A Call to Action for Justice in Haiti (and beyond)

Now that the metaphorical dust is settling on the disaster that has befallen Haiti, it is the time to begin remembering what we are already forgetting. Distracted by the commentary and wrangling surrounding the State of the Union Address, we’ve lost track of the tragedy of an estimated 150,000 dead (the U.N. confirming 111,481 based on bodies recovered as of January 24). While there is no doubt that we should acknowledge the economic problems here in our country, it would be a failure of nerve and moral courage to shift our focus inward upon ourselves on account of an arbitrary requirement that the President “shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union.” (Article II, Section 3, U.S. Constitution)

I’ve previously written concerning the real nature of Haiti’s “curse” and Christian responsibility in the wake of this disaster, but it’s time for us to move beyond talk and take action. For everyone who has already become involved, sending recovery kits and making financial contributions, I thank you and commend your actions. However, as Richard Kim points out, our charity simply isn’t good enough:

But it’s also time to stop having a conversation about charity and start having a conversation about justice–about recovery, responsibility and fairness. What the world should be pondering instead is: What is Haiti owed?

Haiti’s vulnerability to natural disasters, its food shortages, poverty, deforestation and lack of infrastructure, are not accidental. To say that it is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere is to miss the point; Haiti was made poor–by France, the United States, Great Britain, other Western powers and by the IMF and the World Bank.

Our culpability in the repeated failures of the economy and government in Haiti are apparent with only a basic historical knowledge of the country’s two centuries as an independent republic. Oppressive foreign aid programs, including loans that have lined the pockets of corrupt dictators (a fact we conveniently ignored for the sake of “national interest”), continued to keep Haiti politically and economically impoverished. Now it appears that our political leaders and bureaucrats are prepared to repeat the same failed policies in the wake of the earthquake. Kim explains how the International Monetary Fund intends to take a business-as-usual approach to the plight of Haiti:

Now, in its attempts to help Haiti, the IMF is pursuing the same kinds of policies that made Haiti a geography of precariousness even before the quake. To great fanfare, the IMF announced a new $100 million loan to Haiti on Thursday. In one crucial way, the loan is a good thing; Haiti is in dire straits and needs a massive cash infusion. But the new loan was made through the IMF’s extended credit facility, to which Haiti already has $165 million in debt. Debt relief activists tell me that these loans came with conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation low. They say that the new loans would impose these same conditions. In other words, in the face of this latest tragedy, the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms.

Seeing the failure of these policies prior to the full force of nature’s destructive power, it is a sign of poor judgment to think that taking the same direction will have any positive effect on Haiti. Yet, every bit as deplorable is the fact that it’s a sign of complete moral and ethical failure on our part as citizens of the developing world to continue to ignore the real plight of our neighbors as we profit from their misfortune. It is time for each of us become agents of ethics and work to bring about change.

Right now Congresswomen Maxine Waters (D -CA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) are circulating a letter that will be presented to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urging him to use the full leverage of the U.S. government to bring about debt cancellation on the part of the IMF and other international agencies carrying outstanding loans to Haiti. Currently over 50 members of Congress have agreed to sign this letter, but you can help by urging your own representative to sign as well. With the help of the Jubilee USA Network, an outreach of over 75 religious denominations and communities seeking debt relief the underdeveloped nations, you can send an email to your representative urging her/him to join the petition. While you’re at it, you can also visit here to sign a citizens petition that Jubilee USA will present to Secretary Geithner urging him to support debt cancellation for Haiti. The deadline for this is February 2, so please consider responding to this action quickly.

And regardless of deadlines, you can offer your voice in support of H.R. 4405, the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2009. Sponsored by Congresswoman Waters, this bill is an effort to build on the earlier success of H.R. 2634, which was filed in the previous congress, and passed the House of Representatives before becoming bogged down in the Senate. (Avelino Maestas offers a more in depth look at these bills at Huffington Post.) H.R. 4405 has been introduced and currently awaits consideration in the House Committee on Financial Services. You can help spur this bill to the floor by writing letters or sending emails to committee chair Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and ranking member Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL), as well as other members of the committee.

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It’s time to change the way we behave as citizens of the wealthier minority within or world, and as a nation with a history that is checkered at best. I’ve made my case for our responsibility to Haiti based on how that checkered past has harmed Haiti over the years. And while I will be the first to admit that we can’t be held individually responsible for the racism and imperialism of our country’s past, we can become responsible from this moment forward for our country’s just, peaceful, and equitable policies toward our neighbors beyond our borders. I can’t encourage you enough to join with me in making a difference for our nation and our world.

Haiti and the “Curse”

In the midst of the storm surrounding Pat Robertson and his comments about the “curse” upon Haiti, we might have missed the other imposition of the language of “curse” on that country.  In a statement on Thursday afternoon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an international conference on the question of reconstruction aid for Haiti after associating the plight of country with a more ambiguous curse:

From this catastrophe, which follows so many others, we should make sure that it is a chance to get Haiti once and for all out of the curse it seems to have been stuck with for such a long time.

If not Pat Robertson’s absurd theological stretches, then what exactly is this “curse” that haunts Haiti?  While Sarkozy’s statement almost comes across sounding like an innocuous little raincloud that hovers over this unassuming island republic, the reality is much more devastating.  To better understand the structural problems that have plagued Haiti, a brief history lesson is in order.  This commentary at the Center for International Policy sheds some light on the early history of the republic:

Economic Justice in Haiti Requires Debt Restitution  |  CIP Americas Program

Haiti won its independence from France in 1804, through a bloody 12-year war, becoming the second independent country in the Americas and the only nation in history born of a successful slave revolt. But world powers forced Haiti to pay a second price for entrance into the international community. They refused to recognize Haiti’s independence, while French warships remained off its coasts, threatening to invade and reinstitute slavery.

After 21 years of resisting, Haiti capitulated to France‘s terms: in exchange for diplomatic recognition, Haiti’s government agreed to compensate French plantation owners for their loss of “property,” including the freed slaves; compensation to be paid with a loan from a designated French bank. The debt was ten times Haiti’s total 1825 revenue and twice what the United States paid France in 1803 for the Louisiana Purchase, which contained seventy-four times more land.

The debt was a crushing burden on Haiti’s economy. The government was forced to redirect all economic activity to repay it. A huge percentage of government revenues—80% in some years—went to debt service, at the expense of investment in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. The tax code and other laws channeled private and public enterprise to export crops such as tropical hardwoods and sugar, which brought in foreign currency for the bank but left the mountainsides barren, the soil depleted, and the population hungry.

While this may allow those of us in the United States to savor the irony of Sarkozy’s statement given France’s role in the economic crippling of the fledgling nation, we would be well reminded of our own interference in the affairs of foreign nations; especially those in the Caribbean which have often been considered playthings in our own private “U.S. lake.”  The Haiti Action Committee reminds us of our own complicity in the destruction of the early Haitian economy:

The United States led a worldwide boycott against Haiti and refused to recognize the new nation until 1864, fearing that its freedom would pose a danger to the U.S. system of slavery.

Instead of playing linguistic games that offhandedly attribute Haiti’s woes to some ambiguous “curse,” it’s time for us living in economically powerful nations to own our role in putting the hex on this underdeveloped and economically declining nation.*  While Sarkozy’s intentions, along with the rest of the industrialized world, are no doubt for the good, the time for addressing the real issue is long overdue.  We are quick to be the saviors of the disaster-ridden, rushing in with our recovery and relief money, but we never pause for a moment to consider how our history of plundering underdeveloped nations has exacerbated the present crisis.  And for all of our hurry to be the heroes today, tomorrow we will forget this sad affair, never addressing the ongoing systemic imperialism and economic oppression that will continue to leave Haiti ripe for the next disaster.  After all, it’s just Haiti’s “curse” …

* According to the CIA World Factbook 80% of Haitians live in poverty, with over half of the population in abject poverty.

Is Yemen the Next Battleground in the War on Terrorism?

Analysis …

The United States and Britain over the weekend announced that they were closing their embassies in Yemen due to threats by al-Qaida and growing concerns about terrorism in the region. Yemen has received scrutiny since the failed attempt by the Nigerian-born Umar Abdulmutallab to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas. Abdulmutallab was trained in Yemen. President Obama this weekend said that the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen had ordered the attempt. How did Yemen end up as a base for al-Qaida’s growth? And will it be the next setting for the West’s war on terrorism?

Global Post |  “The long trail to understanding bin Laden’s connection to Yemen begins in some sense in Wadi Doan. Osama bin Laden’s father, Mohammad, left the village before World War II to make his fortune in the Saudi construction industry.
Mohammad died when his private jet crashed over the Asir province in Saudi Arabia in 1966. Osama is believed to have spent very little time in Yemen, according to research by author Steven Coll. But Osama bin Laden has long expressed deep emotional connections to the region and to his father’s ancestral land.”

New American Media |  “There are definitely a lot of extremists there, but I think the bigger framework to think about Yemen is not as a hotbed of radicalism and terror but as a state where the government does not control all of the land. They’ve been fighting a significant insurgency in the North for six years now and there’s a separatist group in the South that’s in an armed conflict. The Ministry of Interior estimates that there are 60 million weapons outside of government hands in Yemen. And that’s in a country of 20 million people. So it’s a highly-armed, fragmented society and the government hasn’t really had control over the entire country for some time, if ever. So certainly there’s extremism there, but there’s a lot of stuff going on that the government isn’t really in control of.”

The Daily Beast |  “The great challenge for policymakers moving forward is to recognize the existence of American interests in countries like Yemen without overstating them. American foreign policy has never been comfortable with gray areas, and the press prefers table-pounding statements of resolve. But the idea of real, but limited, interests is completely coherent. Around the world we face a number of places where international terrorists can or might gain a toehold, and what’s needed is an approach that can realistically be applied in a broad way, not an endless series of wars as we play whack-a-mole with the latest would-be bomber.”

Foreign Policy |  “Direct American military intervention in Yemen is so obviously ludicrous that it shouldn’t even need to be said. Even the hyper-interventionist conservatives at the Washington Post op-ed page allow that “U.S. ground troops are not needed, for now.” They never should be. The U.S. is already struggling to fully resource and equip a mission in Afghanistan which has been defined — rightly or wrongly — as vital to American security and interests. The U.S. simply does not have the resources to embark on a military mission in Yemen. If you think Afghanistan is a sinkhole, you will love Yemen. The yawning gap between the extent of U.S. interests and the resources necessary to make a difference is even greater in Yemen than in Afghanistan. And the optics of yet another American military intervention in the Arab world — under Obama, no less — would be devastating to the wider Obama outreach strategy. (On the positive side, at least committing scarce U.S. troops to Yemen would make a military strike against Iran that much less likely.)”

Informed Comment |  “I have been to Yemen three times, before and after unification, and have traveled outside Sanaa. I’ve spoken publicly in Arabic in front of big audiences and interacted with Zaidis, Salafis, Sufis. It is an extremely complicated society with multiple ecological zones. It is an arid, tribal (segmentary-lineage) system. Most of the scholars I know who work on Yemen have been kidnapped by tribes or thrown in jail by the government at least once. People are either Arab nationalists or Muslim ones. They have very little use for outsiders. If the US tried to establish a big presence there, they would make the Iraqi resistance look half-hearted and weak-kneed.”

Best of the Web …

Top Ten Good News Stories from the Muslim World in 2009 that You Never Heard About  |  Informed Comment

10. Saudi Arabia opened its first coeducational college campus, the King Abdullah Science and Technology University. In a country where the sexes have been so separated in public that some have spoken of ‘gender Apartheid,’ this move, which came from King Abdullah, provoked raging controversy. When a prominent cleric criticized having male and female students on the same campus and the teaching of modern scientific theories like Darwinism, the king summarily fired his ass. It may seem a small thing, but many big social processes start small. Most Americans forget that Princeton U. did not become coed until 1969.

9. Qatar is on track to average 7.5 percent per annum growth for the next few years. …

Useless democracy promotion efforts? There’s an app for that  |  FP Passport

The Voice of America recently unveiled a new iPhone application that allows Iranian “citizen journalists” to send video and images directly to VOA’s Persian News Network. The app, designed by the Washington D.C.-based company Intridea, is being advertised as a cutting-edge method for Iranian reformers to spread their message across the country. The application “empowers Iranians at a time when the government is staging a crackdown against opposition protesters,” announced the head of the Persian News Network.

I’m sure that this initiative was begun with the best of intentions. However, there’s only one problem — oh, who am I kidding, there are a whole slew of problems. To begin with, a normal iPhone won’t work in Iran.

The 00s: A Bad American Decade  |  Global Post

A decade’s end lends itself to reflection. As a historian, I am thinking about how the 2000s compare to previous decades. While time and perspective may alter my thinking, I believe the 2000s is the worst decade Americans have experienced since the Civil War.

Five Lesser-known Countries That Changed the World in 2009  |  GOOD Magazine

You couldn’t swing a dead cat in 2009 without hitting headlines about the troop escalation in Afghanistan or the troop withdrawal in Iraq. The same goes for the rise of China and the not-so-democratic presidential “election” in Iran. These were some of the big international attention-getters of the year, and for layman and foreign policy professionals alike, they’re stories that most of us have heard about.

But let’s be fair. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 countries in world, not just the 10 we hear about on television. Here are five countries that changed the world in 2009—and are largely absent in mainstream American press coverage.

Flying the Unfriendly Skies?

Analysis …

U.S. security officials spent the weekend scrambling to assure the airline-flying public that security measures are in place after a Nigerian man was arrested in a Christmas Day, botched attempt to detonate explosives on a Northwest Airlines flight. According to the Associated Press, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who was arrested this weekend in the alleged plot, has claimed to have received training from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, a U.S. law enforcement official said. Bloggers wondered after the incident whether increased security would make fliers safer or just more stressed, while others began connecting dots between the political situations of Nigeria and Yemen, and al-Qaida’s presence there.

Tech Crunch |  “Before I begin, let me just state that TSA has yet to confirm any of this on its website, so the details aren’t entirely clear at the moment. That said, there are several indications that orders have been issued to cease the use of electronics during international flights. Yes, that means no laptops, no iPods, no Kindles, no CD players, no portable DVD players, no Nintendo DSes — nothing that requires any sort of power on these flights. If this is true, it’s absolutely awful news. … the simple fact is that if the TSA was really this seriously worried about electronic devices, they could have banned them anytime since the attacks on September 11, 2001. Instead, they’re doing it more than 8 years later after a man apparently lit some sort of mixture of powder and liquid in his lap. How that relates to electronics, I’m not sure. This just reeks of a “well, we have to do something” move.”

Alas, a Blog |  “So the guy got some chemicals on that could have maybe started a fire, but weren’t explosive. That’s not particularly scary. Oh, sure, it would be frightening in the moment. But you can’t bring a plane down with an incendiary device. Not even close. In a way, this is the sort of “attack” that proves that terror countermeasures are working. If this is the best al Qaeda and its sympathizers1 can do…well, it’s pretty pathetic. Basically, they’re as frightening as your high school friend who discovered you can set hair spray on fire. Both could hurt someone, other than themselves. But that would be more by chance than by design.”

Hillbilly Report |  “Despite what the final truth may be of the man’s motives and whether he acted alone or not a couple of things immediately jump out at me about this attack. Number one, this shows that sending our troops to Afghanistan and Iraq supposedly to “fight them there so we do not have to fight them here” is obviously playing out a flawed policy by the previous chickenhawks to go to war at all costs and even to a certain extent the current leadership. Their prescence there did nothing to stop this man from boarding plane and trying to blow it up. Perhaps it is better to have our troops here in America to protect the American people.”

Hot Air |  “The priority for this administration should not be “emptying out” Gitmo. It should be securing the US and defeating our enemy.  Our enemy now operates with near-impunity from Yemen and has already conducted two attacks on the US, one of which resulted in 14 deaths and the other could have killed hundreds in the air and others on the ground.  Allowing 95 of their allies to run back to Yemen now would demonstrate the victory of political expediency over national security.  It’s time to close the revolving door on Gitmo and keep the terrorists where we can make sure they don’t attack Americans again.”

• Related link: Bomb Complicates Gitmo Plan  |  Politico

The Agitator |  “If you’re really cynical, you could make a good argument that they’re really only interested in the appearance of safety. They’ve simply concluded that the more difficult they make your flight, the safer you’ll feel. Never mind if any of the theatrics actually work.”

Best of the Web …

Don’t Tread on Me: I Homeschool  |  Miller-McCune

While many of the old arguments against homeschooling have corroded (namely that certified teachers, in the majority of cases, can educate better than parents and that homeschooled children will grow up bewilderingly sheltered from the “real” world), there always seems to be new fronts in this distinctly American culture war.

Culture war. That’s really what homeschooling signifies circa 2009: a sound rejection of the splintering mainstream (and, perhaps now, the perceived heavy hand of an Obama nanny-state) out of deep ideological or personal convictions. Roughly half, and perhaps more, of these homeschoolers are drawn from an evangelical Christian subculture that’s more than wary of encroaching secularism. For these parents, there’s no more pronounced statement than this: “I’ll educate my children however I please — and don’t stand in my way.”

But as the practice rapidly grows — it has seen more than 74 percent increase since 1999 and estimates peg the current number of those homeschooled between 1.5 and 2 million students — it might be time to consider some sensible oversight.

The Blind Side’s Blind Spot  |  GOOD Magazine

Many have poked fun at President Obama’s oft-repeated campaign line, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” but it actually carries a positive and true message that applies here. We can’t sit around and hope that a wealthy family like the Tuohys will step up and help a child in need. The rest of us can do it, too. Of course, not everyone can take a child into their home and provide food, clothing, and a private tutor. But most adults can volunteer to tutor a struggling elementary school student after school, or mentor a middle schooler as she deals with the challenges of adolescence, or help a high school junior prepare for the SAT and the college admissions process. Regularly spending time with a student, especially over an extended period of time, can make a profound impact on her or his life.

Rethinking Work: How About We Take Activism Seriously  |  Global Comment

A government that doesn’t provide for its people, after all, depends on charities—nonprofits–to do its work for it. And nonprofit work requires an acknowledgment that you’re not in it for the money. Especially for those of us in left causes, we are pressured constantly to work harderfastermore! “for the cause,” and we’re not supposed to care about money. At least, I presume, at right-wing think tanks and organizations, they openly worship the Dollar and wouldn’t dream of working for less than bloated compensation packages. But do we have to think that money is the only incentive to work hard in order to be treated fairly?

Activism is often an extracurricular activity—we have day jobs, sometimes more than one, and then we work overtime and weekends volunteering for causes that matter. And to some degree the work keeps us alive and going. It is fulfilling and refreshing in a way that our day job is not.

But it is also work.

End-in-sight-istan?

Analysis…

Tuesday night, President Obama spoke at West Point, detailing his future strategy for the War in Afghanistan.  The speech included a summary of events leading us to this place, the president’s plan, an account of the president’s difficulty in making this decision, and a refutation of potential criticisms of his plan.  The substance of his strategy includes increasing our forces by 30,000 troops starting in 2010 with the intention of beginning to withdraw them in the summer of 2011.   The reactions to the speech have been varied.   

FiveThirtyEight | What you have here, in both policy and political gambits, is the equivalent “surge” for Obama in Afghanistan to what Bush did with his surge in Iraq. I suppose violence is down in Iraq post-surge, but the long-term situation there isn’t going to be any better as a result, is it? And although Obama’s less-in-Iraq-means-more-for-Afghanistan argument is better than a more-in-both-countries further over-extension of our military and treasury, scaling back in Iraq is not in by itselfa rationale for ramping up in Afghanistan. Failure at a lower cost-per-fatality, cost-per-casualty, cost-per-dollar-spent investment is still a bad return. What matters is whether this counterinsurgency strategy really can work. I’m still not sure it will, and given that the president’s Afghan approval numbers are lower than his overall approval numbers, I wonder how many Americans believe it will work.

Alternet | There remains substantial Democratic discomfort with Obama’s plan to surge more than 30,000 additional troops into what — despite the talk of an exit strategy — is sounding more and more like an endless, and very probably pointless, war of whim. One hundred members of the House, the vast majority of them Democrats, have now sponsored Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern’s call for the development of a formal plan to bring the troops home. In the Senate, Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders make no secret of the fact that they believe the president is making a mistake, as does Obey, author of the “fool’s errand” characterization.

The Huffington Post | After the Bush years of outright lies and systematic deception, we now have Obama plumbing new depths as he tortures the very language itself. 1984here we are. Escalation is withdrawal; establishing a protectorate wherein the United States runs the government behind a nominal Afghan façade is “not nation-building;” a facsimile of a British style native state under the Raj is transmuted into self-determination.

FP Passport | If anything, the cautious tone of this speech revealed a president far from enthusiastic about his strategy. You can expect commentators to suggest that the president’s heart isn’t in the fight. But I expect that the mindset Obama projected — deeply ambivalent about the options he’s faced with but resigned to what he believes is a necessity — will resonate with many viewers much more than a guns-blazing call-to-arms would have. 

News…

Puerto Rico - First Recorded Hate Crime Murder? | Questioning Transphobia

Which makes me wonder if the victim may have been a transgender woman, despite the majority of the reports I’ve read referring to a “gay teen”and using male pronouns and a name which may well have been the name in hir legal documentation, but perhaps may not have been the name ze always went by. Regardless, it’s hard not to see it as a blatant and cynical attempt by the accused to lay the foundations for either a gay panic or trans panic defense at his trial.

No Minarets, We’re Swiss | Get Religion

Government leaders said the ban was not a rejection of Muslims, their faith or their culture. It was beyond the ability of Timesreporters Nick Cumming-Bruce (in Geneva) and Steven Erlanger (in Paris) to see how many people believed this, but the Muslims quoted by the reporters were understandably skeptical.

Deer Swims 2,000 Yards Across Hudson River | Daily Intel

Jealous of the attention heaped upon Ilya the Manatee, a deer from New Jersey made a plea for some fawning media coverage of his own today by swimming some 2,000 yards across the Hudson River. The 10-point buck jumped into the water sometime after being spotted at an intersection in Jersey City. A few hours later a police boat found him running along the rocky edge of Governors Island, shot him with a tranquilizer and transported him to a nature preserve on Staten Island. Now he’s among friends, and next time he wants to go for a swim he won’t have to go stag.

Townhalls & Firewalls

Analysis…

President Obama’s recent trip to China has sparked a wave of debate.  From economics to an uncensored Internet, numerous comments have conspired regarding the recent trip abroad.  Largely, the differences between the two nations, the United States and China, are what contribute to the conversation.

The Huffington Post |  In talking to a group of graduate students from the China University of Political Science and Law, one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities, President Obama’s rise to power has filled them with the hope that the impossible, or at least the improbable, is achievable.
For the students, many who have little recognition of a world before President George W. Bush, President Obama represents a new approach to the global order, an approach that they eagerly look to be a part of.

NPR |  President Obama visits China at a time when the world’s two most powerful economies face very different fortunes.
A humbled United States is slowly recovering after sparking the global financial crisis. China, on the other hand, has handled the downturn with ease and appears to be leading the world out of recession, while increasing its influence in Asia.

Time |  The official U.S. buzzword for President Obama’s visit to China this week is “pragmatic cooperation,” but behind the scenes, U.S. diplomats have been aiming for something a little closer to subversion — at least when it comes to getting around China’s “great firewall” of official censorship and information control.
There is a long history of Chinese officials censoring the comments of U.S. presidents. In 1984 when President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Beijing, state-run China Central Television cut portions that referred to the Soviet Union, religion and democracy. During Obama’s inaugural speech in January, China’s state television cut away when the president referred to previous American generations that had faced down communism. The line that followed was also edited from television broadcasts and from transcripts on many Chinese news portals: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
Online outreach by the Obama Administration is designed in part to bypass such censorship, and increase direct communications with the Chinese people. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for one, has been particularly aggressive on the issue since taking office.

Personal Democracy Forum |  Obama made the argument that Internet freedoms are human freedoms, playing off China’s vibrant — if restricted — base of Internet users. His townhall with “future Chinese leaders” was broadcast online, and questions came, as they have with domestic townhalls, from the Internet, quote-unquote. Chinese young folks used their social networks Xinhuanet and Sohu, as well as from the website of the U.S. embassy in Beijing, to send in questions for Obama. And Obama — who hasn’t always done a great job in recognizing how participatory technologies change the nature of engagement with government — here pounced on the moment, telling his web-savvy Chinese audience, “I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet — or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.”

The Daily Dish |  Thirty years from now, the most important aspect of Barack Obama’s interaction with China will be whether the two countries, together, can do anything about environmental and climate issues. If they can, in 2039 we’ll look back on this as something like the Silent Spring/Clean Air Act moment in American history, which began a change toward broad environmental improvement. If they can’t….

News…

Are you an authentic American?  |  Racialicious

So how does one question who or who is not an American? Does it have to do with language, race, ethnicity, how long one has been in the United States – or is it about the more legal aspect of possessing citizenship.

Haunted by Gorbachev’s ghost  |  Truthdig

It has become a pub bore’s cliché to argue that we will never prevail in Afghanistan because no foreign power ever has: not even the Russians, whose nine-year occupation cost the lives of 14,000 of their soldiers and 35,500 wounded, and which ended in humiliating retreat in 1989. Those Cassandras irritate Western leaders, whose response is to insist that it is different this time. “We are not an occupying army,” Gordon Brown told the BBC on Friday. “It’s not like previous interventions. … We are actually creating the conditions by which the Afghans themselves, and not an occupying army, can run their own affairs.”

High court won’t hear Washington Redskins case  |  NPR

The Supreme Court on Monday decided not to weigh in on a 17-year legal challenge by a group of American Indians who contend the Washington Redskins football moniker does not deserve trademark protection because it is racially offensive.
In sidestepping the controversy, the justices did not comment on Harjo v. Pro Football, Inc. The court’s refusal to hear the case leaves in place an appeals court ruling that the plaintiffs waited too long to challenge the National Football League trademarks.

Why Americans hate to love the government  |  The New Republic

Anyone who has followed closely the debate over national health insurance has probably noticed some peculiar inconsistencies in Americans’ attitudes toward the legislation. A Pew Poll released on October 8 found “steady support” for specific elements of the health care plan, including the public alternative to private insurance, the employer mandate, and the requirement that everyone have insurance. Nonetheless, popular support for the plan itself was declining, with 34 percent “generally [in] favor” and 47 percent “generally opposed.”
What accounts for this disparity? Certainly, some people fear that Medicare will be cut, or that “death panels” will be set up, but one of the most persistent concerns is not about specific provisions; rather, it’s that the federal government will be taking over health care.

An Open Letter to President Obama

By Clint Collins
Xenia blogger

Dear Mr. President:

By the time this is published, I may be one of the last people remaining on the planet who has yet to commend or eviscerate you for your selection to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  In spite of that, I hope you will accept my heartfelt congratulations on your receipt of this great honor.  While others choose to question or even denigrate your selection on the grounds that you have yet to demonstrate your commitment to peace through sweeping accomplishments or an extensive span of intentionality and engagement, I consider your multilateral and dialogical approach to statesmanship worthy of both accolade and emulation.  Your enlightened leadership in this respect confers great benefit not only to our national self-interest, but also to the global common good.

I am further appreciative of the manner in which you received this honor.  While the temptation to bask in the glow of international recognition presented itself, you shunned self-aggrandizement in favor of furthering the cause of dialogue, mutuality, and respect.  The announcement on behalf of the Norwegian Nobel Committee clearly disclosed their hope that this award would strengthen your vision of international solidarity, and you have chosen to accept it as a means to further that goal, instead of as an end in itself.  For all of these things, Mr. President, I commend you.

Yet in spite of my admiration for your globally oriented approach to diplomacy and governance, I feel compelled to speak on behalf of those who today cannot share in Alfred Nobel’s vision of “fraternity between nations.”  The absence of any specific reference to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan in your acceptance announcement casts a conspicuous and disappointing shadow across an otherwise inspiring response.  Further clouding this moment, the one presidential responsibility you chose to lift up by title was your position as commander of U.S. military forces.  While the irony of this was palpable, to do so in the same breath that you offer only an oblique and implied reference to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was truly in poor form.

Constrained by their status as occupied nations, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan may truly benefit from your vision of multilateralism.  They are at best patron states reliant upon U.S. military presence and subject to U.S. guidance, or at worst occupied territories only one step removed from the status of puppet-states.  In either case, or by any other scenario in between, these nations can never truly be partners in a conversation of equals.  Until they are released from the custody of military occupation, the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq remain excluded from the possibility and hope for a just peace.

Given your own acknowledgement of the momentum this award offers to the cause of international peace and diplomacy, I urge you to avert any impending inertia by expediently withdrawing our military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.  If we as a nation are to uphold the values and virtues you have extolled throughout your presidential tenure and during your preceding election campaign, we must act to end this injustice and reinstate these nations to their rightful place as equals at the global table.

I write this with my full support for your timely and necessary global vision, and with my continued prayers that your leadership may be just, moral, and equitable.

Respectfully yours,

Clint Collins

Who Can Solve Honduras’ Political Crisis?

Analysis …

The BBC reported this week that Honduran interim leader Roberto Micheletti has asked the government to lift an emergency decree that suspended civil liberties in the nation after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in June. Meanwhile, U.S. officials’ planned fact-finding missions to Honduras raises questions about a resurrection of ’80s-style foreign relations between the U.S. and the Latin American country; and Zelaya takes heat for stating that he believes Israeli agents were behind the coup.

Truthdig |  “There may finally be movement in Honduras’ political crisis, as representatives of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and interim President Roberto Micheletti will reportedly meet next week to discuss a potential deal to end the crisis that began with June’s coup d’état. Also in the news is the visit to Honduras by several U.S. Republican congressmen despite a U.S. ban on direct discussions with the architects of the coup against the democratically elected Zelaya.”

CSMonitor.com |  “A Nobel Peace Prize laureate tried and failed. Pressure for a brokered solution has also come, to no avail, from presidents, top diplomats, and the world´s most credible global organizations. Now, a new round of ideas, deals, and calls for dialogue is emerging from the one place so few had looked before: Honduras itself. Some think a solution is impossible without the outside world. But from church leaders to well-heeled businessmen, new compromise proposals from within the country are being floated to end the standoff between ousted President Manuel Zelaya and the interim regime of Roberto Micheletti.”

Global Comment |  “Mainstream papers have chosen to paint the dispute about DeMint’s trip as one over policy—as if the de facto government is simply an opposing political party rather than a military-backed group that forced Manuel Zelaya, the democratically-elected president, from the country. Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, refused to give DeMint permission for his trip, but minority leader Mitch McConnell arranged a plane for DeMint and his cohorts, Representatives Aaron Schock, Peter Roskam and Doug Lamborn. Separately, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen plans to head to Honduras to meet with the de facto regime, which employs her former press secretary and his PR firm.”

• Related link: Democrats Target Jim DeMint’s Honduras Trip  |  Politico

The New Republic |  “On September 12, the United States government revoked the visas of de facto Honduran President Roberto Micheletti and 14 of the country’s Supreme Court justices. Days earlier, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S.-government body, voted to cut off $11 million in aid to the cash-strapped Central American country. The move came two months after the Honduran military, on the orders of its Congress, Supreme Court, and attorney general, removed Micheletti’s predecessor Manuel Zelaya from office following his repeated attempts to undermine the country’s constitutional provision limiting presidents to a single term. Explaining its decision to not recognize Honduras’s interim government, which it has repeatedly declared came to power via a “coup d’état,” the Obama administration says that it is sending a “very strong message” to “anyone, be they civilian or military, who are thinking of deposing or removing from–illegally removing from office a duly elected president in any country.” Yet according to a recently released and widely overlooked report drafted by the Library of Congress, the actions the Honduran government took in removing Zelaya were consistent with that country’s constitutional procedures.”

FP Passport |  “The Anti-Defamation League has raised the alarm over the use of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric by supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya: “From President Zelaya himself down to media pundits and political activists, there has been a troubling undercurrent of anti-Semitism in the situation in Honduras,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.  “We know from history that at times of turmoil and unrest, Jews are a convenient scapegoat, and that is happening now in Honduras, a country that has only a small Jewish minority.”"

News …

• Swine flu vaccines hit hospitals and doctors’ offices; what you need to know about them (Read more).
• What would happen if legal immigrants were barred from participating in a reformed U.S. health care system (Read more).
• Texas judge’s ruling over same-sex divorce may pave the way for same-sx marriage in the Lone Star State (Read more).
• A book about gay penguins tops the list of the most-banned books in the U.S. (Read more).

“Chaos-istan”

Analysis…

The tension between the White House and NATO forces, if not already apparent, was made clear last week after Gen McChrystal spoke in London regarding his request to change strategies in Afghanistan. He dismissed Biden’s approach and declared that any Afghan tactic other than his own would lead to a state of “Chaos-istan.”

Whether or not McChrystal’s strategy is best does not sum up the current state of being for the U.S. commander. Many argue that McChrystal stepped out of line and broke his chain of command by appealing directly to the public instead of the White House. Either way, the issue has changed dramatically and Obama will have to decide if, and when, he should listen to his top generals.

Below, several bloggers discuss whether or not they think McChrystal overstepped his boundaries and what they believe Obama should do next.

Talk Left | Two weeks ago, I wrote that if Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who heads up the US military effort in Afghanistan, threatened to resign if his recommendations were not accepted, he should be fired. McChrystal has continued to act in an unacceptable fashion and folks are noticing:
National security adviser James L. Jones suggested Sunday that the public campaign being conducted by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan on behalf of his war strategy is complicating the internal White House review underway, saying that “it is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.”
I have stated previously that I tend to favor Gen. McChrystal’s assessment of and recommendations for the situation. But his behavior has been unacceptable. I believe the White House should adopt his recommendations and then sack him.
Speaking for me only.

Commentary | The Democrats and their cheerleaders in the punditocracy used to scream for President George W. Bush to listen to his generals. Then Bush got better generals, listened to them, and avoided defeat in Iraq. Obama, it seems, is bent on ignoring his generals. If he takes the advice of Joe Biden instead of those expert on counterinsurgency (and with a track record of getting war strategy right), the results may be disastrous not only on the battlefield but also in the court of public opinion. The public already trusts the generals more than Obama to make decisions about Afghanistan. And if Obama — based on nothing more than “I changed my mind” — rejects the advice of his military commanders, the public may wonder what exactly motivates the commander in chief and whether the best and the brightest military minds were hired just for show.

Jules Crittenden @Forward Movement | Theoretically Obama must be PO’d at Petraeus, too, because he essentially, if more diplomatically, said the same thing a couple of weeks earlier.
The big question now is whether this is going to be about Obama’s ego, or about winning in Afghanistan. If any general is ill-advised to shoot his mouth off, this business may also teach the administration something about blowing off generals at (unnecessarily extended) criticial moments and insisting that political parameters trump military ones in wartime.

Hot Air | Do you think that a President might get a little miffed when his battlefield commander goes public in demanding a decision from his Commander in Chief? Would a President get his feathers ruffled when that commander also publicly pronounced other options unacceptable and compared them to letting half a building burn to the ground? Just possibly.
Well, at least McChrystal finally got a face-to-face meeting with the President after that speech. After McChrystal’s appearance on 60 Minutes, it seemed as though it would have taken an act of Congress to get McChrystal some face time with Barack Obama.
As for naïveté, the real question is about Obama’s comprehension of the war and international relations, especially after the embarrassing performance in Copenhagen. McChrystal may not know the ways of Washington, but that’s not his battleground. It seems as though Obama knows Afghanistan less than McChrystal knows the Beltway, and that should be much more of a concern for the White House and its advisers than whether McChrystal is playing by Marquess de Queensbury rules while speaking publicly.

The Moderate Voice | When things were going badly (at their worst) in Iraq, the blame was rightly laid at the feet of George W. Bush. (And, to a certain extent, Rumsfeld.) When the strategy was changed and the surge put in place, General David Petraeous was given credit for it. And that’s the way it works. When you’re the one in charge at the very top, you take responsibility for any failures, just as Obama will have to do if things go totally pear shaped in Afghanistan. And you credit your field commanders when things go well. It’s just how it works. But there’s another side to that equation which is equally important.
Good military leaders listen to and take feedback from those below them, and this is particularly true when you’re talking about your generals in the field giving feedback to the top echelons. But there are channels to do this through. One thing you do not do is go on television or some speaking engagement and question the chain of command in public. That damages the entire order of the military structure. Obama was allegedly enraged at McChrystal after the speech and called him in for a dressing down on Air Force One. And well he should.

Huffington Post | One thing is certain, it’s time for Pres. Obama and his national security team to make a decision. The word “dithering” ricocheting everywhere to describe the Administration’s lack of decision making. It’s also clear that Biden’s plan is not the answer. However, neither is McChrystal’s request for 40,000 troops. The answer lies beyond.
Afghanistan is now up to Obama, with his decision fateful on many fronts. Biden’s got it wrong, no matter how learned his position to be. But so does John McCain. And regardless of McChrystal’s request, it seems very clear to me that more American troops are not the answer. However, Feingold’s insistence on withdrawal is dead wrong as well. So what to do?
Stay. Get money directly to Afghans. Build their security forces. Talk to the Taliban, all of them. ..and realize we’re there for the foreseeable future. That is unless you want to see Pakistan unravel completely.

News…

• Worry grows among doctors over clamor for flu vaccine and the nationwide drive to immunize everyone (Read more).
• Autism may be more common than thought (Read more).
• Three American scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine for research on cell division and the “immortality enzyme” that can help cells multiply without damage, illuminating conditions including cancer and aging (Read more).
• President Barack Obama plans to address the nation’s largest gay rights group this weekend in an effort to mollify an uneasy Democratic constituency frustrated with the White House’s slow pace (Read more).
• Norway is the best place in the world to live while Niger is the least desirable, according to an annual report by the United Nations (Read more).

Nukes for Peace!

Analysis…

Iranian officials test fired three short-range missiles earlier this week, much to the dismay of the Western world.  The missiles have the potential to strike Israel and parts of European and American bases in the Persian Gulf; so basically, any place that threatens Iran.  The Obama administration has sanctioned Iran and is currently working on establishing “tougher” sanctions to punish the country.  Bloggers and critics assess the enforcer role the Obama administration has assumed, and whether or not Iran will submit to it.

The Atlantic Politics Channel |  Whether the U.S. is working toward complete disarmament can be debated. President Obama said in Prague in April that he wants to live in a world where no nuclear weapons exist; he succeeded in passing a nonproliferation resolution as he chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York last week; it’s one of his pet international issues. At the same time, there’s a discussion within the administration and the Defense Department about what to do with old American nukes that need to be replaced, modified, or maybe even improved for tactical superiority.
Iran’s complaint, after the revelation of its previously undisclosed enrichment plant and the test of missiles that could hit Tel Aviv, is about casting first stones. But at least the U.S. is working toward a non-proliferation agreement with Russia this December.

The Foundry |  So if Iran has twice test-fired missiles this year that can hit targets stretching from Israel to Europe, then how can the Obama administration possibly justify reneging on agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to host land based missile defense?
Before President Obama’s reversal we were building systems to protect against medium and long-range threats. All the Obama administration did is cut our missile defenses in half. We are in a desperate race to beat the clock on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Why on earth are we stopping now to let the Iranians catch up?

Townhall |  Iran is reported to have test fired a long range missile [Monday}, which is all the reply a sensible person needs to understand how the mullahs will conduct themselves over the next two months.  [Monday’s] coverage of this event tell[s] us a lot about whether Beltway-Manhattan media elites even understand what is unfolding around the world.

Atlas Shrugs |  Amid growing international pressure in advance of highly anticipated talks this week, Iran displayed its defiance of Western threats against its nuclear program by announcing Sunday that it had test-fired at least two short-range missiles.
“We are going to respond to any military action in a crushing manner, and it doesn’t make any difference which country or regime has launched the aggression,” Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, said, according to Iranian state media.

The Nation |  …and what it isn’t clear that the Obama administration gets, is that the US can’t just bluster and threaten Iran with sanctions to get its way. Negotiations succeed when both parties, not just one, can claim victory. To succeed, the United States is going to have to put on the table an offer to accept Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, without calling for a “freeze” or the dismantling of the whole thing. In exchange, Iran is going to have to accept strict and intrusive international oversight and inspections of its facilities, to ensure that it doesn’t have a military dimension. That’s the deal that will work. Anything less just ain’t happening.

News…

• An Obama administration plan to build huge new solar energy plants in the Southwest is causing heartburn in the environmental community (Read more).
• The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a Facebook survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated, officials said Monday (Read more).
• Western powers have condemned Iran for test-firing its most advanced long-range missiles, with the White House calling the move “provocative” (Read more).
• In a dramatic acceleration of forecasts for global warming, UK scientists say the global average temperature could rise by 4C (7.2F) as early as 2060 (Read more).
• McChrystal says he has talked with Obama once since taking command in Afghanistan (Read more).

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