this western world

Roger Mosey on the alleged terror plot:

2006-08-19T23:45:00.000+02:00

This latest plot highlights the role of scepticism

By Roger Mosey
20 August 2006
(source)

THERE are worse places to be stranded than Venice. I awoke in Italy 10 days ago to the chatter of news channels reporting the terror arrests in London, and alongside the breaking story itself – well reported by BBC World and Sky News – there was the niggling question of how I was going to get my scheduled plane home that day. But my needs were well served. The key players said their pieces; the information was provided calmly; and flicking round the international channels there was the familiar television grammar of anchors at Heathrow linking into reporters talking about “chaos” against a backdrop of weary passengers.
That is, in truth, the easy bit. It is much more difficult to articulate the core of the story – the alleged plot itself – and to develop it on day two and beyond. It is even more tricky doing so when the news cycle runs 24 hours a day and where traditional outlets are in competition with partisan new media sources which fuel a distrust of officialdom.
The point is made most clearly by 9/11. As head of BBC television news at the time I would assert as a fact that two passenger planes had crashed into the World Trade Centre, and I can see no evidence that this was anything other than the result of action by extremist Islamist hijackers. But I know from my email inbox that a very small but noisy minority of Americans dispute this – and 45% of British Muslims, according to a poll for Channel 4, believe 9/11 was the result of a conspiracy by the United States and Israel.
So if the ruins of the World Trade Centre can be interpreted so differently, what hope for mere assertions of a plot?
And there are reasons to be suspicious. What we were told on 10 August this year was derived from intelligence – in the same way as we learned about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. So we know not only that intelligence is fallible but that governments will shape it for a political end. It’s also possible for two things to be true about terrorism: that there is a lethal and potentially all-pervading threat for western administrations, but that they sometimes use the politics of terrorism for partisan advantage. David Cameron made an overtly political speech about terror in the past week and Labour’s outraged response was no less political.

The reasons for doubt go beyond the politicians, too. The media reported the shooting of Jean de Menezes as the elimination of a potential suicide bomber because that was what the police said on 22 July last year and we had no reason to doubt them at the time. This year reporters stood outside a home raided by police in Forest Gate and talked about bombers who might release toxic chemicals capable of killing hundreds – when, in fact, a search revealed nothing. At its harshest, then, the security services have been wrong in the past; and as a consequence the mass media have been wrong too. But conspiracy theorists should note that we got to the truth rapidly in both cases.
Sometimes error is inevitable. Journalism has to seek a narrative from the facts as it knows them. But where reporters and editors might pause for thought is on the nature of the briefings they receive and on the origins of some of the information they pass on.
A few days after some newspapers claimed that the recent alleged plot had resulted in the capture of an al-Qaeda mastermind, ITV News said the supposed ringleader was actually still at large. I have no idea yet which is true, but ITV’s reporter Adrian Britton refreshingly began his story noting it was the result of a briefing and the motivation of the briefer was unclear. Such transparency is an aid to understanding, as is the best possible indication of the source of “facts”: is it top-level and judged to be free of spin, or is it just the random thoughts of a copper on the fringe of the inquiry?
The risk a few days on is that we know less with certainty than we thought we did at the outset. Was it six planes to be blown up or 12? In mid-Atlantic or over American cities? If the alleged plot was to use liquid explosives, why was the find of a handgun in a raided house apparently so significant? And who released the CCTV pictures of a suspect visiting a warehouse and why?

None of this is outside the standard journalistic toolkit. It’s about being clear about what’s known; being honest about what’s not known; and being rigorous about sourcing information. The authorities are at pains to stress that cynicism about the overall threat is wrong; but scepticism remains essential for the credibility of day-to-day news reporting.

Roger Mosey is Director of Sport, BBC and a former editor of the Today programme

Det är synd om svenskarna, I (missaktar kompetens och ansträngning)

2006-03-05T11:30:00.000+01:00

Ica-kuriren hade i november en artikel om hur illa det kan stå ställt med svenskkunskaperna hos elever som efter nio år lämnar grundskolan med godkänt betyg i svenska.

Detta fenomen diskuteras bland annat i den politiske sekreterarens för Folkpartiet Johan Ingerös blogg Right Online. (Det är ju för övrigt ett tämligen intressant påfund att initierade folkpartister vill antyda att de skulle vara högermän.)

Apropå kombinationen höger och liberalism så finns ett kul exempel också i August Linnman som tycker att han kan kallas slipprig nyliberal, mörkblå mörkerman eller knasig anarkist. Han antyder, mer eller mindre seriöst, att problemet inte är underklassens bristande bildning utan att de bättre bemedlade inte bryr sig om att sätta sina barn i ordentliga privatskolor [och] betala för gammalmodig undervisning. Här är skillnaden stor mot den sortens gammaldags nationalistisk konservatism, som kännetecknar åtminstone mina äldre släktingar i Finland. För dem är det axiomatiskt att hela nationen måste bildas. Också det enkla folket, som ofta verkar bli borttänkt i de senaste årtiondenas politiska debatt.

Ingerös vinkel är givetvis att socialdemokratin varit ansvarig för det totala fiasko som efterkrigstidens svenska utbildningspolitik representerar, och att det borgerliga skötebarnet friskolorna är det enda positiva som hänt. Jag är nu inte helt säker på att denna folkpartistiska synpunkt skulle hålla för en närmre granskning. Man skulle till exempel kunna föreställa mig att folkpartiet varit medansvarig i åtskilliga av de täta "moderniseringarna" av undervisningsväsendet, och säkert ibland pådrivande. I varje fall verkar inte de nio årens borgerliga regeringar ha fört en radikalt annorlunda politik, och då hade ändå folkpartister ofta(st) ansvaret som utbildningsminister.

Ingerö skriver bland annat:

Men vad är då ovanstående? Personen som skrev det där kommer att sorteras undan så snart han hamnar på arbetsmarknaden. Ärligt talat, kära läsare: vem skulle anställa någon som skickade en arbetsplatsansökan som saknade versaler och skiljetecken??

Sveriges eftersläpningen i den globala ekonomin bygger på något mycket djupare än bara konjunktursvängningar och skatter. Vårt utbildningssystem så som det tett sig sedan Olof Palmes dagar har lett till en intellektuell kastrering av två generationer svenskar, och samtidigt som alla försök att stoppa detta avfärdas av självgoda sossepampar som "sortering" så jobbar asiater, östeuropéer och sydamerikaner övertid för att gå om oss, och som det nu ser ut kommer de att lyckas.

Min erfarenhet är att svenska arbetsgivare inte alls sorterar bort folk med bristfällig kompetens i svenska. Min mor, som är sjuksköterska, skulle rodna om hon visste hur uselt hennes svenska kollegor kan hantera sitt modersmål. Och sjuksköterskor har ändå som en huvuduppgift att utforma skriftliga anvisningar till den mindre skolade personalen, vilken jag tillhört som sommar- och helgvikarie.

Min kusin, som är en ung civilingenjör, och trevlig på alla sätt och vis, har med rätt så ytliga kunskaper i både historia, geografi och språk lyckats bli anställd på ett stort välkänt svenskt företags forskningsavdelning i Lund. Hon hade knappast klarat sig genom en studentexamen i Finland. I Sverige förklarar arbetsgivaren istället att de har goda erfarenheter av att skicka anställda på internat där de får lära sig hantera engelska! Samtidigt har jag personliga bekanta, med bättre meriter och bättre språkkunskaper, också i svenska, men vars föräldrar kommit hit från Mellanöstern, vilket typiskt lett till många års arbetslöshet, svartjobb eller taxikörande efter en (svensk) högskoleexamen.

Det ter sig uppenbart att kompetens och meriter inte är vad som styr på arbetsmarknaden.

Min grundläggande misstanke är att den raserade folkbildningen snarare är ett symptom än en orsak. Jag kommenterade i Ingerös blogg (kopierat hit som en arkivåtgärd, så att säga):

Som en utlänning som trivs bra med klimatet i Skåne, och som en finne som trivs bättre med den allmänna attityden människor emellan här än i Helsingfors, kan jag konstatera att när (om) jag får barn så skulle jag ändå få bråttom att flytta ...antagligen till Finland.

Eftersom min familj bott mest utomlands, har jag gjort erfarenhet av både dyr privatskola i Latinamerika och kommunistisk stadsdelsskola i östblockshuvudstad, och också av vanlig kommunal skola i Helsingfors. Själv lyckades jag hyfsat i den skitdyra privatskolan, men många av mina klasskamrater fick dålig valuta för pengarna — eller deras överklassföräldrar fick, rättare sagt. Att den var dyr och privat hjälpte inte dem som tyckte att anstränging och abstrakta kunskaper är jobbigt och oviktigtu.

Med andra ord: jag har svårt att tro att friskolornas frihet eller privatskolornas exklusivitet är någon garant för framgång. För mig är det lättare att tro att de ofta usla kunskaper som mina svenska medstudenter regelbundet visar upp, helt utan att skämmas, är ett tecken på en allmän missaktning av utbildning, ansträngning och kunskap.

Detta syns inte alls bara i skolornas dåliga resultat, utan verkar såvitt jag kan se genomsyra all offentlig verksamhet och antagligen mycket av näringslivet också. Det syns i urvalen av vem man anställer, vem man befordrar, och att det är tabu att utkräva personligt ansvar — till och med från höga stats- och regeringstjänstemän.

Min personliga teori är att självgodhet grundad i svenskarnas tursamhet under och efter andra världskriget är själva grunden för det här fenomenet. Om det stämmer vore det synd, för då lär det inte vara så lätt att göra något åt saken innan det är alldeles för sent.

Ödesdiger dag för finländsk-svenska förbindelser

2006-03-01T01:08:00.000+01:00

Inte sedan Karl-Ivan Westman utsågs till Sveriges ambassadör i Helsingfors i mars 1941, vid det tillfället bedömt som Sveriges för stundens viktigaste diplomatiska mission, har en tillträdande chef för Sveriges ambassad vid Salutorget haft sämre omen än idag när Eva Walder-Brundin tillträder som svenskt sändebud.

Och det är inte OS-förlusten i ishockey som är det värsta problemet.

Samtidigt måste det erkännas att både uppgiften, personerna och de historiska omständigheterna inte har något gemensamt.

När Karl-Ivan Westman tillträdde valdes han för att man trodde att hans kompetens var vad som behövdes. Man hade, i varje fall delvis, fel. Sveriges utrikesministerium var splittrat mellan realpolitiker som ville stå på god fot med Tyskland, och ideologer som hoppades på Tysklands förlust och därför var måna om goda relationer med Sovjet, England och USA. De senare hoppades att Finlands accellererande bindning till Tyskland kunde bromsas, och tänkte att Westmans analytiska klarsyn och gamla kontakter i Finland skulle kunna hjälpa till. Utrikesminister Günther och kung Gustav V tillhörde det realpolitiska lägret, men blev övertalade.

Karl-Ivan Westman fick nog väldigt snabbt klart för sig att Finlands bindning till Tyskland var mycket, mycket närmre än man befarade i Stockholm. Men han gjorde också ett misstag som borde sänt honom till skamvrån för resten av livet. Han inbillade sig att om han bara tillräckligt tydligt och tillräckligt ofta förklarade att man i Sverige inte trodde det vara bra för Finland att knyta sitt öde till Tysklands, så skulle det uppstå en opinion som i elfte timmen kunde få regeringen att ändra politik. Det uppnådde han nu inte alls. Det enda det ledde till var att de efter Vinterkriget fåtaliga Sverigevännerna blev ännu färre, och att klyftan och främlingsskapet mellan de båda länderna fördjupades.

Eva Walder-Brundin, däremot, skickas till Helsingfors för att man inte tyckte att hon hållit måttet på UD. Det är inte säkert att det är en rättvis bedömning, men det är uppenbart att hon skickas till Helsingfors för att man inte vill ha henne kvar i Stockholm där hon varit chef för UD:s Asienavdelning, och således i högsta grad medansvarig för vad som gjordes och inte gjordes i samband med tsunami-katastrofen för ett år sedan.

Hennes meritlista är kort och väldigt mager på Finlands-, Norden- och EU-relevanta kontakter och erfarenheter. Helsingfors har således blivit avstjälpningsplats för Laila Freivalds oönskade och misslyckade diplomater.

Om fyra månader tar Finland över ordförandeposten i EU. Våra båda länder borde ha åtskilliga gemensamma intressen, bland annat för att hjälpa EU ut ur den hopplösa stiltje unionen hamnat i efter Irak-krisen, utvidgningen och konstitutionsfiaskot.

Men Göran Perssons regering vill inte utnyttja den här möjligheten. Om trots allt Sverige skulle få några intressen som ambassaden får i uppgift att bevaka, så har man gjort sitt bästa för att syndabocken ska misslyckas igen. Och det är anmärkningsvärt med tanke på hur väl den avgående ambassadören, Ulf Hjertonsson, lyckats med sitt grundläggande uppdrag att fördjupa och förbättra relationerna mellan svenskar och finnar. Genom sättet UD och statsminister gått tillväga, har man gjort ambassadör Walder-Brundins eventuella uppgift hart när omöjlig:
— Motlut, dåligt före och helt fel valla.

Outgrundliga äro Konungariket Sveriges vägar. Men inte otydliga. En tydligare signal till Helsingfors om sitt ointresse, eller sin motvilja, eller vad det nu är för något, kan knappast tänkas. Tyvärr.

Pathetic conclusion:Half a year not enough to understand America

2006-02-14T10:09:00.000+01:00

Three months after returning from a half year's stint in the U.S., I start to feel I've digested my impressions.

I went there with the expectation that in a month or two I would really start to understand "America".

Well. I was wrong. I wonder now if there is anything I understand at all.

I feel pathetic to admit that only a very few basic things have made their way to my brain, as for instance:

America is not a nation. Some Americans say they would like to become one, but nobody pursues such a goal seriously. The concept of a common good seems alien to the American psyche. It's all about advancing the interests of one's own, or of one's family, or at the most of the group/congregation/sub-culture one for the moment has chosen to associate one self with. America is no more a nation than is Europe. America has a common language as a common denominator, which must be a huge advantage, but I don't see the expected gain.

For many Americans, also for well educated people, the situation in foreign countries at the time of the ancestors' emmigration to America overshadows any understanding for what has happened ever since.
The Holocaust and the Cold War could each in their own way be argued to fault that statement, but the end effect is the same: The old world is understood as fundamentally flawed, if not outright bad and evil, and its only hope would be to join America, American culture, American values and the American way.

Americans do not share Europeans' experiences on three fundamentally important points:
- Americans have no collective memory of the horrors of war for a victimized civilian population.
- Americans have no collective perception of guilt for the damage inflicted on other nations by colonialism or war.
- Americans have no appreciation for the democratic system's ability to function as an alternative to civil war, as an arena were social conflicts can be peacefully defused by means of national compromizes.

Americans are just like you and me.
They walk on two legs and have symetrical faces.

But they are not just like you or me when discussing how society works, or ought to function. This is important to remember, so one doesn't become too doctrinary when advocating American solutions to our problems.

"Only" 46% for re-election of president Tarja Halonen

2006-01-15T22:26:00.000+01:00

The first round of the presidential election in Finland was finished today. At eight o'clock the voting was over. Less than three hours later the votes were counted and summarized.

The president, Tarja Halonen, competed with seven candidates and scored 46%. Since she didn't reach the 50% threshold, there will be a second round against the center-right candidate Sauli Niinistö, who's scored 24%. ~~This second round will, of course, be a mere formality.~~ Correction: to my great surprise, the non-socialists united strongly behind Ninistö.

This 46% result was however considerably less than one would have guessed based on polling figures marking Halonen as the most popular and successful of all of Finland's 20th century presidents, although it was also considerably higher than the 21% her Social Democrats scored in the EU-parliament elections of 2004, or their 25% in the national elections of 2003.

Not that this issue keeps me awake in the nights, but I had a really hard time to decide how to vote in this first election, and it won't be easier in the second. Undoubtly she has done an very good job as a president, but I guess many, like myself, remain reluctant to vote for a Socialist when there are alternatives.

Finland is best served by Tarja Halonen as president, yes that's what I believe. It's good for Finland to have a president that 70-80% of the population hold to do a good job — and why not keep a successful leader?

Halonen has a persona that is very suitable for a President of Finland. She makes a very genuine impression with her air of no-nonsense. She embodies the soul and ideals of the nation. Her poor background, Lutheran work ethics, academic achievements, single-motherness and grumpy treatment of sloppy civil servants all strikes a chord in the Finnish psyche.

But my problem remains: When I compared the programs of the different candidates, candidate Halonen was neither my first, nor the second, not even my third best choice.

Om Wikipedia på femårsdagen

2006-01-15T20:01:00.000+01:00

I Schmidtens nattbok skrev jag en kommentar, som jag kopierar hit mest för att jag själv ska hitta den.

Schmidten refererar till en artikel av Rachel Aviv in The Village Voice (läs den!), och fortsätter:

[...] fanatiker med okonventionell verklighetsuppfattning [har] betydligt starkare drivkraft för att påverka texter att motsvara just deras övertygelse och tona ner etablerade sanningar än vad skribenter med expertis eller specialkunskapet har. De senare ger upp och koncentrerar sig på mera tacksamma arbetsuppgifter.

Eftersom en central, och mycket viktigare, grundtanke med Wikipedia är att texterna och deras illustrationer ska tillhöra public domain, så kan Wikipedia-konceptet mycket väl utvecklas vidare i en modifierad form, bättre på att skapa förtroende.

Jag kommenterade:

Som exempel på extremistisk verklighetsuppfattning som kan slå igenom i Wikipedia artiklar kan nämnas den rätt så lilla minoriteten finnar som har ett anti-svenskt program. Som finne kan jag skratta åt dem, men när jag upptäcker att deras skrivningar får stå kvar omodifierade i månader, så förlorar jag givetvis förtroende för Wikipedias artiklar också på andra områden.

Jag blev också förfärad när det under ett halvårs vistelse i USA gick upp för mig hur perfekt Wikipedia på den här punkten tjänar anti-vetenskapliga religiösa knäppskallars syften, dvs deras som propagerar för "intelligent design" som en teori av jämförbar dignitet med etablerad akademisk biologi, eller deras som hävdar att global uppvärmning måste bero på något som människan inte kan påverka.

Även om nu Wikipedia försökte åtgärda problemet med enskilda företrädare med extrema eller alldeles egna tolkningar av verkligheten, så kommer Wikipedia att ha oerhört svårt att skydda sig mot målmedvetna propagandainsatser från stora penningstarka aktörer som regeringar och multinationella företag. Sedan kan det väl kvitta om det är Kinas regering eller franska storföretag. Tack vare Wikipedia kan en världsopinion påverkas lättare, billigare och effektivare än med tidskrifter som Nyheter från Sovjetunionen eller radiosändare som Radio Free Europe.

Introduction, part III: Inherited respect for Russia and for disadvantages of Democracy

2006-01-11T12:43:00.000+01:00

Finland, where I come from, was part of a country that in the 18th century had a 50 years long experiment with parliamentarism — although my forefathers lived in the very province whose loss gave the impetus for the transfer of control over executive power from king to parliament back in 1721/22. Actually, this parliamentarism soon turned out to be most advantageous for the arch-enemy, Russia, gaining influence both directly through bribing parliamentarians and others, and indirectly thanks to the relative national weaknes that perpetual political strifes resulted in. Few would say that it was a very successful period, although some improvements were made to the form of government and many important experiences were won.

Undeniably, my world view is colored by this fact, that the province from where three of my grandparents were evacuated in 1940 and 1944, the province of Karelia, always has been divided by the Russian border.

How much I ever would wish to, I can't help feeling a rush of adrenalin and my soul prepairing to fight or flight when I get reminded of Russian expansionism, Russian oppression, and Russian lack of respect for commoners' lifes and rights.

As history has been told to me, there has always been an East–West dimension to loss of liberty and loss of legal security. For instance, in two decrees, 1817 and 1826, the Russian crown confiscated most land held by farmers in this province and gave it to noblemen. 1.5 million acres thus changed owners, for some decades the farmers remained serfs in all but the name, virtually without legal rights, and finally in the 1870s–1880s Finland's government acted as middleman and made it possible for the farmers to buy their land back again — by instalments.

Without any doubt, it's so that my ancestors' experiences, as they have been told from generation to generation, influence the descendants' world view. This, I believe, must be true for all people who are not deprived of their history.

Blogging och historieberättande

2006-01-11T01:08:00.000+01:00

Till Hans Perssons Pink Unicorn blog skrev jag följande kommentar (kopierad hit för att jag själv ska kunna hålla reda på den):

En sak som slagit mig är att tidigare generationer övade sig mycket mera i att berätta historier för varandra. Ännu min far har kvar mycket av den gåvan, men jag har upptäckt hur plötsligt, i min generation (jag är född -81), ingen i kusinskaran kan återberätta särskilt många av de nog hundratals förfadersanekdoter som vi borde minnas från släktkalas och fisketurer.

Både min mormors bror, som var präst, och min morfar, som var departementstjänsteman, kunde utan vidare berätta historia efter historia om viktiga stationer i våra lantliga anfäders liv både fyra, fem och sex generationer tillbaka.

Nu var det väl i och för sig så, att livet på landet inte förändrades så väldigt mycket mellan 1750 och 1850, så kanske kunde det hända att historier ibland förändrades, blandades ihop lite, eller tillskrevs Tuomas Simonpoika fast det egentligen borde handla om hans son Petri Tuomaanpoika, eller tvärt om. Det spelar ju inte så stor roll längre.

Det historierna berättar är ju egentligen inte vad som hände en viss bestämd individ, utan hur livet kan vara för oss människor. Det är generationers ackumulerade erfarenheter av hur man kan förhålla sig till livet och naturen.

Och här, kanske, finns en beröringspunkt med bloggskrivande och bloggläsande. Det är ju inte för att jag är intresserad av individen Hans Persson som jag läser en viss blog. Och det är ju inte för dem som är intresserade av mig som individ som jag skriver.

Kanske är våra ansatser att skriva bloggar en naturlig fortsättning på våra förfäders historieberättande i årtusenden före radions tid?

Hans Persson hade också skrivit:

Min farfar tyckte om att skriva och efter honom har jag 3-4 pärmar fulla med texter. [...] En del av texterna är skönlitterära försök eller ganska långa roliga historier och anekdoter. De har inte alltid åldrats så väl. De övriga texterna är mycket intressantare, för de är minnen från farfars barndom, eller i flera fall återberättningar av historier som farfars farföräldrar berättat för honom vilket innebär att det handlar om händelser från förra halvan av 1800-talet.

Jag har en liknande erfarenhet. Min fars mormor började skriva dagbok i realskolan, och fortsatte med det i tjugofem år, tills hennes man plötsligt och oväntat blev sjuk och dog. Vid ett tillfälle hade jag hennes dagböcker i min hand, och läste i dem så mycket jag hann med under ett veckoslut.

Det fanns rätt mycket som jag hoppade över. Skvaller och svärmerier till exempel.

Sedan fanns det annat som var över min horisont, men det gav ändå nån slags bild av vad som var viktigt för henne. Hon gav ofta omdömen och kommentarer om ny poesi, dramatik och prosa, både finsk, fransk och svensk. Inte bara ny, förresten, hon läste och läste pånytt ryska och tyska klassiker och reflekterade över både språk och budskap.

Intressant var hur främmad min farmorsmor var för det engelskspråkiga. När hon nån gång kommenterade en (översättning av en) engelskspråkig författare var det uppenbart att det fanns nån slags genuint främlingskap, eller kanske en avsaknad av gemensamma referenser. Detta fascinerar mig mycket, eftersom jag själv ju har rätt lätt för att dra paralleller mellan (vissa) aspekter av typiskt amerikanskt eller australiensiskt förhållningssätt och det finländska. Frontier-mentaliteten, expansionismen ut i den gränslösa vildmarken, och den reella möjligheten att fly undan både samhälle och överhet är det jag tänker mest på. Ska jag försöka förklara denna skillnad så får jag ta till att jag växt upp under massiv dominans av engelskspråkig kultur medan hon växte upp i en tid när tysk, rysk och fransk kultur konkurerade med och kompletterade varandra. Tysk och rysk romanticism stod också i god resonans med stämningarna i Finland under decennierna före och efter självständighetsförklaringen.

Mitt bestående intryck var inte alls att jag kunde förstå henne bättre, men att jag fick en rätt god bild av vad hon intresserade sig för och vilka attityder hon hade. Typiskt var t.ex. att hon kunde uttrycka sig lika ogillande om "den obildade arbetarrörelsen" som om adel med "nedärvda privilegier, nedärvda gods och nedärvd dumhet" eller "okristliga rättare och fabriksdisponenter" som provocerat fram den "röda smittan."

U.S. bypassing its new torture ban

2006-01-05T06:52:00.000+01:00

The strife between Absolutism and Constitutionalism goes on in the United States, as reported in The Boston Globe - Bush could bypass new torture ban:

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said that the signing statement means that Bush believes he can still authorize harsh interrogation tactics when he sees fit.

"The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me," he said. "They don't want to come out and say it directly because it doesn't sound very nice, but it's unmistakable to anyone who has been following what's going on."

The Sharon Era approaching its end?

2006-01-05T02:13:00.000+01:00

Reuters has a surge of articles on Ariel Sharon, who's suffered another and seemingly worse stroke, hinting at his era now approaching its end. Let's see if this may open up for a development that can bring peace and relative justice to that powder keg of the world.

Opinion polls have shown Sharon was on course to win the March election as leader of the new centrist Kadima faction he founded after quitting the right-wing Likud party in the face of a party rebellion over the Gaza pullout.

He has campaigned on a platform of readiness to give up more occupied land in the West Bank as a way to end decades of conflict, but he vowed to keep Israel's hold on major settlement blocs.

A large part of Sharon's popularity among Israelis stems from a belief that he could take bold steps that others would not get away with given his background as the archetypal hawk.

Palestinians have long suspected that Sharon's plans for ending conflict meant that he would dictate terms that would leave them only fragments of the state they seek.

(Quote: Reuters)

Khalilzad warns forregional wars in the Middle East

2005-12-20T21:20:00.000+01:00

Jon Lee Anderson writes in The New Yorker a pretty glorifying piece on Khalilzad, whom he surely correctly characterize as the American Viceroy. The following quote describes what Khalilzad sees to be at stake at this phase of the American occupation of Iraq:

Khalilzad and Casey are keenly aware of the diminishing support in the U.S. for the war and for the President. Both referred anxiously to the debate “back home” about keeping troops in Iraq. If the U.S. left now, Khalilzad said, “obviously, we know that there would be a civil war, and a civil war could escalate in several ways. One, in which the Kurds would move to take things into their own hands rather than follow what they have agreed to in the constitution. Out of that, regional conflicts could erupt. There’s also the possibility that the sectarian war would intensify, and you could have the start of a major long-term Sunni-Shia war that could engulf the entire Middle East. You could also get an Al Qaeda rump state emerging in western Iraq, establishing a caliphate of some kind, a little Talibstan, exporting terrorism—and these scenarios are not mutually exclusive.” He added, “But staying the course should not be interpreted to mean that you’re staying the course in terms of everything that you’re doing.”

[...]

Khalilzad acknowledged that his job often involved running from problem to problem, like a fireman. What was missing, for Khalilzad and the Administration, was a focus on long-term, strategic interests. “I shudder to think what we could face if we don’t fix Iraq,” he said. “Whatever brought us here, it’s engaged us in a way that means it’s now about the world.

It's crucial and obvious for all but a bunch of American liberals that catastrophy must be avoided in Iraq. (On the other hand, Murtha is obviously not one of these liberals, and trying to give that picture, as many seems to do, only further deepens the problem of getting a serious and true debate in the U.S.)

A problem has been the obvious disconnect between U.S. policies and the realities on the ground, which actually now finally makes signs of waining with Khalilzad seemingly getting messages through to the White House, and the White House obviously beeing shaken by bad opinion poll figures and the prospect of problems in the upcomming 2006 election.

OK, it will probably turn out that the U.S. government discovers that sufficient troups can't be deployed in Iraq, so the search for other means to acheive the goals must start. Or maybe the goals must be scaled down first.

A common bet is that there will be a return to diplomacy accompanied by the involvement of less expensive troops than American volunteers and American contractors. Another kind of mercenaries, yeah, that's true.

That will be no free lunch, but the stakes are high and the price tag must be compared to the cost of longtime deployment of American troops in Iraq. Improved relations with Iran, Syria and Turkey seem unavoidable.

The Europeans are rather irrelevant in this picture. Only the Russians and possibly the French have manpower to offer. And the very same governments maybe have useful diplomatic help to offer. But the key must be rapprochement with Syria and Iran.

We don't know if the nuclear threat from Iran is as serious as the WMD threat from Iraq was, but maybe that threat could be better handled if the U.S. or some trusted partner delivered important stuff and ensured continued presence at the sites?

More as a background, Anderson also writes:

When Khalilzad was offered the Ambassador’s job [in Iraq], he called Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national-security adviser, who was Khalilzad’s mentor when they were both on the faculty at Columbia, in the early eighties. “I told him he should be in charge of policy and not just the execution of policy,” Brzezinski said recently. “He brings a lot more to bear than his predecessors, who knew nothing about Iraq. I wonder how many of our top decision-makers knew, a few years ago, the difference between a Sunni and a Shia. It was a gutsy decision to put himself in the line of fire. He is a broad-minded pragmatist and an insightful strategist. He has a unique advantage in a part of the world in which the United States has become massively engaged and does not have many people at the top equipped to deal with it. The top decision-makers today are ignorant and Manichaean.”

[...]

Adel Abdul Mahdi, the Shiite Vice-President of Iraq, told me, “Bremer was an administrator, Negroponte was a diplomat, and Zalmay, well, he’s an Oriental.”

I asked Mahdi what he meant.

“Zalmay presents himself as from the region,” he explained. “He behaves in a more friendly way. He understands the culture here and knows he can invite himself to come and see us. He’ll drop in and say, ‘Can we have a moment together?,’ knowing that other people will come by, as is our custom, and that he will be there, and he will discuss things with them, be part of our discussions.”

[...]

Khalilzad’s scaled-down brief is to secure enough stability and political progress in Iraq to allow for an American withdrawal. The question is whether the situation has reached an irretrievable point even for the best of diplomats—whether Khalilzad might be the right man at the wrong time. There is an inescapable irony to Khalilzad’s return to Baghdad. Not only is he expected to salvage a situation worsened by political misjudgments made by the same officials who removed him from the scene in 2003 but he is also, in a way that almost no other hawk is, dealing with the consequences of a war he helped start.

“Khalilzad was absolutely part of the neocon cabal that brought the war to Iraq,” Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, who has written extensively on Iraq and the Kurds, said. Still, he added, “I credit him with bringing the first dose of realism I’ve seen in this Administration since they came to Iraq.”

[...]

[U]nder Khalilzad the rhetoric about a U.S. commitment to a single, unified nation of Iraq had diminished. “He understood quickly that this constitution was more of a peace treaty than a nation-building exercise, and that what he had to produce was a road map to avoid a future civil war.

“Khalilzad is clearly a policymaker on this,” Galbraith said. “There’s a common misunderstanding that American Ambassadors go and have tea and carry messages that have been formulated in Washington. But, really, the Ambassador is in charge of policy in that country. You have the expertise, the knowledge, and know the people, and ultimately it’s your position that gets carried. You have an advantage over the people in Washington. Khalilzad understood this in Afghanistan and he understands it in Iraq. And he’s in the business of shaping his own instructions. So when he’s going out and talking with Sunni sheikhs, or delaying the constitution to allow compromises to be made, that’s him doing it, not Washington.”

Never-the-less, the final decissions are of course made in Washington. Where the next election never is many years ahead.

The terrorists won

2005-12-20T20:03:00.000+01:00

Cheney Defends Presidential Powers:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday vigorously defended the Bush administration's use of secret domestic spying and efforts to expand presidential powers, saying "it's not an accident that we haven't been hit in four years."

John in DC comments:

Cheney is right. It's not an accident we haven't been hit since Bush started spying on Americans. Bush always said the terrorist hated us for our freedom. And now that we don't have our freedom anymore, the terrorists got the message: they won.

American valuesvs. Real Americans

2005-12-19T21:07:00.000+01:00

Consider this quote by Frank Hague:

"You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American talk like that. "

There is one thing that really confuses me about the United States: I never know when someone who says he speaks for America is right or wrong in his assertion.
— Once I've believed I understood, but boy was I wrong!

U.S. help to the Ragheads:Newbuild empty hospital obliterated

2005-12-19T13:57:00.000+01:00

Dahr Jamail reports:

The destruction this time was ultimate. He was repeating a line from a classical Arabic poem about how to complete building while others destroy what is built. He showed us the gynecology, the pediatric, the emergency departments, the blood bank, the new doctors’ house. All of them completely destroyed. “They were hit by several missiles. Thanks heavens there was no one here, just a mentally retarded and epileptic cleaning worker.” Dr Hamdi was especially sad about the gynecology dept. It was newly rebuilt in record efforts and time, with the help of The German Red Cross. It was not opened yet. All the machines and equipment were destroyed, even the ambulances in the hospital garage were bombed. They were empty. There were 5 of them. Two were destroyed in the garage. A third was destroyed when the driver Mahmood Chiad Abid tried to rescue a family in Karabla on October 1, 2005, killing him. The rest show obvious evidences of shots.

“But if the hospital was empty, why was it bombed? Usually the Americans say that there were terrorists inside?!”

“I assure you that not a single body was found under the rubble, neither any injured person. They attacked the hospital on Nov 7, two days after the major attack on Qa’im. There were no patients, no staff and no armed men. There was one doctor, however, who decided to stay in the hospital. But during the bombing she hid in a neighboring house. 90% of the hospital was destroyed. I call upon the Health Ministry, the Iraqi Government, the Iraqi and international organizations to help us rebuild whatever we can. Of course the departments which are bombed are beyond repair, as you see, they have to be built anew, but we can rehabilitate the other ones. The [Health Ministry] did not send any delegation to see the damage and estimate the expenses. It is more than a month now, and the hospital is still not working.”

The whole article is thought provoking, but one more quote:

The American troops played a classical, colonial, very dirty trick of divide and conquer in Al-Qa’im. They allied with one big tribe, Al bu Mahal, against another very big one, Al-Salman. They used one as informants against the other. These people may make mistakes, or they may give wrong information for different reasons, but innocents get killed in the process. In the last “Steal Curtain” operation, thousands were arrested, and informants from the other tribe were used to pick those who were thought to be insurgents. This story was repeated in many places: Rumanna, Karabla, and Al-Ebeidy. Of course anyone who is branded as a collaborator (traitor) is killed. Qa’im is one example of what is happening in different parts of Iraq.

Read and be scared!

New German government swallows American "New Time, New Rules" argument hook, line and sinker

2005-12-18T17:10:00.000+01:00

In Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung Wolfgang Schäuble, Angela Merkel's Minister of the Interior, is interviewed saying in the context of state sovereignty and whether Germany be a sovereign state or still bound by its post-war dependency of the allied victors:

[W]ir müssen zur Kenntnis nehmen, daß Krieg heute eine völlig andere Bedrohungssituation bedeutet als früher: keine Kriegserklärung mehr, asymmetrische Kriegführung, Selbstmordattentäter, failing states und Angriffe, die nicht von einem Staat ausgehen.

We must realize, that War today means a totally different threat than before: no declaration of War, asymmetrical warfare, suicide bombers, failed states, and attacks from other powers than states.

In other words, Angela Merkel's Germany now stands together with them who think that the world order is, or should be, put back to the situation before 1648.

The minister's statement is cryptic and not particularly easy to understand in its context, but it is an obvious burping of U.S.-supremacist views that in the last years have butchered American diplomatic relations. The distribution of talking points from Washington to Berlin seems to work again:

There is no longer any need to heed old rules.
In fact, those old rules are so old that there's no need even to formally revoke them. Who remembers them anyway?

It's a new time now.

In another interview Schäuble develops his anti-terror ideas further...

...and says he would consider allowing confessions elicited by abusive interrogations to be used in court. "If we were to say that we would, under no circumstances, use information that we weren't sure was gathered completely under conditions observed by states of law — well that would be totally irresponsible," he says. "We have to use such information." Schäuble does go on to emphasize that German security and secret services personnel are absolutely forbidden from engaging in or tolerating torture.

No, of course not. Torture is so very right for outsourcing.

We make it a crime to be a member of what we deem is a "foreign terrorist group".

We make it a crime to have attended what we deem to be "training camps for terrorists".

We lock away "dangerous people" before they have a chance to commit a crime.

We ask friendly dictators to execute the torture we don't want to smear our hands with.

Goodbye due process!
Goodbye habeas corpus!
Goodbye civil liberties!
Goodbye democracy!
Goodbye freedom!
Goodbye sovereignty!

What the heck were the Nazis fought for?

The uninhibiteds' road map toU.S. success in the Middle East

2005-12-16T13:50:00.000+01:00

We've learned that giving advices to the Americans is no good idea. However, under the influence of sufficient amounts of spirits, the tongues may loosen and the thoughts may lift from the maze of what's believed to be possible. Going through bundles of old papers, I found this note that was produced during a vodka drinking session with a dear friend of mine, celebrating her new, though temporary, job as an op/ed-editor at a provincial (conservative) news paper. We knew, and know, only too well that anything like this road map has no chances of approval at this juncture of history, and that it thus is futile and maybe even contraproductive to say these things loud.

How to pacify the Arabs and other Muslim threats
PM to the United States' National Security Advisor
Prioritize a solution that is obviously and visibly favorable for the Palestinians. And do this speedily! No single issue has been more damageing to the United States' security and standing.

Take command over the Israelis for their own best. Convince their government that defusing the Arab threat is crucial not only for other countries, but also for Israel's prosperity. Launch a propaganda offensive targetting the Israeli electorate.

Give up the idea of a united Iraq. Accept that the U.S. invasion is resulting in Iraq's split. Strive for a solution that may be considered as as fair as possible by the populations of the three states that are the most likely outcome. Broke deals with Turkey, Iran and Syria to get them involved and as happy as possible with the result of this process, aiming at making them all give up the ambition to increase their influence in ex-Iraq (more than their neighbors).

Buy the Iranians, and at the same time future diplomatic leverage, by cooperating and supporting their energy program on for them favorable, or very favorable, terms. Forget about the nuclear threat. If it's not too late already, that might be fixed later, and in any case there are more pressing problems right now.

France might belong to the countries that can contribute on this. Get the French on the train! Ask what they would need to participate with enthusiasm. Realize that the U.S. needs help and can't continue to humilate friendly democracies.

Reconstruction in Iraq is a moral imperative as well as important for America's standing in the world, and crucial to create stability in Iraq — but try to avoid the corruption. Offer gods that's not available in Iraq, not money. Such gods could be exemplified by telephone exchanges and broadcasting transmittors, water pipes, busses, etc, etc, and preferably such goods that is intended for comunal use rather than for individual homes or housholds.

Don't let anti-Western mullahs get monopoly on explaining The West for the Iraqis that so far have got a rather ugly impression of us! Fine-comb America and allied countries for Arabic-speakers and offer to send them to towns in Iraq to work as civilian supporters paid by the U.S. government on three-to-five years contracts supporting whatever they are educated to do. Offer grants for education in the United States. Set the goal of making Iraq a strongly pro-American bastion in less than two generations.

Offer assistance by military advisors. Do not discriminate against any of the groupings in Iraq, but view the assistance as a step on the road towards modern Liberty, not as a means to suppress opposition. Follow the example of de-Nazifying West-Germany. Concentrate on the spread of American values, though labled differently, of course!

Make the military personell as invisible as possible and re-base to Kuwait and Kurdistan; and send home those not needed to keep the bases. Make it obvious that forces can be quickly mobilized and sent in, if deemed necessary.

Find a way to become friends with the Syrians. Goal: Rule of Law, Human Rights, Education, Liberty of Speech. That might be harder and might require involvment of other countries. The neocons were right: A democratic development would be a good thing, only their militarism is an option that is passé.

If I today should make an addition, be it then that involving other countries seems even more imperative than last spring when the list above was scribbled down. What could be better for Iraq's peaceful integration into the modern world, than clearly time-limited schoolarships for thousands of 18-years old Iraqis of both sexes. It oughtn't be impossible to enthuse Israel and European democracies for such an investment — after all, who has the most to gain?

Of course, what is needed depends totally on what is strived for as goal for the process. And maybe this is were the real problem of understanding lies. I, and virtually all people I know, think that nations feeling oppressed and exploited is the root to the threat against us in the West. If one instead sees U.S. lack of control over territory with oil resources as the actual threat, then of course the analyze looks a lot different.

Can America be saved?

2005-12-16T00:46:00.000+01:00

Fareed Zakaria recently wrote in a Newsweek column under the headline An Imperial Presidency:

America has developed an imperial style of diplomacy. There is much communication with foreign leaders, but it's a one-way street. Most leaders who are consulted are simply informed of U.S. policy. Senior American officials live in their own bubbles, rarely having any genuine interaction with their overseas counterparts, let alone other foreigners. "When we meet with American officials, they talk and we listen—we rarely disagree or speak frankly because they simply can't take it in," explained one senior foreign official who requested anonymity for fear of angering his U.S. counterparts.

It is worth quoting at length from the recently published—and extremely well-written—memoirs of Chris Patten (who is ardently pro-American), recounting his experiences as Europe's commissioner for external affairs. "Even for a senior official dealing with the U.S. administration," he writes, "you are aware of your role as a tributary; however courteous your hosts you come as a subordinate bearing goodwill and hoping to depart with a blessing on your endeavours... In the interests of the humble leadership to which President Bush rightly aspires, it would be useful for some of his aides to try to get into their own offices for a meeting with themselves some time!

"Attending any conference abroad," Patten continues, "American cabinet officers arrive with the sort of entourage that would have done Darius proud. Hotels are commandeered; cities brought to a halt; innocent bystanders are barged into corners by thick-necked men with bits of plastic hanging out of their ears. It is not a spectacle that wins hearts and minds."

Apart from the resentment that the imperial style produces, the aloof attitude means that American officials don't benefit from the experience and expertise of foreigners. The U.N. inspectors in Iraq were puzzled at how uninterested American officials were in talking to them—even though they had spent weeks combing through Iraq. Instead, U.S. officials, comfortably ensconced in Washington, gave them lectures on the evidence of weapons of mass destruction. "I thought they would be interested in our firsthand reports on what those supposedly dual-use factories looked like," one of then told me (again remaining anonymous for fear of angering the administration). "But no, they explained to me what those factories were being used for."

In handling postwar Iraq, senior American officials in Washington avoided any real conversations with U.N. officials who had been involved in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Mozambique and other such places.

To foreigners, American officials increasingly seem clueless about the world they are supposed to be running. "There are two sets of conversations, one with Americans in the room and one without," says Kishore Mahbubani, formerly a senior diplomat for Singapore and now dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Because Americans live in a "cocoon," Mahbubani fears that they don't see the "sea change in attitudes towards America throughout the world."

My fear is that this attitude is emblematic not only for the American government, but for American elites generally. Who is left to call for a change?

The lacking sense of unity is scary

2005-12-15T21:31:00.000+01:00

Back in the normal environment since about a month, I start to feel my impressions of the United States are about to crystalize.

Accidentally, I stumbled upon the following:

What my travels of the world have taught me is that there is no simple way to measure one system against another – especially not when that system has been chosen by the people and adheres to the cultural values that the people respect.

What my travels have also taught me is that this "freedom and democracy" notion isn’t always what people have as their first (or even second or third) priority ... and that lack of "freedom" and "democracy" very often has no real impact on the daily lives of the vast majority of people who are supposedly denied these. More important than freedom and democracy is the ability to eat a square meal, have access to education and medicine and to live by your own cultural values, not those imposed by others.

By my values, the USA is a pretty repugnant society: It is amongst the most violent in the world, it executes people, its legal system is nothing to prize, its political system is corrupt, racism is endemic, welfare sucks, 11% of the population live in abject poverty, there is a distinct lack of equity, thought is persecuted etc. That doesn’t mean that I think it is significantly worse than every other country — I just don’t happen to believe that it is any better than the rest of the world either.

This credo most certainly strikes a chord in me. I wouldn't myself have executed percentages, as the 11% above, since I don't trust them, and I am not sure if persecution of thought is appropriate nomenclature, but by and large, this is how many people from elsewhere perceive mainstream America.

We all see through the prism of our own experiences and national myths. In my personal case, what I experienced in the contact with a small segment of America gives me strong and troubling associations to my own nation's deep fissures, 100 years of strife between proponents of Swedish and Finnish language (and culture), a problematic distrust for governments, and an unnecessary but traumatic Civil War originating in distrust between Finns with and without property, that lured the Russians in 1939 to believe that our nation would be an easy prey to invasion and elimination. That invasion turned out to fill up the fissures, but it was luck more than skill that saved our nation.

Alarm bells goes on in my soul, warning that deepening fissures in our Western Culture may make us weak and unprepared when A Real Threat turns up.

My question is:
How to convince both sides, both "Europeans" and "Americans", or in America: "Conservatives" and "Liberals", that it's in the common interest of all but the enemy around the corner to promote unity, understanding, compromise and mutual respect?

— A worry recently also expressed by Germany's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who as quoted by CNN said Wednesday he hoped the interpretation of torture "doesn't cause Europe and the United States to drift apart."

The author continues:

Do I hate America? Do I hate Americans? Do I love others more? No — I just hate the endemic blindness and ignorance to the outside world (no matter what country it originates in) ... and yes, I proudly admit to a total and uncompromising disrespect for those who see only black and white and who unquestioningly believe the ridiculous propaganda and rhetoric of big-on-lies / short-on-facts / void-of-truth nationalism and misplaced self-love [...]

As I see it, ANYONE who sees their own culture as so vastly superior to any another culture, has become a supremacist and a racist and deserves (and will get) my utter contempt.

Racism and supremacism, however, is not at all a problem that's uniquely American. In fact, there is a similar problem in Western Europe with increasing visible minorities of different religion and/or skin color. Enhancing the feeling of unity within the European nations is one of our most crucial assignments, if we aspire to survive as nations. A serious debate is badly needed!

The GWOT as witch hunt

2005-12-12T19:34:00.000+01:00

The GWOT looks more and more like the medieval witch hunts, with us searching hard to find evidence for what we expect to find, ...so hard that we in fact compel suspects to use their fantacy to produce confessions that fit our fears; confessions that of course include naming new suspects that then can be made confess their contacts with Evil.

Medieval witch hunters surely were very proud of their important contributions to save us from eternal death. One can guess present day interrogators are too.

Sunday Times:A noble vision lost

2005-12-11T11:51:00.000+01:00

Sunday Times comments under the headline A noble vision lost:

[Condoleezza Rice's] tour of Europe last week was dogged by questions about rendition, which drew the response that US personnel were prohibited from the “cruel, inhumane and degrading” treatment of detainees.

That raises as many questions as it was supposed to answer. If this is the situation, why is Dick Cheney, the vice-president, fighting so hard against Senator John McCain’s bill proposing to outlaw such practices? Does her reassurance cover the handing of suspects to third party agents to be worked over?

[...]

When George Bush declared a “war on terror” four years ago the way forward seemed clear. Terror networks had to be infiltrated and beaten from within. Countries that condoned or sponsored terrorism had to be made to see the errors of their ways. Overlaying all this was the need for the West to occupy the moral high ground. When governments descend to the level of the terrorists, the battle, which rests as much on political as military objectives, is lost.

[...]

President Bush had a noble vision to promote democracy and introduce the rule of law to the Middle East, inspired by the idea that the United States is “a shining city upon a hill”. That nation was built on the enlightenment rejection of arbitrary justice.

Also those people who haven't been in harms way in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, or elsewhere have experienced a tragic loss.

We've lost the vision, or illusion as some would say, of America as a great example of longstanding Democracy, of Freedoms, Rights and Liberty.

Nir Rosen's view

2005-12-11T01:57:00.000+01:00

If America Left Iraq — The case for cutting and running by Nir Rosen is well worth reading as most articles by writers who actually move in the society, and not just with their pals from the marines or airbornes.

The issue I worry the most about is the risk of covert or open support from the neighbor countries in a revenge war fueled by both historical conflicts that can be inflated, as we saw for instance in Bosnia and Kosovo, and anger over colaboration with the infidel aggressor, i.e. USA. My fear is that the Kurds would find themselves without friends in the neighborhood. In my distant ignorance, I hold it for important to take diplomatic measures to avoid such a situation.

Nir Rosen seems not to be as fearful:

What about the Kurds? Won't They Secede If the United States Leaves?

Yes, but that's going to happen anyway. All Iraqi Kurds want an independent Kurdistan. They do not feel Iraqi. They've effectively had more than a decade of autonomy, thanks to the UN-imposed no-fly zone; they want nothing to do with the chaos that is Iraq. Kurdish independence is inevitable - and positive. (Few peoples on earth deserve a state more than the Kurds.) For the moment the Kurdish government in the north is officially participating in the federalist plan - but the Kurds are preparing for secession. They have their own troops, the peshmerga, thought to contain 50,000 to 100,000 fighters. They essentially control the oil city of Kirkuk. They also happen to be the most America-loving people I have ever met; their leaders openly seek to become, like Israel, a proxy for American interests. If what the United States wants is long-term bases in the region, the Kurds are its partners.

Would Turkey Invade in Response to a Kurdish Secession?

For the moment Turkey is more concerned with EU membership than with Iraq's Kurds — who in any event have expressed no ambitions to expand into Turkey. Iraq's Kurds speak a dialect different from Turkey's, and, in fact, have a history of animosity toward Turkish Kurds. Besides, Turkey, as a member of NATO, would be reluctant to attack in defiance of the United States. Turkey would be satisfied with guarantees that it would have continued access to Kurdish oil and trade and that Iraqi Kurds would not incite rebellion in Turkey.

It's not self-evident that the Kurdish and the Turkish governments would be able to agree if left totally on their own. It might be important for the stability if the United States took a clear stance for the territorial integrity of a sovereign Kurdistan in being, and for friendly and advanced trade relations between Kurdistan and the Turks. An agreement that made Turkey interested in peace in Kurdistan would hopefully also deter other forces from considering attacking the Kurds.

Juan Cole expresses my fears:

I don't agree with him, but I admit to being from the generation that lived through the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian Revolution, the Afghanistan War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Kashmir Civil War, etc., etc., and the world looks darker to me and I can imagine more catastrophic scenarios than are presented [in Nir Rosen's article].

UK Supreme Court blows back at Socialist Torture Policy

2005-12-08T13:26:00.000+01:00

A faint light in all this dark!

As Craig Murray points out, and Reuters reports, UK's socialist government that has argued that "evidence" collected during stress and duress ought to be considered by courts, if only the torture had not been executed by Brittish officers, lost the argument before the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary.

The Law Lords disagreed with Blair & Co.

"Torture is an unqualified evil. It can never be justified. Rather it must always be punished," said Lord Brown, one of seven Law Lords asked to rule on the issue.

The panel overthrew the ruling by Britain's Appeal Court in 2004 that secret tribunals hearing cases relating to the terrorism suspects could consider evidence that would not be acceptable in a British criminal court trial.

That meant UK authorities could consider information that might have been extracted using torture in another country, provided British agents were not directly involved.

The government has admitted using such information for a secretive tribunal, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), which deals with certain terrorism cases in Britain.

These cases, including that of Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada who is accused of being the inspiration for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, may now have to be reconsidered.

"I have to conclude that the duty not to countenance the use of torture by admission of evidence in judicial proceedings must be regarded as paramount and to allow its admission would shock the conscience, abuse or degrade the proceedings and involve the state in moral defilement," Lord Carswell said.

Dr. Rice searches for new friends in Europe

2005-12-06T15:12:00.000+01:00

In a plane somewhere in Europe, Rice spoke with local journalists, according to Der Spiegel:

Auf ihrem Flug nach Berlin sagte die Ministerin vor Journalisten, einige europäische Länder müssten mehr Verständnis für das Vorgehen der USA zeigen. "Die USA sind mit den meisten dieser Länder befreundet und in den vorliegenden Fällen sind wir nicht nur Verbündete im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus, sondern zum Teil schon seit dem Kalten Krieg oder sogar noch länger."

On the plane to Berlin, the Ms Secretary told journalists that some European countries must show more understanding for the United States' approach. "The U.S. are friends with most of these countries and not only allied in the fight against the Terrorism, but partly already since the Cold War or even longer."
[my emphasis]

What is now this? Which European Union countries are the United States not friends with? Or is she maybe thinking of any of the 46 member countries in the Council of Europe?

Der Spiegel continues:

Rice verlangte von den US-Verbündeten in Europa, der Öffentlichkeit zu erklären, dass der Kampf gegen den Terrorismus drastische Mittel erfordere. Es sei nötig, "uns selbst und unsere Bevölkerung daran zu erinnern, dass es sich um schwierige Entscheidungen und schwierige Umstände handelt, mit denen wir nie zuvor konfrontiert waren".

Rice demanded from the U.S.-allies in Europe to explain to the public that the fight against the Terrorism demands drastic measures. It's necessary, "to remind ourself and our populations that the decissions and circumstances are difficult, and we were never before confronted by them."

Over and out.

It's hard to imagine a stronger concentration of opinions that seem to differ over the Atlantic.

Most Europeans have experienced terrorism for over 30 years.

Are we fighting for our values, or is the fight an excuse to demolish Democracy, Human Rights, and Rule of Law in our countries?

Are international treaties void or something to hold on to?

Electorates of European democracies maybe don't like Ms Rice's Stalinist view of the ideal relation between elected and voters.

OK. Now our feeling have become knowledge: the Bush administration hasn't learned anything particular in the last five years.

It becomes harder and harder to establish an appearance of common views within the Western World. NATO seems more and more to be a cooling stiff.

This is also obvious for German news papers (quoting BBC's translation here):

A commentary in Tageszeitung argues that "clarification" of the Masri affair is "urgently needed" if Germany's relationship with the United States is to be "normalised" on a "non-criminal basis".

For Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau, "there is a deep, lasting gulf between the moral-political approach of the neo-conservatives in the US, represented by the Bush administration, and the basic political consensus in Germany".

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes that Chancellor Merkel is "already being closely watched" to see whether her policy towards the United States is going to be "too close, too cordial".

Süddeutsche Zeitung says (translation from Der Spiegel):

The case has opened up an "abyss" because it associates Berlin with torture, personal injury and obstruction of justice. "There's the official, clean side of German policy that condemns the American war on Iraq, refuses to take part in what is an illegal war of aggression, condemns torture, holds a dialogue on human rights (but only with China, unfortunately not with the US)," writes Süddeutsche. The "unofficial, dirty side" of German policy includes "tolerating US practices on German and European soil of which everyone knows that they shouldn't really be tolerated," writes Süddeutsche.

But in all this sorrow and tragedy, there is at least one positive trace: Since the winter of 2002/2003 some U.S. news outlets seem to have learned to be a little bit less suspicious of the foreigners and a little bit more suspicious of their men at the power: Newsday, for instance, use the headline On torture, Rice is disingenuous, which is a tad more outspoken than most European papers.

Most appropriate headline is, as usual, found in a blog: Bush Admin Brings More Shame on America: Scrambling to Move Tortured Prisoners Out of Europe.
—Shame on us all, I would say.

Making peace with our Muslim enemy

2005-12-06T10:09:00.000+01:00

Josh Botts argues:

Our short term goals are pretty straight-forward: prevent additional terrorist attacks and disrupt existing terrorist networks. Over the longer term, we can only “win” by convincing Muslim populations that their lives are improved and not harmed by American ideas and actions. Maybe we can do this by colonizing the Muslim subconsciousness as our popular culture and consumer goods seemed to do in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

There is a crucial difference. Central Europe (or Eastern Europe as the Cold War term was) was occupied by the Soviet Union, and the occupant's behavior was not much more appropriate than the American behavior in Iraq or Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Quite a few of the Central Europeans wanted of all of their hearts get rid of the Soviet dominance, which they considered harmful for their societies and disruptive of their political and cultural traditions. In the Mid-East, USA (as American often is labeled there) plays the part of the Soviet Union — unfortunately.

And maybe we can do this by catalyzing the formation of liberal democratic regimes in the Middle East responsive to the popular will and protective of individual rights as the Bush administration hopes it is doing in Iraq.

Any westerner with the slightest knowledge of the Mid-East agree, but it had been a lot easier before the invasion of Iraq, and even easier before the second intifada. Still, it's hopefully not made an impossible road. It's not only the Arabs that suffer. Also we pay a high price for not having been able to convince Sharon to take his little walk (in the company of some hundred security personel) somewhere else.

But judged from the facts on the ground, from the Americans' actions, it can really be doubted if the Bush administration really hopes to do this. It sounds more like disinformation to hide some more sinister goals.

Both of these approaches require that we avoid alienating Muslim peoples as a whole with careless rhetoric equating their religious faith with acts of terror, but neither can come close to success with careful words alone. Brzezinski is correct to argue that American leaders should watch what they say, but I think he’s missing the forest for the trees when he implies that names and labels can make or break our efforts to reduce the threat of terrorism.

This is true. It is actions that count. Words are believed only when they fit into existing (negative) pre-conceptions, as was the case with the infamous Crusade speech.

In the situation we now have, deeds that could lead the process forward and in the right direction might be:

revoking the economic and judicial privileges foreigners are granted in Iraq,
forcefully convincing the Israelis to consider Palestinians equally worthy humans, and
recalling Western troops from those Muslim lands where they are not wanted.

Dr. Rice's small white lies

2005-12-06T09:42:00.000+01:00

are even less convincing than Colin Powell's show for the United Nations:

The United States does not use the air space or airport of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee when we believe he or she will be tortured.

The United States does not transport, and has not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.

The United States has fully respected the sovereignty of other countries that have co-operated in these matters. The United States is a country of laws.

Source this time: The Times.

Brzezinski proposes important steps forward for the Democrats

2005-12-06T00:59:00.000+01:00

Originating from the nations neighboring to the Soviet Union, I very much appreciate Zbigniew Brzezinski for his somewhat gambling reversal of Kissinger's détente policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and the subsequent resolute stance against a threatening Soviet invasion of Poland in 1979, that was a very welcome change of the shameful and disappointing non-reactions to Berlin 1953, Hungary 1956, and Praha 1968. His emphasis on human rights was also of great value, although undeniably appearing as grave hypocrisy.

Today he is an old wise man, who probably realizes more of his done mistakes than he can admit on the record. Although I think Brzezinski is too optimist with regard to the possibilities to quickly repair the many rifts America in recent years has provoked around the world, I am overall much impressed by his analyzes, as most lately presented in his book The Choice.

In a fresh article in the American Prospect he outlines a strategy for American retreat out of the perils in Iraq ...and then, of course, advance into a glorious future:

The administration's definition of American leadership is, essentially, "We direct, and you follow". Its most extreme form involves a slogan the president has become fond of: If you’re not with us, you’re against us. It’s a self-defeating posture that undercuts America’s capacity to lead. Democrats in particular should promote consensus-building. Consensus means compromise. Consensus means joint action. Consensus means responding to problems with one’s trusted friends. Consensus excludes the notion of condemning one’s friends as weaklings or weasels if they don’t agree with us. That is a prescription for self-isolation.

The president never misses an opportunity to revile the Iranian government and to talk as if we favor regime change in that country. We have refused to participate in multilateral talks, demanding instead that Europeans conduct negotiations with Iranians, on the grounds that U.S.-Iranian talks would legitimate the Iranian regime. And we’re taking the posture that we’ll not be part of any quid pro quo. Yet we expect Iranians to make substantial concessions. This is a good illustration of how not to conduct a serious international effort.

I couldn't agree more.

In the following, however, also Brzezinski seems to believe that the U.S. can leave the war in Iraq and let the Kurds, the Persians/Shi'ites and the Syrians/Sunnis finish it on their own. I am not convinced. I think the worst possible scenario would be if Kurds were slaughtered in a grand scale, with quiet or open support of Turkey and Iran, with outrage and radicalization of Kurds in the diaspora as the unavoidable consequence, and of course yet a refugee problem for Europe to handle.

What about Iraq?
Our congressional leaders are still inclined to dance around the issue or to find salvation in a formula that calls for American disengagement -- but gradually and without indicating what that means in terms of levels or dates. I’m not sure that’s a wise policy. Because once you begin to draw down your troops, it’s probably better to remove them rapidly. If you scale down your presence gradually, the reduced numbers are going to be in jeopardy. Moreover, it doesn’t have the psychological and political effect of shaking Iraqis into a realization that it is their responsibility to stand on their own feet. We need to scale down our definition of success and realize we’re not going to get a "democratic," secular, pro-American Iraq. We’re going to get an Iraq that is responsive to Iraqi nationalism and dominated by a combination of Shiites and Kurds with some proportion of Sunnis adjusting to that reality. It will probably be more theocratic in character than we would like to see. But it will be a regime that responds to current political realities. I think we need to bite the bullet and leave sometime in the next year.

Do you think the Iraqi army is going to be ready soon?
I think our course with the Iraqi forces verges on the absurd: It is all about us training them. The question arises: Training them to do what? If it is a matter of knowing how to use a Kalishnikov in order to kill other people, I think most military-aged Iraqis don’t need our training. If it is a question of training Iraqis so they behave and act like American soldiers, that’s well and good. Except that is not what is needed in the circumstances we will be bequeathing them. What is needed is motivation based on loyalty to the powers that be. That will mean loyalty to various Shiite militias with a clerical connotation and loyalty to the two major Kurdish formations. Plus, perhaps eventually, loyalty to some Sunni militias based on a tribal allegiance. The motivation is not going to be created by American sergeants who are -- quote, unquote -- "training" them how to behave like American soldiers.

I remain inclined to believe a three-state solution, alternatively a confederation, with large international troops safeguarding the Kurdish state's integrity, would offer more stability to the region.

As usual, it's of course not consideration for the pore civilians that might lose homes and lives that can motivate foreign powers to pay the bill, but the fear for what could happened in case of escalating and widening conflicts.
— Keyword: Oil.

What I hate the most about Sweden

2005-12-05T21:56:00.000+01:00

I moved to Sweden voluntarily. My excuse for this intrusion is that my parents found it convenient to send me to university in a town with existing aunt who could keep an eye on me. That town happened to be Lund in the very south of Scandinavia.

I then made my best to learn the language as flawlessly as possible, and was aided by eager Swedes who spotted grammatical incongruence and foreign-sounding vowels easing the perfection of my Swedish.

Then, when after a few years, right prepositions and gender endings started to pop out of my mouth in real-time instead of embarrassing seconds after the wrong ones, I discovered that written Swedish ~~is full of~~ ... hmmm... ...contains plenty of exactly that kind of errors, and that this maybe even to some degree could explain my own difficulties.

I got shocked over the typical Swedish response, if I asked about something I’d seen written in news papers, ads or placards:
— Well, yes, that’s maybe /probably /definitely grammatically wrong, but one understands the meaning. So one doesn’t take notice. That wouldn’t be correct, would it?

Oh, well, why on earth should immigrants go out of their way to memorize all these strange rules and word genders and funny fricative sounds if the Swedes themselves mix them up all the time — and don’t seem to care???

Essential hate of Sweden

2005-12-05T20:34:00.000+01:00

Hating Swedes and everything Swedish is a common leisure pursuit among the Finns, although maybe of diminishing importance in the last ten years as Finland's dependency of Sweden as the narrow bridge to the World, or at least with the Western World, subsided. A bridge without which we then would have been totally isolated with our scary neighbor, the big bad Russian bear.

Our language hints at Finns' relations with neighbors as an ancient source of uncomfortability. Already the word for village carry connotations of the need to be on one's guard, not to misbehave one-self and shame one's family for eternity. The word for neighbor has conveniently been used for enemy when the latter word seemed too charged or too pompous.

So it's no wonder that many of us have nurtured a Sweden-hate that takes the Swedes' treacherousness and evil intentions as a dogma that bids to view contradicting signs as temporary or irrelevant. It can only be healthy, if this now is about to be exchanged for a deliberate underestimation of the Swedes' importance for the Finns — particularly so, as the Swedes have done their best to ignore and forget about the Finns all the time since 1812. Now, we may advance towards a balanced relation!

My own hate of Sweden, however, is of an entirely different kind.

Don't blame Bush- for ubiquitous disrespect

2005-12-05T05:38:00.000+01:00

Recently I was a guest to the United States. I moved primarily in student circles, and primarily among East Coast Liberals. More than once, I encountered the argument:

This was and is Bush's war!

It was he and his neo-con buddies that foisted it off on the American people, the world, [...] it will be a loss for us all, but the responsibility is on his head and on those who continue to support this manifest debacle.

As the shy guy I am, unsure of if my English would suffice for an argument, I played the role of the polite guest and nodded agreeingly. But what I had wanted to say was this:

No, it's America's war. Or maybe, seen from Islamic and Arab angles, it's another of the Western powers' colonial wars.

America, as it appears to the rest of the world, patriotically supported their troops when they committed atrocity after atrocity, ...or opened the doors for thugs and bandits, who worked on the destruction of the Iraqis' pride and hope in their own ways.

Blaming someone else doesn't help the slightestly.
Particularly not when this someone else obviously was a puppet to start with. "His war" (and his troops' flagrant disrespect for the civilians they officially were there to save from evil) had the support of an almost unanimous mass media cadre, corporations, elected politicians, militaries, judges, prosecutors, FBI and CIA, and virtually every American in any kind of position of authority.

American disrespect for other nations was intensified in the months before the invasion, and that impression will be hard to revoke. Tomorrow Condoleezza Rice will make a new imprint. We have heard it before: Americans can't be expected to follow the laws or customs of any other countries. Euroweanies should be happy that the U.S. have signed all those stupid bilateral treaties, but they must understand that the rules are for THEM to follow, not for Americans, of course!

As this is how allies are respected, also the brainless understood how Muslim savages would be valued. Human dignity and Human Rights are fine — but only for humans of course.

But blame is not of much value.

The important question must be: What is the cause, and how can it be avoided in the future? Which segments of the American elite must be brought into the process of finding and reparing the errors? Interventionists? Militarists? Supremacists? Or would it be enough with ordinary Conservatives?

But to do that, there must first be established some common ground. What do the United States strive for? Exploitation of nations within reach, maybe? World dominance? Or something else?

Update:
The comment above was made at the TPMCafe, and there were follow-ups, of which the following maybe is particularly well-considered:

by Don Roberto on Dec 05, 2005 -- 11:52:24 PM FWT

Laurila,

I can certainly understand how America's actions must appear to the rest of the world. They have a right to hold this country collectively responsible for all its actions. But the view for some of us within our own borders who diametrically oppose the war and the rest of the Bush policies, foreign and domestic, is very similar to that of the world community. For some of us following the 2004 election, the impulse was to succeed the blue states and join up with Canada. It was as if we found ouselves living in a country we didn't recognize anymore. A country that does not hold dear what we understood to be American values.

I appreciate your comments, but I will reiterate the fact that this IS Bush's war. It is almost unimaginable that had it been Al Gore, or any other person save Dick Cheney, that was elected in 2000, we would not be in the military and diplomatic mess we are in today. Bush is the perfect storm of what is wrong with this country, from his militaristic, imperialistic utopianism all the way down through his anti-science, fundamentalist religious beliefs. There is something terribly wrong psychologically with the man. Unfortunately, he does represent a significant portion of the equally psychically disturbed American electorate.

There is a saying — "give credit where credit is due". That applies to the negative as well. Call it blame if you wish, but I prefer to call it accountability. The first term implies perhaps unjustified diversion of responsibility. The second implies a rational and constructive assessment of facts. After all, when a business is operating at a loss, it has accountants to tell them why, not blamers.

As a U.S. citizen, my first obligation is to speak out against those who are actually or mostly accountable and seek to remove them from office so that they can't do further damage. That includes most Republicans and many Democrats. Many of them were complicit, while others were simply duped by this administration's propaganda. It is also my obligation to counter arguments that seek to cast blame upon the wrong people and policies.

I tried to develop what's at the center of my attention in The lacking sense of unity is scary. I am not at all surprised that Don above sees other problems than I do, since that actually is one of my points. Many Americans I've met tend to see individual causes of problems where I look for systemic causes.

human dignity, fairness and the rule of law

2005-12-03T12:57:00.000+01:00

The worst with the current condition is that we, the nations of the Western World, have become the anti-thesis of what we believed we strived for.

By abandoning our values, most of all our pledge to Truth, Fairness and the Rule of Law, we desecrate our ideals and rebuff all them around the world who have more reason than we to put their hope to these ideals and fight for these values.

Secrecy, deception, spin and other soft weapons of Information Warfare, that have a problematic tendency to hit back, are more valued than right decisions based on correct information. Laws, both national and international, are abandoned in practice, although never officially revoked. (There are a few exceptions: The ascending President Bush II actually signaled the new times by officially abandoning a couple of international treaties. In light of his administration's later achievements, this really must be applauded and praised.)

Rice to Europe: discipline your nations!

2005-12-03T11:34:00.000+01:00

Will the result be an even deeper alienation between the U.S. and the free world?

One of the things I was the most impressed by, however in a very sad and negative way, during my recent five-months stay in the U.S., was how much of a difference there is between what intelligent people in Europe and in the US believe to be true.

There really is a rift between the nations, or maybe one rather should say between the peoples.

An American political scientist I learned to know argued that this difference actually was nothing new, however the American elite in Washington and NYC had until recent years rather been correctly characterized together with the Europeans. Now this has changed.

Now Condoleezza Rice is dispatched to Europe, as reported by Reuters:

she will remind allies they themselves have been cooperating in U.S. operations and tell them to do more to win over their publics as a way to deflect criticism directed at the United States, diplomats and U.S. officials said.

Unfortunately, the governments' problem is that they for long trusted their U.S. counterpart too much, and that they have suffered badly from this. Many bad things can be said about European press, but at least it is not yet as Pravda-like as the American media have developed into.

The blog Rami's wall translates and sumarizes a TV report on the extraordinary rendition of AlZery and Agiza, that has caused the involved government agencies and politicians (West of the Atlantic) some real blows:

They have discovered that this [CIA leased] jet flew to Bromma Airport in Stockholm, carrying masked CIA men who took Egyptian terror suspects Mohammad AlZery and Ahmad Agiza and flew them to Egypt where they were tortured, despite a deal between the Swedish and Egyptian government guaranteeing that they would not be tortured. The report harmed Sweden's reputation as a supporter of human rights internationally, and the integrity of its reports to the United Nations.

The report, quoted Robert Baer, Former CIA agent who was based in Jordan as saying: "There is a rule inside the CIA that if you want a good interrogation and you want good information you send the suspect to Jordan, if you want them to be killed or tortured to death you send them either to Egypt or Syria, never see them again."

In a presentation on what the US identifies as "extra-ordinary renditions," Baer explained the point behind those secret flights.

"There is a political point. The US was attacked on September 11 and there has to be a reaction of some sort. And no one has the time or the intelligence to sit around and see who’s guilty. So they immediately react and inform governments we have excellent information on so and so let’s bring them out... You have to keep in mind that this is an opportunity for all these regimes to crack down dissidents and we are just taking their word at it," he said.

"I can tell you exactly how this works. The government of Pakistan identifies Quasem Mohammed possibly from documents from Afghanistan, they arrest the guy take him to the airport in Karachi, an airplane lands, takes him to Amman were he is turned over to the government of Jordan which is very effective in interrogatating Arabic speaking prisoners."

The following piece is made unavailable at the AP-site. One can wonder why.

Jun 19, 7:07 PM EDT

U.S. allies resist secret deportations

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON
Associated Press Writer

MILAN, Italy (AP) -- U.S. allies have begun to resist Washington's secretive role in spiriting away terror suspects: Italy is investigating the disappearance of one accused militant as a kidnapping, Sweden wrote rules to assert its authority over outside agents and Canada is holding hearings after one of its citizens was sent to Syria.

At least two of the cases bear the hallmarks of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program - stepped up after Sept. 11 - in which the Bush administration has transferred dozens of suspects to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture.

In Italy, an Egyptian-born imam identified as Abu Omar had already drawn the attention of Italian anti-terrorism officials when he vanished off the streets of Milan two years ago, reportedly bundled into a van and flown back to Egypt from a joint U.S.-Italian air base.

"The prosecution is certain it was a kidnapping," prosecutor Armando Spataro told The Associated Press last week. He would not say who is suspected, citing judicial secrecy as the investigation is still under way.

Italian news reports say the CIA was believed to have played a role in the disappearance, and opposition politicians have demanded explanations from the government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a close ally of President Bush.

Citing conversations recorded by Italian anti-terrorism officials in a wiretap, the Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica newspapers reported that Omar, 42, called his wife and friends in Milan after his release last year. He recounted how he had been seized by Italian and American agents and taken to a secret prison in Egypt, where he was tortured with electric shocks. Italian officials say he is now living in Egypt, although Italian newspaper accounts suggested he was returned to custody in Egypt shortly after his release.

Asked about news reports alleging U.S. involvement, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Rome, Ben Duffy, said, "We do not comment on intelligence matters."

Egyptian authorities have also refused to comment or discuss whether they cooperated.

Spataro, the prosecutor who usually handles terrorism cases involving Islamic militants, confirmed he visited Aviano, a joint U.S.-Italian base north of Venice, on Feb. 23 but declined to discuss any findings. He met with the Italian base commander, according to Duffy.

Omar was believed to have fought with jihadists in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Italian prosecutors were seeking evidence against him before his disappearance, according to a report in La Repubblica newspaper, which cited Italian intelligence officials.

Spataro said his disappearance damaged an ongoing operation, hurting the war on terror.

Opposition Sen. Tana de Zulueta asked the government whether Italy was involved in the disappearance but said she had not received a reply. The Interior Ministry, in charge of one of Italy's national police forces, referred questions to the prosecutor.

While Italian officials say Omar was abducted, the Swedish government is facing tough criticism at home by international human rights groups for having voluntarily handed over two Egyptian terror suspects to American agents.

Criticism over the case prompted Swedish police to draft new regulations on how to carry out deportation orders. The new rules say only Swedish officers can conduct body searches on Swedish territory and that Swedish officers must remain in charge.

"There is nothing that prevents police from asking for help (from another country), but it must be clear that the Swedish authorities are in charge of the situation," said National Police Board spokesman Hans Pont.

"We know that we will deport suspected terrorists in the future, but even with suspected terrorists you have to act correctly," Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom told AP.

On Dec. 18, 2001, Swedish security police turned over Ahmed Agiza, 41, and Muhammed Alzery, 35, to U.S. agents at Stockholm's Bromma Airport. The Americans, wearing black masks, took the two into a small room and cut off their clothes with scissors, replacing them with prisoner uniforms, before placing them on a U.S.-registered Gulfstream jet, according to a report by Sweden's chief parliamentary ombudsman, a watchdog of state agencies.

The U.S. agents examined their mouths and ears, handcuffed them and fettered their ankles and placed hoods over their heads, the report said, calling the treatment "inhuman" and inconsistent with Swedish law.

Agiza was convicted by Egypt's Supreme Military Court on April 27, 2004, of belonging to and leading an outlawed group aiming to overthrow the government. He was sentenced to 25 years on the same charge in 1999 while he was in exile in Sweden. Alzery was released from an Egyptian prison last October, where he had been held on terrorism charges.

In Canada, Defense Minister Bill Graham testified at a hearing in Ottawa last month that he was upset Washington did not consult Ottawa's leaders before deporting a Canadian citizen to Syria for questioning on suspicion of terrorism. The case was handled by the Justice Department as an expulsion and not a rendition by intelligence agents.

Graham also expressed surprise that Canadian security officials apparently approved sending Maher Arar, to his native country for questioning about alleged ties to al-Qaida.

Graham told then-U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci it was "totally inappropriate" that Maher Arar was sent to Syria in October 2002 without first checking with Canadian officials.

"His response was that `We were totally entitled to do what we did,'" said Graham.

Arar, 35, holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship and was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was stopped in New York during a stopover while returning to Canada from Tunisia. He was held for 12 days before being sent to Syria on suspicion of being a member of al-Qaida, an allegation he denies.

Arar maintains that once imprisoned in Damascus, he was tortured into making false confessions of terrorist activity. Arar said he was held for more than a year in a dark, damp cell, then was released without ever being charged.

The U.S. Justice Department has insisted that it had information linking Arar to al-Qaida, that Syria promised he would be treated humanely and that shipping him there was "in the best interest of the security of the United States." Syria has denied he was tortured.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the process is classified, said rendition dates back several administrations and is used to get only the most serious terrorists off the streets, where there are only limited options.

In April the Dutch government denied the Netherlands had cooperated in the "extraordinary rendition" program, responding to questions from parliamentarians after the Washington Post reported U.S. intelligence officers had abducted terror suspects from European countries.

Germano Dottori, a political analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies in Rome, said the rendition operations are part of the American strategy of fighting terrorism through preventive action, but that if revealed can cause some damage to relationships between allied countries.

"No country appreciates intrusions into its sphere of national sovereignty and this is a very delicate sphere of sovereignty," he said.

---

Associated Press reporters Karl Ritter in Stockholm; Beth Duff-Brown in Toronto, Ariel David in Rome and Katherine Shrader in Washington contributed to this report.

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OK!
Whatever you say!
;-)

Searching insights into White House thinking

2005-12-03T08:59:00.000+01:00

The media landscape of the United States easily makes poor Europeans, as me, motion sick. Maybe this is due to our bad habit of reaching out for authorities and our expectation that national interest should be a shared concept in a nation.

Increasingly fascinated, and increasingly motion sick, I find more and more sources but have absolutely no chance to evaluate their reliability or their true propagandist purpose.

The Insight Magazine belongs to these interesting sources that you don't know if you should read as a story-book or a party writing. I fail to recognize its owner, the Unification Church, as more remarkable than many other U.S. media corporations.

This week's issue reports that Bush takes Cheney out of the loop:

Over the last two months Mr. Cheney has been granted decreasing access to the Oval Office, the sources said on the condition of anonymity. The two men still meet, but the close staff work between the president and vice president has ended.

"Cheney's influence has waned not only because of bad chemistry, but because the White House no longer formulates policy," another source said. [...]

"There's a lack of trust that the president has in Cheney and it's connected with Iraq," a source said.

The sources said Mr. Bush has privately blamed Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the U.S.-led war in Iraq. They said the president has told his senior aides that the vice president and defense secretary provided misleading assessments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, as well as the capabilities of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Personally, I feel much more comfortable with classical interviews with named and known real persons, as for instance Associated Press' interview with Lawrence Wilkerson, former top aid in the U.S. State Department:

President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of post-war planning, allowing underlings to exploit Bush's detachment [...]

[The] ideas for the handling of foreign detainees after Sept. 11 arose from a coterie of White House and Pentagon aides who argued that "the president of the United States is all-powerful," and that the Geneva Conventions were irrelevant.

Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. Wilkerson said that Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."

Wilkerson suggested his former boss may agree with him that Bush was too hands-off about Iraq.

"What he seems to be saying to me now is the president failed to discipline the process the way he should have and that the president is ultimately responsible for this whole mess," Wilkerson said.

All of this is of course what sane observers, particularly abroad, have believed all the time, but it's reassuring to hear it also from people with insights.

Introduction, part II - on me versus Arabs

2005-11-30T17:24:00.000+01:00

I didn't start my studies of Arabic due to any particular affection. I thought Arabic is the language of an important part of the world, that's important to follow and try to understand; and I don't wish to wait for translations to be made for me.

But when you study a language, it helps a lot if you can work up some degree of enthusiasm and affection for culture and people, and this I've tried to.

I feel particularly affiliated with expatriats (refugees) who fled due to their opposition against totalitarian rulers and regimes, but I also have learned to know some Palestinians who fled misarable conditions under Israeli occupation.

It would be ridiculous of me to pose as objective. I most certainly am not. I am strongly in favor of democratic reforms in the Arab world (and in Persia and in Afghanistan...).

My own national heritage, and my knowledge of Europe's 19th and 20th century history, make me cautious about wars. I think the civilians' sufferings too often are far greater than their gain of any somehow "positive result" of a war. This doesn't at all make me a peacenik or a conscientious objector or anything like that. I agree that every country has an army — her own or someone else's. And I think conscription is natural for any healthy people. As is resistance against occupation.

I was also initially favoring an international military alliance with the agreed purpose to improve the situation for Iraq's population. However, the diplomatic crisis following the Security Councill resolution in November 2002 made me think that the conditions for a successful campaign were not yet met. My point of view was primarily one of legitimacy, although I also feared that the number of troops fluent in Arabic and understanding the culture in question would be insufficient if Arabic countries, and Arabic expatriats, couldn't be convinced of the importance of a mission.

Peace, justice, liberty and societal stability was what I hoped for — not only for the Iraqi people, but subsequently also for the neighboring peoples. The outcome of the invasion was however far worse than I'd imagined, and now my principal fear is that anti-Western and anti-Democratic thoughts have grown, and will continue to grow, among ordinary people in the Arab world.

I maybe also can say that my understanding of Islam is fairly limited, and unfortunately I feel not inclined to learn much more right now.

Swedish supreme court rules religious hate speech lawful

2005-11-30T11:34:00.000+01:00

I wrote a comment to an Anglican blog post on the acquittal [1][2] of the Swedish preacher Åke Green, a.k.a. Ake Green. While my comment "awaited moderation" I decided to copy it here too.

It’s important to consider that the Swedish law since two years makes no distinction between religious minorities and sexual minorities. This can be considered good or bad, but that is not what ought to be discussed in connection with this verdict.

As I understand the consequences, if someone in a sermon says that Jews are a tumour on the body of our society, or in some similar way imply that Christian presence on holy Muslim land must come to an immediate end, only the followers who act out, not the demagogues, can be held responsible in Swedish courts.

Tactically this acquittal might be good, in the short run, but it can be feared that it will also boost the tensions in the Swedish society. Like in Denmark, religion, race and ethnicity are at the core for these tensions that have grown much in the recent 15 years.

12% of Sweden’s population are now immigrants (defined as born abroad), many of whom are Muslims. Segregation and discrimination burdens the immigrants, social security expenses, street gang criminality and visible expressions of otherness angers the ethnic Swedes.

More than many other EU countries, Sweden badly needs to address this issue. The verdict may elevate the topic on the political agenda, but meanwhile the minorities are at risk — ethnic minorities and religious minorities as well as sexual minorities.

More on the verdict can be read in the lawyer Krister Bruzelius' blog.

The leading Swedish mainstream broadsheet, Dagens Nyheter supports the verdict in today's leading editorial (English version):

An open society has to have room to manoeuvre. This is the only way of dealing with meetings between different cultures and religions in the age of globalization, and of defending free speech, even blasphemy in all of its forms.

Åke Green is a case for debate rather than the courts, even if his cancer simile was truly close to the edge. We know that homosexuals are still a vulnerable group in Swedish society. They are discriminated against and are often victims of violence.

For the time being it may seem as if intolerance has won a victory, but in actual fact it is just the opposite. It is always darkest before the dawn. It is when openness and freedom are close at hand that resistance intensifies in word and deed.

Åke Green's sermon can be found in an English version seemingly certified by Green at http://www.akegreen.org /sermon_transcript .htm. The theme of the sermon is homosexuality. The most controversial passage, at least in my eyes, comes with regard to men and women who engage in bestiality or men who engage in anal intercourse with other men, referenced to Leviticus 18:22-23 and 18:27:

The Bible clearly teaches about these abnormalities. Sexual abnormalities are a deep cancerous tumor in the entire society. The Lord knows that sexually twisted people will rape the animals. [...] He writes it with the thought in mind that people will act this way when they abandon God. Because of these sins, the land will vomit out its inhabitants. The political response to this in our country is then what Paul talks about: "We know God's righteous decree that those who live that way deserve death. Still it is in that very way they live, and worse yet, they think it is good when others do it."

To combine a scripture quote ...they deserve death... with his own words ...a deep cancerous tumor in the society... is pretty bad in my eyes.

update December, 3rd:
Thanks to technorati, more exchange of thoughts on this issue can be found at:

21st century paladin

Todd's classical Anglican

The Local – site on Sweden

Christianity, Homosexuality and Consistency [Allan Grey]

The problem of morality [Allan Grey]

Green's sermon [Krister Bruzelius' blog]

Åke Green acquitted [Krister Bruzelius' blog]

Diplomacy badly needed before troops can leave Iraq

2005-11-29T14:08:00.000+01:00

The Independent Institute's Ivan Eland is maybe not an accomplished expert on the Middle East, but at least he tries hard to take the realities on the ground as starting point for analyses. One doesn't need to agree with everything to find his articles memorable.

In yesterday's article he argues:

Saving Iraq will require the Bush administration to alter its fundamental goal in Iraq: a unified country. Iraq is an artificial country that has been held together over the years by the brute force of dictators. It is now being held together only by a foreign military. As that military exits, Iraq will break apart one way or another. In fact, with all of the armed factions policing parts of Iraq, the country already has a de facto partition.

Neither I am any expert on the Middle East, but there have been a few aspects of the allies' policies in Iraq that amazes also them who base their understanding on nothing but an ordinary all-round education. From the beginning, it was particularly amazing how great importance was put on rebuffing the Kurds' wishes for a state of their own. Of course the neighbouring Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Syria would have grumbled, and now the U.S. can argue that it's not their fault if Kurdistan starts to exist. But it won't convince anyone. The Kurds' dawning independence have coincided with the Bushs' wars — it happened on the Americans' watch, although they missed the chance to earn the connected goodwill among the Kurds, of whom many live as refuges in Western Countries.

Eland continues, and I must agree:

...the United States should mediate a controlled partition of Iraq so that each group’s militia can rule its own area free of fear of oppression from a strong central government. As an incentive for Sunni acquiescence, any partition arrangement would have to contain an agreement to share petroleum revenues or oil fields. To provide an incentive for the Shi’a and Kurds to share some of that oil wealth for a halt in the Sunni rebellion, the United States would announce an immediate withdraw of its forces [...] Those forces are the only thing currently propping up the Shi’ite–Kurdish government. Most likely, either Iraq will be partitioned in this controlled peaceful way or violently by the civil war that will intensify as the United States conducts its gradual troop withdrawal.

Unfortunately, the Anglo-Saxon policies have in recent years had far too much flavor of compulsory burning of their bridges. For an accord on a peaceful partition, it would really help, and in reality be pretty crucial, to include the neighbours in the discussions as well as in the outcome. They have at the moment tons of reasons not to do the United States any favors, and they will not easily agree to recognize an independent Kurdistan. But that is probably what's needed before the U.S. troops can return home.

What were the intentions with the Iraq crisis?

2005-11-29T00:28:00.000+01:00

Abuse worse than under Saddam, Allawi says

By now it probably stands clear for all but the most ignorant that the U.S. and the UK pursued quite other goals with their invasion of Iraq than they’d announced. However, no-one outside of the innermost circles of the White House and 10 Downing Street can know which these real goals actually were, or are, and to what extent they correspond to the current chaos. It’s up to us bystanders to guess if Pentagon bristles with unspeakable incompetence or if there is a plan to impoverish Iraq and induce a manageable conflict that can serve as excuse for keeping strong Western troops in the area and maybe distract attention from the Palestinians’ misery nearby. What we guess may depend on our general opinion and experience of Americans and Britons.

One can wonder what the members of the coalition of the willing think about this now. Did they join primarily out of a will to demonstrate their obedience with the Anglo-Saxons, then they can be quite content of course. Their loyalty has been proven, and they have some grounds to hope for a favorable treatment by the United States.

They who on the other hand believed in some of the stated goals hardly can. In the end, the United Kingdom and the United States have sent the clear signal that they don’t respect any other nation that much, “allies” or not, that they care to appear trustworthy. For some nations this may appear intimidating making them to become more subservient in the future, which is good seen from the perspective of Northern America, of course, but what about the rest?

Introduction: Personal interests

2005-11-27T16:30:00.000+01:00

I've for many years been much involved in the godfathering program for international exchange students at my university. This I find rewarding and important.

I've never had a pet (except for a pair of Stick Insects), but spent many summers at my granduncle's family, and grew fond of Labrador Retrievers, Bullmastiffs, German Shepherds, and St. Bernards. If I ever grow up and settle down somewhere outside of towns and suburbs, I'm sure a dog or two will be important family members.

I am more fond of real theater with live actors on a stage than on cinema or television, though only as a spectator.

Introduction

2005-11-26T18:22:00.000+01:00

I’m a Finn who’s spent most of my life’s 25 years abroad.

Maybe most impressive were three years as a teenager in Latin America.

Recently I spent little more than five months in New York (State and City). Initially I was visiting my sister, who studies there, then I got romantically involved and decided to extend my visit. It was never intended to be a lifelong commitment, and now I’m back at school trying to get my acts together and write my final paper to graduate (in political science).

The last years I actually studied Arabic language and culture. It must be admitted that it’s been a particular challenge to do that right now, at a time when a lot of not only Arabs consider me and other westerners as members of a particularly arrogant aggressor.

As a Finn, the belonging to a Western tradition and the Western World is at the very core of my cultural and ideological identity. The Finns have, for at least a thousand years, lived at the very border to (what we consider as) The East — in other words to Russia.

So I easily identify myself as a Westerner, but many events of recent years have made me question what this actually represents for non-Westerners.

Maybe I’ll be able to use this spot to examine my thoughts on this point.

More introduction:

Personal interests

on me versus Arabs (and the invasion of Iraq)

Respect for Russia