By William Fisher
Senator Joe Biden has always been a favorite of mine. The Delaware Democrat is one of our most knowledgeable voices in foreign affairs. And he speaks plain English, not John Kerryish Senate-speak.
Part of Biden’s ‘solution’ to our Iraq problem is his plea to President Bush to ‘level with the American people’. The president, he says, should go on primetime national television and tell us the truth about what’s going on in Iraq, what it means, what’s required of our citizens, and what is the administration’s ‘strategy for success’. He adds that he doesn’t expect any mea culpas from Mr. Bush. And he believes the United States could still win in Iraq, "but only if the White House corrects course, rather than just promising to 'stay the course'."
But this week’s news brings us yet more sad reminders of the virtual impossibility that any such ‘leveling’ is likely to happen anytime soon.
In my view, the choicest reminder was the appearance of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his top generals before the Senate Armed Services Committee. This was Capitol Kabuki at its very best. And if the subject weren’t so dead serious, it would be great fodder for Jon Stewart.
To provide a bit of context for this hearing, it should be noted that it came three days after Vice President Cheney told us the Iraqi insurgency was “in its last throes”, two days after Senate Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durban took the senate floor to apologize for invoking the ‘Nazi, Stalin, Pol Pot’ analogy to describe the Bush Administration, a day after Bush’s ‘architect’, Karl Rove, accused liberals of searching for therapists to help us understand the 9/11 hijackers, and on the same day as a leaked CIA report warned that Iraq is turning into an even more effective training ground for terrorists than
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Enter the dramatis personae, each with his prepared statement at the ready. First, Rumsfeld and the Generals, each poised to reassure us that we are making progress in Iraq despite all the challenges; then the Committee Democrats, wanting desperately to ask tough, probing questions but somewhat constrained by political correctness lest there might be the slightest hint of denigrating ‘our men and women in uniform’; then their Republican colleagues, mostly panting to salute Rummie, the brass, our troops and the Commander-In-Chief for their magnificent leadership.
Was there ever a more predictable piece of Kabuki Theater on Capitol Hill?
In the end, what did we learn from sitting through these painful four hours?
We learned that none of the generals were prepared to take on the Vice President, despite what they gingerly acknowledged was overwhelming evidence from other generals that Mr. Cheney simply got it wrong. The top U.S. regional commander said the insurgency was undiminished, and ever more foreign fighters were entering the country.
We learned that Senator Robert Byrd, the Methuselah of the Senate, was tired of being lectured and sneered at by Mr. Rumsfeld. “I can’t answer a (voter’s) question with a sneer.”
We learned that the Defense Secretary does not believe the U.S. is losing the war in Iraq, and that he rejects demands that the Bush administration set a timetable for the withdrawal of our 140,000 US troops. Troop reductions would "throw a lifeline to terrorists, who in recent months have suffered significant losses and casualties, been denied havens and suffered weakened popular support."
We learned that Pentagon commanders are worried about the growing sophistication of the bombs and other devices used against U.S. troops.
We learned that the Defense Secretary doesn’t think he should resign for what Senator Ted Kennedy charged was a series of "gross errors and mistakes" that had made Iraq an "intractable quagmire”. Can quagmires be intractable?
We learned that the Pentagon crew visibly cringes at the use of the dreaded "Q word", so redolent of Vietnam.
And we learned that the generals are surprised at how many American commanders and soldiers are asking whether the military was losing support at home for their missions overseas. "They worry we don't have the staying power to see the mission through."
Having imparted all this hot-off-the-press information, the Rummie’s Rascals then took their show on the road and gave virtually the same performance before the House Armed Services Committee.
The Commander-in-Chief will reported take to the tube some time next week to explain Iraq to the people. I have no idea what he’ll say, but I suspect we just sat through a pretty good preview.
We’d learn more at the movies!
Friday, June 24, 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
The Prince and the Cotton Gin Fan
By Lindell Singleton
Email the author at mise_en_scene2001@yahoo.com
"If you have to get on your knees and bow when a white person goes past, do it willingly."
-Mamie Till
“I hated the white people who did it, but I hated the Negroes even more for not fighting back.
I hated them all.”- Former Resident of Money, Mississippi
"It seems like nothin' good ever happens up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Jo Mcallister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge." -Bobbie Gentry
My second son, Ryan, just signed a college scholarship to play football in Mississippi. We went over to Jackson to sign his National Letter of Intent. It’s ironic that my son is going to live in Mississippi.
My Dad—who pastored a Pentecostal church for 27 years-- said that if Christ returned to Earth and was in Mississippi he just have to ‘take his chances with salvation because he would never again set foot in the Magnolia State.’ Maybe it had something to do with Emmett Louis Till.
A little history lesson: Mr. Till, a fourteen year old Chicagoan, was visiting Money, Mississippi in the summer of 1955.
As the story goes, on a dare from one of his friends, he said “hey baby” or whistled at a girl—a white girl—as he was leaving Bryant’s Grocery Store and Meat Market.
The angered and offended young woman told her family—that tragic decision set actions in motion that ended Mr. Till’s young life. On the night of August 28, 1955, good ol’ boys from the town dragged Mr.Till from his home, beat him until he was unrecognizable, shot him in the head with a .45 caliber weapon, affixed a 75-pound cotton gin fan to his neck, and hurled his body from a bridge into the swift current of the Tallahatchee River. (Yes, Billie Jo McAllister’s bridge!) His body was found three days later.
His funeral on 6 September 1955,drew attention from as far away as France.
Every black man older than 40 knows the name, Emmett Till. I learned of Mr. Till’s plight long before the names Jackie Robinson, Malcolm X, and Fredrick Douglass entered my consciousness.
What kind of people could do this to a young boy? What kind of place would allow this to happen—and then, acquit the killers after just 67 minutes of deliberation--offering righteous indignation that were even be charged. He was just a nigga’, after all.
No wonder my Dad refused to return to Mississippi. He didn’t even want his remains buried there. But Malcolm X’s family house was burned down in Omaha, Nebraska…far North of the Mason-Dixon line.
It leaves me wondering: Was it the place or the people?
Sarajevo, at one time, was a cultural and artistic flashpoint of Europe. It was full of cafes, bookshops, hard-working people and progressive thought. The Olympics, for god’s sake, were in Sarajevo. Then, the pot of race, religion, and ethnicity started to boil…the killing started. What is Sarajevo today? How is it a better place? Did people make the place evil, or did the place make the people do evil things. I just wonder.
Mississippi is beautiful. As my son and I walked the tree-lined campus, and soaked up the beautiful Mississippi evenings, I had a jarring flashback to Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. What a confluence of evil, in a place that seems so full of old world charm…do the people bring the evil, or is there something in the air, water or soil that causes good people to go bad.
Things were going nicely for Adam and Eve until they ate from the tree.How does this descent into evil occur?
Do you just don’t wake up one morning and say to your friend,“Ok, the next colored teenager that talks to any girl gets a goddamn cotton gin fan wrapped around his black neck and tossed in the Tallahatchee river, got it?”
Long ago, I gave up believing that people were fundamentally good. One can choose to be a good individual, but the drag of our selfish, self-centered, ‘me-first approach to the world’ ultimately prevails. What other explanation exists for beating a young boy until he was barely recognizable, then tying a cotton gin fan around his neck?
There is a park in South L.A. where I used to play basketball. Back then it was called, Manchester Park. I had just finished one of my 500-shot routines, trying to pattern my game after Oscar Robertsons’. As I reached the North end of the park, three guys stopped me.
They were from a gang called the “Park Boys,” a collective that would ultimately fold into the Crips. They beat me until the blood ran from my nose. And then, they stopped. I was on my knees, trying to get up, and and old lady pushing a grocery cart from ABC market stopped and looked at me. She didn’t say anything, but shook her head and kept going. I stumbled to my feet and touched my cheekbone as it was starting to bruise and swell. I thought: “Why are they doing this to me?”
Did Emmitt Till ever ask that question while he was getting beat? I wish there were some way—like in the film Minority Report—that I could watch this crime take place… through some sort of hidden time machine/security camera device. What were Emmitt’s final words?
Did he plead with this crew of murderering savages to spare his life? Why, at some point, didn’t one of the murderers say, “Enough, the boy has learned his lesson.” Surely, talking to a white girl doesn’t mandate being thrown in the river. Was there no decency in any of these men? Were they bereft of all humanity and goodness? But maybe there was just something in the air that day. Or, maybe there is something in the water and soil of Money, Mississippi:
Like Emmitt Till’s blood, for starters.
The great Ossie Davis called Malcolm X a black prince…a shining black prince. When I look into his soft, reflective eyes of Emmitt Till I am reminded that he, too, was a black prince. One whose life ended because of reasons that are, without question, inexplicable...
I am forever saddened at the death of this boy. Think of the unfullfilled dreams that sank to bottom of the river with his broken body.
The world is an evil place. We delude ourselves when we think it isn’t. What goodness have you brought to the world today that will balance this oppressing storm of evil?
Email the author at mise_en_scene2001@yahoo.com
"If you have to get on your knees and bow when a white person goes past, do it willingly."
-Mamie Till
“I hated the white people who did it, but I hated the Negroes even more for not fighting back.
I hated them all.”- Former Resident of Money, Mississippi
"It seems like nothin' good ever happens up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Jo Mcallister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge." -Bobbie Gentry
My second son, Ryan, just signed a college scholarship to play football in Mississippi. We went over to Jackson to sign his National Letter of Intent. It’s ironic that my son is going to live in Mississippi.
My Dad—who pastored a Pentecostal church for 27 years-- said that if Christ returned to Earth and was in Mississippi he just have to ‘take his chances with salvation because he would never again set foot in the Magnolia State.’ Maybe it had something to do with Emmett Louis Till.
A little history lesson: Mr. Till, a fourteen year old Chicagoan, was visiting Money, Mississippi in the summer of 1955.
As the story goes, on a dare from one of his friends, he said “hey baby” or whistled at a girl—a white girl—as he was leaving Bryant’s Grocery Store and Meat Market.
The angered and offended young woman told her family—that tragic decision set actions in motion that ended Mr. Till’s young life. On the night of August 28, 1955, good ol’ boys from the town dragged Mr.Till from his home, beat him until he was unrecognizable, shot him in the head with a .45 caliber weapon, affixed a 75-pound cotton gin fan to his neck, and hurled his body from a bridge into the swift current of the Tallahatchee River. (Yes, Billie Jo McAllister’s bridge!) His body was found three days later.
His funeral on 6 September 1955,drew attention from as far away as France.
Every black man older than 40 knows the name, Emmett Till. I learned of Mr. Till’s plight long before the names Jackie Robinson, Malcolm X, and Fredrick Douglass entered my consciousness.
What kind of people could do this to a young boy? What kind of place would allow this to happen—and then, acquit the killers after just 67 minutes of deliberation--offering righteous indignation that were even be charged. He was just a nigga’, after all.
No wonder my Dad refused to return to Mississippi. He didn’t even want his remains buried there. But Malcolm X’s family house was burned down in Omaha, Nebraska…far North of the Mason-Dixon line.
It leaves me wondering: Was it the place or the people?
Sarajevo, at one time, was a cultural and artistic flashpoint of Europe. It was full of cafes, bookshops, hard-working people and progressive thought. The Olympics, for god’s sake, were in Sarajevo. Then, the pot of race, religion, and ethnicity started to boil…the killing started. What is Sarajevo today? How is it a better place? Did people make the place evil, or did the place make the people do evil things. I just wonder.
Mississippi is beautiful. As my son and I walked the tree-lined campus, and soaked up the beautiful Mississippi evenings, I had a jarring flashback to Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. What a confluence of evil, in a place that seems so full of old world charm…do the people bring the evil, or is there something in the air, water or soil that causes good people to go bad.
Things were going nicely for Adam and Eve until they ate from the tree.How does this descent into evil occur?
Do you just don’t wake up one morning and say to your friend,“Ok, the next colored teenager that talks to any girl gets a goddamn cotton gin fan wrapped around his black neck and tossed in the Tallahatchee river, got it?”
Long ago, I gave up believing that people were fundamentally good. One can choose to be a good individual, but the drag of our selfish, self-centered, ‘me-first approach to the world’ ultimately prevails. What other explanation exists for beating a young boy until he was barely recognizable, then tying a cotton gin fan around his neck?
There is a park in South L.A. where I used to play basketball. Back then it was called, Manchester Park. I had just finished one of my 500-shot routines, trying to pattern my game after Oscar Robertsons’. As I reached the North end of the park, three guys stopped me.
They were from a gang called the “Park Boys,” a collective that would ultimately fold into the Crips. They beat me until the blood ran from my nose. And then, they stopped. I was on my knees, trying to get up, and and old lady pushing a grocery cart from ABC market stopped and looked at me. She didn’t say anything, but shook her head and kept going. I stumbled to my feet and touched my cheekbone as it was starting to bruise and swell. I thought: “Why are they doing this to me?”
Did Emmitt Till ever ask that question while he was getting beat? I wish there were some way—like in the film Minority Report—that I could watch this crime take place… through some sort of hidden time machine/security camera device. What were Emmitt’s final words?
Did he plead with this crew of murderering savages to spare his life? Why, at some point, didn’t one of the murderers say, “Enough, the boy has learned his lesson.” Surely, talking to a white girl doesn’t mandate being thrown in the river. Was there no decency in any of these men? Were they bereft of all humanity and goodness? But maybe there was just something in the air that day. Or, maybe there is something in the water and soil of Money, Mississippi:
Like Emmitt Till’s blood, for starters.
The great Ossie Davis called Malcolm X a black prince…a shining black prince. When I look into his soft, reflective eyes of Emmitt Till I am reminded that he, too, was a black prince. One whose life ended because of reasons that are, without question, inexplicable...
I am forever saddened at the death of this boy. Think of the unfullfilled dreams that sank to bottom of the river with his broken body.
The world is an evil place. We delude ourselves when we think it isn’t. What goodness have you brought to the world today that will balance this oppressing storm of evil?
MR. JUSTICE DANFORTH?
By William Fisher
When he took office in 2000, President Bush promised us he would be a uniter. Since then, he has managed to create the most divided country in our history.
If the president is content with that legacy, so be it. But that will mean a second term in which virtually nothing of consequence will get done, and a president who becomes a very lame duck sooner than most of his predecessors.
But if a Supreme Court opening should occur in his watch, it will present the president with an extraordinary opportunity to do what he said he would do, and what the country desperately needs: someone who can bring us together.
He could do this by nominating John Danforth to the Court. And his appointment would sail through the Senate at the speed of light.
Why John Danforth?
To begin with, he has all the resume credentials. Law degree from Yale. Former Attorney General of Missouri. Private practice with a prestigious law firm.
He is revered by his former Senate colleagues. John Kerry once said he wished President Bush had picked Danforth instead of John Ashcroft as attorney general. “A beautiful human being," says Sen. John Warner (R-Va.).
His faith is very private. In his twelve years in the Senate, he never went to Senate prayer meetings. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.). "If you didn't know he was an ordained minister, you wouldn't know. He never went on and on about it."
Untypical of most Senators, he has learned humility. In his book, Danforth wrote that he was "ashamed" at how far he went to discredit Anita Hill, the former assistant to his protégé, Clarence Thomas, who spoke out against him during the hearings.
He has been called on and trusted by Republicans and Democrats, by both the left and the right. President Clinton chose him to investigate the Waco affair. President George W. Bush picked him as special envoy to Sudan. Arthur Andersen hired him during the Enron scandal to review the firm's records.
He is what used to be called a Wendell Wilkie Republican. In the Senate, he worked to reign in entitlements, reduce the deficit, encourage long-term economic growth, improve education, reduce hunger and malnutrition throughout the world, and increase production of affordable housing. As the Senate's only ordained minister, he was a great disappointment to the religious right. He voted against abortion rights but shied away from a leadership role in the movement. He was against school prayer, against the death penalty. The left loved him for shepherding the 1991 Civil Rights Act. After he left the Senate and joined a law firm, he never lobbied at all, on principle.
He is an unbending advocate of church-state separation. Writing in the New York Times in March 2005, he said, “Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.”
He believes that “The work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive.”
“Our current fixation on a religious agenda”, he wrote, “has turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our roots.”
So John Danforth has a great deal going for him. But alas, he has one big thing going in the other direction: He is 68 years old. Many presidents would find this a deal-breaker. They want to put their imprint on the court for a generation. But, given our increasing longevity, Danforth could have a productive ten years.
Maybe just long enough to help us to recover and recolor our Red and Blue America.
When he took office in 2000, President Bush promised us he would be a uniter. Since then, he has managed to create the most divided country in our history.
If the president is content with that legacy, so be it. But that will mean a second term in which virtually nothing of consequence will get done, and a president who becomes a very lame duck sooner than most of his predecessors.
But if a Supreme Court opening should occur in his watch, it will present the president with an extraordinary opportunity to do what he said he would do, and what the country desperately needs: someone who can bring us together.
He could do this by nominating John Danforth to the Court. And his appointment would sail through the Senate at the speed of light.
Why John Danforth?
To begin with, he has all the resume credentials. Law degree from Yale. Former Attorney General of Missouri. Private practice with a prestigious law firm.
He is revered by his former Senate colleagues. John Kerry once said he wished President Bush had picked Danforth instead of John Ashcroft as attorney general. “A beautiful human being," says Sen. John Warner (R-Va.).
His faith is very private. In his twelve years in the Senate, he never went to Senate prayer meetings. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.). "If you didn't know he was an ordained minister, you wouldn't know. He never went on and on about it."
Untypical of most Senators, he has learned humility. In his book, Danforth wrote that he was "ashamed" at how far he went to discredit Anita Hill, the former assistant to his protégé, Clarence Thomas, who spoke out against him during the hearings.
He has been called on and trusted by Republicans and Democrats, by both the left and the right. President Clinton chose him to investigate the Waco affair. President George W. Bush picked him as special envoy to Sudan. Arthur Andersen hired him during the Enron scandal to review the firm's records.
He is what used to be called a Wendell Wilkie Republican. In the Senate, he worked to reign in entitlements, reduce the deficit, encourage long-term economic growth, improve education, reduce hunger and malnutrition throughout the world, and increase production of affordable housing. As the Senate's only ordained minister, he was a great disappointment to the religious right. He voted against abortion rights but shied away from a leadership role in the movement. He was against school prayer, against the death penalty. The left loved him for shepherding the 1991 Civil Rights Act. After he left the Senate and joined a law firm, he never lobbied at all, on principle.
He is an unbending advocate of church-state separation. Writing in the New York Times in March 2005, he said, “Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.”
He believes that “The work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive.”
“Our current fixation on a religious agenda”, he wrote, “has turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our roots.”
So John Danforth has a great deal going for him. But alas, he has one big thing going in the other direction: He is 68 years old. Many presidents would find this a deal-breaker. They want to put their imprint on the court for a generation. But, given our increasing longevity, Danforth could have a productive ten years.
Maybe just long enough to help us to recover and recolor our Red and Blue America.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
WORDS WORTH EATING
William Fisher
E. J. Dionne Jr., writing in the Washington Post, provides a transcript of a "Meet the Press" program from March 16, 2003, featuring Vice President Dick Cheney. Here are a few passages:
Host Tim Russert: We would “have to have several hundred thousand troops there" in Iraq "for several years in order to maintain stability."
Cheney: "I disagree…to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement."
Russert: "If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?"
Cheney: "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House…The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want [is to] get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
Russert: "And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy?"
Cheney: "They have so far. I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world."
E. J. Dionne Jr., writing in the Washington Post, provides a transcript of a "Meet the Press" program from March 16, 2003, featuring Vice President Dick Cheney. Here are a few passages:
Host Tim Russert: We would “have to have several hundred thousand troops there" in Iraq "for several years in order to maintain stability."
Cheney: "I disagree…to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement."
Russert: "If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?"
Cheney: "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House…The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want [is to] get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
Russert: "And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy?"
Cheney: "They have so far. I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world."
Monday, June 20, 2005
Red Herring
By Uri Avnery
JERUSALEM -- The experience was almost surrealistic: I was in a hall in the center of Gaza, facing some 500 people, all of them bearded men, nearly all of them Hamas militants. The Hamas movement officially opposes the very existence of the State of Israel, and here I stand on the podium speaking in Hebrew about peace between Israel and the future State of Palestine.
Did they protest? On the contrary, they applauded, and after the event I was invited to lunch with the respected sheikhs.
That was in 1994, and perhaps the background requires some explanation: a year before, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided to expel from the country 415 Islamic activists. The chief-of-staff, Ehud Barak, testified in court that this measure was absolutely essential for the security of the state. The Supreme Court confirmed the expulsion.
The activists were taken by bus to the northern border, but the Beirut government did not allow them to be deported into Lebanon. For a whole year, the expellees vegetated in tents in an open field between the two armies, exposed to the rain and the cold in winter and to the burning sun in summer, until they were finally allowed to return.
I considered the expulsion a grievous violation of human rights, as well as politically foolish. So I proposed, in a "Peace Now" meeting, the setting up of a protest tent in front of the prime minister's office. The leaders of Peace Now did not agree with protesting against an act of the Labor party leader. But some other peace activists combined to set up the tent, together with leaders of the Arab community in Israel, both religious and secular.
We spent 45 days and nights together. Some days, snow was falling and the cold was bitter. Bedouins from the Negev and activists from Arab villages brought us food and coal-burners, women-activists from Jerusalem brought us a large kettle of warm soup every evening. Owing to our profound disappointment with Peace Now we decided there and then to found a new peace movement. That's how Gush Shalom came into being.
I was curious how the Islamic militants would behave towards us upon their return. I was very pleased when they decided to express their gratitude publicly: together with my friends, the tent dwellers, I was invited to that event in Gaza. There I met several of the people who are now leading Hamas, after the assassinations of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was in prison at the time, and Abdel Aziz Al Rantisi, who was one of the expellees.
I remembered this experience when I heard that at tomorrow's (June 19) meeting with Condoleezza Rice, Ariel Sharon will demand that the Americans refuse all contact with Hamas representatives who are running for office in the coming Palestinian elections. Official spokesmen also expressed their anger at the decision of the EU to allow diplomats "beneath the rank of ambassador" to meet with them.
Sharon now demands the exclusion of Hamas from the elections, as long as they do not officially recognize the State of Israel and abjure terrorism. More than that: he has already declared that there will be no peace negotiations until the Palestinian Authority destroys the "terror infrastructure" (meaning: Hamas) and disarms it.
That, too, reminds one of something. For years, successive Israeli governments had demanded that all the world boycott the PLO, until it abolishes the "Palestinian National Charter". This document, dating from the 1960s, called for the dismantling of the State of Israel. Later, the PLO adopted many new resolutions that negated the charter and recognized Israel. In the 1993 Oslo agreement, Yasser Arafat gave up 78 percent of the country of Palestine that existed until 1948. But nothing helped. For many years, Israeli propaganda was riding on the miserable charter in order to justify an extreme anti-Palestinian policy, until the Palestinians - much to the chagrin of many Israelis - abolished it altogether.
That created a vacuum. Sharon is now using Hamas to fill it.
One of the more colorful idioms of the English language is "red herring". That is a smoked herring (the red color is imparted to it in the process of smoke-curing) that has a strong smell. A person being chased by dogs draws it across his path in order to distract the animals so they lose the trail.
Much as his predecessors used the PLO Charter, Sharon is now using Hamas to distract attention from his promise to immediately dismantle the settlement "outposts", freeze the settlements and start political negotiations with the Palestinians. He draws the herring across the road map.
As for the matter itself: Is the participation of Hamas in the elections a good or a bad thing, as far as Israeli interests are concerned?
I say that it's a good thing.
Some 30 years ago, I called for negotiations with the PLO, which was then considered a terror-gang and a bunch of murderers. At the time we coined the phrase: "Peace is made between enemies". Today that applies to Hamas, too. There is no doubt that Hamas is about to win a significant share of the vote in the parliamentary election, after it achieved excellent results in the recent municipal elections. It does not get these votes because it refuses to recognize Israel. Rather, there are two main reasons for its success: the prestige it has acquired for valiantly fighting against the Israeli occupation and its being untouched by the corruption that marks some of the other personalities and factions.
The Palestinians consider the violence, which is usually referred to in Israel as "terrorism", to be legitimate resistance. They believe that Israel would not have decided to leave the Gaza Strip if not for the armed struggle, since Israel, according to their belief and experience, "understands only the language of force". Until now, no one can point to a single achievement of the Palestinians that was attained by any other means.
It is an irony of fate (or a triumph of folly) that Hamas was created, in fact, with the help of Israel itself. Much as the Americans created the Al Qaeda of Osama Bin-Laden in order to fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Israel supported the Islamic movement in the occupied territories as a counterweight to the PLO. The assumption was that pious Muslims would spend their time praying in the mosques and would not support the secular PLO, which was then considered the arch-enemy.
But when the first intifada broke out at the end of 1987, the Islamists organized as Hamas (the Arabic initials of "Islamic Resistance Movement") and quickly became the most efficient underground fighting organization. However, the Israeli Security Service started to act against them only after a whole year of the intifada had passed.
Now the existence of Hamas is an accomplished fact. It has deep roots in the community, also because of its widespread social services which were initially financed by the Saudis and others.
Historical experience shows that such movements tend to become more moderate as they are integrated in the political system. A movement that has ministers in the cabinet, a faction in parliament and mayors in towns and villages, acquires an interest in stability. True, in the beginning it may cause a radicalization of the style of the Palestinian National Authority, but in the long run it will make the achievement of a settlement much easier.
If one wants a real peace that will be accepted by the whole Palestinian public, one should bless the integration of Hamas in the Palestinian political system. But if one wants to obstruct peace in order to annex most of the West Bank to Israel and preserve the settlements, it is logical that one opposes it - as Sharon does.
Condoleezza Rice certainly knows a smoked herring when she smells one - and not only on her breakfast table.
JERUSALEM -- The experience was almost surrealistic: I was in a hall in the center of Gaza, facing some 500 people, all of them bearded men, nearly all of them Hamas militants. The Hamas movement officially opposes the very existence of the State of Israel, and here I stand on the podium speaking in Hebrew about peace between Israel and the future State of Palestine.
Did they protest? On the contrary, they applauded, and after the event I was invited to lunch with the respected sheikhs.
That was in 1994, and perhaps the background requires some explanation: a year before, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided to expel from the country 415 Islamic activists. The chief-of-staff, Ehud Barak, testified in court that this measure was absolutely essential for the security of the state. The Supreme Court confirmed the expulsion.
The activists were taken by bus to the northern border, but the Beirut government did not allow them to be deported into Lebanon. For a whole year, the expellees vegetated in tents in an open field between the two armies, exposed to the rain and the cold in winter and to the burning sun in summer, until they were finally allowed to return.
I considered the expulsion a grievous violation of human rights, as well as politically foolish. So I proposed, in a "Peace Now" meeting, the setting up of a protest tent in front of the prime minister's office. The leaders of Peace Now did not agree with protesting against an act of the Labor party leader. But some other peace activists combined to set up the tent, together with leaders of the Arab community in Israel, both religious and secular.
We spent 45 days and nights together. Some days, snow was falling and the cold was bitter. Bedouins from the Negev and activists from Arab villages brought us food and coal-burners, women-activists from Jerusalem brought us a large kettle of warm soup every evening. Owing to our profound disappointment with Peace Now we decided there and then to found a new peace movement. That's how Gush Shalom came into being.
I was curious how the Islamic militants would behave towards us upon their return. I was very pleased when they decided to express their gratitude publicly: together with my friends, the tent dwellers, I was invited to that event in Gaza. There I met several of the people who are now leading Hamas, after the assassinations of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was in prison at the time, and Abdel Aziz Al Rantisi, who was one of the expellees.
I remembered this experience when I heard that at tomorrow's (June 19) meeting with Condoleezza Rice, Ariel Sharon will demand that the Americans refuse all contact with Hamas representatives who are running for office in the coming Palestinian elections. Official spokesmen also expressed their anger at the decision of the EU to allow diplomats "beneath the rank of ambassador" to meet with them.
Sharon now demands the exclusion of Hamas from the elections, as long as they do not officially recognize the State of Israel and abjure terrorism. More than that: he has already declared that there will be no peace negotiations until the Palestinian Authority destroys the "terror infrastructure" (meaning: Hamas) and disarms it.
That, too, reminds one of something. For years, successive Israeli governments had demanded that all the world boycott the PLO, until it abolishes the "Palestinian National Charter". This document, dating from the 1960s, called for the dismantling of the State of Israel. Later, the PLO adopted many new resolutions that negated the charter and recognized Israel. In the 1993 Oslo agreement, Yasser Arafat gave up 78 percent of the country of Palestine that existed until 1948. But nothing helped. For many years, Israeli propaganda was riding on the miserable charter in order to justify an extreme anti-Palestinian policy, until the Palestinians - much to the chagrin of many Israelis - abolished it altogether.
That created a vacuum. Sharon is now using Hamas to fill it.
One of the more colorful idioms of the English language is "red herring". That is a smoked herring (the red color is imparted to it in the process of smoke-curing) that has a strong smell. A person being chased by dogs draws it across his path in order to distract the animals so they lose the trail.
Much as his predecessors used the PLO Charter, Sharon is now using Hamas to distract attention from his promise to immediately dismantle the settlement "outposts", freeze the settlements and start political negotiations with the Palestinians. He draws the herring across the road map.
As for the matter itself: Is the participation of Hamas in the elections a good or a bad thing, as far as Israeli interests are concerned?
I say that it's a good thing.
Some 30 years ago, I called for negotiations with the PLO, which was then considered a terror-gang and a bunch of murderers. At the time we coined the phrase: "Peace is made between enemies". Today that applies to Hamas, too. There is no doubt that Hamas is about to win a significant share of the vote in the parliamentary election, after it achieved excellent results in the recent municipal elections. It does not get these votes because it refuses to recognize Israel. Rather, there are two main reasons for its success: the prestige it has acquired for valiantly fighting against the Israeli occupation and its being untouched by the corruption that marks some of the other personalities and factions.
The Palestinians consider the violence, which is usually referred to in Israel as "terrorism", to be legitimate resistance. They believe that Israel would not have decided to leave the Gaza Strip if not for the armed struggle, since Israel, according to their belief and experience, "understands only the language of force". Until now, no one can point to a single achievement of the Palestinians that was attained by any other means.
It is an irony of fate (or a triumph of folly) that Hamas was created, in fact, with the help of Israel itself. Much as the Americans created the Al Qaeda of Osama Bin-Laden in order to fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Israel supported the Islamic movement in the occupied territories as a counterweight to the PLO. The assumption was that pious Muslims would spend their time praying in the mosques and would not support the secular PLO, which was then considered the arch-enemy.
But when the first intifada broke out at the end of 1987, the Islamists organized as Hamas (the Arabic initials of "Islamic Resistance Movement") and quickly became the most efficient underground fighting organization. However, the Israeli Security Service started to act against them only after a whole year of the intifada had passed.
Now the existence of Hamas is an accomplished fact. It has deep roots in the community, also because of its widespread social services which were initially financed by the Saudis and others.
Historical experience shows that such movements tend to become more moderate as they are integrated in the political system. A movement that has ministers in the cabinet, a faction in parliament and mayors in towns and villages, acquires an interest in stability. True, in the beginning it may cause a radicalization of the style of the Palestinian National Authority, but in the long run it will make the achievement of a settlement much easier.
If one wants a real peace that will be accepted by the whole Palestinian public, one should bless the integration of Hamas in the Palestinian political system. But if one wants to obstruct peace in order to annex most of the West Bank to Israel and preserve the settlements, it is logical that one opposes it - as Sharon does.
Condoleezza Rice certainly knows a smoked herring when she smells one - and not only on her breakfast table.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
THIS JUST IN…
By William Fisher
Oppressed Christians: Looking for a five-star holiday?
Have we got a deal for you!
GITMO-By-The-Sea.
Don’t laugh, folks. Our Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could just be poised to become the country’s hottest tourist destination for folks of faith.
It’s hard to see how it could lose, since it’s being promoted by America’s hottest new tourism entrepreneurs -- Alabama’s Senator Jeff Sessions and California congressman Duncan Hunter, chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee. It’s got a business plan, a high-profile Board of Directors, and all the other bells and whistles of a venture capitalist’s dream.
And Sessions and Hunter and their colleagues aren’t being a bit bashful about selling the idea – with taxpayers’ money.
Senator Sessions made his first pitch during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The Navy’s prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he gushed, is ideally placed, “overlooking the water…It would make a beautiful resort.” Obviously looking for endorsements from influential opinion leaders, he urged his fellow senators to be sure to pay a visit soon, courtesy of the Defense Department.
A day earlier, in a U.S. Capitol meeting room, Sen. Sessions’ partner, Rep. Hunter, gave the press a peek at GITMO’s five-star cuisine: Lemon fish, two types of fruit, two types of vegetables. "This is lemon fish,” he told a press conference. “And this is what the 20th hijacker [of the September 11th attacks] and Osama bin Laden's bodyguards will be eating this week in Guantanamo," he added.
And, as if the idyllic Caribbean views and all this healthy grub wasn’t enough, we learn from Rep. Hunter that the management is throwing in invaluable incentives: A Qoran in every bed table (guaranteed dry), oil, beads, slippers, and five supervised prayer services daily (rugs included).
But that ain’t all! For every carefree night you while away at GITMO, you earn points on your FAP program. FAP is GITMO’s Frequent Abuse Program. This qualifies you for free upgrades on the CIA Gulfstream to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other popular ‘rendition’ destinations, and deep-discount trips to Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Base.
Seeking to dispel what may be GITMO’s few remaining negative images, Rep. Hunter assures us there is no real abuse "unless you consider eating chicken three times a week real torture."
Other members of the resort’s new Board of Directors are also weighing in. At a news briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld boasted that "at Guantanamo, the military spends more per meal for detainees" than it does on rations for U.S. troops. Rummie assures us that this level of extravagance will continue.
Then there are the spiritual benefits. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh paints the detention center as the picture of religious freedom that "may be a great vacation spot for oppressed Christians in the United States."
So who could resist? It may take a tad longer to get rid of GITMO’s present tenants, but trust me, it’ll be well worth the wait.
Finally, all you B-School types need to know about the most fun part of the business plan. Sessions and Hunter are thinking about franchising their GITMO-By-The-Sea idea to rich Middle East business tycoons as a way to spread democracy and market-based capitalism in the Muslim world.
Oppressed Christians: Looking for a five-star holiday?
Have we got a deal for you!
GITMO-By-The-Sea.
Don’t laugh, folks. Our Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could just be poised to become the country’s hottest tourist destination for folks of faith.
It’s hard to see how it could lose, since it’s being promoted by America’s hottest new tourism entrepreneurs -- Alabama’s Senator Jeff Sessions and California congressman Duncan Hunter, chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee. It’s got a business plan, a high-profile Board of Directors, and all the other bells and whistles of a venture capitalist’s dream.
And Sessions and Hunter and their colleagues aren’t being a bit bashful about selling the idea – with taxpayers’ money.
Senator Sessions made his first pitch during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The Navy’s prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he gushed, is ideally placed, “overlooking the water…It would make a beautiful resort.” Obviously looking for endorsements from influential opinion leaders, he urged his fellow senators to be sure to pay a visit soon, courtesy of the Defense Department.
A day earlier, in a U.S. Capitol meeting room, Sen. Sessions’ partner, Rep. Hunter, gave the press a peek at GITMO’s five-star cuisine: Lemon fish, two types of fruit, two types of vegetables. "This is lemon fish,” he told a press conference. “And this is what the 20th hijacker [of the September 11th attacks] and Osama bin Laden's bodyguards will be eating this week in Guantanamo," he added.
And, as if the idyllic Caribbean views and all this healthy grub wasn’t enough, we learn from Rep. Hunter that the management is throwing in invaluable incentives: A Qoran in every bed table (guaranteed dry), oil, beads, slippers, and five supervised prayer services daily (rugs included).
But that ain’t all! For every carefree night you while away at GITMO, you earn points on your FAP program. FAP is GITMO’s Frequent Abuse Program. This qualifies you for free upgrades on the CIA Gulfstream to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other popular ‘rendition’ destinations, and deep-discount trips to Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Base.
Seeking to dispel what may be GITMO’s few remaining negative images, Rep. Hunter assures us there is no real abuse "unless you consider eating chicken three times a week real torture."
Other members of the resort’s new Board of Directors are also weighing in. At a news briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld boasted that "at Guantanamo, the military spends more per meal for detainees" than it does on rations for U.S. troops. Rummie assures us that this level of extravagance will continue.
Then there are the spiritual benefits. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh paints the detention center as the picture of religious freedom that "may be a great vacation spot for oppressed Christians in the United States."
So who could resist? It may take a tad longer to get rid of GITMO’s present tenants, but trust me, it’ll be well worth the wait.
Finally, all you B-School types need to know about the most fun part of the business plan. Sessions and Hunter are thinking about franchising their GITMO-By-The-Sea idea to rich Middle East business tycoons as a way to spread democracy and market-based capitalism in the Muslim world.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Fear As Foreign Policy
By John Brown
John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer, is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and compiles the daily "Public Diplomacy Press Review" for the Universtiy of Southern California.
The Bush administration's confused and confusing foreign policy seems hard to decipher—especially regarding headline-grabbing reports on Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo detainee camp.Some op-eds on the right argue that abuses did not take place there and that, if they did, they were minor and undertaken by isolated individuals, a few rotten apples. Left-leaning pundits blame what they consider horrors on Mr. Bush and the Pentagon.
These interpretations, while on the surface dissimilar, share one central false assumption: that the president and his closest aides are embarrassed by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo—so embarrassed that they don't want information about it to become public.
The fact of the matter, however, is that the administration, in its usual unsubtle way of dealing with foreigners, does want the outside world to be aware of what happens if you're "against us": you end up in prison or a detainee camp. Gruesome disclosures about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo serve a purpose: to create the kind of visceral fear abroad about the United States that the administration can exploit in its global "war on terror."
It is far safer to be feared than loved, wrote Machiavelli, a far cry from the New Testament but what the Bible-reading president—a firm advocate of capital punishment—seems to ardently believe.To be sure, at home the administration has done its utmost to disassociate itself from the nastier sides of its overseas detention centers. It has condemned independent accounts on the mistreatment of detainees, claiming, for example, that the Amnesty International report comparing Guantanamo to the Gulag was based on information obtained from—in Bush's words—"people who hate America."
As for Abu Ghraib, the president and his aides have downplayed the extent of abuse that took place there when propagandizing the American public, saying its high officials shouldn't be held responsible for it.
The subliminal message to domestic audiences is endlessly repeated: we, the Bush administration, didn't do anything wrong, because we are Americans, ipso facto good people who can do no wrong. While the president keeps pounding into Americans about how he and we can do no wrong, his message to overseas audiences is precisely the opposite: that the United States is ready to do anything to prevail in a world it sees as infiltrated by America's mortal enemies.
This was the message behind the bloody invasion of Iraq. It's also the signal underlying the threats of military action against Syria, Iran and North Korea. Years after 9/11, the Bush metaphor for his foreign policy—"us" vs. "them"—is still fully operational. America is in an all-out fight to the finish—against whom precisely has never been made clear—in which hazy ends justify brutal means.All along, an essential tool of Mr. Bush's planetary struggle against a phantom enemy has been instilling fear of the United States among foreign populations—particularly in the Middle East.
"Shock and awe," for example, was the kind of crude and inhumane psychological warfare much favored by the current administration. The military action in Fallujah is a more recent example of using fear to terrorize inhabitants. Displaying what it understands by "soft power," the administration supports an Iraqi state channel, Al-Iraqiya, which airs a violent television program, Terrorism in the Grip of Justice, a gory gallery of "insurgents confessing to a variety of alleged crimes and vices, including pornography and booze" (The Guardian, March 28).
This macabre reality show, a post-Saddam Fear Factor produced to terrify viewers, was the brainchild of the commander of Iraq's anti-insurgent Wolf Brigade, Abul Waleed, who on television announced that "We will cut off the arms" of enemies (The Washington Post , May 24). The program has been criticized for violating the Geneva Conventions.
The caveman logic behind this widespread use of fear abroad by the administration is clear: since we, the United States of America, are the world's number one power, the biggest boy on the block, we don't intend to change our policies or our national character for the sake of those who question them. Dialogue or negotiations are out of the question. So, to neutralize those who inevitably and unjustifiably hate us for what we do or who we are, we must scare them to death, part of the process of eventually liquidating them.How accidental is it, therefore, that horrifying pictures of Abu Ghraib were leaked by U.S. military personnel to the press, for "them" (our enemies) throughout the entire world to see? Or that Newsweek , using a Pentagon source, reported that the Koran was flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo? Or that television images of humiliated, roughed-up detainees at "Gitmo," widely displayed throughout the globe thanks to the Pentagon making the facility in part accessible to the world media, remind those who hate us what happens to them if they do?As to whether the Bush administration's fear-as-foreign-policy has led to a better, safer world—instead of inciting more hate and disdain for the United States—the American soldiers killed in Iraq would give us the obvious answer, if only they were, as we all so dearly wish, still among us.
John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer, is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and compiles the daily "Public Diplomacy Press Review" for the Universtiy of Southern California.
The Bush administration's confused and confusing foreign policy seems hard to decipher—especially regarding headline-grabbing reports on Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo detainee camp.Some op-eds on the right argue that abuses did not take place there and that, if they did, they were minor and undertaken by isolated individuals, a few rotten apples. Left-leaning pundits blame what they consider horrors on Mr. Bush and the Pentagon.
These interpretations, while on the surface dissimilar, share one central false assumption: that the president and his closest aides are embarrassed by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo—so embarrassed that they don't want information about it to become public.
The fact of the matter, however, is that the administration, in its usual unsubtle way of dealing with foreigners, does want the outside world to be aware of what happens if you're "against us": you end up in prison or a detainee camp. Gruesome disclosures about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo serve a purpose: to create the kind of visceral fear abroad about the United States that the administration can exploit in its global "war on terror."
It is far safer to be feared than loved, wrote Machiavelli, a far cry from the New Testament but what the Bible-reading president—a firm advocate of capital punishment—seems to ardently believe.To be sure, at home the administration has done its utmost to disassociate itself from the nastier sides of its overseas detention centers. It has condemned independent accounts on the mistreatment of detainees, claiming, for example, that the Amnesty International report comparing Guantanamo to the Gulag was based on information obtained from—in Bush's words—"people who hate America."
As for Abu Ghraib, the president and his aides have downplayed the extent of abuse that took place there when propagandizing the American public, saying its high officials shouldn't be held responsible for it.
The subliminal message to domestic audiences is endlessly repeated: we, the Bush administration, didn't do anything wrong, because we are Americans, ipso facto good people who can do no wrong. While the president keeps pounding into Americans about how he and we can do no wrong, his message to overseas audiences is precisely the opposite: that the United States is ready to do anything to prevail in a world it sees as infiltrated by America's mortal enemies.
This was the message behind the bloody invasion of Iraq. It's also the signal underlying the threats of military action against Syria, Iran and North Korea. Years after 9/11, the Bush metaphor for his foreign policy—"us" vs. "them"—is still fully operational. America is in an all-out fight to the finish—against whom precisely has never been made clear—in which hazy ends justify brutal means.All along, an essential tool of Mr. Bush's planetary struggle against a phantom enemy has been instilling fear of the United States among foreign populations—particularly in the Middle East.
"Shock and awe," for example, was the kind of crude and inhumane psychological warfare much favored by the current administration. The military action in Fallujah is a more recent example of using fear to terrorize inhabitants. Displaying what it understands by "soft power," the administration supports an Iraqi state channel, Al-Iraqiya, which airs a violent television program, Terrorism in the Grip of Justice, a gory gallery of "insurgents confessing to a variety of alleged crimes and vices, including pornography and booze" (The Guardian, March 28).
This macabre reality show, a post-Saddam Fear Factor produced to terrify viewers, was the brainchild of the commander of Iraq's anti-insurgent Wolf Brigade, Abul Waleed, who on television announced that "We will cut off the arms" of enemies (The Washington Post , May 24). The program has been criticized for violating the Geneva Conventions.
The caveman logic behind this widespread use of fear abroad by the administration is clear: since we, the United States of America, are the world's number one power, the biggest boy on the block, we don't intend to change our policies or our national character for the sake of those who question them. Dialogue or negotiations are out of the question. So, to neutralize those who inevitably and unjustifiably hate us for what we do or who we are, we must scare them to death, part of the process of eventually liquidating them.How accidental is it, therefore, that horrifying pictures of Abu Ghraib were leaked by U.S. military personnel to the press, for "them" (our enemies) throughout the entire world to see? Or that Newsweek , using a Pentagon source, reported that the Koran was flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo? Or that television images of humiliated, roughed-up detainees at "Gitmo," widely displayed throughout the globe thanks to the Pentagon making the facility in part accessible to the world media, remind those who hate us what happens to them if they do?As to whether the Bush administration's fear-as-foreign-policy has led to a better, safer world—instead of inciting more hate and disdain for the United States—the American soldiers killed in Iraq would give us the obvious answer, if only they were, as we all so dearly wish, still among us.
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