the Islamic world and... well just the outside bloody world in general. Theocracy....
Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:09 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
The Agency - Clandestine Operations, MENA and Amusement
Via our friend Zenpundit, and a post on A New Clandestine Service: The Case for Creative Destruction by Reuel Marc Gerecht which is a PDF article on Gerecht's observations on the American clandestine service and its supposed short comings, I was quite entertained and intrigued.
I have zero idea if Gerecht is right (although the article reads in a generally non-ideological fashion, which is a pleasant change of pace from Left and Right axe grinding in this area - in this sense Gerecht may be wrong about what he is writing about, but I at least came away with a sensation he would be honestly wrong, and not due to ideological whanking), but a number of his observations on field practices rang some bells. And entertained. As I have known a number of Agency people over the years (doubtless more than I know I knew), it was interesting.
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 22, 2006
The Wisdom of the Egyptians: US & Egypt
While many 'Aqoul readers likely are aware that Egypt is passing through some rather severe political tensions at present, as disgust with the vampiric Mubarek regime seems to be bubbling up like a half-suppressed urge to vomit, I thought I would depart from my normal Egypt aversion and comment on The Financial Times's piece on PM Ahmed Nazif's Wisdom, Egypt ‘not under US pressure’ over political freedom (reporting by Mr Wallis paired with the esteemed Roula Khalaf who hopefully can impart some street smarts to the man so my precious FT space for MENA is not taken up with announcements that Egypt supports "Arab Unity").
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 11, 2006
In the futility department: Iraq Investment
Running across this note in the FT, US urges investment in Iraq and finding the same idiotic promo agitprop re investing in Iraq that I was hearing back in 2003.
Longtime readers of course know that I was involved in various investment projects focused on Iraq then. Including a heartbreakingly beautiful steel project that dripped away into the sand thanks to the CPA-Iraq incompetence. I should be thankful of that on some level, I would have lost money.... Although on the other hand, I strongly feel that had CPA-Iraq not been so painfully incompetent and corrupt (in an incompetent way), Iraq might have turned out far better. Not the Bush Administration's utterly unrealistic vision, but not the utter disaster that it is now.
But let me share the part that really irritated me:
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 07, 2006
On the CIA and Goss
While not typically something I would comment on, David Ignatius of The Washington Post had a few interesting comments on the surprise resignation of the Director of the US intelligence service (well one of them) that provoked some reflexion on my part on the few friends I have had in this area over my years in MENA and the fiasco that appears to be the US' redoing of its foreign intel service(s).
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 02, 2006
Retarded
I have to say, this is completely retarded. An American congressman, "Chris Smith, Republican chair of the House of Representatives committee on human rights, ... called on the Bush administration to categorise Germany as a “tier three” country that would make it eligible for US sanctions under anti-trafficking legislation" tied to German preparations for the World Cup including dealing with entirely legal prostitution.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:27 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
April 25, 2006
On Iraq and funny little investments.
Since the deal fell through and now is pushing up the daisies, I thought I might take a moment to illustrate and reflect on some recent news out of Iraq, notably the move of Shia militias into Kirkouk and the overall rise in tensions with the Kurds.
As longer term readers knew, I grew tired of commenting on the Iraq war after it reached the stage of what I named "no escape from the Lebanese logic."
I should say that my calling the development just about two years was not particularly prescient, all one had to do was be familiar with Lebanese style civil wars and the perverse incentives that drive factions towards escalating violence, as well as assess the ability of the security forces to stop the evolution. In terms of Iraq, if one was not being willfully blind, it was painfully clear as of early to mid 2004.
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Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack