Tag: us

Crap

crap.jpg

Fisk’s latest bit has an interesting fifth paragraph—he claims that Hizbullah is encouraging erstwhile residents of the now flattened southern suburbs of Beirut to rent, not buy. Seems that someone’s thinking tactically here, and has decided that there’s no point in rebuilding quite yet.

Lebanon and Iraq are beginning to look like a giant fire sale, with Iran buying everything in sight, including the matches.

Saad Ibrahim’s op-ed in the Washington Post is worthwhile complimentary reading. Ibrahim points out quite rightly that the White House and its clients are simply being outplayed by the Islamists, and declines to say that this is a bad thing. Not only does he manage to write about the Middle East without getting democracy and electoral politics hopelessly tangled up (check out Fred Kaplan’s “What a moronic presidential press conference� in Slate), but he even uses the word “inimical.�

Kaplan meanwhile treats us to a classic bit of Bush fumble-mouthed idiocy, but is unfortunately disingenuous in his presentation. He claims that Bush is too stupid to understand that terrorism and “democracy” (which Kaplan unhappily conflates with electoral politics) can, and do, mix. Face it: Bush knows the difference between democracy and electoral politics (he’s made a career out of undermining the former with latter), and anybody who works with Karl Rove at home and “shock and awe” bombing campaigns in the great outdoors knows damn well how terrorism and electoral politicking go steel hand in velvet glove.

Unfortunately, Kaplan owns up to this in his last para, where he switches from his thesis (that Bush is a moron who can’t grasp the basic flaw in his own spin) to admitting that it is in fact Bush’s refusal to discuss, rather than his failure to understand, that is getting his goat. In the end it looks like Kaplan who doesn’t see the tree for the forest.

Seems apropos here, if late in the news cycle, to congratulate beleaguered Brit Deputy PM, Stetson wearing Big John Prescott, for his characterization of Bush’s handling of the Middle East: “crap.â€�

“New Middle East” gets Daily Show treatment

I’ve just uploaded a brilliant recent Daily Show interview with their Middle East correspondent in Beirut to YouTube. Instead of their usual correspondents, they has a guy act as their Arab correspondent. And while Jon Stewart was expressing concern about the carnage, the correspondent kept reacting as if he loved the whole birth pangs of a new Middle East thing — i.e. as if he lived in Condi and W’s alternate reality. It’s very moving comedy, and make sure you watch it to the end. (The first few seconds are blacked out, but then it’s fine.)

(Smaller download version here – 3MB)

Alterman: Likudniks take on the Jews

Eric Alterman on how neo-cons and Israel Firsters are attacking American Jewry for putting America’s interests before Israel’s:

Things can become a little confusing when the same neocons who insist it is ipso facto anti-Semitic to ask what role Israel plays in their calculations instruct American Jews that they are paying too much attention to their own country’s best interests and not enough to Israel’s. Writing in–of all places–The Weekly Standard, David Gelernter attacks American Jews for their “self-destructive nihilism” in remaining “fervent supporters of an American left that is increasingly unable or unwilling to say why Israel must exist.” (This is nonsense about the vast majority of the left, of course, but ignore that for a moment.) Gelernter argues that “grassroots Democrats are increasingly dangerous to the Jewish state (not to mention the American state).” Note that the question of the “American state” is literally a mere parenthetical to Gelernter’s principal concern–the well-being of Israel. Over at National Review’s “The Corner,” Mona Charen can be found making the same sneering argument. She calls American Jews “stubborn and downright stupid” because they “despise George W. Bush and will donate time and money to any Democrat in 2008, while Bush is indisputably the most pro-Israel president in the history of the United States.” Again, it’s highly “disputable,” but never mind that. More to the point is the fact that Bush’s presidency–a complete and utter failure by virtually any empirical measurement–is also deemed irrelevant. It’s Israel alone that matters, according to these anti-American conservatives. (And woe unto American Jews when Christian America starts paying attention to their unpatriotic perfidy.)

What’s most immediately worrisome about the neocons’ long march through our institutions of government is the possibility that they may succeed a second time. According to Sidney Blumenthal’s reporting in Salon, neocon staffers for Dick Cheney and the NSC’s point man on the Middle East, Elliott Abrams (Norman Podhoretz’s son-in-law), “have discussed Syrian and Iranian supply activities as a potential pretext for Israeli bombing of both countries.” They are looking, according to this NSC source, “to widen the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Hamas into a four-front war.”

Four wars simultaneously? Led by this crew? After what we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is it me, or are the people who run this country dangerously out of their minds?

Reminder to self: move to South America (but not too close to Castro or Chavez).

Bernard Lewis: Armegeddon in two weeks

Darling of neo-cons Bernard Lewis, writing in the Wall Street Journal, pinpoints the precise date of the Iranian destruction of Israel and the end of times:

In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time — Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22. This was at first reported as “by the end of August,” but Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statement was more precise.

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to “the farthest mosque,” usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.

It really seems that while dealing with a complex and multi-dimensioned foreign policy issues, all the neo-cons want to do is what they did with Iraq: clutch at straws, invent bogeymen and fabricate lies. That Bernard Lewis, a man still appreciated even by his political enemies as a scholar of some note, has sunk to scare-mongering in lieu of policy advocacy is sad and scary.

From Mansoura to Montana

11 Egyptian students from Mansoura University on an exchange program to Montana have disappeared:

(AP) WASHINGTON Eleven Egyptian students who arrived in the United States last month are being sought by authorities after failing to turn up for an exchange program at Montana State University.

The Egyptian men were among a group of 17 students who arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York from Cairo on July 29 with valid visas, according to U.S. authorities and university officials.

While a terrorist threat is certainly nothing to overlook, I bet they’re finding undeclared jobs (an incredible number of cab drivers in New York appear to be Egyptian) and having a great time. In other words, pursuing the immigrant to America’s dream for the past 200 years.

Fisk on the UN’s draft resolution on Lebanon

Robert Fisk on how the draft resolution is essentially an Israeli one:

You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: “Don’t these bastards learn anything from history?”

The Nation on AIPAC

The Nation on AIPAC:

On July 18, the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution “condemning Hamas and Hezbollah and their state sponsors and supporting Israel’s exercise of its right to self-defense.” After House majority leader John Boehner removed language from the bill urging “all sides to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure,” the House version passed by a landslide, 410 to 8.

AIPAC not only lobbied for the resolution; it had written it. “They [Congress] were given a resolution by AIPAC,” said former Carter Administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who addressed the House Democratic Caucus on July 19. “They didn’t prepare one.”

Other choice quotes:

“When it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict, the terms of debate are so influenced by organized Jewish groups, like AIPAC, that to be critical of Israel is to deny oneself the ability to succeed in American politics.“

. . .

Former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross addressed a packed AIPAC-sponsored luncheon on the Hill, where, according to one aide present, Ross told the room: “This is all about Syria and Iran…we shouldn’t be condemning Israel now.”

. . .

Ironically, during the 2004 campaign Dean called on the United States to be an “evenhanded” broker in the Middle East. That position enraged party leaders such as House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who signed a letter attacking his remarks. “It was designed to send a message: No one ever does this again,” says M.J. Rosenberg of the center-left Israel Policy Forum. “And no one has. The only safe thing to say is: I support Israel.”

. . .

By blindly following AIPAC, Congress reinforces a hard-line consensus: Criticizing Israeli actions, even in the best of faith, is anti-Israel and possibly anti-Semitic; enthusiastically backing whatever military action Israel undertakes is the only acceptable stance.

There’s a problem here.

Related:
To Israel with love (Economist)

“A use for old autocrats”

Despite the rising anger at pro-US Arab regimes for their stance on Lebanon — here in Egypt one editorialist recently wrote of day-dreaming about the plane of Arab foreign ministers going to Beirut being shot down by Israel while the opposition press is savaging Mubarak for his stance — it’s clear that among the winners of the Israel-Palestine-Lebanon war are old autocrats like Hosni Mubarak. Neil King and Yasmine Rashidi write in the Wall Street Journal:

With radicalism on the rise and battles flaring from Beirut to Baghdad to Gaza, the Bush administration’s quest for democracy in the Middle East is literally under fire. So while Ms. Rice portrays the fighting in Lebanon as “the birth pangs of a new Middle East,” the administration is also showing new eagerness to maintain pillars of the old Middle East — particularly America’s steadiest allies in the region, the autocracies of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Last month, Ms. Rice delayed her departure to the Middle East to meet with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, who received an unusual Sunday audience with President Bush. Ms. Rice went on to praise Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia repeatedly during her trip. Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt for 25 years, is back in Washington’s good graces, after being chastised last year for his country’s lackluster embrace of democratic change. Mr. Mubarak’s son and heir-apparent was recently hosted by the administration, which also tamped down a congressional attempt to cut funding to the country.

“There’s been a very loud sigh of relief within the White House…that there are still some stable, highly centralized countries in the region to turn to,” says Aaron Miller, a veteran Middle East adviser to four administrations — including the current one. He now works at the Wilson Center, a Washington, D.C., research institution.

It was Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon, designed to cripple the Hezbollah militant group, which most recently underscored America’s need for friends in the region. At the fighting’s onset, the Bush administration relied heavily on support from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, whose governments were quick to criticize Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. During the past week, however, these three countries have become significantly more critical as the unrest worsens.

The violence in Lebanon also highlighted what critics say are contradictions in the Bush democracy quest. For one, the administration now has to rely on autocratic leaders as it pursues its goal of ridding the region of autocratic leaders. Moreover, the region’s worst unrest is in the three places Washington has pushed hardest for democratic change: Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories.

. . .

Many observers in Cairo note that the U.S.’s democracy push, and the resulting rise of Islamist fervor, has given the Egyptian government a ready-made reason to backtrack on its promises. “It’s the same thing again. We take steps forward and then leaps back,” says Ibrahim Hassan, an Egyptian lawyer who was involved in the demonstrations demanding more autonomy for the judiciary. “This time it’s the perfect excuse — the U.S. would never stand to allow the Brotherhood to take over Egypt.”

Hisham Kassem, the founder of Al-Masry El-Youm, an opposition newspaper, and a prominent critic of the regime, sees the easing of U.S. pressure in Egypt as basic realism. “The U.S. can’t afford a collapse of the regime,” says Mr. Kassem. “They can lobby and use certain leverage, but to bring down the regime is not an option.”

So where does that leave Egyptians who want change? To take a risk and forge new alliances with Islamists, that’s where.