At the Corner, Mark Krikorian proposes one possible explanation for Haiti’s woes:

My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough. The ancestors of today’s Haitians, like elsewhere in the Caribbean, experienced the dislocation of de-tribalization, which disrupted the natural ties of family and clan and ethnicity. They also suffered the brutality of sugar-plantation slavery, which was so deadly that the majority of slaves at the time of independence were African-born, because their predecessors hadn’t lived long enough to reproduce.

But, unlike Jamaicans and Bajans and Guadeloupeans, et al., after experiencing the worst of tropical colonial slavery, the Haitians didn’t stick around long enough to benefit from it. (Haiti became independent in 1804.). And by benefit I mean develop a local culture significantly shaped by the more-advanced civilization of the colonizers.

It is tempting, I think, to dismiss this as warmed-over neo-colonialism. However, you often hear similar arguments from foreign policy commentators like Max Boot and Niall Ferguson, so it’s worth addressing Krikorian’s points head-on.

First, the track record of non-Western countries that did not experience prolonged European occupation presents a more complicated picture than a narrow look at Haiti’s post-colonial experience. Japan, arguably the most successful non-Western country of the modern era, is notable for freezing out Western influence until the mid-19th century, when it suddenly embarked on a policy of indigenous modernization. Other non-Western states that largely escaped colonization include China and Turkey, which suggests that imperialism does very little to create the preconditions for successful statehood. In the Caribbean, Cuba was one of the oldest continually-occupied colonial territories in the Western hemisphere, but that history has done precious little for the island’s impoverished citizens.

Second, the conservative critique of foreign aid (a critique I largely agree with) is also applicable to just about any colonial administration throughout history. If generous foreign aid programs breed dependency and discourage indigenous development, a foreign occupier who assumes control of all vital state functions should create similar problems.

I’m not the first person to make this connection, either: William Easterly, a development expert from NYU, devotes an entire chapter of The White Man’s Burden to the parallels between colonialism and “postmodern imperialism” (from page 284):

I compare the non-colonies to European colonies that were not settled by Europeans . . . The non-colonies had more rapid increases in secondary education from 1960 to 2001. Growth per capita from 1950 to 2001 was 1.7 percentage points higher in the non-colonies than the non-settlement colonies, a huge difference for a fifty-one-year period. By 2001, income was 2.4 times higher in the non-colonies than in the former non-settlement colonies.

Brown University economist Louis Putterman argues that having a long history of statehood (which was one thing that prevented colonization in many cases) was favorable for seizing economic opportunities in the postwar era, and that may be the reason for the different outcomes in the non-colonies compared with the colonies. Naturally formed states outperformed artificial colonial creations.

Easterly also discusses colonial administrators’ lack of familiarity with local conditions and their tendency to delegate power to fictitious or unreliable indigenous proxies. Sound familiar? It should, because the United States’ experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan has been characterized by similar problems.

Easterly’s conclusion is similarly damning:

The West should learn from its colonial history when it indulges neo-imperialist fantasies. They didn’t work before and they won’t work now.

Indeed.

Seriously, National Review. This is getting embarrassing:

I didn’t suggest that Bill Ayers is the author of one of Barack Obama’s biographies — I reported that someone else had made the suggestion and had made an interesting case . . .

JFK also made “an interesting case,” but I rather doubt that anyone is devoting precious column space to Oliver Stone’s pet conspiracy theories. This is also rich:

I did not defend the ‘birther movement’s’ claim that Obama was not born in Hawaii — I’ve stated that I believe he was born in Hawaii. What I’ve argued is that Obama was born a dual citizen (of Kenya and the U.S.), almost certainly became an Indonesian citizen, and has not been forthcoming about his past.

You see, McCarthy’s a respectable conspiracy theorist. He’s presumably referring to this paragraph from his infamous, un-sourced descent into conspiracism last January (thoroughly debunked here):

Shortly after divorcing Barack Obama Sr., Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, married an Indonesian Muslim, Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo, whom she met — just as she had met Barack Sr. — when both were students at the University of Hawaii. At some point, Soetoro almost certainly adopted the youngster, who became known as “Barry Soetoro . . .”

Obama attended Indonesian elementary schools, which, in Suharto’s police state, were generally reserved for citizens (and students were required to carry identity cards that matched student registration information). The records of the Catholic school Obama/Soetoro attended for three years identify him as a citizen of Indonesia. Thus Obama probably obtained Indonesian citizenship through his adoption by Soetoro in Hawaii.

This “analysis” is based on a report from the epicenter of the ‘Birther’ conspiracy, World Net Daily, which relies on unnamed “Indonesian legal experts” (they have those on staff?) to determine if Obama qualified for Indonesian citizenship. You’ll forgive me if I don’t find this credible.

It gets better. McCarthy also cites Obama’s college trip to Pakistan as evidence of his Indonesian citizenship:

By contrast, the question whether Obama ever was an Indonesian citizen is still unresolved, as are such related matters as whether the foreign citizenship (if he had it) ever lapsed, and whether he ever held or used an Indonesian passport — for example, during a mysterious trip to Pakistan he took in 1981, after Zia’s coup, when advisories warned Americans against traveling there.

My mastery of a highly-specialized academic database has unearthed this obscure report, demonstrating that the travel ban story is complete nonsense State Department is complicit an a vast conspiracy to hide the truth about Obama’s citizenship:

“We have no record of any travel ban between America and Pakistan during that period or since,” said Noel Clay, a spokesman for the State Department.

There was no “travel advisory,” either. In fact, the U.S. consul general in Lahore was actively encouraging Americans to visit Pakistan in 1981.

Then there’s this gem from McCarthy (which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been retracted or even amended):

There’s speculation out there from the former CIA officer Larry Johnson — who is no right-winger and is convinced the president was born in Hawaii — that the full state records would probably show Obama was adopted by the Indonesian Muslim Lolo Soetoro and became formally known as “Barry Soetoro.”

It’s true – Larry Johnson is no right-winger. He is also the crazed purveyor of the “whitey tapes,” which purported to show Michelle Obama going off on some crazed, racially-charged rant. Needless to say, these were never produced.

So yes, Andy McCarthy is not a birther. He’s just asking questions.

This is pretty dumb: Apparently, if you’re against irresponsible rumor-mongering about death panels you’re also not allowed to raise legitimate concerns about euthanasia.

National Review’s response to former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge’s allegation that Bush pressured him to raise the terror alert status on the eve of the 2004 election is this stirring post from Kathryn Jean Lopez:

But how can someone whose title is director of homeland security not resign if he believes the security of the homeland is being compromised in some way by the White House? How do you wait all these years before saying something?

An excellent question. But if Ridge’s actions are less than honorable, what does that say about the man who appointed him, particularly when his proposed successor was the notoriously corrupt Bernie Kerik?

I was going to debunk Andy McCarthy’s un-sourced descent into the fever swamps of ”Obama Birther-ism”, but Philip Klein has already gone and done the work for me, so go give his piece a read. How McCarthy’s “article” got through editing unscathed is beyond me (Did no one think to mention that one of his primary sources is the crazed purveyor of the infamous Michelle Obama ‘whitey’ tapes?), but what’s even more bizarre is the reaction he’s elicited from several other prominent conservative commentators. Here, for example, is Quin Hillyer giving McCarthy a friendly “attaboy!” over at The American Spectator. National Review’s Mark Steyn is similarly enthusiastic. At First Things, The Anchoress has also decided to dive in head-first, approvingly linking to this conspiracist fantasy. For those of you keeping score, that makes three mainstream conservative publications – National Review, The American Spectator and First Things – now publishing this tripe.

One response to a poll indicating that nearly a third of Republicans have bought into the “Birther” conspiracy is to recall a similar poll from 2003 that showed conspiratorial sentiments among a wide swathe of Democratic voters. And fair enough – after enduring three presidential election cycles, it has become abundantly clear that the ignorance of the American electorate transcends party lines. But it’s more than a little jarring to watch conservatives who should know better actively egging the conspiracists on. As Klein notes in a later post, it’s not as if we’re running short on substantive issues here.

More jarring still is the obvious double-standard at work here. Andrew Sullivan – whose pointless indefatigable pursuit of Trig Palin’s “real” mother is just as silly as the “Birther” obsession – was roundly (and rightly) condemned by conservatives for harassing Sarah Palin.* Ron Paul – whose associations with racist and conspiratorially-minded newsletters came out during the campaign – was also read out of the movement after those connections were exposed. I’m OK with ignoring racists or people who operate outside the bounds of rational discourse, but I can’t help noticing that McCarthy’s latest rant is at least as unhinged as any theory involving Trig Palin or the North American Union. And yet McCarthy’s thinly-sourced “article” has barely attracted a peep of protest from the rest of National Review’s contributors, while Sullivan and Paul continue to be condemned for their views. Why does the movement’s response vary so dramatically from person to person? I can’t help noticing that Paul and Sullivan (whatever their faults) at least raised uncomfortable questions about torture, surveillance and the War in Iraq, whereas McCarthy is basically a doctrinaire conservative. As with so many other things, toeing the party line – as opposed to faulty logic or distasteful views – has now become the litmus test for determining whether a conspiracy theorist is worth listening to.

* Obligatory Sullivan disclaimer: As with every other contributor to this site, I’m an unabashed fan. I continue to enjoy reading his stuff on a range of issues, but the Trig conspiracy is quite clearly nuts.

National Review’s editorial smackdown of the ‘Obama Birther’ movement is quite good, but it’s a bit depressing that these rumors need to be debunked in the first place.

A very good editorial from National Review.

Or questioning the extent of his audience. Or his talent for talk radio. Or any of that stuff. I mean, seriously. The point – restated here with more patience than I could ever muster under similar circumstances – is that he’s an awful spokesperson for the movement, a polarizing figure who turns off independents and dissident righties, and that, having annointed himself Keeper of the Sacred Texts of the One True Faith (No R.I.N.O.s in these Gospels!), he continues to quash any hint of original thinking. But other than that, he’s a great entertainer. On a related note, Conor Friedersdorf’s thoughts on the subject are not only worth reading, he’s also won the highly-coveted “best title for a blog post” award for the month of May.

Jonah Goldberg makes an odd claim in his latest column:

The mainstream perception that conservatives are close-minded and dogmatic while liberals are open-minded and free-thinking has it almost exactly backward. Liberal dogma is settled: The government should do good, where it can, whenever it can. That is President Obama’s idea of pragmatism and bipartisanship: He’s open to all ideas, from either side of the aisle, about how best to expand government and get the state more involved in our lives. Meanwhile, conservatism’s dogma remains forever in flux. We constantly debate the trade-offs between freedom and virtue, the conflicts between liberty and order.

I’m sure anyone who reads this site or peruses our blogroll will attest to the diversity of conservative political thought, but I’m not sure we’re constantly debating anything anymore. More frequently, mainstream conservative outlets adopt a fairly uniform approach to some policy or another, the rest of us carp incessantly about what they’re missing, and life, as they say, goes on. I’ve made this point before, but you really don’t see a lot of dialogue between the various conservative tribes (though on the fringes, at least, we’re still pretty free-wheeling). So while the idea that conservatism is a narrow ideology is somewhat laughable, insisting that we’re constantly involved in vibrant intramural debate is equally so.

As a self-described dissident, I suppose I have something of an incentive to find a bigger megaphone. I also happen to think that having CATO’s Jerry Taylor sound off on something other than global warming at the Corner – perhaps on one of those issues where, ahem, there’s a bit of institutional divergence – would be a lot more interesting than the usual chorus of agreement. Right now, however, our tent resembles nothing so much as a series of self-contained ethnic enclaves, each with its own customs, chieftains, and favored viewpoints. We are a salad bowl, not a melting pot, and all the ideological diversity in the world won’t matter without genuine dialogue. After eight years of Bush, self-congratulatory pronouncements about the movement’s intellectual diversity seem a bit premature.

Via the American Conservative, I see that Sean Scallon’s challenging article on Jimmy Carter is getting some well-deserved attention. And for that, I’m glad – it’s an interesting take on a fascinating historical figure.  But you know who I’d really like to see respond to Scallon’s piece? How about a National Review symposium, or perhaps a few reactions from Contentions and The Weekly Standard? I’d even take a good fisk from Hot Air or Powerline.

I’ve played around with this post for some time, and I never know quite how to phrase my central point. I can’t offer any empirical evidence, but after trolling the dank alleys of the blogosphere for a few years, I’m always surprised by the lack of interaction between dissident conservatives and their mainstream counterparts. Which is odd, because if anything, the last eight years have highlighted the importance of decidedly non-mainstream perspectives, from the libertarian critique of Bush’s excessive domestic ambitions to the traditionalist take on runaway consumer culture to the renewed relevance of conservative non-interventionism.

I admit I’m biased, having absorbed a lot of interesting, provocative stuff from all three intellectual traditions. But I don’t think you need to be particularly sympathetic to these arguments to grasp their significance. These are serious critiques aimed at a movement that is foundering, and deserve to at least be addressed in an equally serious manner. Agreement, of course, is not a precondition for dialogue, and I don’t expect mainstream conservatives to suddenly jettison their deeply-held convictions. But critically reexamining those beliefs in light of recent events is not the worst thing in the world, particularly for self-confessed magazines of ideas.

I’m also struck by how differently things are done on the Left, where The New Republic, The Washington Monthly and The American Prospect routinely exchange links, participate in symposiums, and generally interact with each other in a respectful, engaging manner. Some of this is undoubtedly the result of favorable circumstances – the trauma of the Bush years coupled with Obama’s ascendancy have done wonders for liberal cohesiveness – but I’m always left wondering why a similar atmosphere of respectful engagement can’t take root on the Right. If not now, when?

N.B. – I hope I don’t come off as a presumptuous scold, so to preempt the inevitable, let me acknowledge that as a young, marginally-employed 20-something, I know nothing about running a major magazine (or even a mid-sized blog – E.D. does all the legwork around here). So perhaps I’m just ignorant.

Looking for a glimpse into the conservative foreign policy id? Try National Review’s Rich Lowry, whose latest techno-thriller has just been published:

After learning that an Iranian scientist is in the process of developing nuclear weapons on Iranian soil, all-but-forgotten Spymaster Stewart Banquo initiates a rogue special operation. With the assistance of his most trusted agent, Robert Wallets, Banquo recruits Peter Johnson, a dissolute, morally bankrupt liberal news journalist, to travel to Iran. Johnson poses as a sympathetic reporter writing a piece on the country’s nuclear facilities. His mission: to kill the scientist.

[Read more →]