Which Has More Islamist Terrorism, Europe or America?
by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
July 3, 2008
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5723


"Since 9/11, there have been over 2,300 arrests connected to Islamist terrorism in Europe in contrast to about 60 in the United States." Thus writes Marc Sageman in his influential new book, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (University of Pennsylvania Press).

This one statistical comparison inspires Sageman, in a chapter he calls "The Atlantic Divide," to draw sweeping conclusions about the superior circumstances of American Muslims. "The rate of arrests on terrorism charges per capita among Muslims is six times higher in Europe than in the United States." The reason for this discrepancy, he argues, "lies in the differences in the extent to which these respective Muslim communities are radicalized." He praises "American cultural exceptionalism," admonishes European governments "to avoid committing mistakes that risk the loss of good will in the Muslim community," and urges Europeans to learn from Americans.

Sageman's argument rehashes what Spencer Ackerman wrote in a New Republic cover story of late 2005, when he found that "Europe's growing Muslim culture of alienation, marginalization, and jihad isn't taking root" in the United States.

Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (University of Pennsylvania Press). But Sageman's entire case is premised on the figures of 2,300 and 60 arrests. Aside from possible other causal explanations for these differences, such as the European legal system permitting more latitude to make terrorism-related arrests, are those figures even correct? He supports them with only a brief, vague footnote: "Updating Eggen and Tate, 2005; Lustick 2006: 151-52 agrees with this estimate." Here, "Eggen and Tate, 2005" refers to a two-part newspaper article and "Lustick 2006" sources a discredited extremist screed .

In fact, Sageman's numbers are scandalously inaccurate.

European arrests: His European number is inflated. The European Police Office (Europol) issued statistics showing that in 2007 , 201 Islamists were detained in the European Union (other than the United Kingdom) on terror-related charges, compared to 257 in 2006. Earlier Europol statistics are less clear, but a close review of the evidence conducted for me by Jonathan Gelbart of Stanford University shows 234 arrests made in 2005 , 124 in 2004 . and 137 in 2003. In all, the total West European terrorism-related arrests appear to number less than 1,400.

U.S. arrests: According to the U.S. Department of Justice , Sageman's American figure is too low by a factor of almost ten. Department spokesman Sean Boyd indicated, according to a Fox News report, that "527 defendants have been charged in terrorism or terrorism-related cases arising from investigations primarily conducted after Sept. 11. Those cases have resulted in 319 convictions, with an additional 176 cases pending in court." Plus, as I documented at "Denying [Islamist] Terrorism " and its follow-up blog ), politicians, law enforcement personnel, and the media are loathe to acknowledge terrorist incidents, so the real number of terrorism-related arrests is substantially higher.

Given that the Muslim population in the United States is about 1/7th size of its West European counterpart (3 million vs. 21 million), using the figures of 527 arrests for the United States and 1,400 for Europe suggests that the Muslim per-capita arrest rate on terrorism-related charges in the United States is 2.5 times higher than in Europe, not, as Sageman asserts, 6 times lower. In fact, Sageman (who was offered a chance to reply to this article but declined) is off by a factor of about 15.

His error has major implications. If the United States, despite the much better socio-economic standing of its Muslims, suffers from 2.5 times more terrorism per capita than does Europe, socio-economic improvements are unlikely to solve Europe's problems.

This conclusion fits into a larger argument that Islamism has little to do with economic or other stresses. Put differently, ideas matter more than personal circumstances. As I put it in 2002 , "The factors that cause militant Islam to decline or flourish appear to have more to do with issues of identity than with economics." Whoever accepts the Islamist (or communist or fascist) worldview, whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female, also accepts the ideological infrastructure that potentially leads to violence, including terrorism.

In policy terms, Americans have no reason to be smug. Yes, Europeans should indeed learn from the United States how better to integrate their Muslim population, but they should not expect that doing so will also diminish their terrorism problem. It could, indeed, even worsen.

Building BRICs of growth

Jun 5th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Record spending on infrastructure will help to sustain rapid growth in emerging economies

THE biggest investment boom in history is under way. Over half of the world's infrastructure investment is now taking place in emerging economies, where sales of excavators have risen more than fivefold since 2000. In total, emerging economies are likely to spend an estimated $1.2 trillion on roads, railways, electricity, telecommunications and other projects this year, equivalent to 6% of their combined GDPs—twice the average infrastructure-investment ratio in developed economies. Largely as a result, total fixed investment in emerging economies could increase by a staggering 16% in real terms this year, according to HSBC, whereas in rich economies it is forecast to be flat. Such investment will help support economic growth this year as America's economy stalls—and for many years to come.

Compounding this year's figure, Morgan Stanley predicts that emerging economies will spend $22 trillion (in today's prices) on infrastructure over the next ten years, of which China will account for 43% (see left-hand chart). China is already spending around 12% of its GDP on infrastructure. Indeed, China has spent more (in real terms) in the past five years than in the whole of the 20th century. Last year Brazil launched a four-year plan to spend $300 billion to modernise its road network, power plants and ports. The Indian government's latest five-year plan has ambitiously pencilled in nearly $500 billion in infrastructure projects. Russia, the Gulf states and other oil exporters are all pouring part of their higher oil revenues into fixed investment.

Good infrastructure has always played a leading role in economic development, from the roads and aqueducts of ancient Rome to Britain's railway boom in the mid-19th century. But never before has infrastructure spending been so large as a share of world GDP. This is partly because more countries are now industrialising than ever before, but also because China and others are investing at a much brisker pace than rich economies ever did. Even at the peak of Britain's railway mania in the 1840s, total infrastructure investment was only around 5% of GDP.

Infrastructure investment can yield big economic gains. Building roads or railways immediately boosts output and jobs, but it also helps to spur future growth—provided the money is spent wisely. Better transport helps farmers to get their produce to cities, and manufacturers to export their goods overseas. Countries with the lowest transport costs tend to be more open to foreign trade and so enjoy faster growth. Clean water and sanitation also raise the quality of human capital, thereby lifting labour productivity. The World Bank estimates that a 1% increase in a country's infrastructure stock is associated with a 1% increase in the level of GDP. Other studies have concluded that East Asia's much higher investment in infrastructure explains a large part of its faster growth than Latin America.

A recent report by Goldman Sachs argues that infrastructure spending is not just a cause of economic growth, but a consequence of it. As people get richer and more of them live in towns, the demand for electricity, transport, sanitation and housing increases. This mutually reinforcing relationship leads to higher investment and growth. The bank has developed a model that uses expected growth in income, urbanisation and population to forecast future infrastructure demands.

Urbanisation has the biggest impact on electricity requirements. Goldman calculates that a 1% increase in the share of people living in cities leads to a 1.8% increase in demand for installed capacity. A 1% rise in income per head leads to a 0.5% increase in demand. Putting this together, electricity capacity may have to surge by 140% in China and by 80% in India over the next decade (see right-hand chart). Air travel—and hence airports—will see the fastest growth in demand, because it is by far the most sensitive to income: a 1% increase in income per person leads to a 1.4% increase in the number of passengers travelling by air. The number of air passengers could jump by more than 350% in China and by 200% in India over the next decade.

China's faster growth in income per head and its more rapid pace of urbanisation mean that it is likely to pull even further ahead of India on most infrastructure measures. China could add 13 times as many fixed-line phones as India over the decade, seven times as many air passengers and six times as much electricity capacity. Brazil and Russia, which are already much more urbanised and relatively richer (implying slower growth in income), will also see more modest growth in infrastructure.
A boom in fumes

How will emerging economies finance all this spending? The fiscal finances of most emerging economies are in good shape. As a group, they are close to having a balanced budget, although a few, notably India, have large deficits. Even so, the vast scale of investment will require more private-sector money. To attract that, emerging economies will need to offer investors a decent return and that will require reform of their regulatory systems and a move towards market pricing. In India only about half of all electricity generated is paid for, because power is stolen and bills are left unpaid. In turn, the financing needs of massive infrastructure investment could encourage the development of domestic bond markets, bringing additional long-term benefits.

The infrastructure boom has global implications. Increased investment means more imports of capital equipment, which will help to slim current-account surpluses in China and elsewhere, and so reduce global imbalances. Rising demand for building materials will keep commodity prices high.

Last, but not least, will be the negative impact on the environment. An expected 75% increase in emerging economies' electricity demand over the next decade will worsen air pollution and global warming. Many fear that China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, could cause massive environmental damage. China's national bird, the red-crowned crane, is an endangered species. Some people may wish that the construction crane was also breeding less rapidly.

Peace Through PayPal?
Kiva Allows Americans to Lend Money to Needy Entrepreneurs Around the World
By BETSY STARK, LARA SETRAKIAN and TERI WHITCRAFT

June 5, 2007 —

In Kirkuk, a city in northern Iraq that wavers between war and unsteady peace, a woman named Khadeja runs a beauty shop in the poorest section of town. She needs $1,200 to keep her business going -- a business that supports her parents and disabled brother.

In Los Gatos, Calif., a real estate broker named Debby Bright is giving her a loan.

Separated by roughly 7,000 miles, Bright and Khadeja connected through Kiva, an online lending network which recently added Iraqis to its list of entrepreneurs in poor countries who are looking to build up a business.

On Kiva.org Bright and others like her log on, browse the pictures and profiles of small business owners and make micro loans -- usually $25 to $50 each -- with the click of a mouse.

Once the full value of the loan is collected, it's wired to a Kiva field partner in that country, who then delivers cash to the entrepreneur.

Khadeja gets her loan, and Bright gets to feel she made a difference.

"She's an entrepreneur and I'm an entrepreneur, and I know how important it is to have one's own business," Bright told ABC News. "I feel we as a nation owe something to these people."

Rebuilding Iraq -- One Loan at a Time

The first Iraq entrepreneurs to join this lending service went up on the Kiva Web site just two weeks ago. Photographs of their faces were blurred to protect their identities, and the requests were accompanied by this disclaimer: "This entrepreneur is from a volatile region where the security situation remains unsettled. Lenders to this business should be aware that this loan may represent a higher risk and accept this additional risk in making their loan."

Nevertheless, the Iraq postings sparked what seemed like a feeding frenzy online. Within a few hours all the loans were fully funded -- from the hair salon to a request for a new sewing machine and a request to rebuild a computer shop that had been burned to the ground in a terrorist attack.

"A lot of people had the same reaction I did, which was, 'This is my chance!'" said Christian Conti of Washington, D.C., who loaned $25 to a mobile phone shop owner in Kirkuk. "As someone who watches the news play out day to day & and all you hear is the negative news & you say, 'Man, I wish I could do something.'"

"Traditionally a business on Kiva gets funded in about a day and a half," CEO and co-founder Matt Flannery told ABC News. He noted that women business owners in Africa usually go the quickest, while Eastern European men take the longest time to get funded.

"Right now the Iraqis are going to quickest. I think they all got funded in half a day, which is the fastest sector on our site right now," Flannery added.

Some of the Americans who responded told ABC news the loans were their way of helping with Iraq's reconstruction, lifting an economy left in tatters by the U.S. invasion.

"I'm not able to save Iraq & but I am able to give $25 to support a woman and her tailoring business," said Glenda Denniston of Madison, Wis., who loaned money to both the computer store owner and the seamstress in Kirkuk.

The 'Two Martini Loan'

Many of the Kiva lenders say they are "addicted" to the Web site, checking it daily if not hourly to see what new countries and entrepreneurs have been posted.

Conti has loaned $25 to three dozen different entrepreneurs from Togo to Tanzania, Afghanistan to Iraq. He calls it his "two-martini loan."

"That's what it costs in D.C. for two martinis and instead someone in Tajikistan has two cows, is able to feed their family & that's an easy decision for me," said Conti.

And the small sums add up. In 20 months the San Francisco-based nonprofit has helped put more than $6 million into the hands of small business owners in 30 countries.

Kiva, which means "agreement" in Swahili, operates based on what's called social lending or person-to-person financing. The power of that method, according to Kiva CEO and co-founder Matt Flannery, lies in the personal connectivity felt on both sides of the transaction.

"I think the secret of Kiva's success is that it's a people-focused experience. People in America get to see where their dollars are going," said Flannery.

Sending a Message

In every country, Kiva has a field partner that deals directly with the entrepreneurs -- reviewing loan applications and delivering the cash. In Iraq, that partner is the Al-Aman Finance Center in Kirkuk, which is funded by a grant from USAID. Al-Aman chairman Waria Salhi says that the Kiva loans send a clear and powerful message to borrowers in Iraq.

"The message is 'Americans are not only the soldiers whom you see on Iraqi streets chasing bad guys. They are also good and hardworking people thousands of miles away and voluntarily willing to help you with their hard earned money,'" Salhi told ABC News in an e-mail.

"Lenders are not lending because they think of how the person is going to pay me back & they're lending because they think this person is the most in need," said Flannery.

The Payback

So far, Kiva has an excellent track record for the repayment of loans.

Only one out of 9,000 borrowers has defaulted on a Kiva loan; all others have paid back or started to pay back their lenders. While the individual lenders on Kiva don't collect interest on their loan, the borrowers do pay interest to Kiva's field partners at a rate of roughly 13 percent to help cover their operating expenses. That's usually far less than the interest charged by banks or other institutions that are available to make loans.

Aside from the default rate, experts find there can be other risks with this operating model for loans. In particular, there is a risk that loan recipients are not honest or realistic about their plans for the money they receive.

"It's very hard to vet projects on the ground & and make sure they're capable of doing what they say they'll do with the money," said Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

"Kiva's done quite well with this so far, leveraging contacts on the ground. But it gets harder to do the larger you get," he said.

The Next Step

As Kiva looks to raise more money for an expanding group of small businesses around the world, there will likely be changes to its operating model.

To date Kiva's overhead expenses have been covered by donations and grants, but sometime this year the nonprofit will introduce a fee of 2 percent to local partners to sustain and scale up its work.

There are also plans to build out the Web infrastructure on Kiva.org to add rich content including more photos and soon, video of Kiva loan applicants in remote reaches of the world.

But for now, entrepreneurs like Khadeja in Kirkuk, are just happy that they received a loan. She is looking forward to hiring some extra workers and getting new equipment for her beauty shop with her thousand dollars from Kiva.

"I tell my donor thank you," Khadeja told ABC News through a translator. "It will change my life."

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

With all the labeling going around of being a 'liberal' or 'conservative'.

Frankly, I'm not sure what I am so I call myself an independent.

So on the way home from the golf course, I decided to peck out what are the defining tenets of my views and let all of you who might ponder this join in the COMMENTS with your thoughts.

For me I'm for whatever strategy that will increase and maintain and reliable 'supply chains' for goods and services to the broadest band of the population of earth. The ultimate result is the broadest band of 'connectivity' in terms of economics opportunities, internet educations, and freedom of choice.

I believe that this type of connectivity is being accomplished by the rapid expansion of 'globalization' which is the most effective avenue to pluralistic types of governments which give the people a system to have a voice in their governance.

The question of representative governance is most often an issue of 'sequencing'... meaning that democracy isn't always the beginning step in the process. I believe that governance should be about establishing the broadest band of economic connectivity which generates 'discretionary' income which is the first real step of democracy or some form of pluralism.

Folks are much less concerned about who governs them when they are hand to mouth and much more interested in having a voice when their basic needs are met.

So I'm interested in comments on whether or not this description makes me a conservative, a liberal an independent, a globalist or ??

Comments?

The UN and humanitarian intervention
To protect sovereignty, or to protect lives?

May 15th 2008
From The Economist print edition
The new notion of global responsibility to alleviate suffering has struggled to win acceptance—and Myanmar will not be the place where it comes of age
Illustration by David Simonds

Correction to this article

“IT WOULD only take half an hour for the French boats and French helicopters to reach the disaster area.” Those were the wistful words uttered by Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister, as his country's diplomats at the United Nations vainly argued that aid might have to be “imposed” on Myanmar if the military regime refused to co-operate.

Even as he spoke, diplomats from China, Vietnam, South Africa and Russia were mocking his idea that the “responsibility to protect” (a new concept in global affairs, implying that saving human lives might in some extreme circumstances override sovereignty) could be invoked in the case of Myanmar's cyclone. China noted acidly that the idea had not been cited in 2003 when France suffered a deadly heatwave.

David Miliband, Britain's foreign secretary, reignited the debate on May 13th. Challenged by a radio interviewer to say whether the new concept (designed to deal with crimes like genocide or ethnic cleansing) could also apply to natural disasters, he replied: “It certainly could, and we have been absolutely clear...that all instruments of the UN should be available.” But nobody expects Britain, France or any other country to fight its way into Myanmar. As Mr Miliband observed, “the regime has 400,000 troops in uniform.” For ordinary people, unfamiliar with the UN's arcane workings, it looks rather depressing. Will there ever be a good moment to cite the notion of a responsibility to protect—unanimously adopted by more than 150 states at the UN World Summit in 2005—as Mr Kouchner is now suggesting?

The tortuous development of that concept is a tale close to the French minister's heart. As a young doctor, he saw the horrors of the Biafran famine triggered by Nigeria's civil war. Soon afterwards he co-founded Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and became a leading supporter of the “right of humanitarian intervention” in cases where governments fail their own people.

What Mr Kouchner was proposing sounded, in its stronger versions, like a revolution in global affairs—overturning the 1648 treaty of Westphalia, which upheld the right of sovereign states to act freely within their own borders. The UN Charter of 1945 also upholds the Westphalia principles, by stating in article 2(7), that “nothing should authorise intervention in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.” But Chapter VII does entitle the Security Council to take action in cases of a “threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression”.

Tension between those two principles—sovereignty versus intervention—has been palpable for decades. Some countries stress the enforcement powers laid down by Chapter VII. Others (mostly in the poor world) insist that state sovereignty always trumps, even in humanitarian emergencies.

In practice, since the end of the cold war the UN has been intervening more often in conflicts within (as opposed to between) states. Sometimes it has happened with, and sometimes without, the consent of the governments concerned.

In 1999 Tony Blair became the first world leader to assert a moral right to “get actively involved in other people's conflicts”—even without leave from the Security Council—if it was the only way to stop dire suffering. Speaking in Chicago after NATO's war over Kosovo, which the Security Council had declined to endorse, Britain's then prime minister made the case for “just war, based not on territorial ambitions, but on values”.

Four years later, an American-led coalition invaded Iraq, using somewhat similar rhetoric about the need to overthrow a dangerous tyrant for the good of everyone. Although it wasn't in any formal or legal sense a test case for responsibility to protect, many people felt that the disastrous outcome in Iraq discredited the entire idea of intervention for “altruistic” purposes.
Less of a right, more of a duty

Meanwhile, Canada had set up an International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, under the chairmanship of Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, and Mohamed Sahnoun, a former Algerian diplomat. In their report, published in 2001, it was they who first suggested changing the discretionary “right to intervene” into a more muscular “responsibility to protect”, or R2P as it is known in diplomatic jargon. Under it, the “international community” (in effect the UN) would be placed under an actual obligation to take, if necessary, coercive action to protect people at risk of grave harm, in accordance with clear criteria.

Taken up by a High-Level Panel on UN reform in 2004 and adopted by Kofi Annan, then UN secretary-general, the principle survived the haggling in the run-up to the 2005 World Summit to squeeze its way into the final “Outcome Document”, though shorn of criteria. But it was never intended to cope with the aftermath of natural disasters or even “ordinary” human-rights violations. It was to be invoked only for genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity.

From the start, the idea was viewed by the developing world as a trick by the West to impose its values. Cuba, Egypt, Russia, Algeria and Myanmar have been vocal opponents. They have been leading a determined effort to obstruct the formal appointment of Edward Luck, a professor at Columbia University, as a special UN adviser on the issue. He still has no salary, no real title and no UN office.

Others, this time in the West, are asking whether responsibility to protect will ever be more than an empty slogan. When it came to it, who would be willing to intervene? How could such action ever get past all five of the Security Council's veto-wielding powers? Besides, as a senior UN official laments, the Iraq fiasco has “poisoned this well”. It showed that an armed intervention, even if its declared aims are benign, can set off a whole chain of terrible consequences.

“It never takes much more than a few days around the corridors and meeting rooms of the UN in New York to have your latest dose of optimism beaten out of you,” Mr Evans moaned recently. But he and other proponents of responsibility to protect have started to fight back, seeking to correct “misconceptions” over the concept. It's not meant to be a grand new doctrine or policy, they insist, rather a modest “strategy” for protecting the defenceless.

It is not only about military intervention, they add, but also prevention: spotting situations that could result in mass atrocities. Political, diplomatic, legal and economic measures should be tried before any resort to arms. Not every conflict, potential conflict, or gross abuse of rights should prompt application of the rule—only the worst cases. And even when all non-military means have failed, armed intervention may still not be the right answer. The consequences must be weighed to ensure that it will not do more harm than good to the people it seeks to protect.

Responsibility to protect is not yet dead, but it is fragile. Supporters point to the power-sharing deal that stopped Kenya's civil war in February as the concept's first success. The fact that the UN, in principle, retains the right to impose its will by force may have made it easier for the world body to broker a settlement.

Perhaps. But the idea will need some clearer successes than that if it is going to survive. And Myanmar, apparently, is not going to be one of them.