Countries all over the world attempt to play international chess with smaller, weaker countries because it can strengthen their own position, but how responsible are the controllers compared to the pieces they control?
For example, among the anti war crowd alot of noise is made of the fact that the USA supported Saddam Hussein when he gassed his own people. But how responsible would the USA be for that, since it was the Hussein government who did the gassing, the USA just watched & looked the other way becuase Iraq supported our interests. The US supported Iraq when it was in our interest (staving off taliban-esqe rebellions in the middle east) then stopped when he stopped serving our interest (invading kuwait).
I compare it to a prison fight. 20 hardened brutal criminals are together assaulting each other, and a handful of ‘the elite’ who are safely out of harms way strategically give them weapons & tactics so they can fight in ways where the winners are the ones who support the best interests of the elite. Instead of disarming them & making brokering peace thier only goal, they are also supporting violence when it suits their interests.
In the Sudan for example, the northern Sudanese are massacering the southerners with help from China. China is helping because Sudan is giving them oil in return for the help. How responsible are the Chinese? On one hand, they are encouraging war & repression, but on the other they are not the ones committing war & aggression, they are just manipulating & arming those who are because they stand to benefit.
So, how complacent are ‘the elite’ (ie, powerful countries who meddle in the third world)? On one hand, they can give evil people weapons, and disarm good people. But at the same time, they didn’t make the world evil, the world was already evil they are just manipulating an already evil system to further their interests.
I am not an expert on modern history, but from what I’ve read on the history of most ‘Third World’ countries is that their history after WW II is heavily influenced by the Cold War. In many cases, if the U.S.A. supported one party, the Soviet Union would support the other (or the other way around), providing funding and weapons, thereby making dormant conflicts explosive. It is too easy to say the evil was already there to start with.
Besides Cold War influences, there have been other influences. One is business. Since that again is a difficult subject of which I know too little, I can only point it out. I remember there used to be debates about Chili for example.
A final thing which has had impact, though it is difficult to say whether there is specific blame, is with Third World debts. Many countries would be able to provide food for their own population, if they were not obliged to pay off very heavy debts to the Western countries. These debts were often made in the past by other (possibly corrupt) governments. The resulting downslide of the economy fuels protest movements.
From what little I’ve read, it seems clear to me that the Western countries have always been a strong influence in the domestic politics, one way or another, so it is not correct to say we had nothing to do with it. I’m not preaching abstention, just wanted to point out that whether we like it or not, we’re in this together.
It would make sense to erase these debts, invest in infrastructure, education, and business partnerships. These nations could accumulate wealth and trade with us. I do not understand why this would not work. Maybe our policy makers are too focused on the short term.
What has the third world done wrong to be imprisoned? More importantly, which of the “brutal criminals” represents the civilian victims of civil war?
You might also note that the US supported the Taliban against the Soviet Union, and even supported Osama Bin Laden himself “when it was in US interests”.
This appears to be a perfectly serviceable definition of evil itself.
Becuase they owe me money. I invested in those countries - in industry, in trade - and now they owe me money. While it sure would be nice to say, “Hey, out of the goodness of my heart, I am forgiving your debt,” I can’t afford to do that. I want to send my kid to college someday, you see.
“Erase the debt” means that someone who extended credit is now not going to get paid. Where is the justice in that?
Or have you decided I’m rich enough already, and don’t deserve to collect the money I’ve loaned to others?
Forgiving Third World debts will do little or no good and Rick is SOL too. The problem is “kleptocracy.” When the major powers give Third World nations money for any reason, in 9 cases out of 10 the leaders take the money and enrich themselves isntead of building infrastructure or whatever else it was they were supposed to do with it. Since the infrastructure or whatever doesn’t get built, the profits from it don’t appear, and there’s no money to repay the debt from it. So the Third World leaders squeeze whatever portion of their populace they can squeeze to get funds to pay off the debt – generally their most poor.
Until we find a way to deal with this problems, most Third World projects are gonna fail.
And just in case you’re wondering, it was a liberal economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, who has pointed this problem out most vigorously.
SentientMeat There was no Taliban when the US funneled weapons to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in the 1970s-1980s. The Taliban came out of Pakistani Madrassas and gained prominence in the mid-1990s.
In my storied past, I once detailed cars on this car lot down on Washington Ave. There was this guy I worked for that practiced this business model:
The down payment price written on the windshield was very close to the price he paid for the car. If he carried the note and they made a couple of payments, then stopped, he would go out and repo the car. He would shine it up and sell it again. He actually wanted the folks to have the car reposessed. He was able to make much more money that way.
In this case and in cases like this, it seems to me that people are being exploited. I don’t know if this theory applies here, in debating third world debt.
So, send your kids to college by lending money to entities that possess the ability to negotiate terms that are favorable to both of you. That will create the best future for your kids… right?
Not wishing to reduce this debate to the age-old one of the comparative “injustice” of starving children and unpaid debts, but debt relief can bypass corruption by directly building tangible assets *eg.*wells, sewers, irrigation etc. (effectively “spending the money for them in their country”).
Where outright war prevents such investment in infrastructure, must the regime produce weapons of mass destruction before we consider military intervention?
(*beagle, I stand corrected. However, it would appear naive to assume that the Taliban and the Mudjahideen comprised mutually exclusive groups of soldiers.)
Kind of. The Taliban just didn’t exist yet. Some of the Mujahedeen went on to become the Taliban, while others went on to become the Northern Alliance. The US role in the development of this situation was not so much supplying the Mujahedeen as ignoring Afghanistan after the pullout and subsequent fall of the USSR. A vacuum ensued with tribal alliances jockying for position and an opening for foreign influence. The US could have been that foreign influence, but instead it went to Pakistan since the US didn’t pay any attention to the region during that crucial decade or so.
Anyway, I think that some powerful countries are very responsible for the messes that are occuring in many third world nations. It was the powerful nations that corrupted the social order in many countries during the imperial age, it was the powerful countries that subverted some stable regimes and put in place corrupt dictators (or at least, merely kept the corrupt dictators in place) during the Cold War. Many of these dictators ran up massive bills for personal use but used their state’s economy, people and resources as collateral (figuratively speaking). The people often saw no benefit, but could do nothing since the corrupt regime was supported by a power and now they are stuck with the debt.
Of course, some states just made poor financial decisions. Mexico, for instance, is in its financial situation due to borrowing stupidly during the oil run down there. When the price of oil came down, their debts savaged the middle class. The loans they took out were used (for the most part) for infrastructure and public development. They just made poor financial decisions and now are stuck.
Jacksen: Not the same thing. Loans to third world countries are not entrapment. Their leaders squander the money. Forgiving deb onlly sanctions that. As long as those corrupt leaders are in place, any aid will go the way of what went before-- down the toilet or into their Swiss bank accounts. It’s a tragedy and a crime, but giving more money to criminals is not the answer. I don’t know what the answer is. Regime change…?
John, I repeat, direct investment of debt relief in immediate, touchable infrastructure is one meeans of avoiding corruption.
The tragedy of some of the poorest countries in the world is that were they a private company they could declare bankruptcy and have their debts cancelled at a stroke. (I realise the conditions of bankruptcy might be difficult for a nation state to follow eg. “ceasing business”, but I still believe it is a telling comparison.)
The trouble being, there is no reason to believe that they would spend any more on infrastructure and other wealth-generating purposes now than they did when they ran up the debts on which they now would be allowed to default.
There is such a thing as “throwing good money after bad”. Third World dictatorships, such as the many in Africa, tend to spend their borrowings on things that will raise their prestige, or arms to keep themselves in power.
An example being Mengistu in Ethiopia. He spent his money on subsidizing food prices in the cities, where his power base and his army was based. This not only kept his army happy, it created hardship and eventual starvation for the peasants in the countryside, who did not support him anyway.
African and other dictators tend to build high-profile public works, like airports that no one flies into, or stadiums that are used only for mass rallies. There is no need to try to relieve the problems of the poorer masses - they do as they are told and keep their heads down, or they get shot.
Lots of dictators would love for the West to forgive their debts. That way, they get to keep what they stole with no accounting. Witness the Duvaliers with the hundreds of millions they accumulated skimming off the charity sent to Haiti by well-meaning donors.
Not to mention the fact that if a country were adjudged to be so destitute that its debts were forgiven, it would have an extremely difficult time borrowing any money from private sources in the future. It is only by paying back debts that thirld world nations can assure ready access to future capital.
Couldn’t many Third World countries in effect “declare bankruptcy” after a regime change?
Where dictatorships have squandered loans in corruption or war, a democratic government replacing it should be able to repudiate those debts, by invoking the doctrine of Odious Debts.
Some forms of infrastruture work, some don’t. Frex, I have a close relative who worked for years in Nigeria. (No, he doesn’t send people email, he worked for the oil companies.) He said they tried laying in power lines but the wires were stolen so they could resell the copper.
Paving roads might work. laying in water and sewer lines might work. But I’m not sure how you’ll get electricity to people in places like Nigeria.
