There are several research institutions around the globe that conduct polls into different subjects in order to understand societies’ reactions to different developments. Even if the liability and the objectivity of this kind of survey are always contested, it is evident that the surveys themselves offer some kind of answers to different questions and problems. This is the case with the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, a US nongovernmental organization that has conducted its polls regularly since 2002 in 47 different countries.
This NGO’s main purpose remains unknown, but it is obvious that one of its objectives is to understand the international community’s feelings towards the US and to measure sympathy and trust towards it. What is interesting about this poll is its most recent results concerning Turkey.
According to the study published in June 2007, when asked to name different actors of the international system that they favored, Turks responded as follows: 13 percent favored the US; 9 percent, the American people; 2 percent, President George W. Bush; 27 percent, the EU; 17 percent, Russia; 10 percent, Russian President Vladimir Putin; 25 percent, China; 14 percent, Hamas; 11 percent, Chavez’s Venezuela; 5 percent, Osama bin Laden; and 23 percent, the UN.
In other words, Turkey favors no one in general. Moreover, those who favored China and the EU were 40 percent and 57 percent of the population, respectively, in 2005. These ratings prove that every year the favorable views towards the “others“ decline and distrust against everyone grows stronger.
The current 83 percent of Turks who distrust the US represents the highest level of such sentiment in the list after Pakistan. Nevertheless, 13 percent of Pakistanis have sympathy for the US. For Turkey this rate is only 9 percent, making Turkey the country that dislikes the US the most. Besides some 81 percent of Turkish people have an unfavorable view of American democracy. In France 76 percent of the people express the same view. This is a little odd. As a people with a long history of democracy, the French probably criticize American democracy because of its application. We cannot say that Turkey has internalized democracy enough to dislike others’ practices. Presumably Turks dislike American democracy just because it is “American.“ Perhaps they don’t look to the democracy in the US, but to the ways the US uses to bring democracy to other peoples of the world, and they don’t like it.
Turkey’s antipathy towards the US is close to that of Jordanians and Palestinians; its antipathy towards Russia is similar to that of Japan, France, Germany and Poland. The unfavorable view of the EU is also close to the Jordanian rate. According to this we are able to say that Turkey has put together every reaction originating from Middle-Eastern and European identities. With an optimistic perspective we can even say that Turkey is the most global country. What is more important is that there are many conditions that encourage Turkey to be continuously skeptical toward developed countries and especially towards its allies. It would be unfair to say that all this has originated because of Turkey’s domestic political conditions. There is a strong feeling in Turkey that Western powers want to use Turkey for their own global interests without taking into consideration Turkey’s own needs.
This feeling stimulates extreme nationalism and isolationism. This is not good for Turks, but this is not good for others either.
That’s why the US, the EU and the UN should think about their responsibilities with regards to these perceptions.
Beril Dedeoglu
TODAYSZAMAN.COM

The European Union’s military mission to ensure free and fair elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has shown what the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) can achieve in Africa.
A contingent of roughly 2,500 troops from 22 countries went to the DRC in mid-2003 to support United Nations troops, and provided a rapid reaction force that snuffed out disorder in Kinshasa before it could erupt into full-blown mayhem.
Three years later, Operation Artemis, a comparable EU mission in the eastern province of Ituri, again demonstrated Europe’s resolve to use its military capability to underpin a long-term peace process.
For some people, raw military might is the only true measure of power. But the 16 EU military missions that have now been carried out in support of the ESDP have much more to commend them. Large parts of Africa need support, and Europe can and must lend a hand. Nor is the EU’s new style of political-military engagement in Africa a throwback to colonialism.
True, many African countries currently suffer from instability, state failure, regional strife, violent internal political competition and other assorted ills, including, massacres and large-scale brutality, civil war, massive movements of refugees, economic disruption and environmental damage.
Yet the big picture in Africa is not uniformly bleak. Some African countries are comparatively stable and prosperous, and the continent possesses a youthful population that will soon top 1 billion people, abundant mineral reserves and an inherent dynamism.
In the early stages of a crisis, European intervention--through political and financial assistance, diplomatic intervention and even military action--can prevent it from erupting into violence.
Moreover, when a crisis is winding down and there are openings for moderating influences, outside intervention can prove instrumental in enforcing peace and bringing warring factions to the negotiating table.
In countries that have experienced the horrors of civil war, the arrival of an effective military force from outside is generally welcomed, as was the case in both the 2003 and 2006 DRC operations. Just by being there, the force shows the good will and commitment of the nations that sent it, and by projecting a sense of law and order, it provides valuable leverage for honest brokers trying to mediate a peace deal.
Europe’s policy toward Africa may suffer shortcomings, but at least there is a policy based on supporting African states and regional organizations such as the African Union whenever practicable and only when requested.
Europe has never claimed to have the means of redressing all the strategic imbalances that exist in Africa--nor does it have any intention of doing so. Taken together, though, the EU countries possess a considerable array of assets, including the military capability needed to conduct decisive operations. Yet their most valuable asset is cultural: soldiers who are willing and able to interact with the local population, who are cautious in their use of lethal force, and who are ready to accept the many shades of gray that exist between conflicting parties.
Nevertheless, European military capabilities are limited, requiring that European planners look for “minimal“ options, with the drawback that smaller commitments generally require a long-term perspective.
The ESDP has not functioned long enough to establish a clear track record. Yet our modest ongoing endeavors in Congo--a police advisory mission known as EUPOL and a defense reform mission called EUSEC--and in Sudan, where 60 Europeans are providing staff support to the African Union’s AMIS II mission in Darfur, offer grounds for hope.
EU members must above all recognize that Africa’s ills have to be dealt with by Africans. This is as much a matter of principle as of cold, strategic calculation, and it is here where the ESDP has much to offer: a long-term view, supported by a powerful economy with the assets needed to carry out humanitarian operations, conflict prevention, crisis management and security support.
Foremost among the ESDP’s advantages is Europe’s cultural knowledge and understanding of Africa. Today, former colonial powers have evolved significantly, just as have their former colonies. On both shores of the Mediterranean, generations have passed and new connections have been formed. Knowledge, understanding and mutual respect remain, and they are the cornerstones on which Europe’s policy for Africa must be built.
Michele Alliot-Marie
JAPANTIMES.COM

Charles Taylor

How effective are war-crimes courts at demonstrating that no one, regardless of his position, is above the law? Many rights activists had hoped that--after their disappointment with the trials of Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein--the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, under way in The Hague, could finally send the “right“ deterrent message to other potentially abusive national leaders.
If this does happen, then it won’t be happening anytime soon. Judges at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), which is trying Mr. Taylor on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, confirmed that they’ve postponed the trial until Aug. 20.
Taylor had previously sacked one lawyer the court had assigned to him. He wanted to defend himself, just as Mr. Milosevic did. But the SCSL judges clearly feared he would imitate the time-wasting and grandstanding that Milosevic engaged in before he died. So they’ve assigned Taylor new lawyers and have given them several weeks to prepare.
Like all criminal defendants, Taylor should be considered innocent until he is proven guilty. But there is much strong evidence against him. In 1989, he launched an armed uprising in his native Liberia and he soon emerged as a powerful and brutal participant in the civil war that then laid waste to the country. In 1996, the civil war officially ended, and, in the presidential election held in 1997, Taylor won a strong victory. Even after he became president, he continued to act like a warlord, abusing the citizenry and selling vast amounts of Liberia’s natural resources for personal gain.
Taylor also gave allegedly strong support to participants in the civil war roiling neighboring Sierra Leone. It was for those acts that the SCSL indicted him. In July 2003, President Bush started calling openly for his ouster. That August, the Nigerian president offered Taylor a safe haven there-- provided he agree to stay out of Liberian politics. Taylor took up the offer. Then, in 2006, just before Mr. Bush visited Nigeria, the Nigerian authorities arrested Taylor, and the UN took him for trial at the SCSL.
The SCSL is a joint project of the UN and the Sierra Leonean government, located in Sierra Leone. However, the Sierra Leoneans feared that Taylor’s trial might seriously destabilize the country’s still-fragile politics. So, unlike the court’s 10 other cases, this one was moved to the underutilized courtrooms of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
In 2002, when the UN was figuring out how to deal with the aftermath of the many atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war, they tried to correct flaws that had become evident during the work of Africa’s oldest war-crimes court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Serious criticisms of the ICTR have been expressed on five main grounds. Despite the excellent motives of ICTR’s founders and officials, it has been selective in its choice of cases. It has been disconnected, both geographically and conceptually, from the primary stakeholders whom it seeks to serve, inside Rwanda.
It has been very expensive, gobbling up international aid dollars. It has been largely unaccountable, either to the survivors of the Rwandan genocide or to anyone else. And it has strongly polarized Rwandan politics.
So in Sierra Leone, the UN located its new war-crimes court inside the country, and, by making it a “joint“ court with the national justice system, they tried to maximize the good effects it would have on that system. Also, alongside the court, the UN established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that could--like its earlier model in South Africa-- help build national reconciliation while getting the truth out about earlier atrocities.
When it moved the Taylor trial to The Hague, the SCSL replayed some of the disturbing features of the ICTR. Today, we still don’t know how this trial will play out for the SCSL and for Sierra Leone’s hard-pressed people.
Events in the well-funded Hague courtroom may all seem very distant from the concerns of the Sierra Leoneans, who are still reeling from the impoverishment, mass killings, and dislocations inflicted on them.
Helena Cobban
CSMONITOR.COM

The prickliness and glacial ineptitude of the immigration system is old news to millions of would-be Americans. Immigrants who play by the rules know that the rules are stringent, arbitrary, expensive and very time-consuming. But even the most seasoned citizens-in-waiting were stunned by the nasty bait-and-switch the federal bureaucracy pulled on them this month.
After encouraging thousands of highly skilled workers to apply for green cards, the government snatched the opportunity away.
The tease came in a bulletin issued by the State Department in June announcing that green cards for a wide range of skilled workers would be available to those who filed by July 2. That prompted untold numbers of doctors, medical technicians and other professionals, many of whom have lived here with their families for years, to assemble little mountains of paper. They got certified records and sponsorship documents, paid for medical exams and lawyers and sent their applications in. Many canceled vacations to be in the United States when their applications arrived, as the law requires.
Then they learned that the hope was effectively a hoax. The State Department had issued the bulletin to prod Citizenship and Immigration Services, the bureaucracy that handles immigration applications, to get cracking on processing them. The agency is notorious for fainting over paperwork--182,694 green cards have been squandered since 2000 because it did not process them in time. That bureaucratic travesty is a tragedy, since the annual supply of green cards is capped by law, and the demand chronically outstrips supply. The State Department said it put out the bulletin to ensure that every available green card would be used this time.
After working through the weekend, the citizenship agency processed tens of thousands of applications. On Monday, the State Department announced that all 140,000 employment-based green cards had been used and no applications would be accepted.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, the definition of a hangdog bureaucracy, says the law forbids it to accept the applications. The American Immigration Lawyers Association says this interpretation is rubbish. It is preparing a class-action lawsuit to compel the bureaucracy to accept the application wave that it provoked.
The good news is that immigrants’ hope is pretty much unquenchable. Think of the hundreds of people standing in the rain in ponchos at Walt Disney World on Independence Day, joining the flood of new citizens now cresting across the country. They celebrated on July Fourth, but for many of them the magic date is July 30, when a new fee schedule for immigrants takes effect, drastically jacking up the cost of the American dream.
The collapse of immigration reform in the Senate showed the world what America thinks of illegal immigrants--it wants them all to go away. But the federal government, through bureaucratic malpractice, is sending the same message to millions of legal immigrants, too.
NYTIMES.COM

The debate over private equity is now becoming shrill. In the UK, members of parliament have been attempting to interrogate private equity bosses, generating more heat than light. In his first press interview, with the Financial Times, Alistair Darling, the new chancellor of the exchequer, was alive to the controversy. Outside the Westminster village, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is set to raise $1.25bn in a public listing, following its rival Blackstone into the public markets. All this suggests two questions: one is political, about whether private equity is a blessing or a curse; the other is financial, about whether we are in a private equity bubble in which investors should take great care.
There should be no question that private equity has a role to play in financial markets. Publicly-listed companies have their weaknesses: partly that everyone from Congress to Greenpeace is able to impose onerous demands on them; more fundamentally, public companies can be prone to--in the words of Adam Smith himself--“negligence and profusion“ on the part of managers. It is because of these weaknesses, coupled with cheap money, that private equity is having its day in the sun, not to mention under the interrogation lamp.
It is time to admit that private equity is an antidote to the managerial excess that so consumed public debate just a few years ago. If only shareholders had more power, went the cry, incompetent CEOs would get their comeuppance. Be careful what you wish for: private equity firms have the incentive and the clout to keep CEOs in order. It is controversial that private equity groups load targets with debt, but this is precisely what discourages managers from spending on pet projects and forces them to focus on generating cash for shareholders--which is, after all, their job.
Yet conditions are unlikely to be quite so favourable for private equity in the near future. The cost of debt is rising. The deals are becoming ever more ambitious. The risks are, no doubt, manageable. But if a big deal goes sour, interrogation by a committee of MPs will seem like a walk in the park.
FT.COM