Middle East

Anthony Shadid, a reporter for the Washington Post, limns a warm intimate portrait of a bookseller of Baghdad, who was killed in the recent bomb attack on the Mutanbi Street.

Shadid is one of the better journalists reporting from Iraq. His reporting from Iraq shows rare erudition and great care. This particular story, one of the more readable stories, made me think a little more about the reasons behind Western fascination with booksellers in exotic places. For example, Asne Seierstad a few years ago wrote to great success, ‘The Bookseller of Kabul’. Shadid’s story reminded me of a prominent story by NY Times on Baghdad’s theater scene and the sprinkling of stories you get about people behind Iraq’s orchestra etc. Shadid’s, Seierstad’s and others work can be seen as attempts to “humanize” the numerous who die anonymously in war zones across the globe. The way these able journalists “humanize” the “other” is by telling you how similar they are to us. More pointedly, they “humanize” the “other” by endowing them with cultural values that we value and admire – like reading books or going to theater. Of course this particular approach doesn’t bode well for the large numbers of humans who live and die in shanty towns with no or little access to education or for that matter hygiene and food. There are no redeeming cultural qualities in them that we can identify and think of them as our own –magically transform them into people whose loss disturbs us. The sad fact is that it is inconceivable for a lot of Americans to imagine people living in shanty town among mounds of garbage, with tattered clothes and emaciated bodies, to have a fully formed emotional life with their own frustrations and aspirations. It is almost as if these masses are a lower form of life – whose lives are as inconsequential as their deaths are immaterial. In fact why should they matter? Certainly economically their deaths don’t mean much – not for us for sure. The only way their deaths possibly matter is when they become part of cultural discourse and are needed to negotiate our cultural identities as self identified liberals or for that matter, right wing zealots who pooh-pooh these liberal sensitivities. It is this specific calculated role of third world calamities in identity negotiations that turn repeated exhortations, on say Darfur, by pedantic and zealous columnists like Nicholas Kristof, into “sexy” campus issues and not an iota more.

Rageh Omar, Somalian born ex-BBC correspondent who rose to popularity on the back of his distinguished coverage in Iraq for the BBC, has produced an exceptional documentary on Iran, a country which he calls “the most misunderstood in the world”.

Iran with its proud distinguished history of the Persian empire, an exceptionally large cohort of people under 25, and relatively high education has been primarily showcased in Western news as a unidimensional country dominated by fundamentalist Shia clerics. Rageh documents a much more complex country in this documentary which is available free on Google Video at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4679426685869498072

This article is in response to Dominique Moisi article entitled ‘The Clash of Emotions – Fear, Humiliation, Hope, and the New World Order’ that appeared in Foreign Affairs in the January-February 2007 issue. click here (pdf) for the article.

It was in 1993, just a year after Francis Fukuyama – a Huntington protégé –had announced the ‘end of history’, when Huntington took to the pages of Foreign Affairs, the same platform which Moisi uses, to describe his vision of the world riven with cultural cleavages. He argued that post-ideology- capitalism had already the battle of ideologies - culture would prove to be the organizing force within the world. Huntington’s flawed work has attracted numerous adherents, especially in influential policy making departments of the west - for it fits nicely the racist stereotypes that they hold and works as a wonderful political tool - and spawned a kind of policy making that has turned Huntington’s naive theory into a ’self fulfilling prophecy’.

Dominique Moisi, adds ‘emotion’ to Huntington’s idea of culture, and argues that its only really clash of civilizations as much as a ‘clash of emotions’. What he means by that is hopelessly naive. He argues that Asia displays a ‘culture of hope’, while the West displays a ‘culture of fear’ and the Arab world is trapped in a ‘culture of humiliation’. Ironically, Moisi’s essay ends up looking like a product of his self-described West’s ‘culture of fear’. Moisi’s is a casual, intellectually threadbare analysis that is primarily interested in countering the ‘Arab problem’ but does so by garbing new terminology. Of course the new terminology with which Moisi cloaks his argumentation is nothing more than a rehash of the old or something that can’t be understood by using Huntington’s or Bernard Lewis’s analysis. For example, what Moisi is really arguing about when he talks about Arab ‘culture of humiliation’ is that the Arab culture is stuck in historical paralysis, recounting the glory days of Islam and deeply resentful of West’s rise and yes, the formation of Israel. This shoddy analysis is not only deeply erroneous but shows poor understanding of the geopolitics of the area.

Analyzing world by ascribing ‘emotional’ charges to entire regions of the world is at best a deeply flawed enterprise and to do so to make an often made point about how the West must work to end Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nothing short of criminal. Nations, let alone regions, are much more complex organisms. We cannot group together Egypt and Iran, with their significant pre-Islamic histories and large cosmopolitan populations with the largely urbanized Kuwait or Bahrain or Oman. Neither can be straddle Lebanon, with its French occupation and again outward looking population, with Saudi Arabia for little meaningful analysis will result from it. The other important consideration is that it is easy to get carried away with sloganeering like backward civilizations etc. but the important forces that still shape the world are still the hustle for resources and military supremacy.

If Moisi’s analysis about this ‘culture of humiliation’ is correct, I fail to see why countries in Asia would be so insulated from it. After all, both Indian and Chinese civilizations have seen equally, if not more so, impressive glory days of their respective civilizations. And a majority of Indians and Chinese are equally alienated by the ‘progress’ that has really meant westernization. The rise of Hindu nationalism in India and the associated communal tensions are arguably rooted in the ‘culture of humiliation’. More importantly, Moisi’s assessment of Asia’s culture of hope, seems deeply misplaced given there are more poor people in Asia that anywhere else in the world. It is also important to note that it is terrorists from South Asian country, Pakistan, that were implicated in the bomb blasts in London, and not people from the Arabian peninsula.

Lastly, it is important to note that Moisi’s account makes little mention of two entire inhabited continents – South America and Africa. It is possible that given Moisi’s is really interested in exploring what ails Western-Arab relations, he forgets to analyze how bringing those two continents in affects his analysis. If Moisi had dared to spend a little more time on Latin America, he might have encountered the rise of the new left led by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, left leaning Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Lula da Silva of Brazil. I wonder what two penny summarization of the culture of entire continent would Moisi would chosen for South America – ‘culture of anger’? Lets for moment analyze Africa, except for North Africa, with sub Saharan economy growing at 4%, Nigeria and Kenya increasingly confident, a quiet and slowly developing Rwanda, tumultuous Zimbabwe racked with hunger after years of Mugabe’s rule, or increasingly prosperous but cleave-ridden South Africa?

The overall point Moisi is interested in making is that the root of Arab ‘culture of humiliation’ is the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course Israel has become a important rallying cry for myriad of Arabs but it has become so because criticizing it is the only authorized form of dissent as they live under authoritarian regimes that outlaw demonstrating about say lack of jobs. Even if we agree that Arab-Israeli conflict is an important emotive conflict, and it is – not only on the Arab street but in rest of the developing world for it is seen as an unabashed display of American Imperialism – it is still left to us to figure out why is it that the Arab world needs the west to solve conflict within the region? Moisi conveniently leaves out how Israel has been unabashedly armed, supplied and supported continuously by US and other western European countries.

Lets devote our energies to test the fundamental assumption that underpins Moisi’s analysis - the threat faced by the West from Arabs. Yes, Western Europe and US have seen some terrorist attacks but in terms of sheer number of casualties or damage, the impact has been minuscule. There is little rationale ground for fear of terrorism in the West, if we just predicate it on past incidences. Yes, Europe will have to face important questions about assimilation of Muslim immigrants and the nature and shape of society but to irrationally magnify those fears and make the basis of indulging in spiritless intellectual gymnastics is inexcusable. So perhaps inadvertently Moisi has stumbled on the key truth about global reality - the west fighting imaginary ghosts. Obviously Moisi only sees problem with the Muslim world - whose problems West needs to solve - so that it can live peacefully.

There is a perverted art of intellectually bankrupt argumentation that is at display in how Moisi lays out his argumentation – it is a type of shallow argumentation tailored towards a particular audience – the ‘fear ridden elites of the west’ – and hence fits the stereotypes of most who read it, marked by a wholesale neglect of key facts, and full of inexplicable extrapolation starting from few historical facts.

This is second in the series of three articles on US policy in Iraq. The first was posted about a week ago and focused on the bankruptcy of policy suggestions in play in Iraq. This article analyzes how the consensus on Iraq has shifted, in the light of recent news reports, and how this change can inform our future policy direction.

While Blair’s and Bush’s views on Iraq remain unchanged much like the catastrophic news from Iraq, views of technocrats and other politicians on Iraq have shown a metamorphism of sorts of recently.

Over the past few weeks, starting with the release of the study of mortality in Iraq by School of Public Health (SPH) at John Hopkins University, there have been a spate of news reports that have shed light on the failed policies in Iraq.

On October 11th, a study by Bloomberg School of public health at John Hopkins University, a university whose professors ironically were the primary flag bearers of the invasion, estimated that mortality rate in Iraq doubled post US invasion leading to the deaths of an additional 655,000 Iraqi civilians.

Two days later British Army Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, much to the chagrin of Mr. Blair, in an interview with BBC said that the continued presence of British troops on Iraqi soil “exacerbates the security problems”. The statement was remarkable not for its content, for it has been long obvious that the continued presence of foreign troops “without a timeline” and amidst reports of torture and usage of heavy handed tactics by foreign troops has only inflamed opinion in the Muslim world, but for who said it. The British general was joined yesterday by a US counterpart in the push to state the obvious. Military spokesman Maj Gen William Caldwell said that the US military strategy in Baghdad has been a failure. He pointed to the “disheartening” 22% rise in attacks in Baghdad since the end of last month” (BBC). President Bush went ever further when he acknowledged that the “escalation of violence “could be” comparable to the 1968 Tet Offensive against US troops, which helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.” (BBC)

If this wasn’t enough, Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq, stated three days ago that violence in Iraq could end “within months” if Iran and Syria joined efforts to stabilize the country. (BBC) Talabani’s statement came against the backdrop of repeated assertions by US that it would not work with either of the countries.

The fount of statements mentioning what has long been obvious to lay observers should be taken in context. For more than three years the news on Iraq has been stage managed allowing for little dissent, especially from the top echelon. Of course generals, diplomats and politicians – all have alluded to the catastrophic failure of the US policy in Iraq at varying times but the “wisdom” has never been allowed to snowball into an extended skewering of the administration. With mid-term elections on the anvil and with democrats poised for major gains – the rose-tint of Republicans view on Iraq may finally be seen as blood.

There are two valuable lessons that emerge from these recent proclamations of the obvious. US troops have shown themselves to be single-handedly incapable of assuring security for Iraqis. Hence a timeline must be set for withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq or at the very least they should be moved to the fringes of security regime– responsible primarily for either manning borders or providing tactical support.

Secondly, Iran and Syria are critical for stability in Iraq. US, or better yet, Iraqi government led by Talabani should negotiate with Iran to recruit their help in managing the security scenario in Iraq.

Responding to Dr. Eric Davis’s editorial in Newark Star Ledger

As Election Day nears, politicians, pundits and academics, all are scampering to offer their versions of how to “fix Iraq”. The spate of articles thus produced gives us an illuminating insight into how bankrupt the process of policy analysis is, given that most articles eschew facts and choose to invent arguments, and corroborating evidence as needed.

In the following paragraphs I will try to disembarrass the editorial, “In Iraq, democracy is the only option“, by Dr. Davis, “one of nation’s leading experts on Iraq’s economy” and a professor at Rutgers, of its countless logical and factual inaccuracies. Simultaneously, I plan to use this exercise to more substantively discuss America’s interests, and aims in Iraq and how best to achieve those in Iraq.

“Continued violence and loss of American lives make it understandable why much of the American public has lost confidence in efforts to create a democracy in Iraq. It also explains increasing support for withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country,” writes Dr. Davis in The Star Ledger published September 17th. Given that the loss of American life has been miniscule and violence in Iraq a relative non-issue for Americans, a vast majority of whom don’t care about either Iraq or Iraqis, the argumentation seems like a non-sequitur. The stated rationale also carefully side steps a crucial factor in the declining support – the fact Americans don’t see the point of being in Iraq given that there were never any WMDs. Dr. Davis, ever a careful academic, deliberately avoids stating this for it undercuts his argument, which comes later and is tangentially premised on the assumption that Americans care about Iraqis or should care about Iraqis.

Dr. Davis next posits why Iraq is important for American interests – oil and stability in Middle East (which in turn affect the price of oil). Noticeably absent are any humanitarian and democracy as a normative goal kind of objectives. When John Hopkins School of Public Health drops a 600,000 pound downer on you (here I refer to the report that since invasion a professor at John Hopkins estimates 600,000 plus more Iraqis have died as compared to if invasion hadn’t happened), I suppose humanitarian objectives must be safely avoided. Dr. Davis also chooses to avoid any discussion of Iraqi interests for perhaps American and Iraqi interests are just the same.

Next we have is a spread of possible options which have been limited to three– withdraw from Iraq, or divide Iraq into three statelets around Iraq’s three predominant ethnic groups, or “remaining in Iraq” till a democratic Iraq is “stabilized”. Dr. Davis presents them as distinct possibilities that don’t and more importantly can’t overlap.

Dr. Davis next discounts the first two possibilities to narrow down his alternatives to the “chosen one”. He details the perils of American military withdrawal including a chance that Baathists may regain power or that Iraq may be run by radical Shiites enraging Sunni majority neighboring countries. The proposition would be less ludicrous if Nouri Kamel al-Maliki, the current prime minister of Iraq wasn’t also the deputy leader of the radical Shia Islamic Dawa Party. Add to this that Syria, a prominent neighboring country, enjoys warm relations with Iran and will no doubt enjoy warm relations with a Shia led Iraq. The alternatives presented are predicated on the fact that American military (bye-word for “remaining in Iraq) can help stabilize Iraq, which may not be the case. It also remains unclear, why Dr. Davis thinks that American withdrawal will make things worse. Certainly when the Americans withdraw, negotiation between Iraqis might become more feasible, since one group would not perceive the other as simply an American puppet. Besides, one presumes that the favored government would continue to receive substantial military support (perhaps even air-power) from America or its “friends” in the middle-east. America would be removed as an obstacle, while still protecting its favored government through indirect military support.

Next he justifiably discounts the option of partitioning Iraq given concerns about resulting violence, reaction from Turkey, and anticipated heightened intervention from neighboring states.

We must now proceed to the crux of the essay that talks about “supporting democracy”. But first Dr. Davis responds to the Huntington supporters in the crowd who doubt whether Arabs are capable of having a democratic form of government. Dr. Davis, author of “Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq”, argues that Iraq has a wonderful secular tradition dating back to the secular independence movement and harks on the traditionally peaceful co-existence between different sectarian groups within Iraq. One may argue that the sectarian bloodshed of the past three years has irrevocably stained the national fiber and that peaceful co-existence between communities remains doubtful at best.

To support Iraq’s case for a democratic future, Dr. Davis also tries to allay fears about Shias nationalism. He narrates the tale of tale of the Shia infantry fighting Iran suggests that suggest that he believes that the Shia fought from conviction or had a choice in the matter. I doubt that this was the case. Besides, it is surely peculiar that if such animosity existed, it would be superseded by an embrace of pro-Iranian parties. In any case the fact that the Shia have embraced pro-Iranian parties makes his argument superfluous.

Dr. Davis, next discusses, the specifics about what he means by “supporting democracy”. He here proposes a “New Deal” like arrangement. The comparison to any economic package for Iraq to “New Deal” is inaccurate at best. Iraq is different from depression era US in multiple ways. The best an economic reconstruction plan for Iraq can be compared to is Marshall Plan, which drew the ire of nationalists in countries where it was implemented. Of course the success of Marshall Plan like economic package is also highly doubtable given that Iraq differs from EU nations in multiple ways including active vested interests of neighboring countries around Iraq in its continued instability. Strong sectarian cleavages and accusations of bias can also hobble any economic activity in Iraq. I also do not see why American military forces are necessary for implementing a New Deal type approach.

The method of financing of the economic plan is inarguably the most jarring aspect of the paper. Dr. Davis argues that US must utilize help from Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for these funds. He predicates this statement on the assumption that Iraqis identify themselves as Arabs and would welcome funding from Arab sources. Another implicit assumption here is that an Arab identified Iraq is in American interests. Let’s interrogate the claims individually.

Why is an Iran-friendly Iraq necessarily against American interests? The threat to America is from decentralized terrorist outfits rather than from strong states or “state-supported terrorism,” so called.

Would Iraqis, two-thirds of whom are Shia, welcome Arab intervention as compared to say intervention from Iran? Given that pro-Iran party is currently in power in Iraq, I highly doubt this to be the case.

Next we must ask why America needs such financial support. The newspaper teaser, “….expert…a plan for salvaging a future for lraq that won’t bankrupt the United States”, emphatically equates reconstruction of Iraq with the bankrupting of America. While the piece does not replicate this dramatic language it goes along with the notion that reconstruction of Iraq would involve unacceptable financial burdens. First then, it has to be understood what constitutes an unacceptable financial burden or the bankrupting of America. The U.S. total allocation of $18billion made a few years back, most of which has not yet been used, is 1/500 of the national debt. Recall that most of what has been spent has been spent only because they have started re-classifying money spent on Iraqi security forces as reconstruction funds. If one goes away from the bankruptcy terminology to that of undue financial burden, one needs to clarify the yardstick relative to which it would be a burden. I think that the most pertinent yardstick is the expense incurred in maintaining American forces. The amount spent in more than 3 years of reconstruction by America is I believe less than a fortnight’s expenses for the American military in Iraq. So, is 2% of military expenses unacceptable or is it 10% should be made clear at the outset.

Another set of numbers which should be dealt with are the possible reconstruction costs. Iraq’s population is over 20million, about half of which are men, and about half of which are in the working age group (18-55) (my guess, but it should be a reasonably good one), half of which again are unemployed (your Prof’s numbers here). This gives a grand total of 3million men unemployed and needing jobs. I know that Americans were paying Iraqi police officers around $100 in 03 (they
started by offering $60 but increase after the Iraqis refused to show up). I am guessing that for the kind of work suggested it is very unlikely that the costs per employee should exceed more than $2000 per year. If one is profligate and assumes high logistical costs, we could balloon this to $3000. Multiply that by the 3million Iraqis and you get $9 billion. My sense of course is that this is an unreasonably large number since providing direct employment to some will generate
employment for some others. $9 billion every year over ten years would
be less than one year’s military expenses in Iraq, and roughly 1% of
the national debt.

Let me end by saying what while policy making is a hard task that often times needs to balance patently irreconcilable interests while keeping an eye on the budget and the public mood, there is no reason that it should be based on shoddy premises and logical and factual inaccuracies.

“Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism”, a book by Associate Professor Robert Pape at the University of Chicago powerfully dismantles the traditional myths around suicide terrorism.

Over the past few years suicide terrorism has come to be exclusively seen, in the west, as a terror tactic with no strategic objective and practiced by “people who hate our freedom” aka Muslim fundamentalists.

Dr. Pape, who over the years has “collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004″, using a variety of sources ranging from local newspapers to informational “products” from the “terrorist community”, found after analyzing the data that “overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.”

Of course the idea that some how “hating the freedom” that we have motivates people to blow themselves does not to stand up to any sort of reasoning. The clique of people who “hate our freedoms” obviously goes beyond Islamic fundamentalists. In the previous iteration it was Communists, who hated our freedoms, and yet there were very few, if any, suicide attacks against US or the posse of nations who considered themselves the beacon of freedom.

The idea that suicide terrorism is somehow tied to Islamic fundamentalism also falters for the most famous practitioners of suicide terrorism are a nationalist Hindu group, LTTE –better known as the Tamil Tigers.

The latest Lebanese crisis [I cringe at using the word crisis for it seems news organizations use it all too frequently to condense all human suffering and all other news into this pointless pithy] has been covered in the Arab media as a predominantly muslim affair where a Jewish state is attacking Muslims. While the main thrust of the statement remains true, the fact of the matter is that what is happening in Lebanon is a humanitarian crisis, a human tragedy if you will and has little or nothing to do with people there being Muslims or non-Muslims. The portrayal is all the more bankrupt given the fact that Lebanon has about 40% Christian population. Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, Lebanon or Bosnia are and should be treated as humanitarian crisis and not as Muslim crisis by the Arab media. There is a subtext in all the coverage in the Arab media that a Saudi resident or an Arab should feel more about the Lebanese than say someone sitting in EU. There is subtle and not to subtle racism that accentuates the us vs. them schism that has opened up between the world and Islam as a whole. There are mitigating reasons that are offered including the fact that Arab press is deliberately framing it as a Muslim issue to demand action from their ostensibly Muslim governments but then again I think it is giving too much credit to the Arab media for this deep rooted problem that finds its face in all major Muslim media from Indonesia to Pakistan.

Of course the Western media can’t go scot-free either. Western media outlets eager to portray Hezbollah as a Shiite militia backed by Iran and eager to portray Lebanese as a bunch of ‘enemy terrorists’ have overlooked the fact that “Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982″ NY Times

Roger Pape, in his NY Times op-ed piece, further adds,

“Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks — which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 — involved 41 suicide terrorists.

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.”

A few years after Grozny earned the dubious distinction of being the first city since WW II to be completely obliterated, Israel is trying its best to add Beirut to the list. Satellite photos of a suburb of Beirut. Compare these photos to the ones of Grozny - Before, and After

Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, recently seems to have found his voice. His not-so-oblique statement calling Israeli air strike that led to the death of four UN peace keepers “apparently deliberate” was probably one of the most blunt statement of his tenure. Of course the evidence is damning,

“17 Israeli bombs fell within one kilometer, or .6 miles, of the post during the day, the initial U.N. investigation found. In addition, 12 Israeli artillery rounds landed within 150 meters of the post, four of them hitting it directly.”

[ Washington Post]

But then again Annan has shied away from ascribing ulterior motives to America’s favorite ally in the past. The thing that appears to have changed is the fact that now Annan is near the end of his second term and finally free of renomination worries.

Annan over the past five years has led a largely neutered UN. In fact post 9/11, UN has seemed like an organization sitting outside the door with a hang dog expression waiting for the master to finish up his job inside and come outside and pet it.

Now apparently trying to make the most of his position in the last few days, Annan has taken upon himself to issue a verbal rebukes about the many annoyances of leading a largely pointless organization with little credibility. Annan has chosen to vent his feelings through the media in almost a school boy fashion complaining to anybody who will hear.

Truth is that he squandered away his decade at the UN when he could have accomplished something more than aside from being America’s lapdog.

The links are to stories that you don’t get to see on US media.

Update: Kofi Annan condemns “excessive use of force” by Israel. (BBC)

Lebanon civilian deaths morally not same as terror victims — John Bolton Yahoo News

Palestine:

“Whatever the Israelis’ intended target, the bomb fell on a small water canal next to the Qasmia refugee camp, home to about 500
Palestinians. Its victims were 11 children taking an afternoon swim in the canal.
The first blast left a crater nearly four meters deep, burying many of the swimmers deep under the orange earth. Seven of the children were injured, three critically. Three others have not been found.” Guardian: ‘Is Hizbullah here? Only children here.’ City mourns air strike dead

“The destruction of the 140-megawatt reactor, the only one in the Gaza Strip, threatens to create a humanitarian disaster because the plant supplies electricity to two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.3 million residents and
operates pumps that provide water supplies.” Boston Globe

In Pictures

• Click here to see Israeli girls writing messages on heavy artillery shells destined for Lebanese civilians.
• BBC Photos of Lebanon’s Destruction
• The toll of war
• Washington Post
• Youtube video
• Photos from the war

Lebanon:

“The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch called on the Israeli military to provide details about a bombing Saturday that killed 16 people in a convoy of civilians fleeing a Lebanese village near Israel’s border.” Washington Post: Toll Climbs In Mideast As Fighting Rages On

“Fouad Siniora said more than 300 people had been killed and 500,000 others displaced in a week of Israeli attacks.” BBC

“The United Nations says about 500,000 are displaced internally in the country, either by choice or under Israeli fire.”BBC

“PARKED outside the small general hospital in Tyre is a badly refrigerated lorry container in which are stacked the bodies of 91 Lebanese civilians, 55 of them children.

The bodies have been placed inside black plastic rubbish bags and labelled in anticipation of the time, days or weeks from now, when their surviving relatives - if any - can come to collect them.” Sydney Morning Herald

“Over 30 civilians were killed in Israeli air strikes against Lebanon on Tuesday.

Ten civilians who had taken refuge inside the Greek Orthodox Church in Rachaya al-Fokhar were wounded in an attack. Lebanese security sources said Israel had used phosphorous missiles in the attack, an internationally banned weapon.” Daily Star

“Israeli planes struck targets in the east, south and the capital
Beirut, with a Christian district coming under fire for the first
time.”
BBC

An entire neighborhood of a southern Lebanese village is no more: All 15 houses were destroyed Wednesday in an airstrike by Israelis…
Israel’s onslaught, now in its second week, has wreaked its worst damage in the poor farming regions of southern Lebanon. Warplanes have blasted bridges and roads and turned villages into ghost towns as civilians flee, abandoning the area to Hezbollah guerrillas who continue to fire rockets on Israel and engage any ground force that advances from the border 12 miles to the south.
Seattle PI

Analysis:

• In his last interview - after the 1967 six-day war - the historian
  Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had died in the Nazi camps and
  whose surviving relations lived in Israel, said: “To justify or
  condone Israel’s wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad
  service indeed and harm its own long-term interest.” Guardian

• UN human rights chief Louise Arbour suggested Wednesday that the military operations being carried out in Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories could be considered war crimes.
  
  The obligation to protect civilians during hostilities is entrenched in international law, “which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Arbour said in a statement.
  
  “The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control,” she added.
  Daily Star - Lebanon

• “The Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibits “collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism …” (Article 33). According to Article 147 of the Convention, “extensive destruction … not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly,” hostage-taking and “torture or inhuman treatment” are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes. All state parties to the Convention are required to search for and ensure the prosecution of perpetrators of grave breaches of the said Convention.
  
  Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions codifies the principle of distinction, a customary rule of international humanitarian law: “In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operation only against military objectives.” (Article 48 ). International Humanitarian Law strictly prohibits attacks against civilians and civilian objects. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) includes as war crimes: “Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities”, and “Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects” (Article 8 2 (b) (i) and (ii)).” ‘Big News Network

• The Israel Lobby by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer

Letters
“Israel has now kidnapped a quarter of the parliament elected by the Palestinians, and half of its democratically elected government. They join thousands of other Palestinians illegally kidnapped or imprisoned, including over 300 children.” Signed by London Mayor Ken Livingstone among others. Guardian -End this punishment of the Palestinians

History

• UN resolution 425 - Demanding immediate withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon. It just took Israel 22 years to comply.
• washington post- brief history

Andrew J. Bacevich asks in his Washington Post article, “What’s an Iraqi’s Life Worth?, and finds that it is not much. He believes that this lack of respect of Iraqi deaths may be the key reason why the Americans are losing the war in Iraq. And I agree. Here’s an excerpt from the article -

“Through the war’s first three years, any Iraqi venturing too close to an American convoy or checkpoint was likely to come under fire. Thousands of these “escalation of force” episodes occurred. Now, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has begun to recognize the hidden cost of such an approach. “People who were on the fence or supported us” in the past “have in fact decided to strike out against us,” he recently acknowledged.

….”You have to understand the Arab mind,” one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. “The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face.” Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book “Cobra II,” Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: “The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I’m about to introduce them to it.”

Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of “gooks” during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha — and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.”

BBC documentary on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program and the “Mordechai Vanunu” controversy is now available online via Google Videos.

Explore Google Videos for other superb documentary videos like -

• Weapons of Mass Deception
• Uncovered: the whole truth

The phrase “Islamic fundamentalism” is so frequently used by the tele-pundits that it has become virtually impossible to sever the word “fundamentalism”? from Islam. Scholars have been more nuanced in choosing adjectives, often choosing euphemisms like “Clash of Civilizations” and “Political Islam” to describe, what they see as key attributes of Islam - intolerance, terrorism, oppression of women etc. These impugnations are by no means limited to the Lewises, the Huntingtons and the Friedmans, they are frequently declaimed by the ‘liberal’ faces of Islam, who often start any discussion on Islam with elaborate defensive apologies.

Based on ‘expert’ evidence, we have already declared the words Islam and fundamentalism man and wife. In the following paragraphs, I will try to analyze not only theories about the love affair between the words, but the legitimacy of consecrating such an alliance based on specious evidence.

Islamic fundamentalism has been explained via variety of theories ranging from poverty (poverty causes terrorism) to Islam’s role in freedom struggles in countries like Algeria and India (political Islam causes terrorism) to latent problems in the religion which became manifest as Islam went into decline.

Let us first analyze the first hypothesis that declaims poverty as a progenitor of terror. According to this theory, sub-Saharan Africa should be the leading exporter of terror – which it is not. Poverty clearly does play a part – especially in recruiting disenchanted young men from poor households with the proffered aim of eliminating the western imperialists, the root of their economic and social ruination. Poverty doesn’t explain the geopolitical motives that are at work in funding and training the poor and nor does it explain why college graduates or enrollees form nearly 80 percent of Egyptian Islamist groups.

Then comes the theory which argues that Islam, the religion, itself is the root cause of its decline. These ‘latent problems’ in Islam, according to Arab scholar Bernard Lewis, are due to the lack of separation between ‘Church’ and state in Islam. He follows up this argument with the case of Christianity which, since it developed under the Romans, always argued for a separation between Church and state (Romans) (– and hence is successful?). Obviously, Mr. Lewis chooses to ignore Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism - all of which had virtually no separation between church and state during their early development.

The latest fad has been to explain rise in Islamic Fundamentalism via ‘political Islam’ or politicization of Islam. While the phenomenon traces its history to the crusades, it is generally studied from independence movements onwards. The current iteration of ‘radicalization’ is generally explained via rise in Identity politics, similar to the rise of RSS of BJP in India and Rush Limbaugh in US, in face of cultural globalization. What peddlers of the theory, that draws a straight line between politicization and fundamentalism, forget is that politicization is not new. The entire civil rights movement in US, the overt moral logic of ‘colonialism’, all had roots in politicization of religion. Politicization doesn’t quite explain the rise in Islamic fundamentalism.

“Islam has taken a violent turn because it is suppressed, quarantined, persecuted – most directly by rulers of nations where Muslims live.” - Appleby

This view is supported by theorists who use Gramscian theory of hegemony to explain the rise of fundamentalist Islam. Thomas J. Butko, in an influential paper titled “Revolution or Revelation: A Gramscian approach to the rise of political Islam”, argues that the rise in Muslim fundamentalism should be seen as a localized response to ineffectual tyrannical governments. This theory is corroborated by the fact that leading proponents of democracy in countries like Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are all Islamic fundamentalists. What is more interesting to note here is that a lot of these so called Islamic fundamentalist organizations(including Al Qaeda) are not primarily religious organizations concerned with doctrine and faith but political organizations utilizing Islam as a ‘revolutionary’ ideology to “attack criticize, de-legitimize the ruling elites”. These organizations, argues Butko, are authentic counter-hegemonic movements focused on overthrowing these despotic regimes and acquiring political, economic and social power.

Let me weave one more theory ‘explaining’ the rise before I move on to the counter arguments. I argue that the rise in Muslim fundamentalism in some Muslim countries has much to do with the constitutions of those countries. Constitutions of the colonies are generally a bequeath from the colonial masters. (About 30 years ago most constitutions were copies of constitutions of their colonial masters or of “successful countries”? like US). This has left countries with absolutely unsuitable constitutional structures (which govern the nature of government – consociational election models/rights/law) which breed resentment as they sometimes deliberately go about suppressing the religious identity of the populace. Examples would be Algeria, Indonesia, and Malaysia to a certain extent and of course Egypt, Morocco etc.

It is oft asked question - Why is there only an Islamic terror network and no say a Hindu or a Buddhist global terror network? Answer, according to Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani, is straightforward - US spent $5 billion creating an Islamic terror network. If some other country had spent that much money on fostering a Hindu network of terror – we would have had one. (Except Hindus have one in LTTE)

Mamdani recently wrote a book, “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim” mocking poorly thought contentions dichotomizing Muslims into jihadists and liberal, western-looking ones. Mamdani persuasively argues in the book that the reason for growth of terrorism in general and Islamic terrorism in particular, is cold war. America and erstwhile USSR, both extensively used ‘low-intensity’ warfare to carry on a brutal war in a wide array of countries. This low-intensity warfare directly explains the savagery of numerous civil wars in Africa. Islam comes into picture with Afghanistan (even Algeria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt) and US’s cynical exploitation of religious fundamentalism to win the Afghan war. He then goes on to argue how end of cold-war also marks the time when these ‘out of work’ mujahideen start looking for alternative avenues of funding either via Opium or as paid soldiers or as “jihadists”.

What has become abundantly clear is that none of these theories quite explain the sudden resurgence in Muslim consciousness. In fact, I must question the basis of thinking if there has been a rise in Muslim consciousness or it has just been a rise in paranoia.