On Point

Corruption: The Global Disease

by Austin Bay January 20, 2010

The game hit the Internet on July 25, 2007. With a title reminiscent of a Bruce Lee epic or — a much more dangerous allusion for Beijing bureaucrats schooled in tumultuous history — an echo of “Outlaws of the Marsh” (tales of 12th century Chinese Robin Hoods), “Incorruptible Fighter” riveted Chinese cyber-audiences who had an angry yen (or a yuan) for tarring, feathering and then executing corrupt government officials.

Yes, winning the game entailed eliminating government crooks. China Daily described the game as “the story of a man who fights corrupt officials and purifies himself by improving morality and ethics. After weathering various hardships and weeding out the bad guys, he finally gets to embrace a corruption-free world in which people live peacefully.”

China Daily credited government workers in the city of Ningbo (Zhejiang Province, eastern China) with creating the game. A commenter at StrategyPage.com (writing on Aug. 20, 2007) said this was true and provided additional details: Besides nailing crooked leaders, players could get even with the leaders' kids “and their bikini-clad mistresses.”

Recipe for a blockbuster. The game had sex, mayhem and graphic revenge extracted from arrogant, thieving officials protected by a Kafka-esque system they controlled.

Alas, the game itself had no happily ever after. “Incorruptible Fighter” disappeared from the Internet on Aug. 5, 2007. Who shut it down? That was never quite clear, but Internet commenters argued it scorched “exposed nerves.”

Indeed it did. Real world corruption threatens China's government and economy, and its stability. Chinese President Hu Jintao said in October 2007, “Resolutely punishing and effectively preventing corruption bears on the popular support for the party and on its very survival.” While the demise of the Communist Party (which has corrupt and reformist factions) would ultimately benefit China, a Chinese civil war featuring nuclear-armed regional warlords is a geo-strategic nightmare.

Corruption — from petty graft by the county commissioner to the mega-theft of billions by tyrants — is a global affliction. Corruption coupled with systemic lack of accountability produces more than cynicism and anger. In the developing world, it steals the future, condemning millions to poverty.

Phi Beta Iota: Global crime takes in $2 trillion a year.  HALF of that goes to pay off corrupt govvernment officials.  Lawrence Lessig has stated his intent to focus on outing and reducing corruption, and we join him–corruption is not just about money, but about Deep Secrecy, Sweet-Heart Deals, Informal Privileges, etcetera.   We need to either clean up our government at every level, or systematically replace every person who refuses to be transparent with one who embraces transparency in the public interest.  That is the heart of Public Intelligence.

Phi Beta Iota: For over a decade we've been tracking the Chinese as they “wage peace” across the Southern Hemisphere, and it is with growing frustration that we recognize that the U.S. Government is simply not paying attention to the real world.  See also:  Memorandum: Chinese Irregular Warfare; Journal: CINCPAC Slams IC on China; Review: Charm Offensive–How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World.

China’s Africa footprint:

a  makeover for Algeria

ALGIERS, Algeria

While still struggling with the aftermath of a decade-long Islamic insurgency, oil-rich yet impoverished Algeria is getting a makeover: a new airport, its first mall, its largest prison, 60,000 new homes, two luxury hotels and the longest continuous highway in Africa.

The power behind this runaway building spree is China.

Some 50 Chinese firms, largely state-controlled, have been awarded $20 billion in government construction contracts, or 10 percent of the massive investment plan promised by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika for a nation where jobs and housing are scarce and al-Qaida has struck roots.

Algiers, the tense and rundown capital, now has something relatively new to the Arab world: a Chinatown.

The Beijing government has been a supporter of Algeria since the 1960s, after it won independence from France, and today the 35,000 Chinese in the country are the biggest foreign population after the French.

Trade both ways soared to $4.5 billion last year, from just $200 million in 2001, according to Ling Jun, deputy head of the Chinese Embassy in Algiers. China, is now second only to France in exports to Algeria.

And so on….country after country.

NOTE:  This offering ends 9 Feb 10 unless we can find a volunteer to do once a week.

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“Let Me Be Perfectly Not Clear” and “Make Lots of Mistakes About It”

by Victor Davis Hanson     Pajamas Media    January 19, 2010

It’s the Lying, Stupid?

“Lie” is a rather harsh word; the noun and its verb form leave little to context or extenuating circumstances. So I use it sparingly.

But I know no other word for President Obama’s long string of “misstatements,” especially the blatant ones about closing Guantanamo within a year of his inauguration or serially declaring that he would insist on healthcare debate airing live on C-SPAN.

Let Us Count the Ways

1) The bait and switch lies.
2) The “noble” lies.
3) Tactical Lies.
4) The Deadline Lies.

The Catalysts for Such Prevarications?

1) Habit.
2) Morality.
3) Squaring Circles.
4) Personal Confusion.

But what is taking Obama down below 50% approval is mostly a public awareness that they elected a deeply cynical man, who either cannot or will not speak the truth or keep his promises (note the Nixonian resonance in “perfectly clear about…”). In fact, it is worse than that — in the postmodern world of Barack Obama there is no truth per se, just competing narratives privileged by the relative degree of power behind them and the relative perceived moral intent involved.

Continue reading “Journal: Anger Over Lies–Need Public Intelligence”

NOTE:  This offering ends 9 Feb 10 unless we can find a volunteer to do once a week.

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The US military has begun airdropping food and water supplies into earthquake-hit Haiti.

In pictures: Haiti one week on

Red Cross InfoOps on Twitter Raise Millions

“Our plan worked exactly like it was supposed to,” says Wendy Harman, social media manager, at the American Red Cross.

“We have a ‘cabinet' of 30 celebrities, who have agreed to ask their Twitter followers to spread the word.

“Within three hours of the earthquake, we had our text number ready.

“We tweeted. The celebrities re-tweeted. And then others quickly followed. People like Michelle Obama, Jane Seymour and Craig Newmark (of Craigslist) got on board. And after that, the appeal spread like wildfire.”

TO SAVE HAITI, FIRE GEN. “BROWNIE” KEEN, START AIR DROPS, CANCEL THE DEBT, AND KICK OUT THE IMF

By Webster G. Tarpley

Washington, DC, January 17, 2010 — Just over five days or 120 hours after a major earthquake hit the area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, it is increasingly clear that the US approach to organizing the delivery of emergency assistance and supplies is so ineffective that the general directing the distribution of emergency aid needs to be fired without further delay.  The catastrophic blunder involved is the decision by the US military in the person of Gen. Ken Keen to insist on routing all external aid through a single substandard, inadequate, and partially destroyed landing field, the Toussaint L‘Ouverture airport.  This airport has a single runway, and room to park only about half a dozen medium to long range aircraft.  The result is that once six aircraft are parked in the unloading area, all incoming traffic must be waved off until one of the six planes has taken off again, as a colonel on the ground explained in a press conference broadcast on C-SPAN radio here this afternoon.  The control tower, radar, and other facilities have been destroyed by the earthquake.  Even once cargo has been offloaded, it has been tending to build up at the airport because the streets and roads leading from the airport towards the main population concentrations are blocked by collapsed buildings and other debris.  The result is an agonizing slowness in delivering vital supplies upon which the immediate survival of up to 3 million Haitians now depends.

THE SINGLE AIRPORT AS BOTTLENECK

This single airport approach fulfills the textbook definitions of a logistical bottleneck and logistical nightmare.  It was a fatal mistake to ever decide to make this single runway the only supply line for the stricken populations around the Haitian capital.  The officer who is said to be running the US logistical effort on the ground is Lieutenant General P.K. “Ken” Keen, second in command of the US Southern Command.  Interviewed today by Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday, General Keen stated: “ Well, we had a very good day yesterday, Brit. Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne division who have only arrived within the last day or two delivered over 70,000 bottles of water and 130,000 rations.” General Keane was referring to Saturday, January 16, three days and 96 hours after the earthquake.  This statement is comparable to the recent remark of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to the effect that, although an airplane had almost been blown up aloft, “The system worked.”  General Keen, like Secretary Napolitano, appears incapable of recognizing defeat and failure when they are staring him in the face, and human lives have already been lost as a result of his incompetence. Gen. Keen is well on his way to becoming the new Brownie of the Haitian crisis, surpassing in ineptitude the infamous Bush FEMA director who received the accolade of “heckuva job, Brownie” at the height of the 2005 debacle.

Continue reading “Journal: Op-Ed on Haiti Log-Jam, Politics, and Debt”