If Cheney is in fact the anti-christ, what does that make KBR?
France 24 reports:
"According to Eller’s complaint, KBR dug an open air burn pit at Balad (airbase in Iraq) and burned hazardous medical waste from a camp hospital in open air close to the lodgings of US soldiers. “The pit was less than half a mile from my lodging and even closer to the hospital,” said Gogel."
I say we throw Cheney in there too - although he would undoubtedly add to the toxicity levels.
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Media and the Middle East
I think most analysts would agree that the American media is one of the largest obstacles to a reasonable US foreign policy in the Middle East. The conflicts (Palestinian-Israeli, Lebanese-Israeli, Iraq, the Kurdish question, etc) and national governments (notably overly sympathetic coverage of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) are portrayed so differently to Americans that it is nearly impossible for citizens to make informed decisions or judgments on Middle East issues.
It's shameful that in a such a wealthy country, with a well-educated population, people should still be denied the basic tools necessary to make their own informed decisions - and even worse that the majority of them will never know that this has been denied them in the first place. It's impossible for US citizens to demand more comprehensive coverage of international issues if they don't know what comprehensive coverage looks like in the first place. Just one day of live streams from Al Jazeera or even a European station such as France 24, would change the way most Americans understand global affairs.
Here's some recent articles on media and the Middle East:
The Atlantic's Goldberg on why Al Jazeera shouldn't show pictures of dead Palestinians
Israel's leftist media under fire
Why Al Jazeera viewers get better coverage of conflict
It's shameful that in a such a wealthy country, with a well-educated population, people should still be denied the basic tools necessary to make their own informed decisions - and even worse that the majority of them will never know that this has been denied them in the first place. It's impossible for US citizens to demand more comprehensive coverage of international issues if they don't know what comprehensive coverage looks like in the first place. Just one day of live streams from Al Jazeera or even a European station such as France 24, would change the way most Americans understand global affairs.
Here's some recent articles on media and the Middle East:
The Atlantic's Goldberg on why Al Jazeera shouldn't show pictures of dead Palestinians
Israel's leftist media under fire
Why Al Jazeera viewers get better coverage of conflict
Monday, January 5, 2009
Add one part failed politician to one part right-wing legal expert and you have a recipe for a NYTimes op-ed!
Will someone please explain to John Bolton that international law and diplomacy do serve some purpose other than hamstringing US unilateralism. The fact that someone involved in the Bush administration is even TALKING about curbing executive power makes me want to dedicate the rest of my academic life to blogging about how poorly qualified this man is to speak on issues of politics. Every time he opens his mouth a new black hole is formed somewhere in the void to slowly begin sucking reason and rationality out of the dialogue of humankind.
At the LATimes, the real enemy is bad op-ed page editors
Yesterday's LATimes has an op-ed by two Israelis (Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren) entitled: In Gaza, the real enemy is Iran: Israeli attacks must not stop until Iran's proxy, Hamas, is defeated.
By this logic, the real enemy of Israeli settlers are the Jewish diaspora (and fundamentalist Christians) living outside Israel that send them money and other resources to colonize Israel for the coming of the messiah. It's the same process: if we assume that Hamas doesn't represent the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians, but is rather just a proxy of Iran to destabilize the region, then we cannot conclude differently when it comes to Jewish settlers and their co-religionists outside the region who encourage illegal settlement growth. Thus, what Oren and Halevi should have said (but didn't) is that "In the world, the real enemy are religious extremists: and financial support for those extremists must be made illegal, WHEREVER it happens."
By this logic, the real enemy of Israeli settlers are the Jewish diaspora (and fundamentalist Christians) living outside Israel that send them money and other resources to colonize Israel for the coming of the messiah. It's the same process: if we assume that Hamas doesn't represent the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians, but is rather just a proxy of Iran to destabilize the region, then we cannot conclude differently when it comes to Jewish settlers and their co-religionists outside the region who encourage illegal settlement growth. Thus, what Oren and Halevi should have said (but didn't) is that "In the world, the real enemy are religious extremists: and financial support for those extremists must be made illegal, WHEREVER it happens."
A New Middle Eastern Cold War
From Forbes.com
A New Middle Eastern Cold War
Michael Young
I think Young’s take is largely correct (click the link above for his article), and I’m sure if he had space he would have elaborated on many of his statements. Here’s what I would add:
Egypt has little credibility with Hamas (or Palestinians in general) since their separate peace with Israel made it more difficult for other Arab regimes (notably the Palestinians themselves) to negotiate the return of their territories. Egypt also has little credibility with democratic activists in the Arab world since, despite their glowing reviews in the US media, Mubarak’s regime is just as despotic as any other in the region. The Egyptians may have gotten peace with Israel and money from the US, but they’ve lost most of their credibility with their Arab neighbors. Instead, much of their foreign policy now looks Southward – toward Sudan and the rest of their African neighbors.
Young also states that, “By most accounts, Iran and Syria pushed Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas's political bureau, to undermine any accord by continuing to fire rockets at Israel, making the Gaza confrontation virtually inevitable. The idea was not only to discredit the Egyptians, but also to welcome Barack Obama with a crisis making any American opening toward Iran and Syria more costly for the United States.”
I had to read this statement a few times, thinking I was misunderstanding Mr. Young, since it’s irrational for either Syria or Iran to desire to make it MORE difficult for Obama’s administration to reach out to their respective regimes. Young’s theory does make sense, however, if we assume a power struggle within the Iranian and Syrian regimes between the old guard hardliners (in Syria the old bureaucratic elite and the military and in Iran I’m assuming this would be Ahmadinijad and the Ayatollah) and a nascent group of moderate technocrats (in Syria this would include President Bashar and a number of his ministers – in Iran this would probably include only opposition figures outside the government without any real political weight).
If this is a correct reading, and indeed there are struggles within Iran and Syria for control of their countries’ foreign policies, this is even MORE reason for Obama’s administration to engage in talks, since a rapprochement with concrete benefits would weaken the hardliners in both regimes.
Young also states, “As Arabs watch events in Gaza, their first impulse is to condemn their own leaders. For decades, Arab regimes diverted valuable resources to build up vast security apparatuses justified as necessary to combat Israel. Yet Israel won all its wars, some Arab states made peace with it, but the security apparatuses remain.”
I would agree, with the caveat that this is probably their second impulse – rather they would first blame Israel and the international community for failing to make peace, which has given their regimes the necessary scapegoat for maintaining bloated security sectors. The Egyptians, who have made peace with Israel (at great domestic political costs that still resonate 30 years later) must still maintain a large security presence at Israel’s behest to stop smuggling across their border. Arabs can see through their regimes’ rhetoric, but Israel still bears most of the blame in their calculus.
What I find striking in both Young’s analysis and the analysis of most other Middle East observers is their insistence at singling out Iran and Syria as the most powerful backers of movements like Hamas and Hizbullah. To this duo of states I would also add the entire Arab population, which while mostly disenfranchised and powerless, are still a force that must be reckoned with sooner or later. Focusing on states like Syria and Iran at the expense of the region’s people is symptomatic of the failures of US policy. By engaging with the movements that Arabs see as the last front fighting against complete US/Israeli tutelage, more powerful actors like Iran and Syria could more easily pursue reasonable foreign policies while abandoning empty rhetoric about ‘sovereignty’ and ‘resistance’ and their massive militaries.
A New Middle Eastern Cold War
Michael Young
I think Young’s take is largely correct (click the link above for his article), and I’m sure if he had space he would have elaborated on many of his statements. Here’s what I would add:
Egypt has little credibility with Hamas (or Palestinians in general) since their separate peace with Israel made it more difficult for other Arab regimes (notably the Palestinians themselves) to negotiate the return of their territories. Egypt also has little credibility with democratic activists in the Arab world since, despite their glowing reviews in the US media, Mubarak’s regime is just as despotic as any other in the region. The Egyptians may have gotten peace with Israel and money from the US, but they’ve lost most of their credibility with their Arab neighbors. Instead, much of their foreign policy now looks Southward – toward Sudan and the rest of their African neighbors.
Young also states that, “By most accounts, Iran and Syria pushed Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas's political bureau, to undermine any accord by continuing to fire rockets at Israel, making the Gaza confrontation virtually inevitable. The idea was not only to discredit the Egyptians, but also to welcome Barack Obama with a crisis making any American opening toward Iran and Syria more costly for the United States.”
I had to read this statement a few times, thinking I was misunderstanding Mr. Young, since it’s irrational for either Syria or Iran to desire to make it MORE difficult for Obama’s administration to reach out to their respective regimes. Young’s theory does make sense, however, if we assume a power struggle within the Iranian and Syrian regimes between the old guard hardliners (in Syria the old bureaucratic elite and the military and in Iran I’m assuming this would be Ahmadinijad and the Ayatollah) and a nascent group of moderate technocrats (in Syria this would include President Bashar and a number of his ministers – in Iran this would probably include only opposition figures outside the government without any real political weight).
If this is a correct reading, and indeed there are struggles within Iran and Syria for control of their countries’ foreign policies, this is even MORE reason for Obama’s administration to engage in talks, since a rapprochement with concrete benefits would weaken the hardliners in both regimes.
Young also states, “As Arabs watch events in Gaza, their first impulse is to condemn their own leaders. For decades, Arab regimes diverted valuable resources to build up vast security apparatuses justified as necessary to combat Israel. Yet Israel won all its wars, some Arab states made peace with it, but the security apparatuses remain.”
I would agree, with the caveat that this is probably their second impulse – rather they would first blame Israel and the international community for failing to make peace, which has given their regimes the necessary scapegoat for maintaining bloated security sectors. The Egyptians, who have made peace with Israel (at great domestic political costs that still resonate 30 years later) must still maintain a large security presence at Israel’s behest to stop smuggling across their border. Arabs can see through their regimes’ rhetoric, but Israel still bears most of the blame in their calculus.
What I find striking in both Young’s analysis and the analysis of most other Middle East observers is their insistence at singling out Iran and Syria as the most powerful backers of movements like Hamas and Hizbullah. To this duo of states I would also add the entire Arab population, which while mostly disenfranchised and powerless, are still a force that must be reckoned with sooner or later. Focusing on states like Syria and Iran at the expense of the region’s people is symptomatic of the failures of US policy. By engaging with the movements that Arabs see as the last front fighting against complete US/Israeli tutelage, more powerful actors like Iran and Syria could more easily pursue reasonable foreign policies while abandoning empty rhetoric about ‘sovereignty’ and ‘resistance’ and their massive militaries.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Rubin: "The Arab-Israeli Conflict is Over"
Professor Barry Rubin writes in the Ottowa Citizen: "Resistance" is a favourite code word coined by Syria's regime for a program of battling for decades, sacrificing many thousand lives, using terrorism, fighting wars, and staying intransigent until final, total victory is achieved."
Replace "Syria" with "US" and "Resistance" with "War on Terror" and I actually agree with most of Rubin's article.
He points out, truthfully, that all the Arab leaders exploit the Palestinian situation to paint themselves as besieged moderates, fighting off invading armies of Islamic radicals from neighboring 'rogue' states. Predictably this gets their regimes lots of money from the West, and lets them off the hook on reforms, since stability is paramount.
Rubin's main point is that the Arab-Israeli conflict is no longer Arab in character, but includes only the Palestinians and the Israelis. It's true, most Arab regimes have abandoned the Palestinians to their fate - but their populations haven't. Arab citizens continue to demand justice for the Palestinians - perhaps democracy in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be the first step toward solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Thanks to Ricardo for the link!
Replace "Syria" with "US" and "Resistance" with "War on Terror" and I actually agree with most of Rubin's article.
He points out, truthfully, that all the Arab leaders exploit the Palestinian situation to paint themselves as besieged moderates, fighting off invading armies of Islamic radicals from neighboring 'rogue' states. Predictably this gets their regimes lots of money from the West, and lets them off the hook on reforms, since stability is paramount.
Rubin's main point is that the Arab-Israeli conflict is no longer Arab in character, but includes only the Palestinians and the Israelis. It's true, most Arab regimes have abandoned the Palestinians to their fate - but their populations haven't. Arab citizens continue to demand justice for the Palestinians - perhaps democracy in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be the first step toward solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Thanks to Ricardo for the link!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Juan Cole on Fox News (Radio)
So, asking John Bolton to keep up with Juan Cole in a debate on Gaza is a bit like inviting a 12th Century English peasant on Jeopardy, but Cole manages to make some good points despite the absence of a worth adversary.
Syria Edges Closer to Europe
From the Institute for War and Peace Reporting
(19-Dec-08)
Officials from the Syrian government and the European Union took a step closer to signing a partnership agreement when they met in Damascus at the weekend, but analysts say more reforms – political as well as economic – will be needed to clinch the deal.
On December 14, the two sides initialed a revised version of the original partnership agreement that dates from 2004 but has remained unsigned because of political differences, such as allegations that Damascus was implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.
Syria’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs Abdullah al-Dardari insisted the prospective deal would not entail Damascus making concessions on points of principle.
“We would never sacrifice any of our interests for an agreement,” he told the pro-government website Syria News on December 15.
The meeting was a sign of just how far Syria’s relationship with European states, France in particular, has warmed in recent months. French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the outgoing head of the EU, has praised recent Syrian actions such as opening diplomatic relations with Lebanon and engaging in indirect peace talks with Israel.
“Syria regards the latest step [initialing of agreement] as a political victory,” said a Damascus-based political analyst who asked to remain anonymous. “After several years’ isolation, it’s very important for Syria to become a normal partner in the international and regional community.”
The analyst warned that the final agreement, which is now expected to be signed in the first half of 2009, could be derailed because there were still many conditions that needed to be met.
The agreement is mainly about trade and economic cooperation, but it comes with certain conditions, principally progress in the area of economic reform. The analyst said it was unlikely that the EU would sign the final agreement unless reforms on the table.
“For now, Syria has done nothing obvious to make it deserving of such a deal, since it hasn’t entirely stopped intervening in Lebanese affairs, nor has it made other concessions to the international community,” said the political analyst. “But the European Union would not have taken this step unless it expected that Syria was going to make certain reforms.”
The analyst said he doubted the regime would give any ground when it came to political changes, but predicted that the EU might not press as hard on this issue.
“Europeans fear any political reform in our region, maybe more than the regimes themselves,” he said. “They believe in guaranteed stability more than the less certain results of democratic reform”.
However, an economic analyst also based in Damascus said economic reform could not take place without political changes as well.
“To apply the agreement, comprehensive economic reform is needed at all levels, but that can’t happen without political reform,” he said. “The Syrian regime has lost the last four years, perhaps not deliberately, but because it tried to pursue economic reforms without instituting political reform, in an effort to protect special interests.”
These “special interests”, he explained, were those of the lucky few who had benefited from being on the inside track of privatisation as Syria tried to shift from socialism to market economics.
“Our economy used to be monopolised by the government,” he said. “When the regime started to liberate the market, the economy became monopolised by a handful of wealthy and powerful figures. This has prevented a wider swathe of society from enjoying the benefits of a more open economy”.
Even the purely economic reforms are going to be hard to manage. The limited economic opening that has taken place so far has led to a flood of imported goods, rising inflation and falling real incomes, and mounting unemployment.
After the document was initialed, al-Dardari warned that its terms could prove a threat to some industries in Syria and weaken others, although he insisted it would lead to the creation of new industries as well.
The agreement envisages a range of measures to open up the Syrian economy, for example by lifting custom tariffs on agricultural products and creating a free trade relationship with EU member states. The economic analyst said it was hard to imagine the government doing so, and that it would be unwise to abandon protectionist measures all of a sudden.
“The European Union is a market of 430 million people and our goods have to be not only keenly priced but also of a higher quality to be able to penetrate it,” said the economist. “Many Syrians could be hurt by increased competition, and the government needs to put in place some safeguards for the Syrian people before the full agreement takes effect.”
(Syria News Briefing, a weekly news analysis service, draws on information and opinion from a network of IWPR-trained Syrian journalists based in the country.)
(19-Dec-08)
Officials from the Syrian government and the European Union took a step closer to signing a partnership agreement when they met in Damascus at the weekend, but analysts say more reforms – political as well as economic – will be needed to clinch the deal.
On December 14, the two sides initialed a revised version of the original partnership agreement that dates from 2004 but has remained unsigned because of political differences, such as allegations that Damascus was implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.
Syria’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs Abdullah al-Dardari insisted the prospective deal would not entail Damascus making concessions on points of principle.
“We would never sacrifice any of our interests for an agreement,” he told the pro-government website Syria News on December 15.
The meeting was a sign of just how far Syria’s relationship with European states, France in particular, has warmed in recent months. French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the outgoing head of the EU, has praised recent Syrian actions such as opening diplomatic relations with Lebanon and engaging in indirect peace talks with Israel.
“Syria regards the latest step [initialing of agreement] as a political victory,” said a Damascus-based political analyst who asked to remain anonymous. “After several years’ isolation, it’s very important for Syria to become a normal partner in the international and regional community.”
The analyst warned that the final agreement, which is now expected to be signed in the first half of 2009, could be derailed because there were still many conditions that needed to be met.
The agreement is mainly about trade and economic cooperation, but it comes with certain conditions, principally progress in the area of economic reform. The analyst said it was unlikely that the EU would sign the final agreement unless reforms on the table.
“For now, Syria has done nothing obvious to make it deserving of such a deal, since it hasn’t entirely stopped intervening in Lebanese affairs, nor has it made other concessions to the international community,” said the political analyst. “But the European Union would not have taken this step unless it expected that Syria was going to make certain reforms.”
The analyst said he doubted the regime would give any ground when it came to political changes, but predicted that the EU might not press as hard on this issue.
“Europeans fear any political reform in our region, maybe more than the regimes themselves,” he said. “They believe in guaranteed stability more than the less certain results of democratic reform”.
However, an economic analyst also based in Damascus said economic reform could not take place without political changes as well.
“To apply the agreement, comprehensive economic reform is needed at all levels, but that can’t happen without political reform,” he said. “The Syrian regime has lost the last four years, perhaps not deliberately, but because it tried to pursue economic reforms without instituting political reform, in an effort to protect special interests.”
These “special interests”, he explained, were those of the lucky few who had benefited from being on the inside track of privatisation as Syria tried to shift from socialism to market economics.
“Our economy used to be monopolised by the government,” he said. “When the regime started to liberate the market, the economy became monopolised by a handful of wealthy and powerful figures. This has prevented a wider swathe of society from enjoying the benefits of a more open economy”.
Even the purely economic reforms are going to be hard to manage. The limited economic opening that has taken place so far has led to a flood of imported goods, rising inflation and falling real incomes, and mounting unemployment.
After the document was initialed, al-Dardari warned that its terms could prove a threat to some industries in Syria and weaken others, although he insisted it would lead to the creation of new industries as well.
The agreement envisages a range of measures to open up the Syrian economy, for example by lifting custom tariffs on agricultural products and creating a free trade relationship with EU member states. The economic analyst said it was hard to imagine the government doing so, and that it would be unwise to abandon protectionist measures all of a sudden.
“The European Union is a market of 430 million people and our goods have to be not only keenly priced but also of a higher quality to be able to penetrate it,” said the economist. “Many Syrians could be hurt by increased competition, and the government needs to put in place some safeguards for the Syrian people before the full agreement takes effect.”
(Syria News Briefing, a weekly news analysis service, draws on information and opinion from a network of IWPR-trained Syrian journalists based in the country.)
The Upside of Living in the Woods
The upside of the fact that my mother lives in the woods is that she cannot get cable, which means she also can't get Fox News, which ergo means I don't have to be subjected to that drivvle (although she did admit - only to me - that she voted for Obama). My friend sent me a post from some bloggers who "Watch Fox News So You Don't Have To" which is possibly the greatest service to mankind since Prometheus.
They have some nice highlights of John Bolton's appearance on Hannity and Colmes. This man talks about major war with such flippancy that you'd think he actually seen combat himself at some point in his life. Predictably (the biggest war mongers are always the ones who sat on their asses in the National Guard during Vietnam). Bolton famously commented, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy." A stupid statement that would come back to haunt him as hopefully every stupid comment he has made to date will do as well.
Here's the highlights:
"I don't think there's anything at this point standing between Iran and nuclear weapons other than the possibility of the use of military force, possibly by the United States, possibly by Israel. I don't see the Bush administration doing it. So it could well come down to Israel.”
"I would use military force against Iran's nuclear program because I think that the world gets a lot more dangerous once Iran has nuclear weapons."
On Fox News radio he also calls the latest Israeli attack on Gaza (which has killed over 350 and wounded nearly 1,400) "a good start."
Nice.
They have some nice highlights of John Bolton's appearance on Hannity and Colmes. This man talks about major war with such flippancy that you'd think he actually seen combat himself at some point in his life. Predictably (the biggest war mongers are always the ones who sat on their asses in the National Guard during Vietnam). Bolton famously commented, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy." A stupid statement that would come back to haunt him as hopefully every stupid comment he has made to date will do as well.
Here's the highlights:
"I don't think there's anything at this point standing between Iran and nuclear weapons other than the possibility of the use of military force, possibly by the United States, possibly by Israel. I don't see the Bush administration doing it. So it could well come down to Israel.”
"I would use military force against Iran's nuclear program because I think that the world gets a lot more dangerous once Iran has nuclear weapons."
On Fox News radio he also calls the latest Israeli attack on Gaza (which has killed over 350 and wounded nearly 1,400) "a good start."
Nice.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
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