May 15, 2008

Keeping Government Out of the Bedroom

Great news from the California state Supreme Court today: By a vote of 4 to 3, the court has overturned a ban on same-sex marriage.

Palestine Hotel

This revelation should only come as a surprise to those who slept through the early days of the American invasion of Iraq: An army whistleblower has revealed that the Palestine Hotel, where journalists were stationed in the spring of April 2003, was on an Army target list.

May 13, 2008

Mission Accomplished

Never mind the Douglas Feith interview. The best part about yesterday's Daily Show was John Oliver's report on Jenna Bush's wedding. You have to watch it.

May 09, 2008

Et Ça Reprend

As pessimistic as it sounds, I think Lebanon is headed for another civil war before the end of the summer.

May 06, 2008

Eye of the Cyclone

When I was getting ready to go to work yesterday, the headlines said that a cyclone hit Myanmar, and that the death toll may be as high as 4,000. By the time I finished teaching, the headlines said 10,000. And this morning the number has risen to 15,000 (now 30,000.) It's hard to fathom what that means for the survivors, for the families, for the country. But already the humanitarian crisis is being politicized. On both sides.

April 17, 2008

World, Upside Down

Four million people have been displaced in Iraq, as many as a hundred and fifty thousand have been killed, food prices are causing riots around the world, the economy is in the can, crude oil is at $115 a barrel, and what do talking heads want to know? Why Obama doesn't wear a flag pin on his lapel.

March 19, 2008

Iraq, Five Years On

Photo credit: Mark Wilson/AFP/Getty Images

March 03, 2008

The Weight of Words

Just a few days ago, I posted a link to Yonathan Mendel's article in the LRB in which he discusses the media's use of language in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was quite au point, wasn't it, considering the statement by Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i that Israel would unleash a bigger "shoah" on the Palestinians.

February 15, 2008

Friday Fun

I can't quite decide if this is good political propaganda or some new form of child abuse:

'Kids Support Obama, Part 2'.

February 13, 2008

Arab Regimes Finally Agree On Something!

...and they want more censorship.

At a meeting in Cairo called by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, a charter was adopted allowing authorities to withdraw permits from offending channels. The only country to refuse to endorse the charter was Qatar, the home of leading satellite station al-Jazeera.

Correspondents say the satellite channels have thrived on controversy. The often privately financed stations give airtime to government critics and viewers, and discuss issues which state channels would never dare approach, says the BBC's Heba Saleh in Cairo.

Qatar's reservations, according to the BBC reporter, were more 'legal' than 'political' in nature.

February 05, 2008

Super Tuesday

Don't forget to vote!

(Photo credit: Getty Images)

In Kenya

My knowledge of Kenya probably begins and ends with the novels of Ngugi, which is why I haven't written about the growing conflict in the country at all. It's been heartbreaking watching the violence spread while Mwai Kibaki persists on saying he won the (rigged) elections and Raila Odinga claims he's the rightful winner. More than a thousand Kenyans have died (as many as during the invasion of Lebanon in 2006) and both Kibaki and Odinga are tacitly condoning the violence by doing nothing to stop it.

In Ofeibea Quist-Arcton's report for NPR, the novelist Binyavanga Wainaina echoes this sentiment. Kibaki and Odinga, he says, "are dancing on a stage with matches and gasoline" despite the vast, public pleas for them to stop the violence, despite their own agreement on Friday to a preliminary plan, despite the intervention of foreign mediators.

February 04, 2008

Why I'm Voting For Obama

The primary reason for my choice is that Obama opposed the Iraq war back in 2002. I remember that year as a time when the majority of our politicians and our talking heads were falling over themselves trying to sound "tough on Iraq." They led the country into a disastrous war that will affect the region and the rest of the world for generations. Obama didn't have to say he was against the war, but he did. And that shows judgment.

In addition, Obama has said he would be willing to talk to the leaders of Iran without preconditions, while Hillary Clinton was agitating to have the Revolutionary Guard declared a terrorist organization. We know very well what happens when leaders use pre-conditions for talks (Ireland, Israel, etc.) and it's time for a different approach with Iran.

In terms of domestic policy, Hillary Clinton's proposals on health care are more precise, but I am under no illusions about her ability to turn them into actual legislation. The future president will have to work with Congress on health care reform, and I think Obama is much more likely to get the bipartisan support he needs to get legislation passed. The same holds true for the economy, and pretty much every other issue.

Lastly, this nation needs a fundamental change. When was the last time you saw so many voters overcome by emotion at a rally? Obama has that rare capacity to inspire. So: If you're undecided, please consider voting for Barack Obama tomorrow.

(Photo by: Annie Leibovitz)

Si, Se puede!

Even little kids support Obama:

January 31, 2008

And Then There Were Three

John Edwards announced yesterday that he was abandoning hid bid for the Democratic nomination, which isn't surprising in the least, but nevertheless disappointing; class, his most important campaign issue, won't get nearly as much attention now, and we can all settle in for a long, bitter fight between the three remaining Democratic candidates: Bill & Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

January 29, 2008

Artificial Membership Claims

Elizabeth Alexander, who is professor of African-American studies at Yale, sets the record straight in Salon about that Toni Morrison quote, which has been repeated ad nauseam by the Clinton camp in Hillary's campaign for the White House, so much so that it took the form of an actual question in the South Carolina Democratic debate. ("Senator Obama, do you think Bill Clinton was our first black president?") Alexander went back to the New Yorker essay in which Morrison made the comment:

A look at the context of the words at the source is illuminating. Morrison began by describing a nation glued to unseemly details of Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, as Kenneth Starr pursued his investigation and Republicans cheered him on. She questioned the pitch of Starr-fueled hysteria, and said: "Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime ... The always and already guilty 'perp' is being hunted down not by a prosecutor's obsessive application of law but by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks."

Morrison was not saying that Bill Clinton is America's first black president in a cute or celebratory way, nor was she calling Clinton an "honorary Negro." Rather, she was comparing Clinton's treatment at the hands of Starr and others with that of black men, so often seen as "the always and already guilty 'perp.'" Even in its original context the comparison doesn't quite work. African-American men have been demonized for centuries without having done anything but be black men, while people of all political stripes would likely agree that Clinton put himself in a compromised position with the Lewinsky situation, even if the political reaction was out of proportion to his alleged "crime." Morrison seemed here to be making a dark admonishment about what it means to be tarred with the same brush that has punished African-American men throughout this country's history.

In any case, Toni Morrison has made it clear whom she supports in this year's presidential race, and it's Barack Obama.

January 24, 2008

Meltdown, 2008 Edition

In between his carefully timed meltdowns (flushed face, wagging forefinger, et cetera) and his smear attacks on Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton had to take a rest. What better way than to take a nap during a speech about Martin Luther King?

(For something less somnolence-inducing, here's Obama's speech on MLK day.)

Cartoon Credit: Mike Lukovich

January 16, 2008

Department of WTF, Redux

Then again, when I read what Mike Huckabee told a Michigan crowd on Monday, it made me feel like there are enough nutcases in every religion to turn you into an atheist:

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

And this guy won Iowa, for God's sake.

Department of WTF

I heard that Britney Spears wants to convert to Islam. There comes a point in every lunatic celebrity's career when this happens (See: Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, etc.) And all I can say is: Our nut house is full, Britney. Please take up another religion, we have enough crazies of our own.

January 14, 2008

Reader Mail / Primaries

My Friday post about the New Hampshire primary elicited a lot of emails from you, so rather than answer individually, I am posting a handful of them here. Reader Nomi H. wrote to say:

One theory I've read about is that people in New Hampshire were truly disgusted with the pollsters, and with the journalists "pronouncing" their decisions prematurely. It was NOT a resounding victory for Clinton, by any means...

I share this frustration. Clinton and Obama won the same number of delegates in New Hampshire, but the Clinton win was framed as "comeback." A comeback from what? The month of December? If they hadn't been so quick to pronounce her political demise, there would have been no comeback. Meanwhile, reader Joseph H. wanted me to know that:

There is a new and scarier interpretation of the results surfacing even in the mainstream media.

He is referring, of course, to the theory that the Diebold voting machines, which were used in bigger cities but not in small towns, somehow favored Hillary Clinton. Reader Linda M. concurred, and added:

If there were shenanigans in New Hampshire, I would like that exposed right now. I want the vast right winged conspiracy to steal elections to stop. I want my democracy back, dammit. I am tired of having amoral thugs tyrannizing this country and the world.

Amen, sister. The problem is that the state of New Hampshire won't pay for a recount, so if Kucinich wants a recount, he'll have to pay for it. Reader Jessica L. offered yet another explanation:

Liberal NH women were going to vote for Hillary no matter what. Pollsters certainly got it wrong. But there is a large bloc of very active women who were responsible for electing one of first women governors, had women in the state legislature very early on, and electing a woman is top priority for them.

Too bad that they're choosing a woman who's so thoroughly without principle. (See for instance the kinds of attacks she's been waging lately.) Lastly, my friend David wrote:

I think you are buying into the media hype, which represents some of the shoddiest reporting I have ever seen. (...) I read today that even in my (and Clinton's) home state of NY, Obama has a shot at winning. So buck up. This election is the first political event in a long time about which I am actually optimistic.

And there you have it.

January 11, 2008

Health Days

I had to take a day off from blogging yesterday because I was too upset about Hillary Clinton's win in New Hampshire to be of much use around here. I think her win says something about this country that is deeply unsettling. The most common theory that has been put forward to explain the difference between the pre-election polls and the voting results is that Hillary Clinton did better with women voters, particularly older women voters, and that this was directly attributable to her emotional moment last Tuesday. But what does this say about these women voters in New Hampshire? That they saw themselves in a woman who seemed cornered and on the verge of defeat and whose ambitions were, in her view, thwarted by a posse of men who 'ganged' up on her?

The other theory is that Hillary Clinton didn't win, it was Barack Obama who lost, because of the famed Bradley effect. (In 1982, Tom Bradley had a double-digit lead in the polls and looked poised to become California's first black governor when he lost to George Deukmejian.) Again, what does this say about white people in New Hampshire? That, in the privacy of the voting booths, they didn't dare pick someone who didn't look like them? Either theory seemed too depressing, hence the day off. More soon.

January 08, 2008

Howard Dean Moment

I normally don't register a party affiliation, but when we moved to California, I registered as a Democrat because I wanted to be sure to vote in the Democratic primaries here. So I've been watching the campaigns very closely. As regular readers probably know, I dislike Hillary Clinton very much, and for many reasons. (She voted for the Patriot Act; she voted for the war in Iraq; she voted for the torture bill; she doesn't appear to have met a lobbyist she didn't like; she calls herself a feminist, but said her husband cheated because he had been abused as a child, etc.) But even though I dislike her, I felt sorry for her when I saw how this little video has been at the top of the news all day, played at least five times in one hour on CNN, and written about on the front page of the New York Times. What is going on here? Obviously, I was not planning to vote for Hillary Clinton, and I haven't changed my mind but the way the media have been playing this, you'd think it was worse for America that this woman got a little emotional than that she voted for that immoral war in the Middle East.

December 12, 2007

Round the World

The two car bombs that exploded in Algiers yesterday have made anywhere from 31 to 60 victims, depending on the source. Gaddafi pitched a tent in Paris and signed billions of dollars' worth of armament deals with France; Sarkozy and his government quickly forgot about Libya's poor human rights record. Meanwhile, the Bush administration continues to put pressure on Iran, despite the latest National Intelligence Estimate. One could go on all day in this vein, so here's an uplifting story, for a change: A Muslim college student breaks up train beating of two Jewish youths.

November 07, 2007

All The Research That Fits

Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, the esteemed (by Bush & Co., I mean) scholars of the Middle East have started their own academic organization, an alternative to the renowned Middle East Studies Association. Lewis and Ajami are calling their group the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, and they're organizing a conference, starting a journal, and soliciting members.

(Via)

November 06, 2007

Musharaf's Mess

Cartoon by Petar Pismestrovic, Kleine Zeitung, Austria. Via Truthdig.

November 05, 2007

Deparment of WTF

If you're Muslim, the L.A.P.D. wants to know where you live.

October 25, 2007

Deparment of WTF

You just can't make this shit up. President Bush celebrates Hispanic Heritage month by headbanging to the song "Guantanamera":

I weep for you, José Martí.

(via)

October 23, 2007

Fires in L.A.

Many thanks to those readers who have emailed to ask about the fires. We are all fine here. This fire season very much reminds me of my last Indian summer in L.A., about 4 years ago. The sky was a dark pink color and it rained black ash throughout the day. It's much the same now. It's very hot, as you can imagine, and it's a bit hard to breathe. But we're alive, and we'll get through this.

Photo by sundogg via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr.

October 22, 2007

French Discover Their Immigration History (Not Really)

The French government has opened a National Center of the History of Immigration in Paris and Michael Kimmelman visits it for the New York Times. The result is a great, great piece that highlights the ways in which some French officials conceive of immigration. Here's just one tiny excerpt:

“The history of immigration is one thing, and the history of slavery and the history of colonization are other things,” Jacques Toubon, the museum’s president, told me, somewhat defensively I thought. France “is very late in confronting the truth about its colonial history,” he said, but the purpose of his museum “is to tell the story of immigration.” That sounded to an American like devising a museum for African-American or American Indian cultures but skipping gingerly over slavery, segregation and Manifest Destiny.

Do read the entire piece here.

One thing Kimmelman could have pointed out is that the French name for the center is: Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration, which, in a very literal translation, means simply "National City of the History of Immigration," and so the word cité is meant to suggest republican notions of unity, and of a single, indivisible, unhyphenated French identity. But cité is also the colloquial word in French for the suburbs around the big cities where immigrants live. This is a bit like building a museum for Mexican-Americans and calling it the "barrio museum." And the worst part of it is: I don't even think French officials realize the ambiguity.

Who's Afraid of the Press?

This is the question posed by Khalid Saghiyyah in this opinion piece for Al-Akhbar.

الصحافة ممنوعة من دخول مخيّم نهر البارد، وكذلك آلات التصوير، على الرغم من مرور أكثر من شهر ونصف شهر على انتهاء المعارك. والجولات الإعلامية الرسميّة لم تكن أكثر من مسرحية لم يُسمَح للمشاركين فيها بتجاوز عتبة المخيّم.
من يخاف الصحافة؟ سؤال نجد الإجابة عنه عبر بعض الصور المهرّبة، وبعض الصرخات التي تصاعدت، على رغم الحصار، من الأهالي «العائدين» إلى المخيّم الجديد، ناهيك بالأفلام والصور الفضائحيّة التي بدأ تداولها على شبكة الإنترنت

A month and a half after the end of the fighting in Nahr el Bared refugee camp, the press has still not been allowed in.

(Via.)

October 16, 2007

Wright on Withdrawal

This week's New Yorker includes a nice opinion piece by Lawrence Wright on American occupation of Iraq:

In the upcoming Presidential primaries, Americans will have the chance to choose among candidates who propose immediate withdrawal from Iraq (Richardson), rapid drawdowns (Edwards and Obama), open-ended commitment to the war (Giuliani, Romney, McCain), or a resigned middle ground, notably Hillary Clinton, who acknowledges that the occupation will likely endure well into the next Presidential term no matter which party occupies the White House.

The Iraqi people have no such choice, even though it’s their future that is at stake—and even though the creation of a democratic republic, one in which the Iraqis command their own destiny, has been a stated goal of the war. According to President Bush, American troops will leave whenever the Iraqis ask us to. “It’s their government’s choice,” he has said. “If they were to say, leave, we would leave.” But while the Iraqi government is divided and uncertain about the presence of occupying forces, the will of the Iraqi people has been clear from the beginning: they want the troops withdrawn.

Read all of it here.

October 12, 2007

Happy Eid

Eid Mubarak to all my Muslim readers! This year, the Empire State Building will be lit up in green in honor of the holiday, and the illumination will continue through the end of the weekend.

October 03, 2007

On Clarence Thomas

I always enjoy reading Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post, and he has rarely been more incisive than in this op-ed about Clarence Thomas. Here's how it opens:

I believe in affirmative action, but I have to acknowledge there are arguments against it. One of the more cogent is the presence of Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court.

If you caught Thomas on " 60 Minutes" on Sunday night, you know that he will probably consider me one of the many people who want to see him "destroyed" because he doesn't "follow in this cult-like way something that blacks are supposed to believe." That's what he told CBS correspondent Steve Kroft -- that he'd been persecuted for "veering away from the black gospel that we're supposed to adhere to."

The up-close-and-personal "60 Minutes" piece, timed to coincide with publication of Thomas's autobiography, was compelling television. It was also a useful reminder that whenever my Bush Derangement Syndrome flares up to the point where I'm actually feeling nostalgic for the days when George Bush the Elder was in the White House, I need only recall that it was Poppy who put Thomas on the court. That snaps me back to my senses. Thomas is only 59; we'll be saddled with him, and that gigantic chip on his shoulder, for decades to come.

And the rest of the piece is equally quotable. Check it out.

October 02, 2007

Iran Plans

Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker about the Administration's plans for Iran. Here's a brief excerpt:

I was repeatedly cautioned, in interviews, that the President has yet to issue the “execute order” that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued. But there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the Iranian Operations Group. (A spokesman for the agency said, “The C.I.A. does not, as a rule, publicly discuss the relative size of its operational components.”)

“They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, “The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.”

Sound familiar?

September 26, 2007

Just Plain Revolting

Rudy Giuliani wants you to donate $9.11 to his presidential campaign.

September 25, 2007

Trapped in the Nut House

I injured my right shoulder and elbow a few days ago, and I am in occasional but excruciating pain, which I suppose is just as well, seeing as how it's preventing me from putting my fist through a wall whenever I read or listen to the news. Take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University, which demonstrated once and for all his disconnect with reality. On the Holocaust, he said:

You shouldn't ask me why I'm asking questions. You should ask yourselves why you think that that's questionable? Why do you want to stop the progress of science and research? Do you ever take what's known as absolute in physics?

The Holocaust isn't some esoterical subject. It happened. If you keep insisting that it needs to be researched further, you're not going to convince anyone you're not a revisionist. And then when asked about gays, Ahmadinejad offered this:

In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.

The power of denial will never cease to amaze.

Nor was Ahmadinejad the only one to make ignorant comments that day. In his introduction, Columbia President Lee Bollinger referred to Ahmadinejad as "a petty and cruel dictator." He must have a new definition of 'dictator' in mind. Ahmadinejad was elected (on a platform of economic reforms, by the way, which he has failed to deliver.)

And, to compound the madness, look at this headline from the Los Angeles Times: "Ahmadinejad Hailed in Middle East." The source for this fantastical claim about millions of people? Why, a handful of people in Cairo, of course.

September 24, 2007

Another Day in Hell

Well, that didn't last long. Last Thursday, Iraqi puppet (sorry, 'Prime Minister') Nouri Al-Maliki said he wanted to revoke the work license of Blackwater USA, the mercenary group (sorry, 'private security firm') working for the United States government in Iraq, in the wake of yet another shootout where Iraqi civilians were murdered. But yesterday, ta-da!, Blackwater was back in business.

September 21, 2007

'Jena is America'

Gary Younge has an excellent column in the current issue of The Nation about the case of the Jena 6. After describing the series of abhorrent racial incidents leading up to charging six black teenagers for attempted second-degree murder, he concludes:

These incidents have turned Jena into a national symbol of racial injustice. As such it is both a potent emblem and a convenient whipping boy. Potent because it shines a spotlight on how race and class conspire to deny black people equality before the law. According to the Justice Department, blacks are almost three times as likely as whites to have their cars searched when they are pulled over and more than twice as likely to be arrested. They are more than five times as likely as whites to be sent to jail and are sentenced to 20 percent longer jail time. This would not be a problem for the likes of Kobe Bryant, but in Jena's "quarters" high-powered legal teams are hard to come by.

Convenient because it allows the rest of the nation to dismiss the incidents as the work of Southern redneck backwoodsmen without addressing the systemic national failures it showcases. According to the Sentencing Project, the ten states with the highest discrepancy between black and white incarceration rates include Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York and none from the South. What took place in Jena is not aberrant; it's consistent. The details are a local disgrace. The broader themes are a national scandal. Jim Crow Jr. travels well--unencumbered by historical baggage.

Read it all here.

September 20, 2007

Tajbakhsh Free

It was very nice to come home to news that Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh has been released from Evin Prison. (See also.)

Banality of Evil

The New York Times has a slide show from a photo album found in Germany after World War II, but only recently donated to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The photos show senior SS officers and their families listening to music, relaxing on lounge chairs, and trimming Christmas trees while Jews and other Nazi victims were being gassed in Auschwitz.

September 13, 2007

Holidays

Today marks the start of Ramadan, so I'd like to wish ramadan karim to all my Muslim readers. May the coming month bring good tidings to all. In a happy coincidence, Rosh Hashanah started at sundown last night, so happy new year to all my Jewish readers as well.

September 11, 2007

'Shock Doctrine'

Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.

The short film below, written by Naomi Klein and directed by Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón, uses this principle, put forth by economist Milton Friedman, to re-examine some of the fundamental events of our time, including 9/11 and the war on Iraq. It's called "The Shock Doctrine," and it's meant to accompany Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Take a look:

The Guardian has been running excerpts of Klein's book all week (see one, two, three). I liked what she wrote about the days leading to the invasion of Iraq, but I think at times Klein's writing in this excerpt is not precise enough or rigorous enough to fully back up her claims. Still, I'm intrigued.

(YouTube video via Amitava Kumar)

9/11 Six Years On

Over at Salon, Gary Kamiya commemorates the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by asking what happened: How did we go from nineteen terrorists, most of whom from Saudi Arabia, to the hellish mess that is the Iraq war? Here's the opening paragraph:

Six years ago, Islamist terrorists attacked the United States, killing almost 3,000 people. President Bush used the attacks to justify his 2003 invasion of Iraq. And he has been using 9/11 ever since to scare Americans into supporting his "war on terror." He has incessantly linked the words "al-Qaida" and "Iraq," a Pavlovian device to make us whimper with fear at the mere idea of withdrawing. In a recent speech about Iraq, he mentioned al-Qaida 95 times. No matter that jihadists in Iraq are not the same group that attacked the U.S., or that their numbers and effectiveness have been greatly exaggerated. It's no surprise that Gen. David Petraeus' "anxiously awaited" evaluation of the war is to be given on the 10th and 11th of September. The not-so-subliminal message: We must do what Bush and Petraeus say or risk another 9/11.

Petraeus' evaluation can only be "anxiously awaited" by people who are still anxiously waiting for Godot. We know what will happen next because we've been watching this movie for eight months. Gen. Petraeus, Bush's mighty-me, will insist that we're making guarded progress. Bush, whose keen grasp of military reality is reflected in his recent boast that "we're kicking ass" in Iraq, will promise that he will reassess the situation in April. The Democrats will flail their puny arms, the zombie Republicans will keep following orders, and the troops will stay.

So let's forget the absurd debate about "progress" and whether a bullet in the front of the head is better than one in the back, and how much we can trust our new friends from Saddam's Fedayeen. On the anniversary of 9/11, we need to ask more basic questions -- not just about why we can't bring ourselves to pull out of Iraq, but why we invaded it in the first place.

Read the entire article here. It's thoughtful, but also passionate. (And it sort of explains why cheerleaders for the war, like Kenneth Pollack, or complicit Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, just cannot bring themselves to say they were wrong.)

September 05, 2007

Esfandiari Free, At Last

I was delighted to find out, in the middle of my moving adventures, that Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American scholar who had been detained in Iran since last May, was released last week. Now comes news that journalist Parnaz Azima was set free yesterday. Unfortunately, Ali Shakeri and Kian Tajbaksh are still being held in Iran. Perhaps we will hear good news about them in the coming days.

August 27, 2007

Not A Good Day For Bad Guys

Driss Basri, former Minister of the Interior and torturer-in-chief during Morocco's Years of Lead, has passed away in Paris. In other news, Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales, who has written memos arguing that the United States could use torture in interrogations of detainees, has resigned.

August 09, 2007

'Nether Caste'

The July/August issue of the Boston Review is not yet up, but the article by Glenn Loury on the prison system in the U.S. is already available. Loury is a professor of social sciences at Brown, and in the piece he lays out the fundamental problem with the culture (and business) of mass incarceration:

Crime rates peaked in 1992 and have dropped sharply since. Even as crime rates fell, however, imprisonment rates remained high and continued their upward march. The result, the current American prison system, is a leviathan unmatched in human history.

According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States—with five percent of the world’s population—houses 25 percent of the world’s inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000 residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century.

Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes. One third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.

How did it come to this?

It's a thought-provoking piece. Read it if you know what's good for you.

June 11, 2007

Pay Discrimination Is Your Problem

Katha Pollitt has a great column in the latest issue of The Nation about the Supreme Court's recent decision to limit to 180 days the time in which a worker may legally file suit against his or her employer for pay discrimination. Pollitt comments on possible consequences of the ruling:

If we can't rely on the courts(...) there's always the law of unintended consequences. A lot more women and minorities may bring suit first, rather than try to work things out politely with their employer, as right-wing antifeminists are always advising women to do if they feel, no doubt mistakenly, that they have a grievance. For those who believe the feminist movement marginalized itself by taking its eye off the dollar, this is the perfect opportunity to get back to economic issues that have cross-class appeal. Economic populists take note: You might want to add eliminating sexist and racist pay discrimination to your definition of the common good. And those who think feminism is no longer necessary might want to consider the connection between Ledbetter and the Court's upholding of the so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. Putting women back in their box, anyone?

More here.

June 05, 2007

40 Years Ago: The Six-Day War

It was 40 years ago that Israel bombed Egyptian airplanes on the ground, launching the Six-Day war. Over at Salon, Sandy Tolan revisits some of the era's myths, which have contributed to the creation of competing narratives about what happened then:

At a little after 7 on the morning of June 5, 1967, as Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's commanders were finishing their breakfasts and driving to work, French-built Israeli fighter jets roared out of their bases and flew low, below radar, into Egyptian airspace. Within three hours, 500 Israeli sorties had destroyed Nasser's entire air force. Just after midday, the air forces of Jordan and Syria also lay in smoking ruins, and Israel had essentially won the Six-Day War -- in six hours.

Israeli and U.S. historians and commentators describe the surprise attack as necessary, and the war as inevitable, the result of Nasser's fearsome war machine that had closed the Strait of Tiran, evicted United Nations peacekeeping troops, taunted the traumatized Israeli public, and churned toward the Jewish state's border with 100,000 troops. "The morning of 5 June 1967," wrote Israel's warrior-turned-historian, Chaim Herzog, "found Israel's armed forces facing the massed Arab armies around her frontiers." Attack or be annihilated: The choice was clear.

Or was it?

You can read it all here.

Same Shit, Different Day

The fighting between Lebanese forces and Fath El Islam terrorists appears to be spreading from Nahr el Bared to Ain El Hilweh. The Lebanese army has been killing Palestinian refugees seemingly indiscriminately--more than 100 civilians since May 20--not that you'd notice it from newspaper coverage.

June 01, 2007

Hostage Crisis, Redux

The Iranian government has arrested and jailed a fourth person with dual Iranian and American citizenships. His name is Ali Shakeri and he is a California businessman and founding member of UCI's Center for Citizen Peacebuilding. I am starting to put more credence in the theory that is floating around, and which one of my readers emailed me about: That Iran would like to trade these four Iranian American prisoners for the five Iranian diplomats abducted in Iraq in January.

May 29, 2007

Caught in a Web of Lies

The headline is, of course, irresistible: Great Satan sits down with Axis of Evil.

But even as these encouraging talks are taking place, the Iranian government cannot seem to let go of the fantasy: It has formally charged Haleh Esfandiari with "spying, acting against Iran's national security and conducting propaganda against the Islamic Republic." In addition, Kian Tajbaksh, a social scientist who also holds dual Iranian and American citizenships has been jailed and charged with spying, as has Parnaz Azima, a journalist.

This weekend, Haleh Esfandiari's husband, Shaul Bakhash, also an academic, wrote an impassioned piece in the Los Angeles Times asking for her release.

Should you wake up one day to find your wife or child or parent in the hands of the secret police in a country that routinely violates the rule of law, you will likely choose quiet probing over publicity. You have no recourse to law or courts. You fear publicity may make things worse. You believe, almost always wrongly, that if you work quietly, use the contacts you have and wait reasonably, the nightmare will be over.

When Haleh was initially prevented from leaving Iran and the interrogations began, it was principally at my insistence that we did not "go public." Repeatedly I was told by those who supposedly understand the inner workings of Iran: "Don't worry; it's only an interrogation; once they have finished with their questions, they will let her go."

Once Haleh was arrested, however, silence was no longer an option.

I am very upset--this woman is my mother's age, she is a grandmother, and she is someone who advocated for dialogue, not war. And now she's in Evin Prison, on this ridiculous charge. Please sign the petition for Haleh's release, as well as Kian's release.

Business as Usual

It looks like the U.S. has decided to go forward with sanctions on Sudan over Darfur. Predictably, however, the Chinese government--which enables the killing by selling arms to Sudan and buying its oil--is not too pleased. The sanctions, one of their representatives said, "are not conducive to solving the problem."

May 25, 2007

Middle Class, Mostly Mainstream, And Favorite Boogeymen

Earlier this week, the Pew Research Center released the results of a nationwide poll of U.S. Muslims, called "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream." (Full report available here. Warning: PDF format.) Having looked at the survey results, I was bewildered by the way in which they were covered in the media. Newsweek's Lorraine Ali ponders this as well:

According to a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this week, Muslim-Americans are “largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.” The poll showed the majority surveyed have close non-Muslim friends, believe in a strong American work ethic and feel there is little conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society. Overall, an encouraging picture, right?

Not according to a cavalcade of major media outlets. On Tuesday and Wednesday, coverage of the poll was downright foreboding. “Supporting Terror?” read the CNN crawl at the bottom of the screen as John Roberts interviewed a group of young moderate Muslims about the poll. On CBS News online, the headline incorrectly stated that 26% OF YOUNG U.S. MUSLIMS OK BOMBS. And in USA Today, more misinformation and scare tactics: POLL: 1 IN 4 YOUNGER U.S. MUSLIMS SUPPORT SUICIDE BOMBINGS.

Ali interviews a few people and tries to find out why the coverage went that way. Read it all here.

May 24, 2007

Adaptation

Not content with jailing Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar whose sole crime seems to be to believe in a dialogue between Iran and the United States, the Iranian government, through its cinema organization Farabi Cinema Foundation has protested Marjane Satrapi's adaptation of her book Persepolis into an animated film. The movie presents an "unrealistic face of the achievements and results of the glorious Islamic Revolution in some of its parts," the protest letter said.

The always quotable Satrapi responds:

"The worst reaction in the movie comes from myself, it doesn't come from the guardians of the revolution," she said. "The film's about being true to yourself, it's about humanism. I really believe that humanism is a word that has lost its power and its meaning and it's exactly at this time in the history of human beings that we need it more than any other time. We should stop considerations such as manhood and womanhood, of coming from east and west, or this and that religion, and just try to do the best with the imperfections of human beings."

More here.

May 18, 2007

Free Haleh Esfandiari

As you may have heard, Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has been detained in Iran. She had traveled to the country of her birth to visit her 93-year-old mother. She was on her way to Tehran's international airport on December 30, when masked gunmen stopped her taxi and stole her belongings, including her Iranian and U.S. passports. She was then effectively under house arrest for four months, and then on May 8 she was taken to the notorious Evin Prison, where political prisoners are held and sometimes tortured. There have been no news of her since she was taken there. Please sign the petition for her release. More info about her here.

May 16, 2007

Reality Check

Paul Bremer, who between May 2003 and June 2004 was in charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, took to the pages of the Washington Post last Sunday to tell the American public "What We Got right in Iraq." Today, journalist and NAF fellow Nir Rosen, who was in Iraq before, during, and after Bremer's tenure, responds:

[T]he former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority argues that he "was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny," including the Baath Party and the Iraqi army. He complains about "critics who've never spent time in Iraq" and "don't understand its complexities." But Bremer himself never understood Iraq, knew no Arabic, had no experience in the Middle East and made no effort to educate himself -- as his statements clearly show.

Time and again, he refers to "the formerly ruling Sunnis," "rank-and-file Sunnis," "the old Sunni regime," "responsible Sunnis." This obsession with sects informed the U.S. approach to Iraq from day one of the occupation, but it was not how Iraqis saw themselves -- at least, not until very recently. Iraqis were not primarily Sunnis or Shiites; they were Iraqis first, and their sectarian identities did not become politicized until the Americans occupied their country, treating Sunnis as the bad guys and Shiites as the good guys. There were no blocs of "Sunni Iraqis" or "Shiite Iraqis" before the war, just like there was no "Sunni Triangle" or "Shiite South" until the Americans imposed ethnic and sectarian identities onto Iraq's regions.

You can read the article in full here.

May 08, 2007

Home Rule

The leaders of Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party will take their pledge of office in Belfast today. In the New York Times, novelist Colum McCann remembers growing up in Dublin, with a mother from the North and a father from the South.

I wanted desperately to know the “why” of Northern Ireland. My mother was raw and quiet with grief. “Ach, it’s just sad,” she said. My father told me that the answer was simple — all the murderers, hatemongers, kneecappers, bombers, were going to be herded onto a small floating island, and they would be pushed out to sea, whereupon they could kill and maim and tar-and-feather one another endlessly. The rest of us, he said, would be left in peace.

More here.

May 07, 2007

Department of WTF

Suketu Mehta (Maximum City) writing in The New York Times:

I grew up watching my father stand on his head every morning. He was doing sirsasana, a yoga pose that accounts for his youthful looks well into his 60s. Now he might have to pay a royalty to an American patent holder if he teaches the secrets of his good health to others. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks. There’s big money in those pretzel twists and contortions — $3 billion a year in America alone.

Read on, to find out how knowledge is being patented, and by those who should know better.

Sarkozy Win

53% of French voters have decided to let Sarkozy "water-hose" more "scum" from the cités.

May 04, 2007

New Medium, Same Censorship

Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day, and for the occasion Issandr El Amrani contributed this great piece at the Guardian's Comment Is Free blog, about the threats faced by Egyptian journalists and bloggers. Here's an excerpt:

Although it took time, Egypt's zealous security services have begun to catch up with bloggers, as in the case of Abdel Kareem Soliman, a Muslim who lambasted his co-religionists after sectarian clashes in his hometown of Alexandria. Soliman ended up being sentenced to four years in prison for an anti-Muslim post he wrote, becoming a poster child for online freedom of speech. A few months later, Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, an Islamist blogger, was in turn arrested. While earning much less media coverage - as Islamist political prisoners generally do - Mahmoud's case has now rallied much of the Egyptian blogosphere.

That unusual show of support for an Islamist in Egypt's secularist-dominated blogosphere came in recognition that Mahmoud had broken ranks with the powerful political movement to which he belongs, the Muslim Brotherhood, and voiced support for Soliman despite disapproving of what he wrote.

Please read the article in full here.

April 19, 2007

Pointing Fingers

It has been interesting to watch reactions to the revelation that the Virginia Tech gunman was a 23-year-old creative writing student of South Korean descent by the name of Cho Seung-Hui. People of every other ethnic group breathed a sigh of relief that the murderer was not one of their own. Andrew Lam captured this feeling perfectly in his column for New American Media. Here is an excerpt:

Before the news identified the killer as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea, all ethnic backgrounds were up for grabs. A Chinese friend from a small college town on the East Coast called to say: “Please, please let it be some other Asian. We’ll be in deep if it’s Chinese.”

In a popular Vietnamese chatroom, Vietnamese college students were writing to each other to speculate. One said, “I have a bad feeling. It might be Mi’t (Vietnamese slang for Vietnamese).” Others wrote in advising each other on what to do if it was.(...)

Let it be some other Asian! This was the prayer among so many Asian-American communities. And not just Asians.

“Every time there’s an incident like this, every ethnic group is on pins and needles,” said Khalil Abdullah, an African-American colleague. An Anglo shooter may be an individual, a loner, but God forbid if a person of color goes on a shooting rampage. His whole tribe would be implicated. “I still recall my aunts when President Kennedy was assassinated. They were praying that it wasn’t a Negro.” Many ethnic communities do not feel that they belong to the core of the American fabric, Abdullah added. “The action of an individual can cancel out the good image of an entire group.”

The focus on the murderer's background was not restricted to his nationality; there was also the religious angle. The New York Post quickly speculated that the words "Ismail Ax," which were scrawled on the gunman's arm, were a reference to the Qur'anic account of Abraham's sacrifice of Ismail, or possibly also to Abraham's destruction of pagan idols, also in the Qur'anic tradition. The fact that the document sent by Cho to NBC contained such bizarre claims as "Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people" did not seem to merit the kind of religious exegesis that the New York Post was so keen on doing earlier in the week. People look for intrinsic reasons for Cho's acts, when the simpler explanation--to the extent that such a horrendous act can ever be explained--is that Cho was a mentally ill young man, who should never have had access to guns.

April 17, 2007

Horror at Virginia Tech

I have been avoiding the news, so it wasn't until very late yesterday that I found out about the shootings at Virginia Tech. My first instinct was to worry about a friend of mine who teaches there, but thankfully he had not yet left his house to go to campus when the news broke.

Too many others have not been as fortunate; the death toll kept on climbing. There is loss and mourning, and few words seem apt at such a time. There are also questions, and perhaps I find it easier to cope with the tragedy by asking them. From the NYT's unsigned editorial:

Our hearts and the hearts of all Americans go out to the victims and their families. Sympathy was not enough at the time of Columbine, and eight years later it is not enough. What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

More here.

March 19, 2007

Mess O' Potamia Is Four

The Iraq war is four years old. The BBC has an overview of the violence, in numbers.

March 07, 2007

There's A Shocker

The smiling old man in the photo on the right is General Aussaresses, and, according to Le Monde, he has recently admitted that he had FLN leader Larbi Ben M'Hidi hanged in 1957, during the Algerian war of independence. The French government has always maintained that Ben M'Hidi committed suicide. But then again what would one expect from lawmakers who, in 2007, were still having a serious debate over whether French colonization of Africa was "mostly positive"?

Photo credit: AFP/Joel Robine

February 21, 2007

Ramadan Profile

Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan's new book, In the Footsteps of the Prophet, came out in the United States a couple of weeks ago. I haven't seen any reviews yet, but Ian Buruma profiled him for the New York Times Sunday magazine, and now Steve Paulson of WPR has an interview with him in Salon. I find Tariq Ramadan somewhat interesting, but not very convincing--his discourse is far too focused on religion (understandable, given his background) and he hardly ever mentions economic or social factors when he discusses the geographical region that falls loosely under the tag of 'Islam.' In some way, I think he contributes to an essentialist view of the region, to the same extent that Ayaan Hirsi Ali does, even though her views are diametrically opposed to his. Still, I will be very curious to check out his new book.

February 19, 2007

War Drums, Redux

I have avoided linking to any articles about the recent allegations about Iran since these claims seem so clearly to be a repetition of what we saw in late 2002 and early 2003, and I find the whole thing too depressing. But I want to point to an analysis at fair.org of just how some newspapers are making the same mistakes as with pre-Iraq war intelligence:

In the report, "Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says," [New York Times] reporter Michael R. Gordon cited a one-sided array of anonymous sources charging the Iranian government with providing a particularly deadly variety of roadside bomb to Shia militias in Iraq: "The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran." (...) Repeatedly citing the likes of "administration officials," "American intelligence" and "Western officials," the article used unnamed sources four times as often as named ones. Only one source in Gordon’s report challenged the official claims: Iranian United Nations ambassador Javad Zarif, who was allowed a one-sentence denial of Iranian government involvement.

And in a thoughtful, clear-sighted op-ed in Sunday's Los Angeles Times, Adam Shatz makes several points that deserve to be highlighted.

If Iran wants to see a friendly government established in Iraq, it hardly lacks for reasons. Unlike the United States, Iran was attacked by Iraq, back when Hussein's regime enjoyed American support as a bulwark against Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolution. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians died during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). When Iraq used poison gas against Iranian troops, the United States uttered not a single protest.

Not surprisingly, Iran wants to ensure that no government in Iraq will threaten it again. That's why Iran made no secret of its joy over Hussein's downfall, but it also refuses to accept a potentially hostile American base in the Persian Gulf or to cede absolute control over Iraq's future to the United States.

And there is also this:

If Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has indulged Ahmadinejad's rhetorical extremism, it may be because he expected to be rewarded, rather than punished, for Iran's assistance to the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As Gareth Porter recently reported in the American Prospect, Iran floated a proposal in May 2003, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, for a "grand bargain" with the United States. It offered to back the 2002 Arab Summit's proposal for a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine and to end its military support for armed Palestinian groups as well as Hezbollah in return for the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States.

Prematurely intoxicated by its "mission accomplished," the Bush administration reportedly ignored Iran's proposal and has since given every indication that it prefers regime change in Tehran to the kind of dialogue recommended by the Iraq Study Group. To this end, the administration has flirted with the Iranian Mujahedin Khalq, also known as MEK, a bizarre Maoist guerrilla group/cult that opposes the Islamic government and frequently launched attacks on Iran from Iraq with Hussein's backing.

Given the Bush administration's belligerent position, the Iranian government might have concluded that, with Hussein dead and the Shiite parties in power, Tehran's interests are best served by the withdrawal of American troops on its border. Even if the Iraqis fail to drive out U.S. forces, a deepening quagmire usefully distracts attention from Tehran's nuclear program and reminds the United States that it needs Iran in order to exit with its honor intact.

Like any state, the Islamic republic seeks above all to preserve itself. But, again, is this "malign intent" or a sober calculation? Iran has, in other words, a strong realist case for being involved in Iraq. If Iranian "designs" on Iraq are seen as malign, it is only by those who believe that U.S. "intentions" in Iraq (unlike other imperial powers, we have no designs) are benign.

You can read the whole piece here.

February 14, 2007

L.A. 8 Update

The New York Times has an editorial urging Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff not to file an appeal against the last two remaining defendants in the infamous L.A. 8 case. "The only decent thing to do is to drop the case," the editorial says.

(More here.)

February 09, 2007

On Torture

Today's Washington Post includes an op-ed by Eric Fair, a former civilian interrogator in Iraq in early 2004. Fair's duties were to deprive the detainee of sleep, force him to stand in a corner, and strip him of his clothes. "Three years later," Fair writes, "the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him." Please read it all here.

February 07, 2007

Case Against L.A. 8 Dismissed

The Los Angeles Times has an opinion piece by Michel Shehadeh, who has been in legal limbo, along with other Palestinian immigrants, as part of the group known as the "L.A. 8." A federal judge last week dismissed the justice department's attempt to deport Shehadeh and the rest of the L.A. 8, saying, "the attenuation of these proceedings is a festering wound on the body of these respondents and an embarrassment to the rule of law." Read the piece here.

January 31, 2007

Gay Muslims in Europe

Yesterday's Morning Edition on NPR included a segment by Emily Harris about the challenges faced by gay Muslims in Europe. It was interesting to learn, for example, that gay Muslim organizations used to deal primarily with homophobia from their own community, but in the last few years they have been dealing more with Islamophobia from Europeans. The segment also includes an interview with Moroccan writer Abdellah Taïa.

Thanks to Anne for the link.

January 29, 2007

War Protests

Readers of this blog are probably aware of my utter disagreement with the U.S. government's foreign policy. I think the country is being run by an imbecile, and that the war he started in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. So imagine my surprise at finding myself in the unusual position of having to defend the United States. When Alex and I were in Europe a few days ago, we both noticed really strong anti-U.S. sentiment, much stronger in Paris than here in Casablanca--and that is saying something. People are very angry about the war in Iraq (who can blame them?) but they also seem to think that all Americans approve of it and have bought Bush's lies. I hope the pictures of the anti-war protest this past weekend in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the nation, make it on world media.

Photo credits: Jim Bourg/Reuters; Joshua Roberts/Reuters.

January 26, 2007

The More Things Change...

Journalist Issandr El Amrani has an opinion piece on Tompaine.com about how the U.S. is actively building the new SADDAM:

Having made a mess of Iraq, continuing to refuse to play a constructive and even-handed role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and having gotten bored with democracy promotion, the Bush administration now appears to be fanning the flames of sectarian strife region-wide. Since September 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior administration officials have made trips to the Middle East to rally the support of what Rice has described as the “moderate mainstream” Arab states against Iran. This group has now been formalized as the “GCC + 2,” meaning the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman) as well as Egypt and Jordan.

I suggest that this new coalition be renamed to something less technocratic: the Sunni Arab-Dominated Dictatorships Against the Mullahs, or SADDAM. I have to confess I was inspired by historical precedent.

Read more here.

January 23, 2007

The Question

I like the cover of this week's Nation. It states simply:

World opinion is against the U.S. escalation in Iraq. The American people are against it. Congress is against it. The Iraqi people are against it. The Iraqi government is against it. Can a single man force a nation to fight a war it does not want to fight, expand a war it does not want to expand? If he can, is that nation any longer a democracy in any meaningful sense? If not, how can democratic rule and the republican form of government be restored?

And the full editorial is here.

Dink's Murder

I had never heard of Hrant Dink until four days ago, when news of his brutal slaying in front of his office in Istanbul made world headlines. And then the information began to filter--Dink was the founder and editor of the newspaper Agos; he was Armenian and had written about the genocide of one million of his people in 1915 by the Ottoman rulers; and he had been the first journalist to be convicted under Article 301, that vile law that has already gotten Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak, and many other known and unknown writers and journalists into trouble. It was Dink's conviction that brought him into the spotlight. Here's what Orhan Pamuk said:

"We have killed a man whose ideas we could not accept," Orhan Pamuk said, when he visited Hrant Dink's home and office on Sunday.

"We are all responsible for his death, but above all those who still defend Article 301 and insist it should stay are guilty - those who launched a campaign against Hrant Dink as an enemy of the Turks and marked him out as a target."

This is a depressing picture of Turkey, a country that wants to join the E.U., but cannot seem to let its writers and journalists speak their minds. But the spontaneous outcry and grief over Dink's death makes me wonder if the people of Turkey will finally get serious about stopping the madness. For instance, the silent march today at his funeral, behind a banner that reads "We are all Hrant Dink. We are all Armenians." is one step. But the road is long.

January 02, 2007

Dictator Dead, Chaos Continues

I was at a jeweler's on the rue des Consuls in Rabat when I heard the news that Saddam had been hanged. I looked up from the silver necklace I was admiring to see the hazy, greenish video of the bearded dictator being led to the gallows. "They hung him?" I said. I had heard of the sentence pronounced by the U.S.-controlled Iraqi court, but I had thought it would take a few weeks, if not months, before it was carried out. The jeweler, an old man in a gray jellaba and white skullcap, shook his head. "It's only going to make it worse for the Iraqis," he said. "And they did it on Eid, too!" he said. "Why couldn't they have waited a few days?" The implication was clear: The hanging of Saddam on the eve of Eid was a deliberate act of humiliation. And we all know how well that works. Already Sunnis are marching in Samarra, Tikrit, and elsewhere. There will be more violence, more bloodshed. If an old man sitting in his shop in the medina has more sense than the "leader of the free world," then there is no hope for Iraq.

December 14, 2006

Fallout

So now it's official. The government of Saudi Arabia told Dick Cheney that it will arm Sunni militias if the U.S. leaves Iraq. Last July, you'll remember, Saudi Arabia blamed Israel's invasion of Lebanon entirely on Hizbollah, while Olmert referred--with no detectable irony--to the Kingdom as a "moderate Arab state." Which means we're seeing a very clear alignment: Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Israel, Fatah, and Saniora's government on one side, and Iran, Hamas, Hizbollah, and maybe Syria on the other side. I just want to hide under a blanket and go to sleep.

December 04, 2006

Inconvenient Rights

Last weekend's New York Times Magazine includes a thoughtful piece by Bidoun editor Negar Azimi on the (lack of) gay rights in Egypt. I find myself in agreement with her when she points out that the recent persecution of gays in Egypt and elsewhere is a result of a policy of appropriation of 'morals', in the sense that homosexuality is presented as a Western invention, despite all evidence of thriving gay subcultures in many parts of the Arab world. Therefore, any attempt at handling gay issues from a purely civil rights perspective is perceived as coming from traitors. To complicate matters, foreign human rights organizations can--willfully or witlessly--play a role in escalating the situation:

When the raid on the Queen Boat occurred, much of the human rights community declined to take the case on, Al Boraei included. (Some activists even attacked those who met with the defendants.) Hossam Bahgat, a young Alexandrian working at the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, told me he was quietly dismissed after he wrote an article calling upon the human rights community to overcome its fears about working on the case. In the West, however, the Queen Boat became something of a cause célèbre. Amnesty International supported protests in front of the Egyptian Embassy in London. A Web site called GayEgypt.com called on Egypt’s homosexuals to wear red on the two-year anniversary of the Queen Boat raid (an invitation to be arrested, it seems), while 35 members of the U.S. Congress wrote to Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, asking for a stop to the anti-homosexual crusade. It was no wonder that amid this, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram al-Arabi proclaimed, “Be a pervert and Uncle Sam will approve.”

“This was framed locally as an attack from the West,” says Bahgat, who eventually collaborated with Human Rights Watch on the case and later opened his own organization, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. “It was important to show that working for the rights of the detained was not a gay agenda, or a Western agenda, that this was linked to Egypt’s overall human rights record. Raising the gay banner when most sexual and other human rights are systematically violated every day is never going to get you far in this country.”

In the end, Human Rights Watch avoided laying itself open to easy attack as the bearer of an outsider’s agenda, packaging Queen Boat advocacy in the larger context of torture. Many of the arrested men were tortured, and torture is something that, at least in theory, most people agree is a bad thing.

You can read the rest of the article here. A fine piece.

(link via The Arabist)

October 23, 2006

Eid 1427

A happy and healthy Eid-ul-Fitr to all my Muslim readers. Eid Mubarak.

October 17, 2006

Don't Even Ask Them What A Madhab Is

What do these people have in common? Willie Hulon, head of the FBI's new national security branch; Rep. Terry Everett (R-Alabama), vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence; and Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Virginia), who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Muslim spies. None of them could tell Jeff Stein the difference between a Sunni and a Shia. And we're now three years into the war in Iraq.

Lecturers to Spy on Muslim Students

From yesterday morning's Guardian:

Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on "Asian-looking" and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence, the Guardian has learned.

They will be told to inform on students to special branch because the government believes campuses have become "fertile recruiting grounds" for extremists.

But if lecturers are spying on students, who's spying on lecturers?

October 16, 2006

Mubarak's Egypt

Scott Anderson's Vanity Fair article on Egypt is an absolute must-read.

Until a few years ago, no one had heard of the Red Sea Riviera. Perhaps that's because most of the shiny beach-resort hotels that fall under the marketing label aren't on the Red Sea at all, but rather on the Gulf of 'Aqaba, that narrow strip of water which separates the eastern coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula from Saudi Arabia and Jordan. No matter, because it really could be anywhere. From Taba, at the very north end, flush on the border with Israel, all the way down the 125 miles of rugged Sinai coastline to the main tourist resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, the visitor exists in a cocoon of pleasure scrubbed clean of exoticism, the largest gated playground on the planet. Within those gates are five-star hotels and restaurants and world-class scuba-diving, a Hard Rock Cafe, and McDonald's. Outside those gates is everyone and everything else, a purity maintained by police checkpoints on all roads leading into the enclave. The only Egyptians allowed to enter are those wealthy enough to vacation in the zone, or those who can prove they have jobs there; the others are turned back.

Starting out at the resort, Anderson follows two trails, that of a young man who had been accused of taking part in one of the recent bombings, and that of another young man who briefly worked at the resort, but whose life has been nothing but constant humiliation. Please read the article to the end, here.

Link via The Arabist.

October 13, 2006

Nobel Peace Prize 2006

This is delightful news: Bangladeshi economics professor Muhammad Yunus has won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, to be shared with Grameen Bank, which he founded. Yunus is credited with inventing micro-credit. I remember watching a documentary about him on PBS a while back--a very soft-spoken man, and a committed activist. But what a difference he has made for Bangladeshi women, and men.

October 12, 2006

'Unitary Executive Branch'

From Joan Didion's article in the October 5 issue of the New York Review of Books about Vice President Dick Cheney:

It was in some ways predictable that the central player in the system of willed errors and reversals that is the Bush administration would turn out to be its vice-president, Richard B. Cheney. Here was a man with considerable practice in the reversal of his own errors. He was never a star. No one ever called him a natural. He reached public life with every reason to believe that he would continue to both court failure and overcome it, take the lemons he seemed determined to pick for himself and make the lemonade, then spill it, let someone else clean up. The son of two New Deal Democrats, his father a federal civil servant with the Soil Conservation Service in Casper, Wyoming, he more or less happened into a full scholarship to Yale: his high school girlfriend and later wife, Lynne Vincent, introduced him to her part-time employer, a Yale donor named Thomas Stroock who, he later told Nicholas Lemann, "called Yale and told 'em to take this guy." The beneficiary of the future Lynne Cheney's networking lasted three semesters, took a year off before risking a fourth, and was asked to leave.

And then there's this:

Signing statements are not new, but at the time Bill Clinton left office, the device had been used, by the first forty-two presidents combined, fewer than six hundred times. George W. Bush, by contrast, issued more than eight hundred such takebacks during the first six years of his administration. Those who object to this or any other assumption of absolute executive power are reflexively said by those who speak for the Vice President to be "tying the president's hands," or "eroding his ability to do his job," or, more ominously, "aiding those who don't want him to do his job."

More here.

October 11, 2006

Silence, On Tue

There are days when I feel completely battered by the news, and have no energy to work, much less to post anything here. And then there are days when even a word like "battered" seems obscene. A new report, released by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, estimates that 650,000 Iraqis have died since 2003. The survey numbers are based on interviews with 1,849 Iraqi households between May and July 2006.

I do not doubt that this figure will be disputed. But it should also be pointed out that the United States itself has not kept track of civilian casualties since the early days of the war and has no counter-number to offer; and that the director of the Baghdad mosque has been quoted, time and again, as saying that the numbers he sees in the press (i.e. about 100 dead per day) do not match the numbers he has in his books.

I'm afraid that once the numbers are dismissed as "politics" (and they already have!), the media will move on. But if these numbers are correct, then the Bush administration may have killed more civilians than Saddam. Shouldn't this make statisticians run to their calculators and tell us whether the study's result are accurate? Welcome to the new, liberated Iraq. No one asks questions.

October 04, 2006

Full Circle

The brutalized people of Afghanistan, who endured ten years of war with the Soviets, the Mujahideen-Taliban war, and then the American invasion, have never been further from finding the elusive peace and security the country's protectors keep promising it. In his State of the Union address of January 22, 2002, Bush declared:

The American flag flies again over our embassy in Kabul. Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay. (Applause.) And terrorist leaders who urged followers to sacrifice their lives are running for their own. (Applause.)<