Just Dahlia

Norman Finkelstein Faces Alan Dershowitz - Foregone Conclusion?

2007-04-09T18:33:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, Dr. Norman Finkelstein is facing the possibility of not getting tenure at DePaul University because of a campaign being waged against him and his views on US foreign policy and the Israeli lobby!

He is being accused by the rabid Alan Dershowitz and others of not being a good zionist. The tyranny of the Dershowitz's of the world should not be allowed to cow academic institutions (US politicians are quite enough thank you!) and stymie freedom of expression and honest discussion. More importantly, the tenure process in any institution cannot be held hostage to such tactics.... In an institution of higher education, scholarship and not partisanship or propaganda should be the measure.

You can find a list of Dr. Finkelstein's works at his website.

Below is the letter, and here is where the petition is if you want to sign!

To: DePaul University

To: Dennis H. Holtschneider, President, DePaul University Helmut P. Epp, Provost, DePaul University and the Trustees, Deans, Faculty and Students of DePaul University

We are deeply concerned about reports of outside interference into the tenure and promotion case of Dr. Norman Finkelstein, and that as a result he may not be awarded tenure from DePaul University.

One such report is: Harvard Law Professor Works to Disrupt Tenure Bid of Longtime Nemesis at DePaul U. By Jennifer Howard, The Chronicle of Higher Education April 5, 2007 http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=g4gfPKPrmfSXvwhvXzRPxd2Msdzzgrpm

We value Dr. Finkelstein's scholarship, his public talks and debates, and his well-argued, fact-based critiques of issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In our opinion, his association with DePaul University has enhanced DePaul University's reputation. We understand his department has recommended tenure. We will be troubled if Dr. Finkelstein is denied tenure and will be concerned about the integrity of the tenure process at DePaul University.

We support a fair tenure process for Dr. Finkelstein.

Sincerely,

If you are interested in signing an online petition in support of Dr. Norman Finkelstein, please click here!

Bloody Iranians! They Almost Tortured Us...

2007-04-06T20:41:00.000-04:00

The irony of torture is not so much that it is reprehensible (not to mention counterproductive), but rather that it can be employed by anyone... and, unfortunately, what's good (or rather bad) for the goose is good (bad) for the gander.

Yet, the international anger at the treatment of the 15 British servicemen and woman, is understandable. So when the "officer in charge Lt Carman said they were taken to a prison in Tehran where they were stripped and dressed in pyjamas", I couldn't help but understand their outrage.

And when, "Royal Marine Joe Tindell told how they feared for their lives in prison" with what must have been a horrifying moment, I felt the same outrage. "We had a blindfold and plastic cuffs, hands behind our backs, heads against the wall. Basically there were weapons cocking. Someone, I'm not sure who, someone said, I quote 'lads, lads I think we're going to get executed'."

(Oh, sorry, wrong graphics!)

Yet, when the 15 British servicemen and woman were returned, unharmed (and untortured), in fact, after being treated "humanely" according to their own rendition of events, I find the outrage, even my own, a little bit disingenuous. (Funny how both BBC and CNN - the two website I checked - don't mention that "humanely treated" comment although I watched and heard one of the sailors say it.)

Yes, I am happy for their safe return, but let's not be too quick to throw rocks from own glass house. In fact, as far as torture goes, this can only rate as high as a slight inconvenience.

More to the point, as mortified as I am sure these 15 Brits were, and as undeserving of this treatment that they are, I can only think about all those poor souls locked up for years in Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, CIA torture sites around the world, and all those renditioned to the bowels of Middle Eastern and Asian torture dungeons. Are they all deserving of their treatment? Did any of them ever get their day in court? Is anyone ever deserving of such treatment?

Yet, when the leader of the free world, as the US is, declares that torture is at times necessary, that is when all bets are off. Game over! As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we no longer reign over the moral high ground.

(Yes, that is why international law matters and respecting our treaty obligations is in our self-interest!)

But that is not where the tragedy of all this ends. The Iranians beat us at our own game. They have the initiative. Long after anyone cares whether or not those sailors were in Iraqi or Iranian waters, what the world will remember is that the Iranians did not really harm them, returned them safely, and still the US and Britain decried their actions while never apologizing or atoning for their own far greater misdeeds.

This PR round goes to the Iranians!

It is almost as if it would have been better if the Iranians had behaved as poorly as we have... And maybe they have, but that is not what the world sees.....

An Opinion Worth Considering - What Does It Mean To Legitimate?

2007-03-16T09:26:00.000-04:00

While the trajectory of the argument here may be unsettling to some, it nevertheless is a view that is very worthy of consideration.

The continual demand by Israel of Palestinians that they not only recognize Israel as a state but also its right to exist, is tantamount to requiring that the Palestinians legitimate the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homes, their diaspora throughout the world and the subjugation of millions into reservations on the West Bank and Gaza.

On the other hand, has Israel accepted the Palestinian right to exist? Has Israel accepted the humanity of the Palestinians and their basic human right to dignity and self determination? If a state which takes its place amongst the legitimate sovereigns of the world is not able to recognize the humanity of another, how can an unrecognized group be expected to legitimate anyone, let alone Israel?

So, what is legitimacy - or legitimation - and who is the actor here with the authority to endow it?

This also speaks to a wider issue, and that is the power of communicative action and the lethality of words when wielded continuously, yet seemingly innocuously....

In the war of words, The Times is Israel's ally
The paper consistently adopts Israel's language, giving credence to an inaccurate, simplistic and dangerous cliche.
By Saree MakdisiSAREE MAKDISI, a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, writes frequently about the Middle East.
March 11, 2007'

AS SOON AS certain topics are raised," George Orwell once wrote, "the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse." Such a combination of vagueness and sheer incompetence in language, Orwell warned, leads to political conformity.

No issue better illustrates Orwell's point than coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. Consider, for example, the editorial in The Times on Feb. 9 demanding that the Palestinians "recognize Israel" and its "right to exist." This is a common enough sentiment — even a cliche. Yet many observers (most recently the international lawyer John Whitbeck) have pointed out that this proposition, assiduously propagated by Israel's advocates and uncritically reiterated by American politicians and journalists, is — at best — utterly nonsensical.

First, the formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).

Second, which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to "recognize?" Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, "Israel" is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of "Israel"?

For that matter, why should the Palestinians recognize an Israel that refuses to accept international law, submit to U.N. resolutions or readmit the Palestinians wrongfully expelled from their homes in 1948 and barred from returning ever since?

If none of these questions are easy to answer, why are such demands being made of the Palestinians? And why is nothing demanded of Israel in turn?

Orwell was right. It is much easier to recycle meaningless phrases than to ask — let alone to answer — difficult questions. But recycling these empty phrases serves a purpose. Endlessly repeating the mantra that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel helps paint Israel as an innocent victim, politely asking to be recognized but being rebuffed by its cruel enemies.

Actually, it asks even more. Israel wants the Palestinians, half of whom were driven from their homeland so that a Jewish state could be created in 1948, to recognize not merely that it exists (which is undeniable) but that it is "right" that it exists — that it was right for them to have been dispossessed of their homes, their property and their livelihoods so that a Jewish state could be created on their land. The Palestinians are not the world's first dispossessed people, but they are the first to be asked to legitimize what happened to them.

A just peace will require Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile and recognize each other's rights. It will not require that Palestinians give their moral seal of approval to the catastrophe that befell them. Meaningless at best, cynical and manipulative at worst, such a demand may suit Israel's purposes, but it does not serve The Times or its readers.

And yet The Times consistently adopts Israel's language and, hence, its point of view. For example, a recent article on Israel's Palestinian minority referred to that minority not as "Palestinian" but as generically "Arab," Israel's official term for a population whose full political and human rights it refuses to recognize. To fail to acknowledge the living Palestinian presence inside Israel (and its enduring continuity with the rest of the Palestinian people) is to elide the history at the heart of the conflict — and to deny the legitimacy of Palestinian claims and rights.

This is exactly what Israel wants. Indeed, its demand that its "right to exist" be recognized reflects its own anxiety, not about its existence but about its failure to successfully eliminate the Palestinians' presence inside their homeland — a failure for which verbal recognition would serve merely a palliative and therapeutic function.

In uncritically adopting Israel's own fraught terminology — a form of verbal erasure designed to extend the physical destruction of Palestine — The Times is taking sides.

If the paper wants its readers to understand the nature of this conflict, however, it should not go on acting as though only one side has a story to tell.

Rule of Law Triumphs in Canada

2007-02-25T15:57:00.000-05:00

While the struggle between insecurity and rule of law continues to wage in the US, Canada has put its foot down and declared the winner - rule of law, hence democracy. As noted by Tony Arend in two recent posts, what the Canadian Supreme Court decided is indeed laudable. By a vote of 9 - 0, with both liberals and conservatives on the Court, the decision indicates that the issue rises above political partisanship and speaks to the basic tenets of democratic society.

Canada's Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin says in the ruling: “The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process.”

This decision should also be viewed in comparison to the US stance on the issue. The Military Commission Act of 2006 blatantly retracts basic rights, such as habeas corpus, from non-US citizens (see previous posts). Furthermore, recent court rulings underscore the slippery slope the justice system is sliding down. Last week a federal court in Washington DC upheld that Act and struck down petitions representing the aspirations of dozens of Guantanamo detainees to a fair day in court.

Here are excerpts from some articles on the decision:

New York Times - Canadian Court Limits Detention in Terror Cases
OTTAWA, Feb. 23 — Canada’s highest court on Friday unanimously struck down a law that allows the Canadian government to detain foreign-born terrorism suspects indefinitely using secret evidence and without charges while their deportations are being reviewed.

The detention measure, the security certificate system, has been described by government lawyers as an important tool for combating international terrorism and maintaining Canada’s domestic security. Six men are now under threat of deportation without an open hearing under the certificates.
....
“We’ve started to see the rollback,” said Alex Neve, the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. “Today the Supreme Court of Canada has said, ‘Make sure you put human rights at the center of how you prevent terrorism.’ ”

Top court overturns federal security certificates
CTV.ca News Staff Updated: Fri. Feb. 23 2007 10:38 PM ET
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) unanimously ruled today that federal security certificates, used to detain suspected terrorists, are unconstitutional. The 9-0 judgment found that the system violated the Charter of Rights.

The certificates allowed government officials to use secret court hearings, indefinite prison terms and summary deportations when dealing with non-citizens accused of having terrorist ties.
...
That process is a violation of fundamental justice, wrote Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.
....
The judgment is not saying that the detentions are wrong, but that the accused must have access to the evidence against them, said Thompson.

Attacking Iran: Will the Generals Mutiny?

2007-02-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

At the end of the day, I doubt it will come to that, but the fact that it is being discussed suggests that the Pentagon, at least the military side, is not happy with the heightened rhetoric concerning Iran. With a military fighting two wars and manning bases across the globe, there appears to be no stomach for another front.

According to the Sunday Times, the venerable British paper:

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

The question on my mind is why? Why is the military apparently showing reticence on going to war with Iran?

1. Is it because the military has no belief in the mission?

2. Is it because the military has lost faith in the civilian leadership after Iraq?

3. Is it because the military has doubts in its ability to win?

4. Is it because the military does not believe that war is the only choice?

This third question, of course, is the sum total of the first two questions as it depends on the definition of success and the leadership to get you there. In terms of material ability, the US military is the strongest and most able force in the history of mankind. Yes, that we know. But is that all it takes to "win"? Clausewitz took pains to point out that the advantage is with the side with the greatest strength. Yet, even he agreed that the edge can go to the lesser strength if it has the advantage of national will and ingenuity.

As we see in Iraq, military boots, steel and grit is not an automatic path to success.

We also see that if the definition of success is a moving target adjusted with facts on the ground, overall perception is one of failure.

What would be the definition of success in Iran? Would it be putting the nuclear program out of commission? Would it be regime change? Probably both. How can this be attained? John Mearsheimer and others have argued that air power just won't do it on its own. What would US boots on the ground in Iran mean? The occupation of Iraq, which the US is failing at, is a cake walk compared to Iran. At least in Iraq, self-immolation between Sunni and Shia means that less combined focus is on US troop. Iran is different. Iran does not suffer from identity crises. All the rage of the Iranian people will be focused singularly on US troops. Iran is also 3 times the size of Iraq with much more challenging terrain.

Perhaps, the US military recognizes all of this.

That means that the only way to get the wholehearted support of the military is for the situation to be one of no choice. In other words, the US has to have no choice but to go to war with Iran. If the national interest is at risk, it is only then that the generals will lead the charge if asked by the President.

So how can this situation be created?

One way is for the US to continually point to Iranian interference in Iraq as jeopardizing US troop lives. Despite the fact that Iranian involvement has been going on since the US invasion, it is only now that the US is making hay of it. Skeptics can reasonably ask, why now?

However, this tactic does not appear to be garnering a critical mass of support, neither domestically nor in military ranks perhaps because there is a recognition that it is a construed argument.

Thus, the second way is for some cataclysmic event to occur. For example, a terrorist attack which can be linked to Iran may give the US what it needs to strike.

Also possible is a scenario where Israel attacks a nuclear installation in Iran, a redux of 1981 against Iraq, on the basis that Iran poses a threat. Should Iran then rise to the provocation and strike back either directly or through non-state surrogates, the US may then feel it must intervene.

In short, if the war-mongers in the Administration, such as Cheney, are bent on attacking Iran, they will find the way to get the generals behind it, as Iraq has painfully proven. To quote Cheney speaking a few days ago in Australia:

"We worked with the European community and the United Nations to put together a set of policies to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations and resolve the matter peacefully, and that is still our preference," Cheney said.

"But I've also made the point, and the president has made the point, that all options are on the table," he said.

"We believe it would be a serious mistake if a nation such as Iran became a nuclear power," he said.

US - Islamic Dialogue in Qatar

2007-02-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

The 4th annual U.S-Islamic World Forum , organized by the Brookings' Saban Center and hosted by the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is being held these days in Doha, Qatar. Abu Aardvark (Marc Lynch) has been blogging on the proceedings, his encounters and thoughts. Very interesting stuff. The agenda portends and his posts indicate serious interaction.

One of his posts today concerns the events of last night's plenary on Iraq. It makes for very interesting reading on both issues related to form and substance.

With respect to form, the panel of speakers included 3 Americans and 1 Shia Iraqi. An obvious absence, as he notes, is a lack of any Iraqi Sunni or any other Arab, for that matter. The visual speaks volumes for those looking to understand the balance of power in Iraq, i.e. the US and the Shia Iraqis backed by Iran.

On substance, (also included for the most part under his post) the reality is that life for the average Iraqi is today much worse than it was under Saddam. Whether the US Administration wants to own up to this fact, or not, is not only a(n irrelevant) matter for their conscience, more importantly, it concerns the future of American foreign policy, leadership and Middle East stability.

The dream of a democratic Iraq is no longer the measure of success there; limiting death, destruction, and regional fallout is.

So, is this merely a situation of "it needs to get worse before it can get better" or is this a situation which has spiraled down into total chaos that can either get worse if left to local actors, or perhaps get better with major external involvement (see previous post)?

Unfortunately, I believe that even these may be academic questions at this point. Political realities in the US are such that the US has no option but to claim success by redefining its parameters. The American voter has lost patience; s/he has had enough loss of blood and treasure. Despite the tin ears of the Administration, the voter has spoken and will continue to do so unless events change on the ground by either a redeployment of the troops or the identification of a new "cause" for action (think Iran).

At the present trajectory, Iraq is likely to result in a failed state of 3 regions: northern Kurdistan, southern and eastern Shia state aligned with Iran to include Baghdad, and western Iraq (Anbar). Sunni Iraqis will suffer in the mix and most will become the new Middle East Diaspora causing strain on both Jordan and Syria.

The US will redefine success as a functioning north and south/east with US forces fighting "Al Qaeda" in Anbar. Thus, the US will be able to have its cake and eat it too. A partially functioning Iraq and a continued "war on terror" in Anbar. Of course, the fact that the only real winner from the US invasion of Iraq is Iran will be ignored.

A possible useful outcome is that fracture lines between Syria and Iran may emerge as a result of the fact that Iran appears to have gained from all this while Syria will be faced with a humanitarian and political crisis.

What is interesting from a larger regional perspective, however, is does this imply that the US will have to lie in the bed of its making with the Iranians? And, if so, with all the mixed signaling coming out of DC with regards to Iran, does that mean that the debate is brewing here too, or is this a situation of deliberate disinformation to obfuscate US military designs on Iran?

Putin's Munich Doctrine Reverberations and the Dialogue of the Deaf

2007-02-16T16:10:00.000-05:00

Today's Washington Post contains two views reflecting on Russia after Putin's watershed speech delivered last weekend during the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy .

The first is by David Ignatius and offers a clear and intelligent assessment of the challenges and choices faced by Russia on its road towards democracy. Ignatius offers insight into the inner workings of the upper echelons of Russian leadership. If one listens to these men, a clear message comes through. Namely, Russia will do what Russia wants to do - not what Americans think they should do. It behooves his readers to hear the words of the men he quotes so as to understand before drawing conclusions as to what we would project onto Russia as the "correct way" forward.

Unfortunately, American proscriptions and prescriptions make the rest of the world cringe like the scratching of a fingernail across a blackboard. A sense of American exceptionalism and benevolent hegemony has permeated and constrained our foreign policy to the point that we no longer listen or even hear others. The US is increasingly rejecting dialogue as a sign of weakness. Diplomacy, as envisioned by George Kennan and practiced so successfully by many US presidents, is no longer the strategy of choice.

The second piece in the Post today by Charles Krauthammer is an exasperating example of this attitude; it is classic Krauthammer - replete with arrogant war-mongering and imperial hubris. He follows his typical point and shoot method of analysis which offers the reader nothing but a sense that everything must be all the other guys fault... everything must be the American way or the high-way.

Even if one starts from the premise that the US experience is worthy of emulation, which it is, shoving it down the other guy's throat is not likely to gain any avid and sustained following.

Rather than engage the substance of Putin's speech, Krathammer resorts to offensive defense. He rejects out of hand all that Putin puts on the table by simply saying that Russia can't be taken seriously because it has such a bad record. For example, he dismisses Putin's comments such:

There is something amusing about criticism of the use of force by the man who turned Chechnya into a smoldering ruin; about the invocation of international law by the man who will not allow Scotland Yard to interrogate the polonium-soaked thugs it suspects of murdering Alexander Litvinenko, yet another Putin opponent who met an untimely and unprosecuted death; about the bullying of other countries decried by a man who cuts off energy supplies to Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus in brazen acts of political and economic extortion.

Really! Is that to say that the US has not turned Iraq into a "smoldering gun", or that the US has turned over to Italy the CIA agents charged with a case of rendition of a man to Egypt from Italy? The list here could be much longer, but the point is made.

The point is that such mud slinging is only conducive to rallying support in the bleachers or on the battlefield. It is not a form of dialogue that the US, the world leader, should be engaging the rest of the international community with. Being the leader brings with it the ability to lead...

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the US has emerged as the greatest power among the community of peoples and states. What has the US done with this grand position over the past 17 years? Is it not plausible that other states should rise to ask such a question, and if not hearing an acceptable response, take a seat at the head of the table? Is it not our duty to ask it of ourselves? What have we done with the responsibility that falls upon our shoulders by virtue of being where and what we are?

Krauthammer would do both his readers and himself well to remember that he has two ears and one mouth for a reason...

Transcript of Putin's Munich Thunder

2007-02-11T17:58:00.000-05:00

But a few thoughts first: When the cold war ended, it became conventional wisdom supported by evidence on the ground that the Soviet Union had disintegrated from within due to rampant economic failure, political malfeasance, and the new realities of the growing global village. A few argued that sustained US pressure also aided in the demise. As Eastern European and Russian people began to demand the right to forge their own destinies, the wall both physical and mental came down.

Some took this as the end of history and the ushering in of a new era of international peace and stability grounded in economic and institutional connectivity, dependence, and cooperation - a community of states. After-all the Internet meant we were all one world, right?

Yet, while this new world was being contemplated, the new reality of a unipolar world emerged - the US was now in the position to call the shots.

However, how long did we think it would take for Russia, a massive country with formidable resources and history, to reconstitute itself and reclaim its seat at the table?

With the consistent pressure of an encroaching NATO, US forces in two countries south of Russia, and the looming possibility of a third US conquest, it should come as no surprise that Russia is calling time-out.

What would indeed be interesting is to hear what a Chinese version of Putin's speech would contain.

Here are a few quotes [with some annotation] from Putin's speech delivered yesterday at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy. The speech took only a few minutes to deliver, but its echo is likely to be heard for quite a while....

[Recognizing the explosive nature of his comments....]This conference’s structure allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to speak in roundabout, pleasant but empty diplomatic terms. This conference’s format will allow me to say what I really think about international security problems. And if my comments seem unduly polemical, pointed or inexact to our colleagues, then I would ask you not to get angry with me. After all, this is only a conference.

[Quoting a US president was a nice touch...] This universal, indivisible character of security is expressed as the basic principle that “security for one is security for all”. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during the first few days that the Second World War was breaking out: “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.”

The unipolar world that had been proposed after the Cold War did not take place either.

However, what is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

[From Russia with love...] It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

[Ouch...] Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.

[As for Iraq...] Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension.

[Stay away from Iran....] Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible.

[Who said international law is epiphenomenal?] We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security.

And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue. Especially since the international landscape is so varied and changes so quickly – changes in light of the dynamic development in a whole number of countries and regions.

In connection with this the role of multilateral diplomacy is significantly increasing. The need for principles such as openness, transparency and predictability in politics is uncontested and the use of force should be a really exceptional measure, comparable to using the death penalty in the judicial systems of certain states.

[And let's not forget the UK, Italy and Denmark...] However, today we are witnessing the opposite tendency, namely a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians!

[As for nuclear weapons... ] Together with the United States of America we agreed to reduce our nuclear strategic missile capabilities to up to 1700-2000 nuclear warheads by 31 December 2012. Russia intends to strictly fulfil the obligations it has taken on. We hope that our partners will also act in a transparent way and will refrain from laying aside a couple of hundred superfluous nuclear warheads for a rainy day. And if today the new American Defence Minister declares that the United States will not hide these superfluous weapons in warehouse or, as one might say, under a pillow or under the blanket, then I suggest that we all rise and greet this declaration standing. It would be a very important declaration.

Russia strictly adheres to and intends to further adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as well as the multilateral supervision regime for missile technologies. The principles incorporated in these documents are universal ones.

In connection with this I would like to recall that in the 1980s the USSR and the United States signed an agreement on destroying a whole range of small- and medium-range missiles but these documents do not have a universal character.

Today many other countries have these missiles, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, India, Iran, Pakistan and Israel. Many countries are working on these systems and plan to incorporate them as part of their weapons arsenals. And only the United States and Russia bear the responsibility to not create such weapons systems.

It is obvious that in these conditions we must think about ensuring our own security.

We are unequivocally in favour of strengthening the regime of non-proliferation. The present international legal principles allow us to develop technologies to manufacture nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. And many countries with all good reasons want to create their own nuclear energy as a basis for their energy independence. But we also understand that these technologies can be quickly transformed into nuclear weapons.

This creates serious international tensions. The situation surrounding the Iranian nuclear programme acts as a clear example. And if the international community does not find a reasonable solution for resolving this conflict of interests, the world will continue to suffer similar, destabilising crises because there are more threshold countries than simply Iran. We both know this. We are going to constantly fight against the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Putin on Al Jazeera, Russia Must Protect Itself

2007-02-10T12:17:00.000-05:00

For those who care to imagine the day after a US strike on Iran .... Here is more on Putin's statements on US foreign policy (see earlier post today). I just watched Putin give a very interesting interview on Al Jazeera. Here is a brief summary and my initial comments:

1. When asked if he agreed with the new US "strategy" in Iraq, Putin basically said that the US has not employed any new strategy; it is merely a new tactic. He said that all the US is doing is more of the same, which has already shown to be a failure

2. When asked if US, European and Israeli critics of Russia's closeness with Iran are justified, he said that Russia follows a very balanced foreign policy and in all cases will pursue what is in its national interest which includes close relations with all countries including Iran. He went on to say that Iran is completely justified in trying to secure civilian nuclear capabilities.

3. When asked about the Western and Israeli position vis-a-vis Hamas and the Palestinians, he said that every people have the right to pursue self-determination. He noted that who is named a terrorist today, is given a Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow, hence all can change and what is important is justice and peace.

4. On Iraq, he also added that the US needs to reach out to Iraq's neighbors (see my previous post) to begin to resolve the violence.

5. On nuclear proliferation, he noted that none of the Western nuclear powers are respecting their obligations to limit and control nuclear proliferation.

6. When asked if Russia felt threatened by US international military actions, he said YES. When asked if that meant that Russia would move to enhance its military preparedness, he said YES. He went on to say that US military actions and foreign policy is conducive to an international arms race. When asked if he realized that this might cause some to say that Russia is behaving with belligerence and irresponsibly, he said that such a criticism should not be directed to Russia...

7. When asked if Putin's objective in making such bold foreign policy statements is to regain Russia's world position as a great power, he responded by saying that Russia recognizes that it is no longer a great power and it has no desire to take the world back to a bi-polar cold war situation. However, it is important that the world maintain some balance to protect against unconstrained power.

Has Bush pulled the thread... Is it all unraveling?

Putin's Munich Missive

2007-02-10T09:36:00.000-05:00

Updated:
Today in Munich, Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, warned of the dangers of a unipolar world. His statement, tantamount to the proverbial dropping of the gauntlet, came at the 43rd Munich Conference for Security Policy. In a speech very reminiscent of the days of bipolar yore, Putin pointed at the United States as perhaps the leading cause of international insecurity today.

His argument is that the US unconstrained use of military might is placing other countries in a position of insecurity which in turn is pushing them towards seeking nuclear weapons. In other words, the US has become a catalyst for an international nuclear arms race.

Unfortunately, the Conference website does not yet have the English translation [update: it is now online] of the speech, but news reports are quoting him as saying:

According to BBC:
Mr Putin told senior security officials from around the world that nations were "witnessing an almost unconstrained hyper use of force in international relations".
"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," the Russian president said.
"This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," he said, speaking through a translator.
"This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons."

And here is the Washington Post:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in some of his harshest criticism of the United States since he took office seven years ago, said Saturday that Washington's unilateral, militaristic approach had made the world a more dangerous place than at any time during the Cold War.

"The United States has overstepped its national borders in every way," he said in an address at an annual international security conference here. "Nobody feels secure anymore, because nobody can take safety behind the stone wall of international law."

The Russian president defended his country's arms sales to Iran as a way of reaching out to that Middle Eastern power, which is under pressure from the United States and Europe to curtail its nuclear program. Russia has supplied some air defense weapons to Iran because, he said, "we don't want Iran to feel cornered."

And the New York Times:
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.

In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.

Among them were the expansion of NATO into the Baltics and the perception in Russia that the West has supported groups that have toppled other governments in Moscow’s former sphere of influence.

Rubble from the Berlin Wall was “hauled away as souvenirs” to countries that praise openness and personal freedom, he said, but “now there are attempts to impose new dividing lines and rules, maybe virtual, but still dividing our mutual continent.”

The world, he said, is now unipolar: “One single center of power. One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign.”

Yet, before the pundits rush to shoot the messenger, perhaps his words are worthy of some serious thought. Does the perception of threat contained in such words as "axis of evil" cause those targeted states to suddenly feel threatened?

More to the point, did Bush's use of those words suggest to North Korea and Iran that they better get nuclear weapons before the US invades push them to pursue their nuclear programs quicker? Did the US invasion and occupation of Iraq only strengthen their threat perception? Are other states watching and taking note? On the other hand, was the US only alerting the world to what was already underfoot in these countries?

Now that these states are pursuing their self-interest, are neighboring states feeling the pressure to protect themselves as well? In short, has the US triggered a chain reaction? Already, other countries in the Middle East are embarking on "civilian" nuclear programs, with, it should be added, US blessings.

What about international law? Has the US disregard for international law and norms paved the way for other states to do the same? Or, as Putin may have been suggesting, has the US military actions and bellicose discourse suggested to states that international law is no longer (if it ever was) a restraint against hyper power incursion and threat? If states no longer view international law and norms as protecting state sovereignty against military threat, then has the US short term action resulted in a medium term affirmation of the realist world of self-help?

In short, this is a debate worthy of having.

Iraq Has Neighbors and the US is Not One of Them, So Let's Talk

2007-02-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

Think as they may, think as they must, for Iraq there is no other way.... but to talk.

As David Ignatius put it in the Washington Post today, Expect The Worse in Iraq... He reminds both Democrats and Republicans that there is no nice way out of Iraq for either the US or Iraqis. Yet, he does offer a number of suggestions to minimize the inevitable fallout - namely:
1. Protect the oil
2. Protect the Iraqi population (as much as the US can)
3. Talk with Iraq's neighbors
4. Push for Arab-Israeli peace
To this I would add,
5. Reposition US troops out of civilian areas into camps in Iraq, Kuwait and the Gulf.

If that all sounds familiar to you, do not wonder because it should. It is basically a recycle of the Iraq Study Group Report recommendations.

Recall the opening words of the ISG report, "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." Those are words echoed in the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq released in January:
"Unless efforts to reverse these conditions [increase in violence] show measurable progress during the term of this Estimate, the coming 12 to 18 months, we assess the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate...."

More shocking, not only does the NIE state that Iraq is suffering a civil war, but even worse, what is occurring in Iraq is even more complicated than that! So what is more complicated than civil war?

Answer: Multiple levels of violence and actors. The actors are many. Sunni insurgents, Shia death squads backing the government and in turn backed by Iran, Kurdish nationalists (supported, both financially and militarily, by Israel), and foreign fighters stirring the pot. Put it all together and you have a Sunni insurgency (perhaps supported by Syria and possibly in the future by Saudi Arabia) fighting against Shia domination over Iraq and Kurdish encroachment in the north, Shia death squads fueled by Iran wreaking revenge for decades of subjugation and ensuring that they maintain the upper hand, and Kurds supported by Israel in the north who want to protect their new-found independence while grabbing as much land south of them as possible. To make sure that none of this violence subsides, foreign fighters are there stoking the flames with incredulous acts of mass terror.

In short, you have a multi-party internal civil and external proxy war.

But it does not stop there. The US, who unleashed this latent hell, occupies the country, and it now finds itself buttressing an Iranian-leaning [if not out-right supported] government. One of the great ironies of the US grievous blunder in Iraq is that Iran seems to have come out the winner. Now the US finds itself supporting Iraq's government while flirting with an even greater confrontation with Iran, to whom the Iraqi government is allied.

Talk about complicated.

Yet, interestingly the NIE does not seem to agree with just about everyone else except Bush and Cheney. The NIE, while stating that what happens in Iraq impacts and is impacted by Iraq's neighbors, does not agree that there is much value to engaging those very neighbors to find a solution to the chaos in Iraq.

That is purely intellectual dishonesty.

While making the case that Turkey and Syria (while curiously making no mention of Iran in this context) have a vested interest in the outcomes in Iraq, in the same breath the NIE claims that the violence is so path dependent because of the "self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics" that no external influence can change its course. Well, if that is true, then there is nothing that the US can do either. Ergo, the NIE has just made the case for US withdrawal!

What is even more glaring is that the NIE in its initial pages makes a big case for how impartial, professional and nonpartisan was the process of generating the report. However, while facilely supporting the Bush Administration's case for not engaging Iraq's neighbors, it has in fact torpedoed the entire argument for US continued presence. Unfortunately, not even they can have it both ways.

Thus, if the US wants to make the case that it must remain in Iraq to protect the Iraqi people and see Iraq through to the shores of peaceful coexistence, it cannot at the same time make the claim that there is no value to involving Iraq's neighbors in doing the same.

Another Toast To Carter, Freedom of Thought and Speech

2007-02-01T13:49:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist sharing this piece by George Bisharat in the Houston Chronicle. So here is another toast to the real American Way.....

Jan. 27, 2007, 8:00PM
From personal experience
Some of Israel's supporters occasionally cross the line into suppression of speech. When they do, U.S. policy is the loser.
By GEORGE BISHARAT

One day in 1981, my late father, Maurice Hanna Bisharat, returned from a long day at his Sacramento, Calif., medical office with an extra bounce in his step, his eyes dancing with excitement. His friend, Michael Himovitz, the young owner of a local art gallery, had called, offering to hold a one-person show of my father's paintings — mostly California landscapes.

My father had taken up painting after immigrating to this country from Palestine in the late 1940s, and although an amateur, had won a national art award within two years. But the demands of medical practice, raising a large family, and other avocations took their toll. It had been many years since my father's art had been publicly exhibited, and he was tickled.

My father was not a politician, but like any Palestinian living in the United States, he felt obligated to relate his people's experience to American friends. Educated and articulate, he spoke publicly in defense of Palestinian rights, and was a frequent commentator on Middle East events in the local media. Michael, a Jew, was perfectly aware of this side of my father's life. It did nothing to diminish his appreciation of my father's art, nor to inhibit their friendship.

Some weeks later I saw my father sitting, stony faced. He turned to me and whispered: "I just got a call from Michael. My show has been canceled." Michael, it transpired, had been visited by a group from the Sacramento Jewish community. Their message: "If you show Bisharat's art, we will boycott your gallery and close you down."

Michael may have been as crushed as my father, apologizing: "I just can't risk it — it's my livelihood." The indirect message to my father, of course, was: "If you speak critically of Israel, you will suffer pain." Fortunately, art was not my father's livelihood, and he survived this incident. But a deep sense of outrage never left him.

So when former New York Mayor Edward Koch and Rafael Medoff ask incredulously in a recent commentary critical of President Jimmy Carter's recent book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid "Are Jews suppressing speech?" — or when 14 Carter Center advisory board members resign in protest of the president's positions — the answer, for me, is not so straightforward.

The fact is that "Jews" are not suppressing speech. Michael Himovitz certainly didn't suppress my father's attempts to explain the Palestinian perspective to his fellow citizens. Many American Jews hold views not dissimilar to my father's — supporting peace, reconciliation and equal rights for Palestinians and Jews.

Yet, a minority of Jews, backed by some non-Jewish supporters, stridently protests any unflattering portrayal of Israel, often with unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism. Indeed, insinuations of anti-Jewish bias are now being unfairly raised against Carter. And some supporters of Israel, apparently, are willing to exploit economic clout to punish those who, like my father, buck the trend and defend Palestinian rights.

Nor is the example of my father isolated. Numerous variations are documented in former Illinois Republican Rep. Paul Findley's book, They Dare to Speak Out. More chilling, these efforts at intimidation are not always the spontaneous responses of individuals, as in my father's case, or likely in the resignations of the Carter Center advisory board members.

On the contrary, the pro-Israel lobby, joined by the Israeli government, sustains a systematic campaign to shape American public opinion. For example, the Committee on Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) harangues journalists over alleged "mistakes." In 2002, CAMERA attacked National Public Radio, claiming anti-Israel bias, including failure to report Israeli deaths. Two Boston area businessmen associated with CAMERA organized a boycott of local NPR affiliate WBUR that significantly reduced revenue. Meanwhile, a scrupulous study of NPR's coverage by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) showed that, in fact, NPR had disproportionately reported Israeli deaths.

Honest Reporting is a media organization that mobilizes 140,000 subscribers worldwide. Its Web site once touted "major editorial changes at CNN which greatly shifted public perception of the Arab-Israel conflict." The impetus, according to The Jerusalem Post, was "up to 6,000 e-mails per day to CNN executives, effectively paralyzing their internal e-mail system."

The Israeli government also applied pressure to CNN, according to verbatim notes of a conference call in 2000 obtained by advocate/researcher Phyllis Bennis. In the call, Israeli government spokesman Nachman Shai outlined Israel's media strategy with 30 to 60 U.S. Jewish leaders, focusing concern on CNN, and especially two Palestinian reporters. "We are putting real pressure on the heads of CNN to have them replaced with more objective pro-Israel reporters that are willing to tell our side of the story."

Monitoring media to ensure accuracy is a public service. Yet, as besieged journalists have concluded, the goal of this campaign is not truth, but pro-Israeli advocacy, and silencing dissent. WBUR's general manager, Jane Christo, described CAMERA's message as: "Report our point of view, or we'll shut you down."

Dissenting American Jews are not spared. Jilian Redford, head of the Hillel Jewish student group at the University of Richmond was dismissed in 2004 after protesting the Israeli Embassy's repeated e-mail propaganda directives. Redford saw Hillel's mission as facilitating Jewish religious life on campus, not doing hasbara (Hebrew for "propaganda") for the Israeli government. To reiterate: This is not a "Jewish" campaign. In fact, hasbara, coordinated with, if not directed by right-wing Israeli governments, is unrepresentative of largely liberal American Jews. Many, like Michael, would no doubt be horrified by the actions of these self-appointed guardians of thought. Nor does the Israel lobby "control" the media, as publication of Carter's book and this article attest.

But the price of our still mostly one-sided exposure to Middle East affairs is high, and it is much greater than the hurt inflicted on my father and others like him. Americans are shielded from diverse perspectives about a pivotal conflict, and are thus hampered in critically evaluating U.S. policies. Our unconditional support for Israel is a principal cause of global anger against us.

Last summer our government ran diplomatic cover for Israel's invasion of Lebanon, prolonging the attack for weeks. Israel killed more than a thousand Lebanese, mostly civilians, heavily damaged the country's civilian infrastructure, and displaced a quarter of the population. The consequence: National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, delivering the annual U.S. threat estimate in mid-January, moved the Lebanese group Hezbollah — which has not targeted Americans for decades — up to second. Meanwhile, UPI editor Arnaud de Borchgrave reports that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other prominent Israelis are urging a public relations blitz to instigate a U.S. strike on Iran.

It is one thing to match ideas with ideas, facts with facts, perspectives with perspectives. It is different to threaten, bully, discredit and harass opponents of one's views — whether they are writers, artists, Jewish dissidents, ex-presidents or anyone else. And in this case, our resulting ignorance is not bliss. It is downright dangerous.

Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on the Middle East.

Spotlight on Israel's War Crimes - Cluster Bombs

2007-01-29T11:48:00.000-05:00

Updated: See end of post
Last summer, Israel unleashed a massive assault aimed, supposedly, against Hizbollah fighters. It was Lebanon's innocent civilians who paid the price... and it was a huge one. More Lebanese children died in the offensive than adult fighters; it is a despicable reality that everyone should feel the shame of. It will take billions of dollars and years for Lebanon to repair the physical damage (with the emotional damage likely to fuel a new generation of animosity). In fact, Lebanon lost all the economic and social progress it so painstakingly forged over the past dozen years; an outcome perhaps not lost on the Israeli cabinet.

While the rest of the world seems to have moved on after a momentary whimper of indignation, the US government looked into some of the practices of the Israeli army. Specifically, the US probed into the use by Israel of cluster bombs against civilians, behavior which is illegal under international law. It is estimated that Israel dropped over 4 million cluster bombs on Lebanon. Israel itself admits to 1 million. It is difficult to see how this can be justified against a few hundred Hizbollah fighters. It is even more difficult to find credible the Israeli claim that they were justified in dropping them on civilian neighborhoods.

Well, the verdict has come in and it seems that Israel will be declared guilty; small vindication to the hundreds who died in a brutal way.

Yet, the horror is not over for the Lebanese. Tens of thousands of intact bomblets still litter neighborhoods, farms and groves. As though this were not bad enough, upon exiting last summer, Israel also laid landmines across south Lebanon, according to the United Nations.

Now that it has been determined that Israel used these weapons illegally, will the world demand that it provide the resources to have these bombs removed so that they do not explode killing and maiming hundreds more?

Update: It seems that being associated with Israeli war crimes is not enough to stop the US military-industrial complex grind. IHT reports that Israel signed a $100 million deal with Boeing in Chicago to buy more bombs to "replenish" its stock depleted by the Lebanon onslaught. Go figure....

Tens of Thousands March in DC Against War in Iraq

2007-01-27T17:20:00.000-05:00

Yes, tens of thousands rallied and marched today in Washington DC (it looked to me like a few hundred thousands). That strip of green stretching from the Congress to the Washington Monument saw today what it has seen many times before... people coming out in large numbers to protest their government's actions. Their voices, calls, and banners reaffirming all that is good about the United States.

The event was organized by United for Peace and Justice, and people came streaming on to the mall off of buses from across America. They were joined by celebrities and members of Congress.

Today on the mall people of all political persuasions and backgrounds came together because they are angry. Their banners expressed the frustration they all feel... they want that bad about the US that the world has come to see to end (and Jane Fonda thanked them for giving the world a reason to see that good again).

While some carried signs and cried for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for taking the country to war on false pretenses, others demanded that Congress step up to its constitutional obligations. All demanded the return of the troops to save them from dying for a senseless war. Many also warned against a new war with Iran.

The rally speakers invoked the memory of Vietnam and the civil rights movement. Indeed the scenes were reminiscent of that era (including hearing Jane Fonda and Jesse Jackson). They demanded that America learn from its mistakes of Vietnam. One mistake the crowd has learned from that time is that the onus of guilt does not rest on the shoulders of the soldiers; it belongs to the leaders who sent them there. Unfortunately, it is those leaders who have failed to learn.

As Tim Robbins rallied the crowd to tell Congress that impeachment is not off the table, the question many asked, "Bush, are you listening?"

He may have heard (he actually stayed in DC for the weekend), but it is unlikely that he will listen. Being the "decider", or as he revised it yesterday, the "decision-maker", he is on track to send the 21,000 additional troops to Iraq.

Although I feel good about being one of those out there today, let's hope that today was more than a "feel-good" day.

Contemptuous Cheney, Delusional Works Too

2007-01-25T16:29:00.000-05:00

Vice President Cheney not only seems to see a world only revealed to him, but he also places the will of the Bushites above the annoying "will of the people" (see earlier post). Delusional and leadership do not belong in the same sentence, let alone in the same White House. Add contemptuous to the mix and you have near half a million killed civilians, thousands of dead and wounded soldiers, and billions of tax payer dollars in big business coffers. For what?

According to Vice President Cheney, every drop of blood and penny was worth it to achieve the better world we now live in...... As he tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer,

CHENEY: You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf. But what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do. The world is much safer today because of it. There have been three national elections in Iraq. There's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government. Saddam has been brought to justice and executed. His sons are dead. His government is gone. And the world is better off for it. You can argue about that all you want. That's history.

History??? The world is a safer place???? Someone please tell that to all the decimated and lost lives in Iraq and the US. Saddam's sons are dead, but so are too many others.

But according to Cheney, "we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime..."

Is that what our objective was? What happened to weapons of mass destruction, axis of evil, and Saddam's support of Al Qaeda? Oh, yes, those "objectives" were proven ungrounded... perhaps even fabricated.

(Spin 101: when you make up stuff to get people to do what you want, always have a back up story so they don't feel they did it in vain when the s*** hits the fan... and hope they forget the original story.)

Memo to Cheney: We did not forget.

But that's not all... Not only did we achieve "our objective", but we were also successful... (yes, we had our cake and ate it too!) and all is well in Iraq.

CHENEY: ... They have got a democratically written constitution, the first ever in that part of the world. They've had three national elections. So there's been a lot of success.

But when pressed by Blitzer:

BLITZER: Some of your good Republican friends in the Senate and the House, are now seriously questioning your credibility, because of the blunders, of the failures.
CHENEY: Wolf -- Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash

He doesn't accept the premise? What premise is he rejecting here? The premise of Congressional oversight? The premise of accountability? Is that akin to declaring he doesn't feel obligated to answer to the American people or their representatives?

Sarcasm aside, although it may be the last refuge of the helpless, Cheney is putting forth a very dangerous precedent. Assuming, just for the sake of argument, that the US objective in Iraq was merely to take down the Saddam regime and at this the US was successful, that can only be half the equation. Measuring success cannot be only in terms of outcome or benefit... It must also take into account cost, both immediate and ongoing.

At what cost did the US achieve the downfall and death of the Saddam and his progeny?

Answering that must balance that outcome against the death of hundreds of thousands, destruction of an entire country's infrastructure, loss of US world stature and solidarity, a generation of US and Iraqi orphans, widows, and disabled, the opportunity cost of the billions of dollars gone towards the war effort, and last, but not least, the immediate and long term political impact on the region. That last calculation would need to consider what the impact of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has been on the balance of power in the region.

The only thing more dangerous than a fool is an unbridled powerful one.

Proof In The Carter Defamation Pudding

2007-01-22T10:30:00.000-05:00

In case anyone doubted that the Israeli "lobby" (I use the word loosely since the lobby is actually a wide-spread network) immediately circles the wagons at every opportunity and provocation, the recent hate-fest over President Carter's recent book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, is sad proof. As soon as anyone dares to shed light on the human tragedy suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of successive Israeli governments, the Israeli army and illegal Israeli settlers, the daggers are immediately drawn and cries of anti-semitism are heard.

To all those 14 "friends" and advisors of the Carter Center, who felt the compulsion to resign, and to all those frenzied critics, including all the Alan Dershowitz's and the Jeffrey Goldberg's out there, I have have a few questions. If you don't like the word "apartheid", what would you call what the Palestinians are suffering? Second question: if it was you or your kin who were suffering it, what would you call it? Third question: what would you call those who were perpetrating it against you and/or your kin? Fourth question: wouldn't you want the world to know about your suffering? Fifth question: wouldn't you hope and pray (since you have scant little else by way of defense) that someone would make the suffering stop, let alone hold those causing the suffering accountable?

And, please, don't even try to respond with, "they brought it on themselves." Blaming the victim is not only lame, it is wrong.

What is sadder is that this insane, completely emotional, and totally counterproductive, not to mention, divorced from reality on the ground, stance of the pervasive Israeli "lobby" is neither beneficial to Israel, the United States, or Palestinians (but, on that last score, who really cares, right?). This fact has long dawned on many Israelis, as well as level-headed US-based organizations such as Tikkun. The uproar facing Carter is mostly US-based. Any cursory review of the Israeli press will find even more scathing commentary on the apartheid-like policies perpetrated against the Palestinians.

For example, read this article by Former Israeli Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni, who argues that apartheid is alive and well in the West Bank under Israeli rule. (Thanks to Tony B. for bringing this to my attention).

"Hebrew original: Yediot Aharonot, Israel's largest circulating newspaper
Indeed there is Apartheid in Israel
A new order issued by the GOC Central command bans the conveyance of Palestinians in Israeli vehicles. Such a blatant violation of the right to travel joins the long list of humans rights violations carried out by Israel in the [Occupied] Territories.
by Shulamit Aloni

Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what's right in front of our eyes. It's simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practises its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.

The US Jewish Establishment's onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population's movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians' land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.

If that were not enough, the generals commanding the region frequently issue further orders, regulations, instructions and rules (let us not forget: they are the lords of the land). By now they have requisitioned further lands for the purpose of constructing "Jewish only" roads. Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night - all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.

On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. "Why?" I asked the soldier. "It's an order - this is a Jews-only road", he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. "It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?"

Indeed Apartheid does exist here. And our army is not "the most moral army in the world" as we are told by its commanders. Sufficient to mention that every town and every village has turned into a detention centre and that every entry and every exit has been closed, cutting it off from arterial traffic. If it were not enough that Palestinians are not allowed to travel on the roads paved 'for Jews only', on their land, the current GOC found it necessary to land an additional blow on the natives in their own land with an "ingenious proposal".

Humanitarian activists cannot transport Palestinians either.

Major-General Naveh, renowned for his superior patriotism, has issued a new order. Coming into affect on 19 January, it prohibits the conveyance of Palestinians without a permit. The order determines that Israelis are not allowed to transport Palestinians in an Israeli vehicle (one registered in Israel regardless of what kind of numberplate it carries) unless they have received explicit permission to do so. The permit relates to both the driver and the Palestinian passenger. Of course none of this applies to those whose labour serves the settlers. They and their employers will naturally receive the required permits so they can continue to serve the lords of the land, the settlers.

Did man of peace President Carter truly err in concluding that Israel is creating Apartheid? Did he exaggerate? Don't the US Jewish community leaders recognise the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination of 7 March 1966, to which Israel is a signatory? Are the US Jews who launched the loud and abusive campaign against Carter for supposedly maligning Israel's character and its democratic and humanist nature unfamiliar with the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid of 30 November 1973? Apartheid is defined therein as an international crime that among other things includes using different legal instruments to rule over different racial groups, thus depriving people of their human rights. Isn't freedom of travel one of these rights?

In the past, the US Jewish community leaders were quite familiar with the meaning of those conventions. For some reason, however, they are convinced that Israel is allowed to contravene them. It's OK to kill civilians, women and children, old people and parents with their children, deliberately or otherwise without accepting any responsibility. It's permissible to rob people of their lands, destroy their crops, and cage them up like animals in the zoo. From now on, Israelis and International humanitarian organisations' volunteers are prohibited from assisting a woman in labour by taking her to the hospital. [Israeli human rights group] Yesh Din volunteers cannot take a robbed and beaten-up Palestinian to the police station to lodge a complaint. (Police stations are located at the heart of the settlements.) Is there anyone who believes that this is not Apartheid?

Jimmy Carter does not need me to defend his reputation that has been sullied by Israelophile community officials. The trouble is that their love of Israel distorts their judgment and blinds them from seeing what's in front of them. Israel is an occupying power that for 40 years has been oppressing an indigenous people, which is entitled to a sovereign and independent existence while living in peace with us. We should remember that we too used very violent terror against foreign rule because we wanted our own state.And the list of victims of terror is quite long and extensive.

We do limit ourselves to denying the [Palestinian] people human rights. We not only rob of them of their freedom, land and water. We apply collective punishment to millions of people and even, in revenge-driven frenzy, destroy the electricity supply for one and half million civilians. Let them "sit in the darkness" and "starve".

Employees cannot be paid their wages because Israel is holding 500 million shekels that belong to the Palestinians.
And after all that we remain "pure as the driven snow".
There are no moral blemishes on our actions.
There is no racial separation.
There is no Apartheid.
It's an invention of the enemies of Israel.
Hooray for our brothers and sisters in the US!
Your devotion is very much appreciated.
You have truly removed a nasty stain from us.
Now there can be an extra spring in our step as we confidently abuse the Palestinian population, using the "most moral army in the world".
[Translated by Sol Salbe]"

Autocracy By Any Other...

2007-01-19T11:05:00.000-05:00

According to the American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition, autocracy is defined as:
"(aw-TOK-ruh-see) A system of government in which supreme political power is held by one person. (Compare constitutional monarchy, democracy, and oligarchy.)
+ Iraq under Saddam Hussein is an autocracy."

I have been at a loss for words (but even that is a lame excuse for my limited blogging lately) .... because what the US is doing in the Middle East has gone beyond the pale. Bush and his guiding voice (other than God), Cheney, have become totally immune not only to the voices of wisdom offering a virtual menu of policy options for addressing the debacle and travesty of Iraq, but more importantly to the will of the American people. And so thousands more troops march off, needlessly, into harm's way.... not to mention the scores of Iraqis who will also suffer.

Last Sunday, on no other than Fox News (surprise, surprise), Cheney made a startling revelation to Chris Wallace and the American people. He basically said that the Bush Administration would not be swayed by the will of the people. (Read David Ignatius piece in the Wash Post - great analysis). Forget polls, which arguably may be seen to be whimsical; he even dismissed general election results. (Please refer to the definition of autocracy above). So if the people are not to be heeded when they cast their ballots, what then is left for democracy?

(Read - only slightly tongue in cheek- I guess there is no wonder that the US can't impose democracy abroad; apparently, if the VP is to be believed and the Bushites observed, it can't even maintain it at home... The only reason this is a half-serious comment is because democracy can never be imposed even by paragons of it.)

But, you be the judge... here are the VPs words:

"WALLACE: I want to ask you one more question about this, and then we'll talk about other issues.
Iraq was a big issue in the November election. I want you to take a look at some numbers from the election. According to the National Exit Poll, 67 percent said the war was either very or extremely important to their vote, and only 17 percent supported sending in more troops.
By taking the policy you have, haven't you, Mr. Vice President, ignored the express will of the American people in the November election?
CHENEY: Well, Chris, this president, and I don't think any president worth his salt, can afford to make decisions of this magnitude according to the polls. The polls change day by day...
WALLACE: Well, this was an election, sir.
CHENEY: Polls change day by day, week by week. I think the vast majority of Americans want the right outcome in Iraq. The challenge for us is to be able to provide that. But you cannot simply stick your finger up in the wind and say, "Gee, public opinion's against; we'd better quit.""

I think it is time to recognize that we already have a third party in this country, and they hold the power. For lack of a better word, and because neo-con has become hackneyed, I will anoint the Bushites, the Imperialist Party. Last November we took the first step at running them out of town, but we still have a ways to go.

Will the real Republicans please stand up??

Perhaps they already have in the form of Senator Chuck Hagel. Here is a man who is true to his soul and essential republican principles (small "R") ... like growing the economy, maintaining international respect, leadership and citizenship, and heeding the people. His has been a lone Republican voice of reason which is only now resonating from amidst the howl of Bushite imperialist, autocratic dogma and self-delusion.

And the Bushites sense the danger... Once again read the VPs words:

"WALLACE: Mr. Vice President, it's not just Democrats, though, who oppose the plan. This week there were a number of leading Senate Republicans who also came out against it. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. NORM COLEMAN, R-MINN.: I'm not prepared, at this time, to support that.
SEN. DAVID VITTER, R-LA.: Too little, maybe too late.
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL, R-NEB.: The most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
WALLACE: Aren't you losing a lot of support in your own caucus?
CHENEY: Well, I don't think Chuck Hagel has been with us for a long time.... We have to prevail, and we have to have the stomach for the fight, long term. And for us to do what Chuck Hagel, for example, suggests or to buy into that kind of analysis — it's not really analysis; it's just criticism — strikes me as absolutely the wrong thing to do.
These are tough decisions, but the president's made it. It's a good decision. It's a good policy. We think, on reflection, it's the best way for us to move forward to achieve our objectives..."

Not only do the Bushites sense the heat from within, they are even throwing bones to the Democrats. After many an outcry but only moved to act under the threat of congressional hearings, the Bushites have, in small part, rescinded their self-declared right to unlimited power by placing the NSA eavesdropping transgression under judicial review. However, despite being once again subject to FISA oversight, the Bushites maintained the prerogative to act however they see fit, suggesting that the program could be instituted once again at any time (assuming that they are to be believed in having stopped it in the first place).

"de·moc·ra·cy /[di-mok-ruh-see] –noun, plural -cies.
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies."

More on the Mother of All Ironies

2007-01-05T13:06:00.000-05:00

More than 16 years after Saddam made his infamous "Mother of All Battles" exhortation, his own death has resulted in the Mother of All Ironies. As I wrote in my last post, instead of representing long over due justice, the way he was executed has turned Saddam Hussein into a martyr. The ugly taunting by his Shia executioners on the first day of the Sunni Eid El-Adha has done more to fan the flames of sectarian strife than any insurgent or terrorist action.

Perhaps most shocking is the fact that the US released Saddam to the Iraqis that morning knowing full well what the outcome would be. Attempts to distance the US from the events of that morning ring hollow especially when coupled with claims that the US had "urged" the Iraqi government not to execute Saddam that day. If that is how the US Administration felt, then why did it release him? Either the US is an occupational force with power or it is a patsy to the new Iraqi government after it paved the way for the Shia to seize power. If the latter, then why are US soldiers dying in a "battlefield" over which the US has no power???? The US can't have it both ways. Either the US is in control or it is not, and, if it is not, then it should either regain control or it should get out!

Nuri Al-Maliki's claim that his government was driven by the desire to execute Saddam in 2006 and thus had no choice but to execute him on Dec. 30 rather than Dec. 31st because that was the first day of the Eid El-Adha for Shias is an excuse more offensive than the original offense. In other words, so as to avoid the Shia holy day, the Sunni holy day was chosen. And, what was wrong with Dec. 29 or Jan. 1, for that matter? For a government claiming to be concerned with national reconciliation and quelling sectarian strife, the bigotry is disgusting. Even more disgusting is that the only aspect of the circus around the execution that the Nuri Al Maliki government is upset about is that clandestine cell phone videos were made to document the spectacle!

Now, other leaders in the Middle East agree. BBC is quoting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as saying: "No-one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed - they turned him into a martyr, and the problems in Iraq remained."

Cartoon:
Main caption - "Hanging of Saddam the morning of Eid El-Adha"
Comment on garb: "To all Arab and Moslem leaders"
Note: The hand gesture is a Middle East version of "giving the finger"

(Apologies for the crudeness... I found this cartoon (on Palestinian Pundit) to be quite representative of the general sentiment in the Middle East after the execution.)

BBC also offers excerpts from media coverage of the execution indicative of the general dismay and disgust with the way in which the execution was handled.
Press condemns Saddam footage
As the Iraqi government launches an inquiry into the mobile phone footage showing Saddam Hussein's hanging, the regional press sees the video as proof that sectarian motives, rather than the rule of law were behind the execution.

One commentator complains of a violation of rights, while others maintain that the hanging was based on sectarian "vendetta".

Others criticise the timing of the hanging, which coincided with the start of celebrations marking the Muslim festival of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, and warn of further violence.

Turgut Tarhanli in Turkey's Radikal
How can the recording of Saddam's execution minute by minute and exhibition of it to the whole world be compatible with the understanding that a person's moment of death is among his most private personal rights? Isn't the performance of this execution by the Shia militia equivalent to a crude crowning of a pre-modern understanding of vengeance rather than a principle of justice?

Yahya al-Amir in Saudi Arabia's Al-Riyad
This unofficial video tape explains the negative choice of the timing of the execution and the hasty 'sacrifice' of Saddam... This indicates that there are sectarian motives and vendetta that ran and carried out the execution.

Rifqi Fakhri in Egypt's Al-Akhbar
Saddam Hussein was murdered, not executed... Those who carried out the execution are the Shia, Saddam's archenemies... The end was an assassination operation, not the implementation of a fair verdict of execution. We have not reached the end of a page of acts of violence. Rather we are at the start of new pages.

Libya's Al-Jamahiriyah
Were the reasons for the hanging of Saddam Hussein in this way and at this timing US, Arab or Iraqi ones?... Did the execution in this way, which was leaked 'intentionally', aim to turn it from an occupier's mistake to a sect's sin, thus fomenting sectarian fighting?

Egypt's Al-Jumhuriyah
The US administration intentionally executed Saddam in this provocative humiliating way to give a warning to whomsoever it may concern that this administration is going ahead with the Greater Middle East project.

Usamah Sarayah in Egypt's Al-Ahram
The symbolism of this incident is represented in the failure to respect our sanctuaries and sanctities on the Eid al-Adha holiday.

Ali Ibrahim in pan-Arab Al-Sharq al-Awsat
The new year 2007 has just begun and the Arab region is witnessing sectarian splitting and conflict. This is a phenomenon which will spare no one and will leave people locked in a cycle of unprecedented violence and hatred.

Holy Day Execution: Stupidity or Spite

2006-12-31T04:05:00.000-05:00

While few shed tears for the killing of Saddam Hussein - a ruthless dictator who was responsible for the death of scores of innocents - the wider symbolism of his execution on 10, Thul Hijjah, 1427 A. H. (Dec. 30, 2006) is sending blood boiling in the Arab and Moslem world.

Saddam was executed at 6am on the morning of Eid El-Adha, which is the holiest day of the Islamic calendar. It is a day for celebration and love. It is a day for sacrifice and giving. It is the day which represents the sacrifice that Abraham was willing to make of his son for God. It is a day in which all executions are stayed and amnesties are granted - because human beings are not to suffer or represent sacrifice on such a day!

Instead of his death being viewed as an act of justice for the many crimes he committed, the mother of all ironies is that executing Saddam on this day is placing him in the minds of many as the ultimate sacrificial lamb to the conquering Crusaders. It also flies in the face of the significance of the day itself as a day of forgiving, love and giving.

Does anyone think at all before such decisions are made????

Executing Saddam on this day out of the 365 options offered in a year is simply stupid, crude and insensitive to the sensibilities and morality of Moslems - at least one fifth of the world's population. If you add to that Europeans and others who view execution as barbaric, one can understand the disgust that is palpable the world over.

The gleeful Shias and other few on the streets of Iraq, Iran and Dearborn, Michigan have been assuaged by this act of mob vengeance, but the wider implications are anything but cathartic. (And while they celebrate - we should ask ourselves if such vengeance is worth the death of an additional near 1 million innocent Iraqis as a result of the US invasion and occupation! And as the families of the needlessly killed seek their own vengeance - the cycle of violence in the region has fuel for generations to come.)

I can't help but scratch my head in bewilderment. Why choose this day? If the US government was trying to offend the Moslem world - again - it couldn't have chosen a better way. If the Shia government of Iraq was trying to spit in the eye of the Sunni, it couldn't have chosen a better way. I can only think that even they are not that stupid. It must have been intentional and pure spite. Unfortunately, that is the way most people in the Arab and Moslem world are seeing it as well.... And that is hardly a way to quell the anger in the region - let alone diffuse the dangers of terrorism and ethnic violence.

Who benefits from this?

Let's Blame It On the Iraqis

2006-12-20T12:50:00.000-05:00

Now that the year is almost over, the mood is weary ... weary of a Congress that has failed in its constitutional obligations, weary of an administration seemingly answerable to no one including reason, weary of the extremist fringes whether in the US or abroad, weary of increasing terrorist fears, and ... weary of Iraq - especially the cost in life, limb and treasure here and there. We look to 2007 to see changes on all of these and other fronts. Americans spoke up in November and now we expect change.

Yet, what does change mean? Does it mean that we shrug our shoulders and dust off our hands and pretend like the mess out there is in fact out there and not in here? Do we look ahead and pretend that the past will not eventually come back to bite us?

Or does change mean that we hold those who created this mess accountable and make sure they do everything they can to "fix it"?

Iraq is a good case in point, since it appears to be the fulcrum around which all our weariness revolves - Congress' abdication of its responsibilities, the Administration's sheer audacity and stubbornness, loss of life and treasure here and abroad, and a revitalization of the terrorist threat.

The new mantra coming out of Washington is that Iraqis have to step up to the plate and take charge of their country. Very few would actually disagree with that. However, what is especially jarring is when that sentiment is followed by claims that the US has done all it can to give the Iraqis the hope of a brighter future! Since we have done all that we can and the Iraqis, instead of being grateful and holding on to this golden opportunity (imagine that?), want instead to kill each other, well, what can the US do? Iraq is Iraq's problem and they have to fix it, right?

That logic is not only deficient; it is immoral.

Iraq was broken by the United States of America. That is not to say that it was in good shape before March 2003, but it is to say that Iraq is much worse off today then before the US, unprovoked and based on false pretenses, invaded the country - dismantled its institutions, allowed wanton plundering, dispersed its army, and allowed century old rivalries just enough oxygen to awaken smoldering embers.

It is also to say that if the objective was, as it is now claimed, that Saddam's repressive regime had to go so as to allow the march of liberty... well, there were and are better ways to achieve that then military invasion and ill-sighted occupation. Whether we like it or not, democracy does not come at the end of a soldiers gun. But that is not the reason the US invaded the country. At least, that is not what this Administration claimed at the time. Accordingly, there was no plan for what was not the objective to begin with!

That was then and this is now. Today, Iraq is broken. Hundreds of people are dying every day. Thousands of people are fleeing their homes and becoming refugees whether in Iraq or neighboring countries. Life for the average Iraqi, especially Arab Sunni or Shia, is pure hell between the lack of jobs and basic amenities to constant fear of death squads, insurgents and terrorists.

Ironically, Iran has achieved, despite itself and through no effort of its own, what it had failed to achieve for hundreds of years since before and during the days of the Ottoman Empire - control over the Shia-dominated lands of southern Iraq. What is also truly regrettable and as bumper-stickeresque as it sounds - the US went to war in Iraq and Iran won.

I am reminded of the wise words, despite his misplaced notion of loyalty, of Colin Powell - "If you break it, you own it." Yet, when you hear TV talking heads, senators, congressmen, and read the endless op-eds, the message is the same. The US has no option but to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.

But there are other options... and not the one the President is talking about. Iraq does not need more US troops in Baghdad, as his military commanders on the ground are telling him. Today, the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, is in Baghdad talking to the top brass, and already we are hearing that General John Abizaid is going to resign. For years now we have heard the President declare that the military commanders are the ones who call the shots on the ground. Well, either that was not true either, or it was the military commanders' fault all along. Secretary Gates is on a mission to change - change those who would dissent from Bush.

Is that the change we need? Blame it on the Iraqis, blame it on the military commanders, blame it on Iran, blame it on Syria, blame it on the terrorists, blame it on Saddam loyalists, blame it on them ...... How about blaming it on the leaders and policymakers who broke Iraq? How about blaming it on US?

Yet, blame is meaningless and a wasted energy if it does not yield redemption. Redemption will come only when we fix Iraq - and not by sending more troops to possible death. Redemption will come when we realize that we won't succeed if we continue to go it alone - or by continuing our sledgehammer foreign policy.

The Iraq Study Group report gave us important options. The bottom line is that we have to reach out - to all Iraqis, Iraq's neighbors, the region and the world. That means we have to work in partnership - not run away or fight away.

That is what I will be reflecting on as we enter 2007... because I too am weary.

See you in January, and may this be a happy and new year for all.

Senator Tim Johnson: Self-Interested Compassion

2006-12-15T20:22:00.000-05:00

Is it just me or is there something really wrong with our collective interest in the health of Senator Tim Johnson? What I mean by wrong is that the reasons behind our concern are wrong. When Senator Johnson was taken to hospital for brain surgery after "stroke-like symptoms", the media went into a frenzy, not because the man was gravely ill and perhaps fighting for his life, but because his death could upset the new power calculus in Congress.

The Democrats may lose their control over the senate if Senator Johnson were to die or become incapacitated. Should this happen, the Republican governor of South Dakota would surely appoint a republican replacement to fill the seat which would place the senate at 50/50 with Vice President Cheney as tie-breaker. In other words, the senate would be under Republican control.

We should care about Senator Johnson as a fellow human being and as an elected leader. Yet, the irony is that while the reason underlying our concern is less-than charitable or compassionate, it is understandable. Other than Buddhists who genuinely seek disinterested altruism, the situation here is clearly one where charity begins and stays at home. Whether democrat or republican, the nervous hand-wringing over this man's health is anything but disinterested compassion - it is purely self-interested concern.

It is in this human story that politics shows its inhuman face. And, while I understand that such is the nature of the beast, I am finding it unpalatable. I find it sad - and not merely with disinterested compassion for him, but rather self-interested concern for us.

Kofi Annan Bids Adieu With Reflections on US Hegemony

2006-12-11T18:30:00.000-05:00

In his farewell speech after 10 years as United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan imparted 5 lessons to the world, in general, and the US, in particular. He chose as the backdrop for this event the Harry S. Truman Library in Missouri because, in his words:

I think it's especially fitting that I do that here in the house that honors the legacy of Harry S Truman. If FDR was the architect of the United Nations, President Truman was the master-builder, and the faithful champion of the Organization in its first years, when it had to face quite different problems from the ones FDR had expected. Truman's name will for ever be associated with the memory of far-sighted American leadership in a great global endeavor. And you will see that every one of my five lessons brings me to the conclusion that such leadership is no less sorely needed now than it was sixty years ago.

In other words, while the US scuttles away all the goodwill it commanded in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, there is an imperative to recall the reasons why the US stood as the champion for world peace after WWII and heralded the United Nations as the future bastion of discourse and diplomacy to achieve that peace. And as the Bush Administration considers the Iraq Study Group Report and ponders how to get out of the mess it has created for itself and the Iraqi people, it may be wise to heed the 5 lessons Annan spelt out:

1. My first lesson is that, in today's world, the security of every one of us is linked to that of everyone else.

2. My second lesson is that we are not only all responsible for each other's security. We are also , in some measure, responsible for each other's welfare . Global solidarity is both necessary and possible.

3. My third lesson is that both security and development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law.

4. My fourth lesson – closely related to the last one – is that governments must be accountable for their actions in the international arena, as well as in the domestic one.

5. My fifth and final lesson derives inescapably from those other four. We can only do all these things by working together through a multilateral system, and by making the best possible use of the unique instrument bequeathed to us by Harry Truman and his contemporaries, namely the United Nations.

These five lessons can be summed up as five principles, which I believe are essential for the future conduct of international relations : collective responsibility, global solidarity, the rule of law, mutual accountability, and multilateralism .

In his closing words, Annan implored the White House and all Americans to hold on to its legacy and its committment to leadership.

You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago?

Surely not. More than ever today Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world's peoples can face global challenges together. And in order to function, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition.

Typical of the tin ears of this Administration, the only comment came from the State Department's Spokesman, Sean McCormack, at his daily press briefing:

As I said, are we going to see eye to eye on every single issue with Secretary Generals of the United Nations? No, probably not. With respect to Mr. Annan's remarks, he, of course, is entitled to his opinion. ....And in terms of how the United States has sought to protect itself and act in its own national interest and, by the way, also try to help protect and defend freedom and liberty and those countries that subscribe to that political viewpoint, of course, we have made difficult decisions and we don't expect that everybody has agreed with those decisions and people are entitled to their opinions...."

Yes, those were actually McCormack's words, as unbelievable as they sound.

Yet, I see a glimmer of hope that Annan's words will not be in vain. He was introduced at the Truman Library today by none other than Republican Senator Chuck Hagel! (See my previous posts on Hagel)

The message coming from all directions is that the US go-it-alone sledgehammer foreign policy is counterproductive; it has left us and the world worse off. And that is the lesson we can all learn from the last 6 years....

Iraq Study Group Report

2006-12-06T12:13:00.000-05:00

Here is the long awaited report. I haven't read it all yet, but here are some excerpts. Will have a follow-up post with comments! Initial reaction - nothing new, may even be old, but at least serious.

-- "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved."

-- "Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. We believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another. If they are effectively implemented, and if the Iraqi government moves forward with national reconciliation, Iraqis will have an opportunity for a better future, terrorism will be dealt a blow, stability will be enhanced in an important part of the world, and America's credibility, interests and values will be protected."

--- "If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe. A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe. Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al-Qaida could win a propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished. Americans could become more polarized."

-- "During the past nine months we have considered a full range of approaches for moving forward. All have flaws. Our recommended course has shortcomings, but we firmly believe that it includes the best strategies and tactics to positively influence the outcome in Iraq and the region."

--- "The United States should immediately launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. This diplomatic effort should include every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq's neighbors. Iraq's neighbors and key states in and outside the region should form a support group to reinforce security and national reconciliation within Iraq, neither of which Iraq can achieve on its own."

--- "Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively. In seeking to influence the behavior of both countries, the United States has disincentives and incentives available. Iran should stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq, respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and use its influence over Iraqi Shia groups to encourage national reconciliation. The issue of Iran's nuclear programs should continue to be dealt with by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. Syria should control its border with Iraq to stem the flow of funding, insurgents and terrorists in and out of Iraq.

"The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts: Lebanon, Syria and President Bush's June 2002 commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. This commitment must include direct talks with, by and between Israel, Lebanon, Palestinians - those who accept Israel's right to exist - and Syria.

"As the United States develops its approach toward Iraq and the Middle East, the United States should provide additional political, economic and military support for Afghanistan, including resources that might become available as combat forces are moved out of Iraq."

--- "The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations. By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq. At that time, U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces, in rapid-reaction and special operations teams and in training, equipping, advising, force protection and search and rescue. Intelligence and support efforts would continue. A vital mission of those rapid reaction and special operations forces would be to undertake strikes against al-Qaida in Iraq."

Bush Meets Leader of Badr Death Brigade But Not Elected Hamas Leader

2006-12-04T12:53:00.000-05:00

With Rumsfield gone and Bolton soon to follow, there are still a few rotten apples yet to go. Nevertheless, Bush seems to have heard America's roar and may even be rediscovering the art of diplomacy. So, we can give him points for that.

Today he meets with leading Iraqi Shiite cleric, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Although he holds no official position in the government, his party represents the largest bloc in parliament and a member of his party is one of Iraq's two vice-presidents. Hakim talks a a good talk, painting himself as an elder statesman with a democratic vision for Iraq. Bush, in an attempt to be even-handed, is even meeting next month with a Sunni leader, the other vice-president, Tariq Al-Hashimi.

However, Hakim's history tells a different story.

Did I mention that his group also includes one of the most violent death squads in Iraq, the Badr Brigade (which later grew and morphed into the Badr Corps)? And did I also mention that this brigade was trained in (and some say equipped by) Iran and he is closely allied with Iran where he lived in exile while Saddam was in power? You might also be interested to know that his Badr Corps is responsible for some of the most heinous sectarian violence, the running of torture chambers, and murders of innocents, especially Sunnis. To make matters worse, members of Badr have now moved into key positions of the police causing Iraqis not only to fear the lawless but also the representatives of the law as well!

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Hakim had this to say:
In more than an hour of conversation at his Baghdad home and office, Hakim denied accusations that the Shiite-led government's security forces -- with alleged involvement by his party's armed wing -- have operated torture centers and death squads targeting Sunni Arabs. He also renewed his call to merge half of Iraq's 18 provinces into a federal region in the oil-rich, heavily Shiite south, and he played down Iran's interests in Iraq, saying that the Shiite theocracy to the east wants only what the United States claims to want: a stable Iraq.

Despite all of this, this meeting would, in fact, be something to commend Bush for. After all, this is realpolitik in action. However, it is also the height of hypocrisy, not to mention inconsistent and counterproductive foreign policy. The US policy is to not meet with groups who propagate non-state violence, even if they are elected by their people in a fair and democratic process, or so was the excuse when the US decided to refuse to deal with elected Hamas leaders in Palestine.

In the case of Iraq, it is OK to meet with those who have blood on their hands because it is prudent if it holds any prospect of reducing the violence. Yet, somehow that logic doesn't translate to the Palestinians. Why?

On the other hand, we reward the Iraqis for going to the polls and electing leaders, even if some of them are associated with violent groups who wantonly kill others. Yet, in Palestine that message doesn't apply. In fact, we penalize an entire people and halt all aid to a starving population for expressing themselves in a democratic process at the polls. Why? Because we don't like how they voted? Does that mean that we like the way they voted in Iraq but not Palestine? Or, does it mean that we don't care how they voted in Iraq just as long as they voted?

So, what does the average Palestinian learn from that? Does he then surmise that democracy is what the US wants for everyone else, but not for him?

We can go on and on, but I think you can see where this can go.....

Communicative Action: Ahmadinejad to Americans...

2006-11-29T21:50:00.000-05:00

At the Arabist blog, I learned of a letter issued by Iran's Ahmadinejad, by-passing the White House this time and going straight for the American people. Here is the Washington Post take on the open letter .

Even more interesting is the Fox website inviting its viewers to send back some letters.

The BBC's article is here. And here is the International Herald Tribune's reporting on the letter:

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the American people on Wednesday that he was certain they detested President Bush's policies - his support for Israel, war in Iraq and curtailed civil liberties - and he offered to work with them to reverse those policies.

The call came in the form of a six-page letter in English addressed to "noble Americans" that discussed "the many wars and calamities caused by the U.S. administration." It suggested that Americans had been fooled into accepting their government's policies, especially toward Israel.

"What have the Zionists done for the American people that the U.S. administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors?" Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote. "Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?"

This was the latest public step by Iran's president to promote a dialogue with the United States. He wrote a letter to Mr. Bush in May, calling on him to shift his policies and open a discussion, but it was dismissed by the White House as irrelevant to the central issue dividing them - Iran's nuclear program. Then Mr. Ahmadinejad challenged Mr. Bush to a public debate, also dismissed by the White House.

In short, Ahmadinejad has everyone in a buzz, but is anyone analyzing the words behind the words?

The Derailment of Religion

2006-11-29T20:35:00.000-05:00

As many invariably are everyday, today I was involved in a discussion about terrorism. The debate was stimulating, and greatly frustrating. I felt the compulsion to speak up.

We can all agree that terrorism is a scourge that we must defeat. The question then becomes how.

The implications of the discussion left me feeling very upset. Although nothing was made explicit, the overriding subtext was a microcosm for what I view as the whole problem with the approach to the "War on Terror" (aside from the fact that waging a war on an act rather than an actor is rather curious, if not senseless).

Approaching the problem of terrorism with the presumption that the answer lies in something inherent to Islam is both foolish and counterproductive, not to mention offensive. It is as foolish and offensive as posing a question such as "Is there something inherent to Christianity that makes Christian states more prone to the invasion and occupation of non-Christian states?" This is a ridiculous question that takes us no where toward resolving the issue of abuses of the laws of war, for example.

Equally, a state which is explicitly founded on religion and uses its religion as a pretext for all its actions, such as Israel, is never faced with a question such as "Is there something about Judaism which makes Jewish Israelis more prone to inhumane treatment of Palestinians?" Such a question would not be posed because not only is it racist, but also because it is counterproductive.

Yet, the world feels the compulsion to pose such questions about Islam without reflecting on the consequences, let alone the bigotry. I am not making these points in defense of Islam, but rather because I feel the questions are epiphenomenal and lead us down the wrong path. Lashing out in anger and shrouding oneself in delusions is not a defense strategy.

Combating terrorism requires that we stop thinking of the "other" as though they were Martians or bogeymen. People do bad things for rational reasons with whatever means they have. We must get to those reasons and address them, as well as stifle their means.

You can't fight what you don't know no matter how strong your convictions may be. All you end up doing is punching at air.

Hagel Fever Is On!!

2006-11-29T06:51:00.000-05:00

After my last post, I realized that there is actually a growing ground swell of Chuck Hagel supporters. Check out this blog: Chuck Hagel For President 2008

And in today's Post, David Ignatius lays out some of the reasons why the time has come for Chuck..... music to my ears.

Hagel's Moment?
By David Ignatius
A month ago the idea that Sen. Chuck Hagel would make a serious run for the Republican presidential nomination would have been a non-starter. As an outspoken critic of President Bush on Iraq and other issues, Hagel's way was blocked. His best hope was nomination by a quixotic third party in an online convention.
It's a measure of the step change brought about by the Nov. 7 elections that Hagel is now seriously exploring a GOP presidential bid. The Republican blowout, he says, reflected a "breakdown of confidence and trust in governance" and opened the way for what he believes will be "the most wide-open presidential race since 1952." The Nebraska senator says he will make a formal decision in the next two months on whether to run.

What would make a Hagel candidacy interesting is that he can claim to have been right about Iraq and other key issues earlier than almost any national politician, Republican or Democratic. Though a Vietnam veteran and a hawk on many national security issues, he had prescient misgivings about the Iraq war -- and, more important, the political courage to express these doubts clearly, at a time when many politicians were running for cover.
Hagel warned about the dangers of invading Iraq in a Feb. 20, 2003, speech in Kansas. He noted that America stood "nearly alone" in advocating military force to disarm Iraq and cautioned against "a rush to war." Some of Hagel's premonitions were almost eerie: "What comes after Saddam Hussein? The uncertainties of a post-Saddam, post-conflict Middle East should give us pause, encourage prudence and force us to recognize the necessity of coalitions in seeing it through." He urged the Bush administration to transfer postwar oversight to the United Nations as soon as possible, and he admonished Iraq boosters to "put aside the mistaken delusion that democracy is just around the corner."

Hagel was also early to understand the importance of talking to Iran, another idea that has since become commonplace but at the time took political guts. In a July 10, 2003, speech on the Senate floor, he said that a direct U.S. dialogue with Tehran about the nuclear issue might be necessary. In a Nov. 15, 2005, speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he was emphatic: "The fact that our two governments cannot -- or will not -- sit down to exchange views must end."

Such outspoken criticisms of Bush policies had put Hagel outside the respectable Republican perimeter -- until Election Day. Hagel delivered his own blunt postmortem in a Nov. 16 speech to a conservative political action committee, GOPAC. The message of the election, he said, "is the American people saying you failed." Republicans had become so focused on keeping power that "we came loose of our moorings."

Hagel went on to criticize his party's failings in language you rarely hear in the usual pre-masticated sound bites of today's politicians. On GOP ethics lapses: "When you blow past the ethical standards and you play on the edge of legality, you're in trouble." On Bush administration foreign policy: "You cannot have a foreign policy based on divine mission. We tried that in the Middle Ages, that's what the Crusades were about."

It strains credulity to imagine that a GOP controlled by Bush and Karl Rove could learn to love Hagel, but, as the Nebraskan says, this is a time of "transformational politics." A more practical problem is that if Hagel does decide to seek the nomination, he will be competing for the same niche as the GOP front-runner, Sen. John McCain, who has been on his "straight-talk express" longer than has Hagel. And although McCain's centrist halo has been tarnished by his efforts to woo the far right, he remains a far more polished speaker and campaigner than Hagel. But on Iraq, Hagel has a clearer stance than does McCain, whose call for a big increase in troops is out of step with both the recommendations of U.S. military commanders and the public mood.

Hagel likes to evoke the Republicanism of Dwight Eisenhower, another former military officer who could be devastating in his criticism of the policies advocated by the military-industrial complex. "This was a real Republican president," he told the GOPAC audience.

Will that pre-Reagan Revolution message play to the party faithful in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2008? Will the Bush administration's problems become so severe that Republicans would embrace a senator from the radical center? The very fact that Hagel is mulling a campaign reminds us that American politics turned a corner this month and that we are in new territory.

Chuck Hagel Has My Vote

2006-11-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

In this already-started presidential election season, it is often hard to find anyone who not only knows what they are talking about, but also respects voter intellect. Chuck Hagel is that kind of guy. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be in the running.

Originally an economist, my inclination is to reach for a Republican answer, but when they went off the reservation with W, one had no choice but to go left. Hagel offers a hope.... He has a moral center that is informed and he does not fear speaking his mind.

I was elated this morning when I opened the Post and saw that he had an opinion piece. I read it with excited anticipation, wanting to know what would make this mind speak out... and I was not disappointed.

How often have we heard a Republican senator (other than Lincoln Chafee) point to Iraq as a colossal mistake? More interesting, he reminds us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In other words, "America cannot impose a democracy on any nation..." He chastises the policy of the US for taking its eye off the ball. "And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat which was there, and not in Iraq." Not that it actually matters, but that is coming from a Vietnam vet.

For those who wonder why we even bother to have a Congress in view of its rubber stamp status these past years, Hagel seems to agree. After funding over $500 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan "dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations," it is time for Congress to fulfill its obligation. As Hagel states, "Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years."

That is refreshing! Now, how can we get him to run??

Leaving Iraq, Honorably
By Chuck Hagel (Sunday, November 26, 2006; Washington Post B07)

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.
Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.

The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.

It may take many years before there is a cohesive political center in Iraq. America's options on this point have always been limited. There will be a new center of gravity in the Middle East that will include Iraq. That process began over the past few days with the Syrians and Iraqis restoring diplomatic relations after 20 years of having no formal communication.

What does this tell us? It tells us that regional powers will fill regional vacuums, and they will move to work in their own self-interest -- without the United States. This is the most encouraging set of actions for the Middle East in years. The Middle East is more combustible today than ever before, and until we are able to lead a renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, mindless destruction and slaughter will continue in Lebanon, Israel and across the Middle East.

We are a long way from a sustained peaceful resolution to the anarchy in Iraq. But this latest set of events is moving the Middle East in the only direction it can go with any hope of lasting progress and peace. The movement will be imperfect, stuttering and difficult.

America finds itself in a dangerous and isolated position in the world. We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. Unfortunately, that perception is gaining credibility in the Muslim world and for many years will complicate America's global credibility, purpose and leadership. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed as the world seeks a new geopolitical, trade and economic center that will accommodate the interests of billions of people over the next 25 years. The world will continue to require realistic, clear-headed American leadership -- not an American divine mission.

The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We've already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq.

We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build. We've been funding this war dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations, which minimizes responsible congressional oversight and allows the administration to duck tough questions in defending its policies. Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years.

It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton commission gives the president a new opportunity to form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq. If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead.

To squander this moment would be to squander future possibilities for the Middle East and the world. That is what is at stake over the next few months.

The writer is a Republican senator from Nebraska.

Flying While Muslim

2006-11-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

If you Google the newly ubiquitous phrase "Flying While Muslim", you will get a wide swath of curious links all sharing one thing in common - their phobia. Some guide apprehensive and fearful Americans, who happen to be Muslim, offering advice on how to get through airport procedures without being pulled aside or even arrested for the crime of "Flying While Muslim".

Other links take you to sites filled with various degrees of Muslim bashing and outright racism. Such misanthropes have latched on to Muslims as the object of their hate-filled phobias. Still others cry out in well-founded indignation against the racist trajectory which is once again rearing its ugly head in this country. I even found a few movie and other artistic projects focusing on the sorry phenomenon which has become a constructed reality in the US since the disaster of 9/11. Overall, my query yielded 10,000 hits.

As we get ready on Thursday to be thankful for the many blessings of our lives including this great nation, many Muslims in the US are continuously reminded that being American for them carries another burden. Many came to this country to escape discrimination and lack of civil liberties in their land of birth, only to face it in their adopted land. The irony of their predicament is especially palpable. However, most American Muslims were born here and for them this is their homeland; they know nor want any other.

Yet, does America want them? Unfortunately, no Mayflower can carry those unwanted, discriminated against to newly discovered continents. This is it..... a reality we should all accept... or better yet, embrace, for our collective benefit.

We may not be a melting pot, but can we at least be a healthy tossed salad (hold the nuts)?

Unfortunately, for 6 American Muslim imams (clerics), Thanksgiving may be the last sentiment they feel today. It would appear that US Airways succumbed to the racist phobias of one of its passengers and pulled these 6 men off a flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix yesterday. To add insult to injury, the 6 men were then handcuffed and arrested by the police and detained for hours. Their crime: Flying while Muslim. They were later released and, if you can believe it, today when they tried to catch another flight to Phoenix, US Airways refused to sell them tickets!

I really don't understand what is going on here. Has racism cloaked in stubborn idiocy triumphed in America? Has rule of law and the bill of rights become faith-contingent? I ask these ridiculous questions hoping that, in fact, they are ridiculous.

Yet, what is really disturbing about this hideous event is the behavior of the police. On what basis were these men denied their civil liberties, humiliated, arrested and detained? On the basis of the fears of one ignorant woman on the flight who heard the men praying and decided that was an expression of "anti-American sentiment"? Is that how we treat our citizens?

On the other hand, is such behavior surprising in view of our government's blow-by-blow abrogation of basic civil liberties starting with suspending habeas corpus and trial by jury, unauthorized wire-tapping, and detainment without charges?

Well, we should be thankful because according to the Washington Post:
"The Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said it has opened an investigation.

US Airways Group Inc. issued a statement saying that it is interviewing crew members and ground workers about what happened."

I am sure that will go far towards winning the hearts and minds abroad .... and healing at home.

So, as we sit down to our turkey tomorrow, let's think twice before passing on the salad.

Deja Vu in Iran: Iraq All Over Again But Worse

2006-11-19T12:51:00.000-05:00

Will someone, please, get the bullies off the playground, or, at least, call in some adults?

From the man who opened our eyes to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the single event which many have pointed to as the turning point in the failed US invasion and occupation of Iraq, Seymour Hersh has a new warning siren out in this week's New Yorker concerning Part Two of the Bush Administration's vision and strategy for a New Middle East...... Operation Iran.

It is almost funny, if it were not so offensively sad that this administration seems to be accountable to no one, not even the American voter. One would think that after the "thumping" they took on Nov. 7 , they would sound a more conciliatory tone.... I won't even suggest that they may have learned their lesson, because true to their modus operandi, fear is a more effective impetus than either conscious or shame.

And now with the full measure of the debacle in Iraq still not accounted for, the drum beat is on for preventive war with Iran. As Hersh points out, leading neoconservatives are already doing their own "thumping".... of their chests,

In the current issue of Foreign Policy, Joshua Muravchik, a prominent neoconservative, argued that the Administration had little choice. “Make no mistake: President Bush will need to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before leaving office,” he wrote. The President would be bitterly criticized for a preëmptive attack on Iran, Muravchik said, and so neoconservatives “need to pave the way intellectually now and be prepared to defend the action when it comes.”

The main Middle East expert on the Vice-President’s staff is David Wurmser, a neoconservative who was a strident advocate for the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Like many in Washington, Wurmser “believes that, so far, there’s been no price tag on Iran for its nuclear efforts and for its continuing agitation and intervention inside Iraq,” the consultant said. But, unlike those in the Administration who are calling for limited strikes, Wurmser and others in Cheney’s office “want to end the regime,” the consultant said. “They argue that there can be no settlement of the Iraq war without regime change in Iran.”

Perhaps, there is some hope that wiser ones will step in and save the administration from itself....

President Bush’s decision to turn to Gates was a sign of the White House’s “desperation,” a former high-level C.I.A. official, who worked with the White House after September 11th, told me. Cheney’s relationship with Rumsfeld was among the closest inside the Administration, and Gates’s nomination was seen by some Republicans as a clear signal that the Vice-President’s influence in the White House could be challenged. The only reason Gates would take the job, after turning down an earlier offer to serve as the new Director of National Intelligence, the former high-level C.I.A. official said, was that “the President’s father, Brent Scowcroft, and James Baker”—former aides of the first President Bush—“piled on, and the President finally had to accept adult supervision.”

However, according to Joshua Muravchik, what the US needs to get back on track is to be saved by some more good 'ol neoconservatism:

Fix the Public Diplomacy Mess. The Bush administration deserves criticism for its failure to repair America’s public diplomacy apparatus. No group other than neocons is likely to figure out how to do that. We are, after all, a movement whose raison d’être was combating anti-Americanism in the United States. Who better, then, to combat it abroad?

In other words, while the neocons are busy pointing out how wrong the Bush Adminsitration got it, they are ignoring the fact that they are the ones who gave it to them in the first place! .... And now they want us to turn to them for help!!!All I can think is SCREAM!

From Child Pleasure Brides to Perspective

2006-11-17T18:21:00.000-05:00

Is there a universal truth to morality? Is there a baseline we can all agree on, or are there intervening variables such as poverty, culture, and indifference? Do we see the other as worthy of the same humanity as we see in ourselves? So many questions, each pregnant with possibility, yet aborted with each point and counter-point..

I came across the below article concerning the regrettable practice of subjecting young girls to the paying paws of degenerate men who prey on the realities of poverty and desperation. In this case, the sad story comes out of Egypt, and it is a reality that I knew existed yet failed to speak against...... Ignorant parents and family sell these young girls to stave the hunger and need of their siblings, and themselves. It is a sad story that has been playing itself out in the various forms of the human slave trade. Same stories abound from China, to India to Albania...

Yet, from afar, we ask questions such as those I started with above. Where is the humanity of those girls? Is it worth quieting the hunger of others? And from where I sit, what right do I even have to ask?

Then there is the gift of perspective, distance and observation we can embrace. While I can empathize, I can not sympathize.... And, I can declare with certitude, and perhaps a spot of righteousness, that there is a baseline, and we are all accountable.

From Reuters
EGYPT: Minors sold for prostitution under guise of marriage
CAIRO, 16 November (IRIN) - Hanadi was a teenager when she was sold into a short-term marriage by her father. "When I was 14, my father told me I was to be married to a man from Saudi Arabia," said Hanadi, who did not want to use her real name.

"Later on, I discovered that my father and the man had agreed I would stay with him for a month, until he returned home [to Saudi Arabia] at the end of the summer. There was never any intention for us to remain together any longer than his holiday in Egypt."

Hanadi is now 20 years old. She lives in a shelter run by Cairo-based NGO the Hope Village Society, which cares for street children.

"Hanadi did not know at the time, but when her father agreed for her to spend a month with the Saudi tourist, he was paid a large sum of money in return in the form of a dowry, which she never had a share in," said Yasser Sobhi al-Okeili, who helps run the centre Hanadi lives in.
"Nor was the marriage officially registered, though she did not know it at the time. Eventually, after a failed marriage of her own choice, she found herself living in the streets. Many girls who have suffered a similar fate end up as street girls," al-Okeili said.

Although there is no specific law that bans the sale of girls and women into such temporary marriages, which amount to prostitution, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Egypt is a signatory, forbids the sale of children and bans marriage under the age of 16, said Mohamed Tag el-Din Labib, Hope Village Society training and research director.
In addition, Egyptian law bans both prostitution and the marriage of girls under 16. "Minors in prostitution are sent to a sort of corrective centre, where conditions are often as bad if not worse than they are in adult prisons," said Nihad Abul Qumsan, director of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights. "The man involved is not usually prosecuted, but rather acts as a witness in a trial."

However, rights workers say that because minors often go through at least some of the steps that would make a marriage seem legitimate make it difficult for any of the involved parties to be held accountable or be prosecuted. In addition, parents are almost always either in charge of a transaction of this kind, or at the very least are involved and have given their consent.

Superficially legal
When young girls are set up to be sold for sex, the matter is very often rendered superficially legal as the couple sign a civil marriage contract and are divorced upon the departure of the male party, or no marriage contract is signed at all, as was the case for Hanadi.
According to Qumsan, rules can be circumvented in a number of ways, including falsifying birth certificates or not registering the marriage at all.

Because of this, few statistics or studies on the matter exist. The government's General Department for Women's Affairs does not directly target this practice, according to a ministry official in the women's department speaking on condition of anonymity.

Similarly, rights advocates in several civil society organisations contacted by IRIN said they do not deal with the phenomenon outside the framework of violence against women.

Local activists agree that the main reason for early temporary marriages, as well as other forms of child exploitation such as child labour, is extreme poverty.

"Money is always the main incentive," said Malaka al-Kurdi, director of a campaign combating violence against women at Cairo-based NGO Alliance for Arab Women. An estimated quarter of Egypt's approximately 80 million inhabitants live just on or below US $2 per day, the United Nations-defined poverty line.

al-Kurdi added that the experience of going through a temporary marriage whose sole purpose was the gratification of the male partner was enough to affect a girl for life, particularly in a conservative society such as Egypt.

"The phenomenon is simply inhuman, in that a girl who undergoes such an experience is bound to lose out on her childhood," al-Kurdi said.

Hanadi believed it unlikely, despite her young age, that she would ever become fully reintegrated into society as a respected citizen. "After what I went through, no one respects me. The man I married after the Saudi left used to beat me and use me as a sex worker, inviting friends and acquaintances to the house and forcing me to sleep with them," said Hanadi.

"It was horrible. He kept all the money he made from me, of course, and for me it was a living nightmare," she added.

For Palestinians, Life is Nasty, Brutish and Short

2006-11-09T15:30:00.000-05:00

Another day, another massacre, another "mistake" we are all to ignore....this time in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, where dozens have been mutilated, their bodies spewed in all directions, most women and children... another day the sun shines over Gaza. And, the march towards the extermination of the Palestinians goes on...

As I sit to write, my mind is filled with issues including the glorious results of the recent US elections. America has finally remembered that there are 3 branches of government for a reason!

Yet, I can not clear my thoughts long enough from the deafening cries coming from the hell that is Gaza and the West Bank. I can't even find the presence of mind to lay out, point-by-point, the number of international laws that Israel, not only flaunts, but spits on, with glee and impunity. New territory in state terrorism continues to be mapped by Israel.

But where is the world community? Where is the United Nations? Right now, the Security Council debates the new atrocities, and once again, all await a US veto of any resolution which would be so insolent as to suggest that Israel should be held to the same standards of international law and peaceable respect for the rights of others as it demanded of Iraq, North Korea, and Iran.

Has the world decided that Palestinians are sub-human? Or have we reached the point where no one really cares? Was Nietzsche right? Have we arrived to the point of the last man? What is the end of the "defense" of Israel against the sub-human Palestinians????? For too many Palestinians life is indeed "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" with the short, as one professor noted (in a different context), being the best part.

Jennifer Loewenstein has put it just right:

"Nightmare in Beit Hanoun - How Gaza Offends Us All
By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN
An opened jaw with yellowed teeth gaped out of its bloodied shroud. The rest of the head parts were wrapped in a plastic bag placed atop the jaw and nostrils, as if to be close to the place to which it once belonged. The bag was red from the pieces that were stuffed inside it. Below the jaw was a human neck slit open midway down: a fleshy, wet wound smiling pink and oozing out from the browned skin around it, the neck that was still linked to the body below it. Above him, in the upper freezer of the morgue lay a dead woman, her red hennaed hair visible for the first time to strange men around her. More red plastic wrapped around an otherwise absent chin. She was dead for demonstrating outside a mosque in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza where more than 60 men sheltered during the artillery onslaught by Israeli tanks and cannons.

Most of the others still had their faces intact. They lay on their silver morgue trays stiffly as unthawed frozen food. One man had a green Hamas band tied around his head; he looked like a gentle shepherd from some forgotten, pastoral age. Another's white eyes were partially opened, his face looking out in horror as if he'd died seeing it coming. Then a muddy, grizzled blob on the bottom left tray, black curls tangled and damped into its rounded head and blessedly shut eyes. A closer look revealed a child, a boy of 4: Majed, out playing his important childhood games when death came in like thunder and rolled him up in a million speckles of black mud. The other dead had already been taken away.

Muslim burials take place quickly, a god-send to the doctors, nurses and undertakers who, at the hospitals and morgues, desperately need the space for next batch of casualties who would sleep on the same sheets, same steel-framed beds, in the same humid heat, in the same close, crowded, grief-stricken rooms, often on the floors, with the same tired, unpaid attendants doing their rounds without the proper supplies to help them if they were still alive. And some would die on the operating table like the young man gone now to the Kamal Adwan hospital morgue when his wounds became too much for his body to bear. Two young girls preceded him earlier the same day. Blessed are they who leave this human wasteland washed and shrouded for a quiet, earthy grave.

Today the hospitals will be filled beyond capacity again when the 18 civilian dead from a pre-dawn attack on Beit Hanoun -- women, men and children blasted out of their sleep into human chunks -- roll out of the ambulances and into the freezers of Shifa or Kamal Adwan hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip. How dare they sleep in their houses at night when the tanks are barking out commands.

Do you believe this was an accident? that an international investigation will ever take place? Like after Jenin? Like after Dan Halutz and his 2000 pound bomb which was dropped on an apartment building in Gaza City killing 15 people, 9 of them women and children? Like after the siege of Jabalya in the fall of 2004? Like after Operation Rainbow in Rafah? Like after Huda Ghalia's family was blasted into nothingness during an outing on a Gaza beach? Will US eyes, glued to their glaucousy TV screens to find out which marketed candidate won the corporate-managed midterm elections, ever know that that another massacre of Palestinians took place?
At Shifa hospital, Gaza's central hospital, where Dr. Juma' Saqa and his staff cope with the daily shortages of supplies from kidney dialysis machines to fans and clean linens; where cancer medications are unavailable to the increasing rate of cancer patients and elective surgeries, such as for hernias or tonsils, are a thing of the past. This is where doctors and nurses witness how the water that Gazans drink causes innumerable ailments, rotting teeth, anemia in children and kidney dysfunction because of its brackish, poisonous quality. This is where children lie half naked in their beds, white tape across their noses holding tubes to their faces so that they may eat or breathe-- like Ahmad aged 3, also from Beit Hanoun, who took a bullet in the right side of his belly that exited on the left. His mother stands over him passively, grateful. Ahmad, at least, is going to live. But for what?

Each night in Gaza City that first week in November, explosions sounded in the northeastern corner of Gaza: a succession of bullets, booms, bombs, canon fire. On the first night of the onslaught we could still see lights from Beit Hanoun 10 miles from us blinking and twinkling as if nothing were really happening; it was all a dreamÃÂ³fireworks, a distant celebration perhaps. But then, by the second night only a swath of blacked out space lay in the place of Beit Hanoun, electricity-less and water-less as the booms continued unabated for an hour or more and the hum of the pilot-less drones circled round again and again above us, above Beit Hanoun, above Gaza, automated people-monitors taking stock of the activity below. Nobody from Beit Hanoun could leave by day to get to work without announcing to the tanks and the drones that he was prepared to sacrifice his life for a semblance of normalcy. All men between the ages of 16-35 were rounded up onto trucks and hauled away for "questioning". What will happen to them and their families? Will anyone follow up? Will they add to the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, left to rot while their wives and children, sisters, brothers, parents go on struggling to survive?

There lies Gaza stretched 28 miles long in a tumbledown graying, decaying heap, yawning, tired, wretched, full of garbage. Tape gauze over your nose to avoid the smell of sewage and burning trash. Try not to notice the metal-shuttered shop fronts, the empty stores, the proliferation of horse- and donkey-carts clopping along the streets for lack of fuel, the ribs of the tired beasts jutting out from their bellies as boys whip them along to keep going. The joke is the cerulean blue sky illuminating the rubbish tip, the palm trees and purple flowers beaming in the November sun ÃÂ± natural non-sequiturs, like the box of fresh chocolates offered to the journalists filming the woman's wounded son as she yells out her frustrations and horror at the Americans and the Israelis who are killing her family. Why? She asks. Why, why, why?
Ask Mark Regev, Israel's eager, hideously sincere government spokesperson. On CNN's international news he tells us in earnest that this is Israeli self-defense. The Qassam fire into Sderot and Ashkelon must stop. Israelis have the right to defend themselves. The "operation" in Beit Hanoun will not stop until the Qassams stop. Each word drivels out of his mouth into a bubble of obscenity for everyone watching from the vantage point of Gaza. Verbal pornography, sado-masochistic jargon from the prince of Hasbara leaks onto the dust like poisonous bile bought, paid for and sought after by the lords of power and their occupying machinery.
The shoddy, home-made Qassams hiss like cornered alley cats when they are fired into the skies. Stupid and bestial, they zing across the border like crazed beasts not knowing where they are going. They'll dash forever like this until the occupation of Palestine ends. The Gazans know this, Hamas knows it, Fatah knows it, the PFLP knows it; In Israel, Labor and Likkud know it, Meretz knows it, Yisrael Beiteinu knows it, Shas knows it; Peretz, Olmert and Lieberman know it, Sharon knew it, the Israeli people know it, official America know this, so 40 years after 1967 and 58 years after 1948, why is the occupation not yet over?

Because Israel does not want it to end. Because Israel wants the land and the resources without the people. Because you have to eviscerate a culture in order to maintain total control over it. Because the United States says that's just fine with us, you serve our purpose well. You help make the war on terror convenient. You help fit Iraq into the scheme. You'll help us with Iran as well. Who the hell cares about a million and a half poverty-stricken Gazans and their dust, their sand, their stinking, crumbling heap of a disaster area homeland?

What a terrible shame it is that Gazans have not yet attained the status of Human in the eyes of the Western powers, for the resistance there will continue to be an enigma until this changes. For now, however, the slaughter will continue unabated.

Leaving Gaza 6:30am Saturday morning, November 4th 2006, I hear a loud explosion. My cab driver picks me up and we drive down the main street in Gaza City toward Erez. Suddenly, unexpectedly, there is a smoldering mass of wreckage in front of me, a car surrounded by boys picking at its still-hot exterior. Inside are four blackened, seared human shapes, crispy at the touch, faceless from the burns, charcoal, shreds of steaming cloth, a smell of barbecued human flesh, sirens in the distance. Burnt and vaporized metal looks like what you see in a science fiction movie. Burnt humans look like singed paper mache monsters whose pieces fall off at the hint of a breeze.

Gaza is sorry for these indiscretions, this poor taste, this unseemly topic of conversation. You are right to express your indignation. How Dare Gaza Speak of These Things!? But it can no longer contain its secrets even with the blockade of visitors to its vile shores; its voice is shrill even when sublimated through the layers of media deceit. The smoke rises higher in the skies each time. The prison is imploding and the resistance will never end."

Catching the Fire of Moral Depravity: What Israel and Guantanamo Have In Common

2006-11-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched an overdue, yet deeply moving, dramatization of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. The movie, Catch A Fire, starring Derek Luke and Tim Robbins, shows how humans have the capacity to inflict indignity, torture, pain, suffering, and other beastly manifestations on their fellow human beings with the audacity of moral self-righteousness that in a clinical setting could clearly be labeled as a depraved form of psychosis.

Derek Luke plays the innocent black South African who cared for his community in an apolitical way, provided for his family and tried to stay out of trouble. Tim Robbins plays the white Africans anti-terrorism tzar who in his struggle "to protect his people from the terrorists" reluctantly takes delight in torturing suspects. We see on screen the birth of a terrorist in the face of unspeakable injustice.

Yet, why has the South Africa story of moral depravity taken so long to make it to Hollywood? I will put forth a hypothesis - because it has too many parallels in the world today that we are not willing to either admit or deal with.

Apartheid South Africa could easily be Israel's Gaza and West Bank. Palestinians are today the world's black South Africans. The main difference is that while the US and the West reluctantly did not back South Africa, at least not toward the end, we are backing Israel. Hence, we accept all the "we are protecting our people" self-righteousness they utter and assuage ourselves by reorienting our moral compass - or rather throwing it overboard.

More recently, Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, CIA secret torture prisons, and the 2006 Military Commissions Act are all one long slide down the slippery slope of internalizing and accepting a moral contradiction. Yet, we tell ourselves it is OK because we are in a war to "protect ourselves against the terrorists". In the process, we are descending into a moral dark hole and losing what we are trying to protect and project - our moral standing, pride and freedom.

Hence, the movie is just too close for comfort. It's a mirror we just don't want to look in to.

For those concerned with the latest Israeli onslaught and continued criminal behavior against the Palestinians, see the gallery of pictures on Al Jazeera showing Israel's army aiming at and killing unarmed women in cold blood.

Where is the world's sense of human decency, justice, equality and honor? Apparently those seem to be fungible platitudes rather than steadfast principles... And I am clearly a hopeless fool.

Yet, perhaps there is a shimmering light. Some voices are trying to be heard above the fray. From today's Haaretz comes a shocking repudiation of Israel's quick march toward total disregard, with complete impunity, for human life. What is even sadder is that the entire world does not even seem to care. Perhaps when the messenger is from within their own ranks, people will listen.

"By Gideon Levy
A bloodbath is taking place in Beit Hanun, the Israel Defense Forces runs rampant and kills at least 37 people in four days - and Israeli public opinion yawns with indifference. A brigade commander tells his soldiers, who killed 12 people in one day: "You've won 12:0," and the soldiers grin broadly.

This is the moral nadir we have reached, following a long slide down a slippery slope: Human life has become cheap. Proof of this came at the end of the week from the big mouth of Major General Elazar Stern, the head of the IDF Personnel Directorate, who occasionally says true things. "The IDF's excessive sensitivity to human life led to some of the failures in the Lebanon war - and this should not happen," Stern told Channel 7. Stern should be praised for these forthright words: Those who embark with unbearable lightness on a futile war of choice cannot allow themselves the luxury of showing sensitivity for the lives of their soldiers. In war, soldiers not only kill, but are also killed. This should have been stated in advance.

But the general's remarks are also tainted with hypocrisy: Those who over a few months kill more than 1,000 Lebanese and 300 Palestinians for dubious reasons do not have the right to speak about sensitivity to human life. The fact that the public protest against the war did not take off demonstrates that after having lost all sensitivity for the lives of others, we are also gradually losing sensitivity for the lives of our children who are killed in vain. The contempt for human life starts with the lives of Arabs and ends with the lives of Jews.

What a long way we have come since the talk, as hypocritical as it may have been, about "the purity of arms." This concept has been totally deleted from the lexicon. What a long way we have come since the time when we took pride in the fact that, unlike the Arabs, we tried not to kill innocent civilians. And now we have arrived at the shocking reality of the second Lebanon war. For example, the number of people Israel killed is not only almost 10 times higher than the number of people Hezbollah killed, but the number of soldiers Hezbollah killed is three times higher than the number of Israeli civilians they killed, while the number of Lebanese civilians killed by Israel is about three times the number of Hezbollah fighters. So whose arms are purer?

A journalist from The Guardian who is currently in Israel was shocked to hear that these figures have not been the subject of public discussion here. The current stage of the moral decline began with the targeted assassinations in the territories. When they began, there was still an argument over their legality and justness. Who remembers that the assassinations were once limited, declaratively at least, to "ticking bombs"? The High Court of Justice, in its cowardice, has evaded taking a stance on this issue for years, despite the petitions on its doorstep. And the assassination project grew and expanded until it reached monstrous proportions.

In recent months, almost no day has gone by without Palestinians being killed in Gaza. Instead of asking why, we get a prime minister who boasts to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about "300 terrorists" dead within four months, as if killing in itself were an enormous achievement. This is the lesson from Ehud Olmert, and it is immeasurably more grievous than all his alleged corruption affairs. No one asked who these fatalities were, whether they all deserved to die, and what benefit Israel derives from this wholesale killing.

Beyond the terrifying number of civilians killed, including dozens of women and children, we should also ask whether every armed person in Gaza - and there are tens of thousands of them - deserves the death penalty, without a trial. The day the IDF began the targeted assassinations, our sensitivity to human life was doomed to be erased. The IDF has been operating in the town of Beit Hanun for several days now. Operation Autumn Clouds is ostensibly intended to target Qassam launchers, but meanwhile it has only brought more Qassams on Sderot - besides the killing, destruction and terror it sows in the heart of the 30,000-resident town. I was at the Beit Hanun home of the Abu Ouda family twice recently. The first time was when a shell destroyed the family's home. The second time was when soldiers killed the father, his son and his daughter, who were innocent of any crime. And this was before Operation Autumn Clouds.

And how is the Israeli press covering Autumn Clouds? In Maariv on Thursday, you needed a magnifying glass to find an offhand reference to the killing of 10 Palestinians in one day; it was the same for Yedioth Ahronoth. The two newspapers with the country's largest circulation demonstrate a disgusting level of dehumanization. The statement by Yedioth Ahronoth's military commentator, Alex Fishman, that one of the operation's goals is drilling the troops for the "big operation," does not stir any protest. That the IDF is embarking on a "training operation" in a dense population center, sowing death and destruction - does this not show a frightening contempt for human life? The daily killing in Gaza receives scant mention. Futile operations aimed at restoring the IDF's lost honor do not arouse any debate about their aim, morality or chances of succeeding. No one wonders about the extent of Qassam damage versus the extent of the killing and destruction - including the bombing of the power station - in Gaza, where a million and a half people are encaged, impoverished and hungry.

These futile operations will not stop the Qassams, which are aimed at giving us and the rest of the world a painful reminder of the imprisoned and boycotted Gaza residents' distress, which no one would notice if it were not for the Qassams. The way to fight the Qassams is to stop the boycott, sit down at the negotiating table and reach an accord. Otherwise, we will continue to slide and become immune to their loss of life, and soon to our loss of life as well. Listen to Major General Stern."

More on the Israeli Lobby

2006-11-03T10:16:00.000-05:00

Despite the uproar and where you may fall in the debate, the paper published by two International Relations gurus, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, earlier this year did achieve one important feat.... It broke the taboo on the debate itself, breathing life once again into the 1st Amendment. We can at least now ponder the impact of the Israeli policy on our foreign policy without worrying about the stigma of being branded with the big anti-"S" word. (By the way, semitism is not exclusively synonymous with Judaism.)

More importantly, the main point made by M and W is that the Israeli lobby may not be doing either the US or Israel any favors.

I do think that perhaps we can all agree that the Israeli lobby, while perhaps not homogeneous or monolithic, is sizable, effective, and real. And we can openly question and debate whether US foreign policy in the Middle East has been wise and whether this wisdom or lack thereof was/is at all impacted by the Israeli lobby's formidable reach in the US democratic process.

The abstract of the M and W paper reads:

In this paper, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago's Department of Political Science and Stephen M.Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government contend that the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. The authors argue that although often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the “Israel Lobby." This paper goes on to describe the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.

Well, this debate may be getting even larger. This weekend, the Council on the National Interest is running a full-page ad in the New York Times on this very issue. Whether this is a smart move the weekend before we all go to vote on Tuesday depends on how you intend to vote....

From the advert:

By its refusal to deal with Hezbollah as an insurgency that has converted to governance in Lebanon, the United States gave a blank check to Israel, allowing her to attack Lebanon for 34 days and destroy much of the rebuilding that had occurred in the last ten years. The absence of dialogue with emerging Islamic nationalist movements continues to erode our credibility in the region. Congress, under the encouragement of the Lobby, supports the muzzling of sensible diplomacy in favor of confrontation in Lebanon, in Palestine, and with regard to Iran.

While Lebanon burned, so did Gaza and the West Bank. Following the war, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immediately announced plans to expand the largest settlement in the West Bank and canceled plans to withdraw from smaller settlements. The U.S. made ineffective efforts to persuade him to delay the construction announcement. We are doing even less to promote a real peace process in the Middle East. While Palestine collapses into chaos and civil war, neither we nor the Israelis have a policy that leads to defining Israel’s final borders and ending the vindictive and humiliating occupation.

Martial Law One Pen Stroke Closer

2006-10-29T14:36:00.000-05:00

It seems my previous post spoke too late.... On Oct. 17, Bush, in a quiet, surreptitious move signed into law the fiscal 2007 appropriation bill which includes a measure giving him unilateral authority to declare martial law in any state or territory and use both federal and state troops/national guard. For the relevant section in the 486 page act (you can also find it here), see section 1076.

It reads:
SEC. 1076. USE OF THE ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES.
(a) USE OF THE ARMED FORCES AUTHORIZED.--
(1) IN GENERAL.--Section 333 of title 10, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:`` 333. Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law
``(a) USE OF ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES.--
(1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to--
``(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that--
``(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and
``(ii) such violence results in a condition described in paragraph (2); or
``(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition described in paragraph (2). `
`(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition that--
``(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that State or possession, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or
H. R. 5122--323
``(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

As I have been writing lately, the Military Commissions Act, Patriot Act, NSA eavesdropping, and now the redefinition of the Insurrection Act all lead us toward one direction, loss of our civil liberties and the corruption of total power in the form of martial law.

Toward Freedom website has an interesting analysis. Here is an excerpt:

"In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."

Martial Law and the Boiling Frog Syndrome

2006-10-27T16:47:00.000-04:00

What does martial law and a frog have in common? Answer: Depends on what murky waters you are in...

The Bush administration has been slowly turning up the heat since 2001 and we stand to suffer the fate of the boiling frog who is so cold blooded he can't tell when the heat is on until it is too late...

The definition of martial law as it appears on Wikipedia is :
"Martial law is the system of rules that takes effect (usually after a formal declaration) when a military authority takes control of the normal administration of justice.

Martial law is instituted most often when it becomes necessary to favor the activity of military authorities and organizations, usually for urgent unforeseen needs, and when the normal institutions of justice either cannot function or could be deemed too slow or too weak for the new situation..."

Does it sound familiar? That is exactly the logic used by Bush to ram through our docile Congress the recent "Military Commissions Act" of 2006.

Our venerable Vice President was interviewed the other day by one of his cheerleaders, Scott Hennen. Here is how that scary interview went:

"Q I've heard from a lot of listeners -- that's what we do for a living, talk to good folks in the Heartland every day -- and I've talked to as many who want an increased military presence in Iraq as want us out, which seems to be the larger debate, at least coming from the left -- cut and run, get out of there. One fax said, when you talk to the Vice President, ask him when shock and awe is coming back to Iraq. Let's finish the job once and for all.

And terrorist interrogations and that debate is another example. And I've had people call and say, please, let the Vice President know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives. Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do agree. And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided us with enormously valuable information about how many there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are and so forth, we've learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that.

The Congress recently voted on this question of military commissions and our authority to continue the interrogation program. It passed both Houses, fortunately. The President signed it into law, but the fact is 177 Democrats in the House -- or excuse me, 162 Democrats in the House voted against it, and 32 out of 44 senators -- Democratic senators voted against it. We wouldn't have that authority today if they were in charge. That's a very important issue in this campaign.

Are we going to allow the executive branch to have the authority granted and authorized by the Congress to be able to continue to collect the intelligence we need to defend the nation.
Q Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President "for torture." We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.

And thanks to the leadership of the President now, and the action of the Congress, we have that authority, and we are able to continue to program."

Words have meaning and they do break bones... What we see here is a page torn out of the book of past and contemporary leaders elsewhere that we point fingers too and brand as "evil". I hope we jump out of the boiling water before our freedom is spent...

Can't We Hold On To Our Freedom?

2006-10-15T23:04:00.000-04:00

"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. " attributed to Benjamin Franklin

On October 12, 2006, the Institute for International Law & Politics at Georgetown University sponsored a panel discussion on the US Military Commissions Act of 2006: Constitutional and International Legal Issues. The panel consisted of Philip Sundel, Esq., Deputy Legal Advisor, International Committee on the Red Cross; former Defense Counsel, Office of Military Commissions, U.S. Department of Defense; David Luban, Frederick J. Haas Professor of Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University Law Center, Carlos Manuel VÃizquez, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center and James Oldham, St. Thomas More Professor of Law and Legal History, Georgetown University Law Center.

The following are notes that I prepared from the event.

This event offered an analysis of the recently passed (not yet signed) bill in Congress establishing military commissions to try "Alien Unlawful Enemy Combatants" (AUEC) which as the first speaker, Philip Sundel, explained, is a new category created by the US and not found anywhere in the internationally recognized Laws of War, or even under US law.

Sundel outlined the dangers of the new act and its impact on combatant/civilian determinations. For example, under this act, a farmer in a country in which the US is engaged in any war including the "war on terror" may be subject to detention if he so much as sells his produce to anyone deemed by the US to be an AUEC. In fact, the act even suggests that lawyers of an AUEC could themselves be determined to be AUEC for offering "moral support or assistance".

Sundel also explained that this new act redefines the 1997 War Crimes Act of the US by delineating what constitutes torture but lowering the bar for others acts which were previously considered illegal as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

This led to the presentation by the second speaker, David Luban, who went into detail as to what the Act allows and disallows with respect to the treatment of detainees and the use of "tortured or water-boarded" information in court. As explained, the new Act does not allow information received through torture to be used in court. On the other hand, it does not outlaw torture either. It just says that this kind of information can not be used in Court.

The Act also allows information that has been coerced while offering the Government a national security privilege. This privilege basically means that the Government does not have to produce any sources, information or responses in court if the provision of such would be considered to endanger national security. Effectively, that means that if information being presented in court had been received through any means, this would not have to be divulged in court and thus is a way for the government to circumvent any limitations to its actions.

The third speaker, Carlos Vaizquez, offered analysis as to the possible constitutional crisis that could result from any challenges to this new Act. The Act states that it satisfied the Geneva Conventions, which the US Supreme Court reaffirmed as the law of the land in the Hamdan case and that it applied to terrorist detainees regardless of their designation by the US as AUECs. However, if the Act is challenged in courts on the basis that elements of it are in fact in contradiction to the Geneva Conventions, this would force the Court to determine the efficacy of the legislative interpretations of the Geneva conventions as stipulated in the new Act. The speaker argued that while it is usual for Courts to accord deference to executive and legislative interpretation of treaty, the final interpretation rests with the court, and in this case, the Court may be forced to show no such deference, thus a potential constitutional crisis.

The final speaker, James Oldham, explained how the new Act suspends the writ of habeas corpus from any non-US citizen tried under the Military Commissions. He outlined the history of habeas corpus and its central role in Anglo-jurisprudence and explained that it has only been suspended four times in US history. Lack of habeas corpus basically means that anyone designated an AUEC has no right or recourse to question or challenge that designation. The speaker noted that as far back as the 18th century with the forced capture and enlistment of men into the army such abrogation has been considered completely illegal.

This event was extremely interesting and extremely disturbing. In fact, on my way over to the event, I heard on the radio that the Navy officer, Swift, who had led the team of lawyers representing the Hamdan defense in the Supreme Court case this summer had been forced to retire that day from the Navy because he had been passed over for promotion. Under the Navy's rule of "Up or Out", he had to retire.

I believe everyone left the auditorium with a very heavy feeling.

This event highlights an issue that concerns anyone with even a remote interest/stake in rule of law, due process, democracy, integrity, and security. Such debate should be ocurring in every town hall, school room and civic space.

What we are giving up is what this country was founded on, and that is a worse fate than any enemy could inflict upon us.

Human Death Toll of the Travesty in Iraq

2006-10-11T12:58:00.000-04:00

In case anyone wants to still argue that Iraq is better off ...... a new study estimates that the number of Iraqi's killed as a direct result of the US-led invasion is over 600,000, or 2.5% of the population of Iraq! That dwarfs all other estimates including that of Iraq Body Count who estimates an upper limit of less than 50,000. This report was also published in the medical journal, The Lancet. The study suggests that while 100,000 died after the first year of the invasion, the occupation since 2004 has seen an additional 5-fold increase.

A group of social scientists at Johns Hopkins University led by Les Roberts have completed a new poll of households in Iraq, which updates a previous study they undertook over a year ago. This study is financed by MIT and was done in collaboration with a group of Iraqi experts and doctors who have conducted numerous polls for various US-based polling outfits. The effort is financed by MIT.

Needless to say, the Bush administration and other war-hawks claim that the study grossly exaggerates the "collateral damage" resulting from coalition forces action, as well as insurgent violence. They are crying foul claiming that the release of the study now is nothing but a political ploy. Well, at least, people may stop talking about the Foley fiasco - if that is their silver lining. But, seriously, one must wonder why they might find 50,000 a more acceptable a number. In fact, is it even acceptable to discredit bad news just because it can be cast as having been divulged for political points? Does that mean that the news should be of less concern? Is it better that we don't know it?

On a CNN interview, John Zogby (of Zogby International), a leading US-based pollster, said today that, in his view, the methodology used by the study group was sound. He also endorsed the Iraqi experts who were part of the study effort saying that his company has relied on them, as well, in the past.

The bottom line is that no serious person can accept the low death figures being touted by the Bush administration unless they are either asleep or delusional. With 100 bodies showing up in Baghdad alone on a daily basis, anyone can do the math.

It is time for the US and the world to take a deep hard look both in our hearts and minds. What is happening in Iraq is not only sad, it is criminal.

By the way, BBC has an excellent Bush opinion poll tracker covering the past 6 years (US media could really learn a couple things from their Brit allies).

A Tribute to Sadat - 25 Years Later, Where Are We

2006-10-06T16:02:00.000-04:00

It was 25 years ago that a great man was killed. Not only were we deprived of the promise he held for peace in the Middle East, but no one else since has been able to take on his mantle.

Many also pay tribute to Sadat today by taking a look at how far away we are from the promise of the possible had we followed the trajectory he offered us. Those who callously killed him know the mistake they made as quoted in today's International Herald Tribune:

"If I could turn back time, we wouldn't have killed Sadat. We would have appreciated his value," said Nageh Ibrahim, a leader of the Egyptian Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), .."

Very few individuals in history make a real difference. Machiavelli spoke of the importance of glory and reputation, but it was Aristotle who noted the true virtue of practical wisdom. Sadat attained glory, but his real gift was his practical choices and wise leadership... not only for Egypt, but for the region and for the world.

As we face the possibility of an unrestrained hegemon in today's world, what lessons can we learn from the example of Sadat? What threats do we face and how can we successfully protect against them? Is it by fueling more anger, balancing, and division?

One of Sadat's most poignant lessons is not only courage, but also the importance of finding other ways of settling disputes. He showed us that we should not delude ourselves with self-righteous thinking. Where there is dissension, our start point should be to believe that all humans are rational beings acting and reacting to one another. This is not to say that there is no moral barometer adjudicating amongst us; it is to say that seeing from a single-angle means you can not be that judge. If we approach "the other" from the perspective that our actions induce reactions, and we believe in our agency, we can change the course of the ensuing chain reaction.

Sadat showed us that if you change, the equation changes - shifting the trajectory into a new direction. That is his legacy and that is the lesson we have failed to learn.

Here are a few words I wrote 25 years ago - the day we lost Sadat>

To Sadat

Behind the myth, where time begins,
I enjoy the mystery of life.
Life. A simple word.

A soothing touch of realism revealed
The true beauty of life.
The world, created and perfected
To be
Mild. Fresh. Serene.
Perfect harmony.

A world where
The trail of tears
The springs of hope and
A rocky haven of new thought
Never end.

Imagine silencing the spirit of life.

October 6, 1981

On Conflation and its Dis-content

2006-10-05T12:13:00.000-04:00

The bottom line is that words, and the concepts they embody, have meaning. To use a word loosely is to impoverish and even obfuscate its original content. Conflating fascism and religious zealotry into "Islamofascism" cheapens the significance and impact of both. It also robs those who suffer under either from a recognition of the true nature of their suffering.

I have written much on this and hope that we can start to generate a new discussion around the dangers of conflation. First, we conflated actors (Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda). We imagined a scenario of the one giving weapons of mass destruction to the other, reified it, and acted upon our constructed reality! The result is that we are entrenched in a war based on false pretexts and lies. This has consequences - people are dying and hatred has new fuel.

Now we are witnessing the conflation of two different, yet separately serious, deviations. If we do not realize the conflation, we will fail to address the problem, yet again!

This topic requires more ...... and it shall come.

Neither Pope Nor Bush the Emperor Are Wearing Any Clothes

2006-09-29T16:08:00.000-04:00

Reflecting for days on the Pope's recent coming out as a Bush ally in the war against "Islamofascism" has left me struggling to find an excuse for his clear and utter ignorance both of history and theology - at least anything not Catholic. It seems that both the Pope and Bush have more in common then Islamophobia. What I do find stunning is his blatant historical revisionism as though the Inquisition and the Crusades were a mere aberration worthy of naught. Or has he conveniently forgotten the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain with death to any who chose not to convert to Christianity? It is about time that the "sword" image that has dominated Euro-Western vilification of Islam since the fall of Constantinople be shown for the fiction that it is.

I came across the words of a wise man from Israel, Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom, who writes of this travesty so eloquently. Here is an excerpt:

Muhammad's Sword (excerpt)
by Uri Avnery
For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.
True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.
THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables.

US National Intelligence Estimate 2006 - Short on Intelligence

2006-09-26T17:33:00.000-04:00

As though to gain some political mileage after it had already been leaked, Bush announced that he would declassify and allow the release of some of the conclusions of the US National Intelligence Estimate 2006. More on this later. For now read it and think to yourself... Is there anything here that a casual desktop review of some media reports wouldn't offer? Where is the intelligence..... What I find staggering is how short on intelligence the National Intelligence Estimate is! Either the DNI has resorted only to open source intelligence gathering, or our "clandestine" intelligence gathering and analysis capability offers nothing not already in the public domain. Not only is there not a single "surprise" in the released conclusions, but it also shows a very shallow premise upon which to build policy initiatives. Is this what our government uses as one of its basis for engaging with the world?

More on Bush's Megalomania and Racism

2006-09-01T09:42:00.000-04:00

The recent Bush Administration's new refrain entitled "Islamo-Fascism" can only be a new expression of their complete and utter megalomaniac ignorance, at best, and at worse, a ratcheting up of their fear-politics. The result is a policy which appears bent on creating more hate and division in the world. What is even more insidious is their persistent rally cry which aims at painting any dissenter as unpatriotic bordering on a traitor.

This new strategy once again brings to mind the sick methods which gave rise to the moral depravity of the instigators of World War II. Note the words of Hermann Goering during the Nuremberg Trials:

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

Recently, a dear friend of mine and a very able political commentator wrote the following article which appears as an open letter to Bush. He refreshingly voices what many of us have resigned to a falling on deaf ears.

A letter to President Bush
Before a real clash of civilisations becomes reality, Mohamed Hakki* pleads for reason -- and some comprehensive rethinking -- in Washington

Dear President Bush,

It is with my deepest regret that I write this letter to you. People throughout the Middle East have always held every president of the United States in the highest regard, but I have been driven to write this letter after hearing your thoughtless, almost racist, description of our hallowed religion as "Islamo-fascism".

When you first used this expression sometime ago, we thought it was just a slip of the tongue, a stumble. Your more mature advisors would surely soon correct you. When General Boykin used this expression, we thought he would surely be fired. And when other advisors, like Daniel Pipes, used it we ignored it as the unfortunate bigotry of misguided Likudniks, though they seemed to fill the corridors of your administration. It was heartening that you always talked about Islam with respect, considering it part of our mutual heritage of heavenly faiths sent by our one God -- the God in which we all believe, be we Christians, Muslims or Jews. Even after your actions -- all of your actions -- betrayed admiration for, alliance with, and complete support of Israel, even after the whole world watched the total destruction of Lebanon, we thought that these actions were simply the result of a broken moral compass. But when you equate Islam with fascism, you crossed all acceptable lines of behaviour.

Mr President, throughout the last 60 years no American president has ever used his pulpit to so publicly denigrate any human faith, and you, Mr President were held in high esteem because of your previous, positive statements about Islam. You even described it as a religion of peace, which it is.

Fascism, Mr President, as defined by Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language is "a system of government characterised by rigid one party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralised governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism and militarism, etc." Benito Mussolini was one founder of modern fascism, but no one ever accused him of being a "Christo-fascist".

The majority of your people do not agree with your policies or opinions or actions, whether in Iraq or elsewhere. But this, Mr President, is not our fight. This is your problem. This is your legacy, whatever you want to leave behind. But insulting 1.2 billion Muslims is not becoming of the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, the one that your predecessor described as the shining city on the hill. Most of us believed that description.

We thought that if you heard one of your unenlightened advisors using such language you would be a role model, rising above to stop them in their tracks. America is bigger than that. You can embrace the Israelis as much as you want. You can even support their destruction of entire towns and massacres of thousands of civilians. All of this could go under policy failures, or a broken moral compass, but attacking one of God's holiest religions is not a policy failure -- it is much worse than that. And here, Mr President, we part ways. I hope you realise the gravity of the wedge you are creating between the US and those billion Muslims in the world.

As for your call for democracy in the Middle East, the German magazine Der Speigel in an interview with your predecessor, Jimmy Carter, said, "It comes as no surprise that that had been discredited. The former president said, 'My concerns have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon. Israel has no moral justification for its massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon'."Mr President, the majority of Arab-Americans, including myself, were hoping that you would pursue your father's even-handed policies in the Middle East. But when former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil quoted you in your first National Security Council meeting as saying, "We are going to tilt US policy to Israel and we are going to be consistent," we could not believe him. Unfortunately you have tilted it completely and systematically towards Israel.

Mr President, Israel's fight with the Arabs is not your fight. Mature advisors would tell you that Israel is not America. Israel is your delinquent ally. You will spend the rest of your administration trying to clean up Israel's bloody mess. This does not have to be your fate or your destiny or your cross to bear, like a delinquent son. You don't have to pay for their ugly wars. The Arabs collectively declared that they want to live in peace with Israel. The peace proposal adopted by the Arab League in Beirut in 2002 is unequivocal. Please read it, Mr President.

When I was in Rochester, Minnesota, 6 August, I read in The Star Tribune that in 2002 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said to you, "I think we never had such a relationship with any president of the United States." Most Arabs can say the same thing, Mr President, but with exactly the opposite meaning. The irony is that it does not have to be this way. There is no other part of the world where countries have been as consistently friendly and helpful to America as those in the Arab world, despite the long history of injustice, insults and total neglect of their hopes and aspirations. Believe me, Mr President, every Arab I know believes that it is an act of magnanimity that they accept Israel to live among them, but only if Israel accepts to live among them peacefully, forgoing expansionism, creeping annexation and continued settlement enlargement.

Mr Bush, the ball is in your court, but you have to fear God, the one God that we all believe in -- Christians, Muslims and Jews.

* The writer is a political analyst resident in Washington.

Fascism: A Word Not To Be Thrown Lightly

2006-08-21T10:31:00.000-04:00

The following is a piece written by Sergio Romano, an Italian historian, who knows what fascism means, and what it does not. Mr. Bush should know better than to use the word so lightly... or maybe he just doesn't...

Corriere Della Sera, Italy
Lesson for Bush: Saddam is a Fascist, the Islamists are not
By Sergio Romano*
Translation Provided By Nur-al-Cubicle [Nur-al-Cubicle Blog]
August 12, 2006

Today, the word, fascist, has lost its original meaning and simply signifies a certain violence, intolerance and perhaps even a scoundrel. Many of those who use the term have only a vague notion of its meaning, but have understood that it's an insult and therefore good for verbal attacks by political figures. But when the President of the United States says that his country is at war with "Islamo Fascists," even though his declarations are often imprecise, we should suppose that he knows from whence he speaks.

George W. Bush is not the first to use the expression. An American leftist intellectual recently used the term, "Muslim Totalitarianism" and just before the thwarted London bombings, British Minister of the Interior John Reid warned his audience of threats from those who could be termed, fascist. Does Islamo-Fascism therefore exist? And if it does, who are its ideologues, its prominent leaders, and what are its political formations?

Suspicions began to be raised when European diplomats and intelligence agents reported to their governments in the 1930s, that intellectuals and military men of certain Muslim countries expressed a definite interest in and admiration for the fascist regimes [Germany and Italy]. One of the first to realize that such sympathies could be turned into a useful political trump card was [former Italian dictator] Benito Mussolini. From that moment, Fascist Italy began sending out feelers to anti-British and anti-French nationalists in North Africa and in the Levant [countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean], with particular attention to Palestine. An Arab language radio station, Radio Bari, was created. Contacts were made with Habib Bourguiba , founder of the Tunisian nationalist movement, Neo Destur, derived from a prior group called Destur [the word means liberty or constitution], which was more moderate and conciliatory.

When Mussolini went to Libya in 1937, the Colonial Governor, Italo Balbo , arranged an extraordinary welcoming pageant in Bugara, outside Tripoli, where 2000 horsemen saluted him with war hymns and drumrolls. One horseman, Iussuf Kerbisc, rode out of formation and presented Mussolini with A sword of solid gold. At this moment, reverberating next to our own hearts, he told Mussolini, are the hearts of all Muslims of the Mediterranean who, full of admiration and hope, see in you a great Man of State guiding our destiny with a steady hand.
Contacts with Arab nationalists increased during the war, when Italy and Germany hoped to foment an Arab revolt in British Empire's backyard, similar to that led by T. E. Lawrence and Faisal , son of the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca, against the Ottoman Empire in 1916. The principal pawns of this policy were an Iraqi man of state, Rashid Alì al-Gaylani , and the Grand Muftì di Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini .

As Manfredo Martelli recounts in his book, Arab Nationalism and the Policies of Mussolini [I nazionalisti arabi e la politica di Mussolini, Edizioni Settimo Sigillo, 2003], that Rashid Alì al-Gaylani came to power in Baghdad with a coup d'état at the beginning of 1941 and declared war on Great Britain with modest assistance from Axis aviation. It lasted until the end of May, when British troops entered Baghdad and forced him into exile in Iran. He fled to Iran together with the Mufti of Jerusalem, who avoided arrest by the Iranian police and crossed into Turkey (says Martelli), in possession an Italian passport, with dyed hair and a shaved beard. When he finally arrived in Rome on October 10, 1941, he was received by Mussolini in the presence of [Foreign Minister] Galeazzo Ciano . The conversation took place in French, and Mussolini told him that he would spare no effort to assist the Arabs "politically and spiritually." They also spoke of Jewish aspirations for Palestine.

The fascist leader (who, during the 1930s had supported the Zionist Movement against Britain) reassured him. If the Jews want their own state they'll have to build Tel Aviv in America. They are our enemies and there will be no room in Europe for them. From Rome, the Mufti went to Berlin, where he remained until the end of the year. He also made a trip to Bosnia to urge Muslims in the region to collaborate with the Axis; thus, the Handzar Division, comprised of SS who wore distinctive headgear - a red fez - was conceived of.

Al-Gaylani and al-Husseini were not the only friends of the Axis in the Middle East. At the end of 1941, as the Africa Korps advanced toward Alexandria, a group of Egyptian officers gathered intelligence for Rommel's General Staff on the movement of British troops. One of their leaders was Anwar al-Sadat , who became President of Egypt following the death of Nasser . Several crossed over the lines to join Axis troops only to reappear next to Nasser during the 1952 [Egyptian] revolution. Jean Lacouture , in his 1971 biography of Nasser, recounted that during those days, while the Germans and the British were fighting the Battle of al-Alamein , there were demonstrations in Cairo and in Alexandria. The crowd chanted the praises of Rommel and mangled Mussolini's name calling him Mussa Nili, the Moses of the Nile.

But none of these personalities could be considered truly fascist. They were nationalists seeking assistance from the enemies of Great Britain because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." It is certainly true that the nationalist and socialist regimes created in several European countries in the 1920s and 1930s appeared to many Arab and Muslim leaders as appropriate for their needs. The unquestioned authority of the leader, a single party, the role of the armed forces and the bureaucracy, the unbridled use of the police and secret services and the control of society and of the press appeared to be the right ingredients for a nascent state in which the masses were illiterate and the tree of democracy struggled to enroot itself. But not all authoritarian regimes can be considered fascist or communist.

The movement most resembling fascism among those groups which appeared in the Middle East during the 1900s was a movement founded in Syria in 1940. Its founder, Michel Aflaq , was a Syrian Christian. He had studied at the Sorbonne in the 1930s, had participated in the battles between Left and Right in the streets of Paris and had absorbed an intoxicating mix of political literature, from Mazzini to Lenin . He was anti-colonial, pan-Arab, proud of the Arab past but resolutely secular and socialist. When he returned home, he founded the Ba'ath Party [Resurgence or renaissance, in Arabic] and one of his first actions was to join the al-Gaylani revolt against Great Britain in 1941. Aflaq died in 1989, probably in Baghdad, as the guest of a man who had much admired him and who drew on his teachings to organize the Iraqi state. That man was Saddam Hussein.

It was he who created the Party, Saddam Hussein told an interviewer in 1980. How could I possibly forget what Michel Aflaq did for me? If it were not for him, I would never have come to this position. Iraq was therefore the Middle East's most fascist regime in the last few decades. Saddam used the Ba'ath Party to militarize the society, to set up a cult of personality modeled from that of Il Duce and Der Führer, to put the bureaucracy in uniform and to emphasize public works. At the same time, he was a nationalist and, in his own way, a socialist. This was the height of fascism in the Arab world.

But it would be very difficult for me to identify fascism in religiously inspired movements from the Muslim Brotherhood to those that following the Iranian Revolution, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the First Gulf War in 1991. Between the Ba'ath and religious fanaticism, even against a common enemy, there is an unbridgeable divide. Unlike his predecessors, George Bush seems to have forgotten that the greatest enemy of Khomeini's Iran was Saddam Hussein, and that during the long war between the two countries, from 1980 to 1988, the United States supported the fascists against the Islamists.

*Sergio Romano was born in 1929 in Vicenza and earned a law degree from the State University of Milan. Joining the Italian diplomatic service in 1954, Romano served as representative to NATO and ambassador to Moscow during the crucial "perestroika" years. He retired in 1989. He has taught history at the Universities of Florence, Paria, Sassari, Berkeley and Harvard. He holds honorary doctoral degrees from Etudes Politiques of Paris, the University of Macerata and the Institute of Universal History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His most famous published works are Giolitti, the style of power; Gentile, the philosophy of power, Russia in the Balance (il Mulino 1989), and The Decline of the USSR as a World Power and Its Consequences

Israel and the Principle of Proportionality

2006-08-08T16:33:00.000-04:00

Today I was faced with a situation where I was expected to express my views on the legality of Israel's actions in Lebanon in terms of the international legal concept of proportionality. I was in an academic setting being questioned by a scholar with a clear pro-Israel stance. She challenged me to express a legal argument "free from personal bias." Despite the fact that her stance was anything but impersonally guided, I took her advice to heart and found great ease in expressing the illegality of Israel's atrocities in Lebanon from a "purely" academic perspective. I shall leave aside, for the moment, the preposterous belief that any legal view may be detached from a political bias, with the Supreme Court being a case in point.

On the question of what proportionality (in bello) in terms of international law means, there has been much confusion in the media and amongst the talking heads especially with respect to Israel's latest actions in both Gaza and Lebanon. Proportionality in international law does not refer to a situation where one side is constrained by the amount of force its enemy may or may not possess. In other words, because Hezbollah is limited in its weaponry does not mean that Israel must use the same level of force.

Proportionality in the conduct of war means that a state may unilaterally defend itself and/or undertake a reprisal provided the response is proportional to the injury sustained. The injury sustained, according to Israel, is the kidnapping of two of its soldiers. It was only after the commencement of its offensive against Lebanon that Israel expanded this injury to include ending the ability of Hezbollah to launch any further attacks against Israel. Whatever Israel is doing in Lebanon is supposedly in response to that wrong. Thus, proportionality must be evaluated in terms of that expressed wrong.

Fortunately, there is no positive law detailing numbers or ratios of acceptable "collateral damage". However, reasonable people can agree or disagree on what is considered "acceptable" and this level of acceptability is likely to be conditioned by what side of the conflict one sits, in addition to one's value of human life. For me, and for many others, that level has been exceeded in Lebanon. Thus, there are some who would argue that even one innocent civilian death is too many, while others at the other extreme, may draw the line at nuking a village or city if it means weeding out a "terrorist". The important issue here is that the principle does exist and what is in debate is where to draw the line.

However, the laws of war, as enumerated in numerous international conventions such as the Hague Conventions of 1907 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949, underline the fact that there are 2 overriding principles which should guide hostilities, namely, proportionality AND discrimination. This latter principle is defined by immunity of non-combatants from being targeted during times of war. This exclusion extends to civilian infrastructure and property.

Thus, when Israel bombs and kills over 1,200 civilians, decimates homes and destroys basic infrastructure needed by the civilian population to survive, in order, according to its own declarations, to root out 50 Hezbollah combatants, Israel may be held to account for contravening the laws of war - both proportionality and discrimination. The applicable terms are war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.

The issue of proportionality and Israel's action in both Gaza and Lebanon were recently addressed by the Council on Foreign Relations and I quote:

"What is the doctrine of proportionality? The doctrine originated with the 1907 Hague Conventions, which govern the laws of war, and was later codified in Article 49 of the International Law Commission's 1980 Draft Articles on State Responsibility (PDF). The doctrine is also referred to indirectly in the 1977 Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions. Regardless of whether states are party to the treaties above, experts say the principle is part of what is known as customary international law. According to the doctrine, a state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante. That said, experts say the proportionality principle is open to interpretation and depends on the context. "It's always a subjective test," says Michael Newton, associate clinical professor of law at Vanderbilt University Law School. "But if someone punches you in the nose, you don't burn their house down."

The Council article goes on to say: "How does the doctrine apply to the current context in Israel? Many legal experts say Israel's response to the recent abductions has not upheld the principle of proportionality and violates international humanitarian law."

Human Rights Watch website contains a discussion of the Israeli action in Lebanon from the perspective of International Humanitarian Law. One interesting issue discussed relates to the so-called humanitarian Israeli practice of dropping leaflets on trapped civilians exhorting them to leave the vicinity (yet not allowing them the means to comply). Quote:

"Do the warnings given to Lebanese civilians in advance of IDF attacks comply with international humanitarian law? The IDF, through leaflets dropped by aircraft, radio broadcasts and recorded messages to telephones, has repeatedly called on civilians in southern Lebanon to evacuate their areas. International humanitarian law requires that warring parties give “effective advance warning” of attacks that may affect the civilian population, so long as circumstances permit. What constitutes an “effective” warning will depend on the circumstances. Such an assessment would take into account the timing of the warning and the ability of the civilians to leave the area. In some cases the IDF are reported to have dropped leaflets giving residents only two hours warning before a threatened attack. Bomb damage to roads and bridges, as well as air attacks on civilian vehicles, would also affect the ability of civilians to flee an expected attack. Civilians who do not evacuate following warnings are still fully protected by international law. Otherwise, warring parties could use warnings to cause forced displacement, threatening civilians with deliberate harm if they did not heed them. So, even after warnings have been given, attacking forces must still take all feasible precautions to avoid loss of civilian life and property. This includes canceling an attack when it becomes apparent that the target is civilian or that the civilian loss would be disproportionate to the expected military gain."

Today Israel demanded from the civilians of Tyre to evacuate the vicinity yet, in the same leaflet, warned against any attempt to leave in vehicles as all moving vehicles would be targeted for bombing. Does Israel assume that the elderly, young, sick and even the healthy are supposed to make a run for it by foot under the rain of Israeli bombardment across rivers, hills, mountains, and otherwise difficult terrain? In the absence of any other logic, this is beginning to look like an extermination campaign.... and that is a conclusion filled with personal bias not due to any political view but rather as a human being!

The terrorizing and killing of innocent civilians is defined as terrorism, perpetrated by terrorists. Israel has placed this label on Hezbollah. However, righting the wrong that Israel claims does not come about by descending to the same level and sinking even further into moral deficit and legal delict. Shame!

Helen Thomas Shames US Journalists

2006-06-28T15:29:00.000-04:00

Stewart Interview with Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas has been on the watch for 9 presidencies. She is an institution and shames journalists today with their failure to uphold the people's right to know.

Forget Mission Drift, Iraq is Pure Excuse Drift

2006-06-23T15:48:00.000-04:00

In 2002 as the Bush administration was developing its War Stool (see earlier posts), one of the key architects, Dick Cheney declared that war was necessary to protect the American people and its allies because, as he put it:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
Vice President Cheney in an address to the Veterans of Korean War, San Antonio, Texas, Aug. 29, 2002
Four years and the above assertion exposed as a lie later, the tune has drastically changed to one focused on a supposed nexus between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda, on the one hand, and the freedom of the Iraqi people to live in peace and harmony under democracy, on the other. It doesn't really matter that the former is a lie and ill-conceived efforts toward the latter has resulted in civil war proving that peace, freedom and democracy do not come through foreign occupation and the barrel of a gun.
The following captures the new tune the Bush Administration is marching to:

"Our strategy that we adopted after 9/11 of progressively going after the terrorists, going after states that sponsor terror, taking the fight to the enemy, has been crucial in terms of our being able to defend the United States. I think one of the reasons we have not been struck again in five years -- and nobody can promise we won't -- but it's because we've taken the fight to them. And if Jack Murtha is successful in persuading the country that somehow we should withdraw now from Iraq, then you have to ask, what happens to all of those people who have signed up with the United States, who are on our side in this fight against the radical extremist Islamic types of bin Laden and al Qaeda?What happens to the 12 million Iraqis who went to the polls last December and voted, in spite of the assassins and the car bombers? "
Vice President Cheney in an interview with CNN's John King, June 22, 2006
I am sorry, but what just happened here? I know that politicians tend to think that no one is actually listening to them, but when it comes to war, I think some of us do. When did the reason for going to war in Iraq at the cost of life, limb and treasure suddenly change??? Didn't we go to war because Iraq had WMD, might use them on us or give them to terrorists, and the Iraqi people were ruled by a vile tyrant and they needed our help (a third reason thrown in as an afterthought)? Then, when we discovered that there were no WMD, we started hearing how great it was that the Iraqi people could now live in peace and democracy, and that was supposedly a good enough reason for having gone to war. And, now that we are discovering that neither peace nor democracy are happening any time soon, we are expected to believe that there is a NEW reason that we went to war three years ago? Suddenly, Iraq's Al Qaeda connection went from a few possible meetings between low level operatives, to Iraq being a bastion of Al Qaeda terrorists under Saddam? If that was the case, why didn't we hear it then?
Reasons for going to war cannot be concocted after-the-fact unless we are willing to accept that we go to war and lie about why later.
In an interesting discussion I had today concerning Cheney's new refrain with a man currently serving in the US military, he rationalized that while terrorists in general and Al Qaeda in specific may not have been in cohorts with Saddam Hussein pre-2003, there was some benefit to the war in Iraq because the war served to act as a "light to draw the mosquitoes", and it also offered the US military training grounds to learn how to combat the terrorists!!!!

Needless to say, I had a surreal moment. Is it possible that this is how we are now rationalizing going to war in a foreign country that posed no threat to the US resulting in the death of over 40,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, over 2,500 US military personnel and thousands upon thousands of injured and maimed, not to mention the cost of billions of dollars??? My response to him was that the Iraq war did indeed attract terrorists from all over the world offering them yet another pathetic rallying cry, but those it drew are the minority of those fighting the US occupation in Iraq and killing innocent Iraqis. What the Iraq War did accomplish is create a swamp of blood, tears, injustice and misery which served to BIRTH new terrorists; the Iraq War is a swamp for mosquito breeding!!!

Vice President Cheney, the world had no Iraq terrorist problem before 2003. The United States and its hapless 'coalition of the willing' created the Iraqi terrorist problem for Iraq and the world.
As for the gentleman's comment on how the Iraq 'theater' offers the US military on-the-job training, I really don't know what to say..... except how sad. Actually, I do know what to say... That is just criminal.

Iraq War Implications for United Nations, Law and Just War

2006-06-12T13:43:00.000-04:00

As I have written before, the US Iraq war project rested on a three-leg stool, namely that the 2003 invasion was a valid and necessary response to over 12 years of Iraqi intransigence, was necessary to prevent Iraq from threatening the world with its assumed weapons of mass destruction and its possible alliance with Al-Qaeda, and was necessary to bring to an end the suffering of the Iraqi people and usher in the dawn of democracy in Iraq and eventually the Middle East region. My earlier posts have attempted to illustrate how justifications of the war in Iraq were constructed to appear legitimate, while an analysis of its claimed legitimacy suggests otherwise. With any pressure, brought on by even a cursory examination, this war stool falls flat. However, if these types of war justifications emerge as acceptable practice, there may be severely altering implications for both international law and perceptions of just war.

The US-led invasion of Iraq threatens severe consequences to customary international law, and the veracity of the UN Charter regime. The greatest threat lies in the international community not acting to refute the legitimacy of the political strategy expressed in both the 2002, and, as reformulated, in the 2006 United States National Security Strategy. The US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq has shaken the foundation of the international legal order, and unless international actors, states and organizations, address this backward-looking moral trajectory, there is a threat of the slippery-slope of reverting to unconstrained aggression by and between states, with the added dimension posed by the activities of illegitimate non-state actors. As noted by Lori Fisler Damrosch and Bernard Oxman in an introductory article in the 2003 issue of the American Journal of International Law focused on the legality and impact of the Iraq war, “(t)he military action against Iraq in spring 2003 is one of the few events of the UN Charter period holding the potential for fundamental transformation, or possibly even destruction, of the system of law governing the use of force that had evolved during the twentieth century…. The implications of the war for the future of the international system may depend in some measure on whether the issue of its legality is limited to interpretation of Security Council resolutions applicable only to Iraq, or broadened to embrace the very meaning, utility, and vitality of the Charter’s basic provisions on the use of force and self-defense.”[1]

Just war doctrine has evolved through the centuries with the objective of defining a common understanding of how the horrors of war may be limited when war becomes the only possible means of human interaction; its objective is to avert conflict whenever possible and end conflict sooner rather than later if it must occur. Recognizing that peace is not the mere absence of war, the international community has seen to expand the just causes of war to include humanitarian intervention to avert human catastrophe and end further human suffering. Regime change, while perhaps a valid political objective is not an underlying tenant of humanitarian intervention as widely accepted by the states of the world. Recognizing that an argument for humanitarian intervention would not stand in the Iraq context, the US has attempted to frame democracy as a basic human right deserving of military intervention in order to bring about. If such an argument is accepted, the definition of humanitarian intervention would be expanded to incorporate engendering democratization through the barrel of a gun, or “at the tip of a spear”.[2] The potential consequence of this may be to allow states to justify military intervention into neighboring states to instill political systems acceptable to the intervening state. On the other hand, a failure to intervene in a country suffering under a non-democratic system, would engender feelings of double standards and thus adding fuel to already volatile senses of injustice around the world.

Essentially the debate around the US notion of preventive war is not only one that threatens to revert the world to a pre-Westphalian era, but also implies the acceptance as a moral given the right of a state that perceives a potential threat, rather than faces an actual imminent intent to harm, to take anticipatory military action. Such rationale harkens back to historic times of past millennia where the mighty to preserve their predominance would crush potential adversaries wherever they may be perceived. Such is the rationale which accepted that the mighty may do as they will and the weak as they must. Such is the rationale which based on potential threat scenarios justified a war resulting in death and destruction, with the unjustified loss of both blood and treasure. The moral trajectory set in motion by such thinking is imbued with notions of superior righteousness and conceptions of the future rather than an acceptance of the world’s diversity and a grip on reality. The world after the great wars of the last century chose to break such cycles which it identified as being immoral, but also self-harming. With respect to just war, the US-led invasion of Iraq serves to underscore and strengthen just war principles if only because it stands as such a stark illustration of injustice, but also because it proves that the morality and self-interest that underscores just war principles is validated.

[1] Damrosch, Lori Fisler and Bernard H. Oxman. “Editor’s Introduction” in The American Journal of International Law, (Vol. 97, No. 3, Jul., 2003, pp. 553-557 at 553-554). Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9300%28200307%2997%3A3%3C553%3AEI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I
[2] Franklin Eric Wester, “Preemption and Just War: Considering the Case of Iraq”, in Parameters, (U.S. Army War College, December, 22, 2004, Vol. 34, Issue 4, pg. 36), found at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/04winter/wester.pdf

Shame on CNN - Murdered Palestinians Not Worthy of Coverage

2006-06-09T13:37:00.000-04:00

Today Israel's army shot artillery into a family of Palestinians enjoying a Friday afternoon on the beach. In all seven people were murdered including 3 children. Israel claims it is carrying out an investigation into the incident. What is surprising is not the atrocity itself, which has become a normal affair in Israeli occupied Palestine. What I found surprising is that after I saw it on the BBC website, I went to CNN and could find no mention of it anywhere! CNN claims to be the "best place for news" but it seems it is the best place for filtered biased news instead. This is in contrast to the BBC (not itself exactly a liberal entity) which put it as the lead story on its news homepage. You can find the story on Reuters here. Even Fox News carried the story... As for the BBC... here is their story
BBC News
Palestinians killed on Gaza beach
Seven people, including three children, have been killed by Israeli shells which hit a beach in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say.
At least 30 people were wounded in the shelling, they say.

The Israeli military says it has halted all shelling of Gaza and has launched an inquiry into whether ground-based artillery could have been involved.

Four other people were also killed in separate Israeli air strike in northern Gaza on Friday, Palestinians said.

The incidents come a day after senior Palestinian official Jamal Abu Samhadana was killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah, the southern Gaza.

We know it's not from the air force and not from the navy and we are checking if it was artillery [fire]. We also don't know for certainty if it was Israeli fire
Israeli army spokesman Jacob Dallal

Samhadana - the founder of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) - was buried in Rafah on Friday, with thousands of mourners pledging to avenge his death.

Samhadana was one of Israel's most wanted men in Gaza, and his group has been blamed for a series of missile attacks on Israel.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli strikes in Gaza.

"What the Israeli occupation forces are doing in the Gaza Strip constitutes a war of extermination and bloody massacres against our people," Mr Abbas said in a statement carried by the Palestinian official Wafa news agency.

UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said London was "deeply concerned by reports of the deaths from Israeli shelling of civilians, including children, on a Gaza beach".

"The killing of innocent civilians is utterly unacceptable and we urge the Israelis to undertake an investigation into this incident," Ms Beckett said.

Devastation
Palestinian officials say the seven people killed on the Gaza Strip beach included two women as well as the three children.

The first television pictures revealed a terrible scene, the BBC's Alan Johnston says.

At least four figures lay unconscious on the ground, possibly dead, our correspondent says.

A little further away, a man was lying on a sand dune, perhaps fatally injured, while a child stood looking on in utter horror, our correspondent says.

He says around the casualties were tables and chairs, and it looks very much as if this was a family enjoying their Friday afternoon off on the beach when disaster struck.

Israeli reaction
An Israeli army spokesman said Chief of Staff Dan Halutz had ordered an immediate stop to all artillery shelling of Gaza while an investigation was carried out into the beach shelling.

The spokesman told the BBC initial findings suggested the shell which killed the people could not have been fired from an Israeli naval vessel or from the air.

He said the army was investigating the possibility that it may have been fired by ground-based artillery.

For many months, the Israelis have been pounding away at open areas such as fields and orchards in an effort to prevent Palestinian militants using them to fire their home-made missile into crudely made missiles into nearby Israeli territory.

The Iraq War Project, International Law and Just War

2006-06-01T16:50:00.000-04:00

Hypocrisy is rife in wartime discourse, because it is especially important at such a time to appear to be in the right…. The hypocrite presumes on the moral understanding of the rest of us…. If we had all become realists like the Athenian generals or like Hobbists in a state of war, there would be an end alike to both morality and hypocrisy. We would simply tell one another, brutally and directly, what we want to do or have done. But the truth is that one of the things we most want, even in war, is to act or seem to act morally.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars [1]

The 2003 invasion of Iraq is not only in contradiction to norms of customary international law as well as positive international law, but also should be considered a war of unjust cause, and, in turn, is being prosecuted unjustly. From Aquinas to the Scholastics to Grotius and Kant, just war doctrine, and natural law’s concept of jus gentium, has emerged as a constitutive element of both customary and positive international law[2]. Accordingly, any assessment of the construction of the Bush Iraq war stool requires an understanding of the constitutive elements as they relate to international law, and, more broadly, to just war doctrine.

As a preliminary note to limit any revisionist pitfalls, there has been no attempt to discuss the veracity of the claims put forth by the Bush administration or any other member of the ‘coalition of the willing’ to justify going to war, nor of the veracity of claims made about events likely to occur after going to war, merely that such claims were made as justification for war suffices for analysis, irrespective of their validity. It is the intellectual construction of these justifications, not their validity, which is being assessed. This distinction is important because even if the argument for war was deemed to rest on both valid legal and moral grounds yet the factual claims underlying the arguments turned out to be unfounded due to faulty intelligence or intentions, or both, the debate would then revolve around a revisionist assessment of who knew what, when and how, and what was done with the information, rather than an assessment of the validity of the war project itself. The fact that all such claims have proven faulty, at best, post-facto only underscores the value of adhering to accepted legal and moral standards as preconditions to engaging in a war project. The focus here is on whether such standards were met and the potential implications of such practice being accepted as a new legal and moral benchmark.

Jus Ad Bellum
Just war doctrine has developed over the past two thousand years (or longer if a non-Euro/Christian centric view is taken) as the guiding normative framework for affairs of war and peace between peoples and states.[3] As the doctrine has evolved, distinction is made between two components of just war, namely, the justice of going to war, jus ad bellum, and justice during war, jus in bello.[4] With respect to jus ad bellum, the focus of the analysis here, the overwhelming majority of recent just war ethicists agree that there are six components that require satisfaction for a war to be deemed as justly waged,[5] namely, proper authority, just cause/intent, public declaration, proportionality, last resort and probability of success.[6] The analysis will involve an assessment of how satisfactorily elements of these components applied in the context of the war in Iraq, which, when relevant, will involve a normative application of international law.

Proper Authority – No United Nations Sanction
An essential prerequisite of jus ad bellum rests in the legitimacy of the party waging war on another party; this principle is captured in the concept of ‘proper authority’. On the level of municipal actions, proper authority is derived from the governing laws of the state. In the arena of international relations, states, in joining the United Nations, recognize such authority to be with the Security Council. Increasingly, an emerging norm of authority is being recognized at a regional level, as well, such as in the case of the actions of ECOWAS in west Africa and NATO in the Balkans, especially when such regional groupings are recognized by the UN and are granted observer status. While such regional action was not sanctioned by the United Nations prior to the military action, in neither case was the action decried. In the case of NATO, a draft resolution to condemn the intervention in Kosovo was resoundingly defeated in the Security Council by a vote of 12 to 3[7], and in the case of ECOWAS, actions in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote D’Ivoire did not even engender Security Council debate, while later SCR commended ECOWAS peacekeeping efforts post-facto.[8] The ad-hoc action of a coalition of states, acting under no particular organization, either the UN or a recognized regional pact, such as in the case of the action in Iraq by the ‘coalition of the willing’, can be seen to lie at a lower level of authority. At the lowest level of authority lies unilateral action of a state. Such a delineation of levels of authority suggests a continuum from an extreme of ‘proper authority’ under the consensus explicit in a Security Council resolution to the lowest level of a lack of authority explicit in unilateral military action taken by a state with no sanction either from an international body or even a coalition state. Such a conceptualization is depicted in Figure 2[9]. The analysis is based on the four levels of authority discussed plotted against the level of international consensus implied by that level of authority. The consensus parameter only serves to depict the relationship of state approval/acceptance implied by levels of authority and as such is a latent descriptor and not an explanatory variable. Within this framework is plotted various military actions post-1945 with the start of the UN Charter Regime.

Figure 2: Proper Authority Continuum - missing (to be uploaded later)
* Note: In the case of NATO in Kosovo and ECOWAS in Liberia, the number of consenting states is imputed from the number of member states of the organization itself, in addition to the remaining number of UN member states less dissenting states in GA and SC debates. See Gray footnote 46 and Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace?, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

The above analysis illustrates the significance of proper authority in just war. To the extent that war can be just, the justice must be perceived by the states that are called upon to accept this justice. To the extent that international law is predicated on an expression of the consent of the community of states, proper authority can only rest with the organizations that represent such consent. In view of this, did the US-led action in Iraq in 2003 fulfill the jus ad bellum criterion of ‘proper authority’, or does it belong in such a low rating on the ‘proper authority’ continuum as depicted in Figure 2? Such an answer can be sought from an analysis of the events within the Security Council leading up to the March 2003 invasion.

Determining proper authority in the case of the war on Iraq depends on the argument being put forward to justify the invasion. As noted, the war in Iraq has been argued both as a case of preventive war, implying unilateral action, as well as a case of a final battle in the war begun in 1990 with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and Iraq’s subsequent refusal to fulfill its ceasefire obligations, thus invoking United Nations authority. In the case of humanitarian intervention, the third justification, proper authority would also rest with the United Nations, or, based on emerging practice, on a regional organization, such as the Arab League, or possibly, NATO. In the case of Iraq, the US did seek NATO support but was rejected, and the Arab League condemned any action against Iraq. At this point, the US and the UK directed their appeal for consent to the United Nations Security Council. When this was rejected, the US with an ad-hoc coalition invoked the right to self-defense under its newly crafted doctrine of preventive war. It should be noted, however, that the UK and most other members of the ‘coalition of the willing’ did not rely on the US preventive war argument, and, instead, relied on interpretations of SCR. What then was the Security Council debate under question?

Between August 1990 and May 2003[10], the United Nations Security Council issued fifty-seven resolutions (SCR) concerning Iraq. In 1990, the SC unanimously passed resolution 660 condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. A few weeks later, it issued resolution 678 again calling upon Iraq to comply with relevant resolutions and authorizing member states to use all means necessary to force Iraq to comply. Thus, for the first time in its history, the United Nations had invoked Chapter VII military action against a UN member state. In March 1991, the SC passed SCR 686 which declared an end to hostilities against Iraq. SCR 687 then called upon Iraq to unconditionally accept weapons inspections and set up the UN-managed inspection regime of Iraq’s military capabilities including WMD program. During the rest of the 1990’s and up until SCR 1441 of November 2002, the UN had cited Iraq for numerous infractions of its inspection obligations. SCR 1441 warned of serious consequences, but stopped short of using the same language of SCR 678 authorizing the use of force. It should also be noted that all military actions undertaken by the US and the UK in monitoring and enforcing the ‘no-fly zones’ in the north and south of Iraq during the 1990’s were undertaken without SC authorization. From this scenario, emerged the debate for and against military action against Iraq based on two opposing readings and interpretations of the relevant SCRs.

Those in favor of military action argued that the situation in Iraq represented ongoing action against Iraq as a result of its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Accordingly, as Iraq was in material breach of its cease-fire obligations, SCR 1441 automatically invoked the authorization to use force under SCR 678. Those opposing such an interpretation argue that there was no automacity implied in SCR 1441, and, in fact, during debates it was made clear by most members of the Security Council that SCR 1441 should not be interpreted as automatically invoking SCR 678. It is due to the strength of this position that the UK called upon the US to request a second explicit resolution from the SC authorizing the use of force. When France declared that it would veto any such resolution, the US and the UK offered none. Instead, the US and the UK reverted to their earlier position, asserting that SCR 1441 offered all the sanction they needed. The majority of the member state of the UN disagreed with this position. In fact, the UN Secretary General took the unusual step of declaring the war in Iraq to be illegal.[11]

As noted by Vaughan Lowe, by far the greatest argument against the action in Iraq as having been undertaken with proper authority is the sheer weakness of the argument which pales in the face of the enormity of what is being justified, namely war resulting in massive death and destruction. “It is said that Resolution 1441 would in terms have provided that a further decision of the Security Council to sanction force was required, if that had been intended. That raises a more basic point. It is simply unacceptable that a step as serious and important as a massive military attack upon a State should be launched on the basis of a legal argument dependent upon dubious inferences drawn from the silences in resolution 1441 and the muffled echoes of earlier resolutions, unsupported by any contemporary authorization to use force. No domestic court in the United States or the United Kingdom would tolerate governmental action based upon such flimsy arguments.”[12]

Just Cause/Intent – Regime Change and Humanitarian Intervention
Having a meritorious cause is a basic tenet of jus ad bellum and just war doctrine. Just cause from Aquinas to Vitoria and Suarez is seen to exist in one of two postures, defensive and offensive, where the former is intended toward defending against an impeding injustice and the later intended towards rectifying an injustice having occurred. The modern equivalent of this dichotomy is self-defense and justifiable intervention such as in the case of an outright aggression. In either case, the objective is to restore the status quo ante bellum. Recent departures from this later requirement arises in the case of humanitarian intervention as an emerging norm of justifiable intervention, which by definition, may not result in a restoration of the pre-war condition since that was the condition which precipitated the intervention to begin with. In such an instance, the criteria becomes whether or not the intervention was to avert or stem an overwhelming human catastrophe, and where the intended beneficiary of the intervention should be the people of the state being intervened in. Retribution is not an element of just cause.

In the case of the 2003 Iraq war project, if one takes the position that the 2003 invasion was a continuation of the 1991 Gulf War as a final battle in one war effort, then jus ad bellum requirements of just intent become moot. However, this first requires an acceptable and cogent argument that it is indeed a continuation of the 1991 war effort and it assumes that such an argument was made by the US and its allies. In the first instance, as noted in the earlier discussion concerning proper authority, the US and the UK failed to convince the majority of states that military action was indeed an automatic outcome of Iraq’s 1990 aggression against Kuwait. However, in the second instance, while the European members of the ‘coalition of the willing’ based much of their arguments on such interpretations of the Security Council resolutions, the US focused on the doctrine of preventive war as expressed in its 2002 National Security Strategy.

The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively. …. the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather.
United States National Security Strategy, 2002

Preventive war, to be understood as distinct from preemptive war, is not a recognized principle of either international law or just war doctrine. For further clarity, preemptive war arises when, in self-defense, a state acts with military force to avert a clear, present and imminent danger.[13] Such a right of self-defense was upheld in the Caroline case in 1837.[14] On the other hand, “[p]reventive war has no legal or ethical sanction, because the threat is neither clear nor present.”[15] The Bush Administration’s preventive war doctrine, as prosecuted in the invasion of Iraq it led in 2003, it is here argued, may be an expression of a political and hegemonic prerogative, however, it is not a legal one, nor is it just. As noted by Arthur Schlesinger, advisor to President Kennedy, “[O]ne of the astonishing events of recent months is the presentation of preventive war as a legitimate and moral instrument of U.S. foreign policy.”[16]

As a result of the events of September 1, the United Nations issued SCR 1368 and 1373 which raised acts of terrorism to the level of threats of national security legitimizing self-defense action under Article 51 of the UN Charter. It is on this basis that the US led its invasion of Afghanistan; it is this argument that the US predominantly relied on to justify war with Iraq. While in the case of Afghanistan, the US was defending itself against Al Qaeda and their state-protectors, the Taliban, in the case of war on Iraq, the argument rested on a conflation of the same ‘war on terrorism’ and the fear of Iraqi (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of Al Qaeda. The US rationale for preventive war with Iraq fails the test of legality for the following reasons:

1 - The basis for a state’s right to claim both self-defense and collective self-defense emerges from the UN Charter, Security Council resolutions and case law including the Caroline and Nicaragua[17] cases. This right was extended to include terrorism both by UN SC Resolutions 1368 and 1373 as well as the UN sanctioned strike against Afghanistan. While there is indication that both customary international law and the United Nations recognize the right of a state to defend itself in the face of state-sponsored terrorism, the requirements of necessity and proportionality still apply, neither of which exists in the case of Iraq, which had never attacked, threatened to attack or supported terrorists against the US or any of its allies. If there is no necessity, there can be no case for proportionality and thus no case for collective self-defense. Furthermore, while the US and Israel have argued that terrorists can be hit no matter where they reside, international law has not yet recognized such indiscriminate pursuit within a third-party state especially if no support to the terrorists can be attributable to this third party state.

2 - As a result of the 1991 Gulf War, the UN instituted a regimen of economic sanctions and weapons inspection against Iraq in line with UN Charter Chapter VII and specifically Article 41 and 48. Those in charge of these programs declared to the UN that there were signs that such sanctions and inspections were working[18]. At the UN, France spoke to the general belief among UN member states and against the US/UK claims and declared that the inspections should be allowed to continue. The US-led ad-hoc coalition decided to disregard international opinion and the jurisdiction of both the UN and the IAEA, specifically Article 48 which stipulates that the Security Council is to decide which member states are to take action, thus putting itself outside the internationally recognized realm of legal remedy.

3 - However, even despite this and assuming that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction, international law does not sanction a war against another state for merely possessing such weapons. Even Bush’s own doctrine of pre-emptive strike assumes that there is at least the threat of a potential attack. The UN Charter under Article 42 requires the UN to declare when and if there exists a potential threat to the peace, let alone an actual breach of the peace. Furthermore, first-resort remedies should be in favor of peaceful means in the absence of imminent threat. There was no imminent threat, there was no expressed threat, there was no clandestine threat, and there was no real or legal basis for a determination of a threat to peace and security of the US or any of its allies. Thus, the US defense of its war against Iraq is both illegal as a basis and factually erroneous in substance, as was declared before the US-led military action against Iraq.

The third reason given by the US for invasion of Iraq is that it was to free the Iraqi people of a brutal dictator and thus bring about regime change and democracy. ‘Regime change’ is not a justification recognized under international law, nor is it a principle that can satisfy the jus ad bellum requirement of just intent that the status quo ante bellum be restored. In fact, it can be argued that it is in direct contradiction to both customary and UN-recognized law of the sovereignty of nations as reaffirmed in the UN General Assembly Resolution (2625 of 1970) on Principles of Friendly Relations Among States[19]. Regime change which results from legitimate action taken against a state may be an acceptable consequence, but it cannot be a rationale in itself for the action.[20]

Furthermore, a political objective of ‘regime change’ should not be confused with a humanitarian objective of ‘regime change’. The former entails a change to achieve an outcome desired by the belligerent for the benefit of the belligerent; the latter assumes an action whose prime objective is to benefit the oppressed people suffering under the would-be vanquished tyrant. One is self-serving; the second serves others. As noted by Dominic McGoldrick, “the legal debate on the Iraqi crisis was not conducted by states in terms of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. That doctrine had been invoked by the UK for its military intervention in Kosovo in 1999. For the US ‘regime change’ in Iraq was an explicit war objective… A number of states made statements in the SC debates to the effect that action aimed at regime change was contrary to international law. It is interesting to note that the humanitarian intervention argument has become more prevalent in the debates on the Iraq War as clear evidence weapons of mass destruction has not been found. Such retroactive justifications should be treated with much caution.”[21]

As it turned out, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction as had been concluded before the invasion and reported by both the head of the UN weapon’s inspection effort, Hans Blix[22] and by Mohamed Elbaradei, the head of the IAEA. Furthermore, both the intelligence communities of the US and the UK had concluded before the initial invasion that Iraq had no links with Al Qaeda, let alone to the events of 9/11[23]. While not accepting the reality of such conclusions, the US then began to place greater efforts in emphasizing that its war was aimed at serving the Iraqi people to save them from its brutal dictator and usher in a new era with a government of and for the Iraqi people based on democratic values and freedoms. However, as noted above and argued by Christine Gray[24], among others, retroactive arguments of humanitarian intervention, render them questionable, at best.

Humanitarian intervention, nevertheless, is emerging as a valid element of customary international law with a potential impact on traditional notions of state sovereignty. A point made by the recent United Nations backed The Responsibility To Protect project and report[25], is that state sovereignty must be viewed as a conditional right of states contingent upon their ability to protect the human rights of its citizenry. Accordingly, it becomes the obligation of ‘freedom-loving’ states to stand up for those citizens whose rights are being abrogated by tyrants or rogue elements because their states have failed to protect them. However, to rise to the level of a situation requiring an intervention, the scale of the offense must be so grave that the intervention is necessary to avert or stem a human catastrophe. While there is every indication that Saddam Hussein committed crimes against humanity, such offenses occurred years earlier (and in many cases with the full knowledge, at least, of ‘freedom-loving’ states of the world), no such human catastrophe was being perpetrated or threatened at the time preceding the invasion which may have been used as a legitimate cause for intervention. In fact, the only indication of Iraqi human suffering was occurring during most of the decade following the first war on Iraq in 1990 as a result of the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations and unilaterally militarily enforced by the United States and the United Kingdom. Thus, an argument for humanitarian intervention in the case of Iraq in 2003 amounts to nothing less than delayed retribution for past acts with no cause for immediate action.

Public Declaration – Explicit Intent Fully Declared
Jus ad bellum conditions require the invading/protagonist state to announce its intentions so as to offer opportunity to the antagonist to the conflict (the supposed errant causing delict) to take necessary and required action to avert the war. In the case of the 2003 Iraq war project, the US and the UK made their intentions ultimately clear during the weeks and months leading to the initiation of hostilities. To avoid a war, on March 17, 2003 the US imposed a 48-hour ultimatum[26] to Saddam Hussein and his two sons to vacate Iraq. The first military strikes were on March 19, 2003.

Proportionality – Expecting the Gain to Outweigh the Pain
Jus ad bellum’s fourth element of just war concerns the expectations of the war effort in that the expected good from the overall destruction caused by the use of force is expected to outweigh the harm caused, or, in other words, comparative justice results when a lesser evil emerges from an action such that the suffering in bello and post bello is proportionally less than the suffering ad bellum. Thus, the objective of proportionality is to avoid war if its cost in terms of “blood and treasure” outweighs the cost of nonintervention. Implied in this conundrum is an assessment of the actual gains from the Iraq war in light of the losses. However, that would involve a post bello assessment whereas the operative element of the equation is the expectations ad bellum. In other words and according to the argument used, there was the assumption that, if the war was just, by not going to war, the impact on Iraq and the world would be far worse. Accordingly, a proportionate response would necessitate action to achieve a better outcome for all the parties concerned. Without engaging in post bello assessments, was such an assumption reasonable at the time? In other words, did the US have reasonable cause on March 18, 2003 to believe that the world was worse off than it would be on March 20, 2003? As noted, the majority of the world disagreed with the US assessment. The fact that the rest of the world turned out to be right, is not the indicting fact here. What is indicting is that had the US allowed for proper application of the proportionality criterion, the greater evil may have been avoided.

Last resort – Defining Imminence
In the absence of imminent threat, is war ever a last resort? In other words, if there is no time-sensitive reason for going to war today rather than tomorrow, is there not always something other than war that can be resorted to first? Aside from the logical and philosophical rhetorics of such a question, last resort is an operational element of jus ad bellum. As noted by the weapons inspectors from Hans Blix to Mohamed El Baradei, the inspections were working, yet more time was needed to accomplish the mission.[27] Since Iraq, as noted earlier, had not threatened the US or any other member of the ‘coalition of the willing’ (or any other state, for that matter), nor was there any evidence of a clandestine threat, imminence was not a credible argument in the rush to war. As ably argued by Michael Walzer, Saddam Hussein was a threat, but not an imminent one, and, thus he supported options short of resorting to war. He argued before the war started, “[t]he right way to oppose the war is to argue that the present system of containment and control is working and can be made to work better. This means we should acknowledge the awfulness of the Iraqi regime and the dangers it poses and then aim to deal with those dangers through coercive measures short of war.”[28]

Probability of Success – Depends on Definition of Success
The final component of jus ad bellum aims to avoid pointless efforts to either wage war or defend against it. In other words, just cause if not backed by adequate might cannot result in justice and only yields yet more carnage. Assumed in such a calculation is the definition of success. If success is measured in terms of military objectives of vanquishing an enemy, then the assessment becomes a material calculation of might. However, if success entails rectifying an injustice such as in the case of a humanitarian intervention involving regime change and encompassing an occupation, then calculation of success extends beyond military might.

Clearly in the case of the US-led Iraq war project, immediate military success was a high probability. However, the US declared objectives, and thus its assessment of success, extended beyond mere decapitation of the Iraqi regime and decimation of its armed forces. Success, as defined by the US, entailed regime change, disarming, democratization and social, institutional and economic reconstruction. Calculating a probability, by definition, entails a reasonable assessment of all required inputs and a reasonable anticipation of all possible outcomes. Without resorting to revisionism, did the US prior to invading Iraq have a plan that would result in a high probability of success in terms of its war objectives? Did the US and its allies request adequate monetary resources for the post-bellum reconstruction? Did the US put forth adequate plans to win the “heart and minds” of the Iraqi people so as to ensure an avoidance of civil strife and the possibility of democratization? Did the US and its allies engage regional states, with the most to gain from a stable Iraq, let alone the states of the world, to ensure their participation in rebuilding post-war Iraq? If the answers to these questions is no, as the majority of the states in the United Nations saw it at the time, then the US and its allies failed to define their war objectives in such a way as to claim a high probability of success. As noted earlier, in the case of the 1991 Gulf War, the parameters of success were clear and achievable. In the case of the 2003 Iraq war project, success was as elusive as the war objectives were questionable.

Jus In Bello
This paper’s focus is on the road to the war with Iraq, however, in so focusing and by way of a causal link, it also addresses the justice of the actual war prosecution. As noted, a just war rests on two elements: the justice of going to war (jus ad bellum), as well as the justice in war (jus in bello). The elements of jus in bello are discrimination and proportionality where discrimination relates to the minimization of harm to non-combatants, as well as civilian property and infrastructure. Proportionality in the case of jus in bello relates to the overall destruction resulting from the use of force such that, on balance, it is outweighed by the objective achieved, whether this is the military imperative or the civilian benefit.

The distinction between the two elements of jus in bello emerged as a means of distinguishing the judgments that were involved in prosecuting a war as opposed to deciding to go to war.[29] As such, jus in bello criterion are essential guidelines for soldiers and their leaders in their everyday strategic and tactical decisions and actions in war. However, it becomes highly morally questionable, if not intellectually dishonest, when a causal break is assumed to exist between the two as though to argue that it is possible for an unjust war to be fought justly. Such a criterion may be useful, and even necessary, for the soldier to keep in his mind’s eye as he aims his weapon, however, it can not become a legal or moral excuse for the politician to assuage his responsibility for causing that soldier to be pointing the weapon in the first place, especially if based on unjust reasons. The causal link of responsibility between jus ad bellum and jus in bello may exist for the soldier in that he can choose to fight justly or unjustly, but the link can never be broken for the ruler who places the soldier in that position to begin with.

Jus in bello is based on the precepts of discrimination and proportionality, and the resulting tension between the two. Proportionality assumes, on balance, a positive outcome of the military imperative weighed against the costs, in terms of life and treasure. If the military imperative, or the cause of war, is seen to be unjust, there can be no net positive proportionality; a negative plus a negative only sinks us further into moral deficit. An unjust war cannot be fought justly for the simple reason that any death or destruction founded on unjust purpose would be, by definition, purposeless, or worse, of ill-purpose, and, thus, unjust. Accordingly, unless a war based on an unjust cause is prosecuted with 100% discrimination, it cannot be fought justly. Any indiscriminate death or destruction would be unacceptable, and since that has been impossible in Iraq as noted earlier, there can be no justice in fighting the war in Iraq.

[1] Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust War: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations. (New York: Basic Books, 2000, originally published in 1977), p. 20.
[2] See Oliver O’ Donovan, The Just War Revisited, (Cambridge, UK: Press Syndicate of University of Cambridge, 2003), especially chapter 1, for a discussion of the relationship between international law and its development to classical just war doctrine.
[3] For a review of the global evolution of just war doctrine and natural law theory, see Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), Terry Nardin (ed.), The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996), H. Patrick Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), and Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars.
[4] On May 2, 2003, President Bush declared an end to hostilities and that the US had prevailed in its ‘Battle of Iraq’ in a speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and, thus, began the on-going occupation of Iraq by the US-led ‘coalition of the willing’. For the purposes of this analysis, a third element of just war doctrine, jus post bello, or the justice after cessation of hostilities relating to the responsibilities of the occupying forces in reconstruction and security of the occupied country and its people during occupation, is not addressed here. It should be noted, however, to the extent that the Iraq war project had the express objective of ‘regime change’ and thus no status quo ante bellum would result, jus post bello issues are implied. See the discussion of just cause.
[5] O’Donovan wisely notes a caveat to thinking in terms of just and unjust wars. He notes, “it is very often supposed that just-war theory undertakes to validate or invalidate particular wars. That would be an impossible undertaking. History knows no just wars, as it knows of no just peoples…. The task of political ethics at this point is to provide as full a general account of the reconciling praxis of judgment as may be possible.” (p. 13)
[6] The six components used in this analysis were more consistent with the majority of modern writings on just war as well as those found in training manuals of the US army. (See Franklin Eric Wester, “Preemption and Just War: Considering the Case of Iraq”, in Parameters, (U.S. Army War College, December, 22, 2004, Vol. 34, Issue 4, pg. 20), found at
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/04winter/wester.pdf [last accessed 5/1/2006]). Since the war in Iraq was predominantly a US-led effort, analysis in terms of just war as understood by the US army seems most appropriate.
[7] Gray, p. 40.
[8] Gray, pp. 294-302.
[9] The conceptual framework developed here is based on the authority continuum defined in Wester, p. 29.
[10] See Annex 2 for a list of all United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq over the period August 1990 through June 2004, which totaled 60 resolutions.
[11] “Iraq war illegal, says Annan “, BBC found on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm
[12] Vaughan Lowe “The Iraq Crisis: What Now?” in International and Comparative Law Quarterly, (Vol. 52, October 2003, pp. 859-871), p. 866.
[13] Wester, p. 27.
[14] McGoldrick, p. 68.
[15] Wester, p. 27.
[16] Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Immorality of Preventive War, History News Network, George Mason University, August 2002, found at http://hnn.us/articles/924.html
[17] Gray, p. 33.
[18] See Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004) and Scott Ritter, Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein, (New York: Nation Books, 2005).
[19]Declaration On Principles Of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations And Cooperation Among States In Accordance With The Charter Of The United Nations , General Assembly Resolution 2625, 1970. found at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/348/90/IMG/NR034890.pdf?OpenElement [last accessed 5/5/2006]
[20] Gray, p. 192.
[21] Dominic McGoldrick, From ‘9-11’ to the ‘Iraq War 2003’: International Law in an Age of Complexity, (Portland: Hart Publishing, 2004), p. 77-78.
[22] See Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004).
[23] See The 9/11 Commission Report, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), Scott Ritter, Iraq Confidential, and James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and The Bush Administration, (New York: Free Press, 2006).
[24] See Christine Gray, International Law and the Use of Force. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp.29-49
[25] ”The Responsibility To Protect”, Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, December 2001, (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001).
[26] Transcript of President Bush’s televised address on March 17, 2003, found on http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/17/sprj.irq.bush.transcript/
[27] See Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq, (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004) and Scott Ritter, Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy o Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein, (New York: Nation Books, 2005).
[28] Michael Walzer, Arguing About War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 153.
[29] O’Donovan in Just War Revisited, points to the fact that Aquinas made no such distinction. In fact, Aquinas pointed to three aspects of a just war: “the authority of a prince, a just cause, and a right intention.” (pp. 13-14). O’Donovan argues that the modern distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello “is a secondary casuistic distinction, not a load-bearing one.” (p. 15). See also John Finnis “The Ethics of War and Peace in the Catholic Natural Law Tradition”, p. 18 in Terry Nardin (ed.), 1996.

The Iraq War Stool

2006-05-18T15:54:00.000-04:00

This is the third chapter of my paper on the 2003 Iraq war and its impact on international law and just war doctrine.

© 2005 justdahlia.blogspot.com
The War Stool

The 2003 US-led war on Iraq was mainly justified on the basis of the following three arguments:

1 - The US alleged that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and, was in flagrant contravention of numerous UN Security Council resolutions. The US and the UK argued that if the UN Charter regime was to maintain its legitimacy, the UN’s will must be upheld. In fact, it is argued that the invasion of 2003 is nothing other than a final battle in the war with Iraq which began in 1990 with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.[1] Such a long-view of the conflict with Iraq is argued as evidence that the US did not wage a preventive war against Iraq at all, but, in fact, the 2003 invasion was a culmination of Iraq’s refusal to respect its cease-fire obligations. It should be noted, however, that such a long-view argument was not relied on by the Bush administration. Rather, the argument was always framed in the context of the threat the Iraqi regime posed as evidenced by its continual flaunting of its cease fire obligations and disregard for SCR.

2 - The US alleged that Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, had links with Al Qaeda and thus, coupled with its possession of WMD, posed a threat in that it might attempt to collaborate with Al Qaeda by providing access to such WMD. Accordingly, the US asserted that it had the right and obligation to defend itself against possible future terrorist attacks especially after the events of September 11, 2001. The US referred to the self-defense clause under the UN Charter Article 51 and UN Security Council Resolutions 1368 and 1373, addressing terrorism, as giving it such a right. This US view on self-defense was captured in its 2002 National Security Strategy[2] and is here referred to as the Bush doctrine of preventive war. The US also pointed to the UN sanctioned attack on Afghanistan in ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ as the basis for extending its ‘war on terrorism’ to Iraq. The US felt it was justified in demanding a ‘regime change’ as a political outcome to ensure that the threat of WMD falling into the hands of terrorist could be averted. The United Kingdom, it should be noted, did not rely on this justification.

3 - The government of Iraq was ruled by an irrational, thus undeterrable, tyrant who had committed crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity in Iraq, Kuwait and Iran. By bringing about ‘regime change’, the US-led coalition was ensuring long-term security to the world by eliminating one of its irrational actors. In addition, by bringing democracy to Iraq, the US was relieving the Iraqi people from suffering under a tyrant and allowing the Iraqi people to determine Iraq’s future. Thus the political objective of ‘regime change’ was also asserted as a valid humanitarian objective on the basis of an emerging norm of humanitarian intervention.

In summary, the events leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the ‘coalition of the willing’ were framed, in the first instance, within international law and interpretations of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and in the second instance on the Bush doctrine of preventive war. A third leg of the war stool rested on the concept of humanitarian intervention, an emerging norm of international law, which was constructed after the fact to provide balance to a teetering argument.

[1] See Franklin Eric Wester, “Preemption and Just War: Considering the Case of Iraq”, in Parameters, (U.S. Army War College, December, 22, 2004, Vol. 34, Issue 4, pg. 21-22), found at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/04winter/wester.pdf , William H. Taft IV and Todd F. Buchwald, “Preemption, Iraq, and International Law, The American Journal of International Law, (Vol. 97, No. 3, Jul., 2003, p. 563), Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9300%28200307%2997%3A3%3C557%3APIAIL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1,
and John Yoo, “International Law and the War in Iraq”, The American Journal of International Law, (Vol. 97, No. 3, Jul., 2003, pp. 563-576). Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9300%28200307%2997%3A3%3C563%3AILATWI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4
[2] See The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002 found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html [last accessed 3/18/2006]

The 2003 Invasion of Iraq: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

2006-05-17T15:34:00.000-04:00

The following is the first part of paper I wrote on the impact of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq on international law and just war doctrine. I will post the remaining parts of the paper over the coming days.

© 2005 justdahlia.blogspot.com
ABSTRACT
The US Iraq war project rested on a three-leg stool, namely that the 2003 invasion was a valid and necessary response to over 12 years of Iraqi intransigence, was necessary to prevent Iraq from threatening the world with its assumed weapons of mass destruction and its alliance with Al-Qaida, and was necessary to bring to an end the suffering of the Iraqi people and usher in the dawn of democracy in Iraq and eventually the Middle East region. This paper attempts to illustrate how justifications of the war in Iraq were constructed to appear legitimate, while an analysis of its claimed legitimacy suggests otherwise. It further suggests that if such claims emerge as acceptable practice, there may be severely altering implications for both international law and perceptions of just war.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

Overview
This paper focuses on the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the context of the ethical and legal parameters of a just war. The justifications cited by the 'coalition of the willing' for their 2003 invasion of Iraq were based in the first instance on international law and interpretations of the United Nations Security Council resolutions SCR), and in the second instance on the Bush[1] doctrine of preventive war. A third leg of the war stool rested on the concept of humanitarian intervention, which was later constructed to provide balance to a teetering argument. All three justifications can be analyzed from the perspective of just war doctrine. To limit any revisionist pitfalls, there is no attempt to discuss the veracity of the claims made to justify going to war, nor of the veracity of claims made about events likely to occur after going to war, merely that such claims were made as justification for war suffices for analysis, irrespective of their validity. It is the weight and construction of these justifications, not their validity, which is being assessed.

In so far as international law is the structure within which much of the water for going to war was placed, it is here proposed that such arguments are leaky, at best. The majority of international legal and relations thinkers reject such arguments wholesale. While the European members of the 'coalition of the willing' based much of their arguments on interpretations of SCR, the US focused on the doctrine of preventive war. In the case of war on Iraq, this argument rested oconvolutiontion of the idea of 'war on terrorism' and the fear of Iraqi (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction. The Bush Administration 'preventive war' doctrine, as prosecuted in the invasion of Iraq it led in 2003, it is here argued, may be an expression of a political and hegemonic prerogative, however, it is not a legally recognized one, nor is it just. Finally, any attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003 on humanitarian grounds fails the test of legitimacy for two main reasons: firstly, due to the post-facto nature of the claim, and, secondly, due to the failure of the situation to rise to the level of humanitarian catastrophe.

Key to refuting the validity of the Bush war stool construction requires analysis of its explicit preventive war doctrine, as well as debunking justifications based, for example, on the myth of 'benevolent hegemony' and the militant outcomes of democratization policies as espoused by neoconservative thinkers and exercised by neoconservative practitioners. While most realist thinkers are in agreement that the Iraq war was not in the US national interest, realism is often turned to as the default explanatory approach in cases of war and peace due to its reliance on the importance of material indicators of might and means. Nevertheless, liberal theory is useful in understanding many of the arguments for going to war, such as democratic transformation, humanitarian intervention and benign hegemony. Finally, constructivist thinking offers an opportunity to question the role of discourse, identity, politics of fear, and even, it is here argued, Orientalism. Ultimately, the underpinning of the continual discourse on the 'legality', 'justice', and 'humanity' of the war is the importance of identity. It is here suggested that identity, the desire to be identified as 'legal', 'just', 'benign', 'freedom-loving', and 'humanitarian', while more readily understood within a social constructivist approach, is based on traditional notions of natural law, morality and just war. While, various schools of international relations thought serve to cast light on the events and affects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the focus here will be an analysis of the war in terms of how the arguments for its legitimacy and ethics were socially constructed.

This paper contends that the 2003 invasion of Iraq is an illegal war of unjust cause, and, in turn, is being prosecuted unjustly. A just war rests on two elements: the justice of going to war (jus ad bellum), as well as the justice in prosecuting the war (jus in bello). With respect to the six elements of jus ad bellum, the US-led Iraq war seems to have applied only one adequately, namely a pronouncement of its intentions. Accordingly, the US war stool stands on wobbly legs and falls flat when assessed in terms of the criterion of a justly waged war. Jus in bello is based on the precepts of discrimination and proportionality, and the resulting tension between the two. Proportionality assumes, on balance, a positive outcome of the military imperative weighed against the costs, in terms of life and treasure. If the military imperative, or the cause of war, is seen to be unjust, there can be no net positive proportionality; a negative plus a negative serves only to sink us further into moral deficit.

Finally, the US-led invasion of Iraq has potential repercussions on customary international law and the principles of the UN Charter regime, while, at the same time, strengthening classical just war arguments. The greatest threat to customary international law lies in the international community not acting to refute the legitimacy of the political strategy expressed in both the 2002 and 2006 United States National Security Strategy. The US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, a direct outcome of this strategy, has shaken the foundation of the international legal order, and unless international actors, states and organizations, address this backward-looking moral trajectory, there is a threat of the slippery-slope of reversion to unconstrained aggression by and between states, with the added dimension posed by the activities of illegitimate non-state actors. With respect to just war, the US-led invasion of Iraq serves to underscore and strengthen just war principles not only because it stands as such a stark illustration of injustice, but also because it proves that the morality and self-interest that underscores just war principles is validated.
[1] Unless otherwise specified, references to Bush or Bush administration apply to George W. Bush, and/43rdis administration, the 43rd President of the United States of America.

Assassin - Another Word for "The Base"

2006-01-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

© 2005 justdahlia.blogspot.com

The etymology of the word ‘assassin’ is still hotly debated amongst historians. Early travelers and chroniclers such as Marco Polo (“Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to be his ASHISHIN”) attribute the word which emerged into Latin and later most European-based lexicons as derived from the Arabic word for “hashish’, an herb-based drug (hemp) which came to the Middle East through India, and those who use the drug as ‘hashasheen’. As Latin does not have a sound for “sh”, it became ‘s’ and thus ‘assassin’. This theory is supported by one of the earliest European writers on the Assassins, Sylvestre de Sacy in his 1809 memoir to the Institut de France (also found in the annex to Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s The History of the Assassins - 1835).

However, "[m]any scholars have argued, and demonstrated convincingly, that the attribution of the epithet 'hashish eaters' or 'hashish takers' is a misnomer derived from enemies the Isma'ilis and was never used by Moslem chroniclers or sources. It was therefore used in a pejorative sense of 'enemies' or 'disreputable people'. This sense of the term survived into modern times with the common Egyptian usage of the term Hashasheen in the 1930s to mean simply 'noisy or riotous'. It is unlikely that the austere Hasan-i Sabbah indulged personally in drug taking… There is no mention of that drug [hashish] in connection with the Persian Assassins - especially in the library of Alamut ('the secret archives')." (Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam). This theory is further debunked by Bernard Lewis when he observed that the word ‘hashish’ (originally in Arabic meant to refer only to dry herbs) only in more modern times was used to refer to the drug, and only in Syria (and later in Egypt). A great majority of historians argue that the attribution of hashish-users in reference to the Nizari Isma’ilis, even if directed towards them, probably was only used by their critics such as Sunni contemporary chroniclers and was only used with respect to the Nizaris of Syria, and not Persia.

Other theories of the etymology put forth the argument that the word derives from the name of the founder of the sect, Hassan Sabbah, and that those who followed him were referred to as a’Hassan, or followers of Hassan, and that with time the word became ‘assassin’.

Still another theory postulates that the word derives from the Arabic word “hassas” which applies to ‘quiet intruder’ or ‘night thief’.

A final, and most likely, theory is that the word derives from the Arabic word for foundation or basis, ‘assass’, which is very interesting in light of the name of the modern terrorist group, Al Qa'eda, which is the Arabic word for ‘base’. “According to texts that have come down to us from Alamut, Hassan liked to call his disciples Assassiyun, meaning people who are faithful to the Assass, the "foundation" of the faith. This is the word, misunderstood by foreign travelers, that seemed similar to "hashish."” (Amin Maalouf in Samarkand)

The First Terrorists - The Assassins

2006-01-04T14:14:00.000-05:00

This is the summary of a study I made of a religious sect, Nizari Isma'ilis, who are often pointed to as the first terrorist group in history. I will from time to time post various sections of this study.

The Nizari Isma'ilis (The Assassins): The Truth and Dare
© 2005 justdahlia.blogspot.com

An Overview:
The story of the Shi'a Nizari Isma'ili (popularly known as the Assassins[1]) is one of a group of people who represent an internal religio-political resistance movement who, soon after the death of the Prophet Mohamed, took three hundred years to develop (wherein their true story lies), saw the height of manifestation for approximately two hundred years and then fell into a silent existence through to modern times. They have captured the minds of the Western world since the time of the Crusades because of some of the tactics they employed at the pinnacle of their strength against perceived political adversaries as well as the seemingly ritualistic secrecy surrounding their most ardent followers. However, it should be noted that their movement was always grounded in seemingly rational political objectives, namely, the undermining of the ruling Sunni Abbasid Caliphate based in Baghdad and the restoration of the glory of Isma'ili Shi'a rule as per the heyday of the Fatimid Caliphate based in Egypt.

The Nizari Isma'ilis emerged at the end of the 11th Century in Persia, Syria and Iraq. They are a sub-group of the Isma'ili Shi'a who themselves represent 10% of the Shi'a sect of Islam. The Shi'a, in turn, represent about 10 to 15% of the total approximate 1.2 billion Moslems worldwide. The Nizari Isma'ili are still today a sizable group extending from the frontiers of Russia to Iran to India and are led by their holy imam, the Aga Khan IV[2]. Isma'ilism emerged from a schism within Shi'a Islam in the 9th Century which led to the emergence of the Fatimid dynasty in North Africa. Eventually the Fatimids gained control of Egypt and reigned over North Africa and parts of southern Europe until the 12th Century[3]. As in the case of most of the schisms which occurred in Islam after the death of the Prophet Mohammed (570 - 632 AD), Nizari Isma'ilism emerged as a result of internal dissent concerning succession of the leadership of the faithful. In this case, upon the death of the Fatimid Caliph al-Mustansir (1036 - 1094 AD) in Egypt, his younger son Al-Musa'li was catapulted to the caliphate by the powerful vizier al-Afdal, who was also his father-in-law. This angered many in the wider Isma'ili community who believed that the older son Nizar, was the one entitled to the caliphate, thus leading to a break-off Isma'ili group known as the Nizari Isma'ilis led by one Hassan Sabbah. The bastion of this group was Alamut in the northern region of Persia and south of the Caspian Sea with a secondary center of influence established later in Syria near Aleppo.

Isma'ili Shi'ism is based on the concept of the batini, or the hidden meaning, leading many chroniclers to call them Batinis especially during the time of the Crusades[4]. The belief is that the Quran and all its stories are actually allegories for inner meanings and that the truly faithful should not base their beliefs on literal or apparent (the zahir) readings of the holy book. Unlike the egalitarian principles of the majority Sunni tradition, essential to Shi'ism in general, but Isma'ilism in particular, is the concept of ranked clergy where at the top sits the imam, or spiritual leader, who was elevated to a near divine-level. As noted, many schisms occurred in Islam especially among the Shi'a, often times resulting in violent break-away groups. The Isma'ilis also suffered from many waves of persecution, which underscored another element of their tradition, namely, the concept of taqiya, or caution and precaution, which allowed for the faithful to dissimilate from their belief. This, when applied, is a special dispensation from observing religious tradition so as to avoid identification and/or persecution.

Taken in their totality, these concepts of batini, imam and taqiya, in addition to others, laid the ground for the development of a group who were able to interpret and adapt Islam to their political objectives and social reality, believe in the absolute supremacy of their leader, while maintaining an aura of complete secrecy. Such were the elements of this religio-political group which led to the fascination of the West with the 'Assassins' and the total disdain of other contemporary Moslems for the Nizari Isma'ilis.

The Nizari Isma'ilis emerged as a group in 1094 AD with the death of their self-appointed imam Nizar, who an element of the Isma'ili faithful felt had been cheated of his divine right to succeed his recently deceased father, the Fatimid Caliph Mustansir. Hassan Sabbah established a stronghold in Alamut in Persia from which emerged a Nizari Isma'ili state whose influence extended to Syria and beyond. The heyday of their political impact was brought to a screeching halt in 1256 AD with the devastation brought by Hulegu Khan and the Mongol conquering of Persia and much of the Asian Arab lands. The final nail in the Assassins coffin was struck by the Egyptian Mamluk Baybars who first ruled then eradicated the Syrian wing of the Nizari Isma'ili political structure. Thus ended in 1275 AD nearly two hundred years of the Nizari Isma'ili state and led to the legend of the Assassins. This is their story

[1] This essay relies heavily on the work of Bernard Lewis, Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Philip K. Hitti, Amin Maalouf and Edward Burman.
[2] For more on contemporary Nizari Ismailism and their global community, see The Institute of Ismaili Studies at http://www.iis.ac.uk/home_l1.htm
[3] For a complete overview of Arab history from the rise of Islam to modern times see Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, and Bernard Lewis "A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. For a history of the Middle East during the Crusades, see Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and Francesco Gabrieli's Arab Historians of the Crusades.
[4] See Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.

A Problem We All Share.... Terrorism

2005-12-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

In June 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States issued a report that quickly became a best-seller. On Dec. 5, 2005, the Commission issued a follow-up assessment of the US government’s response to the series of recommendations made in its earlier report and the overall preparedness of the US in facing possible future terrorist attacks. The grade was dismal with failure highlighted in most areas. In Emergency Preparedness, Transportation Security, Civil Liberties, Intelligence, Congressional Reform, Foreign Policy, Nonproliferation, and Public Diplomacy, the US response leaves much to be desired.

In my view, the greatest single weakness both in the 9/11 report and in the US’s general approach, is that it views terrorism primarily as a US problem. Not only is it not a US problem, but even if it were, it will not be defeated with US action alone; this is not a matter for chest-thumping nationalist bravado, it is one for sober nationalist realism. Terrorism exists everywhere and throughout history. The particular international reach of the recent Extremist Terrorist Moslem groups has the Western world sitting up and taking notice. This is both a cause for immediate action and an opportunity; acting as an international community, terrorism needs to be perceived both in the short term and the medium to long term through an array of international instruments of which military action is only one, and perhaps not even the most effective instrument against it. Furthermore, until “it” is defined, “it” can not be defeated even with concerted international cooperation. The Geneva Conventions put to rest all unnecessary nuances concerning the freedom-fighter versus terrorist debate. Civilian noncombatants should never be a target of hostilities, whether by state or non-state actors. Nor is it valid to argue that a definition is not necessary since “we know it when we see” and by defining “it” we are limiting our options. Even the International Bar Association’s Task Force on International Terrorism felt that a definition was in order.

Accordingly, and despite the international community’s failure to define “it”, I, despite the element of individual hubris involved in such an endeavor, suggest the following immediate international actions:
1. A convention is entered into defining terrorism as a crime against humanity and relegating any and all who engage in it to the International Criminal Court for criminal proceedings that are based on respect for due process. This, in turn, means that the US must become a signatory to (again) and ratify the ICC.
2. The definition of terrorism to be adopted by this international convention (and further adopted by the UN Security Council) is: Terrorism is any threat or act of violence against civilian noncombatants, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, by a non-state actor for the furthering of political objectives.
3. In the short term, vigilance is the best mode of prevention. This means that more concerted international cooperation is needed in the area of travel, goods transportation, intelligence gathering and sharing and, finally, mobility of financial resources.
4. For the medium to long term, the international community, through the United Nations and special initiatives, should address the root causes of terrorism, namely, government corruption and lack of accountability, economic stagnation, unemplyment and poverty, cultural imperialism, and, last but not least, political and self-determination injustices.

While this may look like wishful thinking, it is actually the only way to seriously and honestly address terrorism. Terrorism will not be defeated through military conquest and occupation. If anything, that only creates a whole new generation of terrorist soldiers.

Braving This New World Disorder - Part 2

2005-11-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

A test case of the United State's new approach to funding democracy occurred this past weekend in Bahrain. On Nov. 12, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met in Bahrain with representatives of governments of what the State Department has termed the "Broader Middle East" in the second annual Forum for the Future. The summit discussed the US Foundation for Freedom initiative and it's two funds--one aimed at supporting small-business in the region with an initial funding of $100 million, and the second with $54 million aimed at encouraging democratic transition by supporting civil society in the region. The grant-based foundation is part of the United States Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) managed by the Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Liz Cheney, daughter of US Vice President Dick Cheney. The Foundation is currently being directed out of Washington, DC with expertise funded by the World Bank, amongst others, although plans are to eventually base it in the Middle East. The Foundation’s objective is to support and offer grants to individuals and groups in the Middle East to promote democracy, including recipients who are not registered or licensed to operate by any government. The US officials left the summit in dismay after a failure to secure the agreement it wanted, after Egypt objected to the US requirement that the fund be allowed to circumvent national laws and go directly to recipients selected by the Foundation and its donors. Egypt, not opposed to the concept in principle, raised concerns about allowing domestic individuals and groups to receive external funding if not legally registered as non-government organizations.

This situation raises questions at various levels. In the context of combating terrorism and its funding sources, why is the US opposed to governments allowing only registered groups to be recipients of external funding? Secondly, democracy, as a multi-faceted right of all individuals, must be grounded in the rule of law, so why is the US supporting activity that is outside of the law? Thirdly, domestic US law itself does not allow candidates for state or federal office or political parties to receive external funding. Even such liberal organizations as MoveOn.org announced that they would no longer allow funding from foreign sources. Why, then, is the US promoting such activity elsewhere? While furthering democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere is a commendable ambition, serious thought should be given to it being done at the expense of respect for the rule of law and by allowing loopholes through which seditious and terrorist activity may find sustenance. Again, perhaps a more inclusionary, rather than exclusionary, and effective strategy would be to examine the laws governing the registration of non-government organizations in respective state domestic laws and supporting measures to remove any barriers to registration of groups with legitimate objectives including the promotion of democratic values.

More to the point, what exactly is the likely outcome of this intense US push to backdoor state sovereignty and legal frameworks the world over? As we have seen in Iraq, democracy is not something that can easily be "brought," to put it lightly, and it surely can not be "bought" either. With recent revelations such as secret CIA prisons, use of white phosphorous incendiary bombs in Falluja, and torture and degrading treatment at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the democracy flag that the US is waving increasingly looks to have a very ugly face. Furthermore, the US’ utter disdain for multilateralism, as evidenced in the rejection of Kyoto, and the International Criminal Court, as well as its failure to respect its own existing international treaty obligations such as the Geneva Conventions with respect to captured combatants, is torpedoing the concept of international law itself.

In the midst of all this maneuvering, such questions must be posed. What is the world image the US is trying to shape through the United Nations and other tools? The UN's original objective of ensuring world peace, security and human rights rose out of the ashes of the Second World War. It is based on the supremacy of state sovereignty and a respect for international law and multilateralism. Is the US trying to revamp the UN to take on a new role, one in which state sovereignty and international law now take a back seat to US concepts of democratic design in the US image? The reality is that the US is approaching democracy as though it is an acquired taste, one which only the US appreciates and that it must be “forced” upon states. The reality is that democracy is not a US taste, nor is it a US forte, but even that is secondary to the fact that democracy can only be embraced if seen with an inclusionary and kinder face.

Braving This New World Disorder - Part 1

2005-11-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

"WE THE PEOPLE'S OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom..."
Opening words, Preamble, United Nations Charter

The US is embarking on a new approach to international diplomacy and the United Nations is its unlikely tool. “Structure states in our image” seems to be the overriding philosophy at the US State Department, especially since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took over the helm. With the embedment of Ambassador John Bolton in the UN, concepts such as "democracy caucus of like-minded nations,” engendering representative government voting, and external source funding to empower civil society seem to be the main rally cries. Eager ideologues such as Mark Lagon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs are busy spinning their agenda with the silky yarn of ideals which, on the face of it, are hard to argue. A deeper look will show that what the US is really doing is an exercise in selective reasoning and exclusionary diplomacy grounded in jurisprudence by expediency with a degrading impact on the respect for international law and the very concept of the sovereignty of states. With a "you are with us or you are against us" sieve to weed the chaff from the grain, states are encouraged to “get with the program” or risk being designated as chaff and blown away in the winds of American wrath.

So, what are these new rally cries and how do they impact the United Nations, international law and state sovereignty? The US is actively maneuvering with the idea that democracy-loving states of the world need to come together to form a “democracy-caucus of like-minded nations” within the UN. In fact, the reasoning, as explained recently by Mark Lagon, is if countries can come together to form Islamic fronts, South-South dialogues, and nonaligned movements, why can't states that embody democratic principles come together to form a “democracy-caucus?” Very interesting logic, especially as it seemed to apply so readily during the cold war with “freedom-loving democracies” facing off against the socialist bloc: That is the kind of polarized world in which this US State Department leadership seems most able to operate. And yet, it seems to neglect the fact that such exclusionary diplomacy led to decades of cold war politics which often brought the world to the brink of all-out war, and festered in the form of regional hot wars where smaller states were forced to choose sides with devastating social and economic results. The world sighed with relief with the falling of the Berlin wall, yet this new strategy is threatening to re-create the very same world, albeit along different fault lines.

More relevant, perhaps, is that those blocs Dr. Lagon points to are exclusionary by default and not design—a very significant distinction. In other words, those blocs emerge as a result of a characteristic that binds its constituents together exclusively (such as Islamic) or because they are attempting to address a problem to be resolved such as economic development or political hegemony. Democracy is not a characteristic one either has exclusively or is trying to shed exclusively; it is an aspiration within the reach of all peoples. It is inclusionary in nature and not exclusionary. Furthermore, if democracy is an ideal all states should be striving towards, by creating a “democracy-caucus for like-minded nations”, the US as the only world superpower is indicating that democracy is not the objective, but rather like-mindedness is.

Carrying such exclusionary logic further, this emerging “democratic-caucus” is now laying the groundwork for the disenfranchisement of all states who are not members of the club. The argument here is while the United Nations is based on the democratic principle of one-nation, one-vote, this is not actually democracy because not all the states represented at the United Nations actually democratically represent their respective peoples. Accordingly, if the government itself is not of a democratic state, how can it have a vote at the United Nations and still maintain that the United Nations is democratic? Once again, while interesting selective reasoning, with perhaps some slight fallacy in composition, it flies in the face of the very essence of the United Nations in respecting all nations, large and small, based on the sacrosanct principle of state sovereignty and inclusionary diplomacy.

What then is the emerging scenario from this logic? As of 2004, there were 88 countries rated by Freedom House as being free or democratic. The United Nations has 191 member states. Do states such as China, Russia, and even Iran then lose their right to vote at the United Nations? Shall the other 103 states be stripped of their sovereignty and be relegated, perhaps, to observer status, like the Palestinian Authority, while the club of 88, assuming they even all want to join the caucus, then vote on all issues before the United Nations such as the respect and creation of international law, to maintain international peace and security and promotion of human rights? It is not very difficult to see that such an exclusionary vision of the world is not conducive to creating a world order aimed at achieving those very objectives.

The next stake being aimed at the heart of state sovereignty and inclusionary diplomacy is that if governments won’t allow their states to move into the direction of democracy, then the “democracy-caucus of like-minded nations” must help the process along. Helping the process along, as we are seeing in Iraq, can take many forms. What is being proposed at the United Nations is the creation of a “Democracy Fund” with sponsorship by the various members of the “democracy-caucus” to be managed by the United Nations. The Fund’s goal is to identify and support individuals and groups whose aims are to engender, install and/or promote democracy in their respective countries. While seemingly a commendable objective in light of the important role civil society and non-government organizations fulfill in all sectors and across the world, a more careful analysis will shed light on some emerging pitfalls. The Fund lacks any criteria for selection of recipients, and therefore the “caucus” has domain over to whom and for what purpose financing will be given, as long they have an agenda for a democracy consistent with their own. This creates a situation where states may deem the Fund as supporting, at worst, subversive elements, and, at best, actors outside of domestic legal systems. The result is that domestic laws which may not allow for groups outside the legal system to receive funding (such as some faith-based groups, for example) or who may not even allow for external financing of registered political parties, civil society etc., will be faced with a situation where their domestic laws are being challenged by partisan interests working under the umbrella of the United Nations. In other words, the United Nations is being pitted against state sovereignty. The concept of the sovereignty of the state and its immunity from external interference, a basic premise of the international legal order, will be lost with the legalization of external interference in internal state affairs.

Power of Women's Anger

2005-06-01T14:17:00.000-04:00

Social and political expression are not an invitation to aggressive and physical abuse and manhandling. No one should be subjected to that, and in a part of the world that upholds the dignity of every human being and especially women, it is especially painful when it happens as it did in Cairo on May 25th. Coming on the heels of the prisoner abuse in Iraq and Cuba by the Americans, seeing it occur on the streets of Cairo and directed against Egyptian women for merely voicing their views by Egyptian men sympathetic to the regime, the shame is palpable. Indeed, it is so palpable that women in Cairo are taking to the streets in protest demanding the resignation of top police and security officials in response to the indecent physical abuse some women faced as they protested against the referendum on the constitutional amendment supposedly allowing multi-candidate presidential elections. Getting the women of Egypt to rise up in anger is quite a feat, but the government has managed to do just that. This sleeping giant has now awaken and the outcome may be more powerful than all the recent political opposition together. Not only is it fodder for the opposition, but it also serves to unite women of all political stripes and persuasions across the range from the majority apolitical to the minority ultra activist, from the majority religious moderate to the minority raving extremist.

When I saw the stories of the women being abused, I shook my head in disbelief. Not in Egypt, I thought. I received more emails expressing the same sentiment than on any other aspect of the recent political events in Egypt. But I ask myself, why the disbelief? Is not Egypt one of the preferred destinations for American and European interrogators to send prisoners? Before the events of September 2001, the US and European governments routinely gave sanctuary to political activists including religious extremists from Egypt and other countries in the Middle East. These individuals, some of whom are believed to have committed terrorist acts in Egypt, were given political asylum to avoid the torture that they claimed waited for them in Egyptian prisons. After September 2001, the Egyptian government was practically saying 'I told you so'. Today, prisoners are sent to Egypt and other places in the region to be 'interrogated' away from media scrutiny or legal recourse. The implicit argument is that individual human dignity and democratic values can take a back seat to protecting the public (an argument, it is often claimed, to also be embodied in the US Patriot Acts).

So, why the surprise and dismay when it happens openly on the streets of Cairo? Perhaps because it happened openly, or perhaps for a simpler reason. The women abused on the streets of Cairo are the mothers, wives and daughters of Egypt. In Egypt, as in most places, honor and dignity of women is sacrosanct, and their defiling will not be left unanswered. The anger of the Egyptian women demands a response. Egyptian men will unite behind that, and that is a two-legged giant.

Still A Game of Solitaire

2005-05-25T15:42:00.000-04:00

Egypt's ruling party today is engaging in a classical case of politics of appeasement, and even that is occurring within rigid boundaries. The culture of fear which keeps regimes in power for generations feeds on establishing a sense of the taboo and the proclaimed desire to protect the greater good and is buttressed with the reality of retribution against those deemed to have stepped out-of-bounds. That culture of fear in Egypt is now being challenged by a simple slogan "Kefaya" or "Enough". ..... I have commented that change is necessary and inevitable, however if it is to be positive it must be holistic in its approach. In other words, voices, all voices, must be given space to be heard. The reality of changing the rules of the game in theory to allow multi-players while effectively only allowing one player is not lost on anyone. Everyone can see that it is still a game of solitaire. With dissenters being arrested and sporadic demonstrations, today's referendum on the constitutional amendment theoretically allowing for multi-candidate presidential elections left much to be desired not the least of which is sincerity.

Reality check: Egypt's deck of 70 million cards with no shortage of aces is no longer willing to have a single dealer.

Eve of a Non-Event

2005-05-24T13:58:00.000-04:00

With both secular and religious opposition calls to boycott the referendum on a constitutional amendment allowing multi-candidate presidential elections in Egypt, the general consensus is that the reforms are unlikely to result in dramatic political changes to leadership in the upcoming September election, a point even the Egyptian Prime Minister is willing to concede. The argument being put forth by the government and its supporters is that the seeds for future change have now been sowed with this constitutional amendment. Change, it is argued, is best if slowly cultivated, rather than brought on suddenly with the consequences unknown and unchecked so as to avoid the scenarios of Algeria or Iran (Iraq being a regional aberration). Egypt viewed the social, economic and political upheavals faced by the former Soviet Union and the leadership quickly came to the conclusion that change, if unavoidable, should be managed and slow. Often the cases of Morocco and even Jordan are pointed to as slow evolutionary processes allowing for political maturation of the electorate and strengthening of the institutional framework. While such arguments may have merit, they must be made within the context of slow change on all front, including a welcoming to all political voices. As the regime in power opens to change and puts in place the empowering mechanics, the opposition must also be allowed to mature with the process. As noted by various analysts, including very recently in the Washington Post, the clear contradiction in the international and Egyptian support of opposition religious political movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah, yet resistance to greater political integration of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is staggering, and raises serious doubt in many minds as to the veracity of the desire for change.

Referendum or rubber stamp

2005-05-12T10:02:00.000-04:00

On May 25, Egyptians will go to the polls to approve or disapprove of the constitutional amendment allowing multi-candidate presidential elections in Egypt. While on the face of it, this would appear to be an astounding development in the forever land of the pharaoh, careful analysis has led some critics to conclude that these changes will result in little challenge to that legacy. Reaction by both religious and secular government opposition is a call to Egyptians to vote against the amendment, leaving the man on the street somewhat confused. On the one hand, the regime that has ruled Egypt since the revolution of 1952, is calling the refendum which is supposed to open the door for a potential overturn of that stronghold "... a day of national pride" and "... the making of a new dawn". On the other hand, the fledgling opposition which has long called for more openness in the political process in Egypt, is opposed to the amendment which is supposed to allow for just that. Ironic? Contradictory? That is the simplistic conclusion of a simplistic analysis. Egyptians are anything but simplistic, yet they are still caught in the middle. If there is a mass vote against this constitutional amendment, when will they have the chance to see some change, any change, again? Will their vote of protest be heard and lead to greater reforms or will it result in a forceful closing of the door? That is the dilemma that the man on the street faces. Is this arguably cosmetic change a relief valve for the evident pressure building up, or is it a real change that may show results perhaps not in this election but the next, or the one after that? Are Egyptians willing to wait.... and wait... and wait?

Reminds me of....

2005-05-10T09:55:00.000-04:00

Headlines today read of mass arrests and general unrest in Egypt - reminiscent of times not too far past. Depending on your source, close to 2,000 have been recently arrested, most from the Muslim Brotherhood - that's where the recent history is being repeated. While Egypt's Parliament voted on the proposed constitutional amendment, supposedly allowing multi-candidate presidential elections, critics are calling it a hoax. It is not only the Muslim Brotherhood who voice the desire for true elections. Reuters reports that the government-sanctioned opposition party, Al Ghad, has withdrawn from further discussions with the ruling National Democratic Party in protest over the proposed constitutional amendment. The group is quoted as saying that the talks "has become a theatrical entertainment directed by the NDP to deceive the people and domestic and international public opinion."
I wonder how long this situation can continue, and at what cost...

The Expected Backlash

2005-05-09T09:56:00.000-04:00

As expected, the backlash is loud against the transparently restrictive constitutional amendment allowing, for the first time, a multi-candidate race for president of Egypt. Egyptians have been in denial for far too long. History is witness to the fact that when a sleeping people awake, they do so with determination.

The Color of Change

2005-05-06T11:37:00.000-04:00

Here is an article in ALJAZEERA.NET you may be interested in.
Brotherhood leaders held in Egypt
I encourage readers to learn about the Muslim Brotherhood, who they are, and what they stand for. This is not meant to endorse this group, but rather to challenge the stereotyping that has blinded the world to the real change that is happening in Egypt.

My Opening Salvo

2005-05-05T11:30:00.000-04:00

I have marveled at the world of blog for too long. Today I have put my toe in the wild waters with trepidation.

I want this to be a place where we can talk about change, whether good or bad, slow or fast, whatever your position in these moving sands... change is the one thing we can all be sure of.

Let's start with the social change that is moving the sedentary sands of Egypt, a place where time seems to stand still, where adaptability is the essence of longevity.