North Korea seems very insistent on testing President Obama. Apparently, the U.S. government is tracking a North Korean freighter suspected of carrying illicit arms.

Government officials say they will act within the bounds of a recent UN Security Council resolution which permits international navies to request the inspection of North Korean cargo vessels but does not give them the right to board. If the North Korean ship docks in a foreign port, the local authorities have broadened inspection rights.

North Korea has said any attempt to board a North Korean vessel would be considered an act of war. This threat likely explains Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ order to increase Hawaii’s defenses against a possible incoming long-range missile.

Gates’ order is almost certainly done out of an abundance of caution and not because the U.S. is planning to take action against the North Korean vessel. However, North Korea is not known as a rational actor and there is very real reason to worry even a small provocation could escalate quickly.

I’m not sure what North Korea’s endgame is, but the nation’s recent actions have been more than a little alarming. Hopefully things will simmer down. The world has enough to worry about already.

Reports today that Russian forces have left South Ossetia and are moving toward Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi are troubling to say the very least. If Russia does indeed try to take the entire country by force and overthrow the government, we’re looking at a brand new geo-political ball game. Now, there’s no indication that permanently occupying Georgia is their aim, but there’s no indication that it isn’t either after this latest move.

Still, rhetoric like this doesn’t make me feel hopeful…

In a sharp response to Bush’s speech, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Georgia’s leadership “a special project of the United States. And we understand that the United States is worried about its project.”

Russian news agencies quoted him saying the United States would have to choose “support for a virtual project” and or “real partnership” on issues such as U.S.-Russian cooperation on Iran and other world tension spots.

It’s kind of like, “You all go wherever you want because you say it threatens your security, and in this case Georgia actually struck first, so back off or we’ll start siding with Iran.”

However…Russia could overplay their hand here if they go to far with this latest march, and my guess is that this is yet another power play to make sure Europe and Georgia know they’re serious. Essentially, “You all know we could go there, but we didn’t and so reward us.”

So they may just want to humiliate Georgia enough so it looks like they have to kiss their ring and promise to never ever screw with them again. In fact, they may demand that South Ossetia and Abkhazia be granted their independence. That’s a long shot, but it could be in the cards. And of course this is a signal to all the other democratic nations in the area to never poke the bear, lest you invite a mauling.

On the flip side of this, doesn’t it seem like Russia needs the US just as much as we need them? A nuclear Iran isn’t a good thing for Russia either. Practically speaking, if a nuke somehow goes off in Europe, that could seriously upset Russia’s oil and natural gas business. Yes, it would hurt us and stunt our economy, but wouldn’t it devastate theirs too? Of course this is a country full of citizens accustomed to going decades without much of anything, so maybe they’re not as worried.

Until I hear more, it’s simply “wait and see.”

If you haven’t seen Frontline’s documentary about how we got into Iraq and how it all went wrong, you need to. It’s probably the most well researched piece I’ve seen so far, and the interviews with insiders are simply stunning. Many saw this train wreck coming, but Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld just didn’t listen.

In particular, this doc details how much influence Cheney and Rumsfeld had over our foreign policy. They actually wanted to go into Iraq FIRST! Amazing.

Go here and watch.

With Paul Wolfowitz leaving the World Bank at the end of June, President Bush has promised to move quickly on naming a successor. But who?

Among those mentioned as a possible replacement for Wolfowitz were former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who was Bush’s former trade chief; Robert Kimmitt, the No. 2 at the Treasury Department; Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; former Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.,; Stanley Fischer, who once worked at the International Monetary Fund and is now with the Bank of Israel; and former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

That list seems filled with pure speculation. But let’s go through them.

Volcker would be an interesting, noncontroversial pick, and likely to attract bipartisan support. And his experience investigating the United Nations oil-for-food scandal may indicate that he’ll continue Wolfowitz’s anti-corruption drive.

Paulson would be a mistake, unless Bush just likes playing “musical Treasury chairs”. There’s no real good reason to shake up Treasury one more time simply to fill a slot at the World Bank.

Kimmitt would be a solid choice. He’s a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, has ambassadorial and foreign policy experience and previously served on a World Bank arbitration panel. He’s shown an ability to get along with other countries throughout a long career.

I’m not sure why Bush would consider Jim Leach, since he’s a liberal Republican who opposed the 2002 Iraq war resolution and even opposed the president’s 2003 tax cut. This sounds like a case of Leach supporters floating the name, not anything eminating from the White House.

Lugar would be a more business-as-usual pick for Bush — a fiscal and social conservative who could probably be counted on to continue Wolfowitz’s policies. There’s also a bit of political calculation involved. Lugar is 75, and thus unlikely to run for the Senate again. Giving him another job would let the Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, appoint a Republican replacement. Lugar just won re-election, so the successor would serve for nearly six years and have the advantage of incumbency when s/he stands for re-election in 2012 — thus increasing the odds that the seat will stay in GOP hands.

Stanley Fischer I don’t know much about. He’s an economist, served as chief economist at the World Bank under Bush’s dad before moving over to the International Monetary Fund. Sounds qualified, but I have no idea what his politics are.

Of course, I half expect Bush to nominate Harriet Miers just to prove he can….

I’ve been posting about the benefits of nuclear power for some time now, and today I read a story about U.N. scientists proposing that we embrace nuclear power as a way to combat global warming. Not only that, we’re talking about cleaner air and cheaper energy for all.

From the Daily Mail:

More than 2,000 scientists have contributed to the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) report and 400 of them met today in Bangkok to finalise it before publication on Friday. The report is the biggest to study the practical actions that could reduce emissions and its findings will play a key role in Kyoto negotiations which will take place in December.

The new report is the third this year by the UN climate panel. An IPCC report in February said it was at least 90 per cent certain that mankind was to blame for global warming and on 6 April it warned of more hunger, droughts and rising seas.

“We’re moving from two very sobering reports to what we can do about climate change,” said Achim Steiner, the head of the UN’s environment programme. “And we can do it.”

While this won’t necessarily save the world, I do think it’s a necessary step towards energy independence.

Will we listen? Well…not likely. Creating these plants is a costly endeavor and would be hugely unpopular politically. Still, I wish somebody had the sack to see nuclear energy for what it is: safe, clean and effective.

Today, the IAEA reported that Iran, in open defiance of the UN, is steadily expanding â€â€? rather than freezing â€â€? its efforts to enrich uranium. Worse still, according to David Albright (a former inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security), they are installing centrifuges “faster than was commonly expected.â€Â?

The complete report from the IAEA Board of Governors is available here. This is the summary, with my emphases:

26. Pursuant to its NPT Safeguards Agreement, Iran has been providing the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and facilities, and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with such material and facilities.

27. The Agency is able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. The Agency remains unable, however, to make further progress in its efforts to verify fully the past development of Iran’s nuclear programme and certain aspects relevant to its scope and nature. Hence, the Agency is unable to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran unless Iran addresses the long outstanding verification issues through the implementation of the Additional Protocol (which it signed on 18 December 2003, but has not yet brought into force) and the required transparency measures.

28. Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities. Iran has continued with the operation of PFEP. It has also continued with the construction of FEP, including the installation of cascades, and has transferred UF6 to FEP. Iran has also continued with its heavy water related projects. Construction of the IR-40 Reactor, and operation of the Heavy Water Production Plant, are continuing. In contrast, there has been no indication of reprocessing related activities at any declared sites in Iran.

29. As underscored by the Director General at the meeting of the Board of Governors in November 2006 (GOV/OR. 1174, paras 86–94), given the existence in Iran of activities undeclared to the Agency for 20 years, it is necessary for Iran to enable the Agency, through maximum cooperation and transparency, to fully reconstruct the history of Iran’s nuclear programme. Without such cooperation and transparency, the Agency will not be able to provide assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran or about the exclusively peaceful nature of that programme.

Continued at American Future.

Ethicist Peter Singer has an interesting article in the New York Times magazine on charitable giving. It’s largely a discussion of “how much should one give?” and makes the argument that it is perfectly defensible, on moral grounds, to tax the rich more heavily than the poor and to expect them to donate more.

I’ve been looking for an article like this for some time. I’m nearing 40, and my wife went back to work this year. So we’re starting to hit that point in midlife where our discretionary income is high enough to make serious charitable giving a possibility. Up until now our monetary donations have been small and irregular — several hundred dollars a year, generally. Most of our charity has been about deeds: donating blood, helping neighbors, sending our excess belongings to nonprofits rather than throwing them out or holding a garage sale.

But now we’re starting to think about charity in a more organized way, and Singer’s article offered some thought-provoking ways to think about it.

Some of his more interesting observations:

1. Of the top four charitable givers in United States history, three were/are atheists or agnostic: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Andrew Carnegie (John D. Rockefeller, the fourth member of the group, was a Baptist). Further, Buffett’s charitable pledges — about $37 billion — more than double that of Carnegie and Rockefeller put together — after accounting for inflation. Bill Gates’ donations are nearly as large: about $30 billion.

That says nothing, of course, about whether believers or nonbelievers as a group are more generous. But it’s food for thought, as well as demonstrating the scale of modern philanthropy.

2. A lot of people argue that the rich owe much of their wealth to the society that helps them create it, but I’ve never seen the argument laid out in detail. Singer does. He cites Nobel-winning economist Herbert Simon, who estimates that social capital — the prevailing social, governmental and economic conditions — accounts for about 90 percent of what people earn in wealthy societies like ours. “On moral grounds,” Simon adds, “we could argue for a flat income tax of 90 percent.” Simon notes that that would be economically disastrous, but there’s nothing unethical with taxing more heavily those who can most afford to pay.

Warren Buffett explicitly agrees with that logic. “If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru,â€Â? he said, “you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil.â€Â?

(continued over at Midtopia)

James Traub, one of my favorite writers, has a piece in this Sunday’s New York Times on Iraq and civil wars in general. He quotes James Fearon, a Stanford University expert on civil conflicts, who ticks off the death toll, the massive refugee flows, the major players, and says “by any reasonable definition, Iraq is in the midst of a civil war.”

But that’s not really the point of this post, which is delve into what we might expect in the future as Iraq is consumed by sectarian conflict.

Scholars and diplomats who have closely studied civil wars describe them almost as forces of nature, grinding on until the parties exhaust themselves, shredding bonds that cannot be stitched back together even long years after the killing stops.

Wars that do not end quickly — as the Rwanda civil war did, for instance — tend to drag on for years. Take Northern Ireland, for example, or (as the article does) Bosnian and Lebanon. All three continued until everyone finally recognized that they were not going to win by force alone and decided that just about any alternative, including compromise with hated enemies, was better than continuing to fight.

In Lebanon — perhaps the best parallel for Iraq — that came only after 5 percent of the population was killed or wounded and half had become refugees. Translated to Iraq, those numbers would mean a war that caused 1.3 million casualties and uprooted 13 million people.

The good news, I suppose, is that we’re already making excellent headway on those numbers, with death estimates in the 100,000-plus range and 3.4 million refugees.

Given that civil wars are driven by grievances rooted in tribal, religous and ethnic divisions, it’s possible to view an Iraq civil war as inevitable. In this instance we were the catalyst, knocking over the dictator that kept the lid on the bubbling pot. But Saddam wasn’t going to live forever, and when he finally shuffled off the scene the suppressed tensions were likely to explode anyway. And one could argue that it’s better for that to happen sooner rather than later — otherwise the grievances keep piling up and make the subsequent spasm of violence that much more gruesome.

So what happens if civil war is indeed in Iraq’s future? Assuming the Kurds don’t simply secede and the Shiites don’t overrun the Sunni, this:

When the sectarian combatants finally do exhaust themselves, Iraq will need a great deal of outside help, though not the kind it has received so far. Civil wars liquidate the trust among parties that makes settlements possible; outsiders must act as guarantors and, usually, peacekeepers. And they have to be prepared to make a major commitment: NATO put 60,000 troops in Bosnia, with a population less than one-sixth that of Iraq, to police the Dayton Accords that ended the war. Today 1,900 soldiers from the European Union are sufficient to do the job.

For Iraq, that means returning in several years as peacekeepers, 400,000 strong — the same number, not coincidentally, that we should have gone in with in the first place. And it probably won’t be us doing it, but a coalition of non-Western forces, perhaps under UN flag, that won’t rekindle the anti-Western resistance our presence has provoked.

Perhaps from the perspective of history our invasion of Iraq, flawed as it was, will not be viewed as a horrible catastrophe that caused all sorts of problems in the Mideast. Instead, it will be viewed as the event that merely triggered a catastrophe that was coming anyway. It’s a measure of our attenuated ambitions that such a historical verdict might be something for us to hope for.

It took me awhile, but I’ve read the entire ISG report.

My detailed thoughts are over at Midtopia. Here at Donklephant I’ll do the executive summary.

There’s nothing earth-shattering in their analysis of the current situation, and nothing paradigm-shifting in their proposed solutions. But both are very solid, very reasonable. I came away with two impressions:

1. The report’s biggest contribution may be a shifting of the debate, because it rather authoritatively makes assertions about various things that have been bones of contention for years. War opponents will be unhappy with its conclusion that Iraq is of critical interest to the U.S.; war supporters will be unhappy with a whole slew of things, mostly relating to the reality on the ground and the prospects for certain pet strategies. The analysis will be familiar to anyone who frequents centrist sites. So in a way, the ISG report is another triumph for moderates.

2. The fact that the conclusions are obvious, reasonable and workable says volumes about the alternate reality the Bush administration has been living in. Because it didn’t take a genius or an expert to write this report; many, many bloggers and other observers have come up with many of the same recommendations. This is common sense stuff — and the administration somehow missed it.

I have quibbles with some of their points, and questions about the workability of others, but the overall strategy looks solid — and it’s in large part the Democratic “fixed timetable” strategy, though I prefer to think of it as the “Sink or Swim” approach.

In a nutshell, here it is: Provide massive assistance to Iraq, both in troops and in aid. But also give the Iraqi government certain milestones to hit — dismantle militias by May, provincial elections in June, take over all provinces in September.

Meanwhile, we start withdrawing combat forces while increasing the ranks of advisors and trainers. Our timetable is based on the assumption that Iraq will hit its milestones, but they will occur regardless of whether that actually occurs. End result: U.S. combat forces are gone by the end of 2007. If Iraq hit the milestones, it is standing on its own (with continuing U.S. support). If Iraq didn’t — well, we tried.

One question is whether it was a good idea for the ISG to suggest that solving the Iraq problem necessarily means addressing the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. On the one hand, that clearly is an aggravating factor. On the other hand, that particular issue is even more intractable than Iraq. So does that actually help, or does it just make the job harder?

Lots to chew on. My prediction: The Democrats will embrace the ISG plan and use it as a blueprint. Politically it’s a godsend for them: a credible, bipartisan group coming up with a proposal that looks a lot like what many Democrats have been suggesting. War supporters will use the “cut and run” rhetoric at their peril now that the idea of a fixed timetable has received the imprimatur of the Baker Group. Bush will be hard-pressed to resist them, since “stay the course” clearly isn’t working and his credibility on Iraq is about zero.

When NewsMax is reporting that John Bolton is dead in the water, you know it’s pretty much a done deal.

Key ‘graph:

There had been indications that Bolton might win Senate confirmation after the election when several key votes might be open to favoring Bolton. But the GOP’s apparent loss of the Senate has doomed that hope.

The White House is sending the Bolton nomination to the Senate this week while Republicans are still in control, but a source close to the U.S. mission to the U.N. tells NewsMax “This nomination is dead and we have known it for several days.”

Looks like Bolton might be the last one to go, as he was one of the more controversial figures in the White House gang.

What about Cheney? He’s obviously staying put. Condi ain’t going anywhere either.

Stay tuned, though…you never know what the GOP may do…

Ooooh, Mr. Bush calls the North Korean nuclear test “unacceptable.” Which is just what he called it before they carried out the test.

Unacceptable. What is that, the magic word, Mr. President? Unacceptable?

It’s a pity the Japanese didn’t think of this in 1945. If only they had announced that nuclear weapons were “unacceptable.”

And now we’re off to the UN to impose sanctions on a country where the government has no reluctance whatsoever to watch their own people starve or freeze.

Impose sanctions, cut off their cash, cut off their oil, that’ll show ‘em.

Gosh, I wonder what the North Koreans could possibly do to raise some cash now? Let’s see if we can think of anything a rogue nuclear-armed state could possibly do to raise a few hundred million dollars. Anyone? Any suggestions?

Thank God there’s no country swimming in billions of dollars of oil money that would like a quick path to joining the nuke club.

Yesterday all North Korea had to put on the table was a possible weapon. Now they have a real one. The North Koreans just raised their market value by hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. Iranians, Syrians and Al Qaeda all just booked flights to Pyong Yang.

But don’t worry: it’s unacceptable.

(Cross-posted from Sideways Mencken.)

Okay, a lot of people won’t take the UN’s word for anything. But in this case, they seem to have a point.

U.N. inspectors investigating Iran’s nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran’s capabilities, calling parts of the document “outrageous and dishonest” and offering evidence to refute its central claims. …

Privately, several intelligence officials said the committee report included at least a dozen claims that were either demonstrably wrong or impossible to substantiate. Hoekstra’s office said the report was reviewed by the office of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.

The report was written by a single GOP staffer — Fredrick Fleitz — who has hard-line views on Iran and ties to UN Ambassador John Bolton. It was not voted on or discussed by the full committee; Republicans simply made it public.

Among the errors:

1. The committee said Iran is producing weapons-grade plutonium, which usually means 90 percent enriched. Iran has in fact only managed to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent.

2. The committee said the IAEA had removed an inspector because he raised concerns about Iranian deception. The inspector has not been removed.

3. Most obnoxiously, the report asserted, without evidence, that the IAEA director had an “unstated” policy of keeping inspectors from telling the truth about Iran.

All this makes me wonder if this is a peek inside the intelligence-massaging techniques that led to the invasion of Iraq. With breathtaking chutzpah, the report makes unsubstantiated assertions about Iran’s nuclear capabilities — and then chastises intelligence agencies for failing to provide information that supports those assertions.

Make your own reality, and then go dig up (or make up) evidence to support it.

Here’s the kicker:

Hoekstra’s committee is working on a separate report about North Korea that is also being written principally by Fleitz. A draft of the report, provided to The Post, includes several assertions about North Korea’s weapons program that the intelligence officials said they cannot substantiate, including one that Pyongyang is already enriching uranium.

The intelligence community believes North Korea is trying to acquire an enrichment capability but has no proof that an enrichment facility has been built, the officials said.

Fabulous.

Yesterday Israel lifted its air blockade of Lebanon. Today, it lifted its naval blockade.

Israel turned over monitoring of Lebanon’s coast to Italian naval vessels, who “will continue to enforce the international embargo against the supply of armaments to Hezbollah,” Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

It also announced it would withdraw completely from Lebanon within two weeks. And Israel signaled it would be willing to leave ownership of the dispute Chebaa Farms area up to the UN, and cede it to Lebanon if the UN says so.

That territorial dispute is the main obstacle to a permanent peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, so Olmert’s suggestion has fairly large implications.

On the downside, the last time the UN looked into the matter it said the Farms didn’t belong to Lebanon — a ruling Lebanon rejected (it doesn’t belong to Israel, either; the UN decision was based on the conclusion that it was originally part of Syria, same as the rest of the adjacent Golan Heights). Both sides would have to agree to abide by the UN’s decision for this to work.

More pragmatically, Israel might just cede the territory and be done with it. It’s militarily useful territory — the high ground looks down on Israel on one side and Syria/Lebanon on the other. But it’s uninhabited, and a few square kilometers are not worth more than a permanent peace.

All of this leaves one major item unresolved — the fate of the two Israeli soldiers whose capture sparked the recent fighting. Look for Israel to grudgingly agree to swap prisoners, like it did earlier with Hamas.

After that, we can get down to watching how the Lebanese Army, backed by UN peacekeepers, deal with Hezbollah.

A good editorial from Jerusalem Post today.

I’ll let it speak for itself:

There is a good reason that Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which sets the terms for a cease-fire between his jihad army and the State of Israel.

The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. This fact is evident both in the text of the resolution and in the very fact that the US decided to sponsor a cease-fire resolution before Israel had dismantled or seriously degraded Hizbullah’s military capabilities.

While the resolution was not passed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and so does not have the authority of law, in practice it makes it all but impossible for Israel to defend itself against Hizbullah aggression without being exposed to international condemnation on an unprecedented scale.

Read the whole thing.

A revised US-France ceasefire proposal has been submitted to the UN Security Council. A vote is expected later today.

It looks pretty good, to my mind.

sources close to the negotiations said the deal would create a 400-square-mile zone inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militia would be excluded.

Under the draft resolution, the number of U.N. troops in the area would be increased from 2,000 to a maximum of 15,000; they would be joined by 15,000 Lebanese troops.

This accomplishes two very important things: Makes Lebanon responsible for its entire territory, and gets Hezbollah out of South Lebanon. Those hold real promise if they can be pulled off.

There are still things left undone by this proposal: A related step should be finally settling the Lebanese-Israeli border and signing a permanent peace agreement.

Lebanon’s reaction isn’t known yet; that might be a hurdle, because Lebanon didn’t want an international peacekeeping force. But the UN cover might address that.

Israel has endorsed it even while preparing a new ground offensive.

I’ve avoided writing about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict for weeks, because when I finally did tackle it I wanted to do it right. I didn’t want to simply assess blame — as with anything in the Middle East, there’s plenty to go around. I didn’t want simply to take sides — our interests are not fully aligned with Israel or anybody else. I wanted to address some realities on the ground and point the way toward possible solutions.

Here’s what I came up with.

My name is Daniel DiRito and I have been blogging at www.thoughttheater.com since March. While I have been a frequent commenter here at Donklephant, this is my first posting. I want to thank Justin for the invitation and the opportunity. Hopefully, my diverse curiosities will offer you, the readers, some additional perspectives on prior topics as well as exposure to other lesser discussed subjects.

Perhaps I am best described as a contradiction in that I’ve spent a lifetime searching for an affiliation that I could accept and maintain…one that would, for the most part, define me like a word in the dictionary…and yet I have come to the realization that my identity is always evolving and I am better explained by my inability to be characterized. I see this conundrum in simplistic terms as my own commitment to finding more “truth”. Rest assured that remark by no means is intended to assert that I know the truth or always live the truth…rather, what I know is that I enjoy the search for truth and that is a quintessential distinction.

Consequently, it’s been my practice to write primarily about the human condition and all of its components. I see life as a constant voyage towards the truth and in order to uncover more truth, one must be willing to deconstruct that which seems incontrovertible. Ultimately, I believe the answers will be found in the questions. Here’s hoping the journey is the genesis.

I look forward to posting here at Donklephant as well as my continued blogging at Thought Theater. I also hope you will take the opportunity to check out my postings at www.thoughttheater.com…it will provide a more comprehensive view of my interests. I welcome your comments and observations and hope the dialogue will lead each of us to more truth. Thank you in advance for reading and sharing.

Abstinence: Uganda HIV Rates Suggest Failure

The latest HIV infection information from Uganda seems to indicate that the abstinence approach may be a disaster in the making. Uganda, long viewed as a model for HIV prevention success in Africa, appears to have taken a wrong turn in promoting the program described as ABC…A: abstinence first…B: be faithful in a committed relationship…C: use condoms if A and B fail. The Bush administration appears to be complicit in these alarming new infection rates by virtue of its push towards programs that emphasize abstinence while moving away from the promotion of condom usage.

From allAfrica.com:

Speaking at the ceremony, the Uganda Aids Commission (UAC) Director General, Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, said despite financial support from the donor community, the rate of people acquiring HIV/Aids is still increasing.

He said, in 2005 130,000 Ugandans got infected compared to 70,000 in 2003.

One must understand a little of the history of Uganda’s AIDS prevention efforts in order to draw any conclusions. Uganda was one of the first African nations to openly discuss HIV and to direct energy and money towards awareness. In 1986, President Museveni toured the country with a message that HIV prevention was a patriotic endeavor and basically introduced the above described program that has come to be called the ABC’s of AIDS prevention. There is little dispute about these basic facts. However, since that time the interpretation of the resulting data has been widely divergent and controversial.

When the Bush administration announced its five year, 15 billion dollar effort to combat HIV in Africa in early 2003, it immediately embraced the Ugandan ABC program as a model for the rest of Africa. Since that time, two opposing views have emerged with regard to an effective plan to combat HIV in Africa.

The administration and numerous religious groups (most of these groups have limited HIV experience) believe that abstinence should be the primarly prevention message. Those with significant HIV prevention experience caution that abstinence can be an adjunct to condom promotion and distribution, but it is not a method that ought to be singularly enbraced and endorsed. They cite abundant research and data to support this contention.

From talk2action.org:

Uganda was once an HIV prevention success story, where an ambitious government-sponsored prevention campaign, including massive condom distribution and messages about delaying sex and reducing numbers of partners, pushed HIV rates down from 15 percent in the early 1990s to 5 percent in 2001. But conservative evangelicals rewrote this history–with the full-throated cooperation of Uganda’s evangelical first family, the Musevenis. As one Family Research Council paper put it:

“Both abstinence and monogamy helped to curb the spread of AIDS in Uganda…How did this happen? Shortly after he came into office in 1986, President Museveni of Uganda spearheaded a mass education campaign promoting a three-pronged AIDS prevention message: abstinence from sexual activity until marriage; monogamy within marriage; and condoms as a last resort. The message became commonly known as ABC: Abstain, Be faithful, and use Condoms if A and B fail.”

This warped version of the true Uganda story became the mantra in Bush’s Washington, with the “C” reduced more and more to an afterthought as time went by. For example, in piling on against a 2002 pro-condom comment by then Secretary of State Colin Powell, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson wrote condoms out of the story entirely: “Secretary Powell seems to be ignorant of the fact the Uganda has made great progress against AIDS by emphasizing abstinence, not condoms.”

To see more about this shifting Bush administration emphasis on abstinence and faith based programs, please see the prior Thought Theater posting on the topic here. Questions about the Ugandan effort and their reports of successful results began to surface in 2004.

From BBC News:

An organisation helping people living with HIV/Aids in Uganda has questioned the authenticity of the government’s statistics on the disease.

Uganda is often held up as a success story and the government lauded for the progress it has made with the official prevalence rate put at only 6%.

But after conducting research in districts across Uganda, an NGO suggests the real picture is far worse.

They found prevalence rates as high as 30% and bad access to anti-retrovirals.

Major Rubaramira Ruranga, the executive director of the National Guidance and Empowerment Network of people living with HIV/Aids in Uganda (NGEN), said he believed the HIV prevalence rate could be more than three times higher than previously thought.

“We have found the prevalence rate at this time is 17%,” he told a news conference.

Additional data was reported in early 2005 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Take particular note that researchers seem to be confounded by the information they were gathering when they compared it to the reported declines in infection rates. Not only were they finding that abstinence was waning, they were puzzled that infection rates appeared to be declining. They point out that condom use seemed to be on the increase…possibly providing an explanation to the confusing data.

Research from the heavily studied Rakai district in southern Uganda suggests that increased condom use, coupled with premature death among those infected more than a decade ago with the AIDS virus, are primarily responsible for the steady decline in HIV infections in that area.

Uganda’s “ABC” prevention formula — standing for Abstinence, Be Faithful, and use Condoms — has been widely credited with lowering that nation’s infection rate from 30 percent in the early 1990s to below 10 percent today.

In the Rakai district, however, researchers found that abstinence and fidelity have actually been declining, but the expected rise in HIV infections stemming from such behavior has not occurred.

“Condom use may be offsetting other high-risk behaviors,” said Maria Wawer, a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, who presented the study at a session of the 12th Annual Retrovirus Conference in Boston.

The Rakai findings are based on an extensive and continuing process of interviewing 10,000 adults each year –a so-called population-based survey that is considered the gold standard for this kind of epidemiological research.

Reports of consistent condom use by men rose to more than 50 percent by 2002, compared with 10 percent a decade earlier. Among women, reports of condom use rose from virtually zero to 25 percent.

In order to fully understand all the factors that may explain these new infection statistics, one must also realize what was taking place within the Ugandan condom distribution program. In 2004, the Ugandan government suddenly issued a recall for condoms that were being distributed for free at numerous clinics throughout the country. The President of Uganda indicated concerns about the quality of the condoms.

From Avert.org:

In 2004 the Ugandan government issued a nationwide recall of the condoms distributed free in health clinics, due to concerns about their quality. Although tests showed there was nothing at all wrong with the condoms, the government said that public confidence in the brand had been badly dented, so they would not redistribute them. By mid-2005 there was said to be a severe scarcity of condoms in Uganda, made worse by new taxes which made the remaining stocks too expensive for many people to afford.

Some have said the US is largely to blame for the shortages. According to Stephen Lewis, the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, “there is no question that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven and exacerbated by PEPFAR and by the extreme policies that the administration in the United States is now pursuing”.

Mr Lewis has also said that PEPFAR’s emphasis on abstinence above condom distribution is a “distortion of the preventive apparatus and is resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred”.

However, speaking in August 2005, Uganda’s coordinator of condom procurement at the Ministry of Health denied there was any shortage of condoms, and said that new stocks would be distributed soon. She also said the government was committed to promoting all three parts of the “ABC” strategy: Abstinence, Faithfulness and Condoms.

From Kaisernetwork.org:

U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis and other AIDS advocates in August said the Bush administration’s policy of promoting abstinence prevention programs and cuts in federal funding for condoms have contributed to a condom shortage in Uganda and undermined the country’s HIV/AIDS fight. Uganda needs between 120 million and 150 million condoms annually, but since October 2004 only 32 million have been distributed in the country, according to the U.S.-based Center for Health and Gender Equity, also known as CHANGE.

In 2005, Act Up also took up the issue of the reported condom shortage in Uganda and the fears about the shift to abstinence programs that were emerging since the introduction of the Bush administrations efforts to combat the disease in Africa.

From Actupny.org:

(Manhattan) A coalition of AIDS activists held a demonstration in midtown Manhattan outside of the Ugandan Permanent Mission to the United Nations today to bring attention to that nation’s severe condom shortage which is putting people at dangerous risk of HIV infection. The crisis has developed over the past ten months as the government of Uganda has stopped its robust program of public sector condom distribution. These condoms previously accounted for 80% of condoms available in the country.

Since May 2004, new shipments–some 30 million quality-approved condoms–have been sitting in government warehouses. Activists are demanding to know why, nearly a year into the shortage, health clinics are still unsupplied and the government is refusing to state when or how they will distribute the condoms. “This crisis could have been averted by the government long ago. The condoms are there, but what is in woeful shortage is the political will of Ugandan leaders to distribute them and promote condom use,” said Sharonann Lynch of Health GAP.

Now activists in Uganda say the program has been overtaken by abstinence-until-marriage approaches as President Yoweri Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni are aligning Uganda’s policies with the ideology touted–and financed–by the United States government.

Uganda is a country receiving funds from the President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The program requires a minimum of 33% of its prevention funds to be used for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, and limits the distribution of condoms to specific high-risk groups. “The strident prevention politics tied to the Bush administration’s AIDS funding are undermining sound prevention in the name of abstinence-only approaches. Scientific studies have shown the inadequacy of such methods, and President Museveni is neglecting the public health of Ugandans by bowing to Bush’s pressure.” said Eustacia Smith of ACT UP.

A comprehensive review of this body of information simply illuminates the misguided efforts of the Bush administration with regard to HIV prevention. The data not only show that the abstinence approach is at best suspect (and more likely, wholly insufficient); it clearly demonstrates that condom availability and usage are the essential tool in combating increasing infection rates.

One is left to wonder about the accuracy of the reported data. While the near doubling of infection rates is sufficiently alarming, it is even more frightening to consider the possibility that the information may be inaccurate. I have no way to verify the data and while I question the motivations of the Ugandan government, it may be several years before it can be determined if the numbers may have been deliberately under reported.

Uganda is a snapshot of a confluence of allegiances and events that will ultimately have led to more pain, suffering, and death. History will likely note that the matching ideologies of those in power in both nations directly led to the unnecessary spread of a deadly disease at a time when money and energy were available to enable the opposite. That is an unmitigated and inexcusable tragedy.

U.N. decides it should protect people after all.

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council affirmed for the first time Friday that the international community has a responsibility to protect civilians from genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing when national governments fail to do so.

A resolution, which was unanimously approved by the 15-nation council, endorsed an agreement reached by world leaders at last year’s summit that was aimed at preventing tragedies like the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

But how, exactly, do they propose to enforce that responsibility?

From Newsweek:

DICKEY: You’ve said you’re running out of patience with Iran. What does that mean?
ELBARADEI: For the last three years we have been doing intensive verification in Iran, and even after three years I am not yet in a position to make a judgment on the peaceful nature of the [nuclear] program. We still need to assure ourselves through access to documents, individuals [and] locations that we have seen all that we ought to see and that there is nothing fishy, if you like, about the program.

At one site called Lavizan, facilities were bulldozed by Iran before you could look at them, and you weren’t allowed to run tests in the area.
We clearly need to take environmental samplings from some of the equipment that used to be in Lavizan. We need to interview some of the people who have been engaged in Lavizan. We have [also] gotten some information about some modification of their missiles that could have some relationship to the nuclear program. So, we need to clarify all these things. It is very specific. They know what we want to do, and they just have to go and do it. I’m making it very clear right now that I cannot extend the deadline, which is … March 6.

With all due respect, the Iranians don’t seem to care what you think.
Well, they might not seem to care. But if I say that I am not able to confirm the peaceful nature of that program after three years of intensive work, well, that’s a conclusion that’s going to reverberate, I think, around the world.

For the world’s sake, and the sake of our troops, I hope he gets Iran to comply. The “Iran is next” talk is just starting to kick into gear and it’s alarming.