Quote of the Week - Evelyn Umar

"The main point of contention between Muslims and Christians in Uganda is that Muslims are yet to embrace the reality of freedom of worship or coexistence, but Muslims always think that any person who doesn't believe like them is an enemy who deserves to be killed." -- Evelyn Umar

US Secret Service Needs Attitude Adjustment

President Obama has called them “knuckleheads”. A CNN columnist says the actions of a dozen Secret Service agents in Colombia amounted to “stupidity”. United States Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the episode, also involving military personnel, was a “huge disappointment”. The official message seems to be that consorting with prostitutes in Colombia while on an official mission is dumb, embarrassing, but not really bad.

To be sure, the moral character of the men’s behaviour depends on what standard of conduct is being applied, and when you look at this incident in context, it does seem hypocritical to be particularly scandalised by it, or even surprised.

From the beginning two weeks ago, commentaries on the affair have raised the question of “culture” in the service which is responsible for the safety of the US president. Ms Napolitano said a review of Secret Service records showed no similar episodes of misconduct that might have warned of problems brewing at the agency, but journalists have dug up evidence that trouble was brewing all the same.

The Washington Post cites a 2002 US News & World Report investigation which found an agency “rife with problems”, including “alcohol abuse, criminal offences and extramarital affairs between agents and White House employees. Male officers had viewed pornography on White House satellite channels… Supervisors in two field offices had authorised professional strippers at office parties.” (Two of the agents who misbehaved in Cartagena also were supervisors.) Former Post reporter Ronald Kessler wrote a book about the agency, In the President’s Secret Service (2009), which indicated a lax culture and poor leadership. It was Kessler who gave the Post its scoop about the recent incident. New reports allege a similar episodein El Salvador prior to the President’s visit their last year, and expose an incident involving marines and a prostitute in Brazil.

All this points to a view of sex as a recreational right -- particularly in places such as Cartagena where prostitution is legal -- regardless of any security risks or the effect of marital infidelity on families back home. The majority of agents are said to be married men, and the Post has characterised the attitude behind the current scandal as “wheels up, rings off”, despite the fact that an extra-marital affair jeopardises an agent’s security clearance. Not surprisingly, the divorce rate among agents is said to be high. Where did this culture, if that’s what it is, come from?

As others have pointed out, there is a long history linking war, armies abroad and the condoning of prostitution. It is only quite recently that prostitution itself, and the related issue of adultery, have been specifically addressed in military law and regulation. In 2006 the State Department banned engaging with prostitutes for all Foreign Service personnel and contractors, even where prostitution is legal, and penalties include up to a year in jail. Rules at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, are more vague. Employees are prohibited from engaging in any “criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, or other conduct prejudicial to the government,” an official told the Washington Post.

Needless to say the new rules for the military were not universally popular. When they were floated in 2004, reports the Christian Science Monitor, “many US troops reacted bitterly, calling such sanctions ‘harsh’” and a sergeant stationed in Germany, where prostitution is legal, complained that, “Next they’re going to be telling us we can’t drink, or only on the weekends.”

Indeed, given the signs that casual sex was (and is) regarded as an entitlement in these sectors and no big deal, and given that Western countries such as Germany were increasingly legalising prostitution and treating it as regular “work”, there might not have been any new rules, except for one important development: the growth of human trafficking and the part that prostitution plays in this modern form of slavery.

A United Nations protocol designed to control and stamp out trafficking came into force at the end of 2003 and was ratified by the US along with -- by 2010 -- 116 other countries. The State Department strictures of 2006 were part of the Bush administration’s effort to give effect to this commitment. The moral issues of casual and adulterous sex, whether with foreigners or other state employees, do not appear to have played any part in it.

Nor do they seem to feature in criticism of the posse of Secret Service agents and their military counterparts who disgraced themselves in Cartagena. (No-one, by the way, seems to have taken the security threat very seriously.) Columnist Kirsten Powers takes them to task for fuelling sex trafficking, indirectly at least, not for cheating on their wives. She quotes the US State Department which says that forced prostitution of women and children from rural areas in urban areas remains a problem in Colombia, which is “also a destination for foreign child sex tourists, particularly coastal cities such as Cartagena” -- the reason why Colombia is known as the “Thailand of Latin America”. Says Ms Powers:

Representatives of the U.S. government should be setting the standard for the world, not feeding the problem of sex trafficking. The chances that the women or girls the Secret Service agents procured for their pleasure were there by free will is very low. Most likely, they were sex slaves.

Most likely she is correct. It is hard to believe that there is much if any freedom in the sex industry, anywhere, but where there is poverty and social dislocation, as in developing countries like Colombia, so much the less. And Kirsten Powers is certainly right to say that Americans abroad should be setting a high standard -- of respect for women, protection of children -- for the world. Sex trafficking is a hateful crime and we must do all in our power to stop it.

But let’s not forget that the war on trafficking starts at home. A couple of years ago Hillary Clinton observed that drug trafficking from Mexico would not be stopped by measures at the border as long as there was an appetite for drugs in the United States. It’s the same with sex. If servicemen work in institutions that wink at the appetite for random sex, those institutions exist in a wider culture where practically any sexual activity that is not forced is permitted -- and in this thicket forced sex also finds shelter in which to grow.

Just one example: Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times last month that America’s leading website for prostitution ads, Backpage.com, has been partly financed (by a 16 per cent stake in the owner, Village Voice Media) for more than six years by none other than Goldman Sachs. The leading financial firm, which had a representative on the board of Village Voice Media for four years, cannot have been unaware that the site is notorious for ties to sex trafficking.

While it is good to see the moral fervour going into the war on sex trafficking, one cannot help feeling that it is doomed to failure. If coercion is to be the only criterion for illegitimate and destructive sex, a huge source of sexual mayhem and human misery will go unchecked. Use of pornography, hooking up, marital infidelity -- these are symptoms of unruly appetites that lead to nights of debauchery in foreign cities and the destruction of families at home. Until the public voices of conscience start dealing with these broad cultural trends, Cartagena-type scandals will continue to embarrass and distract Western governments. Or worse.

From here. 

Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.

Spain: Unemployed Nears 6 million

Spanish unemployment has hit a new record high, official figures have shown.

The number of unemployed people reached 5,639,500 at the end of March, with the unemployment rate hitting 24.4%, the national statistics agency said.

The figures came hours after rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Spanish sovereign debt.

Official figures due out on Monday are expected to confirm that Spain has fallen back into recession.
Earlier this week, the Bank of Spain said the economy contracted by 0.4% in first three months of this year, after shrinking by 0.3% in the final quarter of last year.

Other figures released on Friday showed that Spanish retail sales were down 3.7% in March from the same point a year ago, the 21st month in row sales have fallen.

Read it all here.

Mickey Rooney on Elder Abuse

Mickey Rooney, the Hollywood icon who testified before the US Congress about his experience with elder abuse, stars in an 82-minute documentary, “Last Will and Embezzlement”. It has a certain relevance to bioethics: the growing incidence of elder abuse has been flagged as an important reason why it would be dangerous to legalise euthanasia. ~ cross-posted from BioEdge

Watch this YouTube feature.

Activists Make Racket, Not Sound Arguments

Dr Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD

In my work as a social conservative, I have been puzzled by some of the rhetorical strategies of my opponents. Sometimes I feel my head spinning, as if I have been going around in circles, with no obvious conclusion in sight. I have been seeking the key to understanding them, a Rosetta Stone that will allow me to translate what otherwise appears to be mere hieroglyphics.

I think I am finally getting a handle on it. The lifestyle left doesn’t actually make arguments. They just make noise.

Over at Think Progress, there is a case in point, involving Yours Truly.

The occasion for this particular episode is my response to being included in the GLAAD “Commentator Accountability Project.” Evidently, the folks at GLAAD feel a need to inform the media that I am not worthy of being interviewed. In response, I wrote an article entitled, “Why Opposing the Gay Lobby is Not Anti-Gay.” The folks over at Think Progress came up with this headline “NOM: Opposing Gay Rights Doesn’t Make Someone Anti-Gay.”

Do you see what they have done? They have slipped in an unstated assumption that the “gay lobby” = “gay rights.” Anyone who disagrees with the gay lobby automatically, always and everywhere, opposes gay rights. Put it another way: they have turned an important and debatable question into an unquestionedassumption.

Actually, they have papered over a whole series of questions: what is marriage? What is the social purpose and meaning of marriage? What is equality? What is the context of equality in this particular situation: who is being made equal to whom, for what purpose and in what context? Will there be any down-side to redefining marriage?

They do not answer these questions. They assume them away by asserting that “marriage equality” is a slam-dunk, open and shut civil rights issue. They change to subject to me and my character. As long as the topic is me and whether I am a big meanie, they don’t have to refute my arguments, or even make any arguments of their own.

The subject of my original article in The Blaze was my claim that removing the gender requirement from marriage would result in the state insisting that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. I believe that this will impact men and women differently, and that the net result will be the further marginalization of fathers from the family.

I still believe that to be true. I still believe it will be a very bad thing for society. I am not ashamed of this belief, in spite of GLAAD’s rather ham-handed attempt to shame me about it.

The most telling point though is that Think Progress did not even bring up the question of whether redefining marriage will marginalize fathers from the family. They just changed the subject.

“The war against women” is another example. The so-called “feminists” presume to speak for the entire female sex. Anyone who disagrees with their preferred policies is making war against women. The HHS mandate requiring every employer to provide contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs is, in their fantasy world, part of the “war against women”.

Do you see the assumptions they have slipped in? Every woman values zero-cost contraception more than anything else. No woman anywhere in America has the slightest moral qualms about abortion-inducing drugs. No woman in America has any loyalty to any religious body. There are no social conservative women.

Ahem. Most women are surviving just fine paying for their own contraception or using natural methods that don’t cost anything. Many women are deeply troubled by abortion-inducing drugs. Evidently the self-proclaimed champions of the female sex have not seen the inside of a church in a long time, since many, many congregations are dominated by women. And, by the way, the social conservative movement is filled with women, including the pro-life movement, the abstinence education movement, and the movement to popularize natural family planning.

Once again, the lifestyle left has turned a whole series of important questions intoassumptions: pregnancy is an illness that ought to be prevented; women want sex to be a sterile recreational activity, and religion is unimportant to women.

This is the Rosetta Stone: the point of the racket from the lifestyle left is to distract the reader or listener from the substance of the discussion. Keep changing the subject so no one has a clear picture of what is at stake in the argument. Keep making nasty-sounding attacks on people, so that a) no one wants to get involved in an argument with the lifestyle left, be they feminists or gays, b) people become willing to concede whatever the lifestyle left is asking for, just to make the annoying clamor go away, and c) people will start to shun the victims of the attack, thinking that they must be at fault somehow for bringing this on themselves.

So think of this tactic as a noise-bomb. Once the noise starts, you are deafened and can’t think straight. You’ve got to be prepared with ear protectors. Or think of it as a smoke bomb. Once your eyes are burning, it is too late: you can’t see and you are stumbling around in the dark. The only defense is to put on your goggles as fast as possible.

Recognizing this tactic quickly is the equivalent of putting on your ear protectors or your goggles. Once you are on the look-out, you will see beyond any shadow of a doubt that this change-the-subject strategy is very common. The entire lifestyle left uses it, not only the gay left, but radical feminists, the pro-abortion crowd, the whole lot of them.

Forewarned is forearmed: once you can identify the diversionary tactic, you will not be victimized by it anymore.

Dr Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD, is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage.

China Playing Both Sides on N. Korea

China has recently joined with other countries in condemning North Korea for a failed missile launch earlier this month. It was a rare public rebuke of its internationally isolated ally, leading many to closely scrutinize whether Beijing’s policies toward Pyongyang are shifting.

This week U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said China has provided some assistance to North Korea’s missile program, possibly violating U.N. sanctions on the country.

Beijing has denied the allegations, but Panetta says that China must do more to bring North Korea to the negotiating table.

"We've made very clear to China that China has a responsibility here to make sure that North Korea -- if they want to improve the situation with their people, if they want to become a part of the international family, if they, in fact, want to deal with the terrible issues that are confronting North Korea, there's a way to do that," he said. "And China ought to be urging them to engage in those kinds of diplomatic negotiations. We thought we were making some progress and suddenly we're back at provocation."

Read it all here.

Africa's Underground Water Resource

A scattergun approach to borehole drilling in Africa is likely to be unsuccessful.

This is the message from a group of UK researchers who have, for the first time, quantified the amount, and potential yield, of groundwater across the whole of Africa.

They estimate the total volume of groundwater to be around 0.66 million km3 – more than 100 times the available surface freshwater on the continent – and hope that the assessment can inform plans to improve access to water in Africa, where 300 million people do not have access to safe drinking water.

The results have been published today, 20 April, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters.

The researchers, from the British Geological Survey and University College London, warn that high yielding boreholes will not be found using a scattergun approach and a more careful and exploratory approach that takes into account local groundwater conditions will be needed, which they hope their new study will encourage.

Shallow groundwater in rural Africa

Their results show that in many populated areas in Africa, there is sufficient groundwater to supply hand pumps that communities can use for drinking water. These hand pumps can deliver around 0.1-0.3 litres per second.

Read it all here.