THE ANGLOSPHERE CHALLENGE
By James C. Bennett

Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century

Despite repeated predictions of the decline of America and the other English speaking nations (the anglosphere) as the world's pathfinding cultures, James C. Bennett believes that their collective lead will only widen in the coming decades under the impact of the next wave of technological revolution.

Coining the term network commonwealth to describe the loose political entities now emerging in the world based on a common language and heritage (of which anglosphere is the first), Bennett believes that traits common to these entities--a particularly strong and independent civil society; openness and receptivity to the world, its people, and its ideas; and a dynamic economy--have uniquely positioned them to prosper in our time of dramatic technological and scientific change, provided they remain true to the demands of these traits.

In a wide-ranging exploration from the Industrial Revolution to our near future, The Anglosphere Challenge gives voice to a growing movement that is coming to public attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

An Iraq success story
Once-violent Ramadi, which now enjoys relative calm, shows that Iraqis can achieve peace -- with our help.
April 24, 2007

'A FEW WEEKS ago you couldn't drive down this street without being attacked. When I went down this street in February, I was hit three times with small-arms fire and IEDs." Col. John Charlton was describing Ramadi as we drove down its heavily damaged main street, dubbed Route Michigan by U.S. forces. Even though this was an unlucky day — Friday the 13th (of April) — we did not experience a single attack on our convoy of Humvees.

The previous week, a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives and chlorine gas into a police checkpoint, killing 12 people (not the 27 or more cited in most news accounts). But such violence, once the norm, has become the exception. Ramadi, which used to see 20 to 25 attacks a day, now sees an average of two to four a day. By the time I visited, no U.S. soldier had been killed in the town for weeks.

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That remarkable success is worth pondering at a time when most Americans are willing to write off Iraq as a lost cause. There is no doubt that U.S. forces face an agonizingly difficult task in Iraq. The bombings that killed nearly 200 people in Baghdad last week make clear how hard the challenge is. But as Gen. David Petraeus said on taking command in February, "Hard is not hopeless." The experience of Ramadi — which has gone from being one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq to one of the safest — provides a glimmer of hope.

The situation began to change for the better last year when the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division expanded the U.S. troop presence near Al Qaeda strongholds on the west side of town, losing almost 90 soldiers in the process. Then the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division, which took over the city earlier this year, extended the offensive. From mid-February to the end of March, about 2,000 soldiers and Marines, along with their Iraqi allies, fought to control the city.

Each offensive began with troops staging raids into the targeted area to eliminate "high-value individuals" — local Al Qaeda leaders. Then the troops placed 3-foot-high concrete barriers around the neighborhood to prevent insurgents from "squirting out." This was followed by a clearing operation to root out the enemy. Combat was intense, with insurgents fighting back with homemade bombs, AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns. Ten American soldiers were killed and 40 were wounded.

"The price was heavy but worth it," said Charlton, the burly commander of the 1st Brigade who directed the operations. "The enemy lost massively." To illustrate the point, he showed me a page of closely printed type listing all the arms caches seized by his men: 10,250 pounds of homemade explosives, 2,347 pounds of high explosives, 2,265 feet of detonation cord, 6,000 gallons of chlorine.

The scars of the battle — and those that preceded it over the last four years — are clearly visible on Route Michigan, which resembles pictures of Berlin in 1945. Buildings are destroyed or badly damaged. Piles of rubble are everywhere. Water sits in the streets; the water mains were broken by countless subsurface explosions from buried improvised explosive devices.

In the past, U.S. troops would follow up a successful offensive by retreating to their "remote forwarding operating bases," and insurgents would slink back into the areas just liberated at a heavy price. To keep that from happening, U.S. troops have established four bases in Ramadi, along with more than 40 joint security stations and observation posts, where they work alongside Iraqi soldiers and police. There also are 23 police stations in the city and surrounding area. The mini-forts are within eyeball range of one another and are supported by surveillance cameras on 100-foot poles. U.S. and Iraqi forces have spun such a tight web in town that insurgents are having a hard time crawling back in.

Having completed clearing operations, the American forces are now in the "build" phase of their campaign, trying to repair the damage and win over the populace. This is, in many ways, the hardest part because it requires money that is not readily forthcoming. Charlton can tap already allocated U.S. funding to pay for $4.4 million worth of projects, but he estimates the entire cost of cleanup will be at least $10 million. He is hoping that someone — perhaps the U.S. Agency for International Development — will foot the rest of the bill. Ideally, the cost should be borne by the government of Iraq, but, through lack of capacity or lack of willingness, the Shiite-dominated government is not at the moment sending much money to Sunni-dominated Al Anbar province.

Yet for all the shortcomings of their government, Iraqi forces have begun to participate effectively in coalition operations, and nowhere more so than in Ramadi. Key to the success of this undertaking has been the recent decision by most of the major Al Anbar tribes to turn against Al Qaeda and its indiscriminate reign of terror. The Sunni tribal forces are still too weak to defeat Al Qaeda on their own and probably always will be, but they have been of critical help in generating tips that aid coalition forces. They are also now encouraging their sons to join the Iraqi police and army.

Among police and army, I saw encouraging signs of integration across sectarian boundaries. For example, an Iraqi army sergeant-major, a Shiite from Baghdad, was in charge of supervising the rebuilding of a Sunni neighborhood. This kind of inter-communal cooperation was once the norm in Iraq and could be again, if Shiite and Sunni extremists are defeated at gunpoint.

Ramadi is not an isolated example. There is progress across Al Anbar province. According to coalition briefings, attacks in the province are at a two-year low. Tips to coalition forces are soaring. U.S. troops used to find only 50% of IEDs. Now they are defusing 80% before they detonate. (Al Qaeda in Iraq has responded with chlorine gas bombs. In other words, using chemical weapons against Sunni civilians — not a tactic likely to win over the populace.)

The question is whether this success can be replicated in Iraq's nerve center. The challenges in Baghdad are considerably more daunting because of its size (6 million residents versus 1.5 million in all of Al Anbar province) and its sectarian fault lines. And, even when the surge is completed in June, Baghdad will not have as many troops on a per capita basis as Ramadi.

But given enough time and resources, the "clear, hold and build" strategy that worked in Ramadi — and that has worked in Tall Afar, Qaim and other cities — could succeed in Baghdad too. Unless, of course, antiwar politicians back home succeed in pulling the plug, in which case defeat is guaranteed.

April 24, 2007
Frustration Over Wall Unites Sunni and Shiite

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD, April 23 — The unexpected outcry about the proposed construction of a wall around a Sunni Arab neighborhood has revealed the depths of Iraqi frustration with the petty humiliations created by the new security plan intended to protect them.

American and some Iraqi officials were clearly taken aback by the ferocity of the opposition to the wall, and on Monday the United States was showing signs of backing away from the plan. The strong reaction underscores the sense of powerlessness Iraqis feel in the face of the American military, whose presence is all the more pervasive as an increasing number of troops move on to the city’s streets.

And it has proved to be an unlikely boon for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, making the Shiite politician — at least for now — into a champion for Sunnis because he publicly opposed the wall’s construction.

At a rally on Monday, residents of the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adhamiya pledged support for Mr. Maliki because of his declaration on Sunday in Cairo that construction of the wall around their neighborhood must stop. Their endorsement was all the more telling because many Sunnis see Mr. Maliki as the representative of a government bent on Sunni oppression.

“My view of Maliki has changed since I heard of this news, and we hope he would be able to carry out this decision,” to stop the wall’s construction, said Um Mohammed, a teacher in Adhamiya.

“We denounce the building of the wall, which will increase the sectarian rift,” she said as she stood with more than 1,000 neighborhood residents at the peaceful protest.

By late in the day, the American military, under pressure from the Iraqi government, appeared to be rethinking the plan. “This one was obviously one in which the people in the area expressed some concern,” said Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the Pentagon. “There are aspects of this that the Iraqi government feels at this point are not productive. We’ll continue to work with them on this and other tactics,” he said.

Although the strategy of using barriers to safeguard areas of Baghdad is not new, the Adhamiya plan to enclose the neighborhood entirely was promoted as an advanced security measure. About two years ago, the American military erected a wall along the section of the Amiriya neighborhood that borders the airport road. While hardly foolproof, it reduced the number of attacks on American convoys on the route. More recently, the military has erected walls around marketplaces to safeguard them from suicide bombers, said Brig. Gen. John F. Campbell, Baghdad’s deputy commanding general, in a statement released Saturday when questions began to emerge about the plan.

But the Adhamiya wall, only partly built, has fast become a metaphor for the cumulative resentment that Iraqis feel about the violence and disruption of daily life that have brought so much misery to the country since the American invasion in 2003.

The latest indignity is the new security plan, which has snarled traffic with checkpoints that turn even the shortest journeys into hourlong forays. And to the chagrin of many Iraqis, even after four years, the Americans still seem to be oblivious of the havoc they cause in Iraqis’ daily lives by forcing traffic to stop, blocking roads and taking property for military outposts.

Iraqis feel demeaned and infuriated when they find themselves sitting in traffic for hours as it trickles through checkpoints or standing in lines in the already blazing spring sun waiting to be frisked to get into government buildings.

A man who had waited in line for more than two hours to get into the fortified International Zone, formerly known as the Green Zone, on Monday said no one explained the reason for the delay to the nearly 200 people standing there. “Why, why? What did I do?” he said to no one in particular, as a soldier who had briefly appeared near the front of the line walked away.

On the outskirts of Adhamiya on Monday afternoon, a line of cars stretched for more than half a mile, waiting to go through an Iraqi Army checkpoint to enter the neighborhood. The line of some 200 cars was moving so slowly that some drivers had gotten out and were gesticulating and shouting in frustration.

Although the decision to use tall concrete barriers to cordon off the neighborhood was made jointly by Iraqi and American forces, American soldiers are building the Adhamiya wall, according to neighborhood residents and a news release issued by the United States military. The wall is made of concrete slabs weighing 14,000 pounds each, which, when set next to each other, form a solid barrier. Cranes are used to winch them into position.

Mr. Maliki’s decision to speak out against the wall was read on the streets as a moment of defiant Iraqi sovereignty in the face of the Americans, whom the vast majority of Iraqis view as an occupying force. Despite his government’s backing of the overall security plan, Mr. Maliki has managed to appear to be a defender of the interests of the common citizen.

Sameer al-Obeidi, the imam of the Abu Khanifa mosque, one of the most influential Sunni Arab mosques in the city, applauded Mr. Maliki. “We shake hands with the government in such stands,” he said.

The American involvement in the wall’s construction has united Iraqis of different sects. Sunni political parties, as well as some Shiite groups, strongly oppose the wall. Shiite groups fear that though Sunni Arab neighborhoods are the ones being cordoned off this week, next month it could be Shiite areas as well.

There was still confusion on Monday over whether construction on the wall would proceed. Despite Mr. Maliki’s declaration during his visit to Cairo on Sunday that construction would be halted, the chief Iraqi military spokesman said that there was no change in the plans to build the 12-foot barrier.

“We will continue to construct the security barriers in the Adhamiya neighborhood. This is a technical issue,” Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said.

Reporting was contributed by Iraqi employees of The New York Times in Baghdad, Mosul, Diyala, Falluja and Hilla, and David S. Cloud in Washington.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

WHERE YOUR TAXES GO - ILLEGAL ALIENS 
Attributed to the LA Times, June 2002: 
1. 40% of all workers in L.A. County (L.A. County has 10 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card. 
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens. 
4. Over 2/3's of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers. 
5. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally. 
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages. 
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border. 
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal. 
9. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking. 
10. In L.A.County 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak Spanish (10.2 million people in L.A.County). 
(All 10 from the Los Angeles Times) 
Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops but 29% are on welfare. See... 
http://www.cis.org/ 
Over 70% of the United States annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration. 
The cost of illegal immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was a NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) $70 BILLION a year, [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University]. 
The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE. 
29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

April 24, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
In Its Match With China, India Penalizes Its Own Team

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
KHAWASPUR, India

India is stirring after many centuries of torpor, and it has a chance of ending this century as the capital of the world, the most important nation on earth. You see up-and-coming cities like Hyderabad or Ahmedabad, and it’s easy to believe that India will eventually surpass China.

But here in rural Bihar state in northern India, there’s no economic miracle to be seen. And it’s difficult to see how India can emerge on top unless it takes advantage of its greatest untapped resource: its rural population.

The village of Khawaspur has no electricity. It has a school with 600 students, but — as is common in Indian state schools — many teachers show up only rarely. “We go to school, but the teachers don’t,” explained Doli, a second-grade girl.

On a typical day there will be just one or two teachers in the whole school, and the students learn next to nothing. “You have to bribe your way to be a teacher there,” explained Yogender Singh, who tutors children for payment.

No child I met in Khawaspur had ever been vaccinated for anything. And the local government hospital exists only in theory.

“There is a hospital,” said a villager named Muhammad Shaukat. “But there’s not even a door or a window. Forget about a doctor.”

That’s a common problem: the government pays for schools, clinics or vaccinations, but someone pockets the money and no education or health care materializes.

In a village in Gujarat that I visited on this trip, all the children were out of school because the teachers had decided to take a monthlong vacation. One sixth-grade student, Ramila, could not write her name, not even in Gujarati.

Another sixth grader, Janah, said that when it came time for exams, the teachers wrote the answers on the blackboard for students to copy so the exam results wouldn’t embarrass the school.

Then there’s the toll of malnutrition. India has more malnourished children than any country in the world and one of the highest rates of malnutrition, 30 to 47 percent, depending on who does the estimating.

Those malnourished children suffer permanent losses in I.Q. and cognition, and are easy prey for diseases. There is some evidence that widespread malnutrition lowers economic growth in affected countries by two to four percentage points a year.

So in the middle of this century, India will still be held back by its failure to educate, feed and vaccinate its children today. This failure will haunt India for many decades to come. Sure, China has many similar problems, with growing gaps between rich and poor and an interior that is being left far behind. But rural Chinese schools provide a basic education, including solid math and science skills.

India’s boom is real, and its overall growth rate puts India right at China’s heels. Its middle class is expanding, governance is improving, and the transformation is one of the most exciting things going on in the world today. The 21st century will belong to Asia, and young Americans need to study Asia, live in it and learn its languages.

But Indians refer to the “Bimaru” states — a play on the word “bimar,” which means “sick” in Hindi. The Bimaru states are Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa deserves a spot as well.

In the Bimaru states, there is no boom. “We see nothing here,” said Vidya Sagar Gupta, a businessman who once operated many factories in northern Bihar. Now he has closed most of them down and is trying to sell his properties.

Electricity is unreliable, crime is growing, corruption is endless, the agricultural sector is in crisis, supplies are difficult to get, and criminal gangs and politics are so interwoven that it is difficult to foresee improvements, he says.

For anyone who wants to see this country succeed, a visit to rural India is a bitter disappointment. Ela Bhatt, who founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association, a union of poor women that now has nearly one million members, told me that India’s economy is profoundly limited: “It is like a car having one motorized tire, and the others are cart wheels.”

So in the great race of this century, the race to see which country will lead the world in 2100, I’m still betting on China for now. I’m having my kids learn Chinese, not Hindi (or Indian English, a remarkable language in its own right).

Until India’s economic boom becomes much more broadly based, and until Indian schools manage to teach their students, this country will continue to waste its precious brainpower and won’t achieve a fraction of what it should.

Please post your comments on this column on my blog. In particular, tell me which country you think will dominate the world in 2100, and why