Monday, December 31, 2012
Niccolo Machiavelli
” Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.”
Shimon Peres raises prospect of Hamas peace talks
Shimon Peres, Israel's veteran president, has raised the possibility of holding peace talks with Hamas, in remarks that risk a right-wing backlash. DAILY TELEGRAPH
Bahman Bakhtiari
Bahman Bakhtiari
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Juan Cole-Informed Comment: Top 10 Ways the Middle East Changed, 2012
INFORMED COMMENT December 29, 201
1. The end of any potential ‘two state solution’ to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s far right wing Likud government, headed
by Binyamin Netanyahu, built or committed to build thousands of new family
domiciles for Israeli squatters in Palestinian territory. In the absence of a
Palestinian state, Palestinians are doomed to statelessness and a lack of basic
human rights, living under Israeli military occupation. The only other
possibility, given that they live on territory unilaterally annexed by Israel,
is for them ultimately to gain Israeli citizenship. In the meantime, Israel’s
treatment of the occupied Palestinians looks even worse than Apartheid or
racial segregation and systematic discrimination in South Africa before 1990.
Israeli Apartheid is likely to result in the country being sanctioned and
boycotted by the international community. Meanwhile, With Israeli parliamentary
elections looming early in 2013, Prime Minister Netanyahu launched a brief Gaza
war in November, so as to burnish his credentials as a hawk and gain
popularity. He found, however, that he was boxed in by the Obama administration
and the new Muslim Brotherhood president, Muhammad Morsi, in Egypt. Netanyahu,
much weakened in the Middle East, had to stand down from Gaza with few tangible
achievements. Does this failure signal a weakening of Israel diplomatically in
the wake of the Arab upheavals of the past two years?
2. Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh was finally forced
from office. His vice president, Abed Rabbo
Mansour Hadi, was elected president in a nationwide referendum held
last February, with 80% turnout. Yemen then faced a number of crises, including
resurgent religious fundamentalism, southern separatism, American drone
strikes, and a worrying water shortage.
3. Egypt moved decisively from military to civilian rule.
For the first time in its history, Egypt elected its president, Muhammad Morsi
of the Muslim Brotherhood.(There had been indirectly elected prime ministers in
the Liberal Age, 1922-1952). Since the young officers coup of July, 1952,
Egypt’s president had come from the upper ranks of the officer corps. As 2012
opened, the 23-member Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) was the de
facto executive of the country, which had appointed the prime minister and
approved his cabinet. In June 2012, the supreme administrative court dissolved
the parliament that had been elected late in 2011, and SCAF promptly declared
itself the interim national legislature, attempting to limit the powers of the
incoming elected president, Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi
gradually made senior officers retire and got an agreement from the junior
generals that he promoted that they would return to the barracks. On August 15,
Morsi abrogated the SCAF decree on the legislature. By the crisis of the
referendum on the constitution from November 22 until December 22, the military
had been effectively sidelined or turned into an instrument of the Muslim
Brotherhood president. Egypt has many problems, including the question of
whether the Muslim Brotherhood really respects individual human rights. But it
is indisputable that the country’s basis for legitimate government has become
free and fair parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, Egypt moved decisively toward
Muslim fundamentalist governance, with the passing in December of a new
constitution, crafted in large part by supporters of political Islam.
4. The ruling Baath regime in Syria, over the course of
2012, lost more and more territory to the revolutionaries. They lost control of
the border crossings to Iraq and Turkey. They lost much of Aleppo, the
country’s second city. Then in November and December, the revolutionaries began
taking military bases in the north and looting them for medium weaponry. The
regime still controls substantial territory, and some smaller cities, such as
Homs. But its losses in 2012 have been highly significant, raising the question
of how much longer the regime can survive. In the meantime, Syria refugees in
Turkey, Syria and Lebanon mushroomed in number and they faced severe
difficulties in their often unsanitary and inadequate tent cities. In Syria, as
in Bahrain and Yemen, sectarian considerations began to enter into the
movements against authoritarian governance. The Alawi Shiite minority dominates
the Baath Party in Syria, and Sunni fundamentalists have targeted that group
(and vice versa). The government is supported by Shiite Iran, the rebels by
Wahhabi Qatar and Saudi Arabia. If the Damascus government falls, Iran will be
weakened, as will its ally, Hizbullah of Lebanon.
5. Libya held a series of municipal elections in spring of
2012, then in July held successful parliamentary elections. After the first
prime minister to come from the parliament proved unable to please the elected
delegates in parliament, they removed him and put in a second prime minister.
Despite the series of violent incidents in Benghazi, the second-largest city,
Libya’s transition from the quirky dictatorship of Muammar Qaddafi to elective
government has been anything but smooth, but such a transition is certainly
taking place. Political Islam fared poorly in Libyan elections, where
nationalists took center stage for the most part, since people are suspicious
of ideologies after four decades of Qaddafi.
6. Angry members of a small fundamentalist terrorism group
attacked the US ad hoc consulate on September 11, killing the ambassador,
Christ Stevens, and 3 other Americans. In late December fighting broke out
between the state and fundamentalists in Benghazi, leaving several policemen
dead and many hard line demonstrators or attackers jailed.
7. In revolutionary Tunisia, 2012 saw a political struggle
between the small but violent minority of Salafis or hard line fundamentalists,
and, well, everybody else. Salafi attacks on unveiled women provoked a huge
anti-Salafi rally in the capital, Tunis. In summer, some Salafis attacked an
art exhibit in tony LaMarsa. In September, Salafis of a
more al-Qaeda mindset set fire to the parking lot of the
American embassy and looted some of its offices. The leader of the movement for
political Islam in Tunisia, the al-Nahda Party’s Rashid Ghanoushi, was caught
on tape warning the Salafis that if they continued to be so provocative, they
risked instigating a civil war like that in Algeria (where some 150,000
Algerians died in a struggle between secularists and Muslim fundamentalists in
1991-2002).
8. The US Congress’s National Defense Authorization Act
contained an anti-Iran provision that went into effect July 1. It requires the
US government to strong-arm the countries still purchasing Iranian oil to stop
buying it. The boycott cut Iran’s oil sales in half in 2012 (though 2011 was a
particularly lucrative year for the regime). At the same time, Saudi Arabia
flooded the market by pumping extra petroleum, keeping the prices from rising
astronomically. This economic blockade of Iran’s petroleum is unlikely to
change the regime or its behavior, but it will likely kill the Iranian reform
movement. And it could be a path for rising tensions and war between Iran and
the United States.
9. The beginning of the end of the Afghanistan War,
America’s longest: The Obama administration withdrew the 30,000 extra troops
from Afghanistan it had sent in as part of the troop escalation or “surge.”
That counter-insurgency strategy appears largely to have failed, and its
author, Gen. David Petraeus, fell victim to a Washington scandal. The remaining
some 66,000 US troops will be withdrawn over the next two years.
10. Bahrain’s government continued to face demonstrations
and political unrest as the majority Shiite community campaigns for a more
equitable constitution. The US was forced to reduce the number of navy and
other military personnel stationed in Manama. The hard line Sunni monarchy
accuses its Arab Shiites of being cat’s paws of Iran, but this is a red
herring. The regime has resorted to the most despicable arbitrary arrests,
absurd charges, punishments for thought crimes, and torture. The US has not
done enough to condemn this situation or dissociate itself from the monarchy.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Scans of Mummy Show Pharaoh’s Slit Throat
" The pharaoh Ramses III, who ruled Egypt in the 12th century B.C., had a scheming wife who was intent on murdering him to bring their son to the throne. The plot is documented in an ancient papyrus, but the exact circumstances of Ramses’ death have been unclear.
Now, researchers have used CT scans of the pharaoh’s mummy to reveal that his throat was slit." See Full Article THE NEW YORK TIMES
Even in a power base of Egypt's Islamists, rumblings of discontent are heard
The Associated Press
December 25, 2012
When election-time rolls around, this impoverished province of farmlands south of Cairo has proven one of the most die-hard bastions of support for Islamists in Egypt, producing lopsided victories for the Muslim Brotherhood and its ultraconservative allies.
Last weekend's referendum that approved Egypt's Islamist-backed constitution was no exception. According to final results released Tuesday, nearly 90 percent of voters in Fayoum backed the charter, the second highest margin among the country's 27 provinces, mirroring the levels Islamists received here in other votes since the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago.
But even here, dissident voices creep in. Poverty-stricken farmers, disgruntled youth and even some of the most conservative Islamists show frustration with the Brotherhood less than six months since Islamist President Mohammed Morsi came to power.
The opposition is hoping to build on such discontent as it aims for a stronger showing in upcoming parliamentary elections.
The Brotherhood "burned their bridges quickly," said Ramadan Khairallah, a teacher in the village of Mandara who voted for Morsi in the summer but voted "no" in the referendum.
He said the Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails and which is his core political backer, used to distribute cooking gas among Fayoum residents, but that isn't enough anymore to ensure people's support. Among some resentment has grown over what they see as the Brotherhood's bullying way in power or the lack of change since Morsi was inaugurated in June as Egypt's first freely elected president.
"They want to monopolize power and take everything for themselves. But people don't accept them like before," he said.
The referendum results show the strength of the Brotherhood and other Islamists — and their limits. The constitution passed by some 64 percent nationwide. But turnout was a meager 33 percent. Islamists were unable to expand their base, rallying fewer voters than in last summer's presidential vote. In Fayoum, a province with 1.6 million voters, around 485,000 people voted "yes" on the constitution, down from the 590,000 who voted for Morsi.
If Islamists could only bring out their base, the opposition proved even less able to rouse the discontented — or those confused or apathetic about the charter — to a "no" vote, showing how far it has to go to connect with the public ahead of parliament elections expected within several months. Since Mubarak's ouster, liberal and secular politicians have made little headway in building grassroots support or organizations anywhere close to the Brotherhood's election machine.
In the Fayoum village of Senarow, farmer Mohsen Moufreh echoed often-heard reasons why so many back the Brotherhood.
"I trust them," he said on voting day. "They are good people, they believe in God's justice ... Their charity distributes meat during holidays and if my kid gets sick, they are the ones who help."
The 42-year-old, who has five children and makes the equivalent of about $4 a day, said he didn't read the constitution but voted for it because he trusts the Brotherhood when they say it is the way to stability and a better life.
Fayoum, a fertile oasis just off the Nile River, was once a breeding ground for radical Islamic jihadists who battled Mubarak's rule during 1990s. Since then it has been an active center for the Brotherhood, the ultraconservative Salafis and for former militants who foreswore violence and created political parties after Mubarak's fall. It has also one of Egypt's poorest provinces. People have been falling into poverty here faster than almost anywhere in the country, with the percentage of people earning less than $1 a day rising to 41 percent from 29 percent in 2009, according to government statistics released last month.
During voting Saturday, the Islamists' organizing was on display.
Cars with loudspeakers toured villages, calling on people to vote "yes." Banners with pictures of Egypt's most influential ultraconservative clerics proclaimed, "They say yes to the constitution" and "Islam is the solution." Women cloaked in black with veils that left only their eyes showing were brought in groups from their homes in pick-up trucks to polling stations. There, teams of men with the beards of conservative Muslims passed out cards with blue circles, to ensure illiterate voters knew which circle to check on the ballot — blue for "yes," brown for "no."
Still, voices of discontent were heard. Some are bitter over an enduring economic crisis that hits farmers hard. Others became more critical watching the debates in Cairo that came to their villages though the numerous liberal-minded TV talk shows. Some religious conservatives said they have grown to see the Brotherhood as acting more out of hunger for power than "for the sake of God."
The tempers were high, with Brotherhood members angrily accusing opponents of being "feloul" — remnants of Mubarak's regime — or of having their minds poisoned by liberal media.
Outside a polling station in the village of Sheikh Fadl, one resident complained about Islamists to an Associated Press journalist.
"Look no one in this village read the constitution ... I can read and write, but I don't understand the constitution and I couldn't decide whether to say or no," Said Abdel-Moneim, a driver, said.
"But here the Brotherhood knocks doors and brings people out," he said, "and if someone says no, he gets beaten up."
A Brotherhood member who overheard him protested — and the two quickly fell into a fistfight, kicking each other and throwing punches.
An old man in white robe and scarf around his head yelled, "All this is the account of the people the simple people. The farmer is ignored."
"The prices are high for fertilizers. The (land) costs tripled and revenues dropped," he shouted, saying he was furious at the Brotherhood — but also adding a criticism of the opposition. "The educated and the elite are doing nothing but protests ... people here are tired and sick."
Islam Abdullah, a young voter, complained people follow whatever choice well-known clerics bless.
"People here believe the religious scholars. Most of the people didn't know what to say until Mohammed Hassan came out and said yes. It was over," he said, referring to a prominent Salafi cleric.
He was interrupted by a passing Brotherhood member. "This is not true. Don't talk about things you don't know," he yelled — and another fistfight broke out.
"Everyone who said no is a feloul," said another Brotherhood member near the polls, Sayed Zedan.
In nearby Mandara, a man with the long beard of an ultraconservative complained about the Brotherhood as he watched voters arriving in minibuses.
"We have tried the Muslim Brotherhood in every possible way and they never lived up to their promise," said Mohammed Ali, a history teacher who belongs to the political party of the Gamaa Islamiya, once a violent extremist group.
"They know how to strike the right tone. They tell people that Christians don't want the constitution because they are against Shariah and that Muslims must defend it," he said. "People tend to believe those in power."
Monday, December 24, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Speak Farsi? Netanyahu's got a job for you
An adviser to Israel's premier tweets about a new job on the market - a Farsi-speaking spokesperson - but his new recruit probably won't be in the job long before he is forced to explain to the Iranians why Israel declared war. HAARETZ
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Feeling the Pain in Tehran
As sanctions bite, some of Iran's leaders are signaling a willingness to come back to the negotiating table.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
How Much Did Sheldon Adelson Really Spend on Campaign 2012?
by Theodoric Meyer
ProPublica,
ProPublica,
Dec. 20, 2012
Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate and emblem of the Citizens United-era of campaign finance, spent gobs of money on the 2012 elections — more money than anyone else in American history.
Exactly how much, you ask?
We dug through Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service records and found that Adelson and his wife, Miriam, spent at least $101 million this election cycle. The money went to at least 30 different candidates and groups, with contributions ranging from $2,000 for a Florida congressional candidate to $30 million for Restore Our Future, the super PAC that supported Mitt Romney.
Adelson also gave $25 million to Winning Our Future, a super PAC backing Newt Gingrich; $23 million to American Crossroads, a conservative super PAC; and $5 million each to theCongressional Leadership Fund and the YG Action Fund, both of which supported Republican candidates for Congress.
One of the more puzzling contributions was a $1 million check Adelson wrote in October. The money went to Hardworking Americans, a super PAC that attacked Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who had a big lead in the polls and was re-elected three weeks later by a 21-point margin.
A spokesman for Adelson's company, Las Vegas Sands, did not respond to a request for comment.
The $101 million figure matches up with the $100 million that Adelson, who is worth a reported $21 billion, had vowed to spendto defeat President Obama. But it doesn't include the checks he wrote to "dark-money" groups — organizations that don't have to disclose their donors, making their spending harder to track. These groups have proliferated since the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which opened the door to unlimited corporate and union giving.
The Huffington Post recently reported that Adelson's total spending may have approached $150 million.
Two anonymous Republican fundraisers told the Huffington Post that Adelson had given between $30 and $40 million to Crossroads GPS, the dark-money group founded by Karl Rove, and at least $15 million to groups affiliated with Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialist brothers. Adelson also gave millions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Jewish Coalition, the fundraisers said.
If accurate, those numbers would place Adelson's total spending on the election at around $155 million.
Nominate Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense & fight for his nominati
SIGN THE PETITION FOR SENATOR HAGEL. THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST HIM BY NEOCONSERVATIVE PRO-WAR FORCES SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO DERAIL HIS NOMINATION.
SIGN PETITION
SIGN PETITION
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
In Europe, fewer mass killings due to culture not guns
The USA leads the world in gun ownership, but it's our individualistic culture that puts us at greater risk of mass shootings compared with other countries where guns are prevalent, according to a British criminologist who has studied gun violence in different nations. FULL ARTICLE HERE
EA WorldView: Iran Special Analysis: Breaking the Deadlock in the Nuclear Negotiations
Nicholas J. Wheeler, Josh Baker, and Scott Lucas of the University of Birmingham
Following the recent re-election of President Obama, attention has turned yet again to the prospect of new negotiations between the P5+1 (United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China) and Iran. Whilst there have been indications that Iran wished to restart talks since the previous round of discussions ended in June 2012, the Western powers, led by the United States, wanted to delay talks until after the US elections. Now that this hurdle has been cleared and President Obama has been returned for a second term, speculation has centred on whether the administration might come forward with a more imaginative set of proposals that could break the negotiating stalemate which characterised the first term. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has recently put forward that possibility. Speaking on November 30th, she claimed that ‘we [the United States] continue to believe that there is still a window of opportunity to reach some kind of resolution over Iran’s nuclear program…the fact that we finished our election…would be a good time to test the proposition that there can be some good-faith serious negotiations’.
In theory, Clinton might be right. As the historian John Lewis Gaddis has argued, ‘second terms in the White House open the way for second thoughts’ as they ‘lessen…the influence of domestic political considerations’. Second terms, then, might provide the necessary political space to make the moves it takes to transform deep-rooted conflicts. The most notable example being Ronald Reagan’s road to Damascus type conversion on the wisdom of negotiating with the Soviet Union. This was significantly influenced by his growing fears of nuclear war which came to a head with the Able Archer crisis of 1983. Reagan’s decision to enter into negotiations with Moscow bore fruit when he found in Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the leader of the Soviet Union in March 1985, an interlocutor whom he could trust, leading to a remarkable transformation of US-Soviet relations in the second half of the 1980s. A key factor facilitating this transformation was the sweeping mandate that Reagan secured through his overwhelming election victory. This example raises the question as to whether Obama’s victory – though not as sweeping as Reagan’s – might create a new-found political space within which to make moves which could similarly transform US-Iranian nuclear relations. However, there is an important dimension – and difference – to be noted in the past and present. In 1985, the initiative to end the Cold War came from Gorbachev with his game-changing proposals. Rather than trying to exploit Soviet gestures to weaken the Soviet Union, the Reagan Administration worked with Gorbachev to advance arms control agreements that promoted mutual security.
In December 2012, we are at a stage of negotiations where each side is looking to the other to make a decisive game-changing move. From Tehran’s point of view, Iran has already made a number of significant gestures in recent months, most notably the offer to suspend enrichment of 20 per cent Uranium in return for equally calibrated reductions in sanctions. At the same time, it has arguably made a further concession by increasing the level of conversion of its existing stockpile of 20 per cent enriched uranium into fuel plates for its Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) to reassure Western concerns about its nuclear break-out capability. The Iranian leadership believes that the promised concession on the 20 per cent and the actual step of converting half of its stock has not been met with any equivalent reciprocation by the United States and its key allies.
In a classic example of each side failing to understand the other’s position, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France have not interpreted these Iranian moves as conciliatory ones. Consequently, the Western powers are looking to Tehran to make a significant first move in breaking the negotiating impasse when Tehran believes it has already done this. What the Western powers are seeking as an Iranian opening move is the so-called ‘stop, ship, and shut’ policy (freezing 20 per cent production, shipping the existing stockpile of 20 per cent out of the country, and closing the Fordoo plant). They have said that were this to happen, they would then consider reciprocation, including the distant possibility of limited sanctions relief. Such an opening gambit has been interpreted in Tehran as a demand for unilateral concessions dressed up in the garb of the language of reciprocity. Indeed, former Iranian nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, likened the Western strategy to one of‘peanuts for diamonds.’
Despite these apparently irreconcilable negotiating positions, there is a possible way forward. This would be to put into practice the principle of reciprocity which Clinton recently lauded as the basis of any future negotiations with Iran. She said that the United States ‘expect reciprocity’ from Iran, but this assumes that the Obama administration has come forward with a proposal which could form the basis for eliciting Iranian reciprocation. But as Laura Rozen and others have argued, current signals from the United States and their partners in the E-3 indicate that the Western powers intend to simply repackage the ‘stop, shut and ship’ proposal. In other words, what is lacking from the table is an offer on the Western side to make concessions which meet Iran’s core security concerns – crucially sanctions relief – conditioned on Iranian reciprocation which meets Western fears about Iranian nuclear weapon ambitions. In short, the language of reciprocation is being used by the Obama administration to demand Iranian concessions without Washington accepting that success in the negotiations depend upon the principle of mutuality.
Rather than framing the negotiating process as one in which the players seek to secure unilateral concessions, a realistic basis for a settlement would be to structure the negotiations around a compromise which includes two key elements. First and foremost, any proposal which is to gain traction within the Iranian political system has to include a process leading to significant sanctions relief. Second, while effective limitations and monitoring of Iran’s capability to further enrich its stockpile of enriched uranium (both the larger supply of 3.5 per cent and the growing stockpile of 20 per cent) to weapons grade must be agreed, Iran’s right to possess indigenous fuel-cycle capabilities (including enrichment) has to be recognised in any settlement of the nuclear issue. An agreement modelled on these lines would meet both the spirit and letter of the principle of reciprocity.
Yet, even if President Obama and his senior advisors were persuaded that this was the way forward, it is debatable whether Obama has the political support within Congress – which across both houses has supported increasingly draconian sanctions against Iran – to make even a negotiating strategy conditioned on Iranian reciprocation viable. The scale of the political challenge facing the president were he to decide to significantly change course on Iran was underlined on November 30thwhen the US Senate voted 94-0 to extend the current sanctions.
If the Obama Administration simply repackage the ‘stop, shut and ship’ proposal, then the stalemate will continue into its second term in the absence of major Iranian concessions. But waiting on Iran to make the first move before offering anything more significant, and thereby dismissing in Iranian eyes what they view as prior conciliatory moves, risks poisoning still further the relationship between the West and Iran. This scenario makes the language of ‘reciprocity’ a slogan rather than a practical policy, a signal which Tehran will view as an empty gesture masking a continuing US plan to weaken the Islamic Republic. The Obama administration and its strongest supporters among the six, as well as Israel, are betting on sanctions so weakening their Iranian adversary that they come to the table prepared to make dramatic concessions. If this prognosis proves unwarranted, and Tehran continues to develop its nuclear programme in ways which frighten the Western powers and especially Israel, then the subsequent resentment and mistrust will be accompanied by an increased risk of military conflict. What we must hope, however, is that as the risks of confrontation increase, those voices calling for a new strategy will gain greater credence in the counsels of power. The only way out of this dead-end is to make reciprocity meaningful by both sides committing themselves to actions which reassure the other and promote mutual security. This is the real challenge behind the US invitation to enter into ‘good-faith serious negotiations.’
Josh Baker, William Lucas, and Nicholas J. Wheeler
Josh Baker is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science and International Studies and Research Assistant in the Institute of Conflict, Cooperation and Security at the University of Birmingham; Scott Lucas is a Professor of American Studies at the University of Birmingham and Founding Editor of the news agency EA WorldView; and Nicholas J. Wheeler is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, Director of the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security at the University of Birmingham, and Principal Investigator of the ESRC/AHRC funded project under Research Councils UK’s Global Uncertainties Programme on ‘The Challenges to Trust-Building in Nuclear Worlds’
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Sahar Aziz: Freedom means being able to wear the veil, too
By Sahar Aziz, Special to CNN
December 15, 2012
Editor’s note: Sahar Aziz is a fellow at the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding and an associate professor of Texas Wesleyan School of Law. She serves as the president of the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association. The views expressed are her own.
In October, in a blatant act of discrimination, a Muslim woman wearing a veil in an Oklahoma bank was reportedly told she had to be escorted from the door to the teller. The Valley National Bank in Tulsa stated that this was not an act of religious discrimination, but rather part of their “no hat, no hood” policy instituted to allow security to clearly identify and take surveillance pictures of customers.
But as Executive Director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Adam Soltani said, "singling out Muslim women or other people of faith who wear religiously mandated head coverings that do not hinder identification is inappropriate and discriminatory."
According to the Pew Research Center, 43 percent of the roughly 1 million Muslim women in America wear headscarves. That’s a significant number of women in this country who face potential difficulties based on their decision to practice their faith the way they see fit. Yet their unique civil rights challenges are not reflected in any substantive way in the agendas of American Muslim organizations, who dance around the issue of gender, or among American feminist groups, who don’t want to touch issues of religion with a ten foot barge pole.
With the American public generally still suspicious of Muslims, evidence increasingly suggests that for American Muslim women, the “veil” now “marks” them as representatives of the suspect, inherently violent, and forever foreign “terrorist other” in our midst.
A recent policy brief published by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, shows that Muslim women of all races and levels of religiosity face unique forms of discrimination at the intersection of religion, race, and gender because of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Consequently, these women are caught in the crosshairs of national security conflicts that profoundly affect their lives – including the safety of their family and their economic prospects – and receive inadequate support from advocacy groups focused on defending Muslims, women’s rights or civil liberties post-9/11. With the number of bullying cases against Muslim children and employment discrimination cases filed by American Muslim women on the rise, American women’s organization must stand up and take notice.
While these women’s rights groups have focused on equal pay, abortion rights, and other gender-specific issues certainly benefit Muslim women, the American women’s rights agenda fails to address the unique forms of subordination experienced by American Muslim women and the challenges faced by many other religious groups. With 86 percent of American women affiliated with a faith tradition, exploring issues of women’s rights and religion is a critical issue.
This exclusion from the agenda is the latest iteration of the ongoing challenge faced by Western feminists to remain relevant in an increasingly diverse and complicated conversation on women’s rights in this country. Add the element of religion, specifically American Muslim women who cover their hair, and traditionally progressive feminist organizations get nervous. Ironically, feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority Foundation have consistently called for banning the burqa and spoken in defense of women’s rights in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern nations while remaining silent on an American Muslim woman’s right to wear the headscarf free of discrimination and violence. They might address the fact that civil rights are abused when it comes to religious women’s rights; however, they don’t take issue and support the gender rights of these women through concerted campaigns.
What will it take for a woman’s choice to cover her hair based on her religious beliefs to be seen as a civil and woman’s right? Whether a woman wants to take off the burqa in Afghanistan or wants to wear the headscarf in Oklahoma, women’s rights organizations must remain consistent in their support of choice and yes, freedom to practice religion in the way that aligns with a woman’s core beliefs.
In the end, a woman’s rights are about personal autonomy to choose her life’s path, not whether we approve of it.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Friday, December 14, 2012
US Intelligence Agencies See Different World in 2030
Trends described in US National Intelligence Council report have all been described as globalization factors by YaleGlobal over past decade
Thursday, December 13, 2012
The Economist Index-Where to be Born
The Economist has just published what it calls the "Where to be born" index: a list of countries which provide the best opportunities and the highest quality of life. In 1988, America was #1; now it is #16. Three of the top five countries today are in Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
Human Rights Watch Report-Iran: Activists Fleeing Assault on Civil Society
The 62-page report, “Why they Left: Stories of Iranian Activists in Exile,” documents the experiences of dozens of rights defenders, journalists, bloggers, and lawyers whom security and intelligence forces targeted because they spoke out against the government. Some who took part in anti-government protests after the 2009 election had never been politically active before, but suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs of security and intelligence forces.
The Lessons of Iraq
Why Remember Iraq? by Philip Giraldi, December 13, 2012 Antiwar.com
Most Americans would prefer to forget that we are approaching the first anniversary of the expulsion of U.S. military forces from Iraq. The Republican Party, which rallied behind George W. Bush to invade the country and occupy it, has suffered from a short memory relating to that misbegotten war even as it agitates for new and similar military interventions. Much of the silence on the subject is certainly due to the fact that most Democrats and nearly all the media were also on board, though perhaps for reasons that did not completely coincide with the Bush neocons’ imperial vision. And after the war began and the occupation took on its misbegotten form under Jerry Bremer, Dan Senor, and a host of neocon acolytes brought on board to reshape the country, the saga ran on and on. As Iraq broke down into its constituent parts due to Bremer’s inept proconsulship, a development that might normally lead to a rethink of the entire project, Pentagon-based neoconservatives instead regrouped, doubled down and contrived the 2007 “surge” to fix things. That the surge was a poorly conceived and executed military dead end and a complete failure to do anything but deepen the divisions within Iraq seemed irrelevant, political partisanship inevitably rushing in to interpret it as a success to provide cover for the foolish politicians, generals and bureaucrats in Washington who had conceived it. As recently as the Republican presidential debates earlier this year the “surge” in Iraq was cited by several candidates as a litmus test for those who believe in the “right kind” of foreign policy. Those who did not believe in the myth of the surge as a subset of American Exceptionalism were outside the pale, most notably Representative Ron Paul.
Iraq, correctly labeled the “worst mistake in American history,” has to be remembered because of what it should have taught about Washington’s false perception of the U.S. vis-a-vis the rest of the world. One of America’s poorest secretaries of state of all time, Madeleine Albright, once said that the U.S. is the only “necessary nation” because it “sees far.” She could have added that it sees far though it frequently doesn’t understand what it is seeing, but that would have required some introspection on her part. Albright’s ignorance and hubris have unfortunately been embraced and even expanded upon by her equally clueless successors and the presidencies that they represented. Iraq should be an antidote to such thinking, a prime lesson in what is wrong with the United States when its blunders its way overseas as the self-proclaimed arbiter of the destinies of billions of people.
Everyone but the “realist” and largely traditional conservative and libertarian minority that opposed the Iraq venture from day one has turned out to be dead wrong about the war and many continued to be wrong even when the U.S. military was eventually forced to leave the country by the Baghdad government. The Iraq war was born from a series of lies.
The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 based on two alleged threats as defined by the Bush administration and Congress. First, it was claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and also delivery systems that would enable it to strike directly against the United States. Second, it was frequently argued that Iraq had somehow been involved in 9/11 through its intelligence services. Both contentions were completely false, were known by many in the White House to be fraudulent, and, in some cases, were bolstered by evidence that was itself fabricated or known to be incorrect. Many in the Pentagon and CIA knew that the case being made for war was essentially bogus and was being contrived to satisfy United Nations requirements for armed intervention. Though there were a couple of principled resignations from the State Department, almost everyone in the bureaucracy went along with the fraud.
Digging deeper there were other uncited reasons for going to war and some led back to Israel and its lobby. All of the most passionate cheerleaders for war were also passionate about protecting Israel. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had been paying money to the families of Palestinians killed by Israel and there was a perception that he was a potential military threat. When the U.S. took over control in Baghdad one of the firstprojects to be considered was a pipeline to move Iraqi oil to the Israeli port of Haifa.
Fast forward eight years, to the end of the U.S. military presence. The neocons continued to see a strategic objective in the shambles that they had made. In an op-edin the Washington Post on the impending U.S. departure from Iraq one year ago, neocons Kimberly and Fred Kagan delusionally entertained five “American core interests” in the region. They were: that Iraq should continue to be one unified state; that there should be no al-Qaeda on its soil; that Baghdad abides by its international responsibilities; that Iraq should contain Iran; and that the al-Maliki government should accept U.S. “commitment” to the region. As the Kagans are first and foremost apologists for Israel, it should be observed that Iraq’s “international responsibilities” would be understood as referring to the expectation that Baghdad not be hostile to Tel Aviv.
But looking back a bit, in 2003 Iraq was a good deal more unified and stable than it is today; there was no al-Qaeda or other terrorist presence; Saddam generally abided by a sanctions regime imposed by the U.N.; and Iraq was the principal Arab frontline state restraining Iran’s ambitions. Then, as now, the U.S. was clearly “committed” to the region through the overwhelming presence of its armed forces and one should add parenthetically that Iraq in no way threatened the United States, or anyone else. It was precisely the U.S. invasion that dismantled the Iraqi nation state, introduced al-Qaeda to the country, wrecked the nation’s economy, and brought into power a group of Shi’a leaders who are anti-democratic and adhere much closer to Tehran and Syria than to Washington. Nor are they very friendly to Israel, quite the contrary, and there is no oil pipeline. So none of the “core interests” sought by the United States as defined by neocon doctrine have actually been achieved, or, rather, they have actually been reversed due to the invasion and occupation by the United States arranged and carried out by the Pentagon neoconservatives.
And then there is the cost. The U.S. lost nearly 5,000 soldiers killed plus 35,000 more wounded while the documented Iraqi dead number more than 110,000, though the actual total is almost certainly much, much higher, perhaps exceeding one million. Ancient Christian communities in Iraq have all but disappeared. Columbia economist Joseph Stiglitz has estimated that the total cost of the war will be in the $5 trillion plus range when all the bills are finally paid. The U.S. economy has suffered grave and possibly fatal damage as a result of a war that need not have taken place.
The lesson to be learned from Iraq is actually quite simple. Military intervention in a foreign land unless a genuine vital interest is at stake is a fool’s errand due to the unforeseen consequences that develop from any war. And when intervention is actually necessary (hard to imagine what those circumstances would be) it must have an exit strategy that starts almost immediately. Remembering the government chicanery that led to the events of 2003 through 2011 means that the lies that are currently being floated to justify regime change in both Syria and Iran by the same neocons who produced the Iraq debacle should be treated with extreme skepticism and summarily rejected. Iraq also provides the insights that enable one to judge the Afghanistan enterprise for what it really is: a failure now just as it will be five years from now at far greater cost in lives and treasure for Afghans and Americans alike. If the United States cannot learn from the experience of Iraq it is doomed to repeatedly fail in similar endeavors until the last soldier comes home in a body bag and the last dollar is spent, leaving behind an empty treasury and an impoverished American people.
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