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April 30, 2007

Bill Moyers interviews Jon Stewart

It's a great interview. Watch the entire 30-minute clip here.

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Global Day for Darfur

Yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of conflict in Darfur (which I can't believe I left off my list of tragedies in April). Activists and a handful of celebrities observed the anniversary by holding a Global Day for Darfur and calling on the international community to do more to stop the genocide.

Like other pleas to end the conflict that has resulted in between 200,000 and 400,000 deaths and 2.5 million refugees, Global Day for Darfur was barely a blip on the radar in the U.S. media.

From the Independent:

Though thousands of people across five continents will today urge their leaders to "do something" about Darfur, few leaders can agree on what that "something" is.

The US, which is alone in labelling the conflict "genocide", is preparing to increase its sanctions on Sudan. Britain is talking up the idea of a no-fly zone, but one non-British Western diplomat in Khartoum was quick to point out that this was being suggested only by Mr Blair.

So far, though, the outside world is just talking - not acting. Numerous UN resolutions urging action remain unenforced. A no-fly zone was even agreed in 2005, but was never implemented.

Towards the end of last year, the US envoy to Khartoum, Andrew Natsios, told Sudan that if it didn't allow a hybrid force in by 1 January, the US would invoke "Plan B". He didn't specify what it was - because it didn't exist. Nearly four months into 2007, Plan B has not materialised.

After the Holocaust, the world vowed, "Never again" and drafted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Yet it keeps happening. It happened in Rwanda, and we ignored it until after the fact. It's been four years in Darfur and still George Clooney and a handful of celebrities are the most vocal advocates for stopping the violence.

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April 27, 2007

South Carolina picks Obama as debate winner

Overall, the first Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina was uneventful. With eight candidates and limited time, answers were limited to short sound bites, and aside from a brief confrontation between Kucinich and Obama about the options on the table for Iran, there was little actual debate.

Most political junkies seem to agree that the front runners held their own but there were no major winners or losers. However, South Carolina debate watchers picked Obama as the clear winner, according to a SurveyUSA poll. When asked who won the debate, voters answered as follows:

Obama was overwhelmingly favored among black voters and did three times better than Clinton and Edwards among independents. Obama tied with Clinton among Democrats who watched, and he tied with Edwards among Republicans.

When asked who lost, viewers were either not sure (20%) or picked Gravel (17%). No surprise there. What is interesting, however, is that Hillary was second behind Gravel at 12%. More people thought Hillary lost than Kucinich, Dodd, and the other long-shot candidates.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 26, 2007

Iraq.craigslist.org

Frederick Kagan, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and advocate of the current troop surge, has a new plan for Iraq: A Craigslist-style Web site where units can "identify equipment and supplies that would help the Iraqi people."

From Raw Story:

He also suggested allowing American families to sponsor a soldier and encouraging sponsored soldiers to maintain blogs.

"It would help the American people gain a more realistic appraisal of what's going on, unfiltered by the media," Kagan notes, adding that "as security permits," CEOs and other corporate leaders should be given "more chances to visit the Green Zone and other secured areas and meet and interact with American forces in the theater."

I'm getting a little tired of the "things are going fine but the liberal media only shows the bad stuff" argument. I realize the consequences of failing in Iraq. But just as I don't support pulling out with a plan to stabilize the country first, I also don't support staying without a similar plan to turn things around.

I'd like to see a serious strategy that involves more than adding a handful of troops and spinning the current failing approach. It'll take more than a marketing push to save Iraq.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 25, 2007

On writing

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Why isn't election day a federal holiday?

Given the recurring complaints about low voter turnout in U.S. elections, it boggles my mind that we continue to hold Election Day in the middle of the workweek without declaring it a federal holiday. One of the common reasons people give for not voting is that it is inconveniences them to take time out of their workday to wait in line at the polls. So the benefits seem obvious: Although it wouldn't completely fix our low voter turnout problems, giving people the day off to vote would almost certainly improve it.

So what are the drawbacks? When the Carter-Ford commission proposed it, some objected to the closing of schools during the week. Politically, it seems the real reason is that it would help one party (i.e., Democrats) disproportionately by boosting turnout particularly among working class Americans who may have a harder time taking time off work to vote.

The issue has come up before. Election Day is already a legal holiday in Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia (I would be interested in seeing turnout rates in those states versus the rest of the country if anyone has seen a study). And Rep. John Conyers proposed a federal holiday, known as Democracy Day, in 2005 (HR 63). As of January, the bill has 110 co-sponsors, but since it was proposed under a previous session of Congress, it must be reintroduced in order to become a law.

If I were a Democrat running for president, I would reintroduce this immediately and actively campaign for it. If it passes, the American voters win, as do the Democrats. And unless I'm overlooking a reasonable argument for not having Election Day on a holiday, if it fails, you score a few political points from your opposition appearing to disenfranchise voters.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 24, 2007

Quote of the day

"This President may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open."

- Barack Obama discussing foreign policy to the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. Read the entire thing here.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 6:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 23, 2007

A Window Of Opportunity: China, Darfur, and the 2008 Olympics

China, on a domestic and international cleaning binge, is seeking to cleanse its status and reputation by the time it begins hosting the Olympics in 2008 to appear as a developed nation in a first-world prom dress. While this may appear as a farcical whitewash operation by a totalitarian regime, it presents an opportunity for the international community to take concrete steps in resolving the Darfur crisis.

While the Darfur conflict has been well-documented (Wiki on Darfur Conflict) and officially labeled a genocide by the American government, the nations that allowed the situation to continue have until recently seen relatively little outside pressure else than the editorial page. China, as the leader in Sudanese oil imports, is at the center of enabling the Sudanese government. As the BBC states of the rise of China as an energy importer:

“From zero 15 years ago, China last year became the world’s number two oil importer… China has, we are told, been running around the world signing oil deals with everyone from Iran, to Sudan to Angola. In the race to secure future oil resources China is prepared to deal with even the dodgiest regimes, and pay the highest prices.”

China's economic relations with the Sudanese government provided it with significant leverage that it has chosen not to use until of late. With concerns about manners, proper English, and all things image savvy that will hopefully provide an ideal experience for the foreign traveler visiting China for the first time at the 2008 Olympics, China is similarly trying to improve its image abroad as well. Helen Cooper writes in the New York Times about the collision between the internal worries of public image in China and the relation with diplomacy:

China's decision to pressure Sudan about violence in Darfur, after years of protecting that government, can be traced to campaign to boycott 2009 Olympic Games in Beijing; Mia Farrow, good-will ambassador for United Nations Children's Fund, started campaign to label Games in Beijing 'Genocide Olympics' and called on corporate sponsors to publicly exhort China to do something about Darfur; she challenged Steven Spielberg, artistic advisor to China for Games, to add his voice, prompting Spielberg to send letter to Pres Hu Jintao of China asking him to use his influence to stop killings in Darfur; senior Chinese official, Zhai Jun, recently traveled to Sudan to push government there to accept UN peacekeeping force, and then visited Darfur refugee camps; turnaround in China's policy serves as classic study of how pressure campaign, aimed to strike Beijing in vulnerable spot at vulnerable time, could accomplish what years of diplomacy could not...

If the United Nations and the West are serious about ending one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the decade, it must utilize the chance given in this pre-Olympic window by China. With the first noticeable signs that China is willing to act, a formidable and unified multilateral consensus should take advantage of a diplomatically-sensitive China to leverage a more proactive role in solving the Darfur crisis.

Sources

Darfur Collides With Olympics, and China Yields, by Helen Cooper, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/washington/13diplo.html?ex=1177473600&en=6dbe3623040dd8d8&ei=5070

Responsible China, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501187.html

Sudan vows to cut red tape on UN to support African peace mission in Darfur
http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_55224.shtml

Manners, Manners, http://www.cominganarchy.com/archives/2007/04/20/manners-manners/

Other Opinions

Black Gold: The Financer of Tyranny
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/international-relations/09/07/black-gold-the-financer-of-tyranny/

China and Sudan, Blood and Oil
http://coalitionfordarfur.blogspot.com/2006/04/china-and-sudan-blood-and-oil.html

Beware hypocrisy on Darfur, China
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/04/beware_hypocrisy_on_darfur_chi.html

The Wrong Decision on Sudan
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/04/the_wrong_decision_on_sudan.php

Darfur Crisis: Towards An Ever Greater Tragedy by Amit Pyakurel
http://www.globalpolitician.com/articleshow.asp?ID=2688&cid=8

Originally posted on PBH and Publius Pundit.

Posted by Alec at 4:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Plan G for Iraq

Why does the Bush administration refuse to discuss a "Plan B" for Iraq in case the current surge doesn't succeed? Well, for one, they already tried a Plan B roughly four years ago, according to Phillip Carter at Slate. Despite the administration's "stay the course" mantra, the current troop surge is one of six different plans (if you have a loose definition of a "plan") we've implemented in the last four years, none of which have succeeded.

Below is a rough outline of the six strategies Carter describes:

Plan A: While preparing for war yet trying to publicly appear as if they were doing everything to avoid war, the architects of the invasion threw together an initial plan based more on ideology than reality. It went something like this: We'll quickly take out the existing regime with a "shock and awe" strategy, the Iraqis will greet us as liberators, and after "planting the seeds" of democracy we'll rapidly withdraw the troops leaving someone else to deal with maintenance work after democracy takes root and spreads throughout the entire Middle East.

Plan A ended with Bush declaring "mission accomplished" and an end to "major combat" operations on May 1, 2003.

Plan B: When democracy didn't spring up over night, the administration stuck with the idealistic belief that led to the failure of Plan A, but decided to transfer reconstruction to the Coalition Provisional Authority to give Iraq a little nudge in right direction. Still, Rumsfeld and other officials rationalized the budding insurgency by arguing that freedom is "untidy" and "stuff happens!"

Plan C: By the summer of 2003, "Army and Marine Corps generals" implemented a "combination of heavy-handed combat operations and token reconstruction efforts." This period involved some of the fiercest battles, including assaults on Fallujah in 2004. Although Plan C abandoned the notion that Iraq would miraculously repair itself, it was ultimately an "abject failure that filled detention facilities with thousands of Iraqis, inflamed sentiment against the Americans, and fueled the insurgency."

Plan D: When General George Casey took over after the Abu Ghraib scandal, the administration began discussing for the first time a phased withdrawal. The Iraqis ratified a constitution, and Bush insisted that Iraq's military and police forces were being trained so that U.S. forces could stand down. Under the new plan, the military consolidated onto massive super-bases and disengaged from Iraqi cities, for the most part. Although the progress was slow, the country appeared to be headed in the right direction.

Plan E: After the bombing of the Al-Askari mosque in February 2006, sectarian violence escalated into a borderline civil war. The U.S. plan shifted in focus from phased withdrawal to preventing chaos and genocide. Prime Minister Maliki announced Operation Together Forward, which involved a curfew, increased checkpoints and patrols, and joint raids on suspected insurgent locations.

Plan F: Plan E failed because Casey didn't have enough troops to get the job done, according to Carter. The solution? A troop surge. Despite a few initial successes, bombings have picked up in recent weeks, including an attack that killed 192 people last week. Like its predecessors, Plan F seems doomed to failure; even the surge doesn't provide the number of troops necessary to pull off the mission.

Plan G: Carter suggests Plan G will be "Get out." I don't think we'll reach that point with the current administration, so we'll likely go through a few more "plans" before withdrawal becomes a definite strategy. It would be nice to see a concerted effort to bring in more international forces and pursue political and economic solutions. But those should have been included in Plan A, not G. Let's just hope we don't make it through the entire alphabet before someone straightens out this mess.

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April 19, 2007

Tragedy in April

As we try to move past the Virginia Tech tragedy, this week is also the anniversary of another tragic event in American history. The Oklahoma City Bombing was 12 years ago today. And tomorrow is the eight year anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings. In fact, April seems to be historically prone to tragic events.

Here is a list of wars that began in April:

Other tragic events in April include:

I'm sure I missed a few (such as Hitler's birthday). The first politician to propose that we eliminate April from the calendars, and just go straight from March to May, gets my vote.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Fox News doing what Fox News does

Not that I ever watched Fox News before, but if I did, this Vonnegut-bashing obituary might have been the last straw.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 8:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 17, 2007

33 people were killed at Virginia Tech, 33 Iraqi's on the same day.

While I won't discount the horrific nature of yesterday's incidents at Virginia Tech, I'm fairly annoyed by the media coverage surrounding it, considering the level of violence that continues to rage in the Middle East, claiming exactly the same amount of civilian lives a day in Iraq. While I don't think Americans would on a conscious level weigh a white Westerners life as more important than a brown Middle Easterners, the media has made some serious subconscious decisions for us. The majority of news pages appear as the CNN does, asking how, why, and the amount of terrible violence inflicted by 'crazy Asian loner guy':

CNN's Main Page:
cnn.JPG

Yet on the same day, 20 Iraqi policemen & recruits were reported executed and a bomb in Baghdad killed 13 (that's 33 total deaths -- the same as the VT shooting -- if you're keeping track). Yet you have to get to the 'World' and 'Middle East' page of CNN and BBC News respectively if you care to update your Iraq body counts (the CNN's World page even has it's front page article as a feature piece on the 'World Reacts' to the Virginia Tech Shootings):

BBC's Middle East Page:
bbc.JPG

CNN's World Page:
cnn2.JPG

"One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic," spoken by Joseph Stalin is an apt statement for the 1940's; it's modern day equivalent may be "One Western death is a tragedy; a million Third World deaths is a statistic". Originally published on PBH.

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April 12, 2007

More on Vonnegut

These news rankings are somewhat expected at this point, but that doesn't make them any less disappointing. Anna Nicole's death was a surprise, hence more newsworthy, but that doesn't account for the enormous amount of coverage it received. I don't know why the media and the public are so fascinated by tabloid-style journalism and the lives of shallow celebrities.

All I know is that I would feel much more confident about the state of the world and humanity in general if Vonnegut's death received more than three times as much coverage as Anna Nicole's, and not the other way around.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 10:29 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Kurt is up in heaven now

Kurt Vonnegut died last night. It wasn't entirely unexpected—the man was 84 years old—but it is sad nonetheless. Vonnegut's writings touched my life more than any other author's. I've read nearly all of his novels and many of his short stories, and I can't think of one that wasn't as entertaining as it was insightful.

It has been almost a year to the day since I wrote this post, questioning some comments Vonnegut made to a journalist about it being "sweet and honorable" for a terrorist to die for a cause he believes in. My post hit the main page of Fark.com, which sent over 17,000 people to this site. It was only later in a discussion with some readers that I realized Vonnegut was referring to line in a WWI-era poem, Dulce et Decorum Est:


My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

The last line: "The old Lie: It is sweet and honorable to die for your country." Vonnegut was saying terrorists get caught up in the same mythical, meaningless lies that have led humans to fight and kill each other for centuries, but he said it with literary subtlety as opposed the sound bites and platitudes that we've grown accustomed to when discussing terrorism. It flew right over the reporter's head, and mine as well. Not that he would have cared, but I feel bad for having doubted Kurt and for spreading my misinterpretation to probably more than 20,000 people.

Even as an old man, Vonnegut was capable of greater insight, wisdom, and humor than most of us are in our prime. The last time I heard him speak was on The Daily Show in 2005, where he said this:

…I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy—because we’re experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that’s what’s going on now.

I've spent the morning reading a collection of Vonnegut's quotes, which will have to suffice until I have time to reread one of his novels. One of the most relevant quotes I've read is from his most recent book, A Man Without a Country:

We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke.

So it goes.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 8:51 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

April 6, 2007

The reality of tax cuts and the economic recovery

The chart below from the Economic Policy Institute compares the current economic expansion with averages from five other economic expansions since World War II.

corporateprofits.gif

Notice the massive purple tower on the right, just above the phrase "corporate profits?" EPI attributes this to Bush's tax cuts:

In short, the current recovery looks weak on all measures except profit growth. As a policy lesson, the large tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which have had ample time to affect the economy by now, have failed to deliver economic performance that even matches up to the past average.

I haven't seen the source data or methods of the study, so as with any statistical information, it's probably wise to take the results with a grain of salt. But the chart reflects what many people, even without a strong background in economics, intuitively know: The tax cuts do very little to help the middle class. I think that's a major reason why news reports about economic growth don't resonate with many Americans, but John Edwards' "two Americas" message does.

income%20inequality.gif Want even more bad news? Take a look at the graph to the right illustrating the divergence between median wage growth and overall economic growth since the expansion began.

Only recently has the administration steered away from its rhetoric about the booming economy and acknowledged that "some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind. ...Income inequality is real."

Kevin Drum thinks this isn't necessarily a change of heart, but rather a change of message... a new spin on things. It's a cynical analysis, but not entirely unrealistic or unexpected. The approach mirrors the way the administration handled the justification for Iraq. People aren't buying the WMD claims? We'll try selling an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection to them. People don't believe us when we say tax cuts are helping them economically? Time for a new marketing approach.

Now the onus is on the Democratic Congress and presidential candidates to explain to voters how they're going to do it differently.

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April 5, 2007

The countdown to 01/20/09

Those clocks that countdown until January 20, 2009, the day Bush leaves office, may actually be fairly popular in the White House, according to a post by publius at Obsidian Wings. He suggests Bush is simply "running out the clock" until he can dump his problems, primarily the war, on the next administration:

Although the surge gives the appearance of action, it’s actually just postponing the inevitable. That’s because the surge does not address -- and isn’t intended to address -- the underlying political and ethnic divisions that are the source of our problems. Instead, the surge is intended to provide temporary calm to facilitate a political resolution. The surge thus depends on, and presupposes, an accompanying political strategy.

Has the administration given up? Are they too bogged down in domestic squabbles with a now-
Democratic Congress? Or, is this just more of the same from an administration characterized by delusional idealism, gross incompetence, and self-righteous indifference?

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April 1, 2007

First quarter fundraising

Early numbers suggest that Hillary Clinton has broken fund raising records by bringing in $26 million in the first quarter (she transferred in another $10 million to bring her total to $36 million). However, as Michael at The Moderate Voice points out, this may not be as good as it sounds for the Clinton camp.

Estimates put Barack Obama's total around $21 million, maybe more. While Hillary came into the race as a pre-ordained front runner and was expected to break records with her fund raising, Obama's donor intake will probably garner more attention and buzz in the media because his results are a little more surprising and indicate that he is gaining momentum.

Furthermore, much of Clinton's money came from big donors, which may be tapped out. Obama took a different approach in the days leading up to the deadline, measuring success by the number of donors rather than dollars raised, to provide a measurement of the width of his support. His Web site lists 83,531 contributers for more than 108,095 contributions. I would be interested to see how Clinton's stats compare.

[Update: The Huffington Post is reporting that approximately 50,000 people contributed to the Clinton campaign.]

For a different gauge of each candidate's reach, the graph below includes traffic details for each of the candidates' Web sites. (Key: Obama-Dark blue; Clinton-Red; Edwards-Green; Giuliani-Brown; McCain-Light blue)

presidentialtraffic.png

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