Selves and Others

You won’t hear about the story of my Palestinian friend Ali Zbeidat and the threatened demolition of his "illegal" home, either from the hundreds of international correspondents in Jerusalem or from the Hebrew media - not even from those remarkable Israeli journalists Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, two lone beacons inside Israel in the campaign for justice for the Palestinians. (...)

President George W Bush has spoken. But will he now match words with deeds? This is the simple question everyone concerned with Middle East peace is asking.

In his State of the Union address on 2 February Bush declared that his aim was "two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace". In Brussels on 21 February he introduced a note of urgency when he said, "our greatest opportunity and our immediate goal is peace in the Middle East." (...)

BEIRUT, Mar. 10 (IPS) - Former prime minister Rafik Hariri left a controversial economic legacy, and his killing has put a question mark over the future of the troubled country’s finances.

Lebanon owes many billions of dollars in debt it might not be able to pay, it is engaged in a huge reconstruction effort, and many Lebanese fear that fading confidence in the country will pull the plug on Arab and Western aid.

Economists who credit Hariri with unprecedented boldness also blame him for unnecessary lavishness in spending. Hariri was prime minister twice, from 1992 to 1998 and then from 2000 to 2004. (...)

For three weeks Lebanon was represented by those who laid claim to Martyrs Square — not any more, writes Graham Usher in Beirut

This week "Lebanon" changed places. It was no longer assembled in Beirut’s Martyrs Square, candle lit grave-site of the assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri and host to daily protesters demanding that his killers be brought to justice and that Syria end its long, 29-year tutelage of their country. It became Beirut’s Riad Al-Sulh square, pulsating shore to a sea of people whose demands were written on two enormous Lebanese flags hoisted by cranes: "Thank you Syria," said one; "No to foreign interference," said the other. (...)

[10 - 16 March 2005 | Issue No. 733]

LONDON, Mar 10 (IPS) - The Syrian government must put an immediate end to human rights abuses against Syrian Kurds, Amnesty International said in a report published Thursday on the eve of the anniversary of the Qamishli clashes.

More than 30 Kurds were killed in clashes that spread from a football match between Kurdish and Arab teams in Qamishli in north-eastern Syria in March last year. The clashes brought into focus the plight of Kurds in Syria. (...)

Is this the MPLA?

Is this the UDA?

Is this the IRA?

I thought it was the UK

Or just another country

— The Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the UK, 1977

Sunni guerrilla attacks in Iraq remain as devastating as ever, while 40-odd days after the elections the country remains adrift, in chaos, without a government, with more than 60% of the workforce "liberated" from any hope of finding any jobs. (...)

Report from Saudi Arabia, where feisty, educated women are challenging the nation’s system of strict gender apartheid

The women of Saudi Arabia live under the most restrictive gender apartheid. Based on my observations from a recent trip there, my guess is the Saudi women will not tolerate it for much longer.

In addition to being required to wear a black robe called an abaya and a veil to cover their hair, they cannot vote; they cannot drive; they must sit in separate sections in restaurants; they may attend only gender-specific schools; they inherit half of what their male relatives do; employers, with few exceptions, permit them to work only in gender-specific occupations in all-female workplaces. (...)

Paul Rogers, in Tehran, finds the mullahs serene over Iraq, their nuclear plans, and US intentions

Iran’s leadership feels that events in Iraq and the region are going their way, finds our global security correspondent on a visit to Tehran.

A striking theme emerged from an international conference last week at the Institute for Political and International Studies in Tehran, the Iranian foreign ministry’s think-tank: confidence.

The conference was addressed by Iran’s foreign and defence ministers, and the head of the Expediency Council, Hashemi Rafsanjani. The assurance they exuded was backed up by presentations from a range of Iranian analysts, as well as many informal discussions on the conference fringes. (...)

Sadly, it has come to this. Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the online powerhouse MoveOn.org — which built most of its member base with a strong antiwar message — is not pushing for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

With a network of more than 3 million "online activists," the MoveOn leadership has decided against opposing the American occupation of Iraq. During the recent bloody months, none of MoveOn’s action alerts have addressed what Americans can do to help get the U.S. military out of that country. Likewise, the MoveOn.org website has continued to bypass the issue — even after Rep. Lynn Woolsey and two dozen cosponsors in the House of Representatives introduced a resolution in late January calling for swift removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. (...)

Not everyone is hopping on the Bush-at-war bandwagon.

On March 1, 29 of 52 Vermont towns passed a version of a resolution that asked the federal government to bring troops home from Iraq. The first-in-the-nation resolution is nonbinding, but it gives voice to one state’s antiwar sentiments. That they emanate from Vermont is not surprising given the presidential candidacy of Vermont’s former governor, Howard Dean, who now heads the Democratic National Committee. But they also reflect Vermont’s high rate of war casualties in Iraq. Those who lose the most to war seek an end to war with good reason. (...)

On a Sunday afternoon in February a young man made a plea to a room full of 400 antiwar activists who had gathered in St. Louis for three days of strategizing on how to end the war in Iraq. "I’m probably the most experienced activist in my organization and I’ve been an activist for one year," 25-year-old Michael Hoffman said, "so we need your help with logistics." In return, he promised that his group would serve as a shield. "When there are massive protests, we will be out front. We will say that you are doing everything you can to support the troops by demanding that this war is ended, and ended now, so that the troops are brought home and cared for when they return."

His speech was short, but it was one of the few that brought whoops, cheers and a standing ovation from the crowd of United for Peace and Justice delegates, a national coalition of more than 1,000 antiwar groups. As he left the dais and made his way through the crowd, he seemed surprised by the reaction he got—indeed, surprised to find himself in this role of war resister. (...)

[from the March 28, 2005 issue]

Throughout much of the Cold War, people feared above all else a global hot war, the third great one in a century of devastating world wars; and we crept up to it more than once — most desperately, there can be no doubt, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. For decades, the world was poised for that next world war; the two superpowers with their nuclear arsenals running to thousands of weapons (as they still do), a few hundred of which would have been civilization-busting, many hundreds of which might have been nuclear-winter inducing and life extinguishing; all of them cocked in their silos or loaded in the bomb-bays of Soviet or American planes, or stashed on the submarines that made up the unreachable third leg of the nuclear "tripod" and were primed for almost instantaneous action. World War III, which might have ended it all, could indeed have started, as the U.S. military feared for decades, with those Soviet tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap in Germany, and escalated from there to "theater," and finally intercontinental, ballistic missiles. It would have been a show. The last picture show, you might say. And, let’s face it, it didn’t happen. (...)

An American and a Soviet soldier meet in Berlin in 1945 and get into an argument abhout which of their countries is more democratic.

"Why," the American said, "I can stand in the middle of Times Square and shout ’President Truman is a scoundrel’ and nothing will happen to me!"

"Big deal," the Russian retorted, "I can stand in the middle of Red Square and shout ’Truman is a scoundrel’ and nothing will happen to me!" (...)

It started off as a joke and has now become vaguely serious: the idea that Bono might be named president of the World Bank. US Treasury Secretary John Snow recently described Bono as "a rock star of the development world," adding, "He’s somebody I admire."

The job will almost certainly go to a US citizen, one with even weaker credentials, like Paul Wolfowitz. But there is a reason Bono is so admired in the Administration that the White House might just choose an Irishman. As frontman of one of the world’s most enduring rock brands, Bono talks to Republicans as they like to see themselves: not as administrators of a diminishing public sphere they despise but as CEOs of a powerful private corporation called America. "Brand USA is in trouble...it’s a problem for business," Bono warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The solution is "to re-describe ourselves to a world that is unsure of our values." (...)

[from the March 28, 2005 issue]

John Bolton is known for being arrogant, humorless, self-righteous and confrontational, and he hates the United Nations. In other words, the perfect diplomat.

I must confess, I have sadly underestimated the Bush administration’s sense of humor. Appointing John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations: Boffo! What a laff riot! Hilarious comedy, a delicious romp, great setup for a sitcom.

Bolton is known for being arrogant, humorless, self-righteous and confrontational, and he hates the United Nations. In other words, the perfect diplomat. (...)

British press are having a field day at the expense of The Asian Age editor MJ Akbar. In the latest sex scandal to rock London, the dailies reported that Akbar fathered the one month old baby boy, Lorcan, second child of Kimberley Fortier Quinn, 44, publisher of The Spectator magazine. She is famously known as the ex-lover of David Blunkett, who had to resign last December as Britain’s home secretary after an inquiry into how Quinn’s Filipina nanny got a visa. (...)

March 19, 2005

Baghdad, Iraq, Mar. 10 (UPI) — You’ve heard of garage sale finds — old china bought for quarters worth hundreds of dollars or mint comic book collections thrown out in the trash to be snapped up by collectors.

Meet Essam Pasha al-Azawy. The 28-year-old Iraqi bought a Joan Miro aquatint worth more than $40,000 for $90 in a cramped art dealer’s shop near the Babal Sharji "thieves market" in central Baghdad. (...)

March 10 is the 60th anniversary of one of the great forgotten atrocities of World War 2: the fire-bombing of Tokyo which killed over 100,000 people

Saotome Katsumoto was 12 when he heard the familiar rumble of B-29 bombers.

"It was a midnight air raid, but unlike anything we had experienced before. The planes flew in very low, so low you could see the fires reflected in their undercarriages, and they dropped mostly incendiaries. The fires started everywhere and we tried to fight them, but there was a strong, northerly wind fanning the flames. All around me people were on fire, writhing in agony."

Sixty years ago today, on March 10 1945, the US abandoned the last rules of warfare against civilians when 334 B-29’s dropped close to half a million incendiary bombs on sleeping Tokyo. (...)

It would be oh so nice if so-called progressives would get out of the way of progress...in human relations. Set up a proper camp...on the other side of a new frontier.

One simply can’t have leftists writing about things like reforms for gays in the military at this point, or going on and on about this or that military-related scandal. Not denude and delude ourselves over red herrings like Equal Representation along with Military Representation on Campus. Not if we expect improvement.

We have to do away with the military. As in eliminate for all practical purposes...and take our chances with brotherhood.

No need to lecture me respecting Cynicism. It’ll do no good. (...)

Ultra-modern Tony Blair is a monarch in disguise. Dominic Hilton on a warrior leader trading on the last scraps of divine right

Tony Blair, the most self-consciously modern of political leaders, rules over a political system far less at ease with the world. Dominic Hilton examines a very British paradox.

There’s something about war that does wonders for a nation’s international profile.

The United Kingdom is presently basking in the global spotlight in a way not seen since 1945. From Wellington to Washington, Darfur to Damascus, if Prime Minister Tony Blair’s enigmatically evangelical profile isn’t beaming from your television screens, chances are you’ve spied him shuttling through your locale. (...)

[March 9, 2005]

I read Ken Livingstone’s article on these pages in which he explained his position on Israel and anti-semitism with great care, and agreed with it. I have always respected his unequivocal stance against racism and I don’t believe that he is anti-semitic. And yet I am angry. I am angry with Ken and with the British left generally. Please allow me to explain why.

I agree that my prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is a war criminal. From the intentional killing of 69 civilians in the village of Qibya in 1953, through the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, all the way to the wild bombing of Palestinian cities in the last few years, his career is steeped in vile criminality. I have dedicated my adult life to making this point, not only to my people, but also to yours, and to the rest of the world. I believe that international pressure is vital to change Israel’s policies, not only for the sake of the Palestinians, but for Israelis too. (...) [page 21 | Comment]

In the heat of the battle over the Florida vote after the 2000 US presidential election, a burly, mustachioed man burst into the room where the ballots for Miami-Dade County were being tabulated, like John Wayne barging into a saloon for a shoot-out. "I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the count," drawled John Bolton. And those ballots from Miami-Dade were not counted.

Now that same John Bolton has been named by President Bush as the US ambassador to the UN. "If I were redoing the security council today, I’d have one permanent member because that’s the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world," Bolton once said. Lately, as undersecretary of state for arms control, he has wrecked all the nonproliferation diplomacy within his reach. Over the past two decades he has been the person most dedicated to trying to discredit the UN. George Orwell’s clock of 1984 is striking 13. (...)

in Madrid

’I am your choice, your decision: yes, I am Spain." Thus the poet WH Auden, responding to the Spanish civil war in 1937. A lifetime later, Spain is the theatre of another war that affects every European, every citizen of any democracy. This is a war that won’t be won by men with guns and bombers from the air. It’s a war to avoid another war.

On one side of a broad city street, here in Madrid, you can view Picasso’s Guernica at the Queen Sofia Art Centre. Probably the single most famous artistic image of war in the modern world, this commemoration of a town bombed during the Spanish civil war shows, in giant angular segments of black, grey and white, distorted and dismembered body parts - legs, arms and, most of all, heads, with each mouth open in a howl of pain. Just a few metres away, on the other side of the street, is the Atocha railway station. Here, on the morning of March 11 last year, Guernica was repeated. In the space of a few seconds, living, breathing men and women - mothers, wives, fathers and sons - were torn into dismembered body parts by the impact of bombs planted on suburban commuter trains. We must imagine their mouths still open in a last howl of pain. (...) [page 21 | Comment]

Indonesia and Timor-Leste:

New Commission’s Defects Must be Remedied to Achieve Justice and Truth for Victims

NEW YORK, March 9, 2005-The parliaments of Indonesia and Timor-Leste must make significant amendments to the terms of the newly established Commission for Truth and Friendship (CTF) if it is to achieve justice and truth for victims, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) stated today.

The terms of reference for the CTF were agreed to today in Jakarta by the President of Indonesia and the President and Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, and referred to the countries’ parliaments for ratification. The terms preclude the Commission from recommending the prosecution of perpetrators or reparations for victims, and allow it to offer amnesties to individuals responsible for committing serious abuses. (...)

in Baghdad

American forces have agreed to hand over control of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison to the newly elected Iraqi authorities in an attempt to draw a line under one of the most shameful episodes of the Iraq war.

Iraq’s human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin, yesterday told the Guardian that the US had agreed to the pullout at the four main detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, the prison at the centre of the abuse and torture scandal.

Two other locations in the centre of Iraq and a British-run prison in the south will also be handed over to Iraqi control, although no deadline has been set, Mr Amin said. (...) [pages 1 and 2 | News]

in Jerusalem

The Israeli government is guilty of systematic fraud, "institutional lawbreaking" and the theft of private Palestinian land to covertly establish illegal Jewish outposts in the West Bank, according an official report released yesterday.

The report reveals a widespread conspiracy involving government ministries, local authorities and the military to assist Jewish settlers to build the outposts in violation of Israeli law and the government’s publicly stated policy.

Although the investigation does not name the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, about half of the 100 or so outposts in the occupied territories were built since he came to power four years ago. (...) [page 12 | International]

The family of the award winning British filmmaker James Miller, shot dead by an Israeli soldier in Gaza two years ago, is to launch a civil action for unlawful killing after learning that the soldier who opened fire will not be prosecuted.

The family said it was told by by the military authorities in Tel Aviv that the armoured personnel carrier commander who shot Mr Miller would be subject to disciplinary action only for changing his story and breaking the rules of engagement. (...)