Choosing Guns Over Butter

By Anneloes van Iwaarden

Instead of there being a run on the banks in hard economic times, the United States is currently experiencing a run on guns.

According to a report on the BBC Radio4 Today program, many Americans are stocking up on guns in fear of stricter rules on firearms once President-elect Obama comes into office.

“In the first week of November 2008, the National Instant Criminal Background Checks show that 374,510 people bought a handgun or long gun, compared with 251,804 in the same week in 2007,” states Jodi Andes of the website Dispatch Politics.

It is a well-known fact that every time a Democratic President is elected to office it sparks a tremendous surge in demand for firearms.

Americans are buying rifles, handguns and semi-automatics because they are afraid that now a Democratic President is back in the White House, ‘gun control’ will once more be an issue on the agenda.

However, gun control has at best been a side-issue in the 2008 election campaign, so the President-elect’s exact views on firearms remain unclear.

Obama on Firearms
Washington Post columnist Robert D. Novak calls it ‘Obama’s Second Amendment Dance’, pointing towards inconsistency in President-elect Obama’s policy toward firearms.

Meanwhile the National Rifle Association (NRA) is convinced that the President-elect has a few things up his sleeve (certainly not guns) when it comes to gun control, warning gun owners of new restrictive policy.

But it is not all bad news.

“Barack Obama said he would improve the economy. Turns out he already has, at least in one retail niche: gun sales,” says The Guardian.

Waning American Power?

By Anneloes van Iwaarden

 

 

The outlook for US dominance in world affairs in the 21^st century looks very bleak, a leading American intelligence agency has concluded.

 

According to the National Intelligence Council (NIC) report, “the whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.”

 

This is a very different picture to the one Lord Patten paints in his new book ‘What next? Surviving the Twenty-First Century’.

 

Speaking to over 400 students from the London School of Economics (LSE) on Wednesday, the Lord referred to today as being ‘the new world’ with America as its prime architect.

 

Despite the growth of Asian powers and America’s loss of moral authority during the Iraq war, Lord Pattens believes that the United States will remain the only super-power in the world.

 

“Open up any newspaper in any country. America is still the only country in the world that matters everywhere,” said Lord Patten.

 

End of leadership?

To my question of whether he gave any merit to views of the end of American leader-status in the world, the Lord brusquely answered “no, not very much.”

 

Lord Patten downplayed the power of India and China as shapers of the 21^st century, stating: “We must be aware of the problems facing India and China and we shouldn’t assume that this exponential economic growth will last forever, just look at the Japanese example in the 1980s.”

 

I suppose it is all a matter of identity.

 

If the world still believes the United States to be the most important player in world affairs despite evidence to the contrary, the United States will remain the most important player in world affairs.

 

But in the unlikely event of powerful players deciding not to look to the United States for leadership, we might see a very different 21^st century.

‘Dutch Don’t Want Hands On Guantanamo’

By Anneloes van Iwaarden

Always eager to play a part in ‘world history’, The Netherlands is looking closely at how president-elect Obama will ‘make good’ on his election promise to close the controversial detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

In the CBS news show, ‘60 minutes’, the President-elect confirmed his election promise to close down the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in his first interview after his historic election as the next American President.

And amidst calls from human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for European countries to take action and re-settle Guantanamo detainees, debate has sparked on the issue in The Netherlands about the role it can play.

The American detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (known to insiders as GITMO) has been a thorn in relations between Europe and the United States since 2002 when detainees from the war on Afghanistan and the September 11 attacks were first taken to the camp.

President-elect Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo Bay has now sparked fierce debate over ‘the how’, ‘the when’ and ‘the what are the effects’ in The Netherlands.

Speaking at a budget meeting last week, Dutch Foreign Minister Verhagen announced his intentions to ‘look into the role The Netherlands can play’ in helping bring this dark chapter in European and American relations to a satisfactory close.

International Criminal Court
Minister Verhagen pointed towards the potential role the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague could play in bringing the detainees to trial.

But this statement has been met by a wave of criticism by the legal profession in The Netherlands. 

“They have created the problem themselves, they can solve it themselves. And this is what they should do,” says International Criminal lawyer Mr. M. Wladimiroff in the political TV program ‘Buitenhof’.

“The Criminal Court only has the power to try war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. In judicial terms, terrorism doesn’t clearly fall under any of these categories,” he went on to say.

The problem behind the closure of Guantanamo Bay is that detainees have no status either as defendants or as prisoners of war (POWs).

Having no status in legal terms essentially means that detainees have no rights or obligations.

So in order to be tried and allowing them access to a country’s judicial system, detainees first have to be given a status.

American Citizens
The reason why countries are less than willing to do this (including the US), is that potentially, detainees could then file for citizenship in that country.

The idea of having terrorist suspects run loose on American soil and become true American citizens, is probably a bridge too far for most.