By William Fisher
“Democracy is inherently self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.” So said Ted Sorenson, one of President Kennedy’s senior advisors and top speech writers in one of the few hopeful notes of his crie de couer commencement address at the New School University, lamenting the collapse of American values and America’s standing in the world.
For the past few months, the self-correction machine has been working overtime in the US media as well. For example, the New York Times’ ombudsman recently wrote a long apologia to readers for the shortcomings of the paper’s reporting on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. This was followed up in an editorial (July 15) in which The Times said: “…we were wrong about the weapons…we should have been more aggressive in helping our readers understand that there was always a possibility that no large stockpiles existed…we…fault ourselves for failing to deconstruct the W.M.D. issue with the kind of thoroughness we directed at the question of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, or even tax cuts in time of war. We did not listen carefully to the people who disagreed with us….”
And in an arguably even more remarkable media epiphany, The Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader newspaper recently ran a group of stories on its front page exposing its own history of whitewashing the Civil Rights Movement. On July 4, readers of The Herald-Leader saw the results of the paper's inquiry: a front-page expos̩, two sidebar articles and a full page of previously unpublished black-and-white photographs describing how the newspapers -- The Herald in the morning and The Leader in the afternoon Рvirtually ignored the civil rights movement in Lexington." The poor coverage was not the result of mistakes or oversights, The Herald-Leader concluded, but a conscious strategy by the papers' former managers "to play down the movement in the hopes that it would wither away."
In the US, these are but a few of many examples. They are symptoms of a larger debate about the increasing politicization of news outlets, particularly television, the American public’s main source of news. One would be hard pressed to think of a healthier national conversation. And it is all the more impressive because it is being carried out, not by government edict, but by the transgressors themselves. It is a kind of reverse self-censorship. Democracy, in Ted Sorensen’s words, being self-correcting.
Lamentably, this American conversation is taking place at a time when much of the rest of the world is going the other way: governments are increasing their stranglehold on free speech and dissent. They are harassing, detaining, imprisoning, ‘disappearing’, and sometimes murdering journalists -- in Russia, in many countries of Asia, and particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, where governments often own or control the media.
Nonetheless, even in the Middle East, there are many courageous editors and writers who put themselves at risk every day by publishing ‘politically un-correct’ viewpoints. Newspapers like Lebanon’s The Daily Star, the Jordan Times in Amman, and The Arab News in Saudi Arabia, regularly publish content that could easily land their editors in jail.
One Middle East newspaper, distributed in Egypt, goes so far as to post, in its online edition, a news category called ‘Censored’, in which it lists and publishes the many print-edition articles rejected by government censors. The headlines of two articles censored just last week read, “Protestors condemn prison torture” and “Torture frequent and widespread in Egypt.”
The “Censored” page explains: “Egyptian law gives Egypt’s Ministry of Information the right to ban or censor any publication. The censor reviews each edition…before allowing (it) to be distributed. Articles may be censored if they: Report on human rights abuses, criticize the president or his family, criticize the military, refer to any ill-treatment of Egyptians in ‘friendly’ Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, discuss modern, unorthodox interpretations of Islam, or report on discrimination against Coptic Christians in Egypt.”
According to Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based non-governmental organization that monitors infringements on press freedom and works to secure justice for jailed or ‘disappeared’ journalists, the situation in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa is getting worse, despite widespread clamor from within and without for political reforms.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak recently promised journalists that no one would ever be jailed again for a publication offense. He then discovered that this would require a new law. As of today, no such law has materialized. But other Middle East leaders haven’t even made the promise!
The irony, of course, is that many Middle East leaders have, at least rhetorically, embraced the need for political, social, economic and gender reforms. It’s well past time they turned their rhetoric into action. And there can be no more critical place to start than with freedom of the press.
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
ELECTORAL NIGHTMARE IN THE MAKING?
Feedback to: wfisher206@aol.com
By William Fisher
Are we headed for another 2000 election?
That was the inevitable question triggered by Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood’s decision to scrap a list intended to keep more than 47,000 suspected felons from voting in November.
The reason? The list included only 61 Hispanic names. There are millions of Hispanics in Florida, and the state's large Cuban population tends to vote Republican. And all but 61 of them are upstanding, law-abiding citizens? Right!
What we have here – and without implying that the administration of Governor Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, had the slightest political interest in reducing Hispanic felons to the virtual vanishing point – is another electoral nightmare in the making.
Wait, it gets worse. Without the list to guide them, it is now up to each of the State’s 47 county supervisors to compile and verify their own lists of former felons who should not be allowed to vote. Some county supervisors throughout the State doubt they have the capacity or the time to develop the lists and verify the names before November. And many Florida counties are not famous for their speed, thoroughness, or efficiency.
So if they can’t meet the deadline? What then? Then Florida’s election returns will again be suspect, and again headed for the courts.
In 2000, State officials acknowledged -- after the election -- that a similar list contained thousands of names in error. These people were barred from voting, and many of them were African-Americans, who traditionally tend to vote Democratic. President Bush was said to have won the state by 537 votes after the US Supreme Court refused a recount.
This year’s suspect list was created by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The apparent exclusion of Hispanic names was characterized by a State official as “an honest mistake caused when two databases were merged”.
Florida is one of seven states that bar felons who have served their sentences from voting, unless they have been granted clemency and re-registered to vote. Felons who vote without having been granted clemency are guilty of committing a felony.
Watch this space!
By William Fisher
Are we headed for another 2000 election?
That was the inevitable question triggered by Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood’s decision to scrap a list intended to keep more than 47,000 suspected felons from voting in November.
The reason? The list included only 61 Hispanic names. There are millions of Hispanics in Florida, and the state's large Cuban population tends to vote Republican. And all but 61 of them are upstanding, law-abiding citizens? Right!
What we have here – and without implying that the administration of Governor Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, had the slightest political interest in reducing Hispanic felons to the virtual vanishing point – is another electoral nightmare in the making.
Wait, it gets worse. Without the list to guide them, it is now up to each of the State’s 47 county supervisors to compile and verify their own lists of former felons who should not be allowed to vote. Some county supervisors throughout the State doubt they have the capacity or the time to develop the lists and verify the names before November. And many Florida counties are not famous for their speed, thoroughness, or efficiency.
So if they can’t meet the deadline? What then? Then Florida’s election returns will again be suspect, and again headed for the courts.
In 2000, State officials acknowledged -- after the election -- that a similar list contained thousands of names in error. These people were barred from voting, and many of them were African-Americans, who traditionally tend to vote Democratic. President Bush was said to have won the state by 537 votes after the US Supreme Court refused a recount.
This year’s suspect list was created by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The apparent exclusion of Hispanic names was characterized by a State official as “an honest mistake caused when two databases were merged”.
Florida is one of seven states that bar felons who have served their sentences from voting, unless they have been granted clemency and re-registered to vote. Felons who vote without having been granted clemency are guilty of committing a felony.
Watch this space!
Monday, July 12, 2004
IN THE FOREIGN POLICY TOOLKIT: NUANCE AND STYLE
Feedback to: wfisher206@aol.com
By William Fisher
Political pundits have been making a big deal of the ’similarities’ between foreign policy positions taken by President Bush and Senator Kerry. In contrast, some observers have been calling Senator Edwards – in the words of the Washington Post – a “politician willing to push beyond conventional foreign policy ideas and introduce imaginative proposals….”
The reality is that neither contention is true. The differences between Kerry and Bush may well be ‘nuanced’. And many of Senator Edwards’s ‘imaginative’ foreign policy ideas may have been around for years in one form or another.
So do we have a two-party Tweedledee and Tweedledum? On the contrary. The major differences between the two sets of presidential and vice presidential candidates are vast. But they are less about substance than about nuance and style. This is not unimportant; in foreign policy nuance and style are critical to consensus-building and, therefore, to success.
Senator Edwards’s recent proposals on US policy toward the Middle East provide an informative glimpse into his ideas.
For example, in what he calls his ‘Strategy for Freedom’, Edwards would create an "organization for security and cooperation" in the Middle East. Its mission would be to bring reform-leaning Arab and Western Governments together to promote and finance transparent political and economic reforms.
The Bush administration later promoted a similar idea, the Greater Middle East Initiative, to be undertaken cooperatively by G-8 and Arab nations. It was seen by virtually every Arab government as an attempt to ‘impose democracy from outside’. Shortly afterward, Republic Senator Richard Lugar outlined a plan for the G-8 to engage with the Greater Middle East “in a way that allows the nations of the region to set their own priorities for the new millennium”. Lugar’s plan, the Greater Middle East 21st Century Trust, would unite the G8 countries to partner with wealthy Arab states to “pool resources to deliver grants…based, in part, on the high priority needs identified in the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Reports, which were written by Arab scholars.”
Also in the Middle East, Edwards proposes to reorient US assistance toward
non-governmental bodies and away from non-democratic governments led by dictators who show no interest or offer only false promises in developing democracy. Edwards would also encourage democratic reforms by rewarding good performers -- those who demonstrate respect for democratic practices and a willingness to implement political reform - with increased aid, incentives for investment, and debt relief.
On a more global basis, in 2002 President Bush unveiled the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), designed to increase core US development assistance by more than 50 percent over the next three years by making grants to poor countries to spur economic growth and attract investment. The MCA is limited to “countries that govern justly, invest in their people, and open their economies to enterprise and entrepreneurship…”
Edwards also proposes linking US aid to progress on human rights and democracy. The US has, from time to time, attempted to create this kind of linkage. A couple of years ago, the State Department used quiet diplomacy ‘under the radar’ to tell Egypt – one of the largest recipients of American assistance – to clean up its democracy act. If it made the policy uniform, a large minority of US aid beneficiaries would find themselves on the ‘democracy blacklist’. These include many important US strategic allies, like Pakistan.
Another Edwards idea is a “freedom list” to expose governments that jail dissidents for political or religious expression and persuade them free such prisoners. For a decade, the US State Department has published and widely publicized an annual Human Rights Report that does precisely that. Similar initiatives are taken by the UN Human Rights Commission and by many non-governmental human rights groups around the world.
Edwards also proposes a "Democracy Caucus" at the United Nations to punish members who fail to embrace democratic reforms by excluding them from powerful positions. This group would bring together states committed to democracy and human rights to push for these principles at every level of the UN system. He believes this “will help prevent states like Libya from heading the UN human rights committee, which only undermines the UN's credibility.”
No one can disagree with the UN’s increasing lack of credibility – and motivation – in democracy building. After all, a very high proportion of the UN’s member countries are led by people who are either unelected or elected in highly suspect circumstances. The permanent staffs of specialized UN agencies like the Human Rights Commission bravely struggle with this problem every day. The Commission identifies the key attributes of good governance as transparency, responsibility, accountability, participation, and responsiveness to the needs of the people. And staffers are frustrated every day by many of the UN’s own members and by the organization’s paralyzing bureaucracy.
Senator Edwards also proposes to substantially increase support for international democracy programs, starting by doubling the funding of the National Endowment for Democracy, which supports grassroots civil society programs worldwide. Edwards would double the organization’s budget to over $80 million, focus specifically on programs in the Middle East and Africa -- and call on US allies in Europe and elsewhere to match these funds by establishing similar institutions.
The Edwards proposals do not sound like those of a “politician willing to push beyond conventional foreign policy ideas and introduce imaginative proposals. Moreover, whether similar ideas come from Kerry or Bush – or even Cheney -- they are far from new, much less ‘imaginative’. Development professionals have been proposing variations of them for decades. Nonetheless, while some appear to be pragmatically undoable, they all deserve careful consideration.
That is not the issue. The issue is who is likely to be more capable of persuading authoritarian leaders that their self-interest lies in embracing democratic reform – while keeping their cooperation and goodwill to fight terrorists. This is a process that requires a full diplomatic deck. Commitment from the top down. Patience.
The ability – and willingness – to listen. Sensitivity to the realpolitik of a partner’s domestic constituencies. Knowledge of a partner’s culture. Knowledge of the world and how it works. ‘Getting to yes’ negotiating skills. Toughness when toughness will work. In other words, nuance and style.
Fed by TV soundbites posing as ‘news’, many American voters may find it difficult to understand that the world is rarely black and white; it is zillions of shades of gray. It is, in a phrase, a world of style and nuance.
Unfortunately, Messrs. Bush and Cheney are not noteworthy for these attributes. But, as Senator Edwards puts it, “encouraging democracy takes more than President Bush's combination of high-minded rhetoric at home and high-handed arrogance toward our allies.”
About the writer: William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration
By William Fisher
Political pundits have been making a big deal of the ’similarities’ between foreign policy positions taken by President Bush and Senator Kerry. In contrast, some observers have been calling Senator Edwards – in the words of the Washington Post – a “politician willing to push beyond conventional foreign policy ideas and introduce imaginative proposals….”
The reality is that neither contention is true. The differences between Kerry and Bush may well be ‘nuanced’. And many of Senator Edwards’s ‘imaginative’ foreign policy ideas may have been around for years in one form or another.
So do we have a two-party Tweedledee and Tweedledum? On the contrary. The major differences between the two sets of presidential and vice presidential candidates are vast. But they are less about substance than about nuance and style. This is not unimportant; in foreign policy nuance and style are critical to consensus-building and, therefore, to success.
Senator Edwards’s recent proposals on US policy toward the Middle East provide an informative glimpse into his ideas.
For example, in what he calls his ‘Strategy for Freedom’, Edwards would create an "organization for security and cooperation" in the Middle East. Its mission would be to bring reform-leaning Arab and Western Governments together to promote and finance transparent political and economic reforms.
The Bush administration later promoted a similar idea, the Greater Middle East Initiative, to be undertaken cooperatively by G-8 and Arab nations. It was seen by virtually every Arab government as an attempt to ‘impose democracy from outside’. Shortly afterward, Republic Senator Richard Lugar outlined a plan for the G-8 to engage with the Greater Middle East “in a way that allows the nations of the region to set their own priorities for the new millennium”. Lugar’s plan, the Greater Middle East 21st Century Trust, would unite the G8 countries to partner with wealthy Arab states to “pool resources to deliver grants…based, in part, on the high priority needs identified in the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Reports, which were written by Arab scholars.”
Also in the Middle East, Edwards proposes to reorient US assistance toward
non-governmental bodies and away from non-democratic governments led by dictators who show no interest or offer only false promises in developing democracy. Edwards would also encourage democratic reforms by rewarding good performers -- those who demonstrate respect for democratic practices and a willingness to implement political reform - with increased aid, incentives for investment, and debt relief.
On a more global basis, in 2002 President Bush unveiled the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), designed to increase core US development assistance by more than 50 percent over the next three years by making grants to poor countries to spur economic growth and attract investment. The MCA is limited to “countries that govern justly, invest in their people, and open their economies to enterprise and entrepreneurship…”
Edwards also proposes linking US aid to progress on human rights and democracy. The US has, from time to time, attempted to create this kind of linkage. A couple of years ago, the State Department used quiet diplomacy ‘under the radar’ to tell Egypt – one of the largest recipients of American assistance – to clean up its democracy act. If it made the policy uniform, a large minority of US aid beneficiaries would find themselves on the ‘democracy blacklist’. These include many important US strategic allies, like Pakistan.
Another Edwards idea is a “freedom list” to expose governments that jail dissidents for political or religious expression and persuade them free such prisoners. For a decade, the US State Department has published and widely publicized an annual Human Rights Report that does precisely that. Similar initiatives are taken by the UN Human Rights Commission and by many non-governmental human rights groups around the world.
Edwards also proposes a "Democracy Caucus" at the United Nations to punish members who fail to embrace democratic reforms by excluding them from powerful positions. This group would bring together states committed to democracy and human rights to push for these principles at every level of the UN system. He believes this “will help prevent states like Libya from heading the UN human rights committee, which only undermines the UN's credibility.”
No one can disagree with the UN’s increasing lack of credibility – and motivation – in democracy building. After all, a very high proportion of the UN’s member countries are led by people who are either unelected or elected in highly suspect circumstances. The permanent staffs of specialized UN agencies like the Human Rights Commission bravely struggle with this problem every day. The Commission identifies the key attributes of good governance as transparency, responsibility, accountability, participation, and responsiveness to the needs of the people. And staffers are frustrated every day by many of the UN’s own members and by the organization’s paralyzing bureaucracy.
Senator Edwards also proposes to substantially increase support for international democracy programs, starting by doubling the funding of the National Endowment for Democracy, which supports grassroots civil society programs worldwide. Edwards would double the organization’s budget to over $80 million, focus specifically on programs in the Middle East and Africa -- and call on US allies in Europe and elsewhere to match these funds by establishing similar institutions.
The Edwards proposals do not sound like those of a “politician willing to push beyond conventional foreign policy ideas and introduce imaginative proposals. Moreover, whether similar ideas come from Kerry or Bush – or even Cheney -- they are far from new, much less ‘imaginative’. Development professionals have been proposing variations of them for decades. Nonetheless, while some appear to be pragmatically undoable, they all deserve careful consideration.
That is not the issue. The issue is who is likely to be more capable of persuading authoritarian leaders that their self-interest lies in embracing democratic reform – while keeping their cooperation and goodwill to fight terrorists. This is a process that requires a full diplomatic deck. Commitment from the top down. Patience.
The ability – and willingness – to listen. Sensitivity to the realpolitik of a partner’s domestic constituencies. Knowledge of a partner’s culture. Knowledge of the world and how it works. ‘Getting to yes’ negotiating skills. Toughness when toughness will work. In other words, nuance and style.
Fed by TV soundbites posing as ‘news’, many American voters may find it difficult to understand that the world is rarely black and white; it is zillions of shades of gray. It is, in a phrase, a world of style and nuance.
Unfortunately, Messrs. Bush and Cheney are not noteworthy for these attributes. But, as Senator Edwards puts it, “encouraging democracy takes more than President Bush's combination of high-minded rhetoric at home and high-handed arrogance toward our allies.”
About the writer: William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration
Monday, July 05, 2004
A TIME TO WEEP
Feedback to: wfisher206@aol.com
Following is a Commencement address to the New School University in New York on May 21 by Theodore Sorensen, who served as Special Counsel to President Kennedy.
This is not a speech. Two weeks ago I set aside the speech I prepared. This is a cry from the heart, a lamentation for the loss of this country's goodness and therefore its greatness. Future historians studying the decline and fall of America will mark this as the time the tide began to turn -- toward a mean-spirited mediocrity in place of a noble beacon.
For me the final blow was American guards laughing over the naked, helpless bodies of abused prisoners in Iraq. "There is a time to laugh," the Bible tells us, "and a time to weep." Today I weep for the country I love, the country I proudly served, the country to which my four grandparents sailed over a century ago with hopes for a new land of peace and freedom. I cannot remain silent when that country is in the deepest trouble of my lifetime.
I am not talking only about the prison abuse scandal -- that stench will someday subside. Nor am I referring only to the Iraq war -- that too will pass -- nor to any one political leader or party. This is no time for politics as usual, in which no one responsible admits responsibility, no one genuinely apologizes, no one resigns, and everyone else is blamed.
The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us. The stain on our credibility, our reputation for decency and integrity, will not quickly wash away.
Last week, a family friend of an accused American guard in Iraq recited the atrocities inflicted by our enemies on Americans, and asked: "Must we be
held to a different standard?" My answer is yes. Not only because others expect it. We must hold ourselves to a different standard. Not only because God demands it, but because it serves our security. Our greatest strength has long been not merely our military might but our moral authority. Our surest protection against assault from abroad has been not all our guards, gates and guns, or even our two oceans, but our essential goodness as a people. Our richest asset has been not our material wealth but our values.
We were world leaders once -- helping found the United Nations, the
Marshall Plan, NATO, and programs like Food for Peace, international human rights and international environmental standards. The world admired not only the bravery of our Marine Corps but also the idealism of our Peace Corps.
Our word was as good as our gold. At the start of the Cuban missile crisis, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, President Kennedy's special envoy to brief French President de Gaulle, offered to document our case by having the actual pictures of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought in. "No,” shrugged the usually difficult de Gaulle: "The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me."
Eight months later, President Kennedy could say at American University:
“The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate ... we want to build a world of
peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just."
Our founding fathers believed this country could be a beacon of light to the world, a model of democratic and humanitarian progress. We were. We prevailed in the Cold War because we inspired millions struggling for freedom in far corners of the Soviet empire. I have been in countries where children and avenues were named for Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. We were respected, not reviled, because we respected man's aspirations for peace and justice. This was the country to which foreign leaders sent not only their goods to be sold but their sons and daughters to be educated. In the 1930s, when Jewish and other scholars were driven out of Europe, their preferred destination -- even for those on the far left -- was not the Communist citadel in Moscow but the New School here in New York.
What has happened to our country? We have been in wars before, without resorting to sexual humiliation as torture, without blocking the Red Cross,
without insulting and deceiving our allies and the U.N., without betraying our traditional values, without imitating our adversaries, without blackening our name around the world.
Last year when asked on short notice to speak to a European audience and inquiring what topic I should address, the chairman said: "Tell us about the good America, the America when Kennedy was in the White House." "It is still a good America," I replied. "The American people still believe in peace, human rights and justice; they are still a generous, fair-minded, open-minded people."
Today some political figures argue that merely to report, much less to protest, the crimes against humanity committed by a few of our own inadequately trained forces in the fog of war, is to aid the enemy or excuse its atrocities. But Americans know that such self-censorship does not enhance our security.
Attempts to justify or defend our illegal acts as nothing more than pranks or no worse than the crimes of our enemies, only further muddies our moral image. Thirty years ago, America's war in Vietnam became a hopeless military quagmire; today our war in Iraq has become a senseless moral swamp.
No military victory can endure unless the victor occupies the high moral ground. Surely America, the land of the free, could not lose the high moral ground invading Iraq, a country ruled by terror, torture and tyranny – but we did.
Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein -- politically, economically, diplomatically, much as we succeeded in isolating Gadhafi, Marcos, Mobutu and a host of other dictators over the years -- we have isolated ourselves. We are increasingly alone in a dangerous world in which millions who once respected us now hate us. Not only Muslims. Every international survey shows our global standing at an all-time low. Even our transatlantic alliance has not yet recovered from its worst crisis in history. Our friends in Western Europe were willing to accept Uncle Sam as class president, but not as class bully once he forgot JFK's advice that "civility is not a sign of weakness."
All this is rationalized as part of the war on terror. But abusing prisoners in Iraq, denying detainees their legal rights in Guantanamo – even American citizens -- misleading the world at large about Saddam's ready stockpiles of mass destruction and involvement with al-Qaida at 9/11, did not advance by one millimeter our efforts to end the threat of another terrorist attack upon us. On the contrary, our conduct invites and incites new attacks and new recruits to attack us.
The decline in our reputation adds to the decline in our security. We keep losing old friends and making new enemies -- not a formula for success. We have not yet rounded up Osama bin Laden or most of the al-Qaida and Taliban leaders or the anthrax mailer. "The world is large," wrote John Boyle O'Reilly, in one of President Kennedy's favorite poems, "when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide, but the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side." Today our enemies are still loose on the other side of the world, and we are still vulnerable to attack.
True, we have not lost either war we chose or lost too much of our wealth. But we have lost something worse -- our good name for truth and justice. To paraphrase Shakespeare: "He who steals our nation's purse, steals trash. 'Twas ours, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches our good name ... makes us poor indeed."
No American wants us to lose a war. Among our enemies are those who, if
they could, would fundamentally change our way of life, restricting our freedom
of religion by exalting one faith over others, ignoring international law and the opinions of mankind, and trampling on the rights of those who are different, deprived or disliked. To the extent that our nation voluntarily treads those same paths in the name of security, the terrorists win and we are the losers.
We are no longer the world's leaders on matters of international law and peace. After we stopped listening to others, they stopped listening to us. A nation without credibility and moral authority cannot lead, because no one will follow.
Paradoxically, the charges against us in the court of world opinion are contradictory. We are deemed by many to be dangerously aggressive, a threat
to world peace. You may regard that as ridiculously unwarranted, no matter how often international surveys show that attitude to be spreading. But remember the old axiom: "No matter how good you feel, if four friends tell you you're drunk, you'd better lie down."
Yet we are also charged not so much with intervention as indifference --indifference toward the suffering of millions of our fellow inhabitants of this planet who do not enjoy the freedom, the opportunity, the health and wealth and security that we enjoy; indifference to the countless deaths of children and other civilians in unnecessary wars, countless because we usually do not bother to count them; indifference to the centuries of humiliation endured previously in silence by the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently
self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can
be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be
reversed.
When, in 1941, the Japanese Air Force was able to inflict widespread death and destruction on our naval and air forces in Hawaii because they were not on alert, those military officials most responsible for ignoring advance intelligence were summarily dismissed.
When, in the late 1940s, we faced a global Cold War against another system of ideological fanatics certain that their authoritarian values would eventually rule the world, we prevailed in time. We prevailed because we exercised patience as well as vigilance, self-restraint as well as self-defense, and reached out to moderates and modernists, to democrats and dissidents, within that closed system. We can do that again. We can reach out to moderates and modernists in Islam, proud of its long traditions of dialogue, learning, charity and peace. Some among us scoff that the war on jihadist terror is a war between civilization and chaos. But they forget that there were Islamic universities and observatories long before we had railroads. So do not despair. In this country, the people are sovereign. If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness. In particular, you -- the class of 2004 -- have the wisdom and energy to do it.
Start soon.
In the words of the ancient Hebrews: "The day is short, and the work is great, and the laborers are sluggish, but the reward is much, and the Master is urgent."
Following is a Commencement address to the New School University in New York on May 21 by Theodore Sorensen, who served as Special Counsel to President Kennedy.
This is not a speech. Two weeks ago I set aside the speech I prepared. This is a cry from the heart, a lamentation for the loss of this country's goodness and therefore its greatness. Future historians studying the decline and fall of America will mark this as the time the tide began to turn -- toward a mean-spirited mediocrity in place of a noble beacon.
For me the final blow was American guards laughing over the naked, helpless bodies of abused prisoners in Iraq. "There is a time to laugh," the Bible tells us, "and a time to weep." Today I weep for the country I love, the country I proudly served, the country to which my four grandparents sailed over a century ago with hopes for a new land of peace and freedom. I cannot remain silent when that country is in the deepest trouble of my lifetime.
I am not talking only about the prison abuse scandal -- that stench will someday subside. Nor am I referring only to the Iraq war -- that too will pass -- nor to any one political leader or party. This is no time for politics as usual, in which no one responsible admits responsibility, no one genuinely apologizes, no one resigns, and everyone else is blamed.
The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us. The stain on our credibility, our reputation for decency and integrity, will not quickly wash away.
Last week, a family friend of an accused American guard in Iraq recited the atrocities inflicted by our enemies on Americans, and asked: "Must we be
held to a different standard?" My answer is yes. Not only because others expect it. We must hold ourselves to a different standard. Not only because God demands it, but because it serves our security. Our greatest strength has long been not merely our military might but our moral authority. Our surest protection against assault from abroad has been not all our guards, gates and guns, or even our two oceans, but our essential goodness as a people. Our richest asset has been not our material wealth but our values.
We were world leaders once -- helping found the United Nations, the
Marshall Plan, NATO, and programs like Food for Peace, international human rights and international environmental standards. The world admired not only the bravery of our Marine Corps but also the idealism of our Peace Corps.
Our word was as good as our gold. At the start of the Cuban missile crisis, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, President Kennedy's special envoy to brief French President de Gaulle, offered to document our case by having the actual pictures of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought in. "No,” shrugged the usually difficult de Gaulle: "The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me."
Eight months later, President Kennedy could say at American University:
“The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate ... we want to build a world of
peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just."
Our founding fathers believed this country could be a beacon of light to the world, a model of democratic and humanitarian progress. We were. We prevailed in the Cold War because we inspired millions struggling for freedom in far corners of the Soviet empire. I have been in countries where children and avenues were named for Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. We were respected, not reviled, because we respected man's aspirations for peace and justice. This was the country to which foreign leaders sent not only their goods to be sold but their sons and daughters to be educated. In the 1930s, when Jewish and other scholars were driven out of Europe, their preferred destination -- even for those on the far left -- was not the Communist citadel in Moscow but the New School here in New York.
What has happened to our country? We have been in wars before, without resorting to sexual humiliation as torture, without blocking the Red Cross,
without insulting and deceiving our allies and the U.N., without betraying our traditional values, without imitating our adversaries, without blackening our name around the world.
Last year when asked on short notice to speak to a European audience and inquiring what topic I should address, the chairman said: "Tell us about the good America, the America when Kennedy was in the White House." "It is still a good America," I replied. "The American people still believe in peace, human rights and justice; they are still a generous, fair-minded, open-minded people."
Today some political figures argue that merely to report, much less to protest, the crimes against humanity committed by a few of our own inadequately trained forces in the fog of war, is to aid the enemy or excuse its atrocities. But Americans know that such self-censorship does not enhance our security.
Attempts to justify or defend our illegal acts as nothing more than pranks or no worse than the crimes of our enemies, only further muddies our moral image. Thirty years ago, America's war in Vietnam became a hopeless military quagmire; today our war in Iraq has become a senseless moral swamp.
No military victory can endure unless the victor occupies the high moral ground. Surely America, the land of the free, could not lose the high moral ground invading Iraq, a country ruled by terror, torture and tyranny – but we did.
Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein -- politically, economically, diplomatically, much as we succeeded in isolating Gadhafi, Marcos, Mobutu and a host of other dictators over the years -- we have isolated ourselves. We are increasingly alone in a dangerous world in which millions who once respected us now hate us. Not only Muslims. Every international survey shows our global standing at an all-time low. Even our transatlantic alliance has not yet recovered from its worst crisis in history. Our friends in Western Europe were willing to accept Uncle Sam as class president, but not as class bully once he forgot JFK's advice that "civility is not a sign of weakness."
All this is rationalized as part of the war on terror. But abusing prisoners in Iraq, denying detainees their legal rights in Guantanamo – even American citizens -- misleading the world at large about Saddam's ready stockpiles of mass destruction and involvement with al-Qaida at 9/11, did not advance by one millimeter our efforts to end the threat of another terrorist attack upon us. On the contrary, our conduct invites and incites new attacks and new recruits to attack us.
The decline in our reputation adds to the decline in our security. We keep losing old friends and making new enemies -- not a formula for success. We have not yet rounded up Osama bin Laden or most of the al-Qaida and Taliban leaders or the anthrax mailer. "The world is large," wrote John Boyle O'Reilly, in one of President Kennedy's favorite poems, "when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide, but the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side." Today our enemies are still loose on the other side of the world, and we are still vulnerable to attack.
True, we have not lost either war we chose or lost too much of our wealth. But we have lost something worse -- our good name for truth and justice. To paraphrase Shakespeare: "He who steals our nation's purse, steals trash. 'Twas ours, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches our good name ... makes us poor indeed."
No American wants us to lose a war. Among our enemies are those who, if
they could, would fundamentally change our way of life, restricting our freedom
of religion by exalting one faith over others, ignoring international law and the opinions of mankind, and trampling on the rights of those who are different, deprived or disliked. To the extent that our nation voluntarily treads those same paths in the name of security, the terrorists win and we are the losers.
We are no longer the world's leaders on matters of international law and peace. After we stopped listening to others, they stopped listening to us. A nation without credibility and moral authority cannot lead, because no one will follow.
Paradoxically, the charges against us in the court of world opinion are contradictory. We are deemed by many to be dangerously aggressive, a threat
to world peace. You may regard that as ridiculously unwarranted, no matter how often international surveys show that attitude to be spreading. But remember the old axiom: "No matter how good you feel, if four friends tell you you're drunk, you'd better lie down."
Yet we are also charged not so much with intervention as indifference --indifference toward the suffering of millions of our fellow inhabitants of this planet who do not enjoy the freedom, the opportunity, the health and wealth and security that we enjoy; indifference to the countless deaths of children and other civilians in unnecessary wars, countless because we usually do not bother to count them; indifference to the centuries of humiliation endured previously in silence by the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently
self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can
be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be
reversed.
When, in 1941, the Japanese Air Force was able to inflict widespread death and destruction on our naval and air forces in Hawaii because they were not on alert, those military officials most responsible for ignoring advance intelligence were summarily dismissed.
When, in the late 1940s, we faced a global Cold War against another system of ideological fanatics certain that their authoritarian values would eventually rule the world, we prevailed in time. We prevailed because we exercised patience as well as vigilance, self-restraint as well as self-defense, and reached out to moderates and modernists, to democrats and dissidents, within that closed system. We can do that again. We can reach out to moderates and modernists in Islam, proud of its long traditions of dialogue, learning, charity and peace. Some among us scoff that the war on jihadist terror is a war between civilization and chaos. But they forget that there were Islamic universities and observatories long before we had railroads. So do not despair. In this country, the people are sovereign. If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness. In particular, you -- the class of 2004 -- have the wisdom and energy to do it.
Start soon.
In the words of the ancient Hebrews: "The day is short, and the work is great, and the laborers are sluggish, but the reward is much, and the Master is urgent."
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
WHAT SAUDI ARABIA FACES
Feedback to: wfisher206@aol.com
By William Fisher
Saudi Arabia has finally been compelled to hear the terrorists’ wake-up call. But the task it faces is far more daunting than that of the United States or any other Western country. The reason is that, for the Kingdom, defeating terrorism means reversing powerful and deeply ingrained jihadist ideas that Saudis learn from childhood onward. Moreover, these ideas find their way into school textbooks, into the largely government-controlled press, and into the everyday conversations of ‘the Arab Street’.
Long before the recent beheadings, the Kingdom had begun to take some baby steps toward curbing extreme Islamic fundamentalism. For example, it identified some 3,000 clerics it judged to be ‘extreme’, called for ‘moderation in all things’, removed or arrested some clerics, and sent others for ‘re-education’. Currently the Kingdom claims to be reorganizing its educational system. Yet it has only just begun. For example, it has not shut down the many Islamist websites that provide the Muslim clergy with the language of jihad that can be heard at Friday prayers throughout the Kingdom – and throughout the Arab Middle East.
One such website, known as Al Minbar (the pulpit) is visited weekly by thousands of Muslim clerics from all over the Middle East, to whom it provides ‘off-the-shelf’ sermons. These are a few examples of its texts.
“O young Muslim men! …Embark upon training… small numbers can overcome large numbers regardless of their force and power…Jihad is the language of power even if it means small stones and rocks…Use military arms which utilize state-of-the-art technology.”
Christianity is a “false faith…that deviates from the path of righteousness… (a) distorted and deformed religion….[Only] Islam is worthy of delivering the human race from its misery and despair. Only Islam is capable of bringing happiness to the human race.”
“How long are we going to be made forcibly subservient? When are we going to rise up against the evil of the enemy? …Who can believe that a small number of these ‘brothers of monkeys and pigs’ (Jews) are making the entire Muslim nation suffer?”
The Arab-Israeli peace process, one sermon concludes, “is nothing but a change to the Zionist plan to control the world and especially the Islamic regions.” It cautions against any dialog with the Israelis: “Negotiations are the introduction to submission…The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews…”
These are only snippets of what is being said week after week by the fundamentalist clergy; the full texts make Pat Robertson sound like Teddy Kennedy. While there are more moderate voices to be heard in some Saudi mosques, those cited above still represent the norm.
Against this background, it undoubtedly took considerable courage for Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom, to put forward his two-state Israel-Palestinian peace plan last year. And, last week, for the Saudi Government to ‘declare war’ on terrorism.
These and other modest reforms may be baby steps, but optimists see them as part of a process former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt Edward S. Walker, calls “The Quiet Revolution”. Writing in the Middle East Times, Walker -- now head of the Middle East Institute, and a former Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration -- said: “There is a quiet revolution going on in Saudi Arabia. No one knows its depth, its breadth, or its ultimate impact, but the reform effort is very real and probably unstoppable.”
The House of Saud, divided by disagreements among family members, now finds itself walking a dangerous tightrope. Will it find the political will to go full-bore after the terrorists and thus risk alienating a powerful fundamentalist clergy and its millions of followers? Given the gruesome events of the past month, the world can only hope that Ambassador Walker is right about the Kingdom’s ‘quiet revolution’. But time is certainly not on the side of the Saudis.
By William Fisher
Saudi Arabia has finally been compelled to hear the terrorists’ wake-up call. But the task it faces is far more daunting than that of the United States or any other Western country. The reason is that, for the Kingdom, defeating terrorism means reversing powerful and deeply ingrained jihadist ideas that Saudis learn from childhood onward. Moreover, these ideas find their way into school textbooks, into the largely government-controlled press, and into the everyday conversations of ‘the Arab Street’.
Long before the recent beheadings, the Kingdom had begun to take some baby steps toward curbing extreme Islamic fundamentalism. For example, it identified some 3,000 clerics it judged to be ‘extreme’, called for ‘moderation in all things’, removed or arrested some clerics, and sent others for ‘re-education’. Currently the Kingdom claims to be reorganizing its educational system. Yet it has only just begun. For example, it has not shut down the many Islamist websites that provide the Muslim clergy with the language of jihad that can be heard at Friday prayers throughout the Kingdom – and throughout the Arab Middle East.
One such website, known as Al Minbar (the pulpit) is visited weekly by thousands of Muslim clerics from all over the Middle East, to whom it provides ‘off-the-shelf’ sermons. These are a few examples of its texts.
“O young Muslim men! …Embark upon training… small numbers can overcome large numbers regardless of their force and power…Jihad is the language of power even if it means small stones and rocks…Use military arms which utilize state-of-the-art technology.”
Christianity is a “false faith…that deviates from the path of righteousness… (a) distorted and deformed religion….[Only] Islam is worthy of delivering the human race from its misery and despair. Only Islam is capable of bringing happiness to the human race.”
“How long are we going to be made forcibly subservient? When are we going to rise up against the evil of the enemy? …Who can believe that a small number of these ‘brothers of monkeys and pigs’ (Jews) are making the entire Muslim nation suffer?”
The Arab-Israeli peace process, one sermon concludes, “is nothing but a change to the Zionist plan to control the world and especially the Islamic regions.” It cautions against any dialog with the Israelis: “Negotiations are the introduction to submission…The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews…”
These are only snippets of what is being said week after week by the fundamentalist clergy; the full texts make Pat Robertson sound like Teddy Kennedy. While there are more moderate voices to be heard in some Saudi mosques, those cited above still represent the norm.
Against this background, it undoubtedly took considerable courage for Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom, to put forward his two-state Israel-Palestinian peace plan last year. And, last week, for the Saudi Government to ‘declare war’ on terrorism.
These and other modest reforms may be baby steps, but optimists see them as part of a process former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt Edward S. Walker, calls “The Quiet Revolution”. Writing in the Middle East Times, Walker -- now head of the Middle East Institute, and a former Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration -- said: “There is a quiet revolution going on in Saudi Arabia. No one knows its depth, its breadth, or its ultimate impact, but the reform effort is very real and probably unstoppable.”
The House of Saud, divided by disagreements among family members, now finds itself walking a dangerous tightrope. Will it find the political will to go full-bore after the terrorists and thus risk alienating a powerful fundamentalist clergy and its millions of followers? Given the gruesome events of the past month, the world can only hope that Ambassador Walker is right about the Kingdom’s ‘quiet revolution’. But time is certainly not on the side of the Saudis.
BLOGGING THROUGH IRAQ
Feedback to: wfisher206@aol.com
By William Fisher
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, writing in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal last May, called attention to “Omar, one of the new Iraqi ‘bloggers’."
For the cybernetically challenged, a blog is a kind of website originally known as a web log. It is a usually free, often interactive way for almost anyone to post his/her thoughts on the Internet and have others respond with their own thoughts and messages. Blogging has been around since 1997 and has grown exponentially ever since. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of web logs originating from virtually every country in the world, and being read and often contributed to by millions of other people from virtually every country in the world.
Wolfowitz quoted from an entry Omar posted to his blog after a suicide car bombing killed Iraqi Interim Governing Council President Izzedine Salim last May. Omar’s entry: “We cannot . . . protect every single person, including our leaders and the higher officials who make favorite targets for the terrorists -- but we can make their attempts go in vain by making our leadership replaceable.”
Omar happens to be gung-ho pro-Coalition. But his blog – entitled ‘Iraq The Model’ -- is only one of hundreds that have sprung up in Iraq since the US invasion -- and they are not all pro-Coalition. They are communist, monarchist, Kurdish, Assyrian, Islamist, Shia, Sunni, nationalist, and secularist. Their political positions range from full support for the US invasion and occupation to calls for jihad against the Americans. They discuss – in Arabic or often-broken English -- religion, women’s issues, job loss and unemployment, and – most often – their sense of insecurity about the safety of their families and the future of their country.
The beginning of the blogging craze in Iraq probably dates from September 2002, when a 29-year old Iraqi living in Baghdad and calling himself 'Salam Pax' started posting descriptions of daily life on the internet. Incisive and recklessly irreverent, Salam's weblog describes his passion for music and pop culture, and his fear of death by allied bombs and Saddam's secret police. In the build-up to the invasion, thousands of people visited Salam's website every day, attracted by his accounts of the slide into war and the end of a dictatorship.
Salam has also been a rich source of blog intelligence for his audience. For example, last March he wrote: “I recently stumbled across this very unusual blog (in Arabic) apparently run by an Iraqi called Fadhil. He regularly posts periodic official statements by the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party'.. .He…hails the daily explosions and bombings in Baghdad and throws the title of 'traitor' or 'agent' at every official currently employed in government positions including former Ba'athists, he praises the 'resistance' for assassinating them and he laments failed assassination attempts. …”
The ‘awe and shock’ arrival of the Coalition last March generated torrents of blog invective. For example, a blog called Riverbend, run by a 24-year-old woman computer programmer. wrote: “Occuption Day, April 9, 2003: Day faded into night… the longest day of my life. The day we sensed that the struggle in Baghdad was over and the fear of war was nothing compared to the new fear we were currently facing. It was the day I saw my first American tank roll grotesquely down the streets of Baghdad -- through a residential neighborhood. And that was April 9 for me and millions of others. There are thousands who weren't so lucky- they lost loved ones on April 9… to guns, and tanks and Apaches… and the current Governing Council want us to remember April 9 fondly and hail it our "National Day"… a day of victory… but whose victory?”
Salam Pax wrote of the invasion: “What annoyed me most in the whole build up to the war was the act the US administration put on, the way they seemed almost surprised at how much of a baddy Saddam has been…The various documents that were produced to show how much of a bully he has been…were treated as if they were so new and startling… What the US administration didn’t put in those records and documents was the extent of its own involvement in building up this monster and now that he has grown bigger than they thought he could they thought it was time to get rid of him…”
Another blog, “A family in Baghdad” writes of the perception of American culture: “I don't understand why anyone would want to have this so-called American freedom…(which) means …that you can move out at the age of 18 from your parents' home and you will never have to speak to them ever again if you don't want to…you can say and do whatever you want to anyone without many consequences…you have the right to have sex at the age of 12, get pregnant, have a baby; live with someone you are not married to...all legally…you can do drugs and get a slap on the wrist…you never have to work a day and have as many children as you want, because the government will pay for everything! …is this all the freedom Iraqis want? I pray to god it will never be! “
Later, many bloggers wrote about the Iraqi prisoner abuses. “Riverbend” summed it up. “People are seething with anger- the pictures of Abu Ghraib and the Brits in Basrah are everywhere. Every newspaper you pick up in Baghdad has pictures of some American or British atrocity or another…Everyone knew this was happening in Abu Ghraib and other places… seeing the pictures simply made it all more real and tangible somehow.. There are thousands of innocent people detained. Some were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, while others were detained 'under suspicion'. In the New Iraq, it's "guilty until proven innocent by some miracle of God". . People would rather be dead than sexually abused and degraded by the animals running Abu Ghraib prison “.
Most Iraqi bloggers seem to share a common hatred of extreme Islamists. Sarmad Zangna wrote on June 27: “Today (I was on) a web site for ‘Al-Zarqawi’ and I was shocked by the images I saw. Those are our real enemy and we will take them down….”
For some Iraqis, blogging is a family affair. Faiza, the mother of a blogger known as “raed in the middle”, wrote: “Nobody understands the trend of the terrorist organizations which appeared these days…No Arab or Muslim approves of them…They are merely criminal organizations…”
“Road Of A Nation”, like many other Iraqi blogs, expresses outrage about the death and destruction that accompanied the occupation. One entry: “People… told me the story of an Iraqi man who was killed two days ago while driving at Al-Saidiia... he was surprised by the convoy, and found himself suddenly, accidentally, among them, so they shot him. He died instantly. The traffic stopped, all the Iraqis were silent, and the convoy went triumphantly on its way…Then I would get letters from some Americans, asking me why I do not like America??? And my answer would be: this is the ugly face of America, which I do not like…”
The June 28 handover of sovereignty triggered an outpouring of blogging. One blog, called “Hammorabi”, echoed sentiments expressed on many other web logs. “The Iraqi interim government was just sworn now while writing this! Good luck and cut the sources of the terrorists. The good thing is Paul Bremer directed his letter ending the occupation to the Head of the Justice in Iraq and not to the PM. The law is above every one!” Another, “Road Of A Nation”, wrote: “Great moments, great time, here in Iraq. The transfer of power to Iraq sovereignty has been completed 2 days in advance. This was great news for the Iraqis. From this moment we started to celebrate, and people all over here conciliation each other…”
The benefits of Iraq’s newfound technology are trumpeted on many weblogs. On “Road of a Nation”, a link posted by Sarmad Zangna said: “I (knew) a lot of people with different opinions (but) they didn’t speak about what’s happening… some of them (were) thinking that things never will be good, others were afraid to speak, others were supporting ‘Saddam’, others with USA, and I was trying to run a conversation with all sides, trying to let them share together what they think about, how they can cooperate with each other…But I am so happy now after one year to see those people beginning to understand things better.”
Regardless of the outcome of the Iraq situation, it seems clear that blogging will continue to provide a powerful vehicle to allow Iraqis to express themselves. As one blogger put it, “You will be surprised of the number of bright and intelligent young people in Iraq who are willing to start their own blogs and express their ideas and opinions freely, especially that they have nothing to fear from doing so any more…”
About the writer: William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and in many other areas for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration
:
...
By William Fisher
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, writing in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal last May, called attention to “Omar, one of the new Iraqi ‘bloggers’."
For the cybernetically challenged, a blog is a kind of website originally known as a web log. It is a usually free, often interactive way for almost anyone to post his/her thoughts on the Internet and have others respond with their own thoughts and messages. Blogging has been around since 1997 and has grown exponentially ever since. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of web logs originating from virtually every country in the world, and being read and often contributed to by millions of other people from virtually every country in the world.
Wolfowitz quoted from an entry Omar posted to his blog after a suicide car bombing killed Iraqi Interim Governing Council President Izzedine Salim last May. Omar’s entry: “We cannot . . . protect every single person, including our leaders and the higher officials who make favorite targets for the terrorists -- but we can make their attempts go in vain by making our leadership replaceable.”
Omar happens to be gung-ho pro-Coalition. But his blog – entitled ‘Iraq The Model’ -- is only one of hundreds that have sprung up in Iraq since the US invasion -- and they are not all pro-Coalition. They are communist, monarchist, Kurdish, Assyrian, Islamist, Shia, Sunni, nationalist, and secularist. Their political positions range from full support for the US invasion and occupation to calls for jihad against the Americans. They discuss – in Arabic or often-broken English -- religion, women’s issues, job loss and unemployment, and – most often – their sense of insecurity about the safety of their families and the future of their country.
The beginning of the blogging craze in Iraq probably dates from September 2002, when a 29-year old Iraqi living in Baghdad and calling himself 'Salam Pax' started posting descriptions of daily life on the internet. Incisive and recklessly irreverent, Salam's weblog describes his passion for music and pop culture, and his fear of death by allied bombs and Saddam's secret police. In the build-up to the invasion, thousands of people visited Salam's website every day, attracted by his accounts of the slide into war and the end of a dictatorship.
Salam has also been a rich source of blog intelligence for his audience. For example, last March he wrote: “I recently stumbled across this very unusual blog (in Arabic) apparently run by an Iraqi called Fadhil. He regularly posts periodic official statements by the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party'.. .He…hails the daily explosions and bombings in Baghdad and throws the title of 'traitor' or 'agent' at every official currently employed in government positions including former Ba'athists, he praises the 'resistance' for assassinating them and he laments failed assassination attempts. …”
The ‘awe and shock’ arrival of the Coalition last March generated torrents of blog invective. For example, a blog called Riverbend, run by a 24-year-old woman computer programmer. wrote: “Occuption Day, April 9, 2003: Day faded into night… the longest day of my life. The day we sensed that the struggle in Baghdad was over and the fear of war was nothing compared to the new fear we were currently facing. It was the day I saw my first American tank roll grotesquely down the streets of Baghdad -- through a residential neighborhood. And that was April 9 for me and millions of others. There are thousands who weren't so lucky- they lost loved ones on April 9… to guns, and tanks and Apaches… and the current Governing Council want us to remember April 9 fondly and hail it our "National Day"… a day of victory… but whose victory?”
Salam Pax wrote of the invasion: “What annoyed me most in the whole build up to the war was the act the US administration put on, the way they seemed almost surprised at how much of a baddy Saddam has been…The various documents that were produced to show how much of a bully he has been…were treated as if they were so new and startling… What the US administration didn’t put in those records and documents was the extent of its own involvement in building up this monster and now that he has grown bigger than they thought he could they thought it was time to get rid of him…”
Another blog, “A family in Baghdad” writes of the perception of American culture: “I don't understand why anyone would want to have this so-called American freedom…(which) means …that you can move out at the age of 18 from your parents' home and you will never have to speak to them ever again if you don't want to…you can say and do whatever you want to anyone without many consequences…you have the right to have sex at the age of 12, get pregnant, have a baby; live with someone you are not married to...all legally…you can do drugs and get a slap on the wrist…you never have to work a day and have as many children as you want, because the government will pay for everything! …is this all the freedom Iraqis want? I pray to god it will never be! “
Later, many bloggers wrote about the Iraqi prisoner abuses. “Riverbend” summed it up. “People are seething with anger- the pictures of Abu Ghraib and the Brits in Basrah are everywhere. Every newspaper you pick up in Baghdad has pictures of some American or British atrocity or another…Everyone knew this was happening in Abu Ghraib and other places… seeing the pictures simply made it all more real and tangible somehow.. There are thousands of innocent people detained. Some were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, while others were detained 'under suspicion'. In the New Iraq, it's "guilty until proven innocent by some miracle of God". . People would rather be dead than sexually abused and degraded by the animals running Abu Ghraib prison “.
Most Iraqi bloggers seem to share a common hatred of extreme Islamists. Sarmad Zangna wrote on June 27: “Today (I was on) a web site for ‘Al-Zarqawi’ and I was shocked by the images I saw. Those are our real enemy and we will take them down….”
For some Iraqis, blogging is a family affair. Faiza, the mother of a blogger known as “raed in the middle”, wrote: “Nobody understands the trend of the terrorist organizations which appeared these days…No Arab or Muslim approves of them…They are merely criminal organizations…”
“Road Of A Nation”, like many other Iraqi blogs, expresses outrage about the death and destruction that accompanied the occupation. One entry: “People… told me the story of an Iraqi man who was killed two days ago while driving at Al-Saidiia... he was surprised by the convoy, and found himself suddenly, accidentally, among them, so they shot him. He died instantly. The traffic stopped, all the Iraqis were silent, and the convoy went triumphantly on its way…Then I would get letters from some Americans, asking me why I do not like America??? And my answer would be: this is the ugly face of America, which I do not like…”
The June 28 handover of sovereignty triggered an outpouring of blogging. One blog, called “Hammorabi”, echoed sentiments expressed on many other web logs. “The Iraqi interim government was just sworn now while writing this! Good luck and cut the sources of the terrorists. The good thing is Paul Bremer directed his letter ending the occupation to the Head of the Justice in Iraq and not to the PM. The law is above every one!” Another, “Road Of A Nation”, wrote: “Great moments, great time, here in Iraq. The transfer of power to Iraq sovereignty has been completed 2 days in advance. This was great news for the Iraqis. From this moment we started to celebrate, and people all over here conciliation each other…”
The benefits of Iraq’s newfound technology are trumpeted on many weblogs. On “Road of a Nation”, a link posted by Sarmad Zangna said: “I (knew) a lot of people with different opinions (but) they didn’t speak about what’s happening… some of them (were) thinking that things never will be good, others were afraid to speak, others were supporting ‘Saddam’, others with USA, and I was trying to run a conversation with all sides, trying to let them share together what they think about, how they can cooperate with each other…But I am so happy now after one year to see those people beginning to understand things better.”
Regardless of the outcome of the Iraq situation, it seems clear that blogging will continue to provide a powerful vehicle to allow Iraqis to express themselves. As one blogger put it, “You will be surprised of the number of bright and intelligent young people in Iraq who are willing to start their own blogs and express their ideas and opinions freely, especially that they have nothing to fear from doing so any more…”
About the writer: William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and in many other areas for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration
:
...
Saturday, June 19, 2004
MR. PUTIN, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!
Feedback to: wfisher206@aol.com
By William Fisher
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan famously exclaimed back in 1987.
Thankfully, that wall came down.
But today, another kind of wall is rising inside the former ‘evil empire’. It is a wall constructed by Vladimir Putin to separate the Russian people from their basic human rights. Over the past few years, Mr. Putin has been taking his country backward to a time reminiscent of the Czars. His increasingly authoritarian rule – known as ‘managed democracy’ -- has resulted in limitations on press and religious freedom, selective prosecutions, and a new wave of what Human Rights Watch calls ‘spy-mania’.
Current examples:
This week, a Moscow court upheld a ban on the Jehovah's Witnesses. The ruling arose from a Russian law that allows courts to ban religious groups that are considered to be inciting hatred or intolerant behavior. A Jehovah's Witnesses spokesman said the decision will prevent the group from renting space for worship, holding bank accounts or otherwise supporting its religious activities. "Religious freedom has just turned back to where it was in Soviet times," said the organization's lawyer. There are about 10,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow and 133,000 nationwide, according to the group. Russia's 1997 religion law enshrines Orthodox Christianity as the country's predominant religion and pledges respect for Buddhism, Islam and Judaism -- called traditional religions -- but places restrictions on other groups.
Also this week, the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of Yukos oil company and reportedly Russia’s wealthiest man, opened in Moscow. With another shareholder, he faces charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement and a 10-year prison sentence. Many believe Khodorkovsky is an oligarch who pilfered the country to create his oil company, and welcome the case as a display of President Putin’s resolve to tackle economic crime. Others see Khodorkovsky as one of the rare Russian entrepreneurs to establish a transparent and socially responsible business, and are convinced that his case is a politically motivated show trial.
Show trial or not, if it’s anything like most trials in Russia, it is unlikely to showcase the judiciary’s independence. More likely, defense arguments will be downplayed, most of its motions overturned, and the outcome will have little to do with the hearing and a lot with executive will.
Press freedom has also been a victim of President Putin’s ‘managed democracy’. Under different pretexts, all of Russia’s nationwide television channels—ORT, NTV, TV6 and TVS were either shut down or effectively taken over by the state. After the newly compliant media played its part in the run-ups to parliamentary and presidential elections, Russian authorities moved forward in taming the press and disposing of intractable journalists. A heavy blow was the sacking of NTV’s most famous show host Leonid Parfenov and the cancellation of his popular analytical program. Parfenov was fired for making public an overt act of censorship — his NTV bosses, at the request of the security services, ordered him not to broadcast an interview with the widow of a Chechen separatist killed in Qatar.
Russian non-governmental organizations and human rights groups have also been frequent targets. In his last state-of-the-union address in May President Putin launched an attack on human rights groups, accusing them of “receiving financing from influential foreign foundations and serving dubious groups and commercial interests,” and of forgetting “about some of the most acute problems of the country and citizens.”
Just days after the address, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused humanitarian organizations in Chechnya of using their missions as a cover for anti-Russian activities. One of the central TV channels, TVC, devoted an hour-long primetime program to denouncing the work of human rights groups, accusing them of what the presenter called their “hatred” for Russia. Along the same lines, a Kremlin political adviser, Gleb Pavlovsky, rebuked rights activists for being "engrossed" in Western ideals. Masked intruders ransacked and smashed the office of the Human Rights Center in the city of Kazan in central Russia. According to the center’s leader, the intruders were citing the President’s state-of-the-nation address.
Nor has freedom of assembly gone unchallenged. Over the last two months police and security guards have violently dispersed at least three public rallies. For example, on June 2, police broke up a rally organized by the political party, Yabloko, and Communist Party members, to protest new laws on referendums and rallies, and arrested three Yabloko activists.
Spy-mania has become the latest source of abuses. According to Human Rights Watch, “Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia’s security service has tried to reassert its dominion over certain spheres of sensitive information. In doing so, it has, among other things, pressed dubious espionage charges against about a dozen scientists, journalists, and environmentalists—a phenomenon dubbed “spy mania” by rights activists.” Academics have been accused of working with foreign contacts on issues that, in Soviet times, were under the security service’s exclusive control, such as nuclear waste dumping, environmental degradation, and military technology.
The case of arms researcher Igor Sutyagin is an example. As of April 2004, Sutyagin had spent over four years in detention while his case was investigated and tried. That month, after a trial marred by violations of fair trial standards, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the longest prison term for high treason since Soviet times. The case served as a clear warning to other academics, journalists and other specialists doing research on sensitive issues.
Nor have Russia’s worst ingrained human rights problems improved under “managed democracy.” Police torture, coerced confessions and convictions on trumped-up charges remain rampant. The conscript army is corroded by violent hazing, ill-treatment, poor nutrition and lack of medical care. And xenophobia, extremism and discrimination against ethnic minorities are growing at an alarming rate.
Putin’s team presents all these developments as a reasonable price to pay for restoring order and stability. But the Russian people deserve better – an independent media, an end to selective prosecutions, accountability for abuse, and transparency in governance.
Moreover, Russia’s backsliding from democracy in domestic affairs will ultimately affect its foreign policy. So Russia’s partners need to send an unequivocal signal that they will not be “managed” by the Kremlin.
By William Fisher
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan famously exclaimed back in 1987.
Thankfully, that wall came down.
But today, another kind of wall is rising inside the former ‘evil empire’. It is a wall constructed by Vladimir Putin to separate the Russian people from their basic human rights. Over the past few years, Mr. Putin has been taking his country backward to a time reminiscent of the Czars. His increasingly authoritarian rule – known as ‘managed democracy’ -- has resulted in limitations on press and religious freedom, selective prosecutions, and a new wave of what Human Rights Watch calls ‘spy-mania’.
Current examples:
This week, a Moscow court upheld a ban on the Jehovah's Witnesses. The ruling arose from a Russian law that allows courts to ban religious groups that are considered to be inciting hatred or intolerant behavior. A Jehovah's Witnesses spokesman said the decision will prevent the group from renting space for worship, holding bank accounts or otherwise supporting its religious activities. "Religious freedom has just turned back to where it was in Soviet times," said the organization's lawyer. There are about 10,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow and 133,000 nationwide, according to the group. Russia's 1997 religion law enshrines Orthodox Christianity as the country's predominant religion and pledges respect for Buddhism, Islam and Judaism -- called traditional religions -- but places restrictions on other groups.
Also this week, the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of Yukos oil company and reportedly Russia’s wealthiest man, opened in Moscow. With another shareholder, he faces charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement and a 10-year prison sentence. Many believe Khodorkovsky is an oligarch who pilfered the country to create his oil company, and welcome the case as a display of President Putin’s resolve to tackle economic crime. Others see Khodorkovsky as one of the rare Russian entrepreneurs to establish a transparent and socially responsible business, and are convinced that his case is a politically motivated show trial.
Show trial or not, if it’s anything like most trials in Russia, it is unlikely to showcase the judiciary’s independence. More likely, defense arguments will be downplayed, most of its motions overturned, and the outcome will have little to do with the hearing and a lot with executive will.
Press freedom has also been a victim of President Putin’s ‘managed democracy’. Under different pretexts, all of Russia’s nationwide television channels—ORT, NTV, TV6 and TVS were either shut down or effectively taken over by the state. After the newly compliant media played its part in the run-ups to parliamentary and presidential elections, Russian authorities moved forward in taming the press and disposing of intractable journalists. A heavy blow was the sacking of NTV’s most famous show host Leonid Parfenov and the cancellation of his popular analytical program. Parfenov was fired for making public an overt act of censorship — his NTV bosses, at the request of the security services, ordered him not to broadcast an interview with the widow of a Chechen separatist killed in Qatar.
Russian non-governmental organizations and human rights groups have also been frequent targets. In his last state-of-the-union address in May President Putin launched an attack on human rights groups, accusing them of “receiving financing from influential foreign foundations and serving dubious groups and commercial interests,” and of forgetting “about some of the most acute problems of the country and citizens.”
Just days after the address, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused humanitarian organizations in Chechnya of using their missions as a cover for anti-Russian activities. One of the central TV channels, TVC, devoted an hour-long primetime program to denouncing the work of human rights groups, accusing them of what the presenter called their “hatred” for Russia. Along the same lines, a Kremlin political adviser, Gleb Pavlovsky, rebuked rights activists for being "engrossed" in Western ideals. Masked intruders ransacked and smashed the office of the Human Rights Center in the city of Kazan in central Russia. According to the center’s leader, the intruders were citing the President’s state-of-the-nation address.
Nor has freedom of assembly gone unchallenged. Over the last two months police and security guards have violently dispersed at least three public rallies. For example, on June 2, police broke up a rally organized by the political party, Yabloko, and Communist Party members, to protest new laws on referendums and rallies, and arrested three Yabloko activists.
Spy-mania has become the latest source of abuses. According to Human Rights Watch, “Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia’s security service has tried to reassert its dominion over certain spheres of sensitive information. In doing so, it has, among other things, pressed dubious espionage charges against about a dozen scientists, journalists, and environmentalists—a phenomenon dubbed “spy mania” by rights activists.” Academics have been accused of working with foreign contacts on issues that, in Soviet times, were under the security service’s exclusive control, such as nuclear waste dumping, environmental degradation, and military technology.
The case of arms researcher Igor Sutyagin is an example. As of April 2004, Sutyagin had spent over four years in detention while his case was investigated and tried. That month, after a trial marred by violations of fair trial standards, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the longest prison term for high treason since Soviet times. The case served as a clear warning to other academics, journalists and other specialists doing research on sensitive issues.
Nor have Russia’s worst ingrained human rights problems improved under “managed democracy.” Police torture, coerced confessions and convictions on trumped-up charges remain rampant. The conscript army is corroded by violent hazing, ill-treatment, poor nutrition and lack of medical care. And xenophobia, extremism and discrimination against ethnic minorities are growing at an alarming rate.
Putin’s team presents all these developments as a reasonable price to pay for restoring order and stability. But the Russian people deserve better – an independent media, an end to selective prosecutions, accountability for abuse, and transparency in governance.
Moreover, Russia’s backsliding from democracy in domestic affairs will ultimately affect its foreign policy. So Russia’s partners need to send an unequivocal signal that they will not be “managed” by the Kremlin.
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