Economist, July 3 The cover story frets that after Iraq, America may conclude that European allies are worthless. The underwhelming accomplishments of the NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey, during which the alliance voted to send a small number of troops to Afghanistan and agreed to help train security forces in Iraq, won’t convince anyone of increasing Euro steadfastness.… Another piece reports that adaptive cruise control, which uses radar to adjust your car’s speed based on how fast the vehicle in front of you is moving, isn’t just a fun gadget. One study shows that if about 20 percent of cars use the new technology, traffic jams will decrease appreciably.… A chart on alcohol consumption by country has Luxembourg on top, with an average of 12 “litres of pure alcohol per person” in 2002. The United States places in the bottom half, with about 6 liters per person. Last among the list of 32 nations? Mexico, at around 3 liters.— J.L.
Foreign Policy, July/August 2004 A piece excerpted from the new book The Folly of Empire says that U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has been unsuccessful because policy-makers failed to learn the lessons of America’s imperial adventures 100 years ago. Author John B. Judis argues that the parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan today and Mexico and the Philippines a century earlier are as discomforting as they are striking. The United States’ problem then and now is its continued belief that imperialism can be, in the words of Stanley Kurtz, “a midwife of democratic self-rule.”… Advocates of hard power might not realize it yet, but the European Union is becoming more attractive on the world stage by rejecting militarism and embracing its role as the world’s first metrosexual superpower.… Private contractors are an indispensable element of the security forces in Iraq. The magazine challenges the conventional wisdom about these hired guns.— A.B.D.
Wired, July 2004 In its cover package on robots, the magazine builds a state-of-the-art humanoid by taking parts from the latest android innovations, like the lips of a trumpet-playing bot and the eyes of a robot that can hit a baseball. … Slate’s Brendan I. Koerner reports that Alberta, Canada, sits on the biggest patch of oil this side of the Middle East. There’s only one problem: It’s “heavy oil,” a sandy goop buried under clay and rock. While it still takes two tons of the sandy stuff to make one barrel of oil, the extraction process is getting cheaper and more efficient. And with an eye toward North American energy independence, Congress has proposed a tax credit for businesses that import Canadian oil.… There’s also a short item on a Colombian designer who creates bulletproof menswear like trench coats made of gabardine and Kevlar and a “line of armored T-shirts popular in Spain.”— J.L.
New York Times Magazine, July 4 The cover story goes over the moon for the Chinese economy, proclaiming that in the next century, “perhaps we will be as Europe is to us today, and China will be our America.” The key to China’s economic potential is the cheap, reliable, obedient labor force, which works with the precision and quality of a robotic assembly line for far less cost. Surprisingly, perhaps the biggest area for potential growth in the Chinese economy is farming, where hyperefficient manufacturing methods have yet to transfer to the cultivation of labor-intensive cash crops.… Another piece follows the ace sales rep for the direct-sales sex-toy firm Passion Parties, a middle-aged woman from Arkansas who calls the clitoris “the little man in the boat.” She also declines to say the word “masturbate” in front of her clients, who regularly drop by her house to buy edible lotions, lubricants, and vibrating loofahs.— J.L.
Weekly Standard, July 5 and July 12 The magazine continues its focus on ties between Iraq and al-Qaida. This week Stephen Hayes turns to an unlikely place for support, quoting Clinton officials who cited a link between the two when defending their decision to bomb a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant in 1998.… The summer-reading cover package highlights a selection of books for those who shun mindless fiction. Noemie Emery reviews Steven F. Hayward’s The Real Jimmy Carter, the gist of which is captured by its subtitle:”How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators, and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry.” Emery suggests Carter’s shortcomings were the key to Reagan’s successes, however, by creating the “darkness” in which the Gipper could shine.… Other reviews include Christopher Hitchens on Christopher Ricks’overwrought analysis of Bob Dylan’s music and Andrew Ferguson on Mario Cuomo’s self-serving analysis of Lincoln.— A.B.D.
The New Yorker, July 5 Katherine Boo heads to the Indian costal city of Chennai to see how outsourcing looks from overseas. She finds Office Tiger, which was founded six years ago by a pair of Princeton grads and has quickly become the back office to dozens of America’s largest companies. But while Office Tiger and its competitors have generated tremendous wealth for Chennai and other Indian cities, the country is still plagued by problems the free market won’t fix: HIV cases are soaring, cities are running out of water, and the lowest castes still cannot find work.… Another piece offers a concise portrait of Fallujah in the aftermath of the American withdrawal on May 10. Different groups are struggling for political control, and the Fallujah Brigade, the security force to which American troops ceded control of the city, wields little practical power. — A.B.D.
Time and Newsweek, July 5 Sovereignty anxiety: Time looks inside the insurgency in Iraq and finds foreign fighters and Iraqi militants have abandoned their differences and are working together to destabilize the country. At the center of it all is Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian al-Qaida operative who has assumed a Mafia-style godfather role overseeing the guerrillas. Using the Internet to promote himself, Zarqawi has risen from a fringe player to the chief coordinator of terrorism in Iraq.… Newsweek’s cover story on Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the man tasked with training Iraqi forces, highlights the difficulties Iraqis will have as they take on security duties. The Iraqi National Guard has sided with insurgents in the past, and the Iraqi Army mutinied during its one deployment. Petraeus, who has a doctorate from Princeton, says his mission is “like building an airplane while you’re flying it.”
Veepstakes:Newsweek examines the different approaches taken by John Kerry’s vice presidential wannabes. John Edwards runs a public campaign, Dick Gephardt focuses on behind-the-scenes maneuvering, and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack stays somewhere in between with a mix of public appearances and private appeals. The piece offers no insight into which of these approaches will work. …Time explains that Bush’s sinking approval ratings have Democrats hoping they can eke out a majority in the Senate. The key to the effort is in the South, where Dems think they can hold three or four of the five seats party members are vacating.—A.B.D.
Economist, June 26
A pair of pieces preview the “partly symbolic, partly legal, partly substantive” June 30 transfer of power in Iraq. Some Iraqis think the dismantling of an official U.S. supervisory structure just means that Western contractors, who are exempt from local laws, will be running things. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has asserted himself by asking Arab countries to send weapons for the Iraqi military, a circumvention of America’s stricter rearmament policy. The Iraqi defense budget comes mostly from American dollars, though—if the army is rebuilt too quickly for U.S. tastes, funds could be withheld.… Another piece reports that imams in Nigeria have banned dissemination of the polio vaccine, claiming it’s a Western conspiracy to sterilize Muslims. As a consequence, the disease has spread to 10 African nations where polio had previously been eradicated and the United Nations’ goal to stamp out the disease by 2005 is now in peril.— J.L.
New Republic, July 5 and July 12 The cover story criticizes the Bush administration’s distaste for “experts.” Economic, environmental, and military analysts have all been ignored because of the “radically post-modern view that ‘science,’ ‘objectivity,’ and ‘truth’ are guises for an ulterior, leftist agenda.” The piece offers a slap in the face in noting that the Nixon and Ford administrations had “greater intellectual honesty” than the Bushies—they solicited the advice of social scientists because they weren’t ideologically stubborn and “demanded far fewer ready-made solutions.”… Another article reports that Americans aren’t any more knowledgeable about what to do during a terrorist attack than before Sept. 11. One survey indicates only one in four people know what “shelter-in-place” means and that only 10 percent of households stock a protective mask. The story suggests the Department of Homeland Security follow the example of the Israeli police and hand out instructive pamphlets to every citizen.— J.L.
