Avuncular American

The G-20 and the 20K House

If the G-20 "sherpas" are sweating it about now, then maybe there's still hope for the world.  As the BBC described them,

the word also refers to the faceless diplomats who lay the groundwork for high-profile international meetings such as the G8 and the G20. Like the real sherpas, they must have stamina and skill. Their work - numerous face-to-face meetings, conference calls and e-mail exchanges - determines whether a summit will be a success. In many cases, they will have drafted the communique far in advance of the leaders' actual meeting.

So, it might be over before it begins.  Given the divergence of opinion from the members as different as Argentina and the United States, it's hard to be optimistic for a meaningful outcome for this one-day meeting.  But "make or break" is what is at stake, according to George Soros, who fears a depression if the world's leaders do not get their act together.

My concern with what I've read about thus far - TARP, TALF, CDS, bailouts, billions, trillions - is that it's all too theoretical, hypothetical, and hifalutin for any normal person to get a grasp.  Let's get down to earth: this problem started with houses, so perhaps houses might be a way to start solving the problem.

Can I interest you in a $20,000 house?  That's what the good people at "Rural Studio," an Auburn University program in Hale County Alabama, have been up to for years.  Architectural students, using a combination of new and used materials, have been designing and building sustainable housing and garnering international attention.  I learned of their work at an exhibit put on by the EU's Economic and Social Committee here in Brussels.

Think this is a joke?  Not TIME Magazine, which reported last month that "despite the crash in prices, affordable housing is still lacking," and explained how this came to pass:

Meanwhile, affordable home construction became passé. What developer wanted to build humdrum houses for teachers and police officers when he could make a killing with waterfront condominiums that promised the glamorous lifestyle of murder suspects on CSI: Miami?

TIME was writing about Florida, but the problem is widespread.  "Some Florida towns have even enacted minimum square-footage requirements for single-family homes and have all but zoned out affordable rental units."  NIMBY.

In Britain, the housing crisis includes one million empty homes, while almost twice that number - 1.8 million - families await housing.

TARP and TALF might be very 21st century, but what I fear is missing are a few 20th century acronyms: CCC, WPA, NRA, TVA.  Franklin Roosevelt had no blueprint for digging the United States out of the Great Depression.  But his programs, which involved workers digging and hammering their way out of hopelessness, created a tangible sense of participation in a great national effort.  At least the Obama Administration took the "R" in Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration and turned it into a useful informational tool.

So we have to find a way to dig ourselves out of the blame game that appears to be the Washington approach.  And let's hope that those 20 heads of state and government in London this Thursday won't play that same game.  Hey, anyone can do that, blame the other guys.  They were elected to lead (at least those of the G-20 from democracies), and they need to show their stuff.  Poor sherpas.

La Graine et le Mulet - Secret of the Grain

A Franco-Arab Immigrant Version of "Big Night"

The Germans have entitled it "Warten auf Couscous," the original title is "La graine et le mulet," and it will be known as "Secret of the Grain" when it is eventually brought to the anglophone world.  Yes, couscous does feature prominently in the film, but that is like saying that "Gone With the Wind" should have been called "She Grows Cotton."

La graine et le mulet (the couscous in question is the mullet variety, as those who know Tunisia's fish couscous have come to appreciate) is a French film by a Tunisian-born director, Abdelatif Kechiche.  French, because it's almost all in French, takes place in Sete, a Mediterranean fishing port, and with a cast almost exclusively composed of hyphenated French, mostly of North African origin.

Kechiche has explored this world before, in "La Faute a Voltaire" and "L'esquive," both of which garnered awards in European film festivals, as has La graine et le mulet.  But here's the thing: in his latest film, there's not a Muslim fundamentalist to be seen.  You would be hard-pressed to guess that the Maghrebi families depicted practice any religion - it's just not shown to be a part of their lives.

What we do see are lots of family: extended family, immigrant family, second generation family, mixed marriages, divorces, infidelity, and love.  The only skin you'll see is during an extended belly dance at the family restaurant (that's the converted fishing boat you see in the poster).  But I would say that certain fundamentalist elements in European Muslim communities will rail against the film, simply for its naturalistic depiction of secular Muslims going about the business of adapting to life in Europe.

For someone who has spent a chunk of his life in North Africa, the film is a joy.  The acting is natural, understated at most times, volcanic when the situation calls for emotion.  There is humor, pathos, and an uncanny feel for relations among and across France's communities.  The film's acting revelation is Hafsia Herzi, under twenty when the film was made in 2005 (it was only released in 2007).  If Marion Cotillard just won a very deserved Golden Globe for her portrayal of Edith Piaf, then Hafsia Herzi deserves honors for this, her first film role (she did win the "Marcello Mastoianni Prize" at the Venice Film Festival).

As the Hollywood Reporter said of Kechiche at Venice, "the director's lack of discipline in failing to yell cut while he's ahead" is really the only serious criticism that can be rendered against this two and a half hour film.  In all other respects, it's all thumbs up for La Graine et le Mulet.

(Note: this post was originally published in January 2008; photo source: Unifrance.org)

Leonera - Lion's Den

Any film whose credits include "Baby Wranglers" along with the usual jobs like screenwriter, grip, etc. is worthy of special consideration.  In fact, Leonera was in the competition for the Cannes Golden Palm, and has won awards at lesser film festivals on several continents.  Nor can there be any doubt that Martina Gusman as principal character "Julia" provides a world-class performance.  But what about those babies, and why do they require wrangling?

Leonera, you see, is Spanish for a Lion's Den full of little "cubs" - children born behind bars to women serving time in Argentina's prisons.  But don't expect some exploitation film with sadistic guards - the kind you might see coming out of Hollywood studios.  Here the guards are portrayed as very professional, not saints but definitely not sadists.  Director Pablo Trapero filmed on location, with the cooperation of the Argentine penitentiary authorities, and some of the prisoners are playing their real-life roles.

The lack of outright sadism does not mean that this is an easy film.  Some will be put off by the occasional nudity, though these prisoners are not about to enter any beauty contests, and even the lovely Martina Gusman is shown heavily pregnant in the showers.  Oh yes, the showers.  This being a film about women in prison, you will not be surprised at the suggestion of lesbian encounters, some of them loving relationships.  Everything has a credible feel, and those "baby wranglers" must have had their hands full: the place is crawling with tiny kids.

Director Trapero and his star and partner Gusman gave an interview to Sophie Wittmer in "DVDrama.com" (part of French TF1 TV), where they talked about how the prisoners came to identify with "Julie," and how the couple found it so difficult to head home after a day's shooting, knowing that the prisoner extras remained locked up.  The completed film got rave reviews from the prisoners, and is being used in Argentine prisons as a tool to stimulate dialogue.  But Trapero didn't set out to make a prison film: "for me, it's more than that; it's a film about motherhood."

How do prisoner mothers fare in the United States?  Well, there's an organization called "Prisoners With Children," and almost ten years ago Time Magazine carried a story, "Mothers In Prison," that documented the then growing phenomenon of women in prison, over 70% of whom had at least one minor dependent child.  At the time, a "scathing report by Amnesty International helped draw public attention to the sometimes harsh treatment of pregnant inmates, such as shackling them during labor--a practice that has since been outlawed in the state of Illinois."  That was in 2000.

In the February 2009 issue of Harper's, I came across in this item called "Hard Labor," an excerpt from a class-action lawsuit filed in December 2008 against the Chicago, Illinois Cook County Jail:

Plaintiff Zaborowski went into labor and was taken to Stroger Hospital. Upon her arrival, deputy sheriffs shackled her hand and foot to a hospital bed. She remained shackled for about eleven hours while she was in labor. Immediately before the birth, the attending physician requested that a deputy sheriff unshackle Zaborowski’s foot. The deputy complied, and Zaborowski was shackled to the bed by one arm when she delivered her child on August 30. The deputy sheriff reshackled her foot about an hour after the birth.

Guess they didn't read the Amnesty report.  Tough as it is, you won't see anything nearly as harrowing as that in Leonera.

As Time Magazine summarized the dilemma a decade ago, some "argue that the risks of prison life are outweighed by the benefits of keeping babies close to their mothers,"  saying that it is "worse to separate kids from their mothers."  There are no easy answers, and Leonera certainly doesn't provide them, other than a recognition that whatever their crimes, mothers are fiercely attached to their children.

Argentina has had its very dark days, and they often involved women, prisons, and children, as in the gripping 1985 film The Official Story, on the aftermath of impunity during the military dictatorship.  Now the country appears to be trying to deal humanely, within its means, with the difficult question of mothers in prison.  You get the feeling that the Argentine penitentiary system is aware of its responsibility to make amends for wrongs committed a generation ago.

Leonera will be released in the UK in June 2009.

Military Industrial Complex, Bollywood Bunduk Wallah

Bunduk or bunduq: From the Persian and Arabic, used in the Raj and throughout the British Army for rifle, as in "Pick up your bunduk, you slovenly soldier!"

Wallah:  Suffix -wallah indicates a person performing an activity, like the tea-serving chai-wallah in Slumdog Millionaire who strikes it rich

Image: Sikh Cyber Museum

A British friend of mine, when he worked at the Ministry of Defence, was assigned to Arms Merchant duties in the Far East for a few years.  He self-deprecatingly referred to his new duties as "bunduk-wallah."

And he probably wasn't called an "arms merchant" either, that epithet being reserved for dark figures like Viktor Bout, the legendary Russian arms smuggler, or the fictional "Yuri Orlov" played by Nicolas Cage in Lord of War.

In official arms-merchant circles, the terminology is so mundane as to put you to sleep: the Pentagon speaks of "acquisition" when it puts in orders for hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of weapons systems.  Its bunduk-wallahs in turn sell American arms overseas, doing their genteel work from the comfort of American Embassies.  Their offices are often labeled "Office Of Military Cooperation (OMC)," which I suppose it is (cooperation, that is) when the weapons sold stay in the hands of properly-constituted militaries.

But arms, like cash, are fungible.  That why "SALW" (Small Arms and Light Weapons) proliferation is such a problem in places from Monrovia to Mexico.  In Africa, leaders used to plead with post-Iraq invasion American envoys to pay attention to "their weapons of mass destruction problem" - small arms, from Kalashnikovs to RPGs, a contributor and enabler of continental-scale instability and mass murder.  My former Pentagon employer, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, even organized seminars to analyze the problem.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to her credit, has recognized that the US often is the problem, at least in the case of arms-for-drug-cartels.  The Obama Administration will "try to get more tools to go after the gun dealers" in the United States, she told Mexican leaders.  Proof of the pudding: Obama is appointing arms critic Ashton Carter to head the Pentagon's arms acquisition program.  Is it becoming difficult to be an arms dealer?

A glance at the 5-year trend of the DFI Amex Defense Index (from the WSJ's MarketWatch site) shows that the arms trade ain't what it used to be.  It used to look like this - ever upward.  So bunduk-wallahs have to be more imaginative, to tailor their product, but more importantly their marketing pitch, to potential buyers.
No more generic one-size-fits-all worldwide PR campaign, but spots tailored to the tastes (or lack thereof) of the arms-buying public.  "Public" may be out of place in this context - these deals are done behind closed doors.

So we have several people to thank for bringing the following gem of missile-marketing to our attention: my old friend (and reader) Dick, for sending me the link; law professor Chris Borgen of St. John's University and his excellent Opinio Juris website; and finally Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. for producing this masterpiece:

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make, other than showing the lengths arms marketers will go to flaunt their midriff... product.  As Chris Borgen says, "Who am I fooling? I don’t have a substantive point here. Just check out the video."  Bet you can't get that refrain out of your brain:

"I need to feel safe and sheltered..."

"I promise to defend you..."

"Dinga Dinga Dee"

Snijeg (Snow)

Snow does not fall to cover the hill, but for every beast to leave its trail

Director Aida Begic chose the proverb (Bosnian?) to introduce her film at Cannes, where Snow won the 2008 Critics' Week Grand Prize.  This film, just released in Belgium, treats a subject too seldom covered in movies about war: its aftereffects, especially on the survivors.

The setting is the peaceful mountain village of Slavno in Bosnia, 1997 - barely two years since the end of the war between Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Serbs, and sometimes Bosnian Croats.  There is still danger in unmapped minefields, and there is still hope that at least some of the missing men might turn up - alive.

Hope, would say protagonist Alma, may not be a plan, but it sure beats resignation and flight.  She's battling to make a go of a little business making and marketing fruit preserves.  "Slavno will feed half of Bosnia," she says, though nothing is easy.  There are - with the exception of an elderly man and a mute, traumatized boy - only women and children in Slavno.

Director Begic says that "this is not a 'woman's film,' though men are marked by their absence" (interview in Le Soir by Didier Stiers).  And though it's not a "war film" either, the psychic wounds are visible on the faces of the survivors.

I highly recommend Michael Guillen's film blog, The Evening Class, and his transcription of a Cannes Q & A with the director (who looks uncannily like "Alma").  We learn that Begic (33) and Zana Marjanovic (Alma) are both from Sarajevo (the latter grew up in New York City), and had to "do a lot of serious research to make this film" that depicts village life in loving, and knowing, detail.

The opening scene - pre-dawn prayers in the ruins of what was once the village mosque - has to be one of the most effective depictions of Muslim piety and peacefulness yet put on film.  The women - led in prayer by "Grandpa" - overlook the valleys filled with morning mists.  The serenity belies the horrors that have been perpetrated there in the recent past.

We hear references to "Chetniks" - the term used to describe the feared Serb militias - a throwback to the partisan fighting against German invaders in World War II.  So we are surprised when a Serb shows up in the village.  What does he know about the missing men of the village, and can his word be trusted?

Snow provides a rare glimpse into Bosnia, without burdening us with the complications of the post-Dayton balkanization (hey, that's where they invented it!) of the Muslim/Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serbian Republika Srpska - officially one country.

You don't need to know any of that.  And you only have to watch Snow to appreciate that "collateral damage" in war requires more to repair it than just band aids and bricks.  The critics at Cannes have shown their discernment: Snow is a wonderful film.

Brussels Forum 2009: NATO At Sixty

Blogging live from Day Three - and the close - of the Brussels Forum.  In a few minutes, "NATO at 60," with Secretary General Japp de Hoop Scheffer providing opening remarks, will get under way.

NATO, of course, was already on the minds of panelists yesterday in the discussion on Afghanistan and the "Conversation With Russia" between the EU's Javier Solana (himself a former NATO Sec Gen) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Also happening yesterday, pacifist protesters staged "NATO Game Over," a quixotic attempt to scale the ramparts (well, chain link fence) of the organization's headquarters here in Brussels.  It was an uneven match: horse-mounted police led the counterattack, and those protesters who resisted arrest were led away handcuffed.  But it was a beautiful sunny day on the fields outside NATO, making for congenial press coverage conditions.

This photo of political graffiti ('We Come In Peace"), taken from a commuter train stop near NATO HQ, captures the mood of the peace movement here, which symbolically carried NATO off in a coffin yesterday, 60 being - in their view, shared in certain sectors of political Europe - the overextended life expectancy of an organization set up to defend the West during the Cold War.

But back to the Brussels Forum.  Right now, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, looking more at NATO's future than its past accomplishments:  "NATO has been a Transatlantic bargain," said Scheffer, "but was it viewed as a fair bargain on either side of the Atlantic?"  Americans sometimes resented paying more than the Europeans, who in turn chafed at American interference.  But it has held together for six decades.  Now Scheffer says "the bargain needs to be extended" to such areas as energy and cyber security.

Operational realities - peace keeping, peace enforcement in Afghanistan - cannot be separated, are not even divisble "morally," said the Secretary General.  Looking forward to the "big tent" Hague meeting, Scheffer stressed the need for coordinated action.  "We need Russia, we need Iran" for regional stability in Afghanistan's neighborhood.

"Stabilize, secure, enable, and leave" - NATO's goals in Afghanistan, according to Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who joined Scheffer in a panel discussion, along with Polish FM Radoslaw Sikorski, and Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, Chair of the House Armed Services Subcommitte on Strategic Forces and probable future State Department Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, which, as moderator Jonathan Marcus of the BBC reminded the audience, was "the scary" John Bolton's old job.

Scheffer tried to justify NATO's branching out into esoteric areas like energy security (concern about the Arctic "high north" and free flows of oil) and cyber security (Russia's 2007 hacking of Estonia).  To which Peter MacKay added concern over piracy on the high seas.  There was general agreement on the need to modernize the organization to meet new security challenges, though moderator Marcus reminded the panel that many observers feel that NATO risks straying too far from its Article V core.

Given the world economic crisis and pressures on government budgets, will European members of NATO be able to expand defense spending?  "This is a time to review priorities," said Sikorski, who said that Poland is "withdrawing from the 'easier' peacekeeping missions on the Golan Heights and in Chad to reinforce the Polish contingent in Afghanistan."

In the Q & A afterwards, the North American contingent of Tauscher and MacKay hedged somewhat on the notion of NATO as a cure-all for problems beyond collective security.  That said, Tauscher said that emerging asymmetrical threats, especially in the cyber area, justified NATO focus.  MacKay felt that while navigation in the melting Arctic is a legitimate question, NATO is not going to "do climate change."  There are already other fora beyond NATO - NORAD and NAFTA in the North American context - for many of these issues.  Neither addressed whether European-North American relations are adequately addressed in NATO fora and through what are essentially bilateral relations with the European Union.

Final discussion on the next NATO Sec Gen: MacKay has been spoken of as a potential replacement for Scheffer, but Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been touted as the front runner, and possibly the European and US favorite.  MacKay sidestepped the question, but we were reminded by a questioner that Rasmussen - whose country became the focus for Muslim opprobrium after the publication of those infamous cartoons - may be opposed by Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member state and potentially a key player in a wider regional approach on Afghanistan.

Brussels Forum 2009: Afghanistan & Pakistan

Live blogging before lunch from Day Two of the Brussels Forum, which includes the roundtable on "Afghanistan and Pakistan: What Will It Take To Get It Right?" going on right now, with US "Af-Pak" envoy Richard Holbrooke in the center of things.  According to Holbrooke, the key to success in Afghanistan is Pakistan, and the key to Pakistan is resolving the situation in Afghanistan.  The Obama Administration, says Holbrooke, looks at the two countries as a pair.

"The heart of the problem is western Pakistan - the tribal areas," said Holbrooke.  The Obama Administration approach is regional, he said, and puts emphasis not only on Af-Pak, but also "India, China, and all of Afghanistan's neighbors," stress on all the neighbors.  Holbrooke on Pakistani sensitivities to drone attacks on their soil - "what drones?" he joked.  But he forsees no on-the-ground presence by western forces there.

Despite Holbrooke's emphasis, relatively little attention was paid by the rest of the panel to analyzing the internal situation in Pakistan, though Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid pointed out such stultifyingly frustrating statistics as the Pakistani literacy rate today, "equal to that in 1947" when the Islamic state was founded.

On the panel, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski spoke of avoiding "messianic" goals for Afghanistan.  He knows of what he speaks:

As a journalist, Minister Sikorski worked as a war correspondent in Angola and Afghanistan, and won the 1988 World Press Photo prize for one of his photographs taken in Afghanistan.

From Sikorski's comments, it was clear that he was "imbedded" with the Mujahidin during their war against the Soviet Union.  His perspective, therefore, is probably unique among EU-NATO ministers, and he is sometimes mentioned as a potential replacement for outgoing NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Holbrooke took issue with a term in one of the questions: "'minimalist goals' - what does that mean?"  Holbrooke is very aware of the historic resistance of Afghans to foreign invaders, occupiers, or even well-intentioned outsiders like NATO.  If the goal is to "hand Afghanistan back" to its government and people, Holbrooke admits that "we don't yet control" the security situation.

Military-only solutions are out of favor among American, European, and Afghan representatives alike.  Afghan National Security Advisor Zalmai Rasoul corrected the notion of an Obama "military" surge - "it's a comprehensive surge."  FM Sikorski agreed, noting that until Obama came on the scene, military expenditure way outpaced that of development and civil institution-building.

Holbrooke spoke of a "vast program" involving other elements of national power beyond just the military, whose challenges are unprecedented - Holbrooke spoke of the "incredibly difficult logistical trail" that involves trouble spots as varied as Pakistan and Russia and the Central Asian states.  He reminded journalists afterwards of the importance of Turkey's readiness to help in the Afghan civilian sector.  The special envoy stressed NATO's and Europe's importance in solving the Af-Pak problem, and rejected the "coaliton of the willing" approach as an outdated notion.

Holbrooke underlined the power of the new approach, calling to mind the image of his President addressing the Iranian people directly in his Nowruz message.  Straight-talking Holbrooke admits that drug-interdiction efforts in Afghanistan are a "total waste of money, the worst I've seen in decades of government service."  He sees solutions in "draining the swamp" through expanded agicultural sector job creation programs - he's even picked the brain of the US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who will get involved in upcoming Washington consultations with regional leaders.

How to deal with the Taliban?  One questioner, a Danish parliamentarian, said that during a recent trip to the region, her interlocutors said that the West "should not talk to the Taliban."  Afghan NSA Rasoul made a distinction between Taliban and other resistance fighters: "we need to leave the door open" to what is not a monolithic movement.  But some will have to be fought and subdued.  Sikorski deferred to "those who know best the situation, the Afghan authorities," for how best to identify and deal with the disparate Taliban elements.

The Taliban gain adherence, according to Holbrooke, not from their obscurantist program, but from their resistance to foreign forces and "sense of grievance."  Taliban PR efforts continue unabated, with nightly broadcasts boasting of beheadings.  Holbrooke says that ISAF is not countering Taliban propaganda.  "Failures on the civilian side of the international effort - drugs, policing, information - are so enormous," said Holbrooke, that it will require a massive effort to implement the "comprehensive solution."

Spies On the Prowl: Romeos and Rapists

Two stories, related only in that they involve spies, sex, and women as victims.

The first story is of the alleged rape of Algerian women by a CIA operations officer, Andrew Warren, who was the station chief in Algiers until removed after accusations that he had raped Algerian women after drugging them.  Yesterday, the Washington Post carried an extensive article about the scandal, which has the potential to cause problems in US-Algerian relations.  The excellent English-language blog on North African affairs, "The Moor Next Door," provides insights on the Algerian reaction.

In the process of explaining spy tradecraft, WaPo's Joby Warrick and Jeffrey Smith tell us that

As CIA case officers attempt to recruit a foreign spy, they often offer personal inducements, ranging from cash to medical care. In some cases, a potential recruit may be taken to a strip club or even to a prostitute if it is deemed critical to cementing the relationship, longtime officers say.

Now, we've always known that women have been used as enticements in all manner of circumstances, and it probably comes as no surprise that Puritan America is not beyond practicing the "honeytrap" approach in its spy operations.  The allegations against Warren go way beyond this, however, and would put him in the same category as John Worboys, the London taxi serial rapist who drugged his victims.

But how about when men are used to entrap women?  I recommend listening to BBC World Service radio's "Assignment" program, here on podcast, on the East German Stasi's use of "Romeo Spies," specially selected male specimens who lured unsuspecting West German women to spy for the East during the Cold War.  The program profiles the case of Gabriele Kliem, who was recruited by the Stasi for her access to US secrets as an employee of the American Embassy in Bonn, and who lost everything as a result.  The program points out that while some 30 western women were prosecuted in similar cases, ex-Stasi agents have been largely able to get away scot-free.

There is no link, as I say, between the Algerian and East German cases.  But the juxtapostion this week of the two stories this week is fascinating.

Brussels Forum 2009

Thanks to this nice bank of computers at the Press Center of the Brussels Conrad Hotel, I am, for the first time in my life, live blogging as a "journalist."  The 2009 edition of the Brussels Forum, put on by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS), is under way.

Don't stay tuned - I can't imagine that I'll be able to type and listen at the same time.  And I certainly don't want to Twitter my time away.  Right now BBC World's Nik Gowing is conducting the first event of the Forum, taping next weekend's (Saturday March 28) episode of The World Debate.  The topic: "How Relevant is Europe To The US Under Obama?"  It's a relevant topic in its own right, and one that haunts Europeans, who read much into President Obama's seeming downplaying of Gordon Brown's recent visit, or that his first phone call as President was to Mahmoud Abbas and not, say, to Nicolas Sarkozy (poor Sarko is apparently chafing from Obama's letter to his predecessor, Jacques Chirac).

It will be worthwhile watching, this debate of talking heads.  "Mars" (in the person of neocon Robert Kagan, Iraq war monger now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and "Venus" (pretty much everyone else, starting with Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister) battle over the question of fundamental differences (Kagan) or shared values (everyone else) between Europe and the United States.  UK minister Lord Marc Malloch Brown rounded out the European side.

Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, is one of the glass-half-full majority.  Turning Henry Kissinger's dictum about Europe - "who do I call?" - on its head, she said that she can mange with three - not 27 - numbers: those of the EU troika.

One of the best lines was from Carl Bildt, who knows that to do business in Washington, Europeans certainly need more than the White House or the State Department's number.  Illustrative of the Potomac-on-the-North-Sea representation here at the Forum is the presence of a strong US Congressional delegation, including Senators John McCain, Ted Kaufman, Mel Martinez, James Risch, Jeanne Shaheen, and George Voinovich; on the House side, Representatives Alcee Hastings, Darrel Issa, Ron Kind, Ellen Tauscher, and Michael Turner, with staffers from both chambers in tow.  Senators Robert Casey and Bob Bennet, co-chairmen of the Codel, also addressed the opening session.

In the audience, some interesting faces, including Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, staying on-message about Russian intervention in his country.

Probably the most substantive presentation was that of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who tried to erase the false dichotomy between stimulation and regulation, the roughly respective American and European positions on the world financial/economic crisis.  Both are essential, said Barroso, who defended European efforts at injecting sufficient liquidity as equal or greater than those of the US.  Barroso reminded the audience that the European safety net is not only more extensive than that of the US (more generous unemployment benefits; universal health care, etc.), but also lasts longer (unlimited in some European countries vs. 9 months in the US).

All in all, an interesting beginning for the Brussels Forum.

Master Of Universe Job Opp: Do CDS In Brussels

Note: For hard-charging Wall Street master of the universe types who may be smarting because his (it's apparently a testosterone-tainted world, ladies) multi-million dollar bonus got caught up in all that frenzied Washington populism, here is the opportunity for you.  Work in the capital of Europe, and help convince European regulators and policy-makers that Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and Derivatives are actually good for them, as opposed to being toxic sludge best confined to the Hudson River.

Sounds like a "challenging portfolio," if there ever was one.

By the way, the same employer, ISDA, is organizing a conference on "The New CDS Landscape" next Monday March 23 in London.  Topics include "The Big Bang Protocol" (will Alistair Darling be picketing the proceedings?)

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Policy Manager (Full-time)
International Swaps and Derivatives Association
Brussels

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA@) would like to hire a Policy Manager to work with the European Policy Director in the ISDA Brussels office.

ISDA represents participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry and is the largest global financial trade association by number of member firms. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has over 780 member institutions from 55 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world's major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities.

Responsibilities include:

• Attending meetings and events in Brussels, and reporting on proceedings;
• Monitoring, analyzing and reporting EU policy developments of interest to ISDA;
• Executing a wide variety of tasks in support of the European Policy Director;
• Drafting policy papers, in cooperation with ISDA colleagues and members.

Skills and competencies:

• Min. 4 yrs experience in public affairs, ideally inc. 1 year on financial services;
• Excellent written and spoken English, and one other EU working language;
• Should be friendly, outgoing, flexible, engaged and determined;
• Must be national of an EU Member State or have a valid work permit.

Benefits/Conditions:

• Health insurance;
• Pension scheme;
• Salary to be discussed.

Please reply with a CV and covering letter to [email protected] by 26 March 2009

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"Salary to be discussed?"  Salaries are for wimps, no?  How about a cut of the $45 to $55 trillion "notional value" of the CDS market?  To understand more about CDSs, check out this excellent explanation in Wikipedia.

Below is my favorite Wiki illustration, explaining how to compute the present value of CDSs.  Any questions?