For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.

That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.

You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor - New York Times

For many years, the term Central Europe was missing from the American vocabulary. A simple expression was used instead: the Soviet bloc.

A State of the Central European Nations address from Poland

Waiting for freedom, messing it up - International Herald Tribune

The Kremlin is taking action to expand its control over the media — the Internet in particular — as Russia heads toward parliamentary elections this December and presidential elections in the spring of 2008.

the tale of the boiling frog episode xxiii

'Super agency' threatens Russian freedom - International Herald Tribune

Why are we Westerners in Afghanistan?
...
The objective now is to wrest rural areas from Taliban forces.

But many of the people we are fighting have no fixed political manifesto. Almost none have links to Al Qaeda or an interest in attacking U.S. soil. We will never have the troop numbers to hold these areas, and we are creating unnecessary enemies. A more considered approach to tribal communities would give us better intelligence on our real enemies. It is clear that we do not have the resources, the stomach, or the long- term commitment for a 20-year counterinsurgency campaign. And the Afghan Army is not going to take over this mission.
...
Sometimes it is better for us to do less. Dutch forces in the province of Uruzgan have found that, when left alone, the Taliban alienate communities by living parasitically, lecturing puritanically and failing to deliver. But when the British tried to aggressively dominate the South last summer, they alienated a dangerous proportion of the local population and had to withdraw. Pacifying the tribal areas is a task for Afghans, working with Pakistan and Iran. It will involve moving from the overcentralized state and developing formal but flexible relationships with councils in all their varied village forms

mmmmhhhh
at the moment we're likely to lose
it's partly a military conflict but it's also about hearts and minds

When less is best - International Herald Tribune

To understand how much the Iraq war has transformed the way most Americans think about foreign policy, consider what passed for shrewd analysis four years ago.

The words on the "in" list included "unilateral," "bold," "robust," "transformative" and "sole remaining superpower." The words on the "out" list included "multilateral," "nuance," "patience," "diplomacy," "allies," "history" and "prudence."

Today, the "in" and "out" lists would be almost exactly reversed. The new "out" list includes such additions as "reckless," "arrogant" and "incompetent."
...
None of this means that American opinion has become isolationist. The country's determination to defeat terrorism has not slackened. Most Americans still believe the war in Afghanistan was a proper response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and wonder why it was left unfinished so the ideologues could go off in pursuit of Utopia on the Euphrates. The men and women who wear the nation's uniform have never been so popular.

But those who spent the past four years hyping threats, underestimating costs, ignoring rational warnings, painting unrealistic futures and savaging their opponents have been discredited. This awakening is the first step toward rebuilding our country's influence and power.

E. J. Dionne Jr. - Morning in America - washingtonpost.com

You do not have to look very hard these days to see the grave damage the Bush administration's mismanagement of the Iraq conflict has inflicted on the U.S. Army

Repairing the damage to the U.S. military - International Herald Tribune

Jeffrey Lucey was 18 when he signed up for the Marine Reserves in December 1999. His parents, Kevin and Joyce Lucey of Belchertown, Mass., were not happy. They had hoped their son would go to college.
...
[On returning from Iraq] He had nightmares. He drank furiously. He withdrew from his friends. He wrecked his parents’ car. He began to hallucinate.
...
“Then I could see, through the corner of my eye, Jeff,” said Mr. Lucey. “And he was, I thought, standing there. Then I noticed the hose around his neck.”
...
Mr. Lucey made no effort to hide his bitterness over the government’s failure to address many of the critical needs of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. His voice quivered as he said, “When we hear anybody in the administration get up and say that they support the troops, it sickens us.”

Death of a Marine - New York Times

As the Bush administration sinks deeper into its multiple quagmires, the personality cult the G.O.P. once built around President Bush has given way to nostalgia for the good old days. The current cover of Time magazine shows a weeping Ronald Reagan, and declares that Republicans “need to reclaim the Reagan legacy.”

But Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity.

Don’t Cry for Reagan - New York Times

There aren’t a lot of environmental groups with their own investment bank consultants, so when you hear that Environmental Defense has just hired the boutique Wall Street firm Perella Weinberg Partners, you know that we’re in a new world. Every college activist should study this story, because it is the future. In the old days, when activists wanted something done, they held a sit-in or organized a protest march. Now they hire an investment bank.

a nice story that rather renews one's hope

Marching With a Mouse - New York Times

If there were no precedents for the suspicious death of the Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, it might be easier to believe his fall from a fifth-floor window on March 2 was the suicide officials initially said it was. But too many other journalists working on sensitive stories have met violent ends in Russia.
...
the testimony of family and friends that he had never seemed suicidal, and the circumstances surrounding his fall from the window — with his hat and oranges he had purchased scattered on the stairwell below — strongly suggest that it was not an accident.

the tale of the boiling frog episode xxii

A convenient suicide - International Herald Tribune