Afghanistan

Well, what do you know? I have spent the past few years trying to figure out how to access my blog. I'd given it up for dead. Bwahahaha! Let's see if I can resume.

Say what you may about Afghanistan, they have one of the best panhandles out there. It's known as the "Wakhan Corridor" and is a result of the rivalry between Russia and Great Britain in the second half of the 19th century. It was created to provide a buffer between the the two empires.

Speaking as a citizen of West Virginia, I've always had a fondness for panhandles. This one's a beauty. And it's all-natural, too. The northern border is comprised by a river, and the rest follows mountain ridges. By all accounts, it is a beautiful land.

That's all for now, but I will be back. Until then...

Argentina

Argentina is our latest stop on our quasi-alphabetical round-the-world tour. I would like to discuss Las Islas Malvinas, aka The Falkland Islands. Argentina claims 'em, Britain occupies 'em, and the rest of the world wonders what the bloody hell could be so damned important about 'em that the aforementioned countries would go to war. 

   In a nutshell:
-The Argentine claim is based on several points. First, the Jason Islands, located just off of the northwest coast of the Falklands, were first sighted by a Spaniard (1519). These were the first parts of the future British territory to be discovered by Europeans. Second, the first European settlement on the Falklands was by the French, who later abandoned their claim in favor of their ally, Spain. Third, the Spanish placed the administration of the Falklands under their governor at Buenos Aires. Of course, Argentina is the successor state to Spanish claims. Fourth, the Falklands lie on the Spanish side of the line of control established by the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal.
-The British claim stems from the fact that they were the first country to make it to the Falklands proper (1592). Well, that and stubbornly clinging to the belief that once some land is claimed, a country's gotta do whatever it takes to actually occupy said land (i.e. "national honor").

Why such persistence by the French, Spanish, and British? Well, Cape Horn is a very hazardous place, with sudden severe storms, icebergs, shallow rocky bits, and penguins. The nearby Falklands are a good place for ships to recuperate after being battered. In addition, the islands made a good naval base of operations for controlling the nearby passages, which were the only way to sail past the American continents. This is of the utmost importance to a global power, so even though the Falklands are so very far away from Great Britain, or France, or Spain, and they have no important minerals or plants, they are still to be desired. Later on, after the onset of the Industrial Revolution, various tiny islands (the Falklands included) assumed new importance by being places that steamships could load up on coal for fuel. Of course, now there is the Panama Canal and air travel, so really, up until recently the only reason the Falklands were still British and not a part of the much closer Argentine Republic is because all of the inhabitants are English, Welsh, Scots, Irish (and have been for well over 150 years) and have no desire to be a part of a coup-ridden Latin American country. Also, British honor is still partially tied up in having these little reminders of how great and widespread the kingdom once was.


Well, lucky for us, there's a new reason for this stupid machismo affair to raise its ugly head once again. It wasn't known in the early 1980s, when Argentina invaded the Falklands, but there's a good amount of oil down thataway. That is a much better reason to go to war than "national honor". National honor doesn't make the cars run, you know. Nonetheless, national honor was the reason that Argentina invaded the Falklands in 1982. The Argentinian economy was a shambles at that time and the military government needed something to distract the population. Patriotism always gets used to sucker people into doing something they should know better than to do. Since being re-evicted from the Falkands, various Argentine governments have pressed their case, while other Argentine governments have backed off of the topic. That's going to be harder once those oil fields begin to get developed.

Armenia

Armenia is one of the Caucasian countries. You know, wedged in between Russia & Iran and the Black & Caspian Seas. It's one of the first areas to make Christianity a state religion (in 301 AD). However, they're one of those smaller countries that has largely been able to survive via playing off its larger neighbors (the Russian, Persian, & Ottoman Empires) against each other.

That hasn't always been enough, however. I would like to discuss the Armenian genocide. This took place during the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire systematically killed somewhere between 300,000 & 1,500,000 Armenians, allegedly because they were sympathetic to the Russians and the other members of the Triple Entente. Previous to World War 1, the Armenian people had been subjected to pogroms by the Ottomans, so admittedly they weren't very interested in wholeheartedly following the Sultan into the maw of destruction that would result. Most Armenians at the time lived in the region that later on would contain the independent state, but many also lived in the cities further west. In the end, it didn't matter. All of the usual atrocities were committed: rape, torture, murder, forced marches. Although, because it was the industrialized 20th century, innovation in inhumanity abounded. For instance, children were gassed in school buildings. Other examples: cramming them into railroad cars and deliberate injection of typhoid. Often, the crimes were committed by a group of people that really should have known better: the Kurds. I guess the karma from these actions is helping to prevent independence for them.


So now we fast-forward to the present day. Armenia borders a total of four countries: Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, & Turkey. Any connection to the rest of the world has to go through these countries. Georgia periodically becomes somewhat off-limits whenever it has a kerfuffle with Russia. Iran has good relations with Armenia but, as sanctions against it tighten, Tehran cannot be a very good conduit for products to Yerevan. Azerbaijan, well, let us just say that it will be decades before it manages to have anything resembling normal relations with Armenia.


That leaves Turkey. And Turkey refuses to admit that there was a genocide committed against the Armenians (and the Assyrians, and the Greeks of Asia Minor [or was that merely ethnic cleansing?]) In fact, denying the Armenian experience of World War 1 seems to be a major point of Turkish pride. Turkey has gone to great lengths to produce media coverage that is sympathetic to its position that the mass murder of Armenians over 90 years ago by the government of the Ottoman Empire has been overstated to large extant. It has purchased advertisements in large North American newspapers. It has given "economic consideration" to historians to try to prove its case. Alright, we get it, Ankara. You feel as though your national pride is being besmirched. Because modern day Turkey has been a friend to the West, it has been incredibly difficult to get governments that ostensibly care a lot about human rights to simply state that there was a genocide of the Armenian people. To this day, only around 22 countries have recognized the slaughter. The United States is not one of them. However, 43 American states have done so.


Perhaps you, dear reader, have noticed my efforts to continually use the name "Ottoman Empire" wherever applicable. This is consistent with an idea that I have to perhaps assuage the ego of the Turks while simultaneously normalizing relations between Armenia & Turkey. This Armenian Genocide was not committed by Turkey. It was actually performed by the Ottoman Empire. See the difference? Turkey = Asia Minor (Anatolia). Ottoman Empire = Algeria to Iraq to Budapest. Turkey is the name of the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, but it doesn't have to be guilty of the acts of the Ottomans. Turkey is a modern state; the Ottoman Empire has been consigned to the dustbin of history. Please, Ankara. Please read these words and make a little more peace in the world by treating Armenia with friendliness.

Angola

Angola is a former Portuguese colony located in southwest Africa. If you take a closer look at the map, you will notice that Angola has an exclave, Cabinda. Separated by D.R. Congo's small coastal strip, Cabinda was, like Angola, a Portuguese territory.

Seriously, it's bigger than Delaware....it's HUGE!

Throughout most of its colonial era, Cabinda, known as Portuguese Congo, was administered separate from Angola. When the end of Portugal's rule over its African dominions was nigh, and every territory had its own local army fighting for freedom, Cabinda was no exception. MLEC (Movement for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda) was formed in 1960, followed in 1963 by FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda). Unfortunately for the people of Cabinda, in 1967 oil was discovered offshore. A lot of it. In fact, between 60 & 70% of Angola's oil comes from these offshore deposits. That increased the determination of Angola's three independence movements to not let Cabinda have a say in its future. After Portugal's Carnation Revolution in 1974, the three groups (UNITA, FNLA, & MPLA) met with the Lisbon government to establish a timetable for the withdraw of Portuguese forces. With the subsequent Alvor Agreement, it was decided that independence would come in November 1975. It was also decreed that Cabinda was to be considered an integral part of Angola. Neither FLEC nor any other organization representing Cabinda was party to the agreement. 

And thus it came to pass that on August 1, 1975, Cabinda went ahead and declared independence. It lasted until November of the same year. After Angolan independence, and before the decades-long Angolan Civil War really kicked into high gear, MPLA forces invaded Cabinda. Previously, Cabindan efforts at international recognition had been limited to the leaders of both Congos jockeying with each other in order to eventually annex an independent Cabinda. Now, FLEC didn't even have that support. (African countries have a policy of trying to maintain the border situations that existed at independence- they don't want to have to go the very big hassle of trying to create more logical borders than the ones left behind by the Europeans). Nonetheless, Cabindans have maintained a low-level war of independence for several decades. Usually, their modus operandi has been to kidnap foreign oil workers in order to draw attention to their plight. Unlike the situation in the Niger Delta, these oil workers often get released after a couple months because no international media publicizes the situation. However, back in January 2010, Cabinda managed to make the international news outlets when a faction of FLEC attacked a convoy carrying the Togolese soccer/football team to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations tournament, which was being held in Angola that year; three people died in the half-hour attack. It was claimed that the attackers were attempting to ambush only the Angolan forces at the head of the convoy. International condemnation followed, which generally isn't something you want when you are trying to win world opinion over to your cause.

It's hard enough being Delaware at war with Texas...don't piss off Togo too.

Algeria

Algeria is currently experiencing a multi-city outbreak of protests. Government buildings have been occupied or set alight. The reasons for this are ostensibly simple: high unemployment, housing shortages and a recent sharp increase in food prices. But Algeria's problems are much deeper than that, with many different layers of conflict going on simultaneously.


What's going on?
Algeria does not have to be a second-world nation. The country has large deposits of petroleum and natural gas which leads to budget surpluses that could be used to further develop the national infrastructure. But instead the government, with the military as the power broker, funnels large amounts of funds into foreign bank accounts. In addition, the military demands a large share of government revenue due to the constant threat of perceived internal enemies of the state. 

Self-fulfilling prophecy
The only reason that there are "threats to the state" is because the government has been dictatorially-minded during all 48 years of independence. Granted, the bitter war of independence, with an approximate million deaths in less than 7.5 years, would leave Algeria traumatized, but leader after leader has been autocratic to the point of being a dictator. The only non-dictatorial leaders have been puppets of the military. So here is a large country with a rapidly-growing and increasingly educated population with no freedom of the press, no right of dissent, no freedom of expression, and no opposition parties. Many were angry at the government, but they were equally as suspicious of the other groups that were in opposition to the government. Communists distrusted democracy advocates. Both, perhaps alarmed by the results of the Iranian Revolution, were deeply distrustful of the Islamists. And all were disdainful of the Berbers who had grown tired of having their distinctive culture overwhelmed by the majority Arab culture (e.g. no teaching of Berber in the schools). The pressure on Algeria's strongman government kept on growing.

Lead-up to the current situation
And so, by 1990, Algeria's government was up against two very strong but diametrically opposed factions: socialists and Islamists. Elections were finally held: the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) won the first round. Before the second round could occur, the military stepped in, dismissed the president and banned all political parties based on religion. This led to the Algerian Civil War. For a solid decade, both the military and their foes, the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA) & the Islamic Armed Movement (MIA), played dirty hardball. Over 160,000 people died, many gruesomely. The tourism industry was decimated as tourists were specifically targeted by the rebels. Many average Algerians were caught in the middle; all they wanted was to make a living. Instead, they were being beheaded or set on fire in front of their families. Many just "disappeared". Both sides committed atrocities and blamed the other for doing them. Slowly, the insurrection lost its momentum, especially after a government amnesty program was enacted.
However, the problems that led to Algeria's violent past have not been corrected for the most part. On the positive side, Berbers have some more recognition as a separate culture nowadays, with  Tamazight a "national language" and students being educated in the tongue.
So much for the positives.

The problems
-Currently, many of Algeria's most powerful figures were important during the days of the early 90s coup and its aftermath. To the West, this is not a problem, as these men have proven that they're serious about combating the spread of fundamentalist Islam.
-The Islamic insurrection never did completely fade away. As Groupe Islamique Armé declined, it was replaced in importance by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), an organization that has allied itself with the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. However, there are those who say that all of these ne'er-do-well groups are mostly just hype created by the Algerian government in order to maintain a good standing with our fervently anti-terrorist military-industrial-congressional complex.
-Normal Algerians have not been isolated from the world at large. They know that just across the Mediterranean are countries whose people can access the Internet, assemble in large groups, read uncensored news. Algeria however, has recently joined the ranks of Islamic countries that apply censorship to the Internet: the Algerian political website Rachad, founded by former members of FIS has become inaccessible to Algerians. This is in addition to a 2001 amendment to the penal code provisions relating to defamation and slander, widely seen as an effort to keep the press under control. This is infuriating to many of the people.


And so, here are a bunch of un- and underemployed Algerians watching their national infrastructure falling apart due to lack of investment even while many of their rulers are obviously making out like bandits. They are angry at having no ability to make ends meet nor even to find a decent place to live. And they can't even bitch about how life sucks without offending someone from the ruling class and perhaps putting themselves into a difficult, if not dangerous, situation. No wonder things are burning here. Although these revolts tend to blow over after a relatively short time, the United States needs to realize that by supporting despots, we will inevitably have to face another situation like late 70s Iran. All across the Middle East & North Africa, the West is seen as propping up bad guys. We must be careful.

Andorra

Andorra is a nice quiet little micronation lodged in between Spain and France. Its people seem to have a lot going for them nowadays: employment rates are around 100%, as are its literacy rates.  Because of its status as a "free port" (i.e. low or no tariffs), Andorra has been a good place for citizens of the European Union to go and purchase cheap consumer goods, especially tobacco products. This has been due to the country's unique relationship to its neighbors. Being a sort of dependency of France and Spain meant that Andorra had open borders with them; not being in the E.U. meant that it didn't have to erect the same trade barriers as that large organization. This situation has been abetted by improved transportation routes through the Pyrenees which has led to increased numbers of tourists (hikers during the summer, skiers during the winter). It's status as a banking tax haven sure has helped its economy, too.

Andorrans, man

Andorra has managed to survive all of Europe's kerfuffles almost completely unscathed. Napoleon didn't even bother to annex it to France until 1812, and its not like it was all that far from Paris. During WW1, Andorra did its part for the war effort and dutifully declared war on Germany. But because nobody really cared, Andorra wasn't invited to participate in the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. This resulted in World War 1 finally ending in 1958 when someone finally noticed and peace between Andorra and West Germany broke out. On the positive side, Andorra served a conduit for people fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe during WW2 (easy to enter from France, easy to leave to Spain). It was essentially Andorra's age-old tradition of smuggling put to a good use. Good job, Andorra!

Albania

Albania. Poor, poor Albania. Created at the turn of the last century by European powers wishing to break up the decrepit Ottoman Empire, at first it really wasn't that more underdeveloped than its neighbors. They were all places that could have served as the filming location of "Frankenstein": largely unpaved roads, lack of amenities such as electricity, hospitals, schools, etc.

Albanian Town Hall Meeting

Now flash forward a few decades. After World War Two, Eastern Europe developed itself in competition with the West. Albania, led by Enver Hoxha, lagged far behind and ended up isolating itself from virtually every other nation on Earth. Its people had no experience with capitalism and when the government in the early 1990s finally began to open up to privatization, most Albanians didn't understand that a "safe" route to investment in their future involved saving money in banks. Instead, they began to invest in pyramid schemes which promised very high rates of return. 
By the late 1990s, around 2/3 of the population was involved in the several Ponzi schemes active in Albania. Leaders of the schemes were frequently seen in the media & at events involving politicians, so most people thought that they were investing in something that was state-sanctioned and therefore a safe thing. Shortly thereafter, the bubble inevitably collapsed. Try imagining a situation where 2/3 of a country's population has lost all of their savings. They might get a little upset, to say the least, especially since it was the corruption of the more-savvy politicians that allowed these schemes to proliferate. Across the country, especially in the south, police & armed forces lost control of town after town. The people raided the police stations and armories and armed themselves. Thousands of people fled the violence on boats across the 40 mile wide Strait of Otranto to Italy. It took a multinational force five months to quell the violence.

Albania in 1997

Nowadays Albania has been showing improvements in both its economic and its democratic situations. It has tried very hard to ignore the irridentist elements of transnational Albanians in Macedonia, Greece, and Kosovo in order to further ingratiate itself with NATO (which it has since joined) and the E.U.

By the way, all those arms "liberated" by the people? There's a good chance they made their way over the border into Kosovo.

Kosovo: like Albania but with more guns

Antigua & Barbuda

Antigua & Barbuda is a small two-island nation, formerly British, that lies among the Leeward Islands. Like most of those islands, the early years of the islands' settlement was a story of sugar, slavery and rebellion. The smaller Barbuda (Spanish for "bearded") was primarily used as both a source of foodstuffs and a nursery of slaves for other Caribbean islands.

During the post-World War Two era, Vere Bird, member of the Antigua Trades and Labour Union, was elected to the local parliament. This started a career in politics that was to last until 1994. Starting off as rather a radical figure, Bird by the late 1960s had drifted rightward as he sought to maintain a position of influence as the territory moved toward independence, which came in 1981. Post-independence, Antigua struggled to find sources of income. Tourism was, and is, a mainstay, but is subject to fluctuations in the American economy and the government is often accused of not promoting the country enough internationally. Also, sugar exports don't bring in much money anymore. And so, Bird and his Antigua Labour Party came to allow the use of the country as an off-shore banking site. This continued after Bird's son, Lester Bryant Bird, assumed the prime minister-ship of the country. As a result, money-laundering became a problem, to the extant that the U.K. in 1999 issued an advisory to its financial institutions about the Antiguan banking situation.

But if you really want to see how Antigua's lax banking laws came to screw up the country, please examine the case of Allen Stanford. Born in Texas, his first off-shore banking adventure, on Montserrat resulted in his relinquishing his banking license in the British territory. Not wanting to go back to America's high tax rates, he therefore moved on to Antigua. Throwing his money around liberally (his net worth of over 2 billion dollars dwarfed the Antiguan economy), soon Stanford was rumored to even be sitting in on cabinet meetings. Eventually, Stanford became the country's largest employer. Buying huge amounts of land, he built a hospital, a cricket stadium, banks (off-shore and regular), owned a newspaper, and even had his own private security- and custom-free terminal at the local airport so that his guests could rapidly enter the country and dine at his gourmet restaurant The Sticky Wicket. Knighted by the government of Antigua & Barbuda in 2006, Sir Allen Stanford had it all. Unfortunately, Stanford was running a Ponzi scheme, with a side business (possibly) of laundering money for Mexico's Gulf Cartel. And in 2009, it all came crashing down with his arrest in America (he is due to stand trial in January 2011). Because of Antigua's dependence upon this one man criminal to prop up its fragile economy, his downfall is putting the hurts on 70,000 people.

Hello World!

Hello world! Testing...1, 2, 3....Is it rolling, Bob?