The Republic of Dissent

The War isn't working

After the tragedy of Qana, I found myself wondering if Israel can achieve its objectives by continuing this war. Yesterday, on Meet the Press, Tom Friedman has interesting comments on the situation. He said that the war wasn't working for Israel and that it should stop know because it is clear that the only thing that will be achieved by continuing the war is more deaths. Israel didn't choose this war and as Bernard Henry Levy wrote last week in Le Monde, the war chose Israel as fate, sometimes, chooses us to accomplish difficult tasks. Paul Krugman makes the most interesting point about the crisis in his column this morning:

For Americans who care deeply about Israel, one of the truly nightmarish things about the war in Lebanon has been watching Israel repeat the same mistakes the United States made in Iraq. It’s as if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been possessed by the deranged spirit of Donald Rumsfeld. [...] What Israel needs now is a way out of the quagmire. And since Israel doesn’t appear ready to reoccupy southern Lebanon, that means doing what it should have done from the beginning: try restraint and diplomacy. And Israel will negotiate from a far weaker position than seemed possible just three weeks ago. [...] Again, Israel has the right to protect itself. If all-out war with Hezbollah becomes impossible to avoid, so be it. But bombing Lebanon isn’t making Israel more secure. [...] The hard truth is that Israel needs, for its own sake, to stop a bombing campaign that is making its enemies stronger, not weaker.

The question is whether it is more difficult to admit that the war isn’t working and to stop than to continue it.

Oh What a circus!

Today, I feel like Che, the narrator of the musical Evita when he describes  the end and the live of Eva Perón by singing, "Oh what a circus!" The most hopeful news of the day is that millions of people voted in Congo this Sunday hoping that by voting they would put an end to years of deadly violence.  By apart from that, this week was so chaotic and so discouraging that I am looking forward to have Washington empty from all of its politicians who have become useless because they are focused on just one thing, the November elections.  Blair came to town Friday and for the first time, I was unable to even listen to him because I kept thinking that there always comes a time when eloquence is no longer enough and when actions are what matters.  I am wondering if we have political leaders who are going to be able to rise up to the challenges of our century to make our world less apocalyptic and more hopeful or if we are just going to have to find a way to awaken the dead to find politicians who have what it takes to save us from ourselves.

Perception and Reality: the importance of images in war

Harper's magazine had a provocative cartoon last Thursday of Rice's surprise visit to Lebanon. It made the same point, which Mourhaf Jouejati, director of Middle Eastern Studies at George Washington University makes in Roger Cohen's column in the New York Times and that is that, "The United States has been more a party to this conflict than an arbiter. [...] Lebanese democracy, a supposedly cherished American aim, has been sacrificed for the Israeli ally." I don't quite agree with this point, but unfortunately, what I think doesn't matter. What is important is how the world perceives the United States and its role in this crisis. As William Arkin points out in the Washington Post, perception is reality and facts matter less than the image created by the way people interprets them.

Defending Rice

Everybody seems to want a piece of Condoleezza Rice and to want to blame her for the failures of the Bush Foreign policy.  Eugene Robinson writes in his column in the Washington Post that the current conflict is Condi's war:

It was Rice who waited more than a week, giving Israel time to pound the daylights out of Lebanon, before finding time to visit Beirut and Tel Aviv and attend a crisis summit in Rome. It was Rice who spent her trip categorically ruling out a quick cease-fire, which made one wonder if she really needed to travel at all, since she could have just thumbed out a text message: "2 soon 2 stop boom boom."

The most significant development from Rice's swing through the region was that she took personal ownership of the bloody, escalating war between Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas with a single breathtaking pronouncement:

"It is time for a new Middle East. It is time to say to those who do not want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail, they will not."

Take a moment to absorb those two sentences. The bit about how "we will prevail" is just standard chest-thumping from the Bush administration, the equivalent of George W. Bush's "bring it on" challenge to the Iraqi insurgents. It's the "new Middle East" part, which she repeated at every opportunity, that makes this Condi's war and that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who has more than a passing knowledge of the region.

Tom Friedman joins the choir of critics by writing, “Condoleezza Rice must have been severely jet-lagged when she said that what’s going on in Lebanon and Iraq today were the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” Oh, I wish it were so. What we are actually seeing are the rebirth pangs of the old Middle East, only fueled now by oil and more destructive weaponry.” I think that all of these people have forgotten that Condi Rice isn't the president and that she might be the chief of American Diplomacy, but that she follows the orders or rather the ideology of her boss, President Bush. I believe that the Bush administration just doesn't believe in diplomacy and that it is adverse to compromise, to negotiations, to be involved in forum where it will not have all the control and where it will have to talk to countries, which it doesn't want to talk.

It must be very frustrating for Rice to be Secretary of State and to be limited to using glamour and big dreams for the future for the Middle East to try to stop a conflict, which she is too intelligent and too smart not to know demands more. I do not agree with Condi Rice on everything, but I believe that she knows what she believes and what approach she wants to use in most conflicts. The one thing that we can say about the approach, which the US took to the conflict so far, is that it was confusing and that it reflected ambivalence about what to do. The culprit for this ambivalence is the President who didn't know what he wanted to do and not Condi Rice who probably he had to wait for her boss to make up his mind. Condi Rice is trying to do her best to make an incoherent and shallow foreign policy look coherent and substantive. Condi Rice is a public servant, her role is to serve the international interests of the United States as defined by President Bush, and that is what she is doing. The unfortunate thing is that she is a competent woman who always does her job superbly and in this case, her talents are at the service of a policy that will NOT serve the interests of the United States.

What does peace look like?

It has become difficult for me to imagine how the crisis in the Middle East will end. It is alarming to see how easily this conflict has become a part of normalcy and  how wide the gap is between the world's powers which have the power to find a creative solution that would make it possible for both Israel and Lebanon to win instead of losing to Hezbollah. I think that when we are no longer able to imagine how peace will look like, it is a sign of defeat for those who believe like I do that every conflict is solvable. It is for that reason that when it becomes difficult for me to answer the question of what peace would look like, I think about of the chaos and of the deaths that will ensue if no solution is found to this crisis.

Bargaining with the Devil: the United States and Syria

In his column, Tom Friedman makes an important point, “One wonders what planet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed from, thinking she can build an international force to take charge in south Lebanon without going to Damascus and trying to bring the Syrians on board.” The United States believes pigheadedly that it can find a solution to the present Middle East Crisis without talking to the country, Syria, which President Bush argued, last week, could restrain the Hezbollah. Jonathan Freeland makes the same point in article in the Guardian, “Far from keeping lines of communication open with Hizbullah's two key patrons - Syria and Iran - they have been cast into outer darkness, branded as spokes, or satellites, of the axis of evil. As a result there has been no mechanism to restrain Hizbullah. Now, when the US needs Syria's help, it may be too late. Damascus will extract a high price, no doubt demanding the right to re-enter, in some form, Lebanon. The White House can't grant that - not when it considers Syria's ejection from Lebanon in 2005 one of its few foreign-policy successes.” Whether the Bush administration wants to acknowledge it or not, Syria is an important country and it is impossible to solve the current crisis without talking with the Syria and bargaining with them. Tom Friedman argues that talking to Syria is also important in order to break the dangerous alliance that it has with Iran, which is destabilizing the Middle East. The price to talk with Syria may be high and bargaining with the Syrians may not work, but it is necessary that the United States try because peace and the stability of the Middle East hang in the balance.  As David Ignatius argues, “Bargaining with the devil (or at least the devil's intermediary) is part of the job description for an American secretary of state.” Syria isn't a state with which the Bush administration wants to deal it, but it is one with which it has to deal. The time for fantasy is over; it is time to deal with the harsh realities of the Middle East.

Bastardy and culture

The feminist Germaine Greer has an article in the Times in which she argues that teenage pregnancy is high in some cultures because it is more acceptable for women to have children young  and because most of the time abortion is a social taboo and thus not a real choice for teenagers . She argues that, "What the global view of teenage pregnancy suggests is that, in particular communities, teenage motherhood is a way of life; rather than trying to stamp it out, we should be making sure that communities are not harmed by it. Poverty and disadvantage are thought to accrue from juvenile motherhood, when they actually proceed from the failure of the social system to recognise reality, and organise education and employment appropriately." 

I agree with Germaine Greer because I believe that culture and family history are the most important factor when it comes to understanding why some ethnic groups such as African Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancies. Children tend to repeat the pattern of their parents not just because it does not bring it shame, but because it is the only thing that they know.  In Cameroon, some mothers are willing to destroy the breasts of their daughters with an Iron so that they keep the "asexual" bodies of little girls so that they do not become bring shame in the family by becoming unwed mothers. In the United States, too many mothers go to the other extreme of accepting that their daughters become sexually active and have children at a young age . Patterns are always hard to break, and it is for that reason that to stop teenage pregnancies, it takes not only education, but perseverance and patience.

Congo is the most unfortunate nation in the world

Nobody cares about Congo (the Democratic Republic of Congo)! More than 4 million people have died in that Western African Nation since 1998 and yet, we don't care or at least we don't act as if we care and if the lives that are been lost have value. So far, less than 400 people have died in the current Middle East crisis in Lebanon and Israel. About 100 people died everyday in Iraq according to the UN. More than a thousand people die each day in Congo, 600 of which are children. Lydia Polgreen had a stunning article in the Sunday New York Times in which she thought about the fact the worst thing that can happen to an African nation is not to be in the shadow of Rwanda but in the one of the Congo:

The crisis in Darfur, long neglected, finally burst into the world’s consciousness. Congo remains largely forgotten. It is hard to understand why. [...] Darfur holds the world’s gaze because of that magic word, genocide. The word, implying that there are clear criminals and clear victims, has been perhaps the single greatest attention-getter for efforts, however feeble, to end the fighting and organize relief efforts, even though the fighting has lately turned in directions that indicate the situation was never so clear-cut.

The conflict in Congo, by contrast, long ago descended into a free-for-all with many sides. Instead of Darfur’s seeming moral clarity, it offers a mind-numbing collection of combatants known by a jumble of acronyms. And that has been a particularly cruel fate, since the long-lasting war there in fact had its roots in the greatest mass killing since the Holocaust — the unambiguous genocide of 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda in the spring of 1994.

Congo is forgotten because it is an enormous and complicated country and that to solve its crisis would require resources that the world isn't willing to use a problem, which it isn't sure that it can solve. Most important and influential nations don't measure the urgency of the situation, because they believe that the instability is manageable and containable. They are able to take advantage of it by getting the one that Congo has which interests them more than anything, its natural resources because the armed forces, which control the richest parts of the country are willing to sell them. Congo will have its first democratic elections in forty on July 30 and unfortunately, its vulnerable democracy will not survive without a commitment by Western nations to do more and an effort by NGOS and international organizations to force the world to pay attention to the ills of Congo.

The quote of the week

"Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures;  peace is our gift to each other." Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner (1986.)

Religion and the Middle East

Pete Tobias, the Rabbi of the Liberal Jewish synagogue in Elstree, Herts has an interesting article on the place that Religion plays in Middle East conflict on the Comment is Free blog of the Guardian. He makes the argument that peace is only going to be possible if people acknowledge that religious texts weren't meant to be taken so literally:

It is time to acknowledge that the ancient books that various religions regard as their source texts are the product of human societies seeking to define and establish themselves in a barbaric and troubled world. As such, they often contain violent, xenophobic statements - often presented as being the divine will. The source of statements such as "I will do to you what I plan to do to them" and demands to drive out or destroy other people is clearly human, not divine. And, like so much of the posturing couched in the repetition of such statements by so-called religious leaders, such messages are neither accurate nor religious.

The task of religion in our modern, troubled age is to seek to uncover the common religious vision which lies at the heart of all such ancient ventures. This will only be achieved once all who look to ancient texts for their inspiration and guidance are honest enough to recognise - and reject - those sections which are little more than ancient expressions of xenophobia and seek out the common elements which represent the true vision of the Divine.

If only more people would hear his message.

From fantasy to reality: Can the Bush Administrtion find a way out of the Lebanese crisis?

Paul Krugman has a provocative column in the NewYork times in which he makes the case that the Bush foreign policy was build on fantasy. He writes:

As I wrote back in January 2003, this meant that the “Bush doctrine” of preventive war was, in practice, a plan to “talk trash and carry a small stick.” It was obvious even then that the administration was preparing to invade Iraq not because it posed a real threat, but because it looked like a soft target.[...] For years the self-proclaimed “war president” basked in the adulation of the crazies. Now they’re accusing him of being a wimp. “We have been too weak,” writes Mr. Kristol, “and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.” Does Mr. Bush have the maturity to stand up to this kind of pressure? I report, you decide."

The fact that we are in an election year means that it is going to be difficult for President Bush to do anything that would upset his more than it already is. The reason that Condi Rice hasn't gone so far to the region as expected shows in my opinion the Bush administration's indecisiveness and its fear that involving itself will lead to failures that would be ridiculed not only by the left, but by the right. The administration seems to have decided that the wait and see approach  would do less damage politically. They may be right, but it is also one, which does the most damage to the ability of the United States to use soft-power to achieve its objectives. 

Are we in the middle of a third word war?

New Gingrich, the ex speaker of the House of Representative has an article on the Guardian Web site where he argues that the third world war has begun. He makes the following argument, "The nature of the threat - with Iran at the epicenter - is at its core ideological. The ideological wing of Islam that is irreconcilable to modern civilization. And while not operationally connected, the events of just the last seven weeks throughout the world share the common strategic goal of defeating the West and its values. It could be accurately described as a third world war."

1. I am reluctant to buy the idea that we are in the midst of a third world war because I believe that thinking about the current struggle against terrorism and against ideologies which support it in terms of war is a grave mistake because it is in my opinion impossible to use war, force, and violence to defeat terrorism. The fight against terrorism is most of all a battle of wills and of ideas. Too many people in the world today believe that violence, that killing to achieve political and religious objectives is justified. I don't believe that it is going to be possible to stop the spread of the idea that violence is an acceptable means by fighting them and by eradicating them from this earth. To fight terrorism and radicalism, we have learned more about those who believe in violence, know about the way they think, to engage them, and to do everything that we can to stop them before they strike.
2. It is because I don't believe that the fight against terrorism is a battle between good and evil that I don't believe that the primary way to fight it should be the use of force. The most dangerous aspect of radicalism is that it is infectious and thus spreads very quickly when it is not confronted by other ideas. Two ago, on CNN, Nick Robertson, one of the foreign correspondents in Beirut interviewed a young Lebanese who was showing him the ruins of his country and was saying with passion that they would never surrender and that they were going to hit back Israel. What do you do against such young people? Do you eliminate them hoping that they are just bad seeds which will contaminate the rest of the population or do you find a way to engage them not necessarily to change their minds, but to show other youths who are close from becoming radicals that dialogue is possible and that violence isn't their only means to take control of their future.
3. It is possible that I am naive and that I don't know much about terrorism. However, I believe that sometimes, naiveté is a good thing because it brings with it the optimism and the commitment necessary to change the world. I think that the mistake of those who like Newt Gingrich believe that the third world war has begun and that the free world has no choice but to fight this war and to win it is that they have a Hobbsian view of the war and that they still believe that we live in times where might makes right. Because of globalization, the weak and the radicals have a voice and are able to be heard by millions of people who because they are resentful of the lack of control, which they have on their lives are choosing to believe that by blowing themselves and others up they will give their lives meaning.  The United States and the people who are fighting against terrorism aren't going to win because they are more weapons and a strong military; they are going to win because they have the better and more inclusive ideals. 
4. More than thirty years, Albert Camus wrote an excellent essay, L’Homme Révolté,(the Rebel), which I believe should become a required reading for the leaders of today and of tomorrow.  In that essay, he made the argument that most rebellions become violent and that they are destined to fail and that human beings in order to survive had to refuse to become gods and to accept their humanity. The fight against terrorism isn't a clash of civilizations, it is a struggle between those who want to become gods and those who argue that because we are all humans, we have to respect each other and to accept that to kill  is useless because it does not bring meaning, value into the world, but nothingness.

Parallel Worlds: news coverage, the middle east, and bias

I have been following the current crisis in the Middle East, particularly what is happening in Israel and Lebanon by watching Television, reading newspapers, watching video posted by people from the region and of course reading blogs.  The one I have noticed is that balance and objectivity are hard to find and I am not surprise because I think it is very difficult to be balance and objective in a situation as explosive such as this one.  What I do is that I tried to find diverse sources of information and to avoid information given by people who discredit its value with vitriol by making antisemitic or anti-Arab and ant-Islam remark.  A blogger Ouriel stopped watching French television. He is only watching CNN because he believed that French television was one-sided and that reporters were forgetting the central point that Hezbollah started the conflict. Eric Boehlert wrote in The Huffington post that CNN had a Lebanon problem because not mentioning enough civilian casualties.  I watch both CNN and French television through TV5 and the BBC. I read the New York, le Monde, le Figaro, and the Financial Times. I have learned what are the biases of each organization and because I believe that it is important to know how others view the situation even though I do not agree or I am infuriated by their coverage of the conflict.  I think what is dangerous about the instinct that one has to tune out certain media is that it forces us to live in parallel worlds where we stopped learning about how other people think and stopped tolerating it. Racism and hatred are always intolerable and it is for that reason that I refuse to listen to those who want to make this conflict one about ethnicity.  I watched Charlie Rose last night and I enjoyed the program because it wasn't loud and because he tried (and succeeded in my opinion) to inform the viewer by getting out of the picture and presenting both sides of the argument. One of his guests was the Syrian Expatriates Minister, Buthaina Shaaban and she kept arguing that the conflict was one of the Arabs against Israel. Charlie Rose let her speak and I think by doing so, he made it possible for the viewer to understand the intentions of Syrian Minister and to take what she was saying at face value. I think that he had confronted instead of simply having a conversation with her that he would have made her more credible. It is important during these harsh times to have conversations with one other not so much to argue about which side is the aggressor or the victim, but to learn more about one other and to share our hopes and our dreams.

Bush, Blair, and the mic

Here is what Bush and Blair said yesterday when their conversation was picked out by an open mic:

BUSH Yo, Blair. How are you doin’?
BLAIR I’m just . . .
BUSH You’re leaving?
BLAIR No, no, no, not yet. On this trade thingy . . .(inaudible)
BUSH Yeah, I told that to the man. Thanks for the sweater it’s awfully thoughtful of you.
BLAIR It’s a pleasure.
BUSH I know you picked it out yourself.
BLAIR Absolutely (inaudible).
BUSH What about Kofi? (inaudible) His attitude to ceasefire and everything else . . . happens.
BLAIR Yeah, no I think the (inaudible) is really difficult. We can’t stop this unless you get this international business agreed.
BUSH Yeah.
BLAIR I don’t know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral.
BUSH I think Condi is going to go pretty soon.
BLAIR But that’s, that’s, that’s all that matters. But if you . . . you see it will take some time to get that together.
BUSH Yeah, yeah.
BLAIR But at least it gives people . . .
BUSH It’s a process, I agree. I told her your offer to . . .
BLAIR Well, it’s only if, I mean, you know. If she’s got a, or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were. Because obviously if she goes out, she’s got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.
BUSH You see, the thing is, what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over. (inaudible)
BLAIR Syria.
BUSH Why?
BLAIR Because I think this is all part of the same thing.
BUSH Yeah.
BLAIR What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way . . .
BUSH Yeah, yeah, he is sweet.
BLAIR He is honey. And that’s what the whole thing is about. It’s the same with Iraq.
BUSH I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.
BLAIR Yeah.
BUSH We are not blaming the Lebanese Government.
BLAIR Is this . . .? (he taps the microphone in front of him and the sound is cut.)

James Forsyth is arguing in Foreign policy magazine's blog that Bush and Blair knew the mic was on. I don't know what to believe.

Regime change and Africa

Roger Howard has a post in the Guardian blog which asks an interesting question, "what about regime change for Africa?" He argues that " the essential reason why the liberal interventionists' champion some causes at the expense of others is simply self-interest. If there had long been massive public clamouring for regime change in Africa but abhorrence at interference in the Middle East, then many of them would have performed a dramatic volte-face. Instead, they know that such calls would raise the spectre of racism and neo-colonialism that could electorally haunt them." I think that he is right even though it is necessary to broaden his point. Regime change rarely becomes a policy for the US or France and the UK because "African dictators" are for sale and that they are not in power for ideological reasons, but for purely egoistical reasons, which means that they can be bought and become to say things bluntly "the bastards" of the highest bidder. It is for these reasons that stability is the goal of almost all the African policies of  powerful countries. African dictators are rarely a threat to the economic interests of important countries and are only a danger to their own people. I think that the fact that Robert Mugabe for example is still in power even though the West wants him out is because he isn't a threat to the West even though he is running Zimbabwe to the ground by pushing it back forty years. The sad reality is that African dictators have learned since Idi Amin that to stay in power, they have to rule without threatening the economic interests of powerful countries.

The Past and Policy

The big questions in Washington, DC right now are what can does the Bush administration do to stop the current violence in the Middle East and whether Iraq has emasculated American foreign policy and in fact ended as Time Magazine argued this week "Cowboy diplomacy." Frank Rich has a great column in the New York Times, which answers some of this question by emphasizing the effect that the past has on policy.  He makes the following argument:

Only if we remember that the core values of this White House are marketing and political expediency, not principle and substance, can we fully grasp its past errors and, more important, decipher the endgame to come. [..] The Bush doctrine was a doctrine in name only, a sales strategy contrived to dress up the single mission of regime change in Iraq with philosophical grandiosity worthy of F.D.R. There was never any serious intention of militarily pre-empting either Iran or North Korea, whose nuclear ambitions were as naked then as they are now, or of striking the countries that unlike Iraq were major enablers of Islamic terrorism. Axis of Evil was merely a clever brand name from the same sloganeering folks who gave us “compassionate conservatism” and “a uniter, not a divider”(...) Since then, the administration has fiddled in Iraq while Islamic radicalism has burned brighter and the rest of the Axis of Evil, not to mention Afghanistan and the Middle East, have grown into just the gathering threat that Saddam was not. And there’s still no policy.As Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution writes on his foreign-affairs blog, Mr. Bush isn’t pursuing diplomacy in his post-cowboy phase so much as “a foreign policy of empty gestures” consisting of “strong words here; a soothing telephone call and hasty meetings there.” The ambition is not to control events but “to kick the proverbial can down the road — far enough so the next president can deal with it.” There is no plan for victory in Iraq, only a wish and a prayer that the apocalypse won’t arrive before Mr. Bush retires to his ranch.

If the events in the middle East showed one thing is that the neocon's beliefs that strength and unilateralism were necessary for the United States to achieve its objectives and that democratizing the world could replace a more complex and history-centric foreign policy were not only wrong, but reckless. I think that the Bush administration is finding out that it is very difficult to recover from Neoconservatism because the policies, which created by this ideology had grave consequences, the most disastrous of which were the normalization of confrontation and the implementation of the idea that force should be used as the last resort, but can be an acceptable means to achieve objectives.

The slap of the week

"We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly." Vladimir Putin during this morining's news conference with President Bush.

What does the current crisis in the Middle East mean?

Most of today's op-ed focus on the Middle East and it is interesting to read the different take that each columnist have on the situation and its significance.

1. For Tom Friedman, what is happening in the Middle East is an attempt by Islamist groups to destroy the seeds of democracy that have been planted in the region with democratic elections in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestine Territories. He writes, "The world needs to understand what is going on here: the little flowers of democracy that were planted in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories are being crushed by the boots of Syrian-backed Islamist militias who are desperate to keep real democracy from taking hold in this region and Iranian-backed Islamist militias desperate to keep modernism from taking hold. It may be the skeptics are right: maybe democracy, while it is the most powerful form of legitimate government, simply can’t be implemented everywhere. It certainly is never going to work in the Arab-Muslim world if the U.S. and Britain are alone in pushing it in Iraq, if Europe dithers on the fence, if the moderate Arabs cannot come together and make a fist, and if Islamist parties are allowed to sit in governments and be treated with respect — while maintaining private armies.The whole democracy experiment in the Arab-Muslim world is at stake here, and right now it’s going up in smoke."
2. David Ignatius argues that the risk that the Middle East will involved in a war is real because it is the aim of Iran and of other extremist groups. According to him, "In the Lebanon crisis we have a terrifying glimpse of the future: Iran and its radical allies are pushing toward war. That's the chilling reality behind this week's events. On Tuesday the Iranians spurned an American offer of talks on their nuclear program; on Wednesday their Hezbollah proxy committed what Israel rightly called "an act of war." The radicals want to lure America and Israel deeper into the killing ground, confident that they have the staying power to prevail. We should not play their game."
3. For the Financial Times, the current conflict is one where there can be no winner and which is in part due to the fact that President Bush has chosen not to be as involved as his predecessors in the Middle East Conflict: "Neither side can easily claim the moral high ground,[...]Writing recently in Haaretz, Yossi Beilin, Israel's former justice minister and architect of the Oslo accords, recalled the procession of US presidents - Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton - who had devoted intense effort to Middle East peace-making, every bit as important to Israel's future as supporting it. The present Bush administration, by contrast, was "nearly entirely absent . . . when Israel needs a powerful third party".Quite so. This is no longer - if it ever was - some regional squabble. In present circumstances, every bit as much as during the cold war, a shot fired in the Middle East will echo around the world."
4. Finally, in the Guardian, Simon Tisdall too singles out President Bush and argues that his indifference drives conflict. In his op-ed piece, he quotes Dennis Ross to support his argument that the current crisis has its roots in "weakness of the American partner," : "  The US had been reduced to "pretty much sitting on the sidelines," said Dennis Ross, a former Clinton peace envoy. "We're preoccupied in Iraq, we're obviously preoccupied with Iran, and now we're concerned about North Korea. And in the middle of it all we have a crisis in the Middle East that we're just not engaged with."

Zidanegate: Football (Soccer) and Ethnicity

While I was reading some of the many articles on the now infamous head butt of Zinédine Zidane, I kept wondering if to understand it is necessary to have found yourself in the position where you felt unwanted somewhere in spite of the fact that you knew that you were the best person there and that you had the talent to be there because the people saw you simply as a woman, a black person, a Jew, an Arab, as someone who could not belong no matter how great s/he is because of her/his ethnicity.  In an editorial yesterday, le Figaro, a French newspaper asserted that a player of Zidane’s class shouldn’t have done what he did. But that is precisely the problem. There is nobody like Zidane. He is a pioneer. He is in a class by himself not so much because of his talent, but because of his origins and of his ethnicity. He is the first player of African origins to be viewed by millions as the best player in the world. Football isn’t played on Mars, but on Earth. Thus, what happens on a football field reflects what happens in Society. For other millions of people, it doesn’t matter that Zidane is a great football player, what matters to them is the fact that his parents come from Algeria and that he isn’t white or even Brazilian and they only tolerate his différence because he does things with the ball that nobody else can. It is hard to write but color and ethnicity matter on the football field. Great players such as Zidane like to fool themselves into thinking that they will be able to force people with their talent or even their genius to see them as men. For football geniuses, the football field is a paradise where they can excel and where they can protect themselves from the injustice of the world, which the members of their families and their communities have to confront. They believe that talent, genius is a shield, a cape which like the one of Superman, will protect them against everything including the fact that human beings still believe that a certain color and a certain ethnicity is an affirmation of one’s superiority. Materazzi, the Italian player who was received Zidane’s head butt of the chest, forced Zizou to crash back to earth. He reminded him what millions of people think that he is a subhuman, and that in spite of the fact that he was the best player of the field, he was inferior to him and to all of the members of his team because of his ethnicity. When Materazzi admits insulting Zidane and even says that to justify his words, that they were words that are said everything on a football team, he shows us that football reflects the ills of society. By insulting the arrogant Arab, Materazzi wanted to show Zidane that he may be a football God, but he is still an Arab, and a probable terrorist who forces his sister to hide her body and her fact under a veil. Zizou’s headbutt reminded the one which George Weah, a former Liberian player who played from Milan AC gave to the head of Jorge Costa, a Porto Player. Weah headbutted Costa because of numerous racist remarks, which he made throughout the match. Weah who was a great player thought like Zidane that his talent and the fact that he was on a football field who protect him from hearing certain things people who shared his ethnicity, but who lack his talent her everyday and he snapped when he realized that talent or even genius does not yet overcome racism and prejudice. It is impossible to understand what happens Sunday afternoon without taking into account the context and the fact that there was a crucial difference between the two players involved in that incident. And that difference, in many societies nowadays, would have made one inferior to the other no matter what the reality on the field said. After Materazzi saw Zidane almost score with his head a goal that would have made France world champions, he decided that he was going to get the Arrogant and gifted Arab to make sure that Italy won. Zidane couldn’t accept that a player who doesn’t even have half his talent dare spit o his family by reminding that his origins by reminding him that what mattered wasn’t was he could do with the ball, but where he came from. Before headbutting Materazzi, Zidane must have relived his extraordinary career and realized that he had failed for he hadn’t been able with his genius to transcend ethnicity to become just a great football player instead of been an Arab who has great football skills. It is easy for those who have never been on the side of the weak and of the people who are condemned to fight for equality because their origins are written on their skins to condemn Zidane and to write long essay about his imperfections because to them, the headbutt was simply an act of violence which a genius shouldn’t do. But I understand Zidane because I see that his headbutt was a way for him to say not only enough to Materazzi, but to refuse to be treated as millions of people who look like him are treated. I would have preferred Zidane to turn his head, to ignore Materazzi and to act again as he did throughout the world and throughout his career as a superman by arguing with his indifference that words don’t matter. But he couldn’t, because he had realized at the twilight of his career that words mattered because he couldn’t play football forever, and because, in spite of the fact that he was a football God, he would become an Arab the minute after he retired from football. I understand Zidane’s headbutt because I know how it feels like to be humiliated by someone who feels that he is entitled to do so just because history and society has taught him that he was better than you are because of his ethnicity. I will always remember watching the game between Cameroon and England in 1990, during that year’s world cup that was happening in Italy. Cameroon was beating England 2 to 1 and was just a couple of minutes away not only from becoming the first African nation to be in the semi-final, but also to beat the country who had invented football. My mother told me that it wasn’t going to happen because the world was ready and because the hooligans were going to destroy everything if it happened. An hour letter, as the Cameroonian players were thanking their supporters and as the England players were thanking their lucky stars and the referee for the two penalty-kicks which had saved them from the humiliation of being beaten by a team of N*****, I understood that my mother was right and that the world wasn’t ready. Last Sunday, when Materazzi performed sublimely like Al Pacino the role of the victim of the Arab player who had finally let his violent instincts get the better of him, when the referee after discussing the incident which one of his colleagues showed him the red card as to show him that the football field wasn’t a mosque, I understood that Zidane wasn’t going to win the world cup even though he deserved it. The reason for that unfairness was simple. Before being a football God, before being the hero of the Castellane, the neighborhood where he grew up, before even being the captain of the bleus, the French football team, he was a man who is proud of where he comes from and who loves his mother and his sister more than he loves football.

necessary first step : Gitmo, enemies combatants and the Geneva Conventions

The decision of the Pentagon to extend the rights afforded by the Geneva Conventions to all detainees of Gitmo is the first step necessary to reconcile the Bush administration with International law. The most eloquent statement, which I have heard on this issue was the one Patrick Leahy, the Democratic Senator from Vermont gave yesterday as the Senate started its hearings the issue of how to judge the detainees of Gitmo. Here is an excerpt of what he said:

I am a former prosecutor.  I find it hard to fathom that this Administration is so incompetent that it needs kangaroo-court procedures to convince a tribunal of United States military officers that the “worst-of-the-worst” imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay should be held accountable.  Military commissions should not be set up as a sham.  They should be consistent with the high-standard of American military justice that has worked for decades.  If they are to be United States military commissions, they should dispense just punishment fairly, not just be an easier way to punish.  [...]

Some still will not admit this Administration’s errors.  They argue as if the United States should measure itself against the brutality of the terrorists.  Our standards have always been higher than that.  I disagree with their argument when it comes to the Rule of Law.  I disagree when it comes to engaging in torture.  I disagree when it comes to honoring our legal and international obligations.  America’s ideals are sullied whenever we resort to bumper-sticker slogans about giving special privileges to terrorists. 

My hope is that the Bush Administration doesn't stop here and does everything it can to reconcile America with the world because in order for civilization to survive, its fight against terrorism must be won not by any means necessary, but by respectng its laws and its ideals.

On Polygamy

There was what I thought to be an excellent article on Polygamy in the Sunday edition of the New York Times, which talked about in the context  of Turkey's fight to integrate the West and to become a member of the European Union. As Dan Bilefsky, the writer of the article, put it, "Polygamy is creating cultural clashes in a country struggling to reconcile the secularism of the republic with its Muslim traditions. It also risks undermining Turkey's drive to gain entry into the European Union." My most passionate argument about polygamy isn't about its immorality or even about the fact that marriage ought to be between one man and one woman, it is rather that it is limited to Men.  If women were allowed to have numerous husbands in Societies, which allow polygamy, then I think it would be possible to argue that it is a practice that is based not solely on old and misogynistic tradition, but on choice and avidity. What repulses me about polygamy isn't the fact that a man is allowed to take more than one wife and to have an infinite number of children, but rather the fact that only the women are objectified. I am not going to talk about the fact that more often than not, women are forced to get into a polygamous relationship and that many of them do so when they are still children for I think those are different issues. To me, polygamy clashes with modernity because of what is says about women and human relationships, which is that women are things that can be collected and that marriage isn't about equality, but rather about satisfying the need of one person, the man. Again, here the man is the hunter and the woman the prey as we all know, hunting and in this case, marriage is about catching as many preys as possible to show one's talent as a hunter, one's masculinity. If women could become hunters, then I would argue that it was just an example of human avidity, but since they are not, polygamy shows the fact in some parts of the world, women are things, collectible things. Oh sure, it is true that in the west, men are able to collect girlfriends and mistresses, but at least, most of the times, to do so they have to become good liars and they don't have the State or their priest, their rabbi or their imam as an ally. Polygamy isn't acceptable because it is against equality and because it goes after everything we know about ethics since Kant and that is that people aren't things and we shouldn't use them.

The West and its egocentricity

Jenni Russell has a worth reading analysis on the immigration issue and what the West's response to it says about itself.

Migration has become an unstoppable global force. [...] Between 1993 and 2004, in an attempt to stop illegal immigrants crossing into the US from Mexico, Congress tripled its spending on border enforcement. The only noticeable effect was that 2,640 people died attempting to enter the country. There was no evidence that the flow of migrants slowed at all. It's the same story in Europe, where primary immigration almost ceased 30 years ago. Yet the continent has 20 million foreign workers now, almost twice as many as there were then. They come because we have jobs available that the home-grown populations aren't willing to take.

The west has grown accustomed to treating the globe as its plaything. Yet we cannot holiday in Phuket, buy second homes in Croatia, or gloat over cheap clothes from China without accepting that the foreigners whose lives we disrupt have a right to pursue their goals too. Will politicians ever dare to tell us to grow up?

Immigration is really more about identity, control, and fear than about even economics. The West is used to power and unaccustomed to have things forced upon itself. Immigrants whether they come to the West legally or illegally are increasingly seeing as a threat by those who was a Westerncentric or a eurocentric reading of history. They see a group of foreigners coming to their country and they think one thing: colonization. The trouble with that world view is that it assumes that immigrants are like the colonizers of yesterday and that immigration is really what Anthonny Giddens calls reverse colonization. Immigrants don't come to the West with a complex of superiority or with the desire to conquer it. Immigrants are by millions to the West for one reason only because it is the only place where they can hope to live a drag to riches story.

Zidane lost it and France lost

I am devastated by the loss of France to Italy. I am not going to blame Zidane because he was the French team, but I wonder why he lost his cool. Anyway, thanks Zizou for the memories. I have to take some time to get over this loss for I know it is going to take years for France to be to the Finals again. Anyway, like the song says, "Tonight, I'm going to cry."

The Axis of Evil Speech and North Korea Part deux

The Financial Times in its Editorial this morning did what I did two days ago and looked back at President Bush's axis of Evil speech and the impact that it had on North Korea. Its conclusion is the same as mine, "Mr Kim's continuing antics also throw America's broader "axis of evil" strategy into sharper relief. It is four-and-a-half years since Mr Bush conflated the war on terror with the threat of weapons of mass destruction and elevated Iraq, Iran and North Korea into a special category of global pariahs. The record so far is not good. Far from having milked global sympathies from the September 11 2001 attacks to isolate the most dangerous rogue states, the US is today seen as more of a problem than a solution." The Editorial also offers three lessons which President Bush should learn from this episode:

First, talking to other countries - particularly those that hate you - is not a sign of weakness. Many of the Bush administration's leading figures cut their teeth as inveterate opponents of detente with the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Instead of learning from Ronald Reagan, who used direct talks to exploit the USSR's weaknesses in the 1980s, they continue to portray anyone favouring dialogue as appeasers. [..]

Second, democracy cannot easily be implanted in foreign soils. As we have seen in Iraq and are worryingly close to observing in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are threatening a comeback, building democracy requires more patience and investment than Mr Bush has so far been prepared to offer. Military occupation rarely leads to democracy. But without a minimum level of stability it cannot hope to survive.

Finally, multilateralism often works. In late May, Mr Bush showed he had belatedly grasped this point by offering multiparty talks to Iran. Already there are signs that the mere offer of dialogue has sown divisions among Iran's mullahs. How much more could have been saved if Mr Bush had done this in 2003 when a better chance presented itself? ...

Let's hope that the Bush administration learns from the mistake that was the axis of evil. Apparently, President Bush seemed to have learn something since he emphasized the fact yesterday in his news conference that the North Korean problem would be resolved diplomatically and multilaterally.

The Indian Mirage ?

In an oped in the New York Times, Pankaj Mishra argues that India isn't doing as well as some people believe and that even though it is a good place to do business, it is not a good place to live.

1. He argues that,"But the increasingly common, business-centric view of India suppresses more facts than it reveals. Recent accounts of the alleged rise of India barely mention the fact that the country's $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa and that, as the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report puts it, even if it sustains its current high growth rates, India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106."
2. However, in Foreign Affairs, we get a more optimistic view of India, one which focuses on the progress it has accomplished. In one of the articles published on India in that magazine, Gurcharan Das, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble India, writes: "Even though the reforms have been slow, imperfect, and incomplete, they have been consistent and in one direction. And it takes courage, frankly, to give up power, as the Indian state has done for the past 15 years. The stubborn persistence of democracy is itself one of the Indian state's proudest achievements. Time and again, Indian democracy has shown itself to be resilient and enduring -- giving a lie to the old prejudice that the poor are incapable of the kind of self-discipline and sobriety that make for effective self-government. To be sure, it is an infuriating democracy, plagued by poor governance and fragile institutions that have failed to deliver basic public goods. But India's economic success has been all the more remarkable for its issuing from such a democracy."
3. I think that how one views India depends on whether one chooses to see the glass as half-full or half-empty. It is true that it is too early to say whether India will become a superpower, but it is also true that it is a nation which has tremendous potential and which has accomplished a lot since its independence from Britain. In my opinion, India has the fundamentals required to become a powerful country (size, human capital, democratic institutions, stability,...etc), the biggest challenge is governance, that is the way politicians and other members of civil society will choose to solve important problems such as poverty and inequality. If India doesn't fulfill its potential this century, it wouldn't be because  it couldn't become a great country, but rather because its political class made the wrong choices.

The axis of evil speech and its impact on the US and North Korea relationship

On January 29, 2002, President Bush gave his second State of the Union Address in which he referred to North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil with Iraq and Iran. That speech was a mistake for three reasons.

1. It made it impossible for North Korea (Iraq and Iran) to have any other type of relationship than one of confrontation. That State of the Union Address was well written and assertive, but it was also misguided and reckless because it assumed that the US had the might and the resources to deal with three “enemies” at the same time. The President used strong words, which could only provoke strong reactions:

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.  The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade.  This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children.  This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.  By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.  They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred.  They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.  In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

The President made two critical errors. He put North Korea together with States with which the US had had direct or indirect military conflict and sent the message to the North Koreans that the US had every intention to have a confrontational relationship and regarded it as a rogue nation, which it had to pacify.

2. The second reason why this speech was a mistake is that it was purely ideological in the sense that it was based on the belief that the US had to use strong language and to use force to win the fight against terrorism. The problem is of course is that the fight against terrorism is not just about power and about force, it is also about ideas and about values. By focusing on strength and by making the US more egocentric, the Bush administration made the fight against terrorism an American enterprise when it is a universal one since it is in my opinion a fight for the survival and the soul of humanity. North Korea is today a threat not only to the United States, but also to countries such as Japan. Unfortunately, the fact the US personalized the issue by pointing to North Korea and by making it a foe makes it difficult to deal with this issue in a pragmatic manner. The US has to deal with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea but it is clear that it needs allies. Unfortunately, countries are more reluctant to come to the aid of the US precisely because they feel uncomfortable with the ideology, which President Bush enunciated in that second State of the Union Address, one that believes that strength and force are everything and are the solutions to every global problems
3. Finally, the axis of evil speech was a mistake because it made the United States and the way it uses its power the focus of the fight against terrorism when the focus should have been placed on the terrorists and on the fact that terrorism is unacceptable no matter what its goals are. North Korea is able to launch missiles on the Fourth of July because it knows that it will not have to face a united international community. The North Korean authorities know that there will be countries (Russia, China among others), which will support its actions either by minimizing their importance and refusing to support tough measures to make them stop or by reveling in the fact that North Korea is defying the US.
4. The biggest question for the Bush Administration is what they should do now. Unfortunately, there aren’t many options available to the US and in my opinion, it is important that US officials do everything in their power by changing the relationship with the North Korea from one where conflicts are unavoidable and even desirable to one where cooperation and coexistence become the objective. President Bush was right to say in its axis of evil speech that North Korea was an oppressive regime, but unfortunately, as Iraq showed, it is very difficult for the US to get of an oppressive regime and to put a more stable and democratic one in its place.

While I was sleeping: my trip to New York, football, Madonna, Joe Lieberman, North Korea, and Madonna again

I got back early this morning from my trip to New York, which was wonderful. It felt good to come back to New York and it was difficult to leave it even though I think that DC has its good sides. I had a good time and the hardest thing for me was to resist the need that I had to write notes from my blog to comment on the news and other issues.

1. My stay in New York started very well since France beat Brazil (Football) on Saturday and since I was able to rub the faces of the people I was in by going to eat at a Brazilian Restaurant and by reminding them that France is the oldest team left in the World Cup. That victory made my day and my long weekend for that matter for I stayed on cloud where everything felt great.
2. On Sunday, I went to the New York Public Library, which is my favorite place in New York not only because it has books, but also because I believe that it is one of the few places you can go to New York to find some peace.  I relaxed and read a little because I wanted to be ready for the main event, the one, which had actually brought me to New York: the Madonna concert in Madison Square Garden. I just have one word to describe the concert: wow! It was the fourth time that I was seeing Madonna in Concert and  even though I know I can't be objective because I am her number one fan, I have to say that when I see her, I am always reminded how important it is to know yourself, to know your limits, and to believe that you have the ability to overcome and to transcend them.  What makes Madonna great is that she knows who she is, she knows what she does well and what she doesn't do well and she is able to do her best because she believes in herself. So I have the time of my life.
3. Finally, throughout my long weekend, I couldn't help reading and watching the news. Although a lot happened throughout my trip, I kept thinking about Joe Lieberman and I felt sick to my stomach. I have to admit that I like Joe Lieberman and that even though I don't agree with him on a lot of things, I believe that he has principles and I admired him for it. I think that what happened to Lieberman is what happens to people who believes that faith, religion, and morality have crucial roles to play in politics.  Joe Lieberman is so sure to be right on Iraq and on everything else that he stopped feeling the need to convince people and to explain to them why in spite of the fact that Democrats are for the most part anti-Iraq war, he still believes in this war.  Joe Lieberman forgot that a leader isn't just a person who acts based on his principles, but also someone who takes on the task, the obligation that he has to convince his followers, his electorate that he is doing what is right for the United States. I hope that Joe Lieberman wins the Democratic primary, but I also believe that once he has agreed to take part in it, he can't then say that if he loses, he will run an independent campaign.
4. As I was getting back to DC, I heard about North Korea and the launch of its missiles and I thought about the axis of evil speech of President Bush and I wonder if  he would chance that speech if he had the chance. It is obvious to me that once President Bush announced to the world that Iran and North Korea were enemies to the US, then he left them no other choice, but to act as enemies to the US.  I don't think that ignoring North Korea is the answer because the North Koreans leaders aren't petulant children just asking for some attention, they are adults who believe in what they are doing and who have the means to become a serious threat in that region of the world.
5. Finally, I want to get back to the Madonna concert to end this note. Many people are always surprised by the fact that I loooovvvvve Madonna and that I have for most of my life. I always tell her that she has all the qualities that I admire and that I would like to have: discipline, self-confidence, courage, perseverance, flexibility, and she is a hard worker. I love Madonna because she shows that how far you can go with some talent, a big ego and a lot of hard work. I am going to be watching the game between France and Portugal in a few minutes. I hope France wins. I have this itching feeling that it isn't going to happen, but I am going to watch because I love that team and because I believe in Zidane.

New York New York

I'm going to New York this weekend to take advantage of the fact that Independance day is a Tuesday to have some R&R. I won't be able to write until Wednesday and it is going to be difficult for me because I have been writing every day since the conception of this blog. But I think it is always good to take some time off. Anyway, have a great weekend and Happy  Independence day to you all.