Hillary Clinton’s Congo blow-up is a story that just won’t go away. Even those sympathetic to Obama and Clinton, like Jon Stewart, are having a field day with this.

Mrs. Clinton’s answer on Monday has quickly become the No. 1 sound bite from her trip. Her whole seven-nation Africa tour, which has had quite serious intentions, like combating Congo’s appalling rape epidemic and raising her personal profile within President Obama’s administration, may end up being reduced to this: “Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state, I am. So you ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.”

Almost immediately, her showdown with the student became a media phenomenon, with a level of attention on an American in Kinshasa perhaps not seen since the so-called Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in 1974.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides have been notably frustrated that this brief flash of anger, or undiplo-speak, has come to overshadow a trip that took weeks of planning and was intended to strengthen America’s ties to some of its most strategic allies on the continent.

[..]

No matter the issues she was talking about — encouraging good governing, ending Africa’s wars, lifting women up from their lowly position in a place like Congo. The interest in this trip, it seemed, was not about the problems facing Africa. It was about her.

As one journalist covering her trip put it: “She is a celebrity. We have a celebrity secretary of state. When you have a celebrity, you get celebrity coverage.”

That’s the reality of modern media. And, like it or not, this is a big story. It’s yet another reason secretaries of state and vice presidents have to be on guard at all times rather than letting fly whatever thought happens to be crossing their minds at the moment.

As to the emerging meme that the media is playing up this sensationalism while ignoring the real story — the horrific plight of women in Africa — it’s nonsense. Of course the latter is much more important. But it’s not news.

Hillary Clinton chewed out a Congolese student for asking what “Mr. Clinton” thought about a public policy issue:

ABC’s Kirit Radia:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what “Mr. Clinton” thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?” Clinton replied, clearly irked by the thought of being her husband Bill’s spokeswoman. “My husband is not secretary of state, I am,” she replied. “If you want my opinion I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.”

The only problem? Apparently the translator made a mistake and the student had wanted to know what President Obama thought of the deal. A State Department official tells ABC News the student went up to Clinton after the event and told her he was misquoted. No immediate word yet how Clinton responded.

Regardless of the error, the notion of Secretary Clinton’s deference to her husband clearly touched a nerve with America’s top diplomat. Just a week ago the former President stole his wife’s thunder when he appeared in North Korea to rescue two American journalists detained there. His trip came just as Secretary Clinton embarked on a swing through Africa she hoped would shine light on the plight of the continent.

What’s odd, unless there are two translators involved somehow, the video clearly shows the questioner speaking in English and saying “Mr. Clinton” and then the lady at the podium repeating the question — again in English — to Mrs. Clinton.

Regardless, her indignant response seems rather over-the-top for America’s chief diplomat. She could have asked for clarification before going off. (My guess would have been that the student meant “Mrs. Clinton” and it got garbled in translation to English.) Or she could have joked, “Well, you’ll have to ask him next time he’s in Kinshasha” and added “but here’s what I think.”

“Diplomacy in action,” indeed.

Jules Crittenden, Doug Mataconis and John Hinderaker all share my take, more or less, of the reaction.

All of the women commenting on this one thus far, however, stick up for Hil.

Pamela Leavey:  “As a woman who blazes her own path, I think Hillary’s response was natural.”

myiq2xu (Not a common name, so hard to guess gender other than that it’s on a blog with riverdaughter as the username A man, but one writing on a group blog with “riverdaughter” as its domain name):

This appears to be the new CDS meme – “Hillary is a mad b**ch.” They used to say she was “cold and calculating” but now she’s out of control. Exactly how do they think she should have responded to the “What does your husband thnk?” question coming from the translator?

Taylor Marsh:

As you can see in the video, Clinton was ticked off at being asked what a male leader thought, especially when her purpose in this region is to draw a bull’s eye on the rape and torture of women in the Congo.

The United States Secretary of State obviously didn’t appreciate the misogyny, which is rampant in the Congo and other African nations, born out by the questioner expecting her to “channel” a male. Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley responded.

“The Secretary of State is going to Goma Tuesday, to draw attention to the plight of women who are victims of rape as a weapon of war” in Congo, he said. “She did react to what she heard,” Crowley explained. Even if the interpreter mixed up the translation, he said, “you can’t separate the question from the setting.”

As the Washington Post story quoted at the top reports, Congolese President Joseph Kabila has declared “zero tolerance” regarding sexual assaults and violence against women, but so far it’s just words.

There can be no doubt that Clinton came off harsh in this setting. A little righteous indignation from the most powerful female persona on the planet was in order, especially considering women in the Congo are in danger most of the hours of their waking and sleeping lives.

CNN reports that after the event Clinton and the questioner “seemed to have reached an understanding,” according to Crowley.

But seriously, you cannot bring basic human rights to women in places like the Congo if the men there don’t wake up to the respect women deserve, highlighting how far we have to go if not even the U.S. secretary of state is treated with respect.

But she was treated respectfully. A packed house had come to hear her and some nervous student whose native language isn’t English said “Clinton” when he meant “Obama.”

That said, Crowley’s point is a fair one:  “you can’t separate the question from the setting.”  It’s hardly inconceivable that she had gotten the impression during her visit thus far that she was not being treated seriously because of her sex and reacted to the question with that in mind.

There’s an interesting news article from the Associated Press that highlights the complexity of dealing with Somali piracy:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages on Saturday and briefly detained seven pirates who had forced the Yemenis to sail a “mother ship” attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said.

In a separate incident, gunmen from Somalia seized a Belgian-registered ship and its 10 crew, including seven Europeans, further south in the Indian Ocean. A pirate source said the vessel, the Pompei, would be taken to the coast.

Somali sea gangs have captured dozens of ships, taken hundreds of sailors prisoner and made off with tens of millions of dollars in ransoms despite an unprecedented deployment by foreign navies in waters off the Horn of Africa.

The attacks have disrupted U.N. aid supplies, driven up insurance costs and forced some shipping companies to route cargo round South Africa, rather than risk approaching Somalia.

NATO Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes, speaking on board the Portuguese warship Corte-Real, said the 20 fishermen were rescued after a Dutch navy frigate on a NATO patrol responded to an assault on a Greek-owned tanker by pirates firing assault rifles and grenades.

Commandos from the Dutch ship, the De Zeven Provincien, pursued the pirates, who were on a small skiff, back to their “mother ship” — a hijacked Yemeni fishing dhow.

“We have freed the hostages, we have freed the dhow and we have seized the weapons… The pirates did not fight and no gunfire was exchanged,” Fernandes told Reuters. The Corte-Real is also on a NATO anti-piracy mission.

He said the hostages had been held since last week. The commandos briefly detained and questioned the seven gunmen, he told Reuters, but had no legal power to arrest them.

“NATO does not have a detainment policy. The warship must follow its national law,” he said.

“They can only arrest them if the pirates are from the Netherlands, the victims are from the Netherlands, or if they are in Netherlands waters.”

This story underscores the thought behind the suggestion that Galrahn of Information Dissemination made on OTB Radio last week. His suggestion was that the United States would agree to underwrite the insurance of American-flagged vessels carrying cargo off the coast of Somalia. This would encourage more vessels to be American-flagged (there are fewer than 250 American-flagged vessels of over 1,000 tons today). Vessels being American-flagged would give the United States a legal underpinning for apprehending and detaining Somali pirates who attacked or harassed such vessels.

While I’m on the subject don’t miss Galrahn’s recent post drawing a connection between the increase in operational tempo among Somali pirates and their interaction with groups linked to Al Qaeda:

I was reading this CBS World News blog article discussing a new audiotape from the senior Al Qaeda operative Sa’id Ali Jabir Al Khathim Al Shihri (aka Abu Sufian al-Azdi), who you may have heard about considering he was a 6 year resident of Guantanamo Bay before being released to Saudi Arabia last year.

After serving his time in Gitmo, being released in Saudi Arabia, and participating in a repatriation and rehabilitation program, Shihri has popped up in Yemen calling on Somali jihadists to attack “crusader” forces at sea in the Gulf of Aden. The audiotape appears to be a response to the US and French actions against piracy last week. The article discusses the typical Al Qaeda rhetoric then states:

Al Qaeda does have links to Islamic extremist groups operating in Somalia but, thus far, piracy and al Qaeda’s brand of terrorism have remained largely separate. The pirates in the Gulf of Aden have always sought ransom payments or loot — they have not been motivated by Islamic fundamentalism.

That is exactly how I have come to understand the relationship between the Al Qaeda terrorism and pirates in Somalia. However, I had never seen what was reported in the very next paragraph.

Read the whole thing.

Few Americans know more about Africa and the Middle East than Robert Oakley, whose distinguished diplomatic career included stints U.S. ambassador to Zaire , Somalia, and Pakistan;Special Envoy to Somali; director of State’s Office of Combatting Terrorism; and Assistant to the President for Middle East and South Asia.

With help from my colleague Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s new South Asia Center, I had the opportunity to speak with Ambassador Oakley for a few minutes via telephone. The result is posted as “5 Questions for Robert Oakley” at the New Atlanticist.

He’s more optimistic than most on dealing with the Somali pirates and even more pessimistic than most on Pakistan and Afghanistan.  The key ingredient for dealing with all those situations, though, is patience, something in rather short supply.

There’ve been a number of blog posts over the last couple days accusing President Obama of fecklessness, cowardice, and being out-toughed by the French with regard to his handling of the Somali pirate situation.

Fairness compels me to point out that the current spate of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and East Africa began roughly two years ago and Obama took office roughly  ten weeks ago.  As Jim Easaw’s recent roundup notes, New Atlanticist has been featuring analyses of Somali pirates since last September, with a dozen or so pieces written before Obama was inaugurated.

To be sure, the capture of the Maersk Alabama Americanizes the problem for the first time.  But, as Dave Schuler and I discussed in Wednesday’s episode of OTB Radio (”Piracy, Defense Budgets, and Europe“) the options for dealing with the situation are exceedingly limited.  Most experts agree that this is not a situation that can be resolved through naval power; the ocean’s just too damned big and sustaining a huge navy presence is incredibly expensive.  There aren’t a lot of good options here.

UPDATE: FP’s Anne Lowry says, “we should stop calling them pirates and start calling them something like maritime terrorists, to end any remaining romanticization.”  While doing that would be confusing at this point, I’ll note that, on above-linked program, I pointed out that these pirates are essentially terrorists, both in how they conduct themselves and in the incredible difficulty that presents operationally in dealing with them.

South African president Thabo Mbeki has resigned:

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – South African President Thabo Mbeki agreed to resign after the ruling party ordered him Saturday to step down, a move that could heighten turmoil in Africa’s economic powerhouse.

Mbeki’s rival and heir apparent Jacob Zuma was not expected to take over immediately. Another figure in the ruling African National Congress could be named interim president by parliament.

“Following the decision of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress to recall President Thabo Mbeki, the President has obliged and will step down after all constitutional requirements have been met,” the presidency said in a terse statement.

Mbeki was due to stand down next year after two terms in office, but faced growing pressure from Zuma’s supporters to quit following a judge’s ruling that Mbeki may have had a role in Zuma being charged with corruption.

A point I’ve made from time to time is that people tend to do what they’ve been trained to do and Thabo Mbeki is a fine example of that point. He’s a diplomat and much of his time and energies during his nine years in office have been devoted to mediation all over Africa, regardless of what South Africa’s needs might have been.

Now failing to stick to his knitting has cost him his job.

From the Department of You Can’t Make This Stuff Up:  Bill Clinton is now the poster boy for monogamy.

Clinton’s advice to beat Aids: stay faithful

Bill Clinton made a plea yesterday for a new emphasis on monogamy as a key element in the battle against Aids.  The former US president, not noted for his ability to keep his own marriage vows, said it was very important to change people’s attitudes to sex.

In an interview with the BBC recorded in Africa, Mr Clinton said that increasing support for monogamy was not just a problem for the continent worst hit by Aids but for the world.  “To pretend we can ever get hold of this without dealing with that – the idea of unprotected sexual relations with unlimited numbers of partners – I think would be naïve,” he said.

Of course, Clinton’s pronouncement could help cure one sickness while causing a whole other set of symptoms.  Edward Christie has the first known case:

I’m feeling disoriented, dizzy; everything is going blurry, and the room is spinning.

Perhaps this is a classic case of the old Vulcan proverb, Only Nixon can go to China?

OTB projects, with 0% of the precincts reporting, that Robert Mugabe will be re-elected as president of Zimbabwe by a wide margin. Exit polls reveal that the prime factors in motivating voters are a fear of being murdered and the lack of opposition candidates on the ballot.

Security was also a prime concern: “I’ve got no option but to go and vote so that I can be safe,” explained a young woman selling tomatoes.

Angus Shaw of the AP reports unusually heavy turnout.

A group of Swedish soldiers have alleged that they witnessed French soldiers torture Congolese civilians during operations in the area in 2003.

Five years ago, the European Union sent some 1,500 soldiers to DR Congo as part of a UN mission to take action against the bandits marauding the north-eastern part of the country. The troops were there to protect the civilians.

Now the Swedish military is saying that French soldiers tortured Congolese civilians during the operation. The German government, which didn’t send troops on the mission but provided logistical assistance, couldn’t confirm the accusations.

[...]

Results from an ensuing investigation indicate that it is highly probable that the torture allegations are valid.

In the notice, a lawyer representing the Swedish military said that “torture-like methods” had been implemented during the Artemis mission. The other EU countries that participated in the operation have been informed of the scandal, claimed the military.

Hopefully, these charges will be thoroughly investigated and not swept under the rug. I won’t hold my breath, though. I don’t know enough about EU operations in the Congo or the circumstances of these incidents to comment intelligently. Just about everything I could find online was just a regurgitation of the same wire report.

(far too snarky considering the gravity of the subject matter link via Glenn Reynolds)

Via the LAT: Grim tales from Zimbabwe

Life here is full of Catch-22 dilemmas that would strain credulity if they were fiction: It costs more to go to work than you can possibly earn, for example. There is no economy to speak of, either, just the black market, where even the government gets its dollars. And hospitals, like the one where Junica Dube was giving birth, with no medicines and little staff, are places of death, not life.

[...]

The stores are so empty that the government statistician says it’s impossible to work out the inflation rate. (Independent economists estimate that it is between 40,000% and 90,000%.) Given the depth of the economic crisis, it’s difficult to see how anything works.

A journalist more than doubles his salary by making candles on weekends. A Reserve Bank employee buys and slaughters cows on the side. A sign writer sells sandwiches cobbled out of difficult-to-come-by bread. Teachers, who can go to South Africa with no visa, bring back cooking oil, the staple called maize meal, flour and sugar to sell.

The caption under the photo that accompanies the piece reads:

Basic necessities like salt are in short supply, even in the capital Harare. Inflation is estimated to run between 40,000% and 90,000%. Everyone from laborers to professionals must hustle to try and make ends meet and about the only thing that seems to function properly is the government’s secret police.

The whole piece is quite depressing.

It is tragic to see what one man and his enablers can do to a country, an economy and its people.

Gillian Gibbons, who was facing the death penalty for allowing school kids to name a teddy bear Mohammed, has been pardoned by Sudan’s president after the intervention of the British government.

A British woman jailed in Sudan for insulting religion was to be released on Monday after being granted a presidential pardon for insulting religion by naming a teddy bear after the Prophet Mohammed. Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir signed the pardon after meeting two British Muslim peers who flew to Khartoum on a mercy mission to petition for Gillian Gibbons’s early release after she was jailed for 15 days on Thursday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the news, saying he was “delighted and relieved” and that Gibbons would now be handed over to the British embassy in Khartoum “after what must have been a difficult ordeal”. “She was pardoned thanks to the mediation of Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi. She will be released in about an hour,” presidential advisor Mahjoub Fadl Badri told AFP as Beshir met the Muslim peers at the Republican Palace.

Gibbons, a mother of two who has only been in Sudan a few months, was arrested eight days ago after parents at the exclusive English school where she taught complained that she allowed young children to name the bear Mohammed.

The British Muslims, from Britain’s upper house of parliament, thanked Sudan and all those working behind the scenes for the pardon, and conveyed apologies from Gibbons for any offence she may have unwittingly caused.

A welcome outcome, indeed, but it’s amazing that it was allowed to escalate to this level. While I fully agree with my colleague Dave Schuler’s cautionary note about the need for Westerners to be mindful of local customs and mores when traveling, this was a ridiculously trivial and obviously innocent mistake. Clearly, since the Muslim children themselves thought it was proper to name the bear “Mohammed,” Gibbons could not have reasonably been expected to know otherwise.

Story via OTB News. Image via Deep Thoughts.

The latest UN effort to bring peace to Darfur could fail before it starts for want of some trucks and helicopters.

The joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission to Darfur may fail unless countries can provide helicopters and lorries, a top UN official says. Foot-dragging by Sudan over the make-up of the force could also threaten the mission, he warns.

The 26,000-strong force is aiming to bring security to the region after more than four years of conflict. The deployment is scheduled to begin in six weeks, but could be delayed if the necessary equipment is not received.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of the UN peacekeeping department, told reporters the force needed six attack helicopters and 18 transport helicopters.

While I’m incredibly skeptical that the mission can be successful, period, one would certainly think the UN could rustle up a few helicopters and trucks. It seems that countries in possession of said mid-20th century technologies share my skepticism:

BBC Africa editor David Bamford says it seems Western countries have been slow in providing the equipment because they lack confidence in the control structure of the joint force, which the UN has agreed must be African-led.

Sudan wants the force to consist predominantly of African troops, and is unhappy that peacekeepers from Thailand, Nepal and Norway have been added to the force.

The UN says that the force will still be three-quarters African, and that other troops from African countries are not up to scratch.

Amazing.

via CFR

Apparently, one of South Africa’s nuclear plant has recently been the victim of an attempt to breach its security.

On the same night last week that four robbers shot an emergency officer at Pelindaba, West of Pretoria, another attempt was made to bypass the nuclear site’s security.

The site’s outer security perimeter was breached in both incidents, SA Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) chief executive Rob Adam disclosed today.

An emergency services officer was shot and wounded by four armed robbers who slipped through the electric fence on Thursday night.

At more or less the same time, a patrolling security officer spotted intruders at the western section of the Necsa site. Shots were fired and the intruders fled.

It bears keeping in mind that South Africa had nuclear weapons at one point in time and then destroyed them. The Times of South Africa speculates that the goal of the attacks may have been to seek research on those weapons:

But there may well be invaluable research and data stored at the facility on the process of producing weapons-grade nuclear material at Pelindaba.

It is highly unlikely that the “military-style” gang which attacked the facility was merely after the computers for their paltry resale value.

They must have been seeking whatever intelligence they knew to be on these computers.

Regardless of the reasons for the attack on the nuclear site, this is a troubling situation. Hopefully South African authorities can track down the perpetrators soon.

More information on the incident here and here.

Noah Shachtman is somewhat surprised to learn that the U.S. military’s new unified Africa Command will not be based, as its name suggests, in Africa but rather in Stuttgart, Germany.

The U.S. military’s newest command, Africa Command, could have only a small minority of its people actually working on the continent. Theresa Whelan, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, told a Washington- based think tank last week that 80 percent of the command’s staff would live outside of Africa. Whelan did not say where the majority of staff would be located, but the command, called AFRICOM, is currently forming up in Stuttgart, Germany. The Defense Department has previously called Stuttgart a temporary headquarters for AFRICOM.

[...]

When asked for further information on where the command’s employees would be located, Vince Crawley, a spokesman with the AFRICOM Transition Team in Stuttgart, said the structure and eventual location of the command is being debated at different levels of the U.S. government. “There’s a lot of discussion,” Crawley said. “You could keep your (80 percent) rear area in Stuttgart, you could move it to somewhere else in Europe, you could move it to somewhere else in the United States, or to some other area that hasn’t even been discussed yet. The decision is on the table that 20 percent would be in Africa, and where do you put the rest? And the 20 percent represents secretary Whelan’s best understanding of the thinking as of last week.”

The command is expected to employ 800 or more people, including active-duty servicemembers and civilians. The Defense Department has said that nonmilitary personnel, such as representatives from the State Department, would serve influential roles in the command. On the giant continent, the department is planning to establish a main office with five “regional integration teams,” one for each of the African Union’s five regional economic communities.

While rather amusing on its face, it should be recalled that the responsibilities that AFRICOM will assume are now and have for decades been performed by the European Command (EUCOM). Indeed, as the AFRICOM website notes,

In October 2007, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is slated to be structured as a sub-unified command to U.S. European Command. It is expected to be a fully unified command able to handle all responsibilities about a year later. AFRICOM will eventually have responsibility for the entire continent of Africa, except Egypt and the surrounding islands.

It certainly makes sense to have it based in Stuttgart, then, during the transitional period. Does it make sense to base it in Africa down the road? Possibly. But there are all manner of logistical concerns that come from this, including the issue of family members. Certainly, it’s a lot easier to provide proper accommodations for spouses and children in Western Europe.

Recall, too, that we’re currently fighting not one but two wars in the territory controlled by Central Command (CENTCOM). Its headquarters? Tampa, Florida.

Sudan is on the verge of yet another cease-fire.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir said Friday his government is ready to implement a cease-fire with rebel forces at the start of peace talks over the conflict in Darfur, scheduled for next month in Libya. It was the first time al-Bashir — in Italy to meet with the Pope and Italy’s leaders — had called for a cease-fire since the announcement last week that U.N.-backed peace talks will take place in Tripoli, Libya, beginning Oct. 27. A top rebel leader has demanded that hostilities end before negotiations can begin. “We have announced we are willing (to put in place) a cease-fire with the start of the negotiations to create a positive climate,” al-Bashir said at a news conference following talks with Italian Premier Romano Prodi. “We hope that the negotiations in Tripoli will be the last ones and that they will bring a final peace,” al-Bashir said.

Khartoum has regularly agreed to cease-fires but all have been quickly breached by the parties involved in the conflict.

More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in 2003. Sudan’s government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, a charge Khartoum denies.

We’ve been down this road too many times to get our hopes up too high.