Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Kampala-Bound Luxury Coach Attacked in Nairobi

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Entebbe, Ju...Image via Wikipedia

A Ugandan luxury liner destined for Kampala was attacked today in Nairobi causing the death of two passengers and injuring 41 others. According to media reports, bomb experts from the Kenya police are busy putting together pieces of evidence that will eventually shed light on the sources behind the explosion after investigations are concluded. Reports indicate that the explosion happened as the bus was being loaded with general cargo and passenger belongings.

There have been conflicting reports regarding the nature of the incident. One of Nairobi’s heavyweight newspapers narrating eyewitness accounts cited that a box in the possession of three men who were hastily attempting to evade security screening exploded after it was dropped at the bus station suddenly igniting a powerful and loud explosion that created pandemonium minutes before the bus was due to depart for Kampala, the capital of Uganda. However, Kenya’s Standard online newspaper, reported that only the assailant died after being admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital and that two others died while being attended to at M.P. Shah Hospital.

So far the attack has not been linked to any party and has not been ruled out as a terrorist attack. The three East African nations of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania have in the past suffered acts of revenge coordinated by al-Qaida, an internationally-known constructivist/idealist non-state actor that is at war with the forces of Western liberal democracy.

In 1998, the simultaneous bombing of the cities of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam caused devastations of historical proportions after hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands injured in what leaders of al-Qaida described as global jihad efforts aimed at reining the forces of infidelity. In 2002, an attack on Kikambala Hotel, a luxury tourist resort in Mombasa, Kenya, left a dozen people dead and many others injured.

After a brief reprieve from acts of intimidation, the world awoke to another simultaneous attack in July 2010, this time in Uganda, after suicide bombers targeted an Ethiopian restaurant and another venue where peple had gathered around TV screens to watch a world soccer match. Both targets were located in the heart of Kampala. The double coordinated blasts instantly killed 74 revelers. Al-Shabab, Somalia’s armed Islamist faction that is battling the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu, claimed responsibility for the Uganda bombing. Uganda has a large contingent of its armed forces in Mogadishu providing protection to the TFG and battling al-Shabab.

Part of a fleet of luxury liners operated from and owned in Uganda, Kampala Coach is often frequented by students who are attracted to the expediency and quick service it provides. Uganda has recently seen an upsurge of foreign students mainly from neighboring countries because of the quality education provided by its advanced educational institutions. Students from neighboring states and the great lakes region and especially those from the East African Community take advantage of the lower tuition rates and the state-of-the-art education and cheap standards of living available only in Uganda. Today’s Uganda would rather solicit funding for road construction than for educational purposes.

Post-independence Uganda was the envy of many sub-Saharan countries because it enjoyed superior educational system inherited from the British colonial administration. The University of Makerere in Kampala was reputedly the best in Africa south of the Sahara until the abrupt rise of a military junta headed by Idi Amin Dada that briefly lasted from 1971 to 1979. The expulsion in 1972 of 60,000 Asians from Uganda by Idi Amin and his declaration of “economic war” that was aimed at the expropriation of properties owned by Asians and Europeans resulted in decline in education and the economy.

Leaders of Somalia’s armed factions, human rights groups, and residents of Mogadishu, the Somali Diaspora, and even Somali parliamentarians have voiced their objections an decried the indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations by Ugandan troops. Often, little is mentioned of the presence of the troops from Burundi in Mogadishu’s volatile environment probably because Uganda has stolen the show by providing the bulk of the required force.

Uganda’s strongman, Yoweri Museveni, recently showed up at Mogadishu International Airport unannounced. Local media reported that he conferred with his trusted commanders and also had secret discussions with President Sharif Ahmed, the man who is leading the onslaught against the insurgency. For now, until someone claims responsibility for yesterday’s bombing, we will never know the truth nor prophesy whether retaliatory measures will follow soon. But we certainly know many innocent civilians will be held accountable for crimes they never committed.
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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Hon. Abdi Aress Mohamed: An Unsung Hero in Kenya’s Political History

Location of North Eastern Province in KenyaImage via Wikipedia

In the Western world, scholars, researchers, and authors painstakingly endeavor to unearth hidden historical personalities and artifacts for the sake of identification and for the purpose of acknowledging roles played in social and political life. Upon stumbling on the remains of a revered or detested figure, the process of recovery and documentation gets off the ground. Finally, the lost glory and human dignity of that person is restored. That is why in the developed world even the wretched of the earth have their place in history. In developed nations, children rehearse names of prominent people that impacted the lives of their forefathers and their nation.

Western history is replete with wastrels who frittered away their nation’s resources, spurious aficionados, destructive infidels, false prophets, lackadaisical leaders, cantankerous and indolent impostors, treacherous assassins and wretched killers whose names appear in the golden pages of historical antiquity. Unfortunately, in the developing world, factors like human envy, corruption, lack of resources and expertise hinder projects of like nature. Because humans are naturally selfish, there is the tendency to shower praise on the dead and not on the living.

Honorable Abdi Aress Mohamed, Member of Parliament for Garissa Central constituency within the district of Garissa in Kenya’s North Eastern Province, may be remembered for initiating various developmental projects during his tenure of politics from 1969 to 1983. In a period spanning 15 years, Hon. Abdi Aress tirelessly represented his constituents in parliament and in government bringing in projects that tremendously altered the living conditions of a pastoral society wedged between insecurity, poverty, illiteracy, and disease. The honorable leader may be credited for laying the groundwork for what today’s leaders are unable to initiate.

During his tenure as an elected representative, the Honorable Member of Parliament carpeted the dusty streets of Garissa town with tarmac-a marvelous project undertaken by Nurudin Construction Company. The National Youth Service (NYS), a government administered program, and the Ministry of Roads, oversaw repair of damaged gravel roads and the construction of new macadamized roads to the various towns and settlements dotting the district. Besides a 9 km stretch of tarmac added long after his departure by his successor Hon. Hussein Maalim Mohamed who represented Dujis Constituency from 1983 to 2007, the 4 km tarmac laid down by political doyen Abdi Aress is the only civilized visible familiar sight to first time visitors. Hon. Abdi Aress left behind an enduring legacy of progress and civilization that add up to his political career. He brought in a succession of projects including electricity, schools, farming, hospitals, and water. His departure from politics resulted in the abrupt retardation of infrastructural developments he envisaged. Drastic rise in the population of Garissa town as a result of urbanization led to negative consequences and increased demand for county council services consequently leading to water shortages that lasted for over two grueling decades. Increased vehicular and human traffic, menacing stray animals, unpredictable rain and weather patterns, and laxity on the part of the county council accelerated the dilapidation of the only tarmac town residents had known for years.

The construction of the massive Garissa General Hospital (GGH) kicked-off when Abdi Aress was in power. This medical facility alleviated rising cases of killer diseases like tuberculosis, tropical malaria, and waterborne diseases. In later years, the establishment of a nursing school elevated the hospital’s status to that of a training hospital. To this day GGH serves people of all walks of life including patients from war torn Somalia. The introduction of modern veterinary services and the eradication of tsetse fly, the primary biological vectors of trypanosomes that cause human sleeping sickness and animal trypanosomiasis, got a boost during Hon. Abdi Aress’ leadership.

Unquestionably, he is an unsung hero who deserves to be recognized for the tremendous contributions he made to advance the living conditions of his constituents. Hon. Abdi Aress rose to prominence during the devastating shifta menace of the sixties. He served the administrations of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi respectively. It must have been a daunting task initiating projects of such nature at a time when the Somali-inhabited North Eastern Province suffered calculated instances of cattle rustling, poaching, social dissent, and protracted insecurity.

Unlike modern politicians who usurp power and wealth through corrupt practices, Mheshimiwa Abdi Aress did not amass wealth of any kind. He has gone down in Kenya’s political history as the most honest and diligent political figure since Kenya’s attainment of independence in 1963.
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Friday, December 10, 2010

Century of Corruption

Overview of the Corruption Perceptions Index (...Image via Wikipedia

Corruption is a dangerous human interaction and has been in existence ever since the formation of human settlements. It is common for people regardless of sex or gender to indulge in selfish dealings. However, some nations are more corrupt than others. It all depends on the type of administration, the tautness of the constitution, the seriousness of authority in power, and the inflexibility of law and order.

Democratic nations are less likely to be corrupt and also less likely to descend into chaos while totalitarian regimes tend to be more lax and ineffective in fighting corruption of all types of vice. Authoritarian regimes usually compose of a cornucopia of unprofessional and untrained cadres who initially seized power by unconstitutional means. Corruption is more common in the global south or in developing countries than in the global north where leaders in power are more responsible and are known to uphold the rule of law. Corruption is most critical in flawed democracies, communist nations, and theocratic countries. In developed countries, corruption is rife in insider dealings, among lobbyists, and those who survive on commissions.

Once the police force of a nation is corrupt, dishonesty will seep to all sectors of society. Policemen and policewomen who solicit bribes may set a bad precedent for an entire nation. These are the people who are supposed to be setting good examples or act as role models in the first place. According to Transparency International (TI), Somalia, Chad, Angola, Iraq, Myanmar, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan top the list of the most corrupt states. Since 1995, TI has published the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Despite criticism of the validity of method used by TI, TI continues to sound bells on countries perceived to be the most corrupt.

The latest report by TI lists the Kenya Police as the most corrupt institution in the country. 92% of respondents in the country reported to have bribed police officers. However, corruption in Kenya is not only restricted to the police force; in fact it has affected all sectors of society. It is everywhere.
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Kyoto Protocol

UNFCCC logo.Image via Wikipedia

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), intended to combat global warming. [1] The primary focus of UNFCCC is the prevention of hazardous gases interfering with the global climate. It was mainly founded to fight rising atmospheric temperatures and overcome anthropogenic interference in a world besieged by rapid industrialization and calculated human pollution. The rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted in Marrakesh, Morocco, in 2001, and are called the “Marrakesh Accords”. [2]

Since its inception in 1997 and since going into effect in 2005, the Kyoto Protocol has remained contentious and unsolvable. Of the 191 countries that have ratified the protocol, only 37 countries remain committed to the reduction of four main greenhouse gases (GHG). These gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and sulfur hexafluoride plus two other gases hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons. Disagreements remain between developed or industrialized nations and those in the developing category regarding reduction of gases and protocol ratification. French scientist Jean-Baptiste Fourier became the first to sound the alarm and hypothesize the dangers of greenhouse gases in 1827.

“The greenhouse effect is the natural process by which the atmosphere traps some of the Sun's energy, warming the Earth enough to support life.”[3] The United States signed the Kyoto Protocol on November 12, 1998. Unfortunately, in late March 2001, the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto Protocol. However, the U.S. continued to attend annual Conference of the Parties (CoPs) to the UNFCCC though it did not participate in Kyoto Protocol-related negotiations. The United States’ displeasure with ratifying the protocol is related to its failure to meet the targets and timetables and its inability to come up with the potentially required high costs. [4] Spain ratified Kyoto in 2002 while Russia ratified the treaty in 2004. US emissions have been slower than other counterparts in the industrialized rim although its emissions volume remained much higher. In the 2007 global emissions, the US and China jointly accounted for 40% of emissions. To this day, the legacy of the Kyoto Protocol remains mixed with no defining remedy because developing countries oppose dividing up a fixed emissions budget. [5]

Developing countries blame developed countries for contributing to the demise of the ozone layer. With over a decade of negotiations, member nations have not been able to curb emissions or reach credible and tangible consensus. Developing countries are certainly opposed to limiting their developmental potentials and goals and definitely do not want to be committed to stringent emissions target.

The recent pronouncement by Jun Arima, a Japanese government official, that “Japan will not inscribe its target under the Kyoto protocol on any conditions or under any circumstances” was a big blow to the delicately balanced Cancun global climate talks. [6] This stern message from an official whose country is one of the largest emitters of greenhouses caught delegates by surprise. Economists describe carbon emissions as a negative externality. This implies that emitters do not shoulder the full cost of the damage they cause. Hence they produce unnecessary carbon dioxide that ultimately pollutes the environment and affects fauna and flora disproportionately (Nye 313). [7]

To be able to secure a more effective approach to the Kyoto Framework, member nations will need to come up with an alternative approach which means focusing on actions rather than focusing on outcomes. In view of the realist political wrangling between developed and undeveloped countries regarding disagreement over the Kyoto Protocol and the unbalanced dispersal of carbon waste pilfering into the atmosphere, the only political theory that could bring an everlasting settlement to the conflict would be to collectively embrace liberalism. Nations will have to come with acceptable targets and timetables and budgets commensurate with a nation’s financial ability.

References

[1] http://timelines.com/1997/12/11/kyoto-protocol-to-reduce-greenhouse-gases-is-agreed-on

[2] http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php

[3] Guide to Climate Change, Greenhouse Effect,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/greenhouse.stm

[4] Peter Saundry, Kyoto Protocol and the United States, Encyclopedia of Earth, Published December 25, 2006
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Kyoto_Protocol_and_the_United_States

[5] Warwick J. McKibbin and Peter J. Wilcoxen, Building on Kyoto: Towards a Realistic Global Climate Agreement, Security Initiative Working Papers Number 3, December 2008 http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2008/11_global_climate_agreement_mckibbin.aspx

[6] John Vidal, Cancun Climate Change Summit: Japan Refuses to Extend Kyoto Protocol, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 December 2010 18.16 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/01/cancun-climate-change-summit-japan-kyoto

[7] Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and David A. Welch, Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation: An Introduction to Theory and History (8th Ed.), Pearson Education Inc.
www.pearsonhighered.com


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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Somalia: Proliferation of Cantons and the Quest for Tribal ‘Lands’

Somalia's states, regions and districtsImage via Wikipedia

All of Somalia’s so-called leaders share one mindset: the dismemberment of the country into cantons ruled by ruthless tribal chieftains whose goal is to ensure the security and protection of their clans. Previously, it was Somaliland that seceded in 1992 though not recognized by the international community.

In 1998, Somalia’s former Eastern region, declared autonomy with established governing institutions in place headed by a president and seconded by a cabinet. During the colonial era, this part of Somalia currently called Puntland was known as Majertinia-a reference to the Majertein clan that is the dominant clan in the region. Now we have proliferation of cantons led by politically inexperienced former cabdrivers from the Diaspora-each drawing governing styles from Somaliland and Puntland.

The current transitional government of Somalia has no mandate over the rest of the country because it is surrounded by hostile Jihadi forces determined to enforce sharia law by sheer force. With his mandate restricted to an area the size of the Vatican, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the current transitional president, relies on African Union forces for protection. There has been mixed reactions among Somalis at the selection and endorsement of a Somali-American prime minister. With the mandate of the current transitional government ending eight months from now, one wonders how he can work miracles within such a short time.

The inhuman expulsion by the Puntland autonomous government of internally displaced persons from central and southern Somalia to the unforgiving city of Galkayo demonstrates the sadistic and appalling behavior of Somali tribal leaders and their total disregard for harmony and coexistence of Somali tribal groups. The subsequent arrest and marginalization of internally displaced families fleeing the unrest in the south by Somaliland and Puntland sets a bad precedent. Increased harassment of displaced families and the explosive territorial divisions currently visible in areas outside of the Islamists’ domain will set the stage for a future federal government based on tribal demarcations.

The current sorry state of Somalia is synonymous of an overflowing cooking pot being stirred by many unqualified chefs each struggling to set a nutritious meal on the table. Having too many cooks prepare one dish leads to poor results. Somalia has become a testing and breeding ground for a plethora of political theories and conflicting ideologies.

The boosting of AMISOM peacekeeping forces with an extra battalion from Burundi is to some, a way of accelerating peace and stability and the best approach to tranquilizing the powerful Islamists. To the contrary, more peacekeepers from African nations will open a can worms including escalation of hostilities, increased human displacements, and rapid dismemberment of the entire nation into ungovernable cantons.
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Is Democracy Essentially a Western Concept that is ill-suited to Countries with Other Cultures and Historical Traditions?

Conquests of Prophet Muhammad and the Rashidun...Image via Wikipedia

To many people, the statement “Democracy is essentially a Western concept, one that is ill-suited to countries with other cultures and historical traditions”, raises eyebrows. If democracy is compatible with Islam, then there shouldn’t be any problem having its values and ideals encompassing the entire globe.

However, some leaders will continue to resist democracy not because it is impossible for some cultures to grasp, but because of selfishness on the part of the leaders themselves. According to world famous Muslim scholar Yousuf Al Qadarawi, there is no problem if Muslim countries embrace democracy. He was quoted saying: "Democracy has done some good things. It has saved humanity from despots and dictators who act like gods. The details should be left to the people. Let them decide for themselves". However, he cautioned that the kind of democracy in the Muslim world would be different. “This is because in Islam there are some fixed principles that cannot be changed. But there are some things where the people can call for change, depending on the time and place,” he said. [1]

Followers of Islam have been admonished by Allah to look to the Qur’an for governance as per the statements: "And he who does not rule by what Allah sent down, it is they who are the rebellious." (5:47) Muslim countries could have prospered only if they were ruled by just rulers.
Majority of Muslim rulers today have been designated tyrants and usurpers by learned Muslim scholars. Prophet Muhammad prophesied that a time would come in human history when Muslims would be ruled by successions of tyrants.

At the epoch of Prophet Muhammad’s prophethood (PBUH), there were no beggars; equality and justice thrived; highway robbers and criminals diminished due to the enforcement of rule of law; and peace and prosperity thrived everywhere under the sway of Islam. The separation of state from Islamic practices is an impossible undertaking for any strict Muslim nation.

Despite allegiance to tribal philosophy reigning supreme in some Muslim cultures, the most important aspect to undertake before implementation of democracy would be massive education of the citizenry. Muslims believe that Qur’anic injunctions are superior to any other forms of governance. What is dissuading Muslim rulers from embracing democracy is the fear of eternal punishment.

Certain factors that remain hard to address in Muslim countries include issues pertaining to gender equality and abortion. To Muslims, sodomy and lesbianism are an abomination while abortion, according to certain schools of jurisprudence, is only permissible when the health of the mother is in danger.

References

[2] Muslim World Needs Democracy, says Qaradawi: http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=11311
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Friday, December 3, 2010

THE PITFALLS OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS IN THE CONTEXT OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

US President John F. Kennedy shaking hands wit...Image via Wikipedia

Introduction

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the United States has been the undisputed dominant power in terms of science and technology, military, politics, and economy with the exception of a time in history known as “the Cuban Missile Crisis” when John F. Kennedy’s faulty and hesitant foreign policy promoted and irritated Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to grasp his surreptitious intention in America’s backyard. Since that fateful day of October 14, 1962 when an American U-2 photoreconnaissance plane captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba, differing views and ideas have been deciphered and written by historians, political scientists, and students of international relations as to what went wrong and why secretive Nikita Khrushchev’s ill-fated operation happened in the first place in America’s backyard without prior knowledge of the U.S. president, the U.S. intelligence services, and American public.

From its inception in 1776 when courageous and heroic American men and women proclaimed their inalienable rights to self determination from the forces of colonial England, the government and people of the United States never imagined Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) would be hauled 7,000 miles all the way from the shores of communist adversary U.S.S.R and assembled a distance spanning ninety nautical miles from Florida on the shores of modern-day Cuba. Just as early seventh century C.E. Chinese rulers of the postclassical era thought the expansive Taklimakan Desert to be a natural barrier against foreign infiltrations and that also the pharaohs of Egypt saw the Sahara Desert as an obstacle for alien invaders, likewise, there was a perception in the United States that the massive Pacific and Atlantic Oceans would safeguard America from foreign aggression. The objective of this research is to uncover the pitfalls of the Kennedy administration for failing to uncover Soviet military build up in Cuba, nondescript Nikita Khrushchev’s fantasy of ensuring Soviet longevity through justification and emulation, and Moscow’s morbid suspicion of foreigners-especially America and Americans.

Soviet Belligerence in Words and in Deeds

Right after the end of the Second World War, in words and deeds, Soviet leaders and Soviet intelligence worked exhaustively without stop ultimately aiming at inflicting significant harm to the United States, to her allies, and to her democratic values. When McCone, in his capacity as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, presented a memorandum on the Donovan Project regarding the Soviet Cuban-Missiles to JFK on October 11, 1962, “The President requested that such information be withheld at least until after elections as if the information got into the press, a new and more violent Cuban issue would be injected into the campaign and this would seriously affect his independence of action.” In his memoir, Robert F. Kennedy indicated that the president knew nothing about the Soviet missiles in Cuba, “yet several times before the missile crisis erupted, Kenneth B. Keating, a White-manned Republican senator from Rochester, New York, charged that the Soviets were putting missiles on Cuba.”[1] For example, U.S. intelligence experts failed to analyze and preempt the strongly-worded message from the Soviet government carried by the daily Pravda on the morning of February 19, 1962, that read in part:
“Does the U.S. government organize and direct aggression against another country accusing it of having established a social system and a state different from what the United States wanted? If the U.S. government arrogates this right to itself, it is standing on very shaky ground, because it does not…possess the military might that would permit it to dictate conditions to other countries. The U.S. political leaders should take into account that there are other countries possessing no less terrible weapons, standing guard over peace, and prepared to prevent the unloosing of a new war.”
[2] The phrase “direct aggression against another country” is in reference to the United States’ policies toward Cuba while “social system” denotes the communist system established by Fidel Castro in Cuba with help from the Soviet politburo. Khrushchev issued this echoing message as a stern warning to the United States while the administration in Washington remained oblivious and unperturbed.

Soviet Missile Assembly in Cuba

According to U.S. intelligence information gathered on the Soviet build-up in Cuba, there were two types of missiles of distinct deterrence: medium-range and intermediate range. Designed to carry nuclear warheads and capable of travelling 1,100 miles; the medium-range missiles were capable of striking Washington, DC, Mexico City and other cities in the southeastern parts of the United States, Central America and the Caribbean area. The intermediate-range missiles had the capability to strike major cities in the western hemisphere from Hudson Bay in Canada to Lima in Peru. On the other hand, President Kennedy noted that Soviet bombers capable of carrying nuclear warheads were being “uncrated” and assembled in Cuba while Cuban air bases capable of accommodating the bombers remained under construction. [3]

Soviet Global political Irredentism

The Soviet’s undaunted political irredentism and ideological obscurantism predate the Cuban missile crisis. During Josef Stalin’s reign, the Soviet Union embarked on forceful territorial expansion by craftily moving southwards towards Iran and Turkey and by stealthily injecting communist thought into Greek political arena. After World War II the Soviet leaders embarked on a precarious mission of occupying the northern regions of Iran until the prime minister of Iran conceded defeat by promising the Soviets offer of oil to which the Soviets categorically rejected until the United States and Britain got involved with a view to controlling Soviet irredentist tendencies. As for Turkey, Stalin made various demands that included giving up of Turkish regions straddling Soviet borders, joint Soviet-Turkish administration of the Dardanelles Strait, Turkey sever relations with Britain, and lastly but not least, Soviet demand that Turkey lease bases in the Dardanelles Strait exclusively for use by Soviet naval and land forces. In Greece, communism spread like wildfire leading to the formation of a right-wing government. [4]

American Demilitarization and Soviet Expansionism

The expansion of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe coupled with the spread of communism in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America created prolonged competition between the forces of capitalism and communism. Nonetheless, according to President Harry Truman, the United States was devising an absolute foreign policy of “detachment from foreign concerns”. [5] It was this detachment in the form of demilitarization that in the long run led to “the most rapid demobilization in the history of the world.” Despite the United States’ active-duty personnel drastically dropping from 12 million in 1945 to a mere 1.5 million in 1948, on the other hand, weighted against the dilapidated, disenfranchised, and demoralized Soviet military power, the United States, assisted by the largest and the deadliest nuclear arsenals, enjoyed leverage over the seas. [6]

This unprecedented sweeping reduction of active-duty personnel by the U.S. sent commotion across continental Europe especially among nations that relied on American defense against anticipated Soviet aggravations. Ironically, “the United States lacked the ground forces required to intervene in anything greater than a minor conflict”.[7] American global political estrangement boosted Soviet leaders’ ill-conceived and detrimental willpower which consequently tremendously accelerated their convoluted ideological foundations across the globe undeterred. In addition, America’s sublime alienation sped up the evolvement of unparalleled despotic and authoritarian leaders in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa in the runner-up to the Cold War. Compared to the enormous Soviet global sphere of control at the height of communism, apart from providing unreserved protection to its compacted NATO allies in the European continent and the cluster of territories under its trusteeship, the United States enjoyed little global dominance while the Soviet Union’s malevolent communist ideology blanketed continental Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin and South America, and the Caribbean.

The Rise of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The Cuban missile crisis happened at a time when the president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, kept his brother Robert F. Kennedy who at that time was the United States Attorney General-as his closest confidant and advisor. [8] This task would have been left to someone with profound knowledge of national security issues-issues related to the containment of the Soviet Union’s unabashed spherical predation and growing global communist antagonism. Perhaps the youthful forty-three old John Fitzgerald Kennedy-the youngest president by then-did not seriously heed the advice of the aging Eisenhower-an advice in the form of a warning that pinpointed the growing global communist offensive and the threat posed by Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev-leader of the egregious Soviet Union (Aleksandr and Naftali, p.79). [9] At that time Soviet leader Khrushchev and his foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and others considered the new president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, “a typical pragmatist” while Soviet Americanists saw Kennedy’s position on USA-Soviet relations as being quite contradictory. [10] Under Khrushchev, Russian people always saw America as inferior technologically and militarily. After the first “beep beeps” of Soviet Sputnik 1 in space, NASA also blasted Explorer 1 into space as a countermeasure to Russian space race at which Khrushchev remarked: “but it is no larger than an apelsinchik” (tiny orange). [10] Paradoxically, the strongest man in the western hemisphere during the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy, was unwilling and unprepared to invade Cuba despite being pushed by Foster Dulles-the man who in the waning years of his life “maintained that the Democratic Party’s policy of "containment" must be replaced by a policy of "liberation." What United States foreign policy needed, he said, was more "heart." [11]

Fidel Castro: Dedicated Communist

Fidel Castro climbed the ladder of success with the promise of transforming the Caribbean island into a conspicuous Shangri-La. In contrast, Cuba under Castro transformed into a dragon’s lair. Despite preferring “godless communism” to the virtues of peace, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enjoyed by his neighbor, America, Fidel Castro-the revolutionary zealot and doyen of socialism, hung crucifixes and pictures of Virgin Mary on the walls of his office. He reportedly admonished envoys and diplomats with the parting words: “all that needs to be done will be done, [for] it is the Madonna who is sending you.” [12] Fidel Castro’s meteoric rise to power culminated in his resentment of the U.S. such that his coining of the pejorative phrase “yanqui imperialism” resonated across central and south America where Spanish remained the established lingua franca.

For several decades, there have been conflicting political, social, and economic rifts between the leaders of the United States on one side and those of Cuba and the U.S.S.R on the other. To ensure enhanced national security measures, hawkish U.S. civilian and military leaders preferred the use of force against Cuban leadership before, during, and after the infamous Cuban missile crisis. Consequently, the defeat of the communist regime in Havana would have ushered in the overall annexation of the island after the dust settles. The thought by some American leaders that the imposition of tough economic sanctions would cause unprecedented economic strangulation and in the end herald abrupt change in the Cuban political hierarchy preposterously failed to materialize. For dovish JFK and his ardent supporters in government, dismantling Soviet-Cuban hostility toward the U.S. and her allies entailed the use of strategies that reconciled with democratic expectations and norms. Such constraints and others of like measure placed on presidential powers unquestionably created intrinsic predicament in JFK’s pursuit of legitimate national security prerogatives.

Constrained U.S. Foreign Policy

For many decades American foreign policy remained a victim of tumult and political confusion. An aura of political malevolence and penumbra of mistrust ludicrously contaminated America’s congressional, senatorial, and presidential operations. The placing of precipitous limitations on presidential powers and erosion of confidence intensified the defeat of raison d'être among members of the legislature. Since the formation of pluralism, political parties in the American landscape-Democratic, Republican, and moderates alike-have been at loggerheads regarding the direction the nation ought to be steered. Besides, JFK was surrounded by a staff that had conflicting ideas and mixed reactions about how to handle the Cuban missile crisis. Some called for the elimination of the Soviet missiles positioned against the U.S.; others like General Maxwell Taylor-the fine-looking Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) who got in to trouble during the Eisenhower era for advocating a “flexible response” for the military in place of the then-prevailing doctrine of “massive retaliation”-expressed that “the balance of terror might well tilt in favor of Russia.”[13] Even some senior echelons of the U.S. government begrudged JFK most notably high-profile Dean Acheson who perceived young JFK as “…little more than a spoiled brat for whom the father had purchased a seat in Congress.”[14] JFK had little trust even for John McCone-the man who succeeded John Dulles as the highest-ranking CIA operative. In early August 1962, McCone assigned Philippe L. Thiraud de Vosjoli who was Washington chief for French intelligence to go to Cuba and have a glimpse of the island. Upon returning to Washington, DC de Vosjoli presented compelling evidence regarding Soviet missiles directed at the U.S. An agitated McCone asked JFK to take action about the Cuban threats. Because McCone was a Republican, the Kennedy’s gave little attention to his information. However, McCone’s reports were leaked to the GOP who accused the president of appeasing Castro. [15] When General Lansdale included in his memo the expression “including the liquidation of leaders”, he was persuaded by his immediate assistant William K. Harvey-“to delete those four words” [16]

“That Infernal Little Cuban Republic”

The United States’ abhorrence of Cuba stretches back to the days of Theodore Roosevelt who is reported to have told a friend in 1906: “I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth. All we have wanted from them was that they would behave themselves and be prosperous and happy so that we would not have to interfere. And now, lo and behold, they have started an utterly unjustifiable and pointless revolution.”[17] Cuba under Castro had always been a no-win situation for every sitting U.S. president because the administration in Havana remained hard to pin down even in places as far as Africa where Cuba remained an adversary to U.S. political commitments in the underdeveloped continent crippled by mismanagement and pathetic corruption such that a Washington Post headline decried: “U.S. powerless to contain Cuba in Africa” while Zbigniew Brzezinski who was making a report to his immediate boss, the president, exclaimed: “we are stuck on Africa.” [18] Even after Eisenhower and Kennedy had departed the world for the afterlife, Fidel Castro, continued to blow his own horn by bragging: “we will still be here in another 20 years.” [19] Decades later, during the 1980 campaign, flamboyant Ronald Reagan proposed a blockade of Cuba while his new secretary of State, Alexander M. Haig jr., had a more stringent measure: invasion. Almost all U.S. presidents shared similar mental images in their concerted attempts to restrain the tiny Cuban republic. Speaking to an audience of supporters at a campaign in 2004 at a time when ailing Ronald Reagan was battling Alzheimer and while Alexander Haig remained semiretired in Northern Virginia, George W. Bush, echoed the riveting point: “I’ve got a plan to spread freedom, not only in the greater Middle East but also in our own hemisphere, in places like Cuba.” Regardless of undertaking wide-ranging and profound foreign policy measures during his tenure of office, George W. Bush did little to effect change in Cuba consequently embarrassing wealthy Cuban-American campaign contributors and regular voters who populate the crucial state of Florida. In his final years of office, while responding to a question from the audience-a question in relation to U.S. foreign policy commitment in Cuba-George W. Bush had no other explanation other than stating: “One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away.” [20]

Soviet Dissemination of Propaganda

The Russians were adept at deceiving foreign leaders who felt inspired by communist principles with medallions of prestige and honor at grandiose ceremonies attended by a retinue of public figures with twenty-one gun salute, cocktail parties, and theatrical performances at the famous Bolshoi theatre in Moscow. From Latin America to Asia to Africa the number of foreign dignitaries lining up at the Kremlin to be showered on with praise must have been vast and boundless. “The payment of an honorarium was one of the traditional tools the Kremlin used to stroke foreign communists, leaders of national-liberation movements or “progressive cultural elites.” [21] While the Russians were deficient in military intelligence inside the U.S. at the time of the missile crisis, one thing is certain: U.S. national security services enjoyed superior and rigorous infiltration and information gathering structures inside the Soviet Union. On the contrary, the Soviets enjoyed superfluous and extraordinary array of intelligentsia where communism thrived such that Soviet military advisors and multifarious intelligence networks-despite espousing inferior intellectual paraphernalia in context and arrangement-flourished in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, South America, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Working in concert with host nations besieged by European domination, colonialism, and imperialism-nations whose inexperienced lackadaisical leaders attached great value to Leninist-Marxist ideology- the Soviets, through reckless dissemination of propaganda and rigorous deception, conscientiously exploited every conceivable economic fiber of these retarded nations. Seeing that the United States was turning a blind eye to the rest of the world with the exception of Western Europe where the U.S. had vested interests, the Soviet Union promptly expanded its sphere of influence clandestinely through antiquated blueprints such that it did not even shy away from setting base in America’s backyard.

U.S. Missiles in Turkey

Immediately after the defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II and up until that momentous day when a U.S.-owned U2 Spy Plane relayed back what became known as the “historic images” that triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet leaders perceived their country as inimitable, formidable, and invincible and far superior to the U.S. militarily and ideologically. Even with the proliferation of Soviet military buildup across the globe during the Cuban missile crisis, the administration in Washington, DC remained reluctant at deterring Soviet global threat. Thus, we could assume that the farewell reproach by statesman Eisenhower fell on John F. Kennedy’s deaf ears. Although many contemporary historians may allude the Soviet missile build-up in Cuba to be a countermeasure to the U.S. U2 spy plane shot by the Soviets over Soviet Union airspace, in contrast, to Anatoly Dobrynin-the man who remained Soviet ambassador to the United States during the terms of six American presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan-“the Soviets had been perturbed by the presence of NATO missiles in Turkey. [22]

The Soviet Union may have been a dedicated ally of the U.S. during World War II, but the truth of the matter is, it transformed into a venomous serpent immediately after the war concluded, perhaps in direct retaliation for the 20 million Russian lives lost and the devastation wrought from 1939 to 1945. By championing communism-an ideology that vehemently denounced American system of free enterprise in the strongest terms-Soviet leaders fervently took a perilous road for the sake of, needless to say, empowering and disseminating their godless ideology of collectivism while feverishly denigrating the democratic system of governance enjoyed by the United States and her western European allies.

Ineffective United Nations

Because of the veto power enjoyed by the two superpowers-the U.S. and Russia, the United Nations, the highest organization having jurisdiction over matters pertaining to international disputes, remained equally ineffective in settling the Cuban missile crisis. The U.N. was either ineffective or at the sidelines during the siege of Berlin, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and in Afghanistan. Historically, whenever a dispute arose with incumbent Soviet politburos, leaders of the United States oftentimes preferred settling matters of concern through diplomatic means even though the behaviors of key holders to the Kremlin may have appeared obstinate and inappropriate. [23] According to a very informative and important document available on George Washington University web site, “Fidel Castro recommended to the Kremlin a harder line against Washington, even suggesting the possibility of nuclear strikes. The pressure stopped after Soviet officials gave Castro a briefing on the ecological impact on Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States.”[24]

Analysis

Like past and current political analysts, political scientists, presidential historians, diplomatic observers, and the multitudes of international relations students who remain skeptical about how the Kennedy administration handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, arguably, the administration of the day did not apply the required skills nor did it institute the right measures to outmaneuver the Soviets before the deadly weapons reached America’s backyard. Lack of rigorous national security arrangements, the failure to infiltrate to the core Soviet-Cuban global conspiracy, and the absence of collective efforts to safeguard U.S. security from outside dangers by the National Security Council (NSC), enabled Khrushchev to clandestinely set base in communist Cuba. The absence of rigid national security establishment hindered the United States’ determination to restrain the spread of communism and to contain the Cuban missile crisis. Had there been close cooperation between the various sectors of the national security establishment and had there been profound monitoring of the spread of communism in the Caribbean peninsula, the spate of Soviet aggression would have been curtailed and kept at bay through preemption-a doctrine that came to fore during the reign of George W. Bush. However, after decades of baffling U.S. political misgivings toward the Soviet Union, it was the reflections and initiatives of George Keenan that gave the United States the strength of character to contain the Soviet Union-a long-term policy espousing fortitude and good judgment that proved productive during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. George Keenan, the U.S. Charge d’affaires in Moscow and author of the cable known to history as the “long telegram”, was a bright career Foreign Service diplomat and Soviet expert and a Princeton nonconformist who left significant footprints that benefited several U.S. presidents.

Endnotes

[1] Robert Smith Thompson, Missiles of October: The Declassified Story of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Simon and Schuster, Simon and Schuster Building, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
[2] Robert Smith Thompson: Ibid., p. 139

[3] Lieutenant Colonel Maureen M. Lynch (USMC0): Cuba, Castro, and the Cuban Missile Crisis
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1995/LMM.htm
(Accessed December 3, 2010)

[4] Steven W. Hook et al., American Foreign Policy since World War II (18 Ed.), 2300 N Street, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20037

[5] Steven W. Hook et al: Ibid., p. 33

[6] Stephen E. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938, 5th rev. ed. (New York: Penguin, 1988), 79.

[7] Robert A. Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945-1950, New York, Columbia University Press, 1985.

[8] Norman Polmar et al., Defcon-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey (P7)

[9] Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: The Secret History of the Missile Crisis, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 10 Coptic Street, London WC1A 1

[10] Fursenko and Naftali: Ibid., p.1X

[11] Robert Robinson, Black on Red: My 44 Years in the Soviet Union, An Autobiography by Black American, Acropolis Books, LTD., Alphons J. Hackl, Publisher, Colortone Building, 2400 17th St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009

[12] John Dulles, Arlington National Cemetery Website, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles#Bibliography
(accessed June 1, 2010)

[13] Fursenko and Naftali: Ibid., p. 29
[14] Robert Smith Thompson: Ibid., p. 187
[15] Robert Smith Thompson: Ibid., p.82
[16] Robert Smith Thompson: Ibid., p. 162
[17] Robert Smith Thompson: Ibid., p.163

[18] Lars Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, The University of North Carolina Press (2009)

[18] Lars Schoultz: Ibid., p. 320
[19] Lars Schoultz: Ibid., p. 3

[20] Remarks at a Debate Watch Party, Coral Gables, Florida, 30 September 2004, WCPD, 2196; remarks at New Port, Rhode Island, 28 June 2007, WCPD, 2 July 2007, 882.

[21] Fursenko and Naftali: Ibid., p. 45

[22] Obituary, Anatoly Dobynin, published 08 Apr 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/7568616/Anatoly-Dobrynin.html
(Accessed December 3, 2010)

[23] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

[24] William Burr and Svetlana Savranskaya, Previously Classified Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Failure Over Decades, Washington, DC September 11, 2009.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/index.htm
(Accessed June 28, 2010)

Bibliography

Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: The Secret History of the Missile Crisis, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 10 Coptic Street, London WC1A 1PU

David Isenberg, The Pitfalls of U.S. Covert Operations, Cato Policy Analysis No. 118 Retrieved July 3, 2010 from
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA118.HTM

John Dulles, Arlington National Cemetery Website,
Retrieved July 3, 2010 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles

Lieutenant Colonel Maureen M. Lynch (USMC): Cuba, Castro, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, retrieved July 3, 2010 from
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1995/LMM.htm

Robert Smith Thompson, Missiles of October: The Declassified Story of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Simon and Schuster, Simon and Schuster Building, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 1002

William Burr and Svetlana Savranskaya, Previously Classified Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Failure Over Decades, Washington, DC September 11, 2009.
Retrieved July 3, 2010, 2010 from
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/index.htm

The Impact of Globalization on Liberia’s Ecosystem

Coat of arms of LiberiaImage via Wikipedia

Introduction

Contrary to global socio-economic expectations, the West African state of Liberia has been slowly capitalizing on the growing and unique human interaction and interconnectedness sweeping the world in the name of globalization. Decades of recurring civil wars, coup d’états, endemic corruption, environmental pollution, and protracted insecurity has made Liberia a laughing stork in a world experiencing tremendous economic globalization. Despite Liberia’s proximity to the United States in terms of culture, politics, and history and despite Liberia containing abundant exploited and unexploited natural resources, the country has not achieved much in terms of economic globalization. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how globalization has impacted the ecosystem of the said beleaguered, impoverished, and war-ravaged nation and how Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have been in the forefront of depleting, polluting, and imposing immeasurable strain on Liberia’s ecology in the absence of corporate social responsibility.

Liberia: International Membership

Liberia is party to the following International Agreements: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, and Wetlands. It has signed but not ratified the following agreements: Environmental Modification, Law of the Sea, and Marine Life Conservation.[1] The unemployment rate of Liberia is 85%; population below poverty line is 80%; as of December 2008, commercial bank prime lending rate stood at 14.4%; inflation rate (consumer prices) stood at 11.2% (2007); as of 2006 Liberia’s estimated exports was $1.197 billion while estimated imports was $7.143 billion for the same year. [2]

Definition of Globalization

John Baylis, in his book The Globalization of World Politics, defines globalization as: “a historical process involving a fundamental shift or transformation in the spatial scale of human social organization that links distant communities and expands the reach of power relations across regions and continents.” [3] Said other way, globalization is the collective integration of political, economical, and cultural efforts across the globe. It emphasizes and incorporates trade and technology, health and culture, environment and migration, investment, banking and money issues, development and gender issues, international law and organizations, energy, human rights, global education, and global media. While globalization has been applauded in different regions as a strong allocator of resources, distrust and indecision to grasp its benefits has left many Third World nations including Liberia lagging behind in the field of economic globalization. There are very few Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in Liberia. One such notable MNC is the Firestone Corporation. “Multinational Corporations are private, for-profit organizations that have commercial operations and subsidiaries in two or more countries.” [4] MNCs may be headquartered in one country but have subsidiaries in secondary countries. MNCs retain ownership of and managerial control over subsidiaries while producing goods and services for the world markets at the least possible cost. [5]

Rubber Introduction and Production

Rubber was introduced to Liberia from South America in 1900s with Bridgestone, a Japanese company-the parent company of Firestone-owning the largest rubber plantation. The first large-scale rubber plantation was started in 1906, when American industrialist, Harvey Firestone started 118,000 acre (48,000 ha.) concession some 50 kilometers east of the Liberian capital Monrovia. Despite being owned by Bridgestone, Firestone has it’s headquarter in Nashville, Tennessee. In total, there are seven major rubber tapping companies in Liberia, namely: Firestone, Liberia Agricultural Company (LAC), Guthrie, Liberia Company (LIBCO), Salala Rubber Corporation, Cavalla and Sinoe Rubber Corporation (SRC). According to a 2002 IMF report, Liberian rubber exports were estimated at 54.7 million USD with rubber production accounting for 99,569 tons for the same period. [6] Even though rubber is a source of immense wealth for Liberia, persistent corruption undermines the equitable distribution of resources. A comprehensive report produced by a joint publication of Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) and the Association of Environmental Lawyers of Liberia (Green Advocates) states: “Firestone, after all, has been extracting rubber from Liberia for over 70 years, and has so far not manufactured so much as a single rubber band in the country.” [7] There have been widespread manipulations of the economy of Liberia by the rubber producing sector. This is stipulated in a comprehensive produced by UNMIL. “In May 2006, the UNMIL Human Rights and Protection Section (HRPS) studied Liberia’s rubber sector and published a series of key findings and recommendations pertaining to the sector. 66 Issues that it examined included human rights concerns pertaining to the industry; post-conflict business practices and corruption; the status of and role of commercial rubber concession and management agreements; worker, child, and community rights; implications of plantation agriculture and sectoral industrial practices for the environment; and the rule of law within the rubber sector, including issues relating to ex-combatant occupation of plantations.” [8] According to UNMIL reports, labor disputes with rubber conglomerations remain a security concern for the government of Liberia (GOL).

Negative Implication of Globalization

The interaction of plants, animals, and other organisms with the environment is defined as an ecosystem and may include deserts, grasslands, tundra, deciduous forests, and tropical rain forests. Any form of alteration in the ecosystem like logging, slash-and-burn, soil erosion, insect infestations, desertification, and desertization usually results in environmental depletion and ecological degradations. Scientifically, pollution is defined as “an undesirable change in the physical, chemical or biological characteristics of air, water, soil, or food that can adversely affect the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living organisms.” [9] The refusal by some developed countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol has raised wild condemnations. Environmental scientists have come up with what they refer to as “Pollution Haven Hypothesis” which will allow China and India to be exempt from emission caps because of the United States’ refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. On the other hand, because of this exemption, domestic industries will head to China and India. “A common criticism is that advanced economies have often moved their more dirty industries to other parts of the world where there are less stringent environmental and social standards. As a result, other countries may be polluting on their behalf…” [10]

Current environmental issues for Liberia include tropical rain forest deforestation; soil erosion; loss of biodiversity; pollution of coastal waters from oil residue and raw sewage. Often, MNCs have been accused of practicing varying forms of exploitations: manipulation of child labor and environmental degradations in regions governed by corrupt regimes where laws are lax and ineffective. [11] Reports abound of workers suffering untold health hazards while perilously toiling extended hours in poor conditions. Liberia’s European-owned timber industries have been implicated in illegal arms trafficking. According to a 2003 report, arms shipments destined for Charles Taylor arrived at ports controlled by the timber industry. The report further affirms that arms shipments arrived from Eastern Europe every two to three weeks via Nigeria and Libya before being dispatched to their right destinations to wreck havoc on peaceful civilian populations. “The government’s timber policy ignored international logging restrictions by permitting timber companies to clear-cut large expanses of protected West African rain forest."[ 12] The departure of Charles has left Liberia in a state where the current central government under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf still remains confounded by traces of corruption and environmental pilfering. Usually, it takes many years for any nation to recover from such gross human miscalculations.

In Liberia, employers are not mandated by law to provide their employees with certain benefits such as medical, paid vacation, sick leave, and unemployment benefits that are enforced in the west. Working in concert with successive regimes that were unsympathetic to defenseless civilians, Firestone and like corporations meticulously depleted the Liberian ecosystem through pollution, destruction of fauna and flora, and the practice of negative externalities. Employees of Firestone have consistently complained about Firestone’s indiscriminate dumping of toxic wastes into the riverways adjacent to the plantations owned by Firestone without considering the consequences these chemicals may have on the workers’ health. Workers complained of exposure to pesticides, formaldehyde, and toxic fumes from ammonium nitrate during rubber processing. With a meager wage of USD 3.19 a day, workers, oftentimes, with the help of their children, have to work 21 exhausting hours a day, to tap 1,000 trees.[13]

In the past, Bridgestone/Firestone sponsored the Super Bowl with the goal of showcasing its brands to 1 billion viewers around the world. Ironically, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who in the past closed his eyes to the actions of Bridgestone/Firestone by allowing it to be a sponsor of the NFL, is a board member of Action for Healthy Kids. An organization whose goal is to fight the causes of obesity and undernourishment in children, the vision of Action for Healthy Kids is to ensure “all kids develop the lifelong habits necessary to promote health and learning.

Positive Implication of Globalization

Despite globalization integrating capital, technology, and information across national borders, tensions exist between the globalization system and ancient forces of culture, geography, tradition, and community. Before the outbreak of the civil in 1989, Liberia was the leading producer of Iron ore in Africa with sizable deposits found in the Bomi Hills, the Bong Range, the Mano Hills, and Mount Nimba, where the largest deposits occur. Other minerals include diamonds, gold, lead, manganese, graphite, cyanite (a silicate of aluminum, with thin bladelike crystals), and barite. With increased hardwood timber production, Coffee and Cacao cultivation, Liberia has seen substantial increase in the number of foreign corporations settling in the country. Just like its neighbor Sierra Leone, the abundance of uncut diamonds necessitated the spread of “blood” or ‘conflict” diamonds, consequently prompting the UN to impose a ban in 2001. Under the auspices of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, an international program that ensures that the rough diamonds trade does not finance armed conflict, diamond mining resumed in 2007 with the blessings of the UN.

The registration of foreign merchant ships under the Liberian “flag of convenience” has made Liberia one of the world's leading countries in registered shipping tonnage second after Panama. The announcement by President George W. Bush on May 31, 2003 of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) saw Liberia sign sea boarding agreement on February 11, 2004 which gives either one of parties to this agreement the right to board, search, and if possible detain any ship found to be harboring suspicious cargo. Such initiatives have given Liberia, Panama and other nations that are party to the PSI the obligation to bring about greater self-assurance in their flag registry. With ongoing deepwater oil exploration along the Atlantic coast, the prospect of tapping into black gold has so far not diminished. The presence of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) preceded by contingents from the Economic Cooperation of West African States (ECOWAS), the implosion of shipping lanes, the interaction of Liberians with the United States and the European Union (EU) through commerce, migration, and education and their mutual relationship with Asian countries like China, South Korea, and Japan through trade imports, and the elimination of policy barriers to trade and investment, have intensified economic globalization.

Income Inequalities

Attributing globalization to the demise of the poor is a misguided notion. With the exception of a few global leaders with futile beliefs towards globalization, many nations-especially developed ones-remain convinced that globalization does more good than harm to the poor. Those leaders opposed to globalization have the penchant to hold back the four components that are a forerunner for growth and development: economic integration, technology, political engagement, and personal contacts. Trade, Foreign Direct Investments, capital inflows and outflows, and net factor income are the determining factors in economic integration. Critics of globalization are of the opinion that globalization has brought rising inequality and poverty. Another downbeat argument by some writers or scholars is that MNCs significantly change the infrastructure of host countries and at the same time alters the culture and tradition of the locals they encounter.

Conclusion

Even though the cultural and environmental quandaries created by foreign-based transnational corporations like Firestone may seem disastrously discombobulating at first glance for any concerned environmentalist, the strengthening of the global environmental agency UNEP and the reinforcement of Liberia’s EPA could place a cap on further destruction of Liberia’s cultures, traditions, and the environment not only for the present but for posterity. As long as Firestone-Liberia and other multinational or transnational corporations operating in Liberia abide by the internationally recognized environmental standards management set forth by ISO 14000, there shouldn’t be any problem for it operating from far a field in any developing country including Liberia.

Endnotes
[1] Liberia: African Development Bank-World Bank Joint Assistance Strategy, 2008-2011 and Eligibility to the Fragile States Facility http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Project-and-Operations/Liberia_%20JAS%20BAD-WB%202008-2011%20Eligibility%20to%20the%20Fragile%20States%20Facility.pdf
(Accessed July 16, 2010)

[2] Liberia Economy 2010, CIA World Factbook,
http://www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/liberia/liberia_economy.html
(Accessed July 16, 2010)

[3] John Baylis et al., The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (4e), Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP (P19)

[4] Kelly-Kate S. Pease, International Organizations, Perspectives on Governance in the Twenty-First Century (3rd. ed.), Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

[5] Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1987

[6] United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), Human Rights in Liberia’s Rubber Plantations: Tapping into the Future (May 2006)
http://www.laborrights.org/files/UN%20Liberia%20Rubber%20Report-%20%20May%202006.pdf
(Accessed July 16, 2010)

[7] Land Grabbing and Land Reform: Diamonds, Rubber and Forests in the New Liberia
http://www.pacweb.org/Documents/diamonds_KP/17_Liberia-Land-Grabbing-Reform_Jul2007.pdf
(Accessed July 16, 2010)

[8] Liberia's Post-War Development: Key Issues and U.S. Assistance by Nicolas Cook Specialist in African Affairs, May 19, 2010
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33185.pdf
(Accessed July 25, 2010)

[9] G. Tyler Miller, Jr., Sustaining the Earth: An Integrated Approach, Thomson Higher Education, 10 Davis Drive, Belmont, CA 94002-3098

[10] Corporate Social Responsibility by Anup Shah, July 07, 2007
http://www.globalissues.org/article/723/corporate-socialresponsibility#Rankingcountriesontheircommitmentstocorporatesocialresponsibility
(Accessed July 16, 2010)

[11] Firestone in Liberia ‘pollution’-BBC News, Oct 29, 2009
http://www.stopfirestone.org/2009/10/firestone-in-liberia-pollution-bbc-news/
(Accessed December 3, 2010)

[12] Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime and Terrorism, Library of Congress-Federal Research Division, October 2003
(Accessed July 24, 2010)
http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/frd1003.pdf

[13] Emira Woods, Modern-Day Slavery and the Big Game February 3, 2008,
http://www.alternet.org/economy/75824/
(Accessed July 16, 2010)

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