The affinity for Zimbabwe

It's happening.

America Wants To Know warned in February that President Obama's gut-level decision to oust the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office was a sign that he harbored a deep anger over historical colonialism. We wondered if he believed Europe and Anglo-America owed the Third World the equivalent of damages for pain and suffering, and if that would take the form of support for various transfer payments from U.S. taxpayers to the governments of undeveloped nations, as well as high taxes to punish success in the belief that wealth is the rotten fruit of an old imperialist tree.

"We may learn a lot about President Obama's beliefs by observing his policy on Zimbabwe," we wrote then. "If he holds the premise that historical colonialism is the cause of Africa's current problems, he may offer Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe some kind of financial aid or technical assistance. He may believe the U.S. is morally obligated to try to bring the country's devastated economy back to life.

"If, on the other hand, President Obama holds the premise that private property is the indispensable foundation of prosperity, he will refuse to assist the regime of President Mugabe, who seized the land owned by white farmers and gave it to other people in the name of fairness."

On Friday, the U.S. State Department announced that it has lifted the travel advisory that warned Americans against visiting Zimbabwe.

And on Saturday, the Associated Press reported this: "The U.S. on Saturday praised Zimbabwe's unity government for making progress toward reform as the African nation celebrated the 29th anniversary of its independence from Britain."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commended Zimbabwe for "the efforts the transitional government has undertaken and the progress it has achieved toward reforms that will benefit the Zimbabwean people. The United States encourages the government to continue those important steps as it works for a more promising future for Zimbabwe."

The AP said Zimbabwe's state newspaper recently reported that the government "intends to relax media restrictions as part of a plan meant to restore basic rights."

If that ousted bust of Winston Churchill could talk, it might point out that Zimbabwe is "celebrating" its 29th anniversary of independence from freedom of the press and basic rights, like property rights, for example.

"More than half of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people face imminent starvation," reported Associated Press writer Terry Leonard in 2002, "Its once vibrant economy teeters on the brink of collapse. More than 70 percent of its people live in poverty. Most are unemployed. They lack proper housing, basic health care, clean water, sanitation, electricity and quality education for their children."

Before you blame it on colonialism, read on:

In just five years, Zimbabwe has fallen from a relatively prosperous and stable country to one wracked by economic despair and government-sponsored political violence.

Zimbabwe government statistics indicate the economy has shrunk by 28 percent and per capita income has been cut almost in half to $380 a year.

Inflation last month reached an annual rate of 123 percent.

Despite a looming famine in southern Africa, Mugabe has continued with the seizure of 95 percent of the white-owned farmland, bringing to a standstill an industry that once helped feed southern Africa.

Four years later, journalist Douglas Rogers visited Zimbabwe and lamented the unemployment rate of 70 percent, inflation so rampant that the cost of a beer was $150,000, and the collapse of Zimbabwe's "once-sound infrastructure," resulting in fuel shortages and electricity cuts.

"How did Zimbabwe get to this point?" he wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "It began in the late 1990s when, in order to pay for a costly military incursion into civil war-torn Congo, President Robert Mugabe ordered the printing of vast amounts of money, and inflation climbed steeply.

"But it has reached today's levels only since the commercial farm invasions, in which 4,000 out of 4,500 white commercial farmers were kicked off their land, beginning in 2000. White farmers accounted for an estimated 60% of the country's foreign currency earnings through the export of tobacco and other crops. The invasions not only crippled domestic production, they scared away foreign investment. To dig itself out of debt and pay its bills, the government has simply printed more money."

On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that Zimbabwe is "is desperate for foreign aid."

Well, whose fault is that?

Doesn't matter. You're going to pay.

Secretary Clinton said Saturday the U.S. "has long stood with the people of Zimbabwe in their times of need and will continue to do so."

The fig leaf of a "transitional," "unity" government is all the Obama administration needs to start the flow of your tax dollars to prop up the feet of Robert Mugabe, who remains in power and fully committed to the land-seizure policies that have destroyed the economy of the country and countless lives.

Secretary Clinton has given the first hint of what's coming. The wealth that was created where property rights were protected is about to be siphoned off and sent to a nation that became impoverished after it stopped protecting property rights.

No doubt the White House will attempt to sell this to the U.S. taxpayer as the best way to prevent the African nation from becoming the next failed-state-haven-for-terrorists-who- want-to-kill-Americans. If collectivism was a theatre district, "Pay Them or They'll Kill You" would be its longest-running hit.

More evidence of this fresh thinking was on display today at the Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, where President Obama explained his view that Cuba is more popular in Latin America than we are because of "the thousands of doctors from Cuba that are dispersed all throughout the region, and upon which many of these countries heavily depend."

"It's a reminder for us in the United States," the president told reporters, "that if our only interaction with many of these countries is drug interdiction, if our only interaction is military, then we may not be developing the connections that can, over time, increase our influence and have -- have a beneficial effect when we need to try to move policies that are of concern to us forward in the region."

President Obama continued, "it's so important that in our interactions not just here in the hemisphere but around the world, that we recognize that our military power is just one arm of our power, and that we have to use our diplomatic and development aid in more intelligent ways so that people can see very practical, concrete improvements in the lives of ordinary persons as a consequence of U.S. foreign policy."

Completely omitted from the president's discussion of ways to improve the lives of ordinary persons was any mention of trade.

Trade, which means voluntary transactions between willing parties to the mutual benefit of both, just doesn't interest him very much.

He's more interested in "development aid," which means money is taken from U.S. taxpayers by government officials and then given to government officials in other countries.

The people who most dependably benefit from "development aid" are the government officials, the campaign donors who get the inside track for the contract to build whatever the potentates decide to buy with your money, and the lobbyists who introduce them to each other.

If President Obama achieves his agenda, we can look forward to more of this kind of government deal-making in health care, energy, banking, manufacturing, and education. Private trade for goods and services will increasingly be crowded out by government standards and requirements, all in the name of returning the nation, someday, to economic prosperity.

It is more likely to turn us into Zimbabwe.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Barack Obama, angry colonial" and "Atlas Shrugged: Now playing in Zimbabwe," and in "Defending Capitalism" at SusanShelley.com.


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