Three fascinating articles in NYT's "Week in Review":
thomaspmbarnett.com
First one ("Beyond the Bullets and Blades," by Marc Lacey, p. WK1) is really good, because it explores, thanks to some pathfinding research by Physicians for Human Rights and the International Rescue Committee, "how a society breaks apart when Africans flee the onslaught." You want war within the context of everything else? This is it.
Two graphics tell it all:
In first one, they note that "for every violent death in Congo's war zone," you get 28 children under 5 dead, plus 6 kids 5-14, plus 13 women 15-and-older, plus 15 men 15-and-older. How do they die? In their movement away from, through, and all around the violence, they come under stress. Six of these 62 nonviolent deaths come from malnutrition, 11 from respiratory diseases and diarrhea. Ten come from anemia, measles, meningitis, accidents, and TB. Seventeen come from fevers of various sorts, and 18 come from "other causes, to include newborn deaths and pregnancy-related deaths.
Graphic in back is even more telling: "destroying a family." A 75-year-old man had lived with his family and livestock in the Darfur region of Sudan, until his local city was hit by the janjaweed. In their retreat to refugee camps and their survival there, what was a man and his wife, their seven kids and at least three times that many grandkids, plus 3 donkeys, 25 camels and 105 sheep and goats is now reduced to this: a man and his wife, 4 kids, 10 grandkids, and 1 donkey. They're guessing 10 family members are dead, along with 104 animals lost or stolen or dead. That's a family destroyed. How many died a violent death? Who knows? But most probably did not.
War within the context of everything else.
Second story (Op-Chart "Two Years and Counting" by Lawrence J. Korb and Nigel Holmes, two personnel experts, p. WK13) does big run-down on the roughly 1,500 U.S. troop deaths since the war/occupation began.
Interesting numbers abound.
30% Marines and 50% Army and 16% Reserve Component. All inner-city poor? Like Michael Moore would have you believe? 26% urban, 40% suburban, and 33% rural. Average poverty rate of public high schools attended was exactly the nation average (30%), so very much a cross-section of the country. 96% were HS grads. 89% were enlisted, but then, 85% of all personnel in the military are enlisted, so no great surprise there. 73% were white, when only 67% of all the military are white. 12% were Hispanic, above their 9% for the military as a whole. African-Americans accounted for 11% of all the deaths, well below the 19% they represent in the military.
Why is that latter point true? African-Americans go in for the SysAdmin jobs more than others (a fact), tending to be in it for the longer haul than most, I'm guessing.
Third story is the usual yin-yang thing on China ("In Hong Kong, China Prefers Power to Law," by Keith Bradsher, p. WK4). China definitely cracking down a bit on Hong Kong as they swap out bosses and cut down terms from five years to two.
But here's the odd part you can't forget: "From purchases of handheld toys to charters of supertankers, contracts in China are frequently written so that disputes must be resolved under Hong Kong law and in Hong Kong courts—even when the parties involved are mainland companies."
The CCP wants its rule sets, but at its own speed. Where have we seen this before? With basically every emerging market over the past half century.
Posted by Thomas P.M. Barnett at March 20, 2005 07:35 PM |
