Final Solution: Rocket Somalis into space?

For some Somalis, peace is the enemy.

PJ O'Rourke wrote in his phenomenal best seller "All the Trouble in the World" some interesting perspectives on Somalia. For instance:

• Going to Somalia was like visiting the scene of a crime and finding that the murderer was still there but the body had fled.

 

• The problem in Somalia was more abstract. This was the first large-scale military operation (the ill-fated US led humanitarian mission) in history to be launched for purely altruistic reasons.Nobody knew how to go about such a thing. In a war against hunger, what do you do? Shoot lunch?

• Somalia is so bad that making a mess improves the place

• All Third World slums are more terrible than the CNN videotapes can make them out to be. You can’t smell television

• These people (in the Somali refugee camp) were not starving: that is, they weren’t starving to death. Their misery had not quite reached the photogenic stage.

• One of the reporters must have flunked journalism school because he asked a question (to a Somali) that went straight to the point. 

• Before the marines came, the children were dying like . . . “Dying like flies” is not a simile you’d use in Somalia. The flies wax prosperous and lead full lives. Before the marines came, the children were dying like ... children. 

•  Fortunately Gianni and I were adhering to the two key rules of Third World travel:  1.. Never run out of whiskey. 2.. Never run out of whiskey. 

• Generally it’s not a good idea to wear Banana Republic - type khaki journalist clothes in a war zone. You might look too much like something that’s supposed to be shot, such as a journalist.

• You mustn’t ever ask the (Somalis) why they’re fighting. They’ll tell you. (Somalis are only queried with extreme caution and circumspection, being ardent talkers and whiners, they might hold one hostage just to keep talking!)

• Even those of us who are savagely opposed to pacifism are tempted to grab the (Somalis) by their fashionably padded shoulders and give them nonviolent what-for: “Even if you win, you assholes, all you’ve got is (Somalia)! 

I once believed like most people that the problems bedevilling Somalia mainly stem from extreme poverty, ignorance, religious parochialism, clan based bigotry, collision between the strategic interests of external actors with those of major power blocks within Somalia and such like. On the face of it there is nothing unique about it, the same amalgam of destabilizing factors can be said to be the cause of similar problems in a number of countries. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen easily come to mind. But is that really the case in Somalia?

The enormous landmass of Somalia --it is only inhabited by about 20 million Somalis

Before the advent of colonialism, a huge area straddling Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti was occupied by a nebulous ethnic umbrella, the so-called Somali nation, consisting of all the pastoralist groupings of the Somali speaking people. Then as now they were reputed to be a fractious, vicious, temperamental and haughty war-like race. It was not out of necessity or that the Somalis (who in the late 19th century altogether numbered less than three million) found the land in central Somalia too denuded and lacking in pasture and water that they then had to disperse and cover a region close to a million square kilometers in area.

In fact the land in Somalia was so fertile that migrant Bantu hordes actually roamed all the way from the tropical jungles of Congo to settle at a place called Shungwaya in Somalia. And it is from there that they yet again migrated westwards and southwards, (probably having been weakened by famine or disease, they were then chased off by inimical, hostile Somalis) to make the eastern and southern Bantus of Kenya and part of the northern branch of the Bantu family in Tanzania. It was not need and scarcity but rather the pugnacious, quarrelsome nature of the Somalis  (which inevitably gave rise to interminable internal conflicts which persist to this day) that spurred the Somali to embark on their walk-abouts.

In other words the members of the small Somali populace flagrantly squandered space in most of the eastern part of the Horn of Africa in a desperate quest to get as far away as possible from each other. Unwittingly this has presently made the lucky members of the Somali race the largest, legal land owners  per capita in East Africa.

That should make the Somali a rather happy lot; with vision, planning, unity of purpose and prudent exertion (the same elements and traits they exhibited while chasing off the  lowly agriculturalists to maintain the territorial integrity of that large swathe of land) they could be a seriously wealthy lot as well.

Somalia: Begging for food yet they are sitting on all they need

Yet the reality is that the Somalis in Somalia, and elsewhere in the region, rank amongst the most miserable peoples not just in Africa, but in the world. Over time their population has exponentially increased along with the rest of the other ethnic groups in the region -- but the land has stubbornly remained just about the same ( having marginally decreased due to peripheral pressures from other tribes). This has effectively denied the Somali the room they need to get away from other Somalis -- as they traditionally did. As if that is not traumatizing enough for any average Somali, the situation has been exacerbated by lengthy droughts and desertification -- further concentrating them onto fewer river valleys, water pans, oases, springs etc.

For lack of interest it could otherwise be scientifically and empirically proven that the farther away a Somali is from other Somalis, then the happier and more prosperous he gets. Conversely, the closer any Somali gets to a larger pool of Somalis the more miserable and poorer he gets. Just ask any rational, candid Somali in the diaspora where he'd rather be, at home in Somalia with millions of other hot-tempered, quarrelsome fellow tribesmen or to be in far away Zimbabwe with the equally self-destructive Shona and Ndebele veterans; there is no doubt -- they would choose the failed state of Zimbabwe to the one of Somalia -- the latter amongst other things having the exceptional demerit of being over-manned and too tightly packed with other Somalis.



So where am I heading with this line of argument? What exactly do I mean? That simply due to racial factors the Somalis are good for nought as a people ergo  their misery? Am I negating and rubbishing the importance of the numerous ragtag militia, the mineral wealth deficiency, aridity, complete lack of industrial and agricultural production capacities, low levels of human resource development, negative geopolitical and socio-economic factors as the core reasons for Somalia's problems or for that matter for the marginalized Somali communities elsewhere in the region?

Other than the racial connotation absolutely yes. The Somalis are no better or no worse than any other human race on the face of this planet. It is utterly nonsensical to even think otherwise in this day and age.
In the same vein Somalis are generally better endowed in many respects than other races and ethnic groups in the region. They have plenty of land, immense, untapped irrigation potential, pristine white sanded beaches that stretch hundreds of miles, rights to a large chunk of the East African coast and all the marine wealth that comes with it etc.

So it is not as if they are as in dire straits as the people of the Maldives who with global warming face the real threat of their homeland being swallowed and completely submerged by the sea in less than a century.
The Japanese who live on a country, aggregated from a collection of tens of thousands of mountainous, volcanic Islands permanently susceptible to horrific natural disasters and which form a combined land surface that is over eighty percent uninhabitable, unfarmable and completely lacking in mineral wealth. 
A majority of the people in Niger, Chad and Mali who are constantly grappling with the challenge of living with a grim Sahara desert --  never mind that they are completely landlocked. It is a brazen farce to even try to blame environmental factors.  It all boils down to the Somali people, so what is it about them that spells doom, poverty and misery?

The Colonialists had imaginative ways to keep the war-loving Somalis busy

Plain and simple -- it is the insidious Somali culture. First amongst the aspects that make the Somali culture so nefarious and harmful to their own interests is the over-glorification and exaggerated sense of individual and group honour. 

Over the centuries the Somali have refined boasting to the level of an art form. To any other layman this lethal inclination for extreme chest thumping seems in the very least a rather wanton kind of hypocrisy, scapegoating, blame shifting or a deplorable means of concealing what are otherwise rectifiable inadequacies and deficiencies. At worst it is an absurd and loathsome form of wicked willfulness.

Then there is the Somali tendency to agitate for (communally or individually) and to intently precipitate the all too frequent recourse to violence when settling disputes.The underlying conditioning fosters the belief that it is utterly dishonourable to back-down or compromise.

Families and clans have been known to petulantly get embroiled in fighting, often close to the point of mutual annihilation over issues that started with ludicrously trivial matters. They gleefully butcher each other for no apparent good reason -- for an outsider there would seem to be a deeper, mysterious and incredible form of Somali logic that makes senseless blood-letting perfectly right. A kind of logic equivalent in sense to hacking off of one's limb to test the sharpness of a machete. 

The Somali culture is deliberately attuned to promote aggression and manifestation of might and denigrates reasoned compromise which would otherwise forestall escalation and furthering of losses. 
With such an enabling cultural attitude room has been created for wayward individuals to rashly and flippantly start feuds with the knowledge that they will be blindly backed up. A society thus always in violent turmoil and always engrossed in relentless, bloody feuds must necessarily be a doomed one.

Robbing and terrorizing the neigbourhood is a much better job for many Somali youth

Finally the Somali culture gravely imparts to it's adherents the notion that there are certain jobs that are undignified for self-respecting Somalis, the most eminent being agriculture. What are perceived as menial jobs are looked upon with utter disdain. This in effect conditions the members of the society to be slothful and sloven besides causing communities to be packed with proud wastrels, hangabouts and trouble prone rabble.

Long before the collapse of state institutions  in 1991 with the fall of Siad Barre's regime, the cantankerous Somalis were already infamous and reputed for being a basket case. They wouldn't abandon pastoralism, though it unfailingly and perennially threw them into the unnecessary throes of starvation and famine. Even today they remain steadfastly proud and an extreme, aggressive minority has taken up extortionist sabre-rattling as an economic activity. 

Starved and naked ... and proudly so?

Naked, hungry and war battered the Somali nonetheless remain as stubborn and incorrigible as ever, despite the fact  that abject poverty has already shorn any shred of dignity from the majority amongst them. For peace to prevail and for economic prosperity to be broadly achieved in the Somali society the Somali first need to be encouraged to radically change their culture and rid themselves of the harmful conditioning that has come with it.

Peter Kenneth: The ideal candidate (Part One)

 First and foremost this article is not going to delve into the manifesto and the carrot sticks that Peter Kenneth, amongst other politicians would be using to win votes in the forthcoming general elections. They are doing a good enough job for themselves -- whether or not they will even bother to fulfill those lofty promises is another matter altogether.

What am going to give is a simple deductive analysis ( a selection process by elimination of candidates) that factors in the perceptions that are already out there in the public domain. There will be no sugar-coating and mincing of words,  and the salience of flaws in each candidate will be the main focus. I will endeavour to be as objective as possible by sticking to historical facts, but this shall not be an encumbrance to the articulation of my own personal views. The competence, consistency, trustworthiness, integrity and electability of a candidate will provide the basis for my arguments and my ardent wish is that ultimately that is what most Kenyans will be considering when they go to the epoch making polls.

According to the various surveys and opinion polls that were released last year Raila Odinga is still the front runner, followed by Uhuru Kenyatta, Kalonzo Musyoka, Martha Karua, and William Ruto. This has not been the strict order of precedence but it is a general reflection of the entire bag of polls. In the second tier so to speak there is Peter Kenneth, Eugene Wamalwa, Moses Wetangula, George Saitoti, Mutava Musyimi and Raphael Tuju as the other serious contenders. The field is by no means exhausted and the third tier shall necessarily comprise the remaining motley of candidates.

Of these none has managed to give traction and gain any semblance of momentum for their campaign efforts. Most just barely flickered during their fifteen minutes of fame as they declared their candidacies and immediately sank back to obscurity. Indeed, at the moment none of them has the financial muscle, the organization and the media coverage that would make them viable candidates, and therefore I will summarily dispense with them. Unless the wildcards, the likes of Bifwoli Wakoli, Cyrus Jirongo the indecisive Najib Balala and the other hordes of nondescript aspirants in this category do something unexpectedly spectacular, they will remain to be seen as mere comic reliefs and a source of amusement in what is otherwise promising to be a contentious, bruising battle for the presidency.

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Raila Odinga

Raila: The happiest man in Kenya in recent days, but for how long?

In the context of Kenyan politics, Raila Odinga is arguably the embodiment of insuperable resilience. Ever since he stepped into the limelight in the attempted coup of 1982 against Moi's KANU regime, coupled with his aggressive personality, Raila has always conjured in the minds of Kenyans the image of an impatient man driven by an unhealthy dose of ambition.

After the bungled coup d'etat and following his release from detention Raila abandoned the adventurous route of unconstitutionally usurping power. He was also wise enough (or sufficiently cowed) to stay out of Moi's cross-hairs during the heated campaign for return of multiparty democracy. He only resumed his public role as an arch-rebel when multipartism was already fait accompli, and even then only under the auspices of the eminent persona of his father the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. The truth is that Raila played no significant, positive role in the so called second liberation movement, but he had the acute presence of mind to jump in on the bandwagon when multipartism was safe (for him) and certain.

If anything, his actions mirror those of a rowdy tout who clambers aboard a moving vehicle and immediately begins demanding the driver's seat. Raila merely hijacked the label of being a reformer by his ostentatious association and shoulder rubbing with the genuine leading figures in the reform movement. Figures such as Kijana Wamalwa, his own father Jaramogi Odinga, James Orengo, Charity Ngilu, Martin Shikuku, Gitobu Imanyara, Masinde Muliro, the Karuas, the Kiraitus, the Ooko Ombakas, the Joab Ominos, the Leakeys, the Paul Muites, the likes of Wangari Maathai etc. Shoulder rubbing; that is the long and short of his contribution to the reinstatement of multiparty democracy and his much trumpeted, yet substantially hollow reformist credentials.

The death of Jaramogi in 1994, was a watershed moment for Raila as well as for  FORD Kenya, not in the least because a party leader had to be picked from a new generation of leaders. Having by now sufficiently regained his confidence, Raila lost no time in seeking the chairmanship of the party, which had been left vacant by the death of his father.

As testimony to his irrepressible ambition he stole the march on FORD Kenya by forming his own party (NDP) after he was resoundingly rejected in favour of the late Kijana Wamalwa.  He was so infuriated by the humiliation of that defeat that  he actuated his threat of leading an exodus of Luo Nyanza MPs from the party .  Basically reducing the vaunted FORD Kenya to a ramshackle party and a cry in the wilderness when compared to it's former self. Raila had learnt the important art of party wrecking.

This was also not to be the last time that Raila would make use of such flagrant party hopping and political nomadism. It has been a pattern that he has gleefully reproduced each time his own personal ambitions have come under threat. The formula is simple enough, he jumps ship, vilifies his rivals and leads a crusade against his former allies with what has become a patent dirge whose lyrics invariably hinge on him being a liberator of the masses against "oppressors and stooges".

He did it to FORD Kenya, then KANU, and finally NARC. All within the span of a decade. He could have wrecked ODM too, only that he was mired with that party's primacy. If Kalonzo and Ruto hadn't left, Raila  would have jubilantly done so because if nothing else, he knows political nomadism gives his supporters (the most fanatic being in Kibera and Nyanza) something to be giddy about. They just adore a script that has Raila as an oppressed underdog, and like Moses of the Israelites, Raila leading them to the promised land against the odds. Very romantic -- yet sorely  misguided. Raila actually got to Canaan (the land of milk and honey) a long, long time ago.

While his stature has grown with each decampment, the masses he claims to speak for have only grown poorer, if politics was sensible or even remotely rational only a tiny,  deluded robo-electorate would vote for him, because no one should suffer the tired tale that his failure to deliver again is due to the same flimsy, over-regurgitated reasons  -- that he couldn't deliver because of inhibition by  inter and intra-party politics and HIS own political wrangling ! At this rate he will have to be a complete autocrat, just to be able to build a single public toilet in Kibera.

Raila Odinga and the powerful Odinga family have not escaped the tentacles of graft and dubious dealings. Their most prized asset, the Kisumu molasses plant, that is said to have been connected to the macabre murder of the former Foreign Minister Robert Ouko, somehow found it's way into the good hands of the Odingas. They even cheekily renamed it Spectre, perhaps to wistfully wave off both the brooding ghosts of Ouko and the ever looming one of justice.

It is alleged that pending matters regarding the controversial plant were ironed out and expedited when Raila joined Moi's government. This was one of the various money-goodies that Raila the donee was indulged with to join Moi's government. Wasn't Raila supposed to have been castrated by Moi's goons while in detention? Whatever happened to self-respect or was it compensation?

Raila Odinga's name has been intermittently popping up in graft matters, for instance his aides and affiliated companies were linked to the Maize Scandal. Furthermore there have been claims that he has appointed an inordinate number of family members and relatives to senior public positions. Though his actions may not be illegal they are just barely within the letter of the law and run counter to the current constitution. One of them, his sister Beryl Odinga, has recently been on the news for plundering the pension kitty for Railways workers.

 But a sly operator he is; there is nothing that can be personally pinned on Raila on a legal footing -- at least not yet. Kenyans may very well know, they may very well suspect but they very well can't prove.

But should Kenyan voters let these shady transactions that are handled by proxies slip  through? Should Raila be given the benefit of doubt? It should be remembered that it was on the basis of mere perceptions about reputation rather than the veracity of proof that Kenyans overwhelmingly rejected and put paid to the presidential ambitions of one Nicolas Biwott. Why then should the rules be changed for Raila?

When the ball is in his own court, Raila has proven he shares no such empathy or compunction for the public as was demonstrated by the remorseless evictions at Kyang'ombe .The unlucky squatters and tenants were left homeless and propertyless when they were ambushed by heavily armed police officers and then bulldozed from one of the plots held by the intricate web of companies that Raila co-owns with family members.

In recent years Raila has been fairly successful in shrugging off his image of a blood-thirsty power maniac (or has he?) and given his hectic itinerary in a political career spanning decades, perceptions about his knack for being power hungry and a long necked opportunist could very well have been the least of his worries.

The sheer amount of energy with which he has always invested into political matters has made it seem that no fight is too trivial for him. He would wrestle a mosquito if that is the only opponent he could find, and he has no shortage of invectives and barbs for each and every one of his rivals. Not even pedestrian antagonists such as Kalembe Ndile (whenever he flips his sycophantic banter in favour of a rival camp)  are spared the dress-downs.

This once endearing habit of his that seemed refreshing and heroic when he was the underdog (hounding first Moi and then a Kibaki who had been buffered by insular cronies in the short lived era of the NARC government) has lost it's sheen in his position as premier. By indiscriminately using the same bulldog tactics, Raila has in recent times acquired the hue of something more akin to a crude bully and an egotistic dictator rather than the champion of the weak he prefers to view himself.

In fact it would seem natural to surmise that either Raila relishes brawls or brawls have an uncanny affinity for him. He has fought so many political battles over the years (with varying degrees of success) that one cannot help but wonder if indeed he is not simply engaging in a favourite pastime. This singular quest for dominance and power has left behind a long trail of political casualties, which nevertheless have not dampened Raila's spirits in bettering a check-list that  already includes a bewildering variety of  furious foes.


Interestingly he also seems incapable of picking wrangles that spare casualties in his own camp! I believe the full list of people done injury by Raila is somewhere in the soon to be unveiled recesses of Miguna Miguna's mind. 

In a recent interview by Jeff Koinange he mentioned Luo luminaries such as Orengo, Omino, Ombaka and several other Luo minnows who served as Raila's spanner boys, as well as Reuben Ndolo and Omingo Magara. He intimated that in his forthcoming book, he will bare it all. But more importantly Raila's former hatchet-man, strategist and literary assassin said he will never vote for his former master and that Raila would be utterly disastrous for this country. Given the rancour and acrimony that Miguna currently suffers it would suffice to say his claims should be taken with a pinch of salt.  That is, listen and sift -- but ignore at your own peril his advice of not voting for Raila.

Like a good general Raila has striven to protect the strategic sanctity of the commander (which happens to be himself personally) and  prudently lets his junior allies fall to the sword or he discards them when they are of no further use. As Machiavellian principles demand and being an astute politician -- Raila has also never been slow or lost an opportunity in slaying any eminent figure, king maker or not, and those he deems too expensive politically to sustain within his camp.

It is apparent that Raila is utterly terrified of independent minded allies and aides, nothing quite fills him with horror as the prospect that they would feed on his energy, grow too strong and thus threaten or jeopardize his supremacy and authority. This is especially true in Luo Nyanza, a region where he is extremely sensitive about and always keeps a keen eye on  upcoming leaderlings. He will hammer dead any such upstart who does not pander to the great Odinga pantheon. Beware (Raphael Tuju?), in Luo Nyanza the Odinga autocracy trumps democracy.

Raila is a deplorable rabble rouser, a remorseless opportunist and a ruthless blood-hound for  power. He has no record of development worth talking about, he is said to be a poor manager by close colleagues and has consistently used his political rise in personal aggrandizement.

 For all his rhetoric and populist agenda Raila has done little for the people who have given him the most support, charity begins at home it is said -- but in Raila's case it seems to go only as far as his own doormat. Amongst his many flowery attributes he is also a man with the bent and inclinations of a dictator, poor at consensus building and has a penchant for being spiteful, disrespectful and disparaging to leaders who have opposing views. Deplorably it also seems he may be upping the tempo on his nascent engagement in corruption. Is Raila fit to be president? Nay I say. Will he win? it is probable. The one thing that is for certain, is that his controversy laden leadership will continue to polarize this country down the middle.

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Uhuru Kenyatta
 

Embattled Uhuru

If there was such a thing as being too rich to steal, then probably Uhuru Kenyatta would have been one of the few people in the country who would have comfortably fit that bill. In fact he is so well endowed that he seems to have gotten into politics just to spend money. Whereas the ordinary politician in Kenya gets into politics for pragmatic, selfish, cynical reasons -- mainly to win a bigger, fatter bread for the family, Uhuru commendably got into politics out of  ideals.

Even though narrow in scope and premised on a rather low imaginative thresh-hold , Uhuru's ideals are still beyond the reach of mere mortals and hungry politicians. When he bobbed out of reclusion his motives were driven by the pertinence and pressure to do away with the biting boredom of being insignificant,  the need to throw off the cloak of obscurity,  the duty to carry forth the family torch, the itchy nudge to toy-shepherd with the tribalized and balkanized Kenyan flocks etc.

Probably wanting to do things right and start from the grassroots it is then that he stumbled upon and began his unfortuitous mingling with the cultic, tribal outfit called Mungiki.  How poetic then, that Uhuru's baby steps in politics could determine his political demise as well, courtesy of his own trifling with the Mungiki (the ICC case at the Hague is largely premised on Uhuru's association  and control over the group). Because of the Mungiki's penchant for braggadocio and exaggeration perhaps he did not quite believe it when the rabid cultists told him how much of a menace they could be.  In light of recent events it must be an aching oversight indeed.

With such an impressive agenda even the then retiring president Moi was enamored with him, what could be more enthralling than having a grateful, erring amateur as his successor and one who could foot the bill of the entire costly enterprise from his own pockets? With Uhuru's Mungiki gambit, Moi -- a battle hardened veteran -- knew his young protege was burning the thatch over his head, such an association with a vicious, tribal militia would never earn him the national appeal he needed, infact it was bound to make him lose it.

Saddled with such glaring weakness Uhuru and his clamouring Kikuyu supporters would then need Moi to get to and stay in power -- Moi was cynically letting Uhuru have enough rope to tie a noose around his own neck.  If the self anointed professor of Kenyan politics was looking for a wealthy greenhorn, with a big enough name that would befuddle the mobs and with no experience in anything whatsoever then he had hit the bull's eye. That criteria could not have been filled any bigger or any better other than by Uhuru Kenyatta himself.

But being born into a privileged life is not a crime in itself neither is being a simpleton, and these cannot be held against him in his quest for the presidency. Already it is common knowledge that he has never managed or started anything on his own initiative, so rather than look at this candid, generous, hot-tempered but generally likable individual one should keenly focus on the men and women behind his bid.

The power block around Uhuru Kenyatta is a potent, interconnected triad comprising of influential family members, affluent business partners and political barons whose networks and relations go as far back as to the time Uhuru's father, Jomo Kenyatta, was president. After surviving the leaner times in the Moi regime, this formidable network of a section of  Kenya's elites got a new lease of life when Kibaki took office and it has flourished under the Kibaki regime. It is set to be inundated with even more excesses in treasure and opulence through another Kenyatta presidency. Uhuru as president portends the return of the big fat pot of national resources within their own courtyard.

The leading masterminds and strategic advisors in the grandiose Uhuru Project, in one way or the other served in the state apparatus under Jomo Kenyatta, and some were even his closest relatives, counsellors and minders. They are now aging and growing rather impatient to hand over the reins to the next generation with one amongst their progeny holding the highest and most powerful office in the land. This will assure them of the perpetuity of what has been a painstakingly maintained network of affluence and  political power in society.

At the pinnacle there is the often underestimated and tacit machinator the former first lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta. Jomo Kenyatta's physician, nephew and former Foreign Minister Dr. Njoroge Mungai, as well as George Muhoho. These are some of the leading and powerful family members silently steering the course for Uhuru behind the scenes. There is also Uhuru's cousin and cabinet minister Beth Mugo who has now been an experienced hand on the backroom horse trading in Kenyan politics for the last two decades. Though the above are the most salient relatives due to their public profiles,  there are others.

Amongst the political barons and business partners you can count the formidable family clans and business empires headed by the likes of John Michuki, Njenga Karume, Stanley Githunguri, Peter Munga, GG Kariuki, Charles Njonjo (who claims to support Raila but is tied by blood relations and business to the Kenyatta's) amongst several others. There is also the less dependable affiliation with the leading families in Riftvalley such as the Moi family, the Nyachae family through business connections and even the former rival and multi-billionaire Nicholas Biwott might throw in the cap for Uhuru.

Put the self interests of all these people as well as the support from their dependents, friends and associates together and you have a fairly coherent and extremely powerful support base for Uhuru that has an unparalleled depth of resources to draw from.

To give Uhuru's claim to leadership some veil of legitimacy, he has been frantically and violently pushed down the throats of the populous bloc of the Kikuyu electorate. But a good number are still loath to be saddled with the choice of the ngati (colonial homeguards and collaborators who flourished out of the colonial handover and thrived in the Kenyatta regime -- largely at the expense of the Mau Mau veterans and the Kikuyu nation).

There is a sense of weariness with the 'homeguard' leadership that has done nothing to lessen the common man's plight; while the ngatis and the Kenyattas on the other hand have been frolicking in opulence and spoilt with avenues to grow ever richer. But without home base support, the illusion and facade of the Uhuru leadership would utterly collapse. It would dissipate into thin air.

Could such formidable, orchestrated support make him any better a candidate? I think not and better yet do we want to reinforce the old boy networks and further cement dynastic politics and patronage in this country? Uhuru's bid has nothing to do with ability, it is all about elites banding together and imposing an anointed 'prince' on the masses by means of their dubiously obtained wealth and influence.  Through their bellicose push to have Uhuru Kenyatta as the only presidential contender from Central Province, it is starkly clear that the ngatis are out to rope in the Kikuyu electorate first before they can get a proper handle on the rest of us. They are practically flock herding, making cows and sheep of Kenyans!

After ten years in public office Uhuru has little to show that does not have the personal imprint of others. He is one of the biggest landowners in a country where most people hardly have a plot to build a tin shack. Uhuru is also the scion and product of a rapacious system of patronage that has given rise to the current inexcusable state of inequality and mass poverty.

Wherefore I opine, Uhuru Kenyatta has no real credibility. Further he has no ability, pertinent experience, will or managerial aptitude to change the sordid and pressing reality of poverty in this country. Even if Uhuru's ardent wish was to do good by the people, it could only spell doom for him. Only a most callous fool would destroy the prospects of what he has been graciously bequeathed; it would be fatal politically and it would make him a butt of ridicule -- to not only go against his personal interests but also to go against the interests of those who prop and sustain him in power. To say that his position is locked, nailed and chained vis-a-vis those of the poor, especially with regard to land matters, is a woeful understatement. Then why would any rational ordinary Kenyan elect him?
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Kalonzo Musyoka

Kalonzo has made a profession out of anxiety

Master of prevarication. An undignified flip-flopper. Professional vacillator. Ask Kalonzo to give his take on any pressing issue and he will have two or more contradictory opinions in his smug reply.
Straining and straining to be clever, he often dithers in his positioning with the hope of getting greater advantage at the expense of his rivals. Rather than coming out as a Machiavellian schemer that he strives to be, what one gets is an impression of a man wringing his fingers and squirming with indecision. One who is subsumed with the desperation of not offending any of a number of opinion blocks and which too often ends up with him not taking pivotal chances. This irksome penchant for anxious ambivalence has earned Kalonzo no small amount of distrust and loath.

Tragically, Kalonzo's doublespeak is something that he himself seems to be quite content with, probably out of the fanciful supposition that it is a mark of calculated or sophisticated obfuscation. It could also be that Kalonzo vainly hopes that it would remind his hunger-battered and sun-scorched audiences that he is well versed in diplomatic charades.

The truth is that Kalonzo is a clueless prig. If he knew half the time what was coming out of his mouth it is unlikely he would suffer as many gaffes. His katikati (in-between) strategy, is one of them. First he tried to sanitize it by repeating it -- to his own chagrin and loss of face -- and then recently he has replaced it by another gaffe-born teaser called the juu yao (on-top) strategy. The sexual connotations that can be alluded to both of these terms simply makes the thoughtlessness that went into their generation more clear.  Rather than political monikers, they sound like something Kalonzo dug out from the depths of the Kamasutra.

There are however, a few instances where Kalonzo has proven he can emerge from his internal quagmires. The most outstanding ones being his departure from KANU in 2002 and at the height of the post election violence where he rushed to outmanoeuvre Raila in a ploy to save face after a dismal performance at the polls.

While the country was literally burning, Kalonzo jumped at a no-brainer chance of being the vice-president, and thereafter began pretending that his ganging up with Kibaki mandated him to impose terms on Raila and the ODM.

Misguidedly content with his gains, he callously embarked on preventing Raila's co-option into the government.  This unsavoury if not wretched cynicism was epitomized by his glib calls for peace immediately after he got into office, virtually taunting the country for not voting for him. He couldn't help grinning and smiling at press briefings with the barely concealed satisfaction of a well fed hyena. It was as if Kalonzo trully thought it was possible to transfer the brand of a loser and the humiliation of his ineffectualness at the polls to Raila.   But he was left choking with gall when despite his earnest wishes it became an inevitable eventuality for Raila and the ODM to be part of the government

Dissatisfied with this arrangement that had seemingly left him clutching straw, Kalonzo then stooped to the level of personal vendetta, where he once again joined and spearheaded a mission to thwart, contain and win superiority over the better muscled and brawl savvy Raila. It turned out to be a rather short lived protocol/seniority war. This has since then left Kalonzo on the losing end once again . The man has become his own worst enemy, in choosing battles that he never wins and thus creating the perception that his reach, can go no further than the length and breadth of his moustache. Kalonzo is the quintessential talker, an expert at polite bluster and at best he can only command the yawning dregs of substance.

Kalonzo Musyoka got into politics in the late eighties and won his Mwingi North constituency with the help of Mulu Mutisya, a close confidant and friend of the then president Moi. Like all good sycophants and yes men who survive on the tailcoats of patrons, Kalonzo went out of his way to prove his loyalty to president Moi. He was such a subservient and feckless lackey that Moi took him more for a spineless, low utility hatchet man rather than a possible successor.

It is telling that to this day Moi has never given Kalonzo even the cursory acknowledgement in his presidential bid, sour grapes or not, by choosing to completely ignore Kalonzo, Moi is effectively signalling that Musyoka is a non-entity. One not even worth his derision.

The squeaky voiced Kalonzo to his credit also happens to be a squeaky clean politician, a rare reputation indeed given the numerous opportunities that were easily available to him, especially in the corruption rich KANU regime. This gives credence and sincerity to his assertions of finding graft abhorrent. Exceptionally, he has never been publicly accused of having been personally involved in the all too common habit of politicians sticking their hands into the cookie jar. Yet this seemingly unrivalled advantage is pitifully wasted on him by his lack of imagination, courage, charisma and resoluteness.

It is the risks that one takes that ignites the fire of euphoria and enthusiasm in one's supporters. The greater the risk the better. It is also the only way that politicians can prove they have the mettle and are worthy of the crown of leadership. But what does Kalonzo do?
Like a faint hearted rabbit he occasionally pops out from his comfort zones and the enclaves that provide him certainty. Then at the first sign of trouble he makes wild dashes to the nearest burrow .

With such insipid tactics he shouldn't bother others to ponder why he commands so little respect and why his campaign is perceived as an apt demonstration of expending energy to be deliberately boring and unexciting. In this respect he seems to be already in bed with George Saitoti, both apparently belonging to a school of thought that elevates cowardice. (Could their motto be -- Uwoga ni ngao? [lit. fear is a shield]).
Skirting controversy and being petrified of every little bump on the road can never be inspiring; so far it has not proven to be fruitful for Kalonzo and it probably won't even if he persists on that vapid path.

Kalonzo has become so well known for his political scavenging and opportunism that none of his supposed allies are willing, for the life of them, to touch him with a ten foot pole; at least not before the first round of the coming elections. Like a diligent rat he is known for gnawing through thick walls of resistance just to get political advantages on the cheap.
He can only bring to the table his flimsy claws and tiny serrated teeth , yet he demands the biggest chunk of a cake that he can never bake himself.

Starved of resources and perenially going about with his begging bowl Kalonzo hasn't been deterred in becoming the most pretentious blob in the local political landscape. He is so presumptuous that he has actually managed to make it look pathetic; a local pundit once said that were Kibaki to die unexpectedly, opening the way for Kalonzo to be president before the next election, that out of sheer ecstasy and unbridled joy Kalonzo himself would  collapse and die! He would be utterly overwhelmed with the prospect of inadvertently beating both Raila and Ruto to the presidency.

It reminds me of a local myth cautioning against donkeys being carted on a truck -- allegedly such a donkey would be so exhilarated and overjoyed with being carried for a change that it would die in a fit of laughter. Maybe the PNU, GNU, URP, KANU, UDM, FORD-K, FORD-A, New FORD, DP, KKK ( all affiliated acronyms observed) and the G7 guys know the lesson underlying this myth too and they wouldn't want to make Kalonzo too happy too soon, it might turn out to be tragic.

A man shorn of dignity and substance by his own shabby shifts, drab decision making and abrupt changes in policy is what we have in Kalonzo. He has no capacity to overcome his own internal weaknesses -- how much more of a chance could he possibly have in solving the numerous problems this country is suffering. His Mwingi constituency should be a case study in privation, having been faithfully steered on that sordid path by Kalonzo for well over two decades. With no clarity of vision and with the mien of a hanger-on Kalonzo is a disaster in waiting, and the best gift we can offer ourselves is to distance the country from this disaster of a leader.
He is waiting. Kalonzo is a thrifty waiter. By all means he should wait some more.

                                                              ***
William Ruto

Ruto on the docks:  affinity for graft or political set-ups?

A self made man Ruto, could have easily taken the prize for a fairytale rags-to-riches story, if only most of those riches were not tainted with the stench of colossal graft. Emerging from a humble background and armed with little more than sharp wit, a glib mouth and the stamina of an ass he has risen from the shadows of squalor in an obscure village in the North Rift to become one of the most powerful political figures in Kenya.

His meteoric rise got it's first significant impetus with his entry into KANU's youth wing, called the Youth for KANU (YK'92), which was cobbled together in preparation for the 1992 elections. The purpose of this wing was to draw in fresh blood from the youth and it was envisioned that it would provide an energetic, core group of organizers who would rally support at both the grassroots and national level. It was KANU's secret weapon of mass mobilization, and to make their work more effective they were laden with bag loads of new, crisp wads of cash.

Now, nowhere in the world is it considered a prudent policy to abruptly inflate the pockets (and egos) of youngsters -- who are little more than village ragamuffins -- with piles and piles of cash, and then leaving them room to very much do as they please with it.

Regardless of the objective, they invariably develop a keen taste for quick gains and easy cash; besides that such artifice avails the opportunity for them to draw the morally twisted conclusion that honest work is a foolhardy enterprise. The compromised lot can only be left with a lifelong disdain for ordinary pay and hard work. This fate seems to have befallen a good number of the beneficiaries of the massive bribery that KANU was compelled to resort to in the 1992 elections; this being only one of the many wicked stratagems that Moi used.

After squandering their tranche most members of the YK'92 tried their hand in politics. Hypnotized by the sweet, effortless gains they made most have been clawing back to find that fictitious world of plenty. Those who have been lucky enough to get to their misconceived destination (preferably parliament and the cabinet), usually end up getting embroiled in graft.

With no money falling from the sky, those who have not been so lucky in scaling the political ladder have resorted to using every gimmickry and thuggery at their disposal to satiate their avarice-- without exception they cannibalize, bleed and suck dry each and every organization in which they are embedded. Once a parasite, the adage goes, always a parasite.

During the short spell that Ruto along with his comrades in the YK'92 were immersed in the cash rich world of politics, he practically moved within a year through the five rungs of the needs hierarchy (from hurtling about to sort his basic needs to getting nearly to the point of self actualization). After the elections and the sudden cut-off from the money supply, he was loath to tumble back down from the apex. With the connections he had forged and the new skills he had acquired, he laboriously started to lay his ground work for the next general election that was slated for 1997. Ruto had resolved to vie as the MP for Eldoret North. He had been hooked on political smack, and he was not going back.

He beat Moi's favoured candidate in the nominations for the KANU ticket and went on to take the parliamentary seat for Eldoret North in 1997, which since then has become synonymous with Ruto. After some fence mending with Moi, he was elevated to a cabinet post, and immediately got down to the urgent business of growing blithely wealthy at the expense of all else and primarily the Kenyan taxpayer.

To his credit Ruto has never pretended to be a reformer, he just pretends he can do a better job than his rivals. It is also apparent that Mr. Ruto changes parties but never philosophies, indeed one needs only to remember the uproar over the Maize Scandal (where a few individuals were engaging in brisk racketeering with the maize at government silos at the height of a famine).

It was while he was at the Agriculture Ministry that Ruto also  demonstrated the staying power of Moi's Nyayo philosophy (lit. footsteps philosophy; Moi had a gift for coming up  with vague, nonsensical ideas), whereby the footprints of corruption ceaselessly followed Ruto in an unbroken trail from the KANU days. There has never been a break in the continuing tale of huge chunks of public money and assets mysteriously finding their way into Ruto's depthless pockets; tales that have been running ever since he got his induction into the hall of plunderers in the YK'92 campaign orgy.

Few amongst the current presidential hopefuls can trully measure up or engage Ruto with parity in fluid articulation and debate. But alas! In Kenya polished polemics counts for nought, as Kenyans we are attuned to look at the size of the mud being slinged rather than the expertise and skill with which it is being thrown against opponents

Remove Ruto's powers of oratory and eloquence and what you remain with is a trained zoologist who can't tell apart the backside of baboon from that of a monkey. Indeed he just might be a slightly more evolved version of Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu a man known to be as equally rapacious. ( The inarticulate Waititu is well known for his routine engagements in stone throwing, he prefers that to the labours of making the kind of demagogic speeches Ruto is famous for) .

Although Ruto is well known for opposing all sorts of things and issues, he isn't particularly known for productive projects or proposals that he has spearheaded or initiated. When it comes to opposing, Ruto is eminently the point-man -- from the mundane to the major issues of the day he sticks out like a solitary giraffe.

For example; while still in KANU he banded with Raila and the others to oppose the Wako Draft in the 2006 constitution referendum. In 2010 he opposed the current constitution in another referendum. Mind you, as he opposed these various constitutions he was not for the post-independence constitution either. (Is there any kind of constitution that is good enough for Ruto?)

Ruto vehemently opposed what he and the ODM side called  PNU's electoral fraud and the declaration of Kibaki as president. Barely a year later he changed his tune and it was not long before he was vehemently opposing Raila's premiership alleging that in fact it was ODM that was involved in electoral fraud. He and other regional colleagues now vehemently oppose Raila and ODM but only tentatively oppose the headless PNU.

In 2002 while in KANU Ruto opposed Kibaki and grudgingly supported Moi's wishes in having Uhuru be the party chairman and flag-bearer. Then he opposed both Moi and Kibaki in the 2006 referendum. He opposed Moi's views and Kibaki's bid in the 2007 elections.  He has gone full circle and he is no longer opposing either man in whatever shape or form, atleast not before he finds the right pretext to do so.

Amongst other things Ruto has opposed the Mau evictions, opposed the resettlement of the landless IDP's before the Mau evictees, opposed the report of the Ligale Commission on electoral boundaries. Infact the only thing that he would have supported given the chance and that is not part of the normal business of parliament  is the repeal of the Rome Statute -- which would withdraw Kenya from the ICC. Even though such action would not help his case Ruto would get the warm satisfaction of showing the ICC,  how much opposition there is to the ICC process. Yes, even in his support there is some sort of opposition involved.

Ruto has no proven track record in management, just a few conspicuous ones of mismanagement. That would hardly be a deterrence since most of the presidential hopefuls suffer the same defect and they are unlikely to bring it up during the campaigns.

 Herr Ruto has worked furiously hard to build his national profile, but stating that he is viewed with suspicion in some key regions is a languid understatement. For instance, the communities bordering and living within the boundaries of Ruto's Kalenjin community are known to be remarkably wary of his aggressive stances.

A community that has been accused many a time of acts of aggression seems to stand lesser chance in turning pacific if the most warlike amongst their number is elected president. It would be akin to turning over (in appeasement) an entire farm to a neighbour with a violent bent -- especially since his children waylay your children from time to time. The election related violence in this country already reeks of premeditated intimidation, a favourite bully tactic that should be dispensed with not rewarded.

So why should Kenyans vote for Kenya's iconic grafter and social climber? Ruto may wield a lot of influence, but will he manage to convert it to votes at the ballot for himself as succesfully as he did for Raila and ODM? Will he be able to disentangle himself from the ICC noose? Does he have sufficient national appeal? Only time will tell.

                                                              ***

Martha Karua

Wild eyed Karua: Face of peace?

Martha Karua showed the fullness of her true character during the violent turbulence that rocked the country following the 2007 elections. Rather than immediately taking up a reconciliatory posture -- being a woman, a mother, and all the good feminine qualities that are supposed to come with mature maternal cognition -- to the end she remained  a die hard and  a frightenning, incorrigible extremist.  She was PNU's firebrand fanatic who went beyond the call of duty and who strove to prove how utterly incapable of compromise the PNU side could get.

To show how angry and disaffected she was -- with the 'petty' negotiations the country hinged on (like a flippant dimwit diva), Martha ditched kindergarten decorum and common manners and refused to even greet her opponents. That is how narrow minded and rigid she can get.

Temperamental and afflicted by god-complex -- she will only admit she is wrong not only when it is overwhelmingly clear that that is the case, but also when her error has been exposed to all and sundry. Then unrepentantly she will come out with caveats, fancy jargon and spurious technicalities when her position has been well overtaken by events. She never admits her mistakes when it matters the most, but only does so to avoid further embarassment and well after she has been decisively quashed.  If that is not sufficiently frustrating , prudent readjustment and admitting of mistakes is still a rarity and a thoroughly obnoxious concept for Martha Karua .

She very nearly dragged this country into the abyss and in no small way helped in the escalation of the tensions during the 2008 crisis -- arguably to protect and further her personal interests and more poignantly to prove the infallibility of her positions.  She has proved that when saddled with power she will push to the verge of absurdity to make things go the Karua way, and the rest to take the highway. If that fails as her performance in 2008 clearly demonstrated, then she is more than content in having the whole country burn.

Her more recent behaviour of abandoning the PNU ship isn't too useful either, it is ludicrous to conjecture that she would form political parties each time she is thwarted. What people should ask themselves in light of Karua's willful and polarizing nature is whether they are electing a reconciliatory leader or the vicious fiend straining at the leash we saw in early 2008.

When it comes to politics, one need not dig deep to find hypocrisy and Karua is no exception. It is well known that as an insider in Kibaki's NARC  government,  she was one of the people who sought to contain and muffle Prof. Wangari Mathai's voice and position in the government. Those responsible practically constricted Wangari with intrigues and innuendos. Martha and Wangari, if truth be told,  were never best of friends, and their camaraderie went only as far as being former comrades-in-arms.

It is amazing , how Karua brazenly stuck out her head and pretended to be more than a fellow victim of the male bigotry that Wangari suffered throughout most of her life, and which went on even under the NARC government. Given the great media coverage accorded to the late professor's death and funeral it was only natural, (infact it would have been odd otherwise) for the politician in her to try to stick out some campaign fliers.

It is baffling then, to say the least, that  she came up with the unnecessary charade that she was a loyal and trusted comrade, even bosom buddies with Prof. Wangari.  She probably thought the lie would fly,  the only thing she seems to have conviniently forgotten is that the press had always been awash with accounts of how Karua was veritably "the only man" in the Kibaki government. In light of mutual jealousies prone to be felt amongst over-achievers, especially as in this case one being more eminent than the other, Martha hardly escapes the aspersion of having been one of her deadliest antagonists -- her position and power in the NARC government gave her the wherewithal to politically suffocate this most powerful rival. It is not Wangari that her passion was flowing out to, it was the resource rich and growing hordes of feminists she was angling for!!

She also has a propensity for going into the extremes to protect her exaggerated sense of honour, for instance her spiteful spats with Caroline Mutoko and Kiss 100 following her alleged, midnight rendezvous with a mysterious priest in the middle of nowhere; whence obligingly bandits emerged from the dark and interrupted the private session by robbing the two ministers -- one a cleric and the other a member of the cabinet.

Because of the caricaturization of this single incident which she interpreted as an invasion of her privacy ( please do understand Karua that you threw privacy out of the window when you chose to be a politician -- neither is the randy priest exempt given his position ) Karua has since then made several attempts with the help of others to try to pass laws that muzzle the media. At one point she went as far as advocating the withdrawal of Radio Africa's broadcast license, Kiss FM's parent company! Martha is arguably one of the most vindictive and vengeful politicians in Kenya, who will unabashedly pursue a personal vendetta to the bitter end.


When she realized that despite her services (that were given with the intensity and mental fortitude of an assassin) that Kibaki was not going to annoint her as his successor, her delicate sense of pride and honour was yet again tickled into overdrive. Karua blazed out of the government in a fit of outrage and threw her now well familiar tantrums. Like Miguna's recent violent tumbling from Raila's navel, she decried all sorts of things going wrong with the Kibaki vision and hence her inability to stomach the farce, allegedly out of principle. Karua should save us this shameful rigmarole of pithy self-righteousness and her dubious sanctimony.

Not any less salient was her wanting performance that borders on abetting if not active collusion in the Anglo-Leasing case and the fiasco of the Artur brothers. The lame prevarications she gave with regard to both matters still leaves a lot to be desired.

Karua's memorably wanton reply to what was a growing national outcry in the Anglo-Leasing robbery was the lazy remark that the NARC government should not be held liable for corruption planned during the KANU regime. The only lacking component to this flowery argument was logic itself (if one can overlook the utter rubbishness of it) because the alleged beneficiaries and  executioners of the graft were crawling all over and within the NARC government. All she needed to do was to go to a meeting of Kibaki's kitchen cabinet, close her eyes and grope in any direction and she would have landed on a culprit. Better yet Martha Karua should own up her connexion to that monumental graft,  for sooner or later it will all come tumbling out.

 In the case of the Artur brothers (who Interpol offers they are not brothers at all) going by the fishy names of Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargasyan (do all Armenian names have to rhyme -- with the first name being the surname?) Kenya reached it's nadir with respect to the reprobate involvement of Kenya's political class with criminal rings.

Allegedly the two Armenians were part of the Russian mafia and they were in Kenya to make sure the cocaine haul seized during a raid at the coast was back on transit to its intended destination. Much remains to be uncovered about these shady characters, but there are some astonishing facts that we are apt to forget.

First the Artur's are the only individuals in Kenya's independent history who got to be assistant police commissioners in the record time of less than a week -- without the merit of having ever stepped inside a police academy either inside Kenya or elsewhere in the world.

Then they managed that feat without being Kenyan citizens and within days of their arrival they had been given valid licences to carry firearms. As if that is not appalling enough they went on to lead crack units of the police on a commando style operation (still suffering the effects of jetlag) against a prominent media house and flagrantly helped to raze down property worth hundreds of thousands of shillings. This is the infamous raid on the Standard Media Group.

Amongst their many records, they are also the only people not under incarceration who have managed to fly out of the country at the expense of the Kenyan government without their passports or any other valid document! That is how desperate the government was to be rid of them, they had become too hot a potato and a sensational embarassment, both locally and internatinally.

Within the short timespan they were in Kenya, the Artur's held the country hostage with perplexion. There was no end to their provocative and impudent escapades. Like a surreal soap opera they filled the airwaves almost on a daily basis with their disdainful behaviour, their incessant disrespect for local sensibilities and institutions  and their sordid partying.

As kingpins of notoriety, they attained some sort of celebrity status  and by the sheer mass of infamy surrounding them, they managed to galvanize and mesmerize the entire country with anger, shock and disbelief. Socialites on the other hand chose to be contrarians and fell over themselves to befriend them, quite oblivious of the harm the two Armenians were doing to the country.

 For a time it seemed as if all hell would break loose on the streets of Nairobi. Even grocery vendors and other ordinary Kenyans had began to angrily confront the brothers on the streets, a lynching or citizens arrest was perilously on the offing. Yet the government kept aloof in some sort of paralysis and the juicy stories surrounding the two Armenians kept flowing. The intense profile of this shocking fiasco in which state protection was debasingly accorded to  nefarious characters was complemented by the Artur's drama packed lifestyle, flashy  pimp sense and tonnes of dangling mob jewelry and insignia.

It is also noteworthy that these odd fellows first came into the limelight when Raila started running about claiming there were mercenaries in the country hired to kill him. Obligingly the media traced the strange foreigners and that is how the filthiest can of worms in the country's history was prized open. There is no doubt that the Artur's had specialist training -- even to a layman it is evident from the released tapes of the raid on SMG that the way they handled the assault rifles and from the way they moved with chilling precision that they were no amateurs. These men were professionals in specialized tactical operations and utterly lethal ... which partially gave some credence to Raila's claims.

One would expect that the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs would be outraged that such characters were roaming about freely and putting to shame every tenet that stands for the rule of law in this country. But loe and behold, Martha Karua (the jurisprudent!) and other cabinet ministers went out of their way to defend the actions and continued stay of the Arturs in Kenya! Martha co-justified the attacks on the media house on the grounds of national security when it was apparent that the raid was not only illegal,  but it was also being carried out by people who had no business being in the country in the first place. More worryingly, could she have endorsed or implicitly acquiesced in what would have amounted to the cold blooded murder of a rival?

This most loathsome debacle, to which the word impunity could never suffice is one of the shining examples of how 'principled' Karua is. One wonders where indeed were her principles when foreigners were being made assistant police commissioners, and accorded protection while they blatantly put the entire country to shame in broad daylight. All the while she remained mum, resting on her laurels and disregarding the obligation and fact that she had the force of law leveraged by the vantage position of a powerful cabinet docket to protect this country's integrity.

What assurance do Kenyans have that the Arturs and their entire clan will not return under her protection as president? Who knows what deals those Artur people have with the individuals who made the inner sanctum in that wretched NARC cabinet that submerged this country into such infamy? For all we know they could be bankrolling her shot at the presidency.

Finally there is the bungled cleaning up of the judiciary, the silly sham which those who carried it out called the judiciary's "radical surgery". It was more of a radical whitewash which partly lay ground to the chaos of 2008 by completely eroding the confidence of Kenyans in the judicial system. Though not directly involved in the operations of that witch-hunt, Karua was one of it's unfortunate architects. It was her lobbying alongside the likes of the then egotistically bloated Kiraitu Murungi and others that got the Ringera 'dream team' into place.

Having given her endorsement, it appears she then oblingingy went blind and deaf to all the outcry; technically she was not responsible and there is little she could have done, but that does not preclude the fact that atleast she could have voiced her concerns and disapproval being a reformer and all.

 Her reactionary and retrogressive nature resurfaced again, when besides others she meddled with the draft constitution during the Bomas process ( leading to it's rejection in a referendum). This essentially denied Kenyans a chance of having a better constitution that would have probably forestalled the post-election violence of 2008. These last two are minor flaws for which she only shares partial responsibility with the entire political class of that time, but would you trust such a fickle person whose reformist credentials and stances can be so flippantly shifted with the changing winds of opportunity?

Karua in my opinion has already failed and failed utterly the test of time. All she needed was a little power to change from a solid reformer into something completely unrecognizable. She held great promise, and the hopes of millions of Kenyans glided along, on her flight to the sky. But like Icarus and his hubris that was based on glued on wings, Karua proved unable to control her pride, conceit and greed for power. She spat on the trust the downtrodden Kenyans had placed on her.

In this country's greatest hour of desperate need she arrogantly turned away her face with the surprising intensity of her viciousness and extremism. There was no solace in her bosom for the suffering, instead she only flagrantly fanned the flames in power plays and partisan positions. This while women were being raped and maimed, children were being torched alive in churches, and the country was bitterly torn apart. There is no shred of compassion in this woman. Neither for the woes of the weak or for those in poverty, what she did with the limited power she had was frightenning enough for a lifetime.


                                                             ***

This is my take on the front-runners. They are a bunch of baggage-laden hypocrites and traitors of the will and hope of the Kenyan people. They have all had their chance and they have all been miserably disappointing. I have no wish, stake or interest whatsoever to lambast or disparage any candidate for the benefit of another. 

This is my honest opinion and given the chance to express their views with candour, many Kenyans would be quick to divulge how angry they are with these individuals. There is a deep swell up of fury and disillusionment that goes back to their flagrant squandering of the opportunity of a new beginning that came with the end of Moi's rule.  If unchecked they will also squander the new one that has come with the new constitution.This is not the time to sit around and be idle or be a spectator, your life is very much dependent on the choice you will be making as a Kenyan -- or this country will veritably collapse in a paroxysm of violent uprising into a failed state.

It is the illusion of a lack of choice that they have helped create and the deliberate tribalization and balkanization of the electorate into voting blocs that Kenyans still cling onto them. Mine is a tear drop for the senseless suffering and wicked running in circles they have driven this country into. A small effort in trying to debunk the myths that they have woven around themselves to seem appealing.

Perhaps if we are reminded enough, that we don't have to keep standing on hot coal, maybe the faint din will help in yanking a sufficient number from the trance of terror. The terror and fear of choosing outsiders, of forsaking our tribal labels, bigotry and prejudice. At the end of the day there is only one divide that matters, the one between the rich and the poor.

I will zoom in on the next tier of aspirants and finally justify the reasons why Peter Kenneth is the ideal candidate in a succeeding posting.

Sun Tzu and Cyberspace: Lord of War shapes China's cyberwarfare policy

 In the last two and a half millennia and in accordance with Chinese military tradition, it has been standard practice in China, for all aspiring military officers as well as high ranking administrative officials to study and be rigorously examined in the seminal work of one Sun Tzu of Wu.


His book, the Art of War, and the precepts contained within it, still strongly informs the conditioning and perspectives of the modern Chinese leaders, especially with regard to security issues.  The pervasive view in the west (a myth in actuality) that the mind of Chinese officials and the Chinese in general is impenetrable, owes it's origins in part to the ideology found in the Art of War.  Early Europeans who had initial contact with the Chinese (who were possibly also frustrated with the language and the intricacies of Chinese culture) were quite content to dismiss this deliberate concealment of one's thoughts as oriental eccentricity, superstitious mysticism or a strange, irritating Chinese version of superiority complex . 

Unbeknownst to them but pretty much common knowledge to every Chinese, it was a cardinal rule for one to be shifty, crafty or play the fool, depending on what the situation demanded. In the Art of War, amongst other things regarding the impression one should project, Sun Tzu says -- "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt". I can't help but feel that perhaps these pioneering europeans would have been better served if they were only provided with a rough translation of the Art of War -- rather than being taken through the lifelong rigors of trying to understand the Chinese psyche or even by learning Mandarin and the Chinese culture!

It is noteworthy though, that today the book is widely read more than ever in its long history and not just by the Chinese.  It got a new lease of life after the validation of the lethal efficacy of it's principles by the Vietnamese, who astutely used the strategies within it first against the French and to an even more appalling effect against the overwhelming might of the US in the Vietnam War (the ardent disciple of Sun Tzu who advocated for and eventually managed to put the simple book to such frightful and vicious effect was the Vietcong commander, General Vo). Thereafter the world was forced to take note and finally accorded the ancient classic the awe and unswerving respect it rightly deserves.

Following the humiliation of a forced retreat and ultimately complete withdrawal from the field by a vastly inferior force, the Americans wisely made it a mandatory book in all it's officer libraries (even in tiny remote bases) and a requisite study for military officers and all CIA recruits. It has been unanimously acclaimed by military men all over the world as well as individuals who have worked its wonders of organizational strategy in business and other spheres of life.

But what does Sun Tzu, who died circa 505-497 BC, have to do with the Internet and cyberspace in general? As a veteran soldier, his book is imbued with the pragmatism and practicalities of conduct of war in his era. There is inherent talk of chariots, horses, regimentation, landscapes and such like. It is not exactly a philosophical treatise -- the kind with ambiguous subliminal content, and subjective malleable meanings, which exclusively hinge on the mind that seeks practical application of such a book's contents. It is a concise, strategist's guide book and on the face of it, it has nothing even remotely close to technological or scientific discourse within it.
 
Well according to CRS reports for the US Congress on cyber-warfare, (expressly with regard to what am about to refer; the one of 2001 by Steven A. Hildreth, a specialist in National Defense and Foreign Affairs) ancient Chinese military strategies still inform all spheres of military thinking in China, and cyber-warfare is no exception -- and I will strive to demonstrate how apparently it seamlessly fits in with the ancient Analects.

Just to quote the CRS Report above: "The  Chinese  concept  of  cyber warfare  incorporates  unique  Chinese  views  of warfare  based  around  the  People’s  War  concept  (modern)  and  the  36  Stratagems(ancient)".
These 36 stratagems that Steven Hildreth is referring to are filtered, anecdotal derivatives from centuries of voluminous Chinese military literature and commentary, which are preeminently based or expound on  the sole surviving, accredited work of SunTzu - the Art of War.  Actually most of the 36 stratagems are snippets directly extracted from the Art of War. The People's War concept on the other hand is more or less conventional modern theory on military organization, conduct and purpose of war based along revolutionary Sino-Marxist lines.

Before proceeding onto how China's ancient military strategic thinking plays into cyberwarfare and why it makes China so much more potently dangerous, it would be prudent to elucidate the meaning and context in which cyber warfare currently occurs.

Cyber warfare in a broad sense is the intentional attack, sabotage, disruption and incapacitation of computer-based systems and computer services which may or may not be integrated within a networked environment. Though not included in the conceptual or actionable definition of cyberwarfare in the view of state actors, in operational respects computer related espionage and theft of data is also handled under the framework of cyberwarfare units.

Contrary to popular belief cyberwarfare is not soley the perpetration of the above acts with the use of remote computer systems against the targeted ones -- physical or kinetic attacks e.g. bombing -- that involves damaging of computer systems, their power supply lines and also removal of critical parts such as storage devices are now considered by many authorities, including governments, as integral aspects of cyberwarfare.

It must be noted that the issue of cyber warfare is still very much a grey area when it comes to definition for it is inextricably dependent on the intention and nature of the perpetrating  party. Based on the attacker's intentions the actions that are construed to comprise cyber warfare can also be defined as cybercrime or cyberterrorism and all three definitions can be valid in the same instance of an attack.

The main parties in cyberwarfare i.e. the targeted entity and the attacker, can be state or non-state actors the latter comprising of criminal rings, terrorist groups, various types of private organizations and solitary individuals as well. Onward I shall restrict myself to only military and state involvement in cyberwarfare.

According to a recently published report by Visiongain, a business intelligence consultancy firm, the market for cyberwarfare technologies will reach $15.9 billion by the end of 2012. A starkly conservative figure, which nonetheless represents the seriousness of the new arms race. Virtually every government in the developed world and all the major powers are actively and independently engaged in the development of arsenals and strike capabilities in cyberwarfare as a deterrent.

The governments known to have the most robust programs in cyberwarfare within the structure of their military or/ and intelligence services but not limited to these countries are: the USA, Russia, the People's Republic of China, Israel, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, India, Pakistan, South Korea and with comparatively limited resources but nonetheless allegedly hyper-normally active -- Iran and North Korea.

 In the case of the last two it could partially be a case of frantic counter-reaction as a response to relentless probing by foreign entities (and in the case of Iran, a well documented crippling attack ) of their critical systems . It could also be  partly due to the campaign that surrounds the  international pressure being brought to bear upon Iran and North Korea mainly for their controversial nuclear programs. The overarching motive would be that with cyberwarfare capabilities they could in the very least anonymously harass their antagonists in protest of punitive or coercive measures  and at best inflict serious damage to their critical ICT assets, which includes military as well as financial and industrial systems.


Here is an overview of known and alleged activities of some of these countries:


China
China's military has set up an elite Internet security task force tasked with fending off cyberattacks but denies that the initiative is intended to create a "hacker army".
The 30-member "Cyber Blue Team" -- the core of the PLA's cyber force -- has been organised under the Guangdong military command in the country's south, and will carry out "cyber-warfare drills".  AFP

In 2003, a series of cyberattacks designed to copy sensitive data files was launched against the US Department of Defence systems, and the computers belonging to DOD contractors. The cyber espionage attack apparently went undetected for many months.  This series of cyberattacks was labeled “Titan Rain,” and was suspected by DOD investigators to have originated in China.  The attacks were directed against the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the U.S. Redstone Arsenal, the Army Space and Strategic Defense Installation, and several computer systems critical to military logistics.   (CRS Report 2008)


In 2007, the Pentagon raised concerns about a successful Chinese ballistic missile test strike on a satellite, a weapon and tactic that could be used to knock out the high-tech communications of its enemies.

2007 August German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to China  was disrupted when a report appeared in Der Spiegel claiming that German government computers had been infected with Chinese spy software. Computers in the chancellery, as well as the foreign, economy and research ministries, had been attacked. It was feared that German companies may have been also infiltrated .


In April 2009, computer spies infiltrated the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project -- the Defense Department's costliest weapons program in history. In milliseconds, bandits were able to make off with several terabytes of data related to the aircraft's design and electronics system. Once again, officials said the attacks appeared to originate from China, but attribution challenges made verifying of this claim extremely difficult.   WSJ and Committee on Foreign Relations


In January 2010, a sophisticated cyberattack originating in China targeted Google's corporate infrastructure (along with those of other tech companies), stealing intellectual property and infiltrating the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists. An investigation into the incident led Google to end its policy of censoring searches on Google.cn.   Committee on Foreign Relations

US computer firm McAfee said in February 2010 that hackers from China have also infiltrated the computer networks of global oil companies, stealing financial documents on bidding plans and other confidential information.

According to US diplomatic cables obtained and published by WikiLeaks, the United States believes that China's leadership has directed hacking campaigns against US Internet giant Google and Western governments.In one cable, the US embassy in Beijing said it learned from "a Chinese contact" that the Politburo had led years of hacking into computers of the United States, its allies and Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.  2011 AFP


In February 2011, hackers linked to China were found to have conducted a multi-year cyberespionage campaign directed at Western energy companies . Despite the evidence, investigators were unable to confirm whether the operation, known as "Night Dragon," was sanctioned by Chinese authorities. Committee on Foreign Relations


USA
In 2009, President Barack Obama declared cyberspace a strategic national asset and requested a complete Cyberspace Policy Review. Since then several commissions and cyberwarfare institutions have been established and co-ordination vigorously re-inforced between the various relevant departments.
A primary catalyst in the formation of the government's current cybersecurity posture was a significant breach of DOD networks in November 2008 at U.S. Central Command (ForeignAffairs). The infiltration enabled an unnamed foreign intelligence agency (read China) to extract critical operational plans without detection. ( CFR)

The United States divides principal responsibility for cybersecurity between the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Homeland Security. For fiscal year 2012, the two agencies requested a combined $3.4 billion (FierceGovernment) in cyber-related funds. (About a third of the entire annual budget of the Kenyan government).

In 2001, a Special Committee of Inquiry established by the European parliament accused the United States of using its Echelon electronic spy network to engage in industrial espionage against European businesses.  Echelon was reportedly set up in 1971 as an electronic monitoring system during the Cold War.  European-Union member Britain helps operate the system, which includes listening posts in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.  Echelon is described as a global spy system reportedly capable of intercepting wireless phone calls, e-mail, and fax messages made from almost any location around the world.


A mysterious worm called “Stuxnet,” reportedly created by the United States and Israel,  inflicted substantial damage on Iran's nuclear program the targeted plants being Bushehr and Nantanz . Various  stronger versions of the Stuxnet have since then emerged and an estimated 60 percent of fresh attacks by the virus continue to target facilities in Iran.


France
France allegedly has a secret program that among other things monitors its citizens in cyberspace.  Reports have surfaced that the French have their own version of Echelon .  Frenchelon, as some have called it, reportedly is used to monitor and analyze global communications.
Besides it's sophisticated Frenchelon system, France has also set up a cyberwarfare unit and enacted a rigorous cyberwarfare doctrine in its government, intelligence and military departments.


Russia
 In 2007 a three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, caused alarm across the western alliance, with NATO urgently examining the offensive and its implications.  It is alleged that there was collusion between the Russian government and trans-national cybercriminals who made their large botnets available for short-term rent.
 (CRS report)


 In August 2008 the Georgian government  accused Russia of disabling Georgian Web sites, including the site for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was at the height of the Georgian conflict in which Russia swarmed Georgia with fighter jets and deployed several divisions of infantry and armored tanks into Georgia.
Internet researchers at Sophos, a computer security firm headquartered in England, noted the Russian cyber attacks and also said that the National Bank of Georgia’s Web site had been defaced at one point and replaced with images of 20th-century dictators.


In January of 2009 the world witnessed the third successful cyber attack against a country, Russia again being the alleged perpetrator. The target was the small country of Kyrgyzstan. The attackers focused on the three of the four Internet service providers in the small country with a population of 5 million. It is thought this attack was part of the coercive measures Russia was employing to force Kyrgyzstan to end the use of a former Soviet airbase in Kyrgyzstan by Americans for their operations in Afghanistan.

The IP traffic in this attack was traced back to Russian-based servers primarily known for cyber crime activity. Multiple sources have blamed the cyber attack on the Russian cyber militia and/or the Russian Business Network (RBN). RBN is thought to control the world’s largest botnet with between 150 and 180 million nodes.

It is now widely accepted that Russian Officials hired the technically capable group to carry out the attack.  The group is thought to have also played a substantial role in the Estonia Attack in 2007 and the attack on Georgia in 2008 .The commercial sourcing of the cyber attack is believed to have been done to put the Russian government at arms length from the hostile act.

Despite it's own roguish behaviour, Russia's has publicly stated in an aggressive cyberwarfare policy that it would without hesitation retaliate with nuclear strikes for cyber attacks waged against it's critical computer systems.



North Korea
 In March 2011 denial-of-service attacks against South Korea disabled several government websites, signalling  the growing threat from a North Korean cyberwarfare unit.

May 3 , 2011 North Korea's cyber warfare unit was back in the spotlight  after South Korean investigators blamed the North for launching an online attack that crippled computer operations at one of Seoul's biggest banks . (Yonhap)

In this attack the South Korean investigators pinpointed the North's top intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, as the perpetrator of the attack that paralyzed the computer system of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, for weeks

Intelligence officials in Seoul believe that North Korea has about 1,000 hackers in its cyber warfare unit under the command of the Reconnaissance General Bureau.

According to South Korean intelligence officials some of the North Korean hackers are based in China, particularly in Beijing, Heilongjiang and Shandong, in an apparent bid to make it difficult to definitively identify the attackers.

2011  July 4 attacks denial-of-service on Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea could have been a test by a foreign entity to see if flooding South Korean networks and the transcontinental communications between the U.S. and South Korea would disrupt the ability of the U.S. military in South Korea to communicate with military leaders in Washington, D.C., and the Pacific Command in Hawaii. North Korea cyberwarfare unit is the suspected perpetrator of the attacks.

Germany
According to statistics, in 2009 the German government recorded around 900 attacks against its systems, while in 2010  the number of such incidents was expected to reach 1,600 in the first half alone.  As expected, all throughout 2010 and 2011 Germany was plagued with frequent breaches and hundreds of cyberattacks.

A new cyber-warfare center called the Nationales Cyber-Abwehrzentrum (NCAZ, lit. “National Cyber-Defense Center”) was opened in 2011, with initial staff being transferred from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)

The second agency is a national cyber-security council called the Nationaler Cyber-Sicherheitsrat. The council is now part of Merkel’s chancellery and includes high-level representatives from key relevant ministries, such as the interior, defence, justice,  and finance ministries.

However, there are critics. Der Spiegel noted that the NCAZ at it's inception was slated to open with only 10 employees on the payroll (Deutsch), while prominent German cyber-security expert Klaus Jansen called the NCAZ a ”sham” due to the agency's small size.


United Kingdom
The United Kingdom already has a cyber defence force. Officially called the Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), it is based at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.

A report leaked from the MI5 at the beginning of 2010 directly pointed the finger at China as a major source of cyber-attacks and threats to British computer systems.


Iran
 According to Israeli sources Tehran has embarked on an ambitious plan to boost its offensive and defensive cyber-warfare capabilities and is investing $1 billion in developing new technology and hiring new computer experts.


 In February 2011, Iranian hackers crippled the Voice of America. The alleged Iranian perpetrators strangely enough and quite out of the ordinary identified themselves as the "Iranian Cyber Army," the group took over dozens of VOA websites including the VOA's  Dari, Pashto, Somali, and Albanian-language sites.

In December 2011, the Spanish-language TV network Univision aired a documentary which included secret footage of Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats being briefed on planned cyber attacks against the United States. The documentary claimed that the diplomats, based in Mexico, were involved in planning cyber attacks against US targets, including nuclear power plants

2012's most serious act of cyberwarfare so far has been reports that indicate an  American UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), or drone, was “hijacked” and brought down by an Iranian-cyber warfare unit in late December 2011. This is the second time in two months the U.S. drone fleet had been hacked. More astoundingly the hijacked drone seemed to have been safely steered to ground and was displayed on Iranian state TV to  prove it had been salvaged in pristine condition.


Israel
Israel demonstrated its intent to conquer the new sphere of cyber warfare in the 1990s by presenting the country's legions of hackers with a choice between prison and working for the state.Thousands are said to have signed up since then and have been incorporated into the defence forces Unit 8200. One American consultancy rated Unit 8200 as the sixth biggest initiator of cyber attacks on the planet

The Stuxnet virus that downed systems at Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor to a halt for over six months in 2010 is widely believed to have been the result of an Israeli cyber-attack, although Israel has not admitted it. It's development is alleged to have started as far back as 2006, four years before it's initial deployment, and it is credited as the most sophisticated piece of malware ever developed to date.

2007 - Duqu, a data-stealing piece of malware, was deployed at targeted sites in Iran and some of its allies, including Sudan. The source of the malware is thought to have been developed and deployed by the Israeli cyberwarfare unit.

 When Israel attacked a suspected Syrian reactor in In 2007,  it is alleged the Israeli military may have used an " off switch" buried in the Syrian radar system to allow its aircraft to travel undetected.
 As a pastime the Israeli cyberwarfare unit alongside Zionist sympathizers routinely hack and bring down Palestinian websites, websites of groups such as Hamas as well as  other sites put up by suspected terrorist groups. With the souring relations with Turkey in recent years there have been tit-for-tat cyberattacks between Israel and Turkey, with the prime targets being those of government websites and high profile companies in both countries.

The IDF in 2011 re-organized the units that deal with cyber-warfare, establishing offensive capabilities and operations within Military Intelligence’s Unit 8200 and defensive operations within a new division within the C4I Directorate.
The new division within the C4I Directorate is run by a colonel who took up his post in mid-2011. The officer is the former commander of Matzov, the unit that is responsible for protecting the IDF networks and a Hebrew acronym for “Center for Encryption and Information Security.
Matzov writes the codes that encrypt IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Mossad networks, as well as mainframes in national corporations, such as the Israel Electrical Corp., Mekorot, the national water company, and Bezeq.

{Kenya, my home country has not been left behind -- the military urged Kenyans to join it in, yes tweeting and chatting with Al Shaabab on the social platforms to dissuade it's members from their terrorist activities. It is a curious request given that 99 percent of Somalia has no electricity and about eighty percent of Somalis are illeterate but Kenya's youthful IT literati (of which am a member) have been trying their best, despite insurmountable odds --  odds such as utter boredom with the idea and a grim lack of interest. The active elements online purporting to be Al Shaabab are known to be mostly sympathizers or young Somalis in the diaspora, particularly in the West. }

                                              ***

From the above accounts it is saliently evident that cyberwarfare is already a daily reality. Amidst the scramble for preponderance in cyberspace, the new dimension for universal human activity, traditional conflicts and enmities have made a natural leap therein. If these activities are translated to their prosaic equivalents amongst individuals China would be gouging out the eyes and ripping the hair from the head of America, while a drunk Israel would be throwing bottles and glasses in a crowded bar with the random hope of hitting a fleeing Iran when she emerges again from the toilet.

In this environment of cut-throat competition,  at first glance a technologically third rate country as recently as a decade ago, China should be struggling to be barely keeping up with the more technologically advanced countries. Yet China is right at the forefront in cyberwarfare and through it's alleged exploits (and therefore demonstration of its capabilities) it has literally dwarfed every other country with the exception of America. 

Worse yet through its aggressive forward policy, it has in  cyberwarfare terms practically clobbered and harassed technologically superior countries such as Germany into desperation. Forcing them to radically upgrade their cyberwarfare capabilities. Even the US has not been spared the brunt of the might of the Chinese hacker hordes. Virtually every single critical and high priority system of the Americans has been probed and in varying degrees violated and it is thought that the exponential growth of the frequency of attacks is far from peaking.  Things are going to get a lot more uglier in the future.

The Russians who at the initial phase provided the Chinese with the training and technical expertise in this field,  have been eclipsed by their proteges. It is telling that most of the attacks that serve the political interests of Russia are carried out by contracted Russian IT mercenaries and cyber criminals. The clearest sign yet of diminished or stagnated potency in cyber capabilities within the Russian state apparatus.

Going back to 1990 and keeping all things equal, the Chinese should be about the same level and at best only slightly better than the Indians in the field of cyberwarfare. So what is it about the Chinese that made them to put up such gargantuan efforts and so early on towards achieving unrivalled preponderance in this medium. What enabled them to readily embrace the hostile use of cyberspace when no one else could see the advantage of such a policy and more importantly, what do they intend to do with their growing might?
Well that is where the teachings of Sun Tzu come in.

In a nutshell Art of War focusses on counteracting the imbalance of engaging a more powerful foe through asymmetrical warfare, primarily through deception whereby commanders are exhorted to unabashedly avail themselves the advantages to be found in the faculties or expediencies of scoundrels.  {Sun Tzu:  All warfare is based on deception}.
According to Sun Tzu in matters military, a good strategist/leader needs only be insightful and prudent with his decisions. But to be trully great and to stand head and shoulder above peers, a general's greatest merit should be a highly developed aptitude for treachery. His ability for deviousness and imaginative use of all resources  and opportunities at his disposal should only be surpassed by his unwavering quest for discipline and ruthless efficiency. 

Perfidy and imaginative use of deceit with regard to an enemy is an all essential commodity which cannot be dispensed with. In strategic terms a superior mind is one that never ceases to come up with schemes that are anchored around cheating, lying and stealing with the underhand aim of cheaply achieving objectives at the expense of enemies or rivals.
It is from this grounding that Chinese leaders remain unfettered and will keep on blatantly lying and prevaricating about their country's cyberwarfare capabilities and activities, even when there is a growing mountain of facts to the contrary.


Juxtaposed militarily with the west, a priori the Chinese take the inferior position -- a  scenario in which asymmetric strategies such as those espoused by Sun Tzu would seem to be perfectly suited. Though it is inconceivable that China could develop it's conventional military capabilities to be at par or at a fair footing with those of America in the near term, the Chinese leaders are sparing no effort to bridge that gap. Military spending has been increasing with double digit rates in China for the last twenty years and is now the second biggest in the world behind America's. The Chinese claim to be spending about 90 billion dollars per annum on their army against America's 700 billion, the true figure is thought to be about 150 - 180 billion dollars, which nonetheless is still less than a fifth of a diminishing budget for the American military.

With such an overwhelming disparity, the possession of nuclear weapons can hardly provide the Chinese with even a slither of assurance that they could effectively protect or pursue their interests militarily against those of America. A good case in point is the island of Taiwan which in a manner of speaking is just spitting distance from mainland China. Taiwan was once a relatively insignificant Chinese island district or county. The long and short of it is that it was occupied by the nationalist Kuomitang government of Chiang Kai Shek after they were militarily routed out of mainland China by the communist rebels led by Mao Zedong in 1949. 

Protected by America Taiwan has been governed since then as an independent state although technically and legally it is still fully part of China. This situation would not be in existence if China had sufficient military wherewithal to simply take back control in what is already internationally recognized as the Chinese jurisdiction of Taiwan.
{It is like the Kibaki administration being made to flee by a Mungiki led uprising to Migingo Island and thereafter successive authorities in Migingo to declare themselves a different state under the protection of Uganda}.

It is this keen sense of inequality vis-a-vis the West that has pushed China to fully and aggressively exploit the advantages that cyberwarfare could avail NOW, with the caveat and understanding that during an open conflict cyberwarfare capabilities would in actuality be useless or provide exceedingly marginal advantage. (It also gives the Chinese leaders no small amount of satisfaction that from time to time they can pull down the pants of the mightiest military force on the planet by means of successful cyber exploits.)

What good is a dangerous but dormant computer virus, if your enemy is not only capable but would already be dropping precision bombs on your laptop, your house and your entire neighbourhood as well and right at the moment when you intend to use it? (The first thing anybody would be thinking of is to throw the damn laptop into a river and set the attacker's grandmother's house on fire in retaliation -- that is one of the few places he would probably not be expecting you to go!) This is the underlying logic that reflects the Chinese actions in taking pro-actively hostile measures against the West even though there is no open conflict or policy statement to such effect. From the view of Sun Tzu it is utterly reckless and  stupid not to use a gimmick or opportunity at your disposal when it is most effective.

For senior military commanders peace time and war time are civil jargon that would normally have little bearing on strategic decisions. At any rate either situation should never be used as a pretext for not taking the appropriate action when it matters the most. This does not mean goading a superior force into an unnecessary open confrontation. As equally  important neither does it mean one should accept being cowed into slothful inaction for the sake of peace. {Sun Tzu: Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him}

Cyberwarfare capabilities for the Chinese unlike for the West is not meant for wartime use or even for deterrence measures, it is primarily designed to be actively used in peace time and the resources thus obtained or compromised would be used as multipliers to leverage conventional means in case of open conflict.
{Sun Tzu: -to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting
              -Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field}

 For example the technology stolen, developed etc in the process or by means of cyber attacks,  could be used in various ways by the army. Information gathered would be used for more effective targeting. Stronger Chinese companies ( many being parastatals -- are occasionally aided in their contract bidding with stolen information) increase national wealth apart from being important organs in foreign countries that provide effective cover for traditional methods of intelligence gathering etc.

The Chinese are not preparing or arming themselves for cyberwarfare, they are already actively engaged in one -- albeit not in the sense the rest of the world has sought to package the understanding of this phenomenon. While the west is busy defining and demarcating what cyberwar is, and stockpiling arsenals of their own --  China is suffering no such scruples about the risks, contextualization, responsibility and purpose of cyberwar. In fact Sun Tzu tells us that the weaker your enemy is and if there is some place he is particularly vulnerable that is when and where you should kick him the hardest.

{Sun Tzu: -Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected
              -So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak}
Anybody still thinking the Chinese are going to wait for the rest of the world to catch up and shore up defenses before it unleashes it's cyber-blows is utterly crazy.

Reading the congressional reports and material by the leading security experts in the West, it is apparent that they are inventing a rule book for a kind of war that according to most of them has never even occured --  dubious rules that are not known if in any case  they would be adhered to by parties to such a war .
{ Quote >> Chia Lin says: "Victory is the only thing that matters, and this cannot be achieved by adhering to conventional canons."...
L. Giles: ...Napoleon, as we know, according to the veterans of the old school whom he defeated, won his battles by violating every accepted canon of warfare.}

The Chinese are also more than content to let the rest of the field expend  energy and money by putting up imaginary boundaries as they themselves brazenly loot the fields of cyberspace of whatever trinkets they can get when they still can.

In Sun Tzu's view there is no greater feat of ingenuity, military or otherwise than to lead the opposing side to believe it is only being threatened by exploratory gambits (therefore lulling the foe to invest efforts into ill placed and laborious defensive preparations) while in actuality they are already under full scale attack. China's activities in cyberspace are actually facets of a well orchestrated and vicious, frontal attack which has been cunningly veiled to look like preparations for a hypothesized 'real' attack.

It seems either by accident or by design the Chinese have manoeuvred the US and her allies into a state, in which they seem to believe China's activities are only symptoms of it's growing cyberwarfare capability i.e. it is only flexing it's muscles --  while in reality China is slashing and stabbing with all it's might. Perhaps the west is stabbing back, but only an incompetent fool of an assassin would be oblivious of how and where he is most vulnerable to retaliatory strike-backs. In fact a prudent aggressor (such as China) would prepare herself beforehand, factoring in counter-attacks as certain reaction to be expected of the foe rather than pegging hopes on whimsical calculations of probable  and favourable outcomes.

Cyberwarfare unlike other forms of warfare ( air, land and sea)  hasn't yet been developed to purposely inflict human casualties, that is, it has not yet gotten to the point that it is a matter of life and death, but not for long. Furthermore it is relatively cheap, it has unique benefits such as problems in attribution of sources of attacks and there is no single country that has supreme preponderance in cyberspace and cyberwarfare capabilities. Also it can be done remotely, it exploits system weaknesses and vulnerabilities that are virtually impossible to completely eliminate and is well suited for asymmetric warfare. That is, weaker states and entities can inflict disproportionately greater losses on the stronger ones. Though lacking in strategic value i.e.  cyberwarfare is not perceived as  effective as conventional bombs if used for coercive purposes (would Saddam or Gaddafi been forced out of power even if the West somehow managed to crash all the computers in those countries with viruses?), it can be used as an effective medium for creating diversions, for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering.

M. Wycliff,
Nairobi.


Though this is not meant to be an academic treatise the following reads would be useful for those who would wish to have more authoritative material. They are all easily available online and they are all good starting points with respect to cyberwarfare in general. Lionel Giles' translation of the Art of War is surely the best out there especially with all the notes and background information he provides -- it is simply a must read and is available free of charge in pdf format online under the auspices of the Gutenburg project.


Books/ Reports:
  1. Art of War by Sun Tzu ( Project Gutenburg eBook: Translator Lionel Giles)
  2. CRS Report for Congress (order code RL32114)
Botnets, Cybercrime, and Cyberterrorism: Vulnerabilities and Policy Issues for Congress  (by Clay Wilson)
3. Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation (by NorthropGrumman)Prepared for: The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission  
4. Cyberterrence and Cyberwar by Martin  C. Libcki
(RAND project: Prepared for US Airforce)
5. CRS Report for Congress (order code RL 30735)
 Cyberwarfare (by Steven A. Hildreth)