Governance for the elite or for the people: can you tell the difference? The Governing for the People
"Behind-the-News" Letter exposes the differences and guides you to
"think outside the politically correct box" about future possibilities.
___________________ Western-Islamic Confrontation: A ScorecardNow
that a full decade of frontal military confrontation between the West
and Islam has passed with no sight of any resolution of the disagreement
or, sadly, even of much improvement in mutual understanding, a moment
of contemplation of that which we have wrought and its implications is
long overdue. Great
attention is paid by all participants in the global confrontation
between the West and Islam to the tactical details of which side may be
winning the battle of the day, but the really important question of where this confrontation is taking the world seldom gets the attention it deserves.
Now
that we are a decade into the depths of a confrontation that perhaps
was in some sense unavoidable but should never have been so mismanaged
as to descend to the level of Fallujah 2004, Somalia 2007, Lebanon
2006, or Gaza 2008-9—much less the oft-threatened nuclear attack on
Iran, we humans desperately need to take a deep breath and contemplate
our position and the direction that our behavior is propelling us in. Consider… Iraq. The current
state of affairs in Iraq does not constitute progress, even for the U.S., because the
soldiers and the violence are merely being transferred to the much more
dangerous Afghan front. Shifting the location but continuing the
violence is not progress. Afghanistan. The
American invasion of Afghanistan, often justified as a war to protect
Afghan women, is (eight years later) turning out so badly that major
Afghan women's rights leaders are saying they would rather fight alone
for justice than do so with American "help." And Afghanistan is metastasizing into Pakistan, thus sucking in both India and Iran. Pakistan. Within Pakistan, for the past month the conflict has been killing an astonishing several hundred people a week, as
combat heats up in one area as soon as it cools off in another--from
Swat to Bajaur to Malakand to Waziristan and all coming against the
ominous background of constant political violence in Karachi,
undermining any argument that progress is being made. Signs
of the improvement in local level governance that would seem the
minimal requirement for making such progress are hard to discern.Iran.
However one views the Iranian front, it is hard to see any progress.
From the perspective of the Iranian people, the behavior of the regime
this summer evokes memories of the worst oppression of the Shah and, in
the 1930s, his father. If one's goal is Iranian power projection, the
existential threat being posed by Israel should be more than enough
reason to lie awake at night. If one accepts Israeli propaganda
about a coming Iranian threat, Iran's steady growth in power gives
little reason for joy. And if one sees Israeli propaganda as a cynical
effort to distract attention from its anti-Palestinian campaign by
tricking Washington into an unnecessary war with Iran, despite the
almost certainly disastrous consequences for all, then there is
definitely no reason for joy.
The smaller fronts. The problems on “minor” (no insult to the endangered inhabitants is intended) fronts such as Somalia and Gaza
remain completely unresolved. The retreat of the U.S. proxy Ethiopian
intervention force left Somalia much worse off than before their
arrival, having spread destruction and further radicalized and
factionalized Somali politics. Israel’s attack on Gaza
in December 2008 only taught Hamas the lesson that offering to
compromise will get it nowhere. Worse, new “minor” fronts, most
obviously in Yemen and Baluchistan (which ominously involves Iran) but perhaps also Xinjiang and Uzbekistan, continue to open. Entanglement with other issues.
Moreover, the longer the confrontation with Islamic societies
continues, the greater is the risk of its entanglement with other
international political disagreements. Israeli arming of Georgia, thus encouraging their rash adventure in Ossetia and thus aggravating Russian-American relations, is one case that has already occurred. The links to Russia, however, go far beyond just Georgia, as dangerous as that pocket crisis seemed for a while. Other
links, whose significance is a dark cloud on the horizon, go through
former Soviet Central Asia, where the combination of left-over
Soviet-style dictatorships and domestic political grievances create a
combustible mixture that the Taliban can hardly be expected to overlook
forever. The confrontation with Islam also provides all manner of enticements for a Moscow that surely recalls the days when it was a major Mideast player. First, the booming narcotics trade out of Afghanistan is becoming and, more to the point, is beginning to be perceived in Moscow, as a threat to Russian national security. Second, nuclear threats against Iran make it hard for Moscow to resist selling Iran the world-class defensive missiles that Iran would so happily pay for. Third, Israel’s hard-line attitude toward Syria fairly begs for a renewed policy of Russian military support to Syria.
It might well be good for the world were Moscow to play a more
proactive Mideast role, but to the degree that Moscow’s participation
takes the form of providing military support to the side Washington
opposes, it risks complicating the situation—as in the Cold War days—by
adding a layer of big power competition to an already near
incomprehensible political morass. Progress? The
above considerations all point to the conclusion that a decade of
vicious war that has caused the death of countless tens of thousands of
innocent civilians and wrecked several societies has left the world
worse off than it was at the start. Moslems have hardly made any
progress in gaining a sympathetic ear for what they understandably
perceive as unjust treatment at the hands of Western governments. The
security of all in the Mideast, including Israelis, has declined: multinational conflicts threaten to engulf the region around Afghanistan, the region around Iran, and the region around Israel-Palestine. The U.S.
has suffered a major strategic defeat: having both lost its aura of
moral superiority and demonstrated the uselessness of all its military
superiority for actually creating secure, stable, friendly societies in
the region, the U.S. is less secure than it was on 9/11. It
thus seems time to move a bit less quickly, to insult less, to surge
less, to shoot less, to scrutinize more carefully the motives of
so-called friends, to give so-called enemies a bit more benefit of the
doubt. It seems time to think a bit more about the long-range
implications of our actions. [Full article.] [Palestine as the "epicenter."]
___________ Turkey Moves Toward Regional Leadership
In a Mideast
region being ripped apart by greed, short-sightedness, arrogance,
refusal to compromise, a growing addiction to violence, and the virtual
absence of wise leadership, Turkey appears to see itself as the leader of a new moderate regional coalition. Can Washington maintain pace?
On October 30, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held a joint press conference in Iraqi Kurdistan, saying: It is time for Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis to rebuild the Middle East. Therefore, it is time for everyone to take brave steps. This
does not automatically mean equality for Turkish Kurds, of course, and
yet, it seems an improvement over the Turkish military attacks of last
winter and suggests a real openness in Turkey to questioning sensitive political taboos. Turkey: Mideast Peacemaker? At the same time as Turkey was negotiating the shoals of its Kurdish question, Prime Minister Erdogan was in Iran criticizing nuclear powers for imposing “arrogant sanctions” against Iran. Turkey
is positioning itself to be the agent of a possible historic regional
realignment. If any genuine willingness can be found in the West to
follow through on Obama’s conciliatory message of understanding that
came in the early, optimistic months of his administration, then it
could be Erdogan who will end up earning the Nobel Peace Prize by
facilitating a Western-Islamic compromise. Although Erdogan may yet face domestic opposition to his effort to move Turkey away from its traditional foreign policy subservience to Washington, Turkey
has much to gain from flexibility. If it can succeed in moderating
Tehran’s treatment of its people and reach agreement with Iran on a
joint activist stance supporting Muslim democracy combined with
resistance to Arab dictators, resistance to al Qua’ida terrorism, and
resistance to Israeli expansion, it will transform regional affairs. Turkey and Iran
together have the power to provide real regional leadership, should
they be able to agree on the way forward, and moderate Islamic activism
is a position that currently has a very large vacancy. Erdogan spelled out part of what a Turkish-led moderate bloc would mean a few days before his late-October visit to Iran, telling al Jazeera: We are not in favor of presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iran and in our region. But it is not fair and unjust to put pressure on Iran
while someone else in the region has such weapons. The world must
assume a fair attitude. In that case a totally different environment of
confidence will emerge. The
vision of a single set of rules to govern regional nuclear rights would
fundamentally shift interstate relations, where the region is currently
dominated by Israel’s exclusive possession of nuclear weapons. Going beyond nuclear rights, Erdogan laid out a general principle that could, if accepted in Washington, go far toward resolving its conflict with Iran:
Iran has a long-standing political tradition of its own. You cannot ignore Iran and any attempt to encourage negative approaches to Iran will damage efforts to ensure peace in the region. The new warmth in Turkish-Iranian relations
signifies a shift toward acceptance of Iran as a
legitimate player combined with a hint that Iran might facilitate its
acceptance by some unspecified shifts of its own. In noting politely
that “Iran has always been a key actor in regional peace and stability because of what it has done and what it will not do,” [emphasis added] Erdogan seemed to be telling Washington to accept Iranian prominence and telling Iran
to avoid destabilizing behavior.
It is not yet clear whether either
side will be willing to accept Erdogan’s advice. After all, it was
Larijani who only two weeks ago reaffirmed Iran’s commitment to defending the rights of Muslims. Whether or not Tehran and Istanbul can come to agreement on how that should be accomplished remains to be seen. Western Calculus. But
a Turkish-sponsored Western-Islamic compromise remains far in the
future, for such a compromise would entail a highly uncharacteristic
voluntary Western pullback from its current aggressively militant
stance. The astonish shortsightedness of the West in refusing to
participate in NATO war games in NATO partner Turkey without the
presence of non-NATO Israel and the hostile reaction to the U.N. report
on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza bode ill for Erdogan’s hopes to be a
regional peacemaker.
Iranian Calculus. Erdogan’s hopes of success also hinge on his ability to persuade Iran to play ball. Domestic Iranian politics and the career plans of its politicians pose a real obstacle, but Iran can only gain by a conciliatory attitude toward Turkey. Israel’s hard-line attitude makes triangular relations a zero-sum game, affording Iran a golden opportunity to enhance its regional position at Israel’s expense by pulling Turkey away from its close ties to Israel. Turkey also represents the route for Iran to break out of the West’s economic embargo and improve ties with Europe. Not content to wait for the future Nabucco pipeline, Turkey and Iran have, according to Iran’s PressTV, signed an agreement for Turkish aid in constructing an oil refinery that directly undermines Western economic sanctions and thus offers Tehran a powerful incentive to compromise with Turkey on other issues. Beyond this, for Iran to receive sympathetic attention from NATO member Turkey puts a serious crack in the anti-Iranian Western front that Tehran would be very foolish to spurn. Washington risks being overtaken by events. Ahmadinejad
would be well advised to take advantage of his opportunity and provide a substantive package of security compromises to his Turkish mediator. Can Washington Compromise?
If Iran has good reason to play ball with Turkey,
the West also stands to gain, both by obtaining an additional source of
gas and by using Turkey to promote regional moderation. Whether or not
the West will come in sufficient time to appreciate the opportunity Turkey is offer, however, remains unclear. Will the West shoot itself in the foot to the extent of alienating Turkey in order to pander to the Israeli rightwing? Or, to put it differently, will Washington’s regional ambitions prevent it from accepting the idea of an independent and regionally powerful Iran? If Washington is indeed determined to learn from the Dec. 2008 Gaza experiment
the lesson that the right way to deal with the Muslim world is military
suppression of those who refuse to subordinate themselves to Western
preferences plus obdurate refusal to allow independent Muslim entities
to participate as equals in the global political system, then that may
indeed be the result. Before the Israeli right wing cheers too loudly, it might contemplate the implications of a Mideast in which Turkey and Iran are jointly leading an international movement in opposition to Israel and, simultaneously, managing a future Nabucco gas pipeline keeping West Europe warm. While Washington empire-builders may extrapolate from tiny Gaza
that military force can repress larger Islamic societies, it seems
clear that Erdogan has learned something very different—that the chaos
resulting from Western/Israel military suppression of Muslim desires
for independence is simply becoming too dangerous to continue
tolerating. Maybe Greater Israel advocates in Israel and the Washington elite should rethink the lessons of their Gaza Laboratory.
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___________ War, Recession, Health Care: What Can We Do?
What
can we do about the war with Islam, the recession, the health care
debacle, and other national emergencies in the U.S.? Quite a bit,
actually, but it all starts with attitude.
“Oh, dear. What can we do?” That,
in essence, is the national debate…whether the subject is the recession
that we needlessly provoked, the endless “chickens coming home to
roost” war with Islam, the national shame of our health care industry,
the steady degradation of the environment, or the wave of corruption
among the commercial-financial-government elite. The
idea of reacting to these fundamental national problems with a sigh of
“what can we do?” is of course to imply that these evils came from
“somewhere else” and are by definition something beyond our control
and, most importantly, NOT OUR FAULT! - It
is thus “not our fault” that some Muslims finally got fed up after
years of Western mistreatment and decided on a global campaign of
terrorism to send us a message. We didn’t get the message. Hence, our
old behavior continues, and we remain utterly unable to understand why
military force is not working in Afghanistan…or Gaza or Somalia or Iran.
- It
is of course also “not our fault” that the two factions of the national
party-for-the-conservation-of-elite-privilege cooperated back under
Clinton (!) to destroy the New Deal safeguards against financial
terrorism by big banks and thus paved the way for the recession. Hence,
the members of that elite in Washington rewarded the members of that
elite on Wall Street, the guys on Wall Street are happily gambling on
life insurance derivatives (the old real estate-based derivatives
having been, ah, “discredited”), and more guys on Main Street are
unemployed every month.
OK. You get the idea. So, what if we took responsibility and looked for solutions? One word on health care and another on the recession. Health Care. The problem with the health care industry in the U.S.
is that Americans, and particularly elite Americans (who profit),
accept that phrase—health care industry—as legitimate. Health care
cannot, in a decent society, be viewed as an “industry,” i.e., a
business. Businesses are supposed to make profits. And that is exactly
the purpose of the business of providing health care to Americans.
To
repeat, health care in America
is highly successful; it does exactly what it is designed to do: it
generates fat profits for the practitioners (insurance companies, drug
companies, friendly politicians who get campaign funds).
These profits
are generated by methods with which every American is very familiar: by
preventing the sick from getting insurance, by pushing the sick out of
hospitals as fast as possible, by utterly ignoring elderly patients
with cognitive problems and throwing them on the mercy of their
untrained and probably working relatives (thus wrecking family after
family).
At least the wave of unemployment in the recession will give
many more family members the time to care for these aged parents!
Fixing the health care system requires throwing away the idiotic and
immoral idea of a health care business and replacing it with the
concept of universal health care as a basic human right. The
Recession. At a certain level, the problem is too little money in the
hands of consumers because of too few jobs. We happen in the U.S.
to have a crumbling infrastructure, inhumane central cities, and
collapsing main streets in small towns. Hiring the 15 million
unemployed to rebuild the country would resolve all the above problems,
but that takes money. Where can we get it from? The answer is pretty
simple: tax the most lucrative business in the U.S.
(no, I don’t mean illegal narcotics): Wall Street gambling. Tax profits
on derivatives (my thanks to Ralph Nader for advocating this idea). The
law Congress should pass is provided below in its entirety: All
financial transactions of the general form known as “derivatives
trading” or related transactions shall be taxed at a rate at least 50%
greater than the income tax rate of the mean American worker, as
calculated annually by the Congressional Budget Office. In a very basic sense, the U.S. really is a democracy: we Americans have the system we designed. It does what we designed it to do. If
we do not want a system that rewards political corruption; creates
enemies; wrecks our environment; and generates obscene profits from the
premature sickening, aging, and death of American citizens, then we
have the option of designing a different system. Truly, we do.
We have the skills; Americans frankly are rather badly educated, but we
have the best academic establishment in the world and could choose to
educate ourselves better. We have the money: although the average
American is having an increasingly tough time, the total amount of
money in the society is enormous (needing only to be spread more
equitably and used for serious things like productivity rather than
gambling on Wall Street, conspicuous consumption, and bombing everyone
we don’t like). We have the resources. We have voted for corruption,
recession, imperial conquest, bad capitalist (for profit) rather than
good socialist (for society) health care, and dirty drinking water. We
could, if we so chose, vote for the opposite and pay for its
achievement.
___________ Ef you take a sword an' dror' it An' go stick a feller thru, Guv'ment aint to answer for it. God 'll send the bill to you. [James Russell Lowell, from All On Fire by Henry Mayer]
___________ Simple Plan for American Exit from Afghanistan - Washington announces that it will vacate any region of
Afghanistan that is either -
- peaceful and drug-free or
- guarded by
an international force, preferably from Muslim societies
- the
international force will have two duties -
- preventing the use of
force to resolve conflict
- eliminating illegal narcotics, with
emphasis on destruction of the refinement business.
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