Credit where credit is due? - with much thanks to Gene
The Bush administration has refused to ease its diplomatic pressure on the Uzbek government following the Andijan massacre in May. Karimov and his government have got increasingly pissed off at the White House's constant houndings about human rights abuses in the country. So much so; the Usbek regime gave them 180 days to clear out of an important air base in the country, or ease off the pressure. The Bush administration has decided to sacrifice the air base and continue its push for democratisation.
The eviction, administration officials say, will be costly and inconvenient when it comes to US operations in Afghanistan.
It would have been easy to turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses in Usbekistan and keep the important Air Base.
It is fair to say that the administration has been far from consistent when it comes to supporting democracy, particularly when it affects US interests. As Gene points out, "this time it seems human rights have trumped immediate strategic/military considerations".
from the washington post - The eviction notice came four days before a senior State Department official was to arrive in Tashkent for talks with the government of President Islam Karimov. The relationship has been increasingly tense since bloody protests in the province of Andijan in May, the worst unrest since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet UnionUndersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns was going to pressure Tashkent to allow an international investigation into the Andijan protests, which human rights groups and three U.S. senators who met with eyewitnesses said killed about 500 people. Burns was also going to warn the government, one of the most authoritarian in the Islamic world, to open up politically -- or risk the kind of upheavals witnessed recently in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, U.S. officials said......Uzbekistan has been widely viewed as an important test for the Bush administration -- and whether the anti-terrorism efforts or promotion of democracy takes priority. "We all knew basically that if we really wanted to keep access to the base, the way to do it was to shut up about democracy and turn a blind eye to the refugees," said the senior official, on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomacy. "We could have saved the base if we had wanted."Uzbekistan has been widely viewed as an important test for the Bush administration -- and whether the anti-terrorism efforts or promotion of democracy takes priority. "We all knew basically that if we really wanted to keep access to the base, the way to do it was to shut up about democracy and turn a blind eye to the refugees," said the senior official, on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomacy. "We could have saved the base if we had wanted."
Iranian President-Elect Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad:
is there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom?
How the world's hot-spots are turning into Cold Wars... by Johann Hari
You have to give credit where it's due: George W Bush has crafted a beautiful response to the 60th anniversary of the nuclear incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that falls next week. He has chosen this as the moment to drive (yet another) asbestos stake through the heart of the world's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and to lend his approval to a century of nuclear stand-offs across the globe. Don't be mean-spirited - you have to admire his Bill Hicks-style genius for comic timing.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (may it rest in peace) is pretty basic. It was written in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when pale and shaken world leaders were slowly realising how close they had come to committing "rational suicide" by launching a nuclear war. A consensus emerged that the number of nuclear weapons in the world needed to be drastically reduced, and that no new nuclear powers should be allowed to emerge to increase the risk even further. Almost every country in the world signed. The non-nuclear countries agreed not to tool up, in exchange for the already-nuclear countries agreeing to slowly dismantle their arsenals and to never, under any circumstances, share their nuclear technologies.
The Treaty has been in intensive care for years. Since it was signed in 1968, at least six other countries have acquired nukes, and only one country (South Africa) has disarmed. During Bush junior's presidency, the US has ramped up its arsenal of WMD, working on "mini-nukes" and "more useable" bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The North Korean tyranny has spent billions on nuclear weapons while its people starve and the Iranian mullahs are inching close behind. The recent UN meeting to discuss the future of the Treaty was a shambles, since it was plain that nobody intended to abide by its terms.
And then this week, George Bush unplugged the life support and held a pillow over the patient's face. After fêting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House, Bush unilaterally ended the sanctions imposed against India since it went nuclear in 1998, and privately welcomed her role as an nuclear bulwark against China. He announced a deal to begin sharing US nuclear technology with India, making a mockery of one of the key ideas of the Treaty.
It would be more honest to give the Treaty a public burial and admit that, for now, we are living in a world where nukes are proliferating across the globe with no international restraints. This might just jolt us awake. But should it? Is there really any danger of a nuclear weapon actually being used this century? Sadly, you can only dismiss nuclear weapons as 1980s nightmares if you are very short-sighted or if you have a very bad memory.
Let's look at the sub-continent Bush has just begun to share his nuclear technologies with. Twice in the past six years, India and Pakistan have stood at the brink of nuclear war. In the 1999 Kargil crisis, the countries exchanged nuclear threats 13 times - with no hot-line between the two leaders to calm them down. Just three summers ago, Britain advised her citizens to evacuate cities like Delhi and Karachi because there was a "real and imminent" risk of them being evaporated in a mushroom cloud. The Foreign Office's judgement call was right: the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes was bragging: "India can take a nuclear hit and hit back," while Pakistan's General Mirza Aslam Beg announced: "We can make a first strike, a second strike and even a third. Look - you can die crossing the street, or you can die in a nuclear war. You've got to die some day anyway."
We are entering a world of rapidly multiplying nuclear stand-offs like this. India vs Pakistan. Iran vs Israel. America vs.China. Within decades, North Korea vs Japan and South Korea. Not one Cold War, but many - and the risk is doubled each time.
True, since the election of the Congress Party last year, India's relations with Pakistan have (very slightly) relaxed. But the construction of a nuclear bunker underneath the Prime Minister's office has continued, and nobody has forgotten that the two countries have been at war four times in the past 60 years. The bombs have now fused with the fierce nationalism of the countries, with some Indian leaders still talking proudly of the "Hindu bomb" - presumably followed by Hindu fall-out and Hindu radioactive poisoning. (There is a horrible irony in this, since Robert Oppenheimer - the father of the bomb - responded to seeing the first ever nuclear explosion by quoting the god Vishnu from Hindu scripture: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.")
It is wildly naïve to think that all these stand-offs between highly volatile countries can continue until - when? forever? - without, sooner or later, a bomb being used. Even the minimal protections of the Cold War - like hotlines between leaders - are not yet in place in most of these countries. How many reruns of the Cuban Missile Crisis should we risk over the next century?
It is not only the Usual Suspects who are warning about this. Even Margaret Thatcher - one of the most militant defenders of nuclear weapons in the world - has predicted that a "battlefield nuclear weapon will be used in the next 20 years".
So where are all the old luvvies-for-CND, now the issue has become more complex, more "foreign" and less sexy? At the height of the last India-Pakistan stand-off, I asked Martin Amis what he thought about nuclear weapons now, and he mumbled something about a "regional nuclear war" being "less frightening". This is based on a dumb and flawed premise. All nuclear bombs in existence today are 20 times more powerful than the weapons dropped on Japan, and there are currently over 9,000 of them ready to fire within 45 minutes. The danger of any of these being used against Britain is virtually nil. But if just a handful of these weapons is exploded anywhere, there will be disastrous ecological and economic consequences everywhere - including here. They will not be confined to the region where they are detonated. It is not clear how many weapons have to be exploded to trigger a nuclear winter and On the Beach-style universal death, but some scientists believe the use of India and Pakistan's joint arsenals would be sufficient.
These are ludicrous risks when there is a solution out there - even if it is pretty retro. One day we will have to disinter the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, wipe off the soil Bush just tossed on to its coffin, and try to start a process of gradual, multilateral disarmament, removing a major threat to human life one radioactive step at a time. But do we have to wait for Hiroshima Redux to actually happen before we start on this long, slow work?
Uganda is not progressive... update
in my last post i refferred to Uganda as a "progressive" society. i assumed that a securalist attitude towards AIDS was indictive of a progressive libertarian society - turns out its not.
The ugandan parliament have enacted a new anti-homosexual law and with this the Ugandan police yesterday stormed the house of lesbian activist, Victor Julie Mukassa.
Victor is an incredible woman who has spent her adult life fighting for gay and lesbian rights in Uganda and Africa against all odds. She has been harassed by government officials, police and homophobic citizens and has paid the price of being "out" in Africa by loosing out to friends and family.
Victor was supposed to have met with Amnesty International and her lawyer today who had advised her to report to the police.
Africa
South African President Thabo Mbeki has indicated South Africa might repay some of Zimbabwe's foreign debts.
South Africa is Zimbabwe's closest ally.
Mr Mbeki avoided criticising Zimbabwe's controversial slum clearance programme, which has left some 300,000 people homeless.
Rather, the president welcomed calls by UN envoy Anna Tibaijuka for greater outside help for Zimbabweans affected by the crackdown to recover.
It all seems a little cuntish if you ask me.
Meanwhile....
The progressive county of Uganda is introducing yet another policy to curb the spread of AIDS. It is a model for all other African nations to follow.
A Ugandan MP is raising funds to send virgins to university for free.
"We do not want these girls to get exposed to Aids," he told the Associated Press.
Infection rates have fallen from 15% to 5% but critics say this could now rise because the government is promoting abstinence, rather than safe sex.
The Catholic Church, as usual, is the big fucker in the fight against AIDS; claiming abstinence is the only way to prevent it.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's first black Test cricketer, Henry Olonga, is to join a campaign aimed at stopping New Zealand's cricket tour of his homeland, according to Rod Donald, co-leader of the Greens Party. Olonga fled Zimbabwe in 2003 after wearing a black armband during a World Cup match to mourn what he called the death of democracy in his country.
Beijing 2008
Before we get to London 2012, we'll have to suffer through what promises to be the rather chilling spectacle of Beijing 2008-- one of those routines where the unreliable elements are shipped out of town, the decaying housing is hidden behind brightly-painted walls and the citizens are ordered to be proud and patriotic for the cameras.
When Beijing was chosen to host the next Olympics, there were those who claimed this "opening to the world" would help promote democracy in China. Among them was Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily, who
said, "I am convinced that the Olympic Games will have a positive effect on China's democratic development." I hope he's right, but anyone familiar with 20th-century history knows how much of a positive effect the 1936 Berlin Olympics had on Germany's democratic development.
In fact, as Harold Meyerson
suggests in Wednesday's Washington Post, any democratic revolution in China is far more likely to result from the activities of the Chinese people themselves. And the hundreds of unreported and underreported labor struggles in that country are building toward such a revolution.
...Already a number of American businesses there, Wal-Mart first and foremost, are moving their contractors' factories from China's more developed southern coast to even lower-wage and less-regulated inland regions. (It may help to think of these corporations as new-age versions of the legendary hooligans of the Old West: When the law comes to Dodge, they strike out for the next boomtown where there's still no sheriff.)But China is home to more labor strife than any country in the world. What will happen when these illegal strikes grow even more widespread, when workers demand democracy and the right to form unions? In the next iteration of Tiananmen Square, will American business and its apologists side with the tanks or the man standing in the street to block them?A good question.
work in progress
Im currently working on an essay about China's increasing influence in Zimbabwe and the reasons for this. Although it may not sound very interesting, ive certainly enjoyed reseaching it so far. I need to collate some more sources together and transfer it from note form to the computer. When this is done it should be something i will be rather proud of, perhaps..
Left conservatism.. some thoughts by the wonderfull Christopher Hitchens
Well, it's to do with left conservatism. It's been spreading like a weed over the last couple of decades. One's task in the 1970s and 1980s was reasonably simple—you could say that the Cold War was a danger in and of itself without taking a side in it; and that the arms race was a danger in and of itself, as a counterpart to the Cold War, and needed to be criticized; and that, in the meantime, certain important causes, such as the Polish Workers Movement, or the African National Congress, or the people of El Salvador, were good causes in their own right. There were some on the left who took a pro-Warsaw Pact view. But essentially you were with or on the left. What you were doing was with the left.
Once the Cold War was over, there was a recrudescence of one-party totalitarianism and of one-god authoritarianism—the decision by Saddam Hussein to abolish the existence of a neighboring state, and of Slobodan Milosevic to go from Yugo-Communism to National Socialism, an ethnically pure Serbo-nationalist fascist state with Christian Orthodox support. Then you found that, oddly enough, what you were doing was without the left. On the whole, the left wanted to sit that out. Let's not get involved. These could be quagmires. Another Vietnam. I didn't think we could really have the Muslim population of Europe put to the sword in public. Many felt, if you do that, you're getting involved in the Balkans, and who knows what that might entail?
......And then, most depressingly, after September 11, 2001, you defined your position until it was not just with sometimes, or without sometimes, but actually against quite a bit of the left—people who thought jihadism was in some way an expression of anti-imperialism. There was the reflexive view that somehow the jihadists must represent a grievance or protest against poverty or oppression. Everybody knows what the grievances of the jihadists arethey're very easy to identify. They grieve for the loss of the caliphate. They're not anti-imperialists—they're pro-imperialists. There's an empire they lost and want back.
They're offended—deeply, grievously offended—by the sight of an undraped woman or the existence of a Shiite Muslim, or a Christian, or a Jew. These things they consider to be offensive. They believe God gives them the right to erase these things. Let's not understate the fact that they do have deep-seated grievances. But to hear this ventriloquized on the left as some sort of perverse populism was too much for me.
The Christian right and global poverty
This may be a sign of better (or at least less-bad) things to come from the Christian right in the US:
Concerned that the nation's incendiary culture wars have taken a toll on their image, Christian conservatives are joining liberals in calling for more government spending to combat global poverty and are urging fellow evangelicals to remember that their primary calling is personal ministry, not politics.
The National Association of Evangelicals -- a conservative group mostly known for its opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage -- joined other religious leaders meeting in London last week to urge those attending the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Scotland to dramatically increase aid and trade benefits to impoverished nations......Last fall, the association produced a document it described as ''historic," urging members to pursue a ''biblically balanced agenda" of civic engagement. ''Justice for the poor" was included alongside sanctity of life and marriage, with the note that ''God measures societies by how they treat people at the bottom."
Does this mean they'll also be making the Christian case for a higher minimum wage, universal health insurance and fairer labor laws? Probably not any time soon. But I think liberals and leftists-- while standing firm on gay rights, abortion rights and teaching of evolution-- should probably spend less time sneering at conservative Christians and more time looking for points of agreement with them.
What Would Jesus Do?
An email from a Christian youth group landed in my inbox this week (I sign up to all sorts of crap). They claimed my soul could be saved if I followed their simple lifestyle advice: attend Church every Sunday, celibacy before marriage and so on and so forth. In short, the typical Christian message wrapped up in an eccentric evangelical zeal. Needless to say, it doesn’t sound like much fun. It did however, get me thinking. Why are there so many Christians in the world while celibacy before marriage remains one of his cornerstone tenants? It’s such a constrictive practise; can’t unmarried Christians (students, perhaps?) engage in a bit of fun?
If say, a happily married Christian couple were feeling adventurous, would Christ approve of oral sex? What about anal play, or a spot of harmless fisting? I have scoured my Bibles dusty pages looking for guidance. You may be surprised to read that the good book it is actually quiet helpful in these matters.
Now, to begin, what say about oral sex? Fellatio was, until recently, grouped together with sodomy in some States in the US. However, this should not put off the morally minded Christian. The Song of Solomon provides some guidance here, creating the scriptural allusion of ‘giving head’ in the lines "In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." (Song of Solomon 2:3). This description portrays oral sex as a somewhat fruity, natural occurrence, something akin, for instance, to eating a humble banana.
If, my Christian friends, you decide to take my advice, and engage in a little mouth play, I would advise you to swallow. No doubt some readers will be familiar with the story of Onan, who was struck down because "he spilled it on the ground". (Genesis 38:9). The message is simple; avoid death by coming in her mouth. Jesus even suggests that semen has healing qualities. When he speaks to a woman in Samaria, he asks her to fetch her husband and drink his "living water". (John 4:10-16). This, as one would expect, replenishes her soul.
Homosexuality is, of course, a sin in the Bible. Sodom has left gay men with little sexual guidance from the Almighty, other than a general message of "don’t do it". This, however, does not deprive straight couples of investigating the potential of the posterior. In fact, many Biblical passages allude to the act of anal sex between men and women. Lamentations 2:10 describes how "The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground," and again in the Song of Solomon, a lover urges his mate to allow him to enter her from behind: "Draw me after you, let us make haste." (Song of Solomon, 1:4). Crucially, do not worry about smiting the lord through the dirty perversions of the anus, after all, "to the pure, all things are pure." (Titus 1:15).
Now, for some anal sex is a tad extreme, but for the little more adventurous amongst you, the Lord offers some interesting observations on the matter of fisting. Fisting, for those not in the know, involves inserting the entire hand, or part of the arm into the vagina of your sexual partner (or the bottom if your that way inclined). Some may think this a bit garish for a Christian couple (if your married remember to take off your ring first!), but descriptions of the hand and fist appear throughout the Bible as symbols of Gods power: "O God, God of our ancestors, are you not God in heaven above and ruler of all kingdoms below? You hold all power and might in your fist." (2 Chronicles 20:6) Of course, the Old Testament is also littered with references to God smiting his enemies with his fist. However, as any student of the Bible will know, Gods hand can also be tender and loving: "You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing." (Psalms 145:16).
While the missionary position may be off limits until wedding day, I see no reason why young Christians can’t enjoy themselves. Ignore those who tell you not to have fun. Go forth and get naked, and do it with Gods blessing!
Illinois puts Bush to shame
While Secretary of State Rice was
welcoming Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail in Washington, and reportedly promising to consider an end to sanctions, Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was signing a law
requiring the divestment of $1 billion in state pension funds from companies that do business in the African country.
"The people of Illinois will not condone human rights abuses and genocide. We will take our money elsewhere," Blagojevich said in a statement... He urged other states to adopt similar measures.
Similar legislation is pending in other states, and Harvard University also recently announced plans to stop Sudanese investments.
(I wonder if Rice asked Foreign Minister Ismail about his claim last year that rebels in Sudan's Darfur region were being supported by
you-know-who. I doubt even other Arab regimes bought that one.)
The Bush administration appears to have a decreasing sense of urgency about the ongoing atrocities in Darfur.
I hope other states and other investors follow Illinois's lead. At some point the rulers of Sudan will have to take notice. They don't appear motivated so far to stop the mass rapes and murders by the Bush administration's version of "
constructive engagement."
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court, announced today that she was resigning, setting off what is expected to be a tumultuous fight over confirming her successor.
Justice O'Connor, 75, is widely viewed as the critical swing vote on abortion, affirmative action and other hot-button issues that have divided the court, and her departure is sure to ignite a passionate ideological battle throughout the summer over a successor.
Democracy or Empire? by Billmon
Tapped takes note of a new
op-ed from Larry Diamond, one that reminds us how little we know about the Cheney administration's true motives for invading Iraq -- or what its intentions there are now.
Diamond was a senior political adviser to
Bureaucrat Man (aka Jerry Bremer) and the ill-fated Coalition Provisional Authority (aka the RNC
branch office on the Tigris) from January to April of 2004, when he quit (in disgust?) to return to his regular gig as a fellow at the right-wing Hoover Institution at Stanford.
Diamond describes himself as an opponent of the war (whether on pragmatic or moral grounds, I don't know) who neverthless decided he wanted to do what he could to try to make the occupation work. He is, I'm told, a "democracy" expert -- as the American foreign policy elite understands the term. Whether his work for the CPA added or subtracted from the sum total of Iraq's misery I don't know. But his intentions seem to have been good. He was, in so much as such a thing exists, the benevolent face of neo-colonialism.
Diamond's article is the same repetitive litany of incompetence, stupidity, arrogance and ideological blindness that we have come to expect from the Cheney administration. (If you want the long version, check out his
article in Foreign Affairs last fall.) He offers up a couple of anecdotes that speak volumes about the RNC branch office's approach to "democracy" in Iraq. Like this one:
One of our colleagues stormed into the office after a late-night meeting of the Iraqi Governing Council, uttering: "We have a problem. And no one wants to deal with it. The Governing Council is issuing orders and the ministers are starting to execute them." Several of us burst out laughing. We were fostering a transition to sovereignty and democracy. We had established the Iraqi Governing Council. But God forbid it should actually seek to start governing!
The RNC guy was probably thinking: Shit. If a manipulated pseudo-democracy is good enough for Americans, it ought to be good enough for the goddamned Iraqis.
The most telling point, though, is Diamond's uncertainty about exactly why the administration invaded Iraq in the first place, and what it had hoped, or still hopes, to gain from all this blood, sweat and tears (few, if any of them, George W. Bush's.)
The administration has repeatedly denied that conventional strategic objectives -- like, turning Iraq into a bastion of American military power in the Middle East -- were among its motives for going to war. But Diamond isn't so sure:
To achieve lasting peace in Iraq, America will have to make concessions, including an explicit commitment not to seek permanent military bases in Iraq. Perhaps no issue in the coming years will more clearly expose the real purpose of the Bush administration's postwar mission in Iraq: to build democracy or to obtain a new, regional military platform in the heart of the Arab world. (emphasis added)
One would have hoped that the guy nominally in charge of Operation Democracy during a very critical period in the occupation would be able to offer at least a glimmer of an answer to that question. As Diamond himself says, if the real objective is to turn Iraq into a country-sized version of Fort Apache, then the American public can look forward to being "mired indefinitely in a violent quagmire in Iraq."
The thing is, I've never been entirely sure in my own mind whether the administration really believes Bush's democracy preaching, or whether -- as with any number of TV evangelists -- it's just good cover for a little old-fashioned fraud and fornication.
You can look at the photo gallery of top U.S. officials doing the
grip and grin with "Crockpot" Karimov, the Uzbekistan parboiler, and think, Jeez, this all a crock of shit. When these guys talk about democracy, what they really mean is: Crank up the voltage on that guy's testicles.
Maybe that's true, but not all of the administration's actions can only be explained as cynical opportunism. Helping undermine the corrupt post-Soviet boss of the Ukraine, despite his eagerness to offer up human sacrifices for Rummy's foreign legion in Iraq, is one example. Coaxing the House of Saud into holding partial municipal elections, and encouraging Kuwait's parliament to give women the vote, are others.
Even Bush's half-assed support for a Palestinian state, albeit one with borders drawn by Ariel Sharon, is more than what U.S. domestic politics would seem to require, and far more than what his own party supports. (Although it may just be a sop to
Gunga Blair. The Downing Street minutes suggest as much.)
Relatively feeble stuff, I know. But again, more than the purely domestic Machiavellian calculations of the Rovians would lead you to expect. And Bush, in his simple-minded way, really does seem to believe in his own preaching, at least abstractly.
Even the neocons, for all their viciousness and totalitarian gut instincts, sometimes show signs of taking their white man's burden seriously. After all, a passion for democracy -- American-style democracy, under the close supervision of Americans such as themselves -- is one of the characteristics that's supposed to divide them from the evil Kissinger and his minions.
While that passion wasn't exactly evident during the death squad days in Central America, the neocons probably would argue that times were different back then -- communist threat on our doorstep, etc. And compared to some of the real moral basket cases of the Reagan administration (Bill Casey, for example) most, although not all, of the neocons emerged with less blood on their hands. They were at least partially responsible, for example, for the decision to cut Ferdinand Marcos loose and back the People Power revolt in the Phillipines -- one of the few cases I can think of in the global south where the Reagan administration actually did the right thing.
Maybe I'm seeing distinctions where none actually exist. But for me the dichotomy between evil and foolish and just foolish was symbolized during Bush's first term by the Pentagon's neocon power couple: Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz.
In addition to being the stupidest fucking guy on the planet (to use Gen. Frank's term) Feith is, as far as I can tell, only a few steps removed from being an out-and-out fascist -- of the
Ze'ev Jabotisnky revisionist persuation. People who I know and trust, and who have talked to Feith socially and off the record, describe him as the ultimate "Greater Israel" hawk, a fanatical supporter of the Israeli settler movement who sees the Palestinians as a misfortune and the Arabs in general as savages who understand exactly one thing -- and it ain't democracy.
Wolfowitz, on the other hand, seems to have a genuine streak of misplaced idealism. I'm not even 100% sure that he's a Likudik. Unlike Feith, Wolfowitz was not one of the signatories to the infamous
"Clean Break" strategy memo that the Project for a New Israeli-American Century put together for Benjamin Netanyahu. If Wolfie is a Likudnik, then I would describe him as a "wet" one -- willing to trade some land for peace (more than Arial Sharon ever would, I suspect.)
The summer before the invasion, I happened to catch Wolfowitz on C-Span telling a booing crowd of pro-Israeli demonstrators in Washington that the Palestinians are people too, and deserve their own state. I can't prove it, but I think he meant it.
Accepting that Palestinians are also human beings is not, I admit, much -- although God knows it's way too much for the gang over at Little Green Footballs. But accepting the right of the Palestinians to a state would definitely put Wolfie in a different category than the Doug Feith neocons, who see blocking a Palestinian state (overtly if possible; covertly if necessary) as a key part of their life's mission.
What does this all have to do with Iraq? Simply that, if the decision to invade sprang from many bureaucratic motives -- as Wolfowitz himself has said -- I'm reasonably sure Doug Feith's had nothing to do with exporting democracy to the Arab world, and everything to do with planting the army of a friendly nation (i.e. the USA) between Israel and its most dangerous remaining strategic enemy, Iran.
I'm not as sure about Wolfowitz. Most likely, he saw and probably still sees no contradiction between the two objectives. The same may be true of the Cheney administration as a whole. It strains credulity beyond the breaking point to think Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld really give a flying fuck about democracy -- in Iraq or anywhere else. But they, too, may not have seen any contradition between their strategic goals and the democracy-building aspirations of the neocon "wets."
What the "wets" lack in cynicism and evil, however, they more than make up for with arrogance and naivete -- of the kind that must have made Ahmed Chalabi lick his chops in anticipation. It's pretty obvious that democracy and empire will not walk hand-in-hand in Iraq. Not now and probably not ever. Which one will the Cheney administration choose?
Some have argued that the construction of 14
"enduring bases" is proof postitive the neocons have absolutely no intention of disgorging their strategic prize. That may have been true when construction started. But anybody who thinks Uncle Sam wouldn't walk away after pouring all that concrete doesn't know much about government contracting.
As citizen has already
pointed out over at Moon of Alabama, pouring concrete is a good in and of itself to the Pentagon -- just as pouring money into Halliburton is a good in and of itself to the Cheney administration. After all, bases abandoned in Iraq mean bases that must be built somewhere else.
No, I don't think the administration would blink twice about abandoning the entire Iraq adventure if sunk costs were the only issue. But the stakes are obviously a lot higher than that. Putting empire ahead of democracy (bases ahead off security and stability) would seem like a recipe for an even bigger disaster down the road. But letting Iraq choose its own destiny could result in chaos -- or, even worse from an Israeli-American point of view, in an Iraq that slides steadily deeper into Iran's orbit.
Which horn of the dilemma will the administration choose to impale itself on? Beats me. I'm way more in the dark than Larry Diamond is. But if and when he figures it out, I hope he'll tell us.
Irans new president
BBC journalist
John Simpson thinks the two dudes in the pic below might be the same person:
"Looking back 20 years, it seemed to me I must have met him at the former US embassy, which had been taken over by revolutionary students some years earlier; but after two decades precise memories fade, and I can't be absolutely certain."
One photograph portrays a hostage-taking zealot humiliating a diplomat during the Iranian revolution and the other shows the recently elected President of the Islamic Republic.
