(via Andrew Sulivan) The country is culturally unified, well-educated, hard-working, and motivated by status, not money.
It is no model for the United States–which only meets one of those four criteria– but it works for them.
Dec 04
In Zuckerberg’s garden, befriend your favorite armed organizations
Internet, Middle East, Palestinian Territories, terrorist organizations, Turkey
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walled garden/wired world/who wins
People say the “walled gardens” of social media are more restrictive than the World Wide Web. But are you surprised at how ideologically agnostic Facebook is? I’m not.
Hamas’s military wing recently set up a Facebook page and which got blocked, prompting the group’s online allies in Turkey to complain.
But supporters of Hezollah and Hamas have a Facebook page. And so do allies of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Seems pretty open to me. And guess which group has more Friends?
Dec 04
With Wikileaks site besieged by some combination of traffic and (state-sponsored?) denial of service attacks, click on Cablesearch.org to look at all the material that’s been released so far.
Nov 29
Wikileaks #2: Bob Gates, travelling salesman
Europe, Middle East, Turkey, U.S. policy
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The Wikileaks documents are most interesting in confirming long suspected stories, like:
–the Persian gulf emirates don’t trust Iran and hope for a U.S. attack on its nuclear program.
–the U.S. Secretary of Defense is an unpaid lobbyist for U.S. military contractors
During his meeting with [Turkish defense minister Mehmet] Gonul, SecDef [Robert Gates] advised that Turkey had opportunities to increase its military capabilities while gaining economic benefits by selecting U.S. companies in currently open tenders. First, Sikorsky, was prepared to guarantee that for every helicopter produced in Turkey and bought by Turkey, Sikorsky would produce a second helicopter in Turkey for export. SecDef explained that in addition to providing modern equipment for Turkey, this offer would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in export revenue.
Nov 29
As the Post and Times coverage focuses on Arab pressure for U.S. military action against Iran, the German and Turkish focus on long-suspected Turkish sympathy for the Islamic Republic, driven by hostility to Israel
The US diplomats’ verdict on the NATO partner with the second biggest army in the alliance is devastating. The Turkish leadership is depicted as divided, and [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s advisers, as well as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, are portrayed as having little understanding of politics beyond Ankara.
The problem notes the Turkish Daily News: U.S. diplomats and Israeli officials agree that Erdogan “hates” Israel. Erdogan’s goverment wants to offer Iran a “third way” out of the nuclear confrontation, an idea the U.S. goverment loathes and dismisses. Turkey, said one U.S. diplomat has “the ambitions of Rolls Royce but the means of Rover.”
Nov 27
‘Control of diplomacy by the people’
Europe, Internet, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
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The long Wikileaks drum roll continues. From FT.com:.
Nov 26
How WikiLeaks is changing the world
Americas, Internet, Russia, United States
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With Wikileak’s next document dump generating fear in Washington and glee in Russia, Christopher Schwartz at RFL/RE points out, correctly I think, that the upstart Web site is changing the nature of the international order by exposing a central truth: the Americans have dirt on everyone.
Assange and company’s logic is as elegant as it’s unsettling: by revealing the secrets of the world’s leading superpower, the secrets of the world — namely, the all-too-often dirty web of interconnections between governments, corporations, intelligence and media agencies, and key personalities — are also revealed.
There are potential lessons here, some likely old, some hopefully new, and all doubtlessly very unhappy, about the nature of power and what it really means to be an “international community.”
One lesson is that the secrecy essential to U.S. diplomacy faces unprecedented pressure from the network.
Nov 26
Obama’s travels don’t change the global narrative
Asia, Europe, India, Middle East, Pakistan, Russia, United Arab Emirates
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So says Analysis Intelligence, a Web site published by Recorded Future, a data mining startup that is jointly funded by Google and the Central Intelligence Agency.
we can say that the White House was successful in changing the story of their midterm defeat, but the success was temporary. The world still writes about the President much more positively than negatively, and the President received better coverage in our biggest rivals’ blogs than in their mainstream media sources.
Nov 21
W’s Pinochet Holiday
Americas, Europe, human rights, United Kingdom
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London’s conservative mayor reads W’s memoir and recommends he stay home, lest he experience the Pinochet holiday, in which the absconding traveler spends rather more time in Great Britain than he planned.
Nov 19
There are fears, oft-discounted but still harbored by at least one Israeli intelligence official, that terrorists might use Google Street View to plan terrorist attacks. If so, Google’s offices in Munich are safer today, because they are blurred in Google Street View, according to CNET’s Technically Incorrect. Continue reading »
