The Cold War still evokes memories of two power blocs struggling to spread their ideology and influence under the shadow of nuclear Armageddon.
The United States-led western democracies used all their power to spread the frontiers of the free world. The Soviet Union, representing half a dozen communist satellites in Eastern Europe, was intent on vanquishing the forces of imperialism and expansionism.
The Third World, with its micro-nationalism, ethnic fissures and tribal fault-lines, provided the superpowers their battleground.
For an entire group of newly independent nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the pressures were too daunting. In some, Marxist governments emerged through violent revolutions aided and abetted by Moscow. In others, right-wing autocracies – mostly military regimes – seized power through active support from Washington.
Caught in the crossfire, some countries decided to form their own alliance: the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Leaders like Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser, India’s Jawahar Lal Nehru, Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito and Indonesia’s Sukarno, believed the Third World could assert its role through collective action. NAM went on to include over 100 members, representing 55 percent of the planet’s people. It is the largest international organization after the United Nations, containing nearly two-thirds of the U.N.’s membership.
Officially, NAM saw itself not formally aligned with or against either power bloc. Members focused on national struggles for independence, the eradication of poverty, economic development and opposing colonialism, imperialism, and neo-colonialism.
NAM was intended to be as close an alliance as NATO or the Warsaw Pact. From the outset, it had little cohesion. Many of its members were aligned with one or another of the great powers. Cuba, allied with the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, organized a summit in 1979. India, another Soviet ally, was an active NAM member. The large number of U.S.-backed military regimes that professed non-alignment was a source of amusement to the Soviet Union.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, NAM cracked open right in the middle. Soviet client states fully supported the invasion, while others cried foul.
Nevertheless, NAM has had a great source of internal cohesion from its very inception: It contains the largest collection of the world's authoritarian governments.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Corporate Integrity Need Not Be An Oxymoron
Whether Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling still believe they were gutsy entrepreneurs, not greedy fraudsters, is immaterial. For now, the guilty verdicts the two Enron bosses received from a jury that deliberated for six days overshadow everything else. National Public Radio analyst Daniel Schorr spoke for many when he said he didn’t expect to see this kind of humbling of corporate America in his lifetime.
Lay was found guilty by the jury of six counts of conspiracy and fraud and Skilling on 18 counts but was acquitted on all but one charge of insider trading. In a separate trial in front of the judge Lay was also found guilty of bank fraud. He faces a maximum of 45 years in jail (plus up to 120 years for the bank fraud) and Skilling could receive 185 years inside. The judge is set to sentence them September 11. Both men said that they would mount an appeal.
From the outset, investors and employees had no doubt who was to blame for Enron’s collapse. Until Lay and Skilling stood in court, no top Enron executive had faced trial for -- much less been convicted of -- any wrongdoing. Some 30 people were charged in connection with the case. Nearly half made a deal and some testified for the government.
This led both defendants to put too much faith in weakness of such evidence.
Skilling and Lay sought to portray Enron as a fundamentally sound company that had been brought down by panic in the markets brought on by short-sellers and stoked by the media. The jurors saw little evidence that subordinates could have conducted massive fraud without the chief executive’s knowledge.
The defendants’ contention that they had merely engaged in activities common during the tech boom was puerile. An Enron-scale juggling of accounts was not so widespread as to rise to the level of standard operating procedure. In sum, the defense’s attempt to portray Enron’s collapse as an intrinsic hazard of capitalism was doomed from the start.
Are we on the threshold of the Age of Corporate Integrity? Businessmen may have self-interest in bemoaning the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation on corporate governance as excessive. The suspected malfeasance of a few cannot justify unreasonable encumbrances across the boardrooms. Moreover, how long would it take for such restrictions to impose a chilling effect on America’s entrepreneurial zeal?
Yet the onus is on corporate America. It could do itself – and the rest of us -- a huge favor by resisting the temptation to describe out-and-out crime as risk-taking.
Lay was found guilty by the jury of six counts of conspiracy and fraud and Skilling on 18 counts but was acquitted on all but one charge of insider trading. In a separate trial in front of the judge Lay was also found guilty of bank fraud. He faces a maximum of 45 years in jail (plus up to 120 years for the bank fraud) and Skilling could receive 185 years inside. The judge is set to sentence them September 11. Both men said that they would mount an appeal.
From the outset, investors and employees had no doubt who was to blame for Enron’s collapse. Until Lay and Skilling stood in court, no top Enron executive had faced trial for -- much less been convicted of -- any wrongdoing. Some 30 people were charged in connection with the case. Nearly half made a deal and some testified for the government.
This led both defendants to put too much faith in weakness of such evidence.
Skilling and Lay sought to portray Enron as a fundamentally sound company that had been brought down by panic in the markets brought on by short-sellers and stoked by the media. The jurors saw little evidence that subordinates could have conducted massive fraud without the chief executive’s knowledge.
The defendants’ contention that they had merely engaged in activities common during the tech boom was puerile. An Enron-scale juggling of accounts was not so widespread as to rise to the level of standard operating procedure. In sum, the defense’s attempt to portray Enron’s collapse as an intrinsic hazard of capitalism was doomed from the start.
Are we on the threshold of the Age of Corporate Integrity? Businessmen may have self-interest in bemoaning the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation on corporate governance as excessive. The suspected malfeasance of a few cannot justify unreasonable encumbrances across the boardrooms. Moreover, how long would it take for such restrictions to impose a chilling effect on America’s entrepreneurial zeal?
Yet the onus is on corporate America. It could do itself – and the rest of us -- a huge favor by resisting the temptation to describe out-and-out crime as risk-taking.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Who Is Bin Laden Really Trying To Exonerate?
The irrationality of the Zacarias Moussaoui saga finally seems to have gotten to his boss. Well, make that his purported boss. An audio recording on an Islamist website supposedly of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden denies Moussaoui, the only person convicted over the 9/11 attacks, was involved in the operation.
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty in April 2005 to
six charges of conspiracy over the hijacking attacks on New York and Washington.
When a U.S. court jailed him for life without parole for his role in the attacks earlier this month, it only left room for endless speculation.
From the outset, the prosecution had called for the death penalty, arguing that “there is no place on this good Earth” for him. The defense recommended “the long slow death of a common criminal” in prison, rather than martyrdom through execution.
And Moussaoui himself? At first, he protested vigorously that he had nothing to do with, and knew nothing about, the 9/11 attacks. Then suddenly he claimed to be a central figure in the plot. He had planned, he claimed, to fly a fifth suicide mission into the White House that day, and would certainly have done so had he not already been behind bars, arrested four weeks earlier on a minor immigration charge. His alleged co-hijacker, Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” U.S. officials arrested after the 9/11 attacks, laughed off that story.
During the final six weeks of hearings, Moussaoui virtually lusted for the death penalty. He let it be known that he had “no regret, no remorse.” In fact, he wished that it could be September 11th every day.
Then he seemed to recognize that life imprisonment would be “a greater punishment than being sentenced to death.” When the jury at last handed down its verdict on May 3, he still could not help crying out defiantly: “America, you lost!”
In closed session with trial lawyers, Leonie Brinkema, the presiding judge, said she herself did not believe Moussaoui’s claim that he knew details of the plot in advance.
Was Moussaoui a star player or just a paranoid schizophrenic with grand delusions with perhaps no knowledge of the main plot? The word of Jihad Inc. CEO should have been the last. “I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," the purported voice of Bin Laden says. The man in the recording also said that none of the Guantanamo Bay detainees were connected to the attacks.
Delve deeper and the argument on the tape gets a bit tenuous. “Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No 20 in the group, as your government claimed,” the man said to be Bin Laden says. Moussaoui confessed because of pressure caused by over four years in prison, the tape went on.
But wasn’t Moussaoui arrested a month before the attacks. Had he continued, he might as well have completed that training and become the 20th hijacker. So what was the purpose of the latest tape? Did the man purporting to be Bin Laden want to exonerate Moussaoui or exonerate himself for having chosen someone who bungled it all the way to the end?
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty in April 2005 to
six charges of conspiracy over the hijacking attacks on New York and Washington.
When a U.S. court jailed him for life without parole for his role in the attacks earlier this month, it only left room for endless speculation.
From the outset, the prosecution had called for the death penalty, arguing that “there is no place on this good Earth” for him. The defense recommended “the long slow death of a common criminal” in prison, rather than martyrdom through execution.
And Moussaoui himself? At first, he protested vigorously that he had nothing to do with, and knew nothing about, the 9/11 attacks. Then suddenly he claimed to be a central figure in the plot. He had planned, he claimed, to fly a fifth suicide mission into the White House that day, and would certainly have done so had he not already been behind bars, arrested four weeks earlier on a minor immigration charge. His alleged co-hijacker, Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” U.S. officials arrested after the 9/11 attacks, laughed off that story.
During the final six weeks of hearings, Moussaoui virtually lusted for the death penalty. He let it be known that he had “no regret, no remorse.” In fact, he wished that it could be September 11th every day.
Then he seemed to recognize that life imprisonment would be “a greater punishment than being sentenced to death.” When the jury at last handed down its verdict on May 3, he still could not help crying out defiantly: “America, you lost!”
In closed session with trial lawyers, Leonie Brinkema, the presiding judge, said she herself did not believe Moussaoui’s claim that he knew details of the plot in advance.
Was Moussaoui a star player or just a paranoid schizophrenic with grand delusions with perhaps no knowledge of the main plot? The word of Jihad Inc. CEO should have been the last. “I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," the purported voice of Bin Laden says. The man in the recording also said that none of the Guantanamo Bay detainees were connected to the attacks.
Delve deeper and the argument on the tape gets a bit tenuous. “Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No 20 in the group, as your government claimed,” the man said to be Bin Laden says. Moussaoui confessed because of pressure caused by over four years in prison, the tape went on.
But wasn’t Moussaoui arrested a month before the attacks. Had he continued, he might as well have completed that training and become the 20th hijacker. So what was the purpose of the latest tape? Did the man purporting to be Bin Laden want to exonerate Moussaoui or exonerate himself for having chosen someone who bungled it all the way to the end?
Friday, May 19, 2006
From Afar, Cultural Revolution Still Haunts China
As China tries to exorcise the ghosts of its traumatic past, some of the shadows just refuse to disappear. The 40th anniversary of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution hasn’t spurred the Asian giant into paroxysms of patriotic fervor. Today’s Chinese communist leaders consider the Great Helmsman 70 percent correct. As one of the darkest decades of its past, the Cultural Revolution falls in the 30 percent of Mao’s transgressions.
Stripped of its ideological sheen, the Cultural Revolution was essentially Mao’s effort to strengthen his grip on the party and the country. Amid the omnipresence of Mao’s multi-sized portraits, and the teeming millions swearing fealty each day, state atheism only masked another fervid religiosity.
Some supporters – dwindling in numbers but less so in conviction – still insist that the Cultural Revolution played a crucial role in unifying the vast and largely ungovernable country that Long Marchers took over. They are right. But at what price?
Mao unleashed an orgy of madness to eliminate political rivals and perpetuate cult following. The more insidious effects continue to be experienced in the murders of hundreds of thousands of innocent and ordinary people and the maiming, torture and displacement of countless millions others.
It must be truly difficult for post-Mao Chinese from Shenzen to Shanghai to believe that the state actually equated education with counterrevolution. The wave of ideological purification didn’t spare Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s spectacular economic miracle, whom Mao branded a capitalist-roader and purged twice. Writers, artists, teachers, journalists and freethinkers were germs society needed to immunize itself against at all costs.
Even the fiercest critics of the Chinese communist leadership concede that the country’s economic transformation would inevitably bring political change. Deng’s Four Modernizations stand as a tacit repudiation of the Cultural Revolution, although the Tiananmen Square massacre under his watch raised the specter of regression. An official Chinese repudiation is perhaps too much to expect from a leadership that still cherishes 70 percent of what Mao represented.
But the Great Helmsman continues to cast a long and troubling shadow on China from next door. The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, sandwiched between Tibet and India, has all but fallen to Maoist insurgents. By tactically allying themselves with the mainstream political parties – most of them communist – the Maoists led street protests that forced King Gyanendra last month to relinquish political powers he had seized 15 months ago.
The Maoists and the mainstream parties, now in power, are preparing for a constitutional assembly that they hope would, among other things, abolish the 238-year monarchy. With the king out of the way, the Maoists are almost certain to turn their guns on the democratic parties.
What inspires the Nepalese rebels is not China, but Nepal’s southern neighbor India, where Maoist groups are active in at least 13 of 28 states. A Maoist victory in Nepal would be a seminal event in the creation of what extreme left-wing groups in South Asia call a compact revolutionary zone. From the Philippines to Peru, Maoist groups impatient to unleash the next wave of revolution.
The growing vulnerability of India -- China’s principal Asian rival -- to Maoism should have been the least of Beijing’s worries. But the Chinese leadership is alarmed. Beijing refuses to call the Nepalese rebels Maoists, saying their violent methods gives a bad name to their departed leader. The Chinese prefer the term anti-government guerrillas – and all the disapproval it connotes. The Nepalese Maoists, for their part, denounce the Chinese communists as deviants.
The Chinese leadership recognizes the growing rural-urban economic and social divide in their own country could breed some nostalgia for the days when everyone was poor but equally so. If Maoism could still be relevant in the neighborhood, why shouldn’t it be so at home?
Stripped of its ideological sheen, the Cultural Revolution was essentially Mao’s effort to strengthen his grip on the party and the country. Amid the omnipresence of Mao’s multi-sized portraits, and the teeming millions swearing fealty each day, state atheism only masked another fervid religiosity.
Some supporters – dwindling in numbers but less so in conviction – still insist that the Cultural Revolution played a crucial role in unifying the vast and largely ungovernable country that Long Marchers took over. They are right. But at what price?
Mao unleashed an orgy of madness to eliminate political rivals and perpetuate cult following. The more insidious effects continue to be experienced in the murders of hundreds of thousands of innocent and ordinary people and the maiming, torture and displacement of countless millions others.
It must be truly difficult for post-Mao Chinese from Shenzen to Shanghai to believe that the state actually equated education with counterrevolution. The wave of ideological purification didn’t spare Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s spectacular economic miracle, whom Mao branded a capitalist-roader and purged twice. Writers, artists, teachers, journalists and freethinkers were germs society needed to immunize itself against at all costs.
Even the fiercest critics of the Chinese communist leadership concede that the country’s economic transformation would inevitably bring political change. Deng’s Four Modernizations stand as a tacit repudiation of the Cultural Revolution, although the Tiananmen Square massacre under his watch raised the specter of regression. An official Chinese repudiation is perhaps too much to expect from a leadership that still cherishes 70 percent of what Mao represented.
But the Great Helmsman continues to cast a long and troubling shadow on China from next door. The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, sandwiched between Tibet and India, has all but fallen to Maoist insurgents. By tactically allying themselves with the mainstream political parties – most of them communist – the Maoists led street protests that forced King Gyanendra last month to relinquish political powers he had seized 15 months ago.
The Maoists and the mainstream parties, now in power, are preparing for a constitutional assembly that they hope would, among other things, abolish the 238-year monarchy. With the king out of the way, the Maoists are almost certain to turn their guns on the democratic parties.
What inspires the Nepalese rebels is not China, but Nepal’s southern neighbor India, where Maoist groups are active in at least 13 of 28 states. A Maoist victory in Nepal would be a seminal event in the creation of what extreme left-wing groups in South Asia call a compact revolutionary zone. From the Philippines to Peru, Maoist groups impatient to unleash the next wave of revolution.
The growing vulnerability of India -- China’s principal Asian rival -- to Maoism should have been the least of Beijing’s worries. But the Chinese leadership is alarmed. Beijing refuses to call the Nepalese rebels Maoists, saying their violent methods gives a bad name to their departed leader. The Chinese prefer the term anti-government guerrillas – and all the disapproval it connotes. The Nepalese Maoists, for their part, denounce the Chinese communists as deviants.
The Chinese leadership recognizes the growing rural-urban economic and social divide in their own country could breed some nostalgia for the days when everyone was poor but equally so. If Maoism could still be relevant in the neighborhood, why shouldn’t it be so at home?
Monday, May 15, 2006
From Justice To Homeland Security And Back?
Hearing President George W. Bush frame the debate on national TV, immigration has a chance of returning to its pre-9/11 abode within the trinity of equality, justice and opportunity.
The incorporation of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service into the Department of Homeland Security had signaled the transformation of one of America’s founding tenets into the imperative of national security.
The legal-illegal dimensions of the immigration debate obscured the core issue: how to ensure the overall enrichment of American values, society, power and accomplishments without imperiling the nation’s security, supremacy of rule of law and overburdened public services.
With passions running high on both sides of the debate, participants found themselves caught in a chicken-or-egg debate. Tighter border security before the regularization of undocumented aliens or vice versa? President Bush began his speech with the imperative of boosting border patrol personnel and technology before transitioning to the issue of undocumented aliens already in the United States. In retrospect, Bush’s speech was more of a thematic tapestry than an aggregation of political, economic, cultural and national security brushstrokes.
Doubtless, the House’s restrictive immigration bill and the Senate’s attempts to offer a more humane approach are rooted in their divergent institutional structures and electoral imperatives.
As the person responsible for signing into law a reconciled version of the two approaches as well as for the ultimate judgment of the American people, President Bush certainly felt he had to go on prime-time TV to press the case for action.
In acknowledging the complexities of the issue, the president alerted the country to the real and lasting consequences of playing on fears. In showing the compassionate side of America, Bush was equally vigorous in his defense of the supremacy of the rule of law. In essence, people who have paid their debts to society for breaking the law can have a second chance.
The real value of Bush’s intervention was less in the articulation of the philosophical dimensions of the immigration debate than in the forceful advocacy of the urgency of a comprehensive solution to a complex problem.
Immigration may never return to the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. Americans are certainly capable of doing justice to one of their core founding principles through their collective conscience.
The incorporation of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service into the Department of Homeland Security had signaled the transformation of one of America’s founding tenets into the imperative of national security.
The legal-illegal dimensions of the immigration debate obscured the core issue: how to ensure the overall enrichment of American values, society, power and accomplishments without imperiling the nation’s security, supremacy of rule of law and overburdened public services.
With passions running high on both sides of the debate, participants found themselves caught in a chicken-or-egg debate. Tighter border security before the regularization of undocumented aliens or vice versa? President Bush began his speech with the imperative of boosting border patrol personnel and technology before transitioning to the issue of undocumented aliens already in the United States. In retrospect, Bush’s speech was more of a thematic tapestry than an aggregation of political, economic, cultural and national security brushstrokes.
Doubtless, the House’s restrictive immigration bill and the Senate’s attempts to offer a more humane approach are rooted in their divergent institutional structures and electoral imperatives.
As the person responsible for signing into law a reconciled version of the two approaches as well as for the ultimate judgment of the American people, President Bush certainly felt he had to go on prime-time TV to press the case for action.
In acknowledging the complexities of the issue, the president alerted the country to the real and lasting consequences of playing on fears. In showing the compassionate side of America, Bush was equally vigorous in his defense of the supremacy of the rule of law. In essence, people who have paid their debts to society for breaking the law can have a second chance.
The real value of Bush’s intervention was less in the articulation of the philosophical dimensions of the immigration debate than in the forceful advocacy of the urgency of a comprehensive solution to a complex problem.
Immigration may never return to the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. Americans are certainly capable of doing justice to one of their core founding principles through their collective conscience.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Thatcher’s Long Shadow On Labour
Confronted with growing calls from within his Labour party for a timetable for his departure, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has a standard response: Although he does not intend to go on and on forever, he cannot and will not offer a deadline because that would paralyze the government and the party.
Over the last 10 days, the latter half of the embattled premier’s argument has sounded increasingly redundant. In the aftermath of Labour's defeat in the May 4 local elections and the cabinet reshuffle that followed, the punditocracy agrees that Blair has lost control of his party.
Plummeting popularity ratings and embittered colleagues are a disastrous recipe in the best of times. With his political authority in tatters, the prospect of Blair serving a full third term as prime minister is fast receding. It is only a matter of time before Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer and Blair’s heir apparent, is elevated to the top job.
What is less certain – and more germane to Labour’s longevity in power – is the manner in which the transition is completed. In the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, when Blair’s downhill slide accelerated, factional infighting was a luxury Labour could afford. With the Tories in almost perpetual disarray and the Liberal Democrats struggling to expand their base, Labour leaders knew voters had no alternative to putting up with an accumulation of scandals and double dealing in the ruling party.
The Tories have heightened the urgency for Labour to close ranks not just because of their remarkable gains in the local elections. The bad blood left by the dethronement of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 emaciated the Conservatives for a decade. Tory leader David Cameron is yet to prove he can lead his party back to power. But that prospect can only grow with a deepening of the succession struggle in Labour.
A transition plan should not be that difficult to work out. In exchange for an explicit commitment to step down -- most pundits believe some time next year would be propitious -- Blair could demand Brown’s full support for the remainder of his agenda.
Pensions, nuclear energy, health and education are but a few areas that need Blair’s undivided attention if the premier is to leave behind a lasting legacy.
Blair’s success there would strengthen Brown’s ability to implement the party agenda and to lead a united Labour to another electoral victory.
Over the last 10 days, the latter half of the embattled premier’s argument has sounded increasingly redundant. In the aftermath of Labour's defeat in the May 4 local elections and the cabinet reshuffle that followed, the punditocracy agrees that Blair has lost control of his party.
Plummeting popularity ratings and embittered colleagues are a disastrous recipe in the best of times. With his political authority in tatters, the prospect of Blair serving a full third term as prime minister is fast receding. It is only a matter of time before Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer and Blair’s heir apparent, is elevated to the top job.
What is less certain – and more germane to Labour’s longevity in power – is the manner in which the transition is completed. In the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, when Blair’s downhill slide accelerated, factional infighting was a luxury Labour could afford. With the Tories in almost perpetual disarray and the Liberal Democrats struggling to expand their base, Labour leaders knew voters had no alternative to putting up with an accumulation of scandals and double dealing in the ruling party.
The Tories have heightened the urgency for Labour to close ranks not just because of their remarkable gains in the local elections. The bad blood left by the dethronement of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 emaciated the Conservatives for a decade. Tory leader David Cameron is yet to prove he can lead his party back to power. But that prospect can only grow with a deepening of the succession struggle in Labour.
A transition plan should not be that difficult to work out. In exchange for an explicit commitment to step down -- most pundits believe some time next year would be propitious -- Blair could demand Brown’s full support for the remainder of his agenda.
Pensions, nuclear energy, health and education are but a few areas that need Blair’s undivided attention if the premier is to leave behind a lasting legacy.
Blair’s success there would strengthen Brown’s ability to implement the party agenda and to lead a united Labour to another electoral victory.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Has Privacy Lost Some Of Its Sanctity?
By now most Americans have probably figured out the real story in the latest revelations of the Bush administration’s domestic spying. Most Americans don’t seem to mind, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
USA Today’s disclosure that the National Security Agency, after Sept. 11, 2001, began assembling a database of records of domestic calls has worked up Congress the most.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) held up a copy of the newspaper to shame everyone in the chamber and beyond. As the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Leahy couldn’t have squandered such an opening at a time when his party is getting luckier by the week in the run-up to the November elections.
The conservative universe, on the other hand, is pulsating with anxiety over the possibility of both housing falling to the Dems. In that case, Sen. Leahy would become chairman of the Senate committee most closely involved with the impeachment of Bush so many Democrats are counting on.
For many Republicans, the prospect of a loss in November might have been bearable if the Harry Reids, Nancy Pelosis and Howard Deans had earned victory on other own. It’s President George W. Bush’s brazen flaunting of his lameduck-ness that’s troubling. If, anything, the latest revelations have stiffened the Bush administration’s resolve in pushing the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden, the former chief of the NSA, as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Now don’t get me wrong. The issues here are serious. The NSA, according to USA Today, attempted to keep track of all phone calls made in the United States and use them in an elaborate data-mining operation. The agency did not go to any court for approval. Rather, it simply asked several major telecommunications companies to turn over huge volumes of call data. Only one refused.
President Bush and the telephone companies insist their actions were strictly in accordance with the law. Doubtless, the ambiguity of the law permits such straight-in-the-eye assertions. How else could these companies have provided the feds with records on over a trillion calls without breaching privacy laws?
The implication that the United States has such a surfeit of al-Qaeda suspects is certainly amusing. But it is no laughing matter to our elected representatives. The absence of public debate and judicial review in the whole process is less troubling than the enormous scope for abuse of the process. Where’s the public outrage?
It doesn’t exist, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. Some 66 percent of Americans said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found. Maybe public expectations of privacy have undergone a major shift in this age of terrorism.
Or is it technology? With so many people blabbering into their cell-phones on sidewalks, hospitals, restaurants – and yes – public libraries with such abandon, can we conclude that privacy has lost its traditional sanctity?
Culture, too, has played a part. People have learned to live with data-mining. After all, telemarketers, credit-card companies and email spammers seem to know our preferences almost as well as we do. With everything revolving around your social security number, there’s little telling who’s watching which planet for what purpose.
So what’s the big deal if the government is invading a space Corporate America has long trespassed on? Especially when there hasn’t been another 9/11?
USA Today’s disclosure that the National Security Agency, after Sept. 11, 2001, began assembling a database of records of domestic calls has worked up Congress the most.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) held up a copy of the newspaper to shame everyone in the chamber and beyond. As the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Leahy couldn’t have squandered such an opening at a time when his party is getting luckier by the week in the run-up to the November elections.
The conservative universe, on the other hand, is pulsating with anxiety over the possibility of both housing falling to the Dems. In that case, Sen. Leahy would become chairman of the Senate committee most closely involved with the impeachment of Bush so many Democrats are counting on.
For many Republicans, the prospect of a loss in November might have been bearable if the Harry Reids, Nancy Pelosis and Howard Deans had earned victory on other own. It’s President George W. Bush’s brazen flaunting of his lameduck-ness that’s troubling. If, anything, the latest revelations have stiffened the Bush administration’s resolve in pushing the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden, the former chief of the NSA, as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Now don’t get me wrong. The issues here are serious. The NSA, according to USA Today, attempted to keep track of all phone calls made in the United States and use them in an elaborate data-mining operation. The agency did not go to any court for approval. Rather, it simply asked several major telecommunications companies to turn over huge volumes of call data. Only one refused.
President Bush and the telephone companies insist their actions were strictly in accordance with the law. Doubtless, the ambiguity of the law permits such straight-in-the-eye assertions. How else could these companies have provided the feds with records on over a trillion calls without breaching privacy laws?
The implication that the United States has such a surfeit of al-Qaeda suspects is certainly amusing. But it is no laughing matter to our elected representatives. The absence of public debate and judicial review in the whole process is less troubling than the enormous scope for abuse of the process. Where’s the public outrage?
It doesn’t exist, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. Some 66 percent of Americans said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found. Maybe public expectations of privacy have undergone a major shift in this age of terrorism.
Or is it technology? With so many people blabbering into their cell-phones on sidewalks, hospitals, restaurants – and yes – public libraries with such abandon, can we conclude that privacy has lost its traditional sanctity?
Culture, too, has played a part. People have learned to live with data-mining. After all, telemarketers, credit-card companies and email spammers seem to know our preferences almost as well as we do. With everything revolving around your social security number, there’s little telling who’s watching which planet for what purpose.
So what’s the big deal if the government is invading a space Corporate America has long trespassed on? Especially when there hasn’t been another 9/11?
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Thailand’s Real Democracy Test
Now that Thailand’s constitutional court has annulled last month's controversial parliamentary elections and ordered a new vote, it is tempting to believe the kingdom’s constitutional crisis has blown over. In fact, the country, which has been under absolute monarchy or military rule for much of its life, may face a more crucial test of its democratic resilience.
The April 2 election was doomed when it failed to return a full 500-member lower house. Some 10 million of the 28 million voters heeded the opposition and marked the “no vote” box on their ballot papers. As a result, scores of candidates from the ruling Thai Rak Thai party failed to win at least a fifth of votes cast required to validate the outcome. This flaw left Thailand without a parliament and with a caretaker government for over a month. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed by opposition parties, protest groups and academics. Many accused the Election Commission of bias and inefficiency.
Admittedly, this was an election Thais could have avoided. Thaksin decided to return to the people only a year after being re-elected prime minister in a sweeping victory. But he could hardly be blamed. The kingdom’s constitutional crisis really began when Thaksin’s opponents refused to defer to that mandate.
During months of street protests in the capital, demonstrators accused the premier of corruption and demanded his resignation. Thaksin, for his part, rebuffed what he considered an elitist display of people power in the capital. He chose to fortify his flank with Thais in the countryside, who have benefited from his cheap health care and rural development policies. However, the indecisive outcome, the prospect of more protests and an audience with King Bhumibol prompted him to step down.
The situation could still have been salvaged. The Election Commission conducted another round of voting to fill the remaining seats, but failed. A third round was being planned when King Bhumibol went on national TV to urge Thailand’s judges to find a solution. Otherwise, the monarch warned, the country might “sink more than 4,000 meters under the sea.” Those words from the widely revered monarch had the effect of a political tsunami.
The court cited the Election Commission’s extraordinary haste in organizing the election without giving sufficient time to smaller parties and candidates to prepare themselves. Specifically, the judges interpreted the constitution as requiring a poll to be held at least 45 days after the dissolution of parliament; the April 2 elections were held only 37 days later. Furthermore, in the court’s opinion, the secrecy of balloting was compromised by changes to the positioning of polling-booths, which made it possible to peer over voters’ shoulders.
Although Thaksin’s gamble failed, he is not about to walk into the twilight as his adversaries would like. He was wise to recognize that his resignation would help to defuse the crisis. However, if Thaksin wants to vindicate himself by seeking his old job, he has every right. Contrary to the assertions of Thaksin’s critics, the constitutional crisis did not stem solely from a self-centered politician’s infinite arrogance and greed for power. The opposition’s refusal to play by the rules did no less harm.
The April 2 election was doomed when it failed to return a full 500-member lower house. Some 10 million of the 28 million voters heeded the opposition and marked the “no vote” box on their ballot papers. As a result, scores of candidates from the ruling Thai Rak Thai party failed to win at least a fifth of votes cast required to validate the outcome. This flaw left Thailand without a parliament and with a caretaker government for over a month. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed by opposition parties, protest groups and academics. Many accused the Election Commission of bias and inefficiency.
Admittedly, this was an election Thais could have avoided. Thaksin decided to return to the people only a year after being re-elected prime minister in a sweeping victory. But he could hardly be blamed. The kingdom’s constitutional crisis really began when Thaksin’s opponents refused to defer to that mandate.
During months of street protests in the capital, demonstrators accused the premier of corruption and demanded his resignation. Thaksin, for his part, rebuffed what he considered an elitist display of people power in the capital. He chose to fortify his flank with Thais in the countryside, who have benefited from his cheap health care and rural development policies. However, the indecisive outcome, the prospect of more protests and an audience with King Bhumibol prompted him to step down.
The situation could still have been salvaged. The Election Commission conducted another round of voting to fill the remaining seats, but failed. A third round was being planned when King Bhumibol went on national TV to urge Thailand’s judges to find a solution. Otherwise, the monarch warned, the country might “sink more than 4,000 meters under the sea.” Those words from the widely revered monarch had the effect of a political tsunami.
The court cited the Election Commission’s extraordinary haste in organizing the election without giving sufficient time to smaller parties and candidates to prepare themselves. Specifically, the judges interpreted the constitution as requiring a poll to be held at least 45 days after the dissolution of parliament; the April 2 elections were held only 37 days later. Furthermore, in the court’s opinion, the secrecy of balloting was compromised by changes to the positioning of polling-booths, which made it possible to peer over voters’ shoulders.
Although Thaksin’s gamble failed, he is not about to walk into the twilight as his adversaries would like. He was wise to recognize that his resignation would help to defuse the crisis. However, if Thaksin wants to vindicate himself by seeking his old job, he has every right. Contrary to the assertions of Thaksin’s critics, the constitutional crisis did not stem solely from a self-centered politician’s infinite arrogance and greed for power. The opposition’s refusal to play by the rules did no less harm.
Friday, May 05, 2006
France’s Watergate And America’s Right
During the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Dominique de Villepin became the face of French self-righteousness for many American conservatives. Of course, we now know France was nowhere close to any principle of multilateralism when it sought to delay and eventually block United Nations authorization of the invasion.
The oil concessions Saddam Hussein promised Paris in exchange for saving his regime were worth a dozen more Security Council vetoes.
In hindsight, many American conservatives probably wish France had succeeded in stopping the American-British steamroller. Even to them, De Villepin’s holier-than-thou countenance is still too much to take.
As America and Britain confronted the real consequences of unseating an entrenched autocrat, De Villepin stepped up the ladder to become prime minister. His climb-down earlier this year from an ambitious youth employment reforms seemed enough to doom his presidential prospects. The scandal uncovered this week threatens to end De Villepin’s political career.
The French prime minister is accused of ordering a secret investigation of his own Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to examine if he received any kickbacks from the $2.8 billion sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.
Sarkozy, of course, is a potential De Villepin rival in the race to succeed Jacques Chirac as president. Supporters of the prime minister will continue to emphasize that he is not personally accused of any wrong doing or corruption. So there is no reason for his resignation.
Sarkozy allies, on the other hand, will have a field day mocking a premier who lacks the guts to look straight in the face of his minister and ask whether he took any money.
As the French grapple with these and other questions, American conservatives can savor their own moment of irony in what is being called France’s Watergate.
The oil concessions Saddam Hussein promised Paris in exchange for saving his regime were worth a dozen more Security Council vetoes.
In hindsight, many American conservatives probably wish France had succeeded in stopping the American-British steamroller. Even to them, De Villepin’s holier-than-thou countenance is still too much to take.
As America and Britain confronted the real consequences of unseating an entrenched autocrat, De Villepin stepped up the ladder to become prime minister. His climb-down earlier this year from an ambitious youth employment reforms seemed enough to doom his presidential prospects. The scandal uncovered this week threatens to end De Villepin’s political career.
The French prime minister is accused of ordering a secret investigation of his own Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to examine if he received any kickbacks from the $2.8 billion sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.
Sarkozy, of course, is a potential De Villepin rival in the race to succeed Jacques Chirac as president. Supporters of the prime minister will continue to emphasize that he is not personally accused of any wrong doing or corruption. So there is no reason for his resignation.
Sarkozy allies, on the other hand, will have a field day mocking a premier who lacks the guts to look straight in the face of his minister and ask whether he took any money.
As the French grapple with these and other questions, American conservatives can savor their own moment of irony in what is being called France’s Watergate.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Chavez, Morales And Bolivar Revolution
Has Hugo Chavez’s imperial presidency finally started building that grand empire for the world’s left? When Bolivian President Evo Morales, following through on a campaign promise, nationalized his country’s oil and natural gas industries this week, the Venezuelan leader’s fingerprints were all over the place.
Morales stunned critics and supporters not by what he did but by the way he did it. Instead of going the legislative route -- which even the most unreconstructed ex-commie cannot avoid paying lip service to – Morales issued a decree befitting Stalin. And that, too, on May Day – the day of the year that fires up the international left to resurrect what much of the world has discarded as a losing cause.
To make himself understood, Morales dispatched the armed forces to secure the oil facilities. That’s the kind of radical overhaul Chavez’s revolution envisaged from its inception seven years ago. Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA, after all, is advising the Morales government. Chavez visited Morales to support his actions.
Bolivia is not outright expelling foreign companies in the Salvador Allende tradition. Instead, foreign firms will have to sign new contracts within the next 180 days and agree to channel all their sales through the Bolivian state. If they decline, then they would have to leave the country. In most cases, they will have to hand over 82 percent of production to the state.
The Chavez route has won other adherents, which must be worrying to his critics. Ecuador recently approved a law that allows the government to renegotiate contracts with oil companies. Peru’s presidential candidate Ollanta Humala has promised to nationalize gas reserves and production if he wins the runoff election. At the wider trade level, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba recently signed the Peoples' Trade Agreement, ostensibly their answer to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Latin America’s left, however, is not solidly behind Chavez. Brazil, Chile and Uruguay have leftist governments, but they have not pursued nationalization policies.
Can Morales sustain his policy? Bolivia may have South America's second-largest reserves of natural gas, but its oil industry remains underdeveloped. Unlike Venezuela, Bolivia does not have steady oil revenues to fuel further economic growth.
The poorest country in South America, Bolivia is dependent on foreign investment and expertise to extract and export its huge gas reserves.
Morales is the first person who recognizes that energy revenues are nowhere near boosting social and infrastructure spending and securing the country’s long-term debt sustainability.
The best Bolivia can hope for is tighter conditions for foreign firms. So why has Morales exhibited such boldness? Could it have to do with the fact that Chavez calls his cause the Bolivar Revolution?
Morales stunned critics and supporters not by what he did but by the way he did it. Instead of going the legislative route -- which even the most unreconstructed ex-commie cannot avoid paying lip service to – Morales issued a decree befitting Stalin. And that, too, on May Day – the day of the year that fires up the international left to resurrect what much of the world has discarded as a losing cause.
To make himself understood, Morales dispatched the armed forces to secure the oil facilities. That’s the kind of radical overhaul Chavez’s revolution envisaged from its inception seven years ago. Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA, after all, is advising the Morales government. Chavez visited Morales to support his actions.
Bolivia is not outright expelling foreign companies in the Salvador Allende tradition. Instead, foreign firms will have to sign new contracts within the next 180 days and agree to channel all their sales through the Bolivian state. If they decline, then they would have to leave the country. In most cases, they will have to hand over 82 percent of production to the state.
The Chavez route has won other adherents, which must be worrying to his critics. Ecuador recently approved a law that allows the government to renegotiate contracts with oil companies. Peru’s presidential candidate Ollanta Humala has promised to nationalize gas reserves and production if he wins the runoff election. At the wider trade level, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba recently signed the Peoples' Trade Agreement, ostensibly their answer to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Latin America’s left, however, is not solidly behind Chavez. Brazil, Chile and Uruguay have leftist governments, but they have not pursued nationalization policies.
Can Morales sustain his policy? Bolivia may have South America's second-largest reserves of natural gas, but its oil industry remains underdeveloped. Unlike Venezuela, Bolivia does not have steady oil revenues to fuel further economic growth.
The poorest country in South America, Bolivia is dependent on foreign investment and expertise to extract and export its huge gas reserves.
Morales is the first person who recognizes that energy revenues are nowhere near boosting social and infrastructure spending and securing the country’s long-term debt sustainability.
The best Bolivia can hope for is tighter conditions for foreign firms. So why has Morales exhibited such boldness? Could it have to do with the fact that Chavez calls his cause the Bolivar Revolution?
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Immigration Debate: Civility Without Change
Behind all the belligerence, the immigration discourse has undergone a semantic change – at least from the pro-immigration side. America now needs illegal aliens from across the southern border to pluck tomatoes not because Americans won’t do the jobs but because employers can’t find Americans to get the job done.
How far this linguistic transformation would inject greater civility into the debate remains to be seen. But it won’t take away the essence.
Go to any gas station, convenience store or motel run by immigrant communities in the Midwest. You see a snapshot of the world – ethnic, demographic and linguistic.
Try striking up a conversation with the youngest-looking guy, especially when the boss (or manager) isn’t around. You discover that those manning the cash registers and front desks are relatives of the owner. How wonderful, these family values so far away from home. Until you realize there are too many Mohammeds and Manohars claiming to be brothers.
Yes, yes, Muslim, Hindu communities tend to use terms of endearment very generously. And don’t they say distance strengthens fondness? Then there are facts of life our affluent society simply can’t understand.
A Hindu grandaunt might have married into a Muslim family. A Muslim uncle might have renounced everything to do with religion except his name for his Hindu beloved. Their descendants might probably still be at each other’s throats if they were still somewhere along the Kashmir line of control. If life in America can breed peace and amity even in one soul, what’s there to complain about?
Moreover, how dare the West lecture on these things when all those white men of yore did so much to tear families asunder on the basis of religion?
Then get out of the premise for a smoke or some fresh air. If you stay long enough you might find a few Americans inquiring around for work? Some will have one job and be on the lookout for some extra buck.
No, the business is not hiring, they’re told inside. The economy still sucks. Just in case, they’re asked to fill out an application for future vacancies. Or at least leave a name, phone number and a good time to call.
The manager won’t call. He’ll probably be too busy yelling at his (illegal) workers, perhaps even threatening to cut their already sub-minimum wage, flaunting that file full of applications.
How far this linguistic transformation would inject greater civility into the debate remains to be seen. But it won’t take away the essence.
Go to any gas station, convenience store or motel run by immigrant communities in the Midwest. You see a snapshot of the world – ethnic, demographic and linguistic.
Try striking up a conversation with the youngest-looking guy, especially when the boss (or manager) isn’t around. You discover that those manning the cash registers and front desks are relatives of the owner. How wonderful, these family values so far away from home. Until you realize there are too many Mohammeds and Manohars claiming to be brothers.
Yes, yes, Muslim, Hindu communities tend to use terms of endearment very generously. And don’t they say distance strengthens fondness? Then there are facts of life our affluent society simply can’t understand.
A Hindu grandaunt might have married into a Muslim family. A Muslim uncle might have renounced everything to do with religion except his name for his Hindu beloved. Their descendants might probably still be at each other’s throats if they were still somewhere along the Kashmir line of control. If life in America can breed peace and amity even in one soul, what’s there to complain about?
Moreover, how dare the West lecture on these things when all those white men of yore did so much to tear families asunder on the basis of religion?
Then get out of the premise for a smoke or some fresh air. If you stay long enough you might find a few Americans inquiring around for work? Some will have one job and be on the lookout for some extra buck.
No, the business is not hiring, they’re told inside. The economy still sucks. Just in case, they’re asked to fill out an application for future vacancies. Or at least leave a name, phone number and a good time to call.
The manager won’t call. He’ll probably be too busy yelling at his (illegal) workers, perhaps even threatening to cut their already sub-minimum wage, flaunting that file full of applications.
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