Friday, July 28, 2006
Lebanon links roundup
Obsidian Wings has a tremendous guest post from an Armenian of Lebanese origin, with family living there right now. It paints a much more complex picture of Lebanon, of identity, and war than I think most analyses have made. He talks a great deal about the fragility of the Lebanese civil society to begin with, and the further strains that the war has made upon them. And he talks about where the money for reconstruction is probably going to come from. Essential reading.
On the topic of Lebanese identity, Josh Trevino argues that Lebanon is a fiction. However, Michael Totten draws upon his own direct experiences traveling in the region to argue that Lebanese national identity is nascent and something very real. Why does it matter? Jonathan Edelstein points out that anarchy in Lebanon - or partition, as proposed by streiff at RedState - is an outcome that bodes ill for Israel's security as well as our own interests. Do not miss the discussion on Jonathan's post, which touches upon proportionality (hardly a canard), polls, the Arab-Israel relationship, and Western values. It's by no means a monochrome discussion; keep an eye out for especially cogent arguments by Diana and Randy.
It's also important to recognize that there is a tension between our own national interest in Iraq and the official position of the Administration regarding Lebanon. Abu Aardvark has been absolutely indispensable; he points out the sheer magnitude of the faux pas that was Dr. Rice's comments about the "birth of a new Middle East". The price of such poor choice of words? The authentic voices for freedom and liberty within the middle east society - voices that speak with great courage and risk to themselves - have lost critical credibility.
And do you know the real significance of the Shebaa Farms? Bitter Lemons has the details - from a number of perspectives that will surprise you.
On the topic of Lebanese identity, Josh Trevino argues that Lebanon is a fiction. However, Michael Totten draws upon his own direct experiences traveling in the region to argue that Lebanese national identity is nascent and something very real. Why does it matter? Jonathan Edelstein points out that anarchy in Lebanon - or partition, as proposed by streiff at RedState - is an outcome that bodes ill for Israel's security as well as our own interests. Do not miss the discussion on Jonathan's post, which touches upon proportionality (hardly a canard), polls, the Arab-Israel relationship, and Western values. It's by no means a monochrome discussion; keep an eye out for especially cogent arguments by Diana and Randy.
It's also important to recognize that there is a tension between our own national interest in Iraq and the official position of the Administration regarding Lebanon. Abu Aardvark has been absolutely indispensable; he points out the sheer magnitude of the faux pas that was Dr. Rice's comments about the "birth of a new Middle East". The price of such poor choice of words? The authentic voices for freedom and liberty within the middle east society - voices that speak with great courage and risk to themselves - have lost critical credibility.
And do you know the real significance of the Shebaa Farms? Bitter Lemons has the details - from a number of perspectives that will surprise you.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
the case against partition http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/7/27/8375/62272
The idea that Lebanon is a failed state, and should be torn asunder, surfaces repeatedly. It is in one sense an excuse for the enlarged scope of the Israeli offensive against Hizbollah. But the issue does deserve discussion in the broader context of foreign policy aims aimed at furthering our own goals. To those ends, proposed partition of Lebanon (and/or Iraq) would only undermine prospects for peace.
Partition only works if the ethnic enclaves are reasonably contiguous. The ethnicities in Lebanon are not as separable as pro-partitioners imply. For it to work, partition would require resettlement - which is invariably a massive scar that never heals.
India is quoted as an example of a multi-ethnic success story. I largely agree; but if you look at indopak as a whole, we really are talking about a single canton in a very large partition - and the richest one in terms of resources (economic and human). Partition was achieved in the Subcontinent only via forced resettlement - which tore many families asunder (including my own and that of my wife). The scar from that terrible rend still drives all the conflict between India and Pakistan today - and has taken an even more dangerous turn now that both are nuclear powers.
The irony in all this talk of partition of Iraq and Lebanon is that once again, it is the great remote western powers drawing lines in the sand. What bothers me most about this casual attitude towards dictated identity is that ethnicity alone has never and never will be suffficient for a true nationalism. In fact, nationalist pride can emerge independent of ethnicity and always does so when watered by liberty. Lebanon, after long years of Syrian hegemony, was beginning to take fragile steps towards precisely that sort of genuine collective nationhood. As Michael Totten observes, there was a real potential there for a true Lebanon. And as Jonathan Edelstein observes, the idea of a genuine Lebanon is far preferable for Israeli security in the long run that a Gaza-style anarchy on its doorstep.
And - pace Josh - these arguments hold double for Iraq. The worst thing the West can do - for the cause of our own security, Israel's security, and global liberty itself - is to compound the post-colonial errors of nation-drawing with new errors of nation-sundering.
UPDATE: It should be noted that national identity often crystallizes in the face of shared existential threats. The effect of the battle of Gallipoli upon Australian national identity is one often-quoted example. Lebanese Christians are feeling their traditional sympathy for Israel evaporate, as they see their hard-won prosperity methodically destroyed:
And perusing the editorial pages of the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star, one is struck by the hope and courage of these people - Lebanese, though their religions vary:
I think that to give up on Lebanon would be as much an outrage as turning our back on Israel. These are a people who deserve better than the role of pawns. If we fail to help them come out of this with some semblance of their civilization, painstakingly reclaimed from total anarchy, then we will ultimately pay the price in perpetual conflict.
Partition only works if the ethnic enclaves are reasonably contiguous. The ethnicities in Lebanon are not as separable as pro-partitioners imply. For it to work, partition would require resettlement - which is invariably a massive scar that never heals.
India is quoted as an example of a multi-ethnic success story. I largely agree; but if you look at indopak as a whole, we really are talking about a single canton in a very large partition - and the richest one in terms of resources (economic and human). Partition was achieved in the Subcontinent only via forced resettlement - which tore many families asunder (including my own and that of my wife). The scar from that terrible rend still drives all the conflict between India and Pakistan today - and has taken an even more dangerous turn now that both are nuclear powers.
The irony in all this talk of partition of Iraq and Lebanon is that once again, it is the great remote western powers drawing lines in the sand. What bothers me most about this casual attitude towards dictated identity is that ethnicity alone has never and never will be suffficient for a true nationalism. In fact, nationalist pride can emerge independent of ethnicity and always does so when watered by liberty. Lebanon, after long years of Syrian hegemony, was beginning to take fragile steps towards precisely that sort of genuine collective nationhood. As Michael Totten observes, there was a real potential there for a true Lebanon. And as Jonathan Edelstein observes, the idea of a genuine Lebanon is far preferable for Israeli security in the long run that a Gaza-style anarchy on its doorstep.
And - pace Josh - these arguments hold double for Iraq. The worst thing the West can do - for the cause of our own security, Israel's security, and global liberty itself - is to compound the post-colonial errors of nation-drawing with new errors of nation-sundering.
UPDATE: It should be noted that national identity often crystallizes in the face of shared existential threats. The effect of the battle of Gallipoli upon Australian national identity is one often-quoted example. Lebanese Christians are feeling their traditional sympathy for Israel evaporate, as they see their hard-won prosperity methodically destroyed:
Lebanon was coming back, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists and rekindling its reputation as one of the most liberal centers in the Middle East. A series of national dialogues between Christians and Muslims sought to disarm Hezbollah. Now that progress has been set back 20 years, say some Lebanese Christians.
"The Christians right now are in a state of shock,'' said Robert Rabil, a Florida Atlantic University Middle East expert who was evacuated from Beirut last week. Many Christian leaders in Lebanon had urged Hezbollah to disarm, but few support the massive bombardment that Israel has unleashed on the country.
"They've destroyed the airport, infrastructure, highways and all kinds of places that had been rebuilt over the last few years. People plowed their life fortunes into this construction boom, and now it's all gone,'' said Rabil, a Lebanese Christian who has studied extensively in Israel. "I don't think that Christians at this point become more supportive of Hezbollah, but the country has been destroyed, and you can see some Christian leaders already are reaching out to Muslims as Lebanese first."
Throughout Christian circles in South Florida as well as major enclaves such as Detroit and Cleveland, the term "collective punishment" is being used to describe Israel's actions.
"I certainly feel sympathy for Israelis being attacked and their kidnapped soldiers, but as a father of three children I cannot justify what's happening now,'' said Fadi Hadan, a transportation engineer who grew up in the ancient town of Byblos, Lebanon, and now lives in Aventura.
And perusing the editorial pages of the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star, one is struck by the hope and courage of these people - Lebanese, though their religions vary:
Lebanon's capacity to rebuild is greater than others' to destroy
The time to prepare for Lebanon's uncertain future is now
Banks and media have key role to play in war - and its aftermath
I think that to give up on Lebanon would be as much an outrage as turning our back on Israel. These are a people who deserve better than the role of pawns. If we fail to help them come out of this with some semblance of their civilization, painstakingly reclaimed from total anarchy, then we will ultimately pay the price in perpetual conflict.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Left morality
Over at Wizbang blog there was a post about the most beautiful person on Capitol Hill. The winner was a woman of Guayanese orgin, specifically, mixed East Indian (that's what they call brown down there), African and European. The comments started out crass, no big surprise. Someone expressed the opinion that the winner was butt ugly, while others disagreed. Par for the course in "guy talk." But then this comes up, "I haven't noticed Kos postings as being racist." Now, there was a crack about affirmative action earlier, but the general tone is just one of crass sexism and objectification. Now, myself, I do objectify women quite a bit, it is a personal pleasure of mine. Though I admit that women are more than eye candy, but who can't enjoy a little sugar now and then?
The only reason I post this is that I was waiting for someone to call any criticism of the young woman's appearence racist. The problem with a segment of the modern Left is that it channels the Puritan impulses of the social conservative Right, but toward different ends. Where the Right seems "immorality" and "sexual license" and the Left seems "racism" and "sexism" under every bed. Dennis Prager's story that radio focus groups excluded blacks because it tended to distort how whites reacted is also part of the same dynamic, race distorts all normal discourse between objective citizens. It maybe that the sentiments about Michelle Persaud's appearance were racially motivated, but by applying a broad brush and being overly sensitive we separate her out and elevate her race about her individuality. Just as one can criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite (and be pro-Israel and and anti-Semite!), one can be crass and negative about non-whites without be racist.
The only reason I post this is that I was waiting for someone to call any criticism of the young woman's appearence racist. The problem with a segment of the modern Left is that it channels the Puritan impulses of the social conservative Right, but toward different ends. Where the Right seems "immorality" and "sexual license" and the Left seems "racism" and "sexism" under every bed. Dennis Prager's story that radio focus groups excluded blacks because it tended to distort how whites reacted is also part of the same dynamic, race distorts all normal discourse between objective citizens. It maybe that the sentiments about Michelle Persaud's appearance were racially motivated, but by applying a broad brush and being overly sensitive we separate her out and elevate her race about her individuality. Just as one can criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite (and be pro-Israel and and anti-Semite!), one can be crass and negative about non-whites without be racist.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
ideas trump politics http://mydd.com/story/2006/7/25/11745/9233
since people who don't casually surf the leftsphere, let alone consider themselves members, have a very skewedperspective of the Democratic partisan mind, I wanted to point out a post at activist site myDD.com that gives a little more depth into the netroot mentality.
The basic issue here is that liberal voters - and this is especially true of the netroots - are proud of their beliiefs with respect to whether government can be a force for good, whether there is such a thing as a societal commons, whether there is a moral obligation upon those in society to help provide for those who are less capable by dint of circumstance or ability.
They are proud to be Democrats and believe that what Democrats have stood for over history is something to be defended. And I agree, though I am not a Democrat myself.
That is the true reason why, to take an example, Joe Lieberman is so hated. Because like many of the politicians in the DLC, but far more egregiously so, he advances his own political career at the expense of other Democrats. He deliberately embraces and validates the common theme promoted by Republicans, that Democrats stand for nothing and have no ideas, in order to distinguish themselves and claim that they do have ideas.
In that context, I want to highlight myDD's critique of the DLC meeting at which prominent DLCers like Clinton and Evan Bayh got up on stage and talked about how they plan to win elections. The answer in a nutshell: by announcing they would "move" to the center, implying that there is nothing in the broader Democratic platform that already occupies that space.
The key comment:
The basic issue here is that liberal voters - and this is especially true of the netroots - are proud of their beliiefs with respect to whether government can be a force for good, whether there is such a thing as a societal commons, whether there is a moral obligation upon those in society to help provide for those who are less capable by dint of circumstance or ability.
They are proud to be Democrats and believe that what Democrats have stood for over history is something to be defended. And I agree, though I am not a Democrat myself.
That is the true reason why, to take an example, Joe Lieberman is so hated. Because like many of the politicians in the DLC, but far more egregiously so, he advances his own political career at the expense of other Democrats. He deliberately embraces and validates the common theme promoted by Republicans, that Democrats stand for nothing and have no ideas, in order to distinguish themselves and claim that they do have ideas.
In that context, I want to highlight myDD's critique of the DLC meeting at which prominent DLCers like Clinton and Evan Bayh got up on stage and talked about how they plan to win elections. The answer in a nutshell: by announcing they would "move" to the center, implying that there is nothing in the broader Democratic platform that already occupies that space.
The key comment:
If you tell the country that your ideas are designed to win elections, then they won't think you stand for anything except winning elections. And then, well, you probably won't win many elections, because Americans don't like politicians who only stand for winning elections. If you want to do something, then just do it. Throwing the "this will get us elected" qualifier in front of your statements just makes us all look like spineless jackasses who are trying to pull one over on the electorate. If you want to talk faith, or be a centrist, or be a hawk, or stand on principles, then just go for it. Stop wasting our time and making us all look bad by telling us you are doing it in order to win elections.
Gore and Hitler sitting in a tree http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=060722_Ne_A1_Heatw72040
Here we go again. This time, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, heaping yet more glory upon the Republican Party tradition of elevating the debate:
And of course the inevitable comparison:
In an interview, he heaped criticism on what he saw as the strategy used by those on the other side of the debate and offered a historical comparison.
"It kind of reminds . . . I could use the Third Reich, the big lie," Inhofe said.
And of course the inevitable comparison:
The Oklahoma Republican compares "An Inconvenient Truth," which he doesn't plan to see, to Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf."
Monday, July 24, 2006
filtering Cole http://americanfootprints.com/drupal/node/2657
Paleoprog over at American Footprints runs a few fact-check cycles on Juan Cole (not to be confused with John Cole). While I don't take issue with the substance, I left a comment disagreeing with his style:
While a response to Cole is a good thing - after all, continued dialouge on the topic is the best way to clear away the half-truths and misconceptions of the sort which you did a fine job in addressing herein - I don't understand why people accord to Cole's analysis the importance that they do. Cole is invaluabel for his translations and his knowledge of the Shi'a and Lebanese histories. As far as his analysis goes, as you pointed out, he's a lightweight. Ultimately I think it's harmful to paint him as a completely useless source because he does add value to the discussion, after proper filtering.
And really, calling his misstatements "lies" is just too strong. You think he is being deliberately mendacious? I think it's more a case of pulling facts out of his ass when he's too lazy to look them up.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Premises about human nature
A common refrain I hear in the blogosphere is about "mad mullahs" and the possibility that Iran might destroy Israel, or subsidize a nuclear attack via terrorist proxies on a US city. Of course, if the state of Iran does such a thing then it seals its own fate in a self-induced Götterdämmerung as it invites massive nuclear retaliation from either the US or Israel. How plausible is this scenario? In my opinion, not very, and the reason is simple: the commanding heights of government does not select for individuals with suicidal intent because those individuals are not by their nature good at manipulating politics and playing the "game." To put a not too fine point on it, political leadership tends to select for a somewhat craven sort, the Churchill's of the world stand in contrast to the run of the mill political leader, and this includes autocrats like Stalin or Hitler. The idea that Iran would engage in a nuclear attack proactively seems to defy a host of premises that I hold in regards to the nature of politics and human psychology. My premises could be incorrect of course, but the issue I tend to be having is that those who make pronouncements about the mad intent of the mullahs on the whole share these same premises about human nature from all I can tell. In their day to day lives they make situational allowances for the needs of political expedience, but in this case they do not. The key here I suspect is that individuals are making a cost vs. benefit analysis, "what if Iranian leaders really are suicidal and there is no accountability and check on any level of government on their impulses?" Note that there are intersecting conditional probabilities here, but, even given all these, some would justify invasion on the grounds of even the smallest possibility of nuclear attack. Well, all I would offer in response is this:
a) Let's not pretend that conquering a coherent nation of 70 million won't entail massive costs on "our" end (whoever "we" are).
b) Let's not pretend as if the risk that we are mitigating is a high one.
a) Let's not pretend that conquering a coherent nation of 70 million won't entail massive costs on "our" end (whoever "we" are).
b) Let's not pretend as if the risk that we are mitigating is a high one.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
The essential Djerejian http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/2006/07/post_33.html
What was needed was a more proportionate response, one that didn't jeopardize the nascent fruits of the Cedar Revolution.
It's decidedly not fair to Greg's entire 2,200+ words of analysis and quotations in that post to reproduce that single sentence alone, so go read the whole thing.
And Eric Martin is on fire today, too. "To prevent a regional conflagration, Israel should attack Syria..."
a veto for progress http://redstate.com/story/2006/7/19/12021/0417
Matoko-chan deseerves some serious props for her stem-cell related posts over the past few months - and for her, it's deeply personal. As she notes, the argument by the conservatives who are applauding the President's impending veto that the need embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) is rendered moot by adult stem cell lines (ASCR), is bogus. These are complementary technologies, not competitive ones. The administration's dishonest statements to the contrary, adult lines simply do not have the differentiation potential that embryonic lines do - a fact vouched for by 80 Nobel laureates.
Others may ask, why do we need federal funding? Why can't private funding foot the bill? Simply put, because ESCR is the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project rolled into one. ESCR isn't an overnight panacea; therefore the immense profits are a long way off, far too long a horizon to justify the expense. NASA is why we have independent spaceflight companies like Scaled Composites (SpaceShip One) and Blue Origin today; the original and ongoing government investment is what lowered the risk and created the scientific and personnel infrastructure that we will reap benefits from for the next hundred years, even as NASA itself declines. Even mighty California, a state whose GDP would rank it among the world's wealthiest nations, can't sustain via its stem-cell ballot initiative efforts the kind of investment over the next several decades that is needed for ESCR to bear fruit.
Others attempt to draw an equivalence between ESCR and organ harvesting. Slippery slope, they argue - ignoring the fact that a ban on fetal farming passed the Senate by unanimous vote, is expected to easily pass the House, and will be signed into law with no fanfare by President Bush later this week. Given that ESCR is the exact opposite of fetal farming - wherein eventually future generations grow their own replacement organs from stem cells harvested at birth - the President's veto today makes a black market in harvested organs all the more likely.
Ultimately, today's veto represents a significant repudiation of the idea that we can use technology for moral ends. Saving lives, curing disease - all using non-viable embryos that would have been discarded into the trash and never attained snowflake-baby status - all from the biological equivalent of splitting the atom. The history of American technology has shown that we as a society have used our immense knowledge and advantages for the greater good - that we as a society can be trusted with the keys to Pandora's box. However, the Administration says otherwise; the Singularity will have to wait.
UPDATE: rikurzhen at GNXP critiques Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO thusly:
Others may ask, why do we need federal funding? Why can't private funding foot the bill? Simply put, because ESCR is the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project rolled into one. ESCR isn't an overnight panacea; therefore the immense profits are a long way off, far too long a horizon to justify the expense. NASA is why we have independent spaceflight companies like Scaled Composites (SpaceShip One) and Blue Origin today; the original and ongoing government investment is what lowered the risk and created the scientific and personnel infrastructure that we will reap benefits from for the next hundred years, even as NASA itself declines. Even mighty California, a state whose GDP would rank it among the world's wealthiest nations, can't sustain via its stem-cell ballot initiative efforts the kind of investment over the next several decades that is needed for ESCR to bear fruit.
Others attempt to draw an equivalence between ESCR and organ harvesting. Slippery slope, they argue - ignoring the fact that a ban on fetal farming passed the Senate by unanimous vote, is expected to easily pass the House, and will be signed into law with no fanfare by President Bush later this week. Given that ESCR is the exact opposite of fetal farming - wherein eventually future generations grow their own replacement organs from stem cells harvested at birth - the President's veto today makes a black market in harvested organs all the more likely.
Ultimately, today's veto represents a significant repudiation of the idea that we can use technology for moral ends. Saving lives, curing disease - all using non-viable embryos that would have been discarded into the trash and never attained snowflake-baby status - all from the biological equivalent of splitting the atom. The history of American technology has shown that we as a society have used our immense knowledge and advantages for the greater good - that we as a society can be trusted with the keys to Pandora's box. However, the Administration says otherwise; the Singularity will have to wait.
UPDATE: rikurzhen at GNXP critiques Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO thusly:
Ramesh: It is certainly true that if the president's goal were to maximize embryonic stem-cell research, to the exclusion of other concerns, he would adopt a more liberal policy. The director of the National Institutes of Health has said as much, in a statement that pro-funding polemicists have treated as a devastating admission. But it is also true that no researcher has complained that the current policy is impeding him; the complaints have been more along the lines that the policy is keeping people from going into the field.
This implies a serious lack of understanding of how biomedical science is done... it's done by grad students, post docs and assistant profs (i.e. new people). Additionally, ESC research is relatively new and relatively small. Keeping it from growing means keeping it from happening.
silence? http://www.redstate.com/redhot_history/9589/#9589
From reading RedState, one might conclude that the left-sphere is somehow silent on the matter of the Israel-Lebanon conflict.
Are we at Nation-Building blog silent?
Belgravia Dispatch?
Abu Aardvark?
American Footprints?
Juan Cole?
Balloon Juice (Tim, at least)?
There were even a trio of diaries (nicely summarized by Bill White of Tacitus) at DailyKos that made it to the recommended list - one by yours truly.
I know it pains some to hear to the following, but Yglesias, Drum, and the front page of DailyKos are not the sum total of the lefty blogsphere.
The posts linked above represent a deep swath of serious analysis of the issue, and I sincerely hope that conservatives will take the time to visit them and see for themselves what liberals really are saying about the issue.
Are we at Nation-Building blog silent?
Belgravia Dispatch?
Abu Aardvark?
American Footprints?
Juan Cole?
Balloon Juice (Tim, at least)?
There were even a trio of diaries (nicely summarized by Bill White of Tacitus) at DailyKos that made it to the recommended list - one by yours truly.
I know it pains some to hear to the following, but Yglesias, Drum, and the front page of DailyKos are not the sum total of the lefty blogsphere.
The posts linked above represent a deep swath of serious analysis of the issue, and I sincerely hope that conservatives will take the time to visit them and see for themselves what liberals really are saying about the issue.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
He who knows nothing speaks
This blog's title is "Nation Building." And yet here we stand today as a nation is crumbling, Lebanon is now as it was. I am not very interested in the details of day-to-day politics, but I am not totally averse to world affairs, so I ventured into the blogosphere late in the night. I witnessed a friend of Michael Totten's being savaged because he bemoaned his situation as a refugee from the bombing! At Dean Esmay's blog I read about commenters who talk of bombing Iran back into the Stone Age. As someone who is not particularly conversant in the details of current events and the background of the dynamics I am reluctant to speak. B
ut, what I can offer is critique of both specifics and process.
First, we have to know the history here. We have to know what Lebanon is. The Christians of Lebanon are predominantly "Maronites," likely a denomination which somehow arose of an obscure Christological controversy in the 6th century. Their relations with European powers is deep and of long standing, from their role as both Byzantine proxies, and occassionally shock troops (Levantine Christians emigrated to the Byzantine Empire continuously for hundreds of years after the rise of Islam). The Sunnis and Shia emerge from the same demographic substratum, but their allegiances differed. Sunnis were for hundreds of years the established faith, as the Ottoman Sultans professed their creed. Shia were dissidents of all sorts, with a close connection with the distant Safavid state in Iran. The relationship to the Safavids, and Iranian nationhood, is crucial. I have argued before that Iran as we know it, a Shia state united by the glue of Persian culture, but not Persian ethnicity (the Safavids were Turkic, as have the ruling dynasties of Iran been over the last 500 years until the Pahlavis). When Shah Ismail, the charismatic founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, realized that he was not going to be the last imam, that a new religious order not issue from him by fiat, he decided to recruit Twelver Shia scholars from Lebanon to forcibly propogate that religion across the length of the Iranian state. So the ties between the Shia Arabs of Lebanon and Iranian state were forged 500 years ago. Iran transformed itself from a multi-ethnic multi-religious geographic expanse to a multi-ethnic mono-religious state (half of Iranians are Persian, but 9 out of 10 are Shia). Lebanon is the inverse, a mono-ethnic multi-religious nation, though some Christians dissent from the contention that they are Arabs, per se (there is little genetic difference between Muslims and non-Muslims, the vast majority of Lebanon's population is likely derived from the Aramaic speaking substrate which was extant when the Umayyads conquered the Levant from the Byzantines).
The third leg in this backdrop is Syria. The Assad family which rules Syria are Alawites, a rather shadowy crypto-religion whose exact details are unknown because of its esoteric initiate oriented basis. Nevertheless, if one thing is clear, the Alawites are not Sunnis. Their cohabitation with a sizable number of Christians in Latakia province likely resulted in accusations that they were crypto-Christians, though it seems plausible that their outward deviation from Sunni practice (they view the pillars of Islam in a symbolic light) as well as their obscurity of belief has rendered them suspect in any case. But over the past generation Syria has developed a friendly relationship with Iran, and we all know of its affinity or not for Lebanon. In 1974 Lebanese leader of the Twelver Shias, Imam Musa al-Sadr, issued a legal decision saying that the Alawites are Shia Muslims. This was significant, since this gave them an imprimatur of legitimacy vis-a-vis the Sunni majority of Syria. One could posit that the arc from Syria to Iran is now dominated by Shia domianted powers, Iran and Iraq demographically, Syria because of its ruling elite. In Lebanon the plural majority is Shia, that is, they are the largest proportion of the population.
But there are issues beyond history which need to be acknowledged. There is much talk about "mad mullahs" and their intentions. The problem with much of the discourse is that it relies solely on introspection, as if they did not have a science of cognition to weight and assess potentialities and probabilities, sifting between what people intend and what they say. A friend of mine once had a "proof" that theists did not believe in an afterlife: if you put a gun to the head of someone who avowed they believed in afterlife they would feel fear. If they believed in an afterlife they would not feel fear, ergo, the reverse inference implies they do not believe in an afterlife. This sort of naive psychology assumes that humans are both integrated and purely reflective, that is, our minds operate as a whole with perfectly necessary and contingent chains of reasoning derived from our axioms (norms), and, that this system of thought is perfectly transparent and accessible to us. The reality is very different, we are already familiar with ideas like the "subconscious," but it seems likely that the human mind operates as a coalition of subprocesses. Just like applications running in the background of your operating system, these subprocesses shape the nature of our conscious mind and bound rationality. What people say, and what they mean, and what they believe, and what they believe about what they believe, can be wholly separate issues. This is only addressing the purely cognitive first order issue of nuance and complexity, considering the difficulties of cross-cultural communication we should be very cautious about deriving models of intent from quotations that we see in the Associated Press.
Much of the political and policy discourse seems to be far too narrow in its methodology and short-sighted in its scope. If you are to speak of nation-states as individual actors, you must know the historical parameters which constrain the choices that nations make. If you are interested in the nature and character of a head of state, you must understand the basics of human cognitive psychology to parse the real from the quasi-real. A "thick" description based on a swarm of facts extracted from a narrow slice in time and specific to a small spatial expanse are the necessary preconditions, but they are not sufficient to make an informed decision, we need to bring to the fore other insights and continue to add parameters as we refine our models.
This isn't just abstract and esoteric philosophizing, lives depend on the decisions that people make based on the tools they have on hand. Sometimes only the ignorant can see the truth of the situation.
ut, what I can offer is critique of both specifics and process.
First, we have to know the history here. We have to know what Lebanon is. The Christians of Lebanon are predominantly "Maronites," likely a denomination which somehow arose of an obscure Christological controversy in the 6th century. Their relations with European powers is deep and of long standing, from their role as both Byzantine proxies, and occassionally shock troops (Levantine Christians emigrated to the Byzantine Empire continuously for hundreds of years after the rise of Islam). The Sunnis and Shia emerge from the same demographic substratum, but their allegiances differed. Sunnis were for hundreds of years the established faith, as the Ottoman Sultans professed their creed. Shia were dissidents of all sorts, with a close connection with the distant Safavid state in Iran. The relationship to the Safavids, and Iranian nationhood, is crucial. I have argued before that Iran as we know it, a Shia state united by the glue of Persian culture, but not Persian ethnicity (the Safavids were Turkic, as have the ruling dynasties of Iran been over the last 500 years until the Pahlavis). When Shah Ismail, the charismatic founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, realized that he was not going to be the last imam, that a new religious order not issue from him by fiat, he decided to recruit Twelver Shia scholars from Lebanon to forcibly propogate that religion across the length of the Iranian state. So the ties between the Shia Arabs of Lebanon and Iranian state were forged 500 years ago. Iran transformed itself from a multi-ethnic multi-religious geographic expanse to a multi-ethnic mono-religious state (half of Iranians are Persian, but 9 out of 10 are Shia). Lebanon is the inverse, a mono-ethnic multi-religious nation, though some Christians dissent from the contention that they are Arabs, per se (there is little genetic difference between Muslims and non-Muslims, the vast majority of Lebanon's population is likely derived from the Aramaic speaking substrate which was extant when the Umayyads conquered the Levant from the Byzantines).
The third leg in this backdrop is Syria. The Assad family which rules Syria are Alawites, a rather shadowy crypto-religion whose exact details are unknown because of its esoteric initiate oriented basis. Nevertheless, if one thing is clear, the Alawites are not Sunnis. Their cohabitation with a sizable number of Christians in Latakia province likely resulted in accusations that they were crypto-Christians, though it seems plausible that their outward deviation from Sunni practice (they view the pillars of Islam in a symbolic light) as well as their obscurity of belief has rendered them suspect in any case. But over the past generation Syria has developed a friendly relationship with Iran, and we all know of its affinity or not for Lebanon. In 1974 Lebanese leader of the Twelver Shias, Imam Musa al-Sadr, issued a legal decision saying that the Alawites are Shia Muslims. This was significant, since this gave them an imprimatur of legitimacy vis-a-vis the Sunni majority of Syria. One could posit that the arc from Syria to Iran is now dominated by Shia domianted powers, Iran and Iraq demographically, Syria because of its ruling elite. In Lebanon the plural majority is Shia, that is, they are the largest proportion of the population.
But there are issues beyond history which need to be acknowledged. There is much talk about "mad mullahs" and their intentions. The problem with much of the discourse is that it relies solely on introspection, as if they did not have a science of cognition to weight and assess potentialities and probabilities, sifting between what people intend and what they say. A friend of mine once had a "proof" that theists did not believe in an afterlife: if you put a gun to the head of someone who avowed they believed in afterlife they would feel fear. If they believed in an afterlife they would not feel fear, ergo, the reverse inference implies they do not believe in an afterlife. This sort of naive psychology assumes that humans are both integrated and purely reflective, that is, our minds operate as a whole with perfectly necessary and contingent chains of reasoning derived from our axioms (norms), and, that this system of thought is perfectly transparent and accessible to us. The reality is very different, we are already familiar with ideas like the "subconscious," but it seems likely that the human mind operates as a coalition of subprocesses. Just like applications running in the background of your operating system, these subprocesses shape the nature of our conscious mind and bound rationality. What people say, and what they mean, and what they believe, and what they believe about what they believe, can be wholly separate issues. This is only addressing the purely cognitive first order issue of nuance and complexity, considering the difficulties of cross-cultural communication we should be very cautious about deriving models of intent from quotations that we see in the Associated Press.
Much of the political and policy discourse seems to be far too narrow in its methodology and short-sighted in its scope. If you are to speak of nation-states as individual actors, you must know the historical parameters which constrain the choices that nations make. If you are interested in the nature and character of a head of state, you must understand the basics of human cognitive psychology to parse the real from the quasi-real. A "thick" description based on a swarm of facts extracted from a narrow slice in time and specific to a small spatial expanse are the necessary preconditions, but they are not sufficient to make an informed decision, we need to bring to the fore other insights and continue to add parameters as we refine our models.
This isn't just abstract and esoteric philosophizing, lives depend on the decisions that people make based on the tools they have on hand. Sometimes only the ignorant can see the truth of the situation.
No good unilateral options
The bottom line is this. Lebanon has only two options: wait out the continuing collective punishment being meted out by Israel, or try to wrest the southern border from Hizbollah. The former means willingly allowing the Lebanese people to be pawns of Hizbollah and Israel's deadly test of wills. The latter means risking civil war of the type that ripped Beirut asunder for long years in the 1980s - a chaos that gave birth to the very forces that plague stability today.
The bottom line is this. Israel has only two options: continue the present cycle of escalation, towards certain war with Syria, and ultimately Iran, or to stand down with a cease-fire. The former is a conflagaration that Israel cannnot win nor embark upon unless they are prepared to use their nuclear capabilities for a strike on Tehran (for they simply lack the ability to threaten Iran with conventional means). The latter means that the only route to securing their soldiers' release - soldiers who will no doubt be executed if they escalate the conflict regardless, and in pursuit of whom Israel has already sacrificed many more soldiers and Israeli civilians' lives - by agreeing to the prisoner exchange that was the ultimate motivator for the Hizbollah kidnappings.
Hizbollah faces no stark choices. They can act with impunity; it is the civilians of lebanon who pay the burden, not them. The best possible outcome would be for Israel to stand down and Lebanon to take the border. But these involve domestic risks; for Israel, a loss of political face, for Lebanon, a loss of hard-won stability. But surely a promise of support by Israel for Lebanon's stability - especially to ward off resurgent Syrian influence - could help reduce the risk of civil war? and surely determination by Lebanon to secure the border would be the political cover that PM Olmert needs?
Of course, negotiations to come to such an agreement requires diplomatic leadership by the United States. At present, that is sorely lacking.
The bottom line is this. Israel has only two options: continue the present cycle of escalation, towards certain war with Syria, and ultimately Iran, or to stand down with a cease-fire. The former is a conflagaration that Israel cannnot win nor embark upon unless they are prepared to use their nuclear capabilities for a strike on Tehran (for they simply lack the ability to threaten Iran with conventional means). The latter means that the only route to securing their soldiers' release - soldiers who will no doubt be executed if they escalate the conflict regardless, and in pursuit of whom Israel has already sacrificed many more soldiers and Israeli civilians' lives - by agreeing to the prisoner exchange that was the ultimate motivator for the Hizbollah kidnappings.
Hizbollah faces no stark choices. They can act with impunity; it is the civilians of lebanon who pay the burden, not them. The best possible outcome would be for Israel to stand down and Lebanon to take the border. But these involve domestic risks; for Israel, a loss of political face, for Lebanon, a loss of hard-won stability. But surely a promise of support by Israel for Lebanon's stability - especially to ward off resurgent Syrian influence - could help reduce the risk of civil war? and surely determination by Lebanon to secure the border would be the political cover that PM Olmert needs?
Of course, negotiations to come to such an agreement requires diplomatic leadership by the United States. At present, that is sorely lacking.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
humanitarian crisis looming in Gaza http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885973674&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
This is not good for regional stability. As usual it is the ordinary citizens of Gaza who suffer for the grand designs of those on both sides of the conflict who control their destinies:
There's a lot more in the article about efforts being made to get aid to Gaza. Still, families are only eating one meal a day, with 85% of Gazans dependent on handouts for food.
As Greg D says:
As things stand in Gaza, the only crop it yields will be more anger and hopelessness - perfect soil for the roots of rage.
Relief organizations in the Gaza Strip warned of an impending humanitarian crisis Tuesday, with basic supplies dwindling as a result of border closures and military operations.
Closed road links and damage to the infrastructure have led to major shortages of basic supplies such as food, water and medicine, United Nations and other nongovernmental organizations said.
Electrical outages have become common since the IAF bombed Gaza's main power plant on June 28. Hospitals, water utilities and sewage treatment plants are now dependent on generators, for which spare parts are not readily available. This has created a high demand for fuel, according to the UN's Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The power outages mean basic foodstuffs often can't be processed and perishables can't be refrigerated.
There's a lot more in the article about efforts being made to get aid to Gaza. Still, families are only eating one meal a day, with 85% of Gazans dependent on handouts for food.
As Greg D says:
To midwife democracy, you don't only need elections, but also sustainable civil society and governance structures, none of which are easily developed in the face of collective punishment techniques.
As things stand in Gaza, the only crop it yields will be more anger and hopelessness - perfect soil for the roots of rage.
Newt is running for President http://redstate.com/story/2006/7/10/154014/363
RedState has an excerpt of an interview with Newt Gringrich from Newsweek that is about as direct as it gets: He's running, with a Contract for America v2.0 in hand.
You've been saying you might run?
I'm actually pretty direct about it. I'm going to talk about ideas and talk about solutions. There will not be a vacuum of ambition and there won't be a vacuum of competence. But if next October it's clear that we can create a national movement that would be like the Contract, then I'd be interested in running. What really matters is to recognize the challenge of the next 20 years. I think this is the biggest challenge we've had as a country since April of 1861. I think we do not realize how hard this is going to be or how big it's going to be. And so I'm going to try to spend the entire next year and a half--from now until October of '07--laying out a strategy for winning the future and laying out a series of policies, much the way I did with the Contract. And then see what the reaction to it is. It's really going to be focused on the ideas--the notion of trying to create a grassroots movement that would radically change Washington , not just preside over it.
When you say this is the biggest challenge that we've faced since 1861, what do you mean?
The Cold War, the Second World War, the Great Depression were very hard but they were focusing. And they came in sequence. You didn't do both simultaneously. What I try to summarize is that science is going to change 4 to 7 times as much in the next 25 years as the last 25. and are going to be genuine economic competitors. Baby boomers are the longest living generation in history. The definition of American citizenship, controlling the border and the decision on immigration are enormous. And in the world at large we have four layers of challenges. We have the long war with the irreconcilable wing of Islam, of which is a piece. We have the threat of dictatorships that want to get nuclear and biological weapons, like and . We have the emergence of a verbal anti-American coalition.... You can see the pattern. And then the challenge of how in an age of real-time television and cell phones, a country like ours leads the pack in a way that is persuasive rather than coercive and that increases our acceptability rather than decreases it.
You take that list I just gave you, we've got a heckuva decade, a heckuva 15 years. I don't want to preside over the decay of the country. But I have every interest in finding out whether or not we can build a genuine movement in state legislatures, and county councils and school boards. If we don't fix a number of these things, I think we're in very big trouble.
I imagine some of your decision will be based on who else runs?
It will actually be based on who picks up the ideas. It's much more about a movement and a set of ideas. We're going to offer all these ideas, all this material to everybody. And if somebody else can put together a movement, that's fine. I also hope that we can in 2007, I would really like to see the Republican party offer to the Democratic party to hold a series of bipartisan conversations rather than the usual political bitterness and actually spend 2007 talking about what kind of country should be.
You've talked about some of the Democrats. What about Hillary Clinton? You've teamed up with her on some health issues.
She's very competent. She's very professional. She works very hard. The question is whether or not there's a ceiling. She clearly is the best-financed candidate.
You mean a gender ceiling?
No, no. A Hillary ceiling. For a lot of Americans, the prospect of Bill being in the East wing just sort of stops them. I tried to get one of the networks to do a situation comedy called East Wing with a Bill-Clinton-type First Spouse bouncing around. Her husband is probably the smartest politician in our generation, so if the two of them work at it hard enough they are very formidable. I think we can beat her in a general election. But I don't think it's easy. And I don't think you do it by being negative about her. Everybody who wants to be negative about Hillary already knows everything they need to know. What you have to do is offer a better vision of a better future that people believe is real.
So if not you on the Republican side, who else?
You have to say that McCain, Giuliani, Romney, Frist, Allen, Huckabee--at a minimum all six of them are in the race. And it is probably the most open race on the Republican side since 1940. And I think you have to say John McCain is the frontrunner and Giuliani is a close second. But it's also 2006. And nobody has a Reaganite or George H.W. Bush kind of organizational structure. So I think it's pretty wide open.
Israeli Forces Cross Border Into Lebanon http://www.timsaler.com
From Reuters,
First and foremost, it almost goes without saying that I hope this conflict ends with as little bloodshed as possible and the Israeli soldiers who have been kidnapped are found alive and rescued. Now that I've said that, I don't expect that we will see a scenario such as that one play out.
Read on for more analysis...
If I may comment for just a moment on the internal politics of the situation: Ehud Olmert does not have the kind of military background that his predecessors had. Ariel Sharon, for better or for worse, was a military giant before he entered Israeli politics. Just as Richard Nixon, a fervent anti-communist, had to be the one to go to communist China, Ariel Sharon had to be the one to take the big steps towards Israeli withdrawal from some Palestinian-dominated territory. Anybody else who attempted such a thing would have been considered weak or worse.
Olmert is in a very difficult situation. If he doesn't respond to threats and violent acts with immediate and overwhelming force, he will be perceived as weak. This is all because he doesn't have the kind of military background as previous leaders. Ariel Sharon could afford not to overreact to the situation we have today with Hizbollah and Lebanon because no one would ever seriously question whether he had lost his toughness and his resolve.
I think this insecurity--which is not irrational, by the way, but rather very well-founded--is what has led to the conflict we are witnessing right now. Don't interpret this as meaning that I am blaming Olmert for responding to provocation, because that's not what I'm saying. I am saying, however, that he needs to respond based on his own domestic political situation, and that his enemies know that. It is possible to provoke Olmert from all sides and really put him into a bind where he finds himself fighting Palestinian terrorist groups, Lebanon, and Syria all at the same time. He can't back down from any fight, and it would be foolish to think his enemies don't know that.
MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (Reuters) - Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed up to seven Israelis in violence on either side of the Lebanese border on Wednesday, further inflaming Middle East tensions.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the Hizbollah attacks as an "act of war" by Lebanon and promised a "very painful and far-reaching" response.
Two Lebanese civilians were killed and five people wounded in retaliatory Israeli air strikes after Hizbollah announced it had captured the Israelis.
Israeli ground forces crossed into Lebanon to search for the captured soldiers, Israeli Army Radio said. Hizbollah and the Lebanese authorities said there was no large-scale incursion.
Israeli troops have not struck deep into Lebanon since they withdrew from a southern border strip in 2000 after waging an 18-year war of attrition with Hizbollah's Shi'ite fighters.
First and foremost, it almost goes without saying that I hope this conflict ends with as little bloodshed as possible and the Israeli soldiers who have been kidnapped are found alive and rescued. Now that I've said that, I don't expect that we will see a scenario such as that one play out.
Read on for more analysis...
If I may comment for just a moment on the internal politics of the situation: Ehud Olmert does not have the kind of military background that his predecessors had. Ariel Sharon, for better or for worse, was a military giant before he entered Israeli politics. Just as Richard Nixon, a fervent anti-communist, had to be the one to go to communist China, Ariel Sharon had to be the one to take the big steps towards Israeli withdrawal from some Palestinian-dominated territory. Anybody else who attempted such a thing would have been considered weak or worse.
Olmert is in a very difficult situation. If he doesn't respond to threats and violent acts with immediate and overwhelming force, he will be perceived as weak. This is all because he doesn't have the kind of military background as previous leaders. Ariel Sharon could afford not to overreact to the situation we have today with Hizbollah and Lebanon because no one would ever seriously question whether he had lost his toughness and his resolve.
I think this insecurity--which is not irrational, by the way, but rather very well-founded--is what has led to the conflict we are witnessing right now. Don't interpret this as meaning that I am blaming Olmert for responding to provocation, because that's not what I'm saying. I am saying, however, that he needs to respond based on his own domestic political situation, and that his enemies know that. It is possible to provoke Olmert from all sides and really put him into a bind where he finds himself fighting Palestinian terrorist groups, Lebanon, and Syria all at the same time. He can't back down from any fight, and it would be foolish to think his enemies don't know that.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
bomb blast in Mumbai http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/15013266.htm
Several bombs struck a commuter train in a Mumbai suburb. Initial speculation is Kashmiri separatists. I am updating info sporadically at City of Brass; also check out the Mumbai Help blog.
Monday, July 10, 2006
North Korea: The Python strategy http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2261782,00.html
A PROGRAMME of covert action against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week’s missile tests by the North Korean regime.
Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a “secret war” against Pyongyang and Tehran.
more excerpts on the flip.
It has so far involved interceptions of North Korean ships at sea, US agents prowling the waterfronts in Taiwan, multinational naval and air surveillance missions out of Singapore, investigators poring over the books of dubious banks in the former Portuguese colony of Macau and a fleet of planes and ships eavesdropping on the “hermit kingdom” in the waters north of Japan.
[...]
“Diplomacy alone has not worked, military action is not on the table and so you’ll see a persistent increase in this kind of pressure,” said a senior western official.
In a telling example of the programme’s success, two Bush administration officials indicated last year that it had blocked North Korea from obtaining equipment used to make missile propellant.
The Americans also persuaded China to stop the sale of chemicals for North Korea’s nuclear weapons scientists. And a shipload of “precursor chemicals” for weapons was seized in Taiwan before it could reach a North Korean port.
According to John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations and the man who originally devised the programme, it has made a serious dent in North Korea’s revenues from ballistic missile sales.
But the success of Bolton’s brainchild, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), whose stated aim is to stop the traffic in weapons of mass destruction, might also push North Korea into extreme reactions.
[...]
In the past 10 months, since the collapse of six-nation talks in Beijing on North Korea’s nuclear weapons, the US and its allies have also tightened the screws on Kim’s clandestine fundraising, which generated some $500m a year for the regime.
Robert Joseph, the US undersecretary for arms control, has disclosed that 11 North Korean “entities” — trading companies or banks — plus six from Iran and one from Syria were singled out for action under an executive order numbered 13382 and signed by Bush.
For the first time, the US Secret Service and the FBI released details of North Korean involvement in forging $100 notes and in selling counterfeit Viagra, cigarettes and amphetamines in collaboration with Chinese gangsters.
The investigators homed in on a North Korean trading company and two banks in Macau. The firm, which had offices next to a casino and a “sauna”, was run by North Koreans with diplomatic passports, who promptly vanished.
The two banks, Seng Heng bank and Banco Delta Asia, denied any wrongdoing. But the Macau authorities stepped in after a run on Banco Delta Asia and froze some $20m in North Korean accounts.
much more - 3 pages in fact - at the full article. Well worth a read.
Wal-Mart goes to the Goracle http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/07/06/wal-mart-warms-to-gore/
No matter how you spin this story, it is bound to explode at least someone's brain.
I don't have anything particularly insightful to add other than to observe that corporations, while certainly not trustworthy to put the Good of the Commons above their bottom line (and nor should they be expected to do so! Corporations are profit-maximization entities by intentional and valid design), will respond to economic pressures by adopting policies that can be in accord with said Good. Hence, a better approach to manipulating them to do the right thing is to phrase the problem in a economic sense. The singular best example of this is getting corporations on board with the push for single-payer health care, which would level the global playing field for American corporations vis their foreign counterparts. But econo-environmentalism is also an oft-underlooked aspect of the same theory. As fuel and energy prices increase, corporations are going to find that the demand side of the equation is something they have more power over than the supply.
Not to say that supply-side considerations are insignificant - after all, cheap energy from the Columbia river is what drove Microsoft to build enormous server farms in Washinton State. But there is a limit on how much gigantic capital investment corporations can make in that regard.
Former Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore is planning to address Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executives next week at the retailer’s quarterly conference on sustainability, part of the company’s recent efforts to become an environmental leader, a Wal-Mart spokesman confirmed.
Gore will speak on global warming, the subject of his recently released documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” The conference is an outgrowth of Wal-Mart’s mission, outlined by Chief Executive Lee Scott last November, to minimize its negative impact on the environment. At the time, Wal-Mart committed to, among other things, reduce energy use in its stores, improve the fuel efficiency of its truck fleet and substantially cut down on solid waste produced by its stores.
I don't have anything particularly insightful to add other than to observe that corporations, while certainly not trustworthy to put the Good of the Commons above their bottom line (and nor should they be expected to do so! Corporations are profit-maximization entities by intentional and valid design), will respond to economic pressures by adopting policies that can be in accord with said Good. Hence, a better approach to manipulating them to do the right thing is to phrase the problem in a economic sense. The singular best example of this is getting corporations on board with the push for single-payer health care, which would level the global playing field for American corporations vis their foreign counterparts. But econo-environmentalism is also an oft-underlooked aspect of the same theory. As fuel and energy prices increase, corporations are going to find that the demand side of the equation is something they have more power over than the supply.
Not to say that supply-side considerations are insignificant - after all, cheap energy from the Columbia river is what drove Microsoft to build enormous server farms in Washinton State. But there is a limit on how much gigantic capital investment corporations can make in that regard.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Breaking: N. Korea Targeted Hawaii
From Reuters,
More information will be posted as it becomes available, but at least at this early stage it appears that the technological failure of the Taepo Dong-2 missile may have averted war. A successful attempt by North Korea to fire a missile at Hawaii, landing just short of land, would be nothing short of an act of war.
Read on...
Would we accept it if the North Koreans flew fighter jets or bombers into American airspace but did not attack a target? It is unlikely, and it should be equally unlikely that we would accept an attempt by the North Koreans to fire a missile into Hawaiian waters.
I have at no point prior to this been an explicit supporter of military retaliation against North Korea, but let it it be said: if they fire another Taepo Dong-2 missile at Alaska, Hawaii, or even the continental West Coast, I will consider it an act of war.
TOKYO (Reuters) - A North Korean missile launched on Wednesday was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday.
Experts estimated the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile to have a range of up to 6,000 km, putting Alaska within its reach. Wednesday's launch apparently failed shortly after take-off and the missile landed in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, a few hundred kilometres from the launch pad.
But data from U.S. and Japanese Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and surveillance aircraft on the missile's angle of take-off and altitude indicated that it was heading for waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported, citing multiple sources in the United States and Japan.
More information will be posted as it becomes available, but at least at this early stage it appears that the technological failure of the Taepo Dong-2 missile may have averted war. A successful attempt by North Korea to fire a missile at Hawaii, landing just short of land, would be nothing short of an act of war.
Read on...
Would we accept it if the North Koreans flew fighter jets or bombers into American airspace but did not attack a target? It is unlikely, and it should be equally unlikely that we would accept an attempt by the North Koreans to fire a missile into Hawaiian waters.
I have at no point prior to this been an explicit supporter of military retaliation against North Korea, but let it it be said: if they fire another Taepo Dong-2 missile at Alaska, Hawaii, or even the continental West Coast, I will consider it an act of war.
juche is a lie
If there is a central ideology animating the illusion of a functional society that is North Korea, it is juche (??). Loosely translated as self-reliance, juche comprises the following principles:
Any objective assessment of North Korean society will quickly conclude that on each of these principles, the actual implementation of juche in North Korea is as hollow and meaningless as the concrete shell of the Ryugyong Hotel. What better symbol of a failed regime?
What is particularly tragic however is how the facade of juche has been maintained with the willing assistance of North Korea's neighbors, and the United States. The survival strategy of the NK regime is simple: bluster for bribes.
Read on...
Even as long as four years ago, it was clear that NK would manufacture crisis after crisis, expresing great outrage and demanding concessions in the form of aid and supplies to stave off the inevitable collapse. And we have complied; without ongoing assistance from the US, China, and South Korea, the long-predicted total collapse of NK would have occurred long ago.
And if NK goes, rest assured they will take South Korea with them.
There have been only two policy alternatives thus far. The policy we have not chosen to pursue is to cut off all aid, enforce sanctions, and ride out the storm. But even if we could convince China to sign onto the total isolation plan, such a policy would essentially back the NK regime into a corner - with only one exit. The economic and socipolitical impact of chaos on the Korean peninsula - including wiping out Seoul, one of the key cities on the Pacific Rim, and the flood of hundreds of thousands of refugees from NK - would be a monumental disaster on the scale of recent tsunami, if not worse.
So that leaves us with the policy we have chosen to pursue, which is to keep the regime afloat, and the poor hostage citizens of NK one step ahead of starvation. Food is a political weapon in NK, and the regime uses it effectively to maintain its tight control. The sad truth is that this is a status quo which probably can be maintained indefinitely, as it has all these decades since the Cold War and even surviving a transition between Revered Leaders.
But is there an alternative policy? I think there might be. Hope, as Winston once wrote in his journal, lies with the proles. If the people of NK can be made to see the utter futility of the lie that is juche, then perhaps some spark can be lit in their downtrodden breasts.
We must not write off the people of North Korea. The South Koreans have not; though it costs them dearly. After all, these are their own blood. There is an increasing sentiment in the US and in S. Korea that conflagaration with NK is inevitable; that the hostage-citizens therein are nothing more than collateral damage on the offering block of global stability. But that is precisely backwards. It is the people of NK who are the solution, if they can be made to see the hope that lies within.
The grim logic of a foe with nothing to lose cuts both ways. Let the people of NK see in themselves a foe to the regime that has ground them down to dust. And then it will be the regime that faces two stark choices - concede, or die. And given that the rulers of NK love their life above all else - when it is their lives on the line, not their hostage-countrymen, they will surely yield.
- The people must have independence (Chajusong) in thought and politics, economic self-sufficiency, and self-reliance in defense.
- Policy must reflect the will and aspirations of the masses and employ them fully in revolution and construction.
- Methods of revolution and construction must be suitable to the situation of the country.
- The most important work of revolution and construction is molding people ideologically as communists and mobilizing them to constructive action.
Any objective assessment of North Korean society will quickly conclude that on each of these principles, the actual implementation of juche in North Korea is as hollow and meaningless as the concrete shell of the Ryugyong Hotel. What better symbol of a failed regime?
What is particularly tragic however is how the facade of juche has been maintained with the willing assistance of North Korea's neighbors, and the United States. The survival strategy of the NK regime is simple: bluster for bribes.
Read on...
Even as long as four years ago, it was clear that NK would manufacture crisis after crisis, expresing great outrage and demanding concessions in the form of aid and supplies to stave off the inevitable collapse. And we have complied; without ongoing assistance from the US, China, and South Korea, the long-predicted total collapse of NK would have occurred long ago.
And if NK goes, rest assured they will take South Korea with them.
There have been only two policy alternatives thus far. The policy we have not chosen to pursue is to cut off all aid, enforce sanctions, and ride out the storm. But even if we could convince China to sign onto the total isolation plan, such a policy would essentially back the NK regime into a corner - with only one exit. The economic and socipolitical impact of chaos on the Korean peninsula - including wiping out Seoul, one of the key cities on the Pacific Rim, and the flood of hundreds of thousands of refugees from NK - would be a monumental disaster on the scale of recent tsunami, if not worse.
So that leaves us with the policy we have chosen to pursue, which is to keep the regime afloat, and the poor hostage citizens of NK one step ahead of starvation. Food is a political weapon in NK, and the regime uses it effectively to maintain its tight control. The sad truth is that this is a status quo which probably can be maintained indefinitely, as it has all these decades since the Cold War and even surviving a transition between Revered Leaders.
But is there an alternative policy? I think there might be. Hope, as Winston once wrote in his journal, lies with the proles. If the people of NK can be made to see the utter futility of the lie that is juche, then perhaps some spark can be lit in their downtrodden breasts.
We must not write off the people of North Korea. The South Koreans have not; though it costs them dearly. After all, these are their own blood. There is an increasing sentiment in the US and in S. Korea that conflagaration with NK is inevitable; that the hostage-citizens therein are nothing more than collateral damage on the offering block of global stability. But that is precisely backwards. It is the people of NK who are the solution, if they can be made to see the hope that lies within.
The grim logic of a foe with nothing to lose cuts both ways. Let the people of NK see in themselves a foe to the regime that has ground them down to dust. And then it will be the regime that faces two stark choices - concede, or die. And given that the rulers of NK love their life above all else - when it is their lives on the line, not their hostage-countrymen, they will surely yield.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Biden: N. Korea A Paper Tiger
From Reuters,
Before I get too far into the actual North Korea business, it's worth pointing out that Reuters is being very generous by saying that Biden is a "potential" candidate for President in 2008. Joe Biden is a candidate for President in 2008.
Okay, so on to the North Korea issue. I disagree with Biden's statement that the North Koreans are incapable of doing any short-term damage to the U.S. and more specifically Japan. Logistically speaking, Japan is a rather small country and isn't altogether easy to hit using ballistic missiles. The North Koreans test-fired a number of SCUD missiles among the seven total that were fired over the past 24-36 hours or so, and SCUDs are notorious for being quite difficult to aim and successfully target.
Read on...
The North Koreans also have, however, the Rodong-1 missile and the Taepo Dong-1 missile, both of which have been successfully test fired as opposed to the long-range Taepo Dong-2 that failed around 42 seconds into flight. My understanding is that both the Rodong-1 and the Taepo Dong-1 can reach Japan, though I may be mistaken. If I am correct, however, I think it is safe to say that North Korea can do short-term harm to Japan if only by firing a few missiles into the country and terrorizing the population.
The purpose of this exercise, the test-firing of missiles by North Korea, is not just to demonstrate their increasing mastery of ballistic missile technology but rather to serve as a warning to other countries in the region and around the world. I have discussed previously at No End But Victory a Nixonian principle of foreign affairs (though certainly it has its roots much farther back in human history than that) by which a leader should make himself appear at least somewhat irrational, somewhat prone to rash decisions that could lead to war. I believed then, and I still believe now, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran is doing his best to build up that same sort of mystique, if that is the right word for it, around him. I believe North Korea's Kim Jong-Il is doing virtually the same thing.
He wants to appear mentally ready to pre-emptively attack either South Korea, Japan, or now (if the Taepo Dong-2 had been successful) the United States. Collective wisdom seems to say that Kim is clinically insane, something that many in the United States have said about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and ironically many people elsewhere in the world--particularly in Europe--also believe this about our president, George W. Bush. So the mental ability is there for Kim. His neighbors and indeed every major power in the world have very little reason to doubt that he is mentally prepared to launch an attack on a neighboring country.
The missile tests are intended to prove that the North Koreans are technologically ready to make that move. With the failure of the Taepo Dong-2, their attempts fell short of their intended goal, but successfully test-firing six other missiles in the same 24- to 36-hour time frame is a very, very thinly veiled threat. North Korea isn't a child seeking attention; North Korea is a country seeking to frighten its neighbors into providing favorable terms that will deter aggression against North Korea itself and perhaps provide domestic advantages as well.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea's test-firing of missiles was an act of a "paper tiger" that has miscalculated the world's response and may result in sanctions, the senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Wednesday.
Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware said he was more concerned about Pyongyang's taking conventional provocative acts that could escalate tensions in north Asia, than about it's ability to hit U.S. territory with a missile.
Asked on CBS' "The Early Show" whether Washington should have destroyed the missiles before launch, Biden said, "I would rather have seen it do exactly what it did, demonstrate to the whole world that it is in fact a paper tiger.
"It does not have the capacity to do any short-term damage to the United States of America or Japan," said Biden, a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2008.
Before I get too far into the actual North Korea business, it's worth pointing out that Reuters is being very generous by saying that Biden is a "potential" candidate for President in 2008. Joe Biden is a candidate for President in 2008.
Okay, so on to the North Korea issue. I disagree with Biden's statement that the North Koreans are incapable of doing any short-term damage to the U.S. and more specifically Japan. Logistically speaking, Japan is a rather small country and isn't altogether easy to hit using ballistic missiles. The North Koreans test-fired a number of SCUD missiles among the seven total that were fired over the past 24-36 hours or so, and SCUDs are notorious for being quite difficult to aim and successfully target.
Read on...
The North Koreans also have, however, the Rodong-1 missile and the Taepo Dong-1 missile, both of which have been successfully test fired as opposed to the long-range Taepo Dong-2 that failed around 42 seconds into flight. My understanding is that both the Rodong-1 and the Taepo Dong-1 can reach Japan, though I may be mistaken. If I am correct, however, I think it is safe to say that North Korea can do short-term harm to Japan if only by firing a few missiles into the country and terrorizing the population.
The purpose of this exercise, the test-firing of missiles by North Korea, is not just to demonstrate their increasing mastery of ballistic missile technology but rather to serve as a warning to other countries in the region and around the world. I have discussed previously at No End But Victory a Nixonian principle of foreign affairs (though certainly it has its roots much farther back in human history than that) by which a leader should make himself appear at least somewhat irrational, somewhat prone to rash decisions that could lead to war. I believed then, and I still believe now, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran is doing his best to build up that same sort of mystique, if that is the right word for it, around him. I believe North Korea's Kim Jong-Il is doing virtually the same thing.
He wants to appear mentally ready to pre-emptively attack either South Korea, Japan, or now (if the Taepo Dong-2 had been successful) the United States. Collective wisdom seems to say that Kim is clinically insane, something that many in the United States have said about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and ironically many people elsewhere in the world--particularly in Europe--also believe this about our president, George W. Bush. So the mental ability is there for Kim. His neighbors and indeed every major power in the world have very little reason to doubt that he is mentally prepared to launch an attack on a neighboring country.
The missile tests are intended to prove that the North Koreans are technologically ready to make that move. With the failure of the Taepo Dong-2, their attempts fell short of their intended goal, but successfully test-firing six other missiles in the same 24- to 36-hour time frame is a very, very thinly veiled threat. North Korea isn't a child seeking attention; North Korea is a country seeking to frighten its neighbors into providing favorable terms that will deter aggression against North Korea itself and perhaps provide domestic advantages as well.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
230 Years
Today is the 230th anniversary of our American independence from the shackles of British colonialism. Our history has been carefully documented, not just so that we may take pride in all that we have accomplished in our relative youth but also so that we, and others, may learn from the mistakes we have made.
I wish to look back twenty years ago, on a day when I myself turned a mere eight months old, when this country faced a similar domestic crisis as to the one we face now. In 1986 Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. This legislation would provide amnesty to those who entered the United States illegally. Over the course of the next few years, 2.7 million illegals acquired green cards for permanent residence in the United States. Ten years after the 1986 amnesty, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reported that the number of illegals in the United States was roughly the same as it had been in 1986. All the illegals who received amnesty had been replaced by new "immigrants."
Read on...
On July 4, 1986, the editorial board of the Washington Post accosted much of America for its "hypocrisy" in expressing concern over the massive influx of illegals, primarily from Mexico. Then, as now, the Post and those like it did not distinguish between the men and women who got on boats and came to the United States with a few dollars in hand to start a new life. In other words, they could not distinguish between legal immigration and illegally entering the United States. Here is the full text of the Post editorial, entitled "The New Americans":
Congress passed the "sensible bill" that the Post called for. The result has been such that today, twenty years later, it is estimated that there are between 12 million and 23 million illegals currently living in the United States. With twenty years to look back and all the advantages of hindsight we can say with certainty that the amnesty of 1986 was a mistake.
And yet today there are those who wish to repeat that mistake. They ignore even our recent history. They ignore the serious negative effects of the 1986 amnesty. But they also ignore much of our rich heritage and our greatest leaders who lectured one hundred years ago about the dangers we currently face today. Theodore Roosevelt said ninety-nine years ago:
Today, on the 230th anniversary of our independence from England, we stand ready to make a decision that will either reaffirm our independence as a nation and a country or will reduce us to a mere economic entity. President Ronald Reagan was correct when he said that a nation that cannot control its borders ceases to be a nation at all.
The contributions of legal immigrants have strengthened our country in indescribable ways, but we must continue to make clear the distinction between an America ready and willing to absorb new immigrants from any country in the world and that which former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo described as a "Mexican nation [that] extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders." The former is the very essence of our existence. The latter is nothing short of the destruction of everything the United States of America was intended to be.
So today, as we celebrate this most American of holidays, let us take pride in our history as a nation of immigrants. But let us also take pride in our history as a nation of laws. We stand today a strong nation, stronger than those who signed their names to that Declaration 230 years ago could have ever dreamed we would be.
If we wish to remain a strong nation well into the future, then we must stay true to our heritage and stand with open arms to any and all who come from around the world and wish to share in the American dream. But we cannot sacrifice the laws of our country out of compassion for those who will trek across the dangerous desert to enter this country illegally. If we do, we will compromise the integrity of this unique American structure. Then, and only then, will the last, best hope for mankind cease to be.
I wish to look back twenty years ago, on a day when I myself turned a mere eight months old, when this country faced a similar domestic crisis as to the one we face now. In 1986 Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. This legislation would provide amnesty to those who entered the United States illegally. Over the course of the next few years, 2.7 million illegals acquired green cards for permanent residence in the United States. Ten years after the 1986 amnesty, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reported that the number of illegals in the United States was roughly the same as it had been in 1986. All the illegals who received amnesty had been replaced by new "immigrants."
Read on...
On July 4, 1986, the editorial board of the Washington Post accosted much of America for its "hypocrisy" in expressing concern over the massive influx of illegals, primarily from Mexico. Then, as now, the Post and those like it did not distinguish between the men and women who got on boats and came to the United States with a few dollars in hand to start a new life. In other words, they could not distinguish between legal immigration and illegally entering the United States. Here is the full text of the Post editorial, entitled "The New Americans":
THE COUNTRY celebrates its heritage today as a nation of immigrants. There is a sturdy pride in the achievements of those who crossed oceans and overcame barriers to reach America. This self-congratulation is deserved, for in fact no nation has been as welcoming as this one. Last year more than half a million new legal immigrants entered the United States, and in the past decade millions of refugees have been accepted and have been helped to start anew. Most individual Americans take pride, too, in the accomplishments of their own ancestors, almost all of whom came from poverty and persecution and built new lives.
But immigration did not end in 1910, or 1945, or even 1981. It continues, it changes, and it remains controversial. In the enthusiasm of this weekend it is necessary to remember that Americans have always greeted immigrants with mixed emotions. Each wave of newcomers has had doubts about the next. It is not surprising that, according to a recent New York Times poll, more people believe that immigrants cause problems for American society than believe they make contributions to it. Just as those from western Europe had doubts about later arrivals from southern and eastern Europe, so today there is some hesitation about new immigrants from Asia and Latin America.
Can this country continue to take more immigrants? Of course, and the new arrivals will continue to achieve, even to excel as did the newcomers of 80 years ago. It takes more than a little touch of hypocrisy for an American to celebrate the arrival of his own ancestors on the Fourth of July while deploring the current influx. Everyone is entitled to get misty-eyed this weekend thinking of what that first sight of the Statue of Liberty may have meant to his own forebears. But the day is given special meaning by offering respect to those who come today from refugee camps in East Asia, the turmoil of Central America and elsewhere. It is important, too, to forge a new resolve to cut through the continuing squabbles over immigration reform. Congress, upon its return, should pass a sensible bill.
Congress passed the "sensible bill" that the Post called for. The result has been such that today, twenty years later, it is estimated that there are between 12 million and 23 million illegals currently living in the United States. With twenty years to look back and all the advantages of hindsight we can say with certainty that the amnesty of 1986 was a mistake.
And yet today there are those who wish to repeat that mistake. They ignore even our recent history. They ignore the serious negative effects of the 1986 amnesty. But they also ignore much of our rich heritage and our greatest leaders who lectured one hundred years ago about the dangers we currently face today. Theodore Roosevelt said ninety-nine years ago:
In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
Today, on the 230th anniversary of our independence from England, we stand ready to make a decision that will either reaffirm our independence as a nation and a country or will reduce us to a mere economic entity. President Ronald Reagan was correct when he said that a nation that cannot control its borders ceases to be a nation at all.
The contributions of legal immigrants have strengthened our country in indescribable ways, but we must continue to make clear the distinction between an America ready and willing to absorb new immigrants from any country in the world and that which former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo described as a "Mexican nation [that] extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders." The former is the very essence of our existence. The latter is nothing short of the destruction of everything the United States of America was intended to be.
So today, as we celebrate this most American of holidays, let us take pride in our history as a nation of immigrants. But let us also take pride in our history as a nation of laws. We stand today a strong nation, stronger than those who signed their names to that Declaration 230 years ago could have ever dreamed we would be.
If we wish to remain a strong nation well into the future, then we must stay true to our heritage and stand with open arms to any and all who come from around the world and wish to share in the American dream. But we cannot sacrifice the laws of our country out of compassion for those who will trek across the dangerous desert to enter this country illegally. If we do, we will compromise the integrity of this unique American structure. Then, and only then, will the last, best hope for mankind cease to be.
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About Nation-Building
Nation-Building was founded by Aziz Poonawalla in August 2002 under the name Dean Nation. Dean Nation was the very first weblog devoted to a presidential candidate, Howard Dean, and became the vanguard of the Dean netroot phenomenon, raising over $40,000 for the Dean campaign, pioneering the use of Meetup, and enjoying the attention of the campaign itself, with Joe Trippi a regular reader (and sometime commentor). Howard Dean himself even left a comment once. Dean Nation was a group weblog effort and counts among its alumni many of the progressive blogsphere's leading talent including Jerome Armstrong, Matthew Yglesias, and Ezra Klein. After the election in 2004, the blog refocused onto the theme of "purple politics", formally changing its name to Nation-Building in June 2006. The primary focus of the blog is on articulating purple-state policy at home and pragmatic liberal interventionism abroad.
