Author: Scott H

Bush vs. Karzai

Sometimes a simple pairing of quotes speaks volumes. Case in point – Presidential comments about Iran by Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai and America’s George Bush.
Yesterday, Karazai appeared on CNN’s Late Edition. Karzai bluntly conceded that “the security situation in Afghanistan over the past two years has definitely deteriorated.” Karzai also affirmed as “exactly true” US General David Rodriguez’ assessment there has been a 50-60% increase in foreign fighters comings into Afghanistan from Pakistan over the past year.
By contrast, Karzai contradicted recent US (and media) contentions that Iran has likewise been a growing source of trouble in Afghanistan:

BLITZER: “The U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, William Wood, suggested in June that Iran is playing a significant role in the security situation in Afghanistan as well. “There is no question,” he said, that weaponry of Iranian types has been entering Afghanistan for some time in amounts that make it hard to imagine that the Iranian government is not aware that this is happening.” Is Iran directly involved in the security situation — the deteriorating
security situation in Afghanistan?
KARZAI: We have had reports of the kind you just mentioned. We are looking into these reports. Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan. Iran has been a participant in the — both processes. They then have contributed steadily to Afghanistan. We have had very, very good, very, very close relations, thanks in part also to an understanding of the United States in this regard, and an environment of understanding between the two, the Iranian government and the United States government, in Afghanistan. We will continue to have good relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues, if there are any, to arise.
BLITZER: Well, is Iran a problem or a solution as far as you are concerned? Are they helping you or hurting?
KARZAI: Well, so far Iran has been a helper and a solution.”

Nothing new in that, really, as Karzai (and former key Bush Administration officials like Flynt Leverett) have long been more positive about Iran’s disposition towards Afghanistan since 9/11. Yet Karzai’s reiteration of a positive view of Iran flatly presents a problem for the Bush Administration as it rolls out the Iran-on-the-march bogey to justify massive new arms sales to the Saudis.
Consider then Bush’s intense response today to a question about Karzai’s comments:

Q “President Karzai said yesterday that he believed Iran was playing a helpful role in Afghanistan. Was he able to convince you in your meetings that that was the case, or do you still have concerns about Iran’s role?…
PRESIDENT BUSH: It’s up to Iran to prove to the world that they’re a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon. This is a government that is in defiance of international accord, a government that seems to be willing to thumb its nose at the international community and, at the same time, a government that denies its people a rightful place in the world and denies its people the ability to realize their full potential.
So I believe that it’s in the interests of all of us that we have an Iran that tries to stabilize, not destabilize; an Iran that gives up its weapons ambitions. And therefore, we’re working to that end. The President knows best about what’s taking place in his country, and of course, I’m willing to listen. But from my perspective, the burden of proof is on the Iranian government to show us that they’re a positive force.”

In other words, for the Bush Administration, the Iranians must prove a negative, that they’re not up to “no good” in Afghanistan – never mind what an otherwise close American ally like Karzai has to say on the matter.
While he was at it, Bush threw in a bone for the “regime change” crowd:

“And I must tell you that this current leadership… is a big disappointment to the people of Iran. The people of Iran could be doing a lot better than they are today. “

Another clarion call from the black kettle to the pot…. Such rhetorical bombast helped Iran’s President Ahmadinejad get elected in the first place. But no matter.
Not seriously interested in inconvenient evidence to the contrary, President Bush retreats to the all-too-familiar neocon script on Iran:

“But because of the actions of this government, this country is isolated. And we will continue to work to isolate it, because they’re not a force for good, as far as we can see. They’re a destabilizing influence wherever they are.”

Preach it.

Sam Waterston: Commencent Address for America

Actor Sam Waterston, known to the nation as Jack McCoy on the long running TV series Law & Order, recently delivered one of the best commencement speeches anywhere — at Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, on July 4th, as part of the annual ceremony for new citizens.
With wit, history, and splendid twists of phrase, Waterston earned what may have been the only standing ovation in 25 years of Monticello Independence Day speeches.
You can read the full text here, or listen to an audio podcast here.

(Technical note: Visitors presently need to click on the “streaming audio” link on the right, as the mp3 version on the “left” mysteriously cuts off 4 sentences from the end…. I’m hoping Monticello may yet place the full 22 minute streaming video of this speech on its web too.)

The entire speech is worth the effort to read/hear/view in full. Savor it. With one of the most recognizable voices in all of America (his past roles include Abraham Lincoln and yes, Thomas Jefferson), “old guy” Waterston breathes new life into the art of citizenship. He alerts citizens, new and old, that citizenship in a democracy requires not mere passive “pursuit of happiness” but “active interference” in how our politicians protect our “lives and liberty.”
Waterston puts “the participation back into ‘participatory democracy’.”
Rejecting the misplaced hope that “America is the all-time greatest self-correcting nation” or that ordinary citizen mistakes will “gum up” the magical functioning of our government, Waterston instead cites Jefferson’s ultimate faith in the people:

“The evils flowing from the duperies of the people [— that is, the ignorant errors of folks like you and me —] are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents [ — that is, the arrogant errors of those who speak and act for us].”

Rather than relying on agents, lobbyists, or any opinion dictator:

“America has been marvelously able to correct its course in the past because the founding idea — of individual freedom expressed through direct representation — has stirred its citizens to participate, and interfere. Information from the people makes the government smarter. Insufficient information from us makes it dumber….
In our country, things are ‘normal’ only when your voices are clearly heard. The old model of our citizenly relation to politics was of a group of people under a tree, taking turns on the stump all day, discussing the issues of the time. The old model was the town meeting where every citizen can have their say. Old citizens like me hope that between you and the Internet the old model will get a new lease on life.”

I especially appreciate Waterston’s rebuke of the God-like status being given to mind-numbing public opinion polls:

“We can’t let ourselves become mere units of statistical analysis. It appears to be so, that if you ask any 1000 Americans their views on anything, you’ll have a pretty good idea what all Americans think. You might almost conclude that individuals didn’t matter at all anymore.

Yet individuals can prove the opposite, that we’re potentially more than the “mere grain of sand in a vast statistical ocean.”

“Men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master,” as Jefferson predicted. But will we, by our silence, indifference, or inaction, give the trust away, cede it to the wealthy, present it to the entrenched, hand it off to the government, entrust it to any process or procedure that excludes our voices? It could happen.”

Waterston then spins his own quote for the ages:

“As graduating citizens, you will know how the government is set up: the justly familiar separation of powers, the well-known system of checks and balances, and the famous three branches of government: the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch.
If these are the branches, what is the tree? Do not think it’s the government.
We are the tree from which the government springs and spreads into its three branches. Every citizen is part of the root system, part of the trunk, no mere twig or leaf. Help our government never to forget it.”

The conclusion then follows for the new citizens at Monticello and for us all:

“So it turns out citizenship isn’t just a great privilege and opportunity, though it is all that, it’s also a job. I’m sorry to be the one to bring you this news, so late in the process. But don’t worry, it’s a great job. Everything that happens within this country politically, and everywhere in the world its influence is felt, falls within its province. It’s a job with a lot of scope. You’ll never be able to complain again about being bored at work. As we multiply our individual voices, we multiply the chances for our country’s success.”

Out of Iraq and Into Iran?

Pressure at long last is mounting across the U.S. political spectrum and heartland for either a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, or a dramatic pull-back from the front-lines. You’d think the neocons and their congressional supplicants and the Christian-Likudist “Amen Chorus” would be chastened, hesitant, or dispirited. To the contrary, they’re launching a full-court press for a major military blitz against Iran.
I’ll just highlight a few major items to illustrate this theme:
From Kevin Clarke, senior editor of the U.S. Catholic Magazine:

“These regular mailings from the Israel Project to “opinion agents” such as yours truly are, in effect, a public relations campaign for war. The monthly missives I receive from this one pro-Israel lobby are a small part of a broader effort to “secure the information stream” and prep Americans for the next exotic stop in the war on terror: sunny Iran. Now to the average shmoe, even contemplating another war while the overtaxed U.S. military machine seems bogged down in Iraq and losing ground in Afghanistan might seem laughably disconnected from reality….
Iraq was supposed to be the demo-sideshow to the real fight to alter the political reality on the ground of the Middle East, an effort that “logically” ends not in Jerusalem or Baghdad but in Tehran. The fact that the build-up stages to this “inevitable” confrontation—taking out Saddam Hussein, removing the Taliban from power, and neutralizing Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza—have not exactly gone according to script has not deterred these determined folks. Now like bourbon-addled, nicotine-fingered Vegas high-rollers on a bad run, these guys are asking America to double-down on the great Islamic Enlightenment project.”

As leading examples, we could of course refer to recent screeds to bomb Iran by Senator Lieberman or by Commentary’s roving (raving?) editor, Norman Podhoretz. Podhoretz blindly waves the bloody shirt of 9/11 in the direction of Iran, the center of all “Islamofascism.” (For more on such bombing “logic,” refer again to Helena Cobban’s courageous deconstruction of a similar call by Louis-René Beres.)
We now have tycoon and former Presidential candidate Steve Forbes thumping the tub in the July 23rd issue of the magazine that bears his name. Forbes to Bush: never mind if you screwed-up Iraq, “history” will judge you according to whether or not you take down Iran.

“If President Bush doesn’t stop the mullahs,… his presidency will be judged a failure….The importance of events in Iran overshadows what is happening in Iraq. If President Bush defangs nuclear-obsessed Iran, all his other setbacks and disappointments will fade into insignificance as time passes.”

Forbes proposes supporting Iranian expatriates and minorities and a “capital blockade” of investments going into Iran. If these measures doesn’t bring about “regime change” (which they won’t), then Forbes has in mind a full-scale blockade of Iran. Never mind what that would do to western economies (imagine oil prices tripling overnight), Forbes has bought the lobby line that current Iranian rationing of gasoline (due to ruinous policies of subsidizing petrol and importing 40% of Iran’s needs) render it critically vulnerable to blocking Iran’s imports of gasoline (much of which comes from Kuwait).

Memo to Forbes: check industry sources about Iran having several major domestic refining expansion projects soon to come on line. (By contrast, has a singe new refinery project been even started here in the USA — a key reason for high gas prices here in the “free market?” The MSM here in the west hasn’t touched Bush’s failures to build refineries in the US. But I digress.)

Anticipating perhaps that the non-lethal means he proposes will not work or work before Bush is history, Forbes ends up joining Lieberman, Beres, etc. in calling for the “monumental” move of bombing Iran, to “set the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions back a decade or more.”
Steven Kinzer incisively notes that the groundwork for the most recent campaigns to attack Iran was laid in the strained US efforts pin Iraqi violence on Iran (as amplified by Michael R. Gordon, no less, in above- the-fold “reporting” in the New York Times).
Yet Kinzer also asks, “even if Iran could be found directly responsible for the death of Americans,” would such actions via proxy be “so outrageously provocative” to justify an American assault on Iran? Kinzer contends they would not, and cites examples of the US not attacking China over Korea, or the Soviet Union in Vietnam.
In stark contrast to Forbes’ concern for Bush’s legacy, Kinzer shrewdly concludes:

“Attacking Iran would accomplish at least one thing Bush must be seeking. It will assure that future historians will not remember the invasion of Iraq as his biggest blunder.”

If President Bush really hopes for positive mark on in his foreign policy record, he’d be far better off taking a page out of Nixon and get serious about diplomacy, without preconditions, with today’s equivalent of what China was for Nixon – Iran.

“Whistling in the Dark” (Iran-media spat)

For all of the ongoing press woes in the Islamic Republic of Iran, commentaries in Iranian papers can still be extraordinarily boisterous — too lively at times for Iran’s neighbors.
A loud case in point is an editorial by Hoseyn Shari’atmadari in Iran’s hardline Keyhan newspaper. (The entire editorial is appended in the continuation; translation by the US taxpayer funded OSC service) It seems Keyhan has less interest in defending fellow hardliners under siege at home, than picking a fuss with foreign bogeys.
The Keyhan editorial touched off a firestorm of condemnations from the southern Arab side of the Persian Gulf. No wonder, as in “point ten,” Shari’atmadari provocatively raises the old Iranian claim to Bahrain:

“…Bahrain was once part of Iran’s soil. In the process of an illegal collusion between the doomed shah and the Governments of America and Britain, it was separated from Iran. Today, the most important demand of the people of Bahrain is that this province separated from Iran be returned to its main motherland: Islamic Iran. Obviously, this absolute right of Iran and the people of its separated province cannot and should not be ignored.”

Such exaggerated bluster is about as helpful as President Ahmadinejad’s incendiary comments about the Holocaust, Israel, and map-wiping.
All too predictably, this editorial segment inspired a unified chorus of condemnations from the Bahraini press and elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, with different writers now one-upping each other in demands for the “official” to be removed or contradicted by the Iranian foreign ministry. Some papers are dredging up claims about southwestern Iran having once been Arab controlled.
While Shari’atmadari, as head of the Keyhan Foundation, technically serves at the pleasure of Iran’s Supreme Leader, it should be recognized that Keyhan editorials are anything but an authoritative voice for Iranian foreign policy. (far less than The Weekly Standard in the US is an authoritative voice for neocon elements within the Bush-Cheney Administration)
Of course, Shari’atmadari’s July 10th controversial essay has a context, as he was but one of many Iranian writers reacting to the routine reiteration by the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council on July 5th in support of the claim by the United Arab Emirates to the disputed Islands of Abu Musa and the two Tunbs.
On July 7th, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Ali Hosseini reiterated Iran’s standard statement that these Islands “are and will remain inseparable and integral parts of Iranian territory” while also complaining (in standard form) that the “repetition of the baseless stance… is surprising give that fact that Iran and the UAE enjoy enhanced contacts and relations.”
Nothing in the official statements about Bahrain, nor any nasty comments about the legitimacy of governments among the Arab Sheikhdoms.
Of course, the modern dispute over the Islands predates the Iranian Revolution and instead is rooted in Britain’s withdrawal of its forces from the Persian Gulf in the early 1970’s. Iran enforced its claims over these 3 islands, while at the same time forgoing its claim to the island of Bahrain. Iranians of most stripes still view the dispute with the UAE in nationalistic terms, and from time to time this or that Iranian hardliner will trot out variations on the theme that the Shah (& his American “bosses”) betrayed Iran in giving up Bahrain.
Not the stuff of diplomacy, to be sure. For those seeking to maintain American domination over the Gulf, this latest media stoking of residual sectarian, ethnic, and territorial tensions will be music to their ears. Divide & conquer.
I expect the “grown-ups” in the foreign policy establishments in Iran and in the neighboring Arab states will work to keep a lid on this sort of heat.
Speaking of which, we’re encouraged by communications efforts between American and Iranian naval commanders in the Persian Gulf, as revealed in an excellent report in the Los Angeles Times. Not quite the top-level hot-line and “deconflict” mechanism that Helena Cobban and Pat Lang have been proposing, but such “professionalism” between commanders in dangerously crowded waters is not what those looking to provoke a war would wish to see.

Continue reading ““Whistling in the Dark” (Iran-media spat)”

Iranian Bikers for peace…?

I’m all for exploring new ways to work for peace, including by demonstrations, marches, marathons, even “honking for peace.” Sure beats marching for war — like when Jerome Corsi (of “Swift boat veterans” infamy) in June 2005 walked from Philly to DC, to drum up support for his “Iran Freedom Foundation” and his demands for the US to get rough towards “Atomic Iran.”
Yet I was pleasantly surprised to learn of a group of 14 Iranian youth who have been “biking for peace” around Europe and America since May 11th. They’ve been in the US since June 16th. I’ve confirmed that these youth are from Iran, and they’re here with considerable backing from assorted Iranian non-governmental organizations – in Iran. While their tour has received limited publicity here in the US; surely both governments had to have been involved with the permissions….?
The peace bikers finished their journey this afternoon at the Washington Cathedral. If they had come through Charlottesville, I might have dusted off the road bike to join them. I like the description of their goals at their “Miles for Peace” web site, beginning with their invocation of Sa’di .
This bike caravan may have been too “fast” for me. According to the “Miles for Peace” web site, on July 8th, they were to “leave Los Angeles, heading for Baltimore.” The next day, July 9th, they were 3,000 miles east in Baltimore. Must be some new pedal or gearing technology. (Now if they could bottle that, they wouldn’t need nuclear energy.)
I hope these peace-bikers encountered no obstacles for visas or from customs, nor from counter-protests along the way. If one scans through the splendid photos for their peace adventure, one could well say these riders were rather brave, if nothing else, for biking close order on California freeways or downtown New York – without helmets.
Yet there may be an even more profound irony at work here. Far more than Iran’s detractors admit, Iranian women have made great educational and professional strides, and certainly compared to certain neighbors to the south. Considerable difficulties remain, and Iranian women’s groups are pushing back against recent set-backs. That said, even though Iranian women can drive and even race cars, they still can’t ride bikes.
As pointed out recently by Farzaneh Milani in a USA Today oped, Iran recently announced production of an “Islamic bicycle.” Milani, a specialist on women’s literature in Iran, is not impressed by the “new technology,” which is said to come “fully equipped with a cabin to conceal parts of a female cyclist’s body.” Milani deems it “less about the bike and more about suppressing women,” a “desperate but ultimately futile attempt.”
But this “Biking for Peace” group didn’t use any of the “Islamic bicycles.” (Indeed, I’ve yet to see or hear of reports in Iran confirming they even exist.)
Consider then the multiple levels of irony at work here: Vibrant and energetic young Iranians are out campaigning for peace in major western cities, on their bicycles – the very bicycles that the Iranian women in the group would be forbidden from riding back home in Iran.
One wonders if these creative peacemakers and their sponsors weren’t sending messages in both directions.

Jefferson & the Reign of Witches

Kudos to the Baltimore Sun for its July 4th editorial. Contrary to the keen imagination of another former “Jefferson Fellow” now at Oxford, I (Scott), as far as I know, had nothing to do with the Sun editorial. :-}
The Baltimore editorial begins with the reference to Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural. (Yes, this is the same Jefferson address I invoked here at jwn last November 2nd, in challenging Senator George Allen’s claim to being a “Jeffersonian”). In the Sun’s version,

In his first presidential inaugural address in 1801, he (Jefferson) ticked off a long list of essential principles of government, featuring highlights of the Bill of Rights, and called preservation of the government “in its whole constitutional vigor” the “anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad.” These principles “should be the creed of our political faith,” he said. “Should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety.”

The editorial credits Jefferson for having been “prophetic” about how the US government has (yet again) committed “a long train of abuses” (as Jefferson once wrote about another George III) against our constitutional liberties, in “moments… of alarm.”
If I had written the editorial, I’d have pointedly noted how for Jefferson, “freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected” were among the principles that:

“form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith.”

Through his long public life, Jefferson had extensive first hand experiences with the challenges of protecting such principles in perceived times of national emergency, including the treatment of prisoners of war. As I noted last November, Jefferson would have been particularly horrified by our present cavalier disregard of habeas corpus protections, given that he:

affirmed that habeas corpus applied to both citizen and alien alike, and.. argued against suspending it even in times of war or rebellion. In a 1788 letter to James Madison, Jefferson warned that the want of habeas corpus “will do evil…” and that suspensions thereof can become “habitual” and the “minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.”

In similar vein, the Sun editorial closes with an all too appropriate warning:

“Public outrage at the discovery of such clandestine abuses has typically resulted in the sort of corrective action Jefferson recommended. Such a process may be under way soon again as Congress and the courts begin to apply some restraints on an administration that as much as or more than any other has considered itself above the law. There’s little time to waste before Americans become so accustomed to their lost liberty that the loss becomes acceptable.“

Harpers Magazine on July 4th featured a related, and also all-too-relevant Jefferson quotation about our present “Reign of Witches.” As Scott Horton notes, Jefferson was writing in 1798 to a friend on his hope that the Federalists had “overplayed their hand” with the Alien & Sedition Acts (an early version of today’s Patriot Act). Yet Jefferson nonetheless was concerned that he could be arrested if his letter was publicized, given how paranoid the country had become then (as now).

“A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt… And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.”

Helena here has repeatedly expressed her optimism that the tide in Washington has turned…; may the reign of the neocon warlocks soon pass over.

Just what did “The Declaration” Declare?

Here in the United States, it’s July 4th, a day we commemorate with fireworks, cook-outs, concerts, and speeches. So what exactly is it that we celebrate?
Nominally, today marks the 231st anniversary of revolutionary America formally declaring its separation from Great Britain. The primary author of the famous document was, of course, Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson’s Monticello home, here in Charlottesville, has become a living educational memorial to Jefferson. I recently was honored to be a “Jefferson Fellow” at the adjoining Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, (ICJS) where scholars, in part, explore the ongoing legacy of Jefferson for our world today.
Despite the ready association of Jefferson with today’s date, do we understand what the core purpose of Jefferson’s Declaration was?
Easy, right? If so, and at the risk of turning this into NPR’s “wait, wait,… don’t tell me” quiz show, then let’s try this question: how did America’s famous Declaration begin? Was it:

a. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…”
b. “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”
c. ” When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station….”
d. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.”
e. “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…”

————————–
If you the reader are like the vast majority of Americans, you will be inclined to answer “b,” but sorry, that is the Declaration’s second paragraph, not the first.

Answer “e” is also incorrect; that’s the opening to the 1945 Vietnamese Declaration (among dozens of Declarations in world history that emulated America’s in one form or another.)
Answer “d” also is incorrect, as this is Article 1 from the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man.
With answer “a” of course being the preamble to the 1789 US Constitution, then you surely knew the answer to be “c.”

Lest we get too confident in our history IQ, how many of us can readily recall just what the 1776 American Declaration… well… “declared?”
Even if you had a solid American history education, don’t feel too bad if you’re a bit confused by the question. Assuming you went to an American school that still taught “civics” in some form, your lessons on “The Declaration” likely included much contemplation of the meaning, the “codes,” of Jefferson’s second paragraph. Just what fundamental “truths” did the new American nation “hold” to be “self-evident?” And what about all that seeming hypocrisy regarding all persons (“men”) being created equal, even as so many of them were then in tolerated bondage?
Until quite recently, very little in the vast scholarship on Jefferson and the Declaration addresses the “simple” question of just what was the Declaration’s purpose? The curious state of such learned discourse is neatly illustrated in a short 1999 text, edited by Joseph Ellis and entitled, “What Did the Declaration Declare?” This book provides splendid examples of the great scholarly debates over the last half of the 20th Century about how the Declaration was written, about the merits or exaggerations in the list of grievances against George III, and just which intellectual current influenced Thomas Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration’s second paragraph. Was it John Locke? Or was it the Scottish Enlightenment? Or was it some Saxon mythology that only Jefferson could fathom?
Whatever Jefferson’s intellectual parentage, Abraham Lincoln’s 1859 tribute to Jefferson’s “second paragraph” still nicely sidesteps such inquiry:

“All honor to Jefferson… who had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

Yet from Lincoln to the present, few scholars or pundits have provided much substantive comment about the Declaration’s first sentence, which in full reads:

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Parenthetically, my own work focuses on just what Jefferson and his colleagues meant by a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” (I have much to publish on this rarely-considered clause, and yes, it has a rather compelling contemporary ring…. Imagine — American leaders once caring about world opinion.)
I am pleased though to acknowledge that the two-century-old intellectual logjam blocking inquiry into the Declaration’s first sentence has been nicely broken by Harvard’s David Armitage, an historian and “English School” international relations scholar.
In a brilliant 2002 William & Mary Quarterly article and in a slender new book, entitled “The Declaration of Independence: A Global History,” Armitage contends directly that the fundamental purpose of the American Declaration was to…
(drum roll…. turn the page…. whoosh, poof, boom, zing, crackle,sizzle…, bang!….)

Continue reading “Just what did “The Declaration” Declare?”

“Charlottesville Goes to War”…

Over the past two months, our Charlottesville TV and print media have given extensive coverage to the pending deployments of locally based Army Guard units to Iraq. As I (Scott) mentioned here recently, my own oldest son is a young officer in the Virginia Army Guard.
While my son lives and works nearby, his particular engineering unit is based in another part of Virginia, and it hasn’t yet been ticketed for a return visit to Iraq. It could happen on short notice, and younger officers are vulnerable to being re-assigned and deployed with units for which they haven’t trained.
By contrast, one of our Guard companies here in Charlottesville will soon make its first deployment to Iraq, after training in the Mississippi delta heat. (Much of this same unit served a year in “Gitmo,” Cuba in 2002.) Most of the reporting has focused on the understandable anxiety facing those to be deployed and their families being left behind. Heart-strings indeed.
Bryan McKenzie, our “upbeat” columnist/reporter for The Daily Progress has at least twice characterized the pending deployment as “Charlottesville Goes to War,” yesterday, and on May 16th.
This provocative characterization grates on several levels.
First, like everywhere else in America, few outside of the deployed and their families are really sacrificing for this war — unless you admit that high gas prices are indeed correlated directly with military operations in Iraq and the ongoing saber rattling with Iran. (Most war supporters strain to deny connections between the Iraq War and high energy prices – but that’s another post!)
Geographically, McKenzie has a point, when he quotes local troop booster Mary Ellen Wooten:

“We’ve had a lot of troops from Charlottesville already deployed but this is the first group that’s primarily from here.”

McKenzie also rightly remembers that,

“We’ve… lost a couple. Cpl. Adam Fargo, U.S. Army, of Greene County and Cpl. Bradley T. Arms, USMC Reserve, of Charlottesville immediately come to mind. With those exceptions, and some in the Shenandoah Valley, Charlottesville seems to have escaped the War on Terror unscathed.”

While McKenzie may think he’s above politics, equating the “war on terror” with the invasion & occupation of Iraq reflects a loaded political judgment — hard to sustain when laid out for examination.
McKenzie gets in a different political point while making a call to support the troops and their families:

“We haven’t had to question our stance of not supporting the war while giving lip service to supporting the troops. Now, whether we support the war or not, we have a vested interest. Our Guardsmen—about 40 of which are based in our own Monticello Guard Armory on Avon Street Extended—are going into Harm’s Way.”
Our neighbors, brothers, friends and co-workers will be going to war, doing their duty whether or not they approve of the politics behind it….
They leave us two options: We can go with them, backing them up and supporting them regardless of our political views or we can self-righteously ignore them and hang their morale out to die. The choice is ours.” (emphasis added)

Continue reading ““Charlottesville Goes to War”…”

Failed States Index & “Failing the Faithful”

The July-August issue of Foreign Policy magazine features the 3rd installment of the annual “Failed States Index,” (FSI) a tool intended to identify the world’s “weakest links.” A project of “The Fund for Peace” and Foreign Policy (via its parent, the Carnegie Council for International “Peace”), this year’s top five “winners” are:

Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Chad, and Zimbabwe.

This year’s FSI report covers 177 states, considerably more than the first two studies. Africa is well “represented” among “top” failed states, as are those in the Middle East and West Asia. Among the latter:

Afghanisan #8,
Pakistan #12,
Uzbekistan #22,
Yemen #24,
Lebanon #28,
Egypt #36,
Turkmenistan # 43

Iran, compared to its neighbors, comes in “relatively” well, with an FSI rank at #57. Israel comes in at 67, though no explanatory notes are provided to explain if “Israel” includes the occupied territories or not. “Palestine” is not covered. Conveniently, the study only provides country notes for the first 60 states.
With considerable hesitation, I concede that such reports may be useful in trimming away ideological biases while equipping citizens and policymakers alike to discern what areas of the world may be suffering from, or sliding toward, critical instability. Not just dangers to themselves, states on the verge of implosion “threaten the progress and stability of countries half a world away.” (Or so we say. But do we really believe it? That’s another subject.)
Yet this study’s utility, at least to me, slips when it starts with an “elastic” multi-functional definition of a “failed state.”

“A state that is failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community. The 12 indicators cover a wide range of elements of the risk of state failure, such as extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay. States can fail at varying rates through explosion, implosion, erosion, or invasion over different time periods.”

To clarify a bit more, the “Failed States Index” is derived from an aggregation of 12 indicators of state performance:

1. Demographic pressures (e.g. too many people, compared to resources);
2. Refugees (desperate people on the move);
3. Group grievances (people hating each other);
4. Human Flight (brain drain);
5. Uneven development (too many poor);
6. Sudden economic collapse;
7. Deligitimization of the State;
8. Public Services Deterioration;
9. Rule of Law (lack thereof) and Human Rights Violations;
10. Security Confusion (states w/n states?);
11 Factionalism of elites;
12 External Penetration (foreign meddling)

One could get an honest “headache” deconstructing the definitions of each of these FSI indicators and numerous internal contradictions therein. I’ll spare readers, save for the worst.

Continue reading “Failed States Index & “Failing the Faithful””

Kimberly Dozier: A Year Later

It has been just over a year since Kimberly Dozier, CBS News correspondent, was critically wounded in Iraq. JWN regulars may recall a tribute here, reflecting on her University of Virginia graduate studies and her extraordinary 3 year coverage of the Iraq war.
I am happy to pass along that CBS News aired a one hour program on May 29th, featuring Kimberly Dozier, with fellow UVA product Katie Couric. Title of the program is Flashpoint: Kimberly Dozier and the Army’s Fourth ID, A Story of Bravery, Recovery, and Lives Forever Changed. CBSNews now provides transcripts and the full video at its website.
At least for me, much of this is difficult to watch. Yet characteristically Kim, brief accounts of her own painful story transition into longer reflections on the lives lost that day and the families left behind. There’s little overt “political analysis.”
In the list of related videos (and sub-sections) on the right of the link noted above, check the interview given to Harry Smith. Therein, Kimberly hints at getting back to “her” story; if not Baghdad, then surely the Middle East.
The candle is burning brightly for Kimberly Dozier’s recovery and return. Our best wishes stay with her.

Footnote: (as of 6/17/07)
As I watched the program and the support clips at the CBS web site, I couldn’t help but think of PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder. Today’s WaPo & LATimes both have cover stories regarding the Pentagon’s apparent “compulsion” (pun intended) to deny support for vets so suffering.
Back in 1996, I learned of the subject first hand via work for a year with Amb. Nathaniel Howell and trained PTSD professionals on a sensitive project to evaluate how Kuwaiti society was being rocked by unresolved traumas from the Iraqi invasion and occupation. I confess to having been a bit doubtful at the outset — until I personally witnessed horrendous manifestations of wounds of a different sort.
As the right-wingers so often say, war is hell. (particularly when they wish to dismiss concerns about JIB violations….) But apart from the physical carnage, the chaos of war wreaks its own “hell” on the minds and families of those who “return.”
Supporting the troops means more than just giving them more destructive arms and armour for “the mission.” It also means taking care of them, their whole persons, afterwards.
My mother’s eldest brother recently passed away. He was a kindly man; think Bing Crosby. Yet as far as I know, he never was able to talk in the least about his WWII service…. He had been an ambulance driver for over 3 years in North Africa & Europe. He never resolved the inward horror of what he saw. Rest in peace Uncle Bill.