I think the point that I'm trying to make and I think ought to be made is that the real, at least to me - I say this elsewhere in the book [American Power and the New Mandarins] what seems to me a very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society and other societies is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe such events. I think that's more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity, and therefore I think that it's in some sense the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who should - who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and more violent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEIrZO069Kg&feature=related
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
FAIR & BALANCED
Monday September 28 -
New York Times: JERUSALEM — Clashes broke out Sunday between Palestinians and the Israeli police at a holy site in Jerusalem revered by both Muslims and Jews, after Muslim worshipers threw stones at a group of foreign tourists, apparently mistaking them for Jewish activists.
DN! - In Israel and the Occupied Territories, four Palestinians were wounded Sunday near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinians who were trying to block a group of militant Israeli settlers from entering the mosque compound. Another seven Palestinians were arrested.
AJE - Jordanian and Palestinian officials have condemned the Israeli security forces for storming Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque on Sunday during clashes that left many Palestinian worshippers wounded.
CNN - JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police in east Jerusalem stretched into Sunday evening after a visit by a Jewish group to one of the city's holiest sites.
No mention in BBC or Washington Post at least up to their respective on line "Middle East" page. No mention in Haaretz.
Oddly - it was the Jerusalem Post that answered the question in my mind "What REALLY happened" (Chris Penn).
Twelve policemen and 15 rioters were wounded Sunday in riots on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and later in the Old City. Then in a telling next paragraph goes on to say "Approximately 150 Muslim worshipers participated in the disturbance on the Temple Mount, which began when a group of Jewish visitors was admitted into the compound."
So a group of foreign Jews were brought into the mosque and the Arabs reacted with violence and the police engaged.
New York Times: JERUSALEM — Clashes broke out Sunday between Palestinians and the Israeli police at a holy site in Jerusalem revered by both Muslims and Jews, after Muslim worshipers threw stones at a group of foreign tourists, apparently mistaking them for Jewish activists.
DN! - In Israel and the Occupied Territories, four Palestinians were wounded Sunday near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinians who were trying to block a group of militant Israeli settlers from entering the mosque compound. Another seven Palestinians were arrested.
AJE - Jordanian and Palestinian officials have condemned the Israeli security forces for storming Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque on Sunday during clashes that left many Palestinian worshippers wounded.
CNN - JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police in east Jerusalem stretched into Sunday evening after a visit by a Jewish group to one of the city's holiest sites.
No mention in BBC or Washington Post at least up to their respective on line "Middle East" page. No mention in Haaretz.
Oddly - it was the Jerusalem Post that answered the question in my mind "What REALLY happened" (Chris Penn).
Twelve policemen and 15 rioters were wounded Sunday in riots on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and later in the Old City. Then in a telling next paragraph goes on to say "Approximately 150 Muslim worshipers participated in the disturbance on the Temple Mount, which began when a group of Jewish visitors was admitted into the compound."
So a group of foreign Jews were brought into the mosque and the Arabs reacted with violence and the police engaged.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Iran would be wreckless if it scraps its nuclear program
Iranian political rhetoric still includes classics we’ve been hearing since 1979 – death to America, the great satan. We are all familiar with them from the days of the embassy hostages. Since then, US/Iranian relations became the acrimonious hate-fest we take for granted. (Before that it was peaches and cream with the Shah).
Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a theocracy that – despite decades of economic and political isolation – remains hostile to what it perceives as US intervention in its affairs (the original charges that sparked the hostage incident). Iran is generally considered to back Hezballah in Lebanon which makes it a mortal enemy to Israel with the infamous Katusha rockets used by militants in Gaza to attack Israeli cities. To add to the tension, the US invasion of Iraq has given Iran a boost of power in the region as it fills part of the vacuum left by the fall of the Saddam regime through its influence on Iraqi Shias.
All the while, Iran finds the US military footprint in the region surrounding it growing and growing.
In 1990, US presence in the region was limited to Turkey, on Iran’s northwestern border, through its membership in NATO. This and the Sixth Fleet, constantly patrolling Iran’s southern coastal border, which the Iranians knew well from their experience in their 10 year war with Saddam. Then at the end of the first Gulf War, Iran finds new US bases established across the Gulf in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. These bases were eventually closed and one central command established in the tiny peninsula nation Qatar. By the end of the decade, the newly independent muslim nations of the former Soviet Union became home to minor US military bases. Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan Manas Air Base in Kyrgyztan have been used to supply US forces on Iran’s eastern border in Afghanistan. Finally, on Iran’s western border is the US occupation force in Iraq.
Iran must be well aware of the bombing of Iraq's nuclear facilities by Israel in the early 80s and the more recent Israeli Air Force attacks in Syria (against which Syria was completely impotent). They had front row seats to the US invasion of Iraq which means they are well aware of what can happen if a current or future US administration wages another pre-emptive war.
But Iran must be equally aware that these fates befell non-nuclear powers. Nuclear powers are not held to the same standards. Are not dealt with in military terms. What actions are then available to a country facing Iran's current geopolitical situation?
Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a theocracy that – despite decades of economic and political isolation – remains hostile to what it perceives as US intervention in its affairs (the original charges that sparked the hostage incident). Iran is generally considered to back Hezballah in Lebanon which makes it a mortal enemy to Israel with the infamous Katusha rockets used by militants in Gaza to attack Israeli cities. To add to the tension, the US invasion of Iraq has given Iran a boost of power in the region as it fills part of the vacuum left by the fall of the Saddam regime through its influence on Iraqi Shias.
All the while, Iran finds the US military footprint in the region surrounding it growing and growing.
In 1990, US presence in the region was limited to Turkey, on Iran’s northwestern border, through its membership in NATO. This and the Sixth Fleet, constantly patrolling Iran’s southern coastal border, which the Iranians knew well from their experience in their 10 year war with Saddam. Then at the end of the first Gulf War, Iran finds new US bases established across the Gulf in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. These bases were eventually closed and one central command established in the tiny peninsula nation Qatar. By the end of the decade, the newly independent muslim nations of the former Soviet Union became home to minor US military bases. Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan Manas Air Base in Kyrgyztan have been used to supply US forces on Iran’s eastern border in Afghanistan. Finally, on Iran’s western border is the US occupation force in Iraq.
Iran must be well aware of the bombing of Iraq's nuclear facilities by Israel in the early 80s and the more recent Israeli Air Force attacks in Syria (against which Syria was completely impotent). They had front row seats to the US invasion of Iraq which means they are well aware of what can happen if a current or future US administration wages another pre-emptive war.
But Iran must be equally aware that these fates befell non-nuclear powers. Nuclear powers are not held to the same standards. Are not dealt with in military terms. What actions are then available to a country facing Iran's current geopolitical situation?
Friday, September 18, 2009
Won't Get Fooled Again
While discussion of American politics continues to be presented in the media - and by extension public discourse - as either democrat or republican, left wing or right wing, blue states or red states, liberal or conservative, little actual change can be seen by the United States government in either domestic or foreign policy regardless of which party controls the legislative or executive branch. If the media alone were to be believed, the situation has reached the relevance level of sport fans arguing over favorite teams; one a group of religious zealots hell bent on destruction of the planet as we know it through corporate greed and the other a band of tree hugging bleeding hearts who simply hate America first. But even when we remove the media lens and take the words directly from the mouths of our own politicians in their speeches (whether campaigning or incumbent) the argument inevitably reverts to democrat or republican and sometimes even degenerates into name calling (“girlie men” as Arnold put it).
In Obama's latest health care speech, he admits he's not the first president to address this issue. But in fact, ever since Theodore Roosevelt [1901 – 1909] called for health care reform nearly every president and congress has made an attempt. And after a brief background and few anecdotes the framework for discussion was set with “There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single payer system, like Canada,” before his speech had reached the 10 minute mark. “On the right,” he continues, “there are those who would argue we should end employer based systems and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.”
This approach however assumes that our two party system falls on the proverbial spectrum in a left/right manner; while the reality is a center-left/right leaving our mainstream (and Main Streets) embedded in the right.
So while the conservative right is generally represented by the republicans, and the left is supposedly represented by the democrats, the reality is that there is a right wing and a center-left wing with a disenfranchised left.
But more significantly is the idea that any two factions, groups, parties (whatever you want to call the grouping) could represent an immigrant nation of 300,000 million. Such a shallow approach assumes that we are two-dimensional beings on issues as diverse and far ranging as school prayer to health care or more recently gay marriage; not to mention foreign policy issues such as use of the military or sales of weapons. When it comes to the individual voter, you cannot, for example, support environmentally friendly candidates while also electing candidates who do not believe in big government spending.
Nonetheless it remains a popular framework, with major think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute or the Council on Foreign Relations using it to produce their many publications and working papers intended to guide public policy whether domestic or foreign.
Ya been took. Ya been hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray.
In Obama's latest health care speech, he admits he's not the first president to address this issue. But in fact, ever since Theodore Roosevelt [1901 – 1909] called for health care reform nearly every president and congress has made an attempt. And after a brief background and few anecdotes the framework for discussion was set with “There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single payer system, like Canada,” before his speech had reached the 10 minute mark. “On the right,” he continues, “there are those who would argue we should end employer based systems and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.”
This approach however assumes that our two party system falls on the proverbial spectrum in a left/right manner; while the reality is a center-left/right leaving our mainstream (and Main Streets) embedded in the right.
So while the conservative right is generally represented by the republicans, and the left is supposedly represented by the democrats, the reality is that there is a right wing and a center-left wing with a disenfranchised left.
But more significantly is the idea that any two factions, groups, parties (whatever you want to call the grouping) could represent an immigrant nation of 300,000 million. Such a shallow approach assumes that we are two-dimensional beings on issues as diverse and far ranging as school prayer to health care or more recently gay marriage; not to mention foreign policy issues such as use of the military or sales of weapons. When it comes to the individual voter, you cannot, for example, support environmentally friendly candidates while also electing candidates who do not believe in big government spending.
Nonetheless it remains a popular framework, with major think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute or the Council on Foreign Relations using it to produce their many publications and working papers intended to guide public policy whether domestic or foreign.
Ya been took. Ya been hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray.
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